The Travels of Black Claw

So long, and thanks for all the fish

2012-01-06T10:08:00.001+11:00

For quite a few years now I've been playing Eve. I think I'm coming up on my 6th anniversary... I've been actively blogging for pretty much all that time - excluding a few months where I played WoW, and then another few months when I was playing LOTRO... oh, and just recently while playing Skyrim....

Anyway, the recent break with Skyrim was a symptom of something else that's going on in my life. I'm 'untethering' from a lot of things that are not providing me with any value or helping me grow personally and professionally. This included 'stuff' and 'activities'. I was getting rid of all the crap in the garage that I hadn't looked at in years. I was throwing out old books that were no longer relevant since I have Kindle on the iPad. I was disconnecting from people that were frustrating me. I was avoiding those activities that were just tedious, and slowly disconnecting from them too.

One day after Xmas I woke up and realised that Eve Online was tedious. I was playing it because I'd 'always been playing it'. It was part of my life in a 'coming home from work and relaxing in front of Eve' kind of way. You know, like most people relax with TV or a newspaper. Except it was still 'work'. I still had to 'do stuff'. I realised it was no longer enjoyable or bringing me value.

On top of this change for me was the dissatisfaction with how CCP managed their staff. Once the people that I valued were fired, my free 'media accounts' were reverted to paid accounts and I had to start paying for my time again, even though I had fan sites that (once) allowed me free access. I contacted CCP and they apologised for the error, advising this 'is now fixed'. Except it wasn't. They were polite and helpful when I followed it up, saying it was fixed. Except it still wasn't. Then they didn't reply to my queries, and a petition I raised about it was closed without resolution. And I'm still now paying for accounts that are supposed to be free because I run fan sites.

So I'm over it. Not just because of that, but because it's just another element of changes in the priorities within my life.

Eve Bloggers is shutting down

Also, as a result of these changes, and the newfound lack of appreciation from CCP, I'm closing the Eve Bloggers Portal. That's right, www.evebloggers.com is shutting down.

The domain fees are due for renewal at the beginning of February, and I'm not going to renew it. As the most extensive listing of all of Eve's blogs for the past 3 years, it's always been the most under-appreciated and ignored. And I'm over that too.

What's happening with Black Claw?

I'll continue Black Claw's account and have the character as my occasional 'I might log in and have another few jumps around the galaxy this month' type of game, continuing to record my progress in this blog.

I have no illusions that this is a long-term certainty. I might just give it all up completely over the next few months.

It's been fun. :)

I've been to Skyrim

2011-11-28T14:31:00.001+11:00

If you're wondering where I've been, I've been to Skyrim. It's a fictional land in a single-player computer roleplaying game. Very enjoyable. So enjoyable, in fact, that I've decided I need to get a Windows PC that I'll design and build specifically to play the game. And to operate as a media centre for my TV. Which means I'll be using the 46" LCD TV as my monitor... At least the PC will be less than AU$1,000.

I've been playing Skyrim on a virtual desktop running Windows 7 on my 27" iMac with 8Gb of RAM (4Mb dedicated to the virtual desktop). It runs fast enough and smooth enough (it's the same virtual desktop I play Eve with - would you believe the Windows client runs faster and more trouble-free in a virtual desktop on a Mac than the Mac client does natively? Crazy but true!), but I want the pretty graphics that a dedicated PC will allow. And I need a good, dedicated media centre to play downloaded movies, etc. So the decision was easy.

However, I've decided that until the PC is built, I'll stop playing Skyrim and return to my travels around New Eden, and then try to balance Eve and Skyrim so that neither suffers.

I expect that it might take a while before I actually get tired of Skyrim. The game is so large, with so many different possibilities within it, that you can play on and on, or repeatedly, and still experience new and exciting things. The graphics are amazing, even down low-ish on a virtual desktop. So amazing, that I think I might even blog as my Skyrim character and post 'photos' (screenshots) of my adventures around Skyrim.

But anyway, my Eve travels will continue, don't worry about that. :)

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

EON Magazine sale - 50% off

2011-11-27T09:02:00.001+11:00

I receive EON Magazine for free, in exchange for promoting them on this blog and on evebloggers.com. Please enjoy their latest promotion:

Our friends at EON have a Massive 50% off Blowout Sale to celebrate Thanksgiving & Black Friday

They've cut the price of EVERYTHING!

So you can buy an EON subscription at HALF PRICE, an EVE Survival Pack at HALF PRICE or a full Poster Bundle at HALF PRICE. You can even buy the complete collection of every copy of EON ever produced for HALF PRICE (they were already at half price for the bundle deal, so that makes them all a gargantuan 75% off if you buy the Complete Collection). Yep, that's right - everything from EON is half price. They've never done a deal this good before...

You must apply Coupon Code EONBF50 at checkout to get the discount. Oh, and the deal won't last long apparently, so you'd best be quick if you want to bag a bargain.

Click here to go straight to the store - http://store.eveonline.com/EON-Magazine-C7.aspx

Around New Eden - Day 18

2011-11-11T21:59:00.001+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

I did a little bit of ratting before heading back to SL-YBS, ratting along the way. My #tweetfleet friend, @EVE_Rhavas, suggested I go back there and check out planet 1 for one of the best views in the galaxy. So I thought I better do what he suggested, since that's the kind of thing I'm travelling around and documenting!

SL-YBS

Silly me! I completely forgot that this system was one of the 'shattered planets' that I talked about here. How exciting! So naturally I took a few photos...

Very cool...

L1S-G1

So after doing a bit of ratting around some asteroid belts, I headed back to L1S-G1 to do some more ratting before moving on to further uncharted areas.

Interestingly, I found this fighter ship or frigate, of a design that I'd never seen before. Have any of you seen this? Can you tell me something about it?

OPI4-E

For some reason I had a safe spot in this system. I thought I'd never been here before, but after checking the map I saw it was only 3 jumps from Molden Heath, my old stomping grounds from some time ago. I realised that I must have been down this way sometime while wandering around being a pirate. Gee, that would have been maybe 3 or 4 years ago. Ah, memories....

What a pretty photo this is.

9SNK-O

Bored by this system. Can you tell by the photo.

B-VIP9

I'd received a tip from Kaisi13 to watch out for this system, because there were lots of warp bubbles and gate camps. I'm not afraid of such things, but I was thankful for the tip so I could be careful, but I was hoping to take photos of some bubbles or camps. When I got here, however, it was completely empty of people and bubbles. So I took a photo of the gate to Egbinger instead.

I thought about jumping into Molden Heath, but changed my mind - I'll be in there soon enough as I travel through the regions. So I headed back along my route to continue on.

6WT-BE

Another boring system, but I quite enjoyed how this gate looked against the backdrop of the nearby planet...

SL-YBS

I know I've been here twice before now, but I decided to have another look at the shattered planet, and wow! I found something that I hadn't seen mentioned before.

The debris around the planet seemed to have actually been orbiting it. This stuff was moving! While I was there watching, the debris was slowly moving away from me. I tried MWD'ing after it, but it was actually faster than my measly ~1000m/s. I decided to take a few photos from the same angle to show how they moved over a reasonably short period of time.

I decloaked for the photos only when I was alone in the system, and stayed cloaked while waiting for the debris to move on.

I'm a bit amazed that I've been to this system three times now and found something awesome each time.

I looked for some battleship rats to kill, but couldn't find any by themselves - if there were any in this system, they all flew in pairs. I didn't want to risk doing anything stupid, so I went to bed instead.

It's been quite an interesting day. See you next time!

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

Around New Eden - Day 17

2011-11-09T18:26:00.001+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

E02-IK

I woke up in the station and saw that there were about a dozen people in local, but with only about 4 in the station with me, so after waiting about 10 minutes I decided to undock and make a station exit bookmark. Luckily there wasn't anyone outside, so I quickly activated the MWD and got out of range of the station and activated the cloak, and then meandered out to 200km so I could make a station exit bookmark.

This is me making a bookmark...

M-MD3B

I did the same thing here as well. With another dozen people in local, I went to a station, waited until I saw someone undock so I could make sure where the exit was, and then made a bookmark before docking and swapping out my warp core stabilisers for some DPS mods. This was the last system with a station before I went into the badlands up north, where there wouldn't be any stations for light years around.

Hopefully that would mean it would be quiet with no one around, allowing me to get some decent ratting in before I moved on.

This is me, cloaked, in orbit around a planet before I head on to the next system.

NIH-02

I entered this system and found myself alone - a good sign! But spinning slowly in space was poor zz bomba's corpse...

Now, considering that my attempts to return corpses to their owners in the past were met with rejection, I left it where it was, a forlorn and temporary monument to a recent battle that zz bomba had unfortunately lost.

Since it was empty, I warped to an asteroid belt to see what I could see, and found a rat battlecruiser and battleship sitting there. I was about to move towards them and engage, when someone entered the system. Grrr! I cloaked and warped to my tactical bookmark and saw it was a Hurricane pilot, sitting there off the gate.

I waited until he warped off and left the system, and then I warped back to the asteroid belt to finish it. Unfortunately, that same pilot came back and forth through this system a couple of times, meaning that I was only able to destroy the battlecruiser before I got skittish and moved on to a system that had less traffic. At least the battlecruiser would help improve my security status, even if it was just a little bit.

As I go, I'll keep a record of my sec status, so I can keep track of improvements. At this stage, it's -9.27.

SL-YBS

So I entered this system and was able to engage this battleship rat and two of his rat Dramiel escorts. The drones made short work of them while I focused on the battleship, and then they joined in on the battleship onslaught.

The damn thing kept on getting away from me, so I had to pulse the MWD every now and again to keep it in range of my weapons, but eventually I succeeded. Yay! My first battleship destroyed in the Proteus.

The crew had to have a party, of course.

When everyone settled down again and the alcohol had been cleaned up, I realised there was a 'Natural Phenomenon' showing on the overview. Naturally I warped to it and had a look.

"The depths of space are home to all kinds of cosmic anomalies, from concentrations of electromagnetic disturbance to dense clouds of rare gas. These types of areas are valued for the scientific knowledge they could impart. Though they are often dangerous, these phenomena are also the subject of frequent research expeditions."

Upon arriving, there was some kind of 'coral rock formation' surrounded by a gas cloud and some shattered asteroids that were exposing their internal crystal formations. Quite pretty...

The crew were itching to be moving on. They just didn't see the beauty in front of them. I'll have to work on that.

Speaking of the crew, I'll talk about them in another post coming soon.

UNJ-GX

I was making a bookmark in here when someone came in and activated a cyno field. I warped to it and watched, waiting to see what might turn up. I sat there for close to 10 minutes but nothing came through. Maybe they changed their mind?

Eventually the cyno dropped, the guy in the Thrasher warped off, and I was left there alone.

I moved on.

L1S-G1

In this out-of-the-way system was another pilot, and an Abandoned Ship Wreck.

"After thousands of years among the stars, the space lanes of New Eden have become littered with countless abandoned ships. The twisted and gnarled hulls of these empty vessels float silently, offering up no explanation as to their lonely fate."

It seemed the abandoned ship wrecks were all the same - an ancient shuttle smashed up against an asteroid like a ship against a reef.

I'd seen it before, so I didn't hang around to take any more photos.

I decided to sign off for the night. I was happy that my security status was at -9.21. I'll do some more soon. Maybe for long enough to get it down to -8....

See you next time!

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

All the Eve Online Pages on Google+

2011-11-09T16:12:00.000+11:00

This is a definitive list of all the current Eve Online pages on Google+.

1. If you have added a new page to Google+, or want to let me know of a new page, please add a link to it in the comments section below and I will add it to this list.

2. Please link to this list on your Google+ pages, as well as any blogs you might have. Share the love!

With a profile page (active?):

Anarchist's Anonymous
Aura
CCP Games
Damage Control Podcast (NEW)
Diary of a Pod Pilot
Eve 303 Meet Up
Eve Online
Eve Online Bloggers Portal
Eve Online Ger
Eve Online Russia
OUCH (Open University of Celestial Hardship)
Retired Eve Online Players
Starfleet Comms
The Phoenix Diaries
The Travels of Black Claw
V3SPA Community
Void Imperium

Without a profile page (inactive?):

I will also regularly review this for activity and remove those that are obviously inactive after a period of time.

OUCH is on Google+

2011-11-09T15:51:00.002+11:00

In line with my previous post about the Eve Bloggers portal and Black Claw's blog having their own pages on G+, I just did the same with OUCH.

OUCH on Google+

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

Black Claw and Eve Bloggers on Google+

2011-11-09T14:53:00.000+11:00

I've been enjoying Google+ (G+) ever since it came out, back in June I think. I've enjoyed the interaction with other Eve Online players and bloggers on there, sharing interesting articles and having interesting discussions.

But just yesterday G+ introduced Pages, allowing anyone to create Pages for their business, organisation or... well, whatever really! I immediately created a page for the Eve Bloggers Portal, and shared it out on G+ and Twitter. My intention with it was to use it to share interesting Eve-related content for players and Eve bloggers.

Eve Bloggers Page on Google+

Today I created a page for Black Claw and this blog, and decided that the Eve Bloggers Page would provide updates on new Eve blogs, while Black Claw's Page will share my blog posts and other Eve content.

Black Claw's Page on Google+

Add them to your circles if you're on Google+

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

[OOC] Iceland's Revolution

2011-11-07T08:20:00.000+11:00

You know, while we've all been playing this Iceland-based game, there's been a revolution going on in their country which I didn't know about until just now. I wanted to share it with the rest of you, it's a fascinating read.

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/

UPDATE: a more balanced discussion of the 'revolution' is here:

http://grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/A-Deconstruction-of-Icelands-Ongoing-Revolution

Around New Eden - Day 16

2011-11-06T22:00:00.003+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

M-EKDF

I quickly passed through this system, taking a photo of the star...

AZF-GH

I went to go ratting in here in my nice new Proteus, but then remembered I need to swap fittings before I do that. I need to find a system with a station first.

I found another planet on fire, and I got a distinct feeling that the planet was angry. Angry planet!

I think I've been in space too long....

CRXA-Y

This is the last of the 'southern' systems in this region. I need to go through all the 'northern' systems before heading through the mid-systems to end up at the exit to the Cache region.

Here's a photo of my awesome ship as I make a bookmark... I love how it looks, shining in the star light...

JPL-RA

As I was making a bookmark in here I was looking at the map and then slapped myself in the forehead. Of course it's dead in this region - there's no bloody stations in the entire 'southern' region!

I could see I was heading towards a system with a station, so I expected it to get a little busier in the systems as I got closer to it. And lo and behold, there's someone in local with me...

This planet I found looked pretty amazing with how asteroids had impacted against it, leaving it a wasteland. I wondered if there had been any civilisation on this planet before the asteroids came, but I didn't have time to hang around and look for archeological samples...

NK-7XO

I wanted to zip through this system to quickly get to the station system, so I made a safe spot bookmark along the way. Here's me about to jump out through the gate...

E02-IK

How exciting! No only can I dock on the station, but it's also got a cloning medical facility. I moved my clone to this station, the first time I've moved a clone since starting this journey.

I re-fitted my ship for ratting, and then went to bed. I'll start shooting up some of those rats tomorrow instead.

I have to say, it's nice to be out of Curse again. I had to go back in order to get the Proteus, but I really do feel more comfortable being out here exploring the unknown. Curse was too busy for me, even though there wasn't that many people there.

It's going to be interesting to actually go through the busy regions in the future, not to mention when I get to Empire space.

Does anyone else thing my ship looks like an old motorbike body?

See you next time!

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden.

A new blog banner

2011-11-04T10:48:00.000+11:00

I'm really excited about the new banner I have for this blog, thanks to Rixx Javix of EVEOGANDA fame. I've been employing his services for a while now, with a number of different projects, and he never fails to amaze me with the quality and context of his work.

We went through a number of versions before we reached the final product, but the thing about Rixx and his versions is that the first version is the final - all that the subsequent versions do is change minor details.

So my new banner shows a somewhat faded, ghost-like image of Black Claw with the title of the blog, over what looks like an old navigation map that's mixed in with the gaseous clouds of a galactic nebula, along with the Proteus that I'm going to be flying around the galaxy.

Perfect!

Around New Eden - my new Proteus

2011-11-04T10:18:00.002+11:00

It's happened! I now have an awesome, shiny Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser, the Gallente Proteus. This is a photo of it, with the subsystems fitted and configured.

Thanks to the donations of some very kind and supportive pilots out there, I've been able to afford the skill books for the ship and subsystems, as well as the T2 fittings. Thank you so much to all of you who donated.

Please keep those donations coming though, because it is thanks to you that I will be able to continue travelling around New Eden - I do expect to have to buy new ships every now and again!

I haven't had a chance to itemise the shopping list and the cost, but once I do I'll update the donation page accordingly. I intend having full disclosure about what money I've received, and how that money is being spent.

I ended up using the fittings suggestion from Anxiir, so I want to thank him for that, and I hope it will take me safely through nullsec for a long time!

I was able to buy the ship hull and the Interdiction Nullifier subsystem in the nullsec system I was docked at, but there were no other subsystems for me to buy. So I had to use my alt, Alexia Morgan, to buy what I needed in Rens, and then fly them to me. It was a bit hairy, having to dodge two gate camps with a cargo hold full of T3 subsystems and T2 fittings, but she managed to get there without incident. I got her to make a station exit bookmark before docking - a necessary task when you're out in nullsec.

So I fitted the subystems and fittings and then took a photo of the fittings image (above). I was considering undocking in my nice new Proteus, but changed my mind when I saw that there was 95 people in local, and only 38 of them docked in the station with me. There was potentially almost 60 ships out there waiting for me to undock. I decided to go to bed instead.

See you next time!

Please donate to help me travel around New Eden.

Around New Eden - Day 15

2011-11-02T19:51:00.000+11:00

REGION: BACK IN CURSE!

VXO-OM

I jumped in here on my way back to Curse. Because Great Wildlands is so freakin' DEAD, I decided to get my stealth bomber and do some ratting while I'm out here. Funny thing is, it took me 70+ jumps to get to where I am now, exploring each system on the way, but to return to where I left my Nemesis is only 9 jumps away...

So off I go!

As I made my way back to the stealth bomber, I wondered if it would be a mistake... While not as fast as the covert ops ship, I knew I had an advantage in that my Aussie timezone meant that the regions just aren't that active at my normal play times. This is definitely a good thing for me!

I jumped in the stealth bomber and headed off to another location in Curse where I could do some ratting while waiting for my Proteus skills to get themselves up to a comfortable level where I could reasonably fly it.

But I will still need to buy it, and I don't have enough money for that just yet. If you would like to help then please send me ISK in-game and I will add you to the donation screen.

Help me fit a Proteus

2011-11-01T22:04:00.003+11:00

Hi guys!

Thanks to my good friend Giribaldi who donated an amazing 500 million ISK to help me on my way, I've now got myself a Proteus hull. Yay! (In honour of the man who helped me get it, I will name it HMAS Giribaldi.)

But how should I fit it?

I open the floor to you guys. Please give me some decent fits to help me get through nullsec safely and to do some ratting along the way to get my sec status up. I don't want to use it for PVP, and I want to make sure I can avoid those who are trying to kill me.

Any tactical advice to go along with your fittings recommendation would also be very welcome.

Now, I don't have any pictures yet 'cause I don't have any subsystems in the hull, so I can't jump in it just yet. But as soon as I get a full complement of subsystems installed, I'll take some photos.

Thank you for your help!

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

Around New Eden - Day 14

2011-10-31T19:25:00.000+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

F5-CGW

There weren't any anomalies here, and I couldn't be assed taking photos of planets this time around, so I decided to do something I've never done on this adventure before - take a photo of my ship! So I found a reasonable backdrop, decloaked, and snapped away.

I think maybe I'll do this more often, but only if there's no one else in the system with me. You can't be too careful these days. You could be happily taking photos of some planet and then BANG! Someone drops a cyno on your ass and you're saying hello to a battle fleet dropping in around you. I wouldn't like that at all...

H9S-WC

I had a nice chat with a pilot out here who ended up being interested in joining OUCH, so I gave him some instructions, wished him well, and went on my merry way.

I flew back to Y4-GQV and decided to rest here for a few days.

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

Help me travel around New Eden

2011-10-29T11:17:00.000+11:00

I was chatting with someone yesterday in my in-game channel, BLACK'S TRAVELS, and they suggested that I use a Tech 3 ship to travel around New Eden. Now, with me being a -9.3 flashy red pirate, I laughed at the idea, thinking that using a T3 ship would just make me more of a shit magnet than what I already am. Not to mention losing it when I enter highsec because CONCORD will toast my ass...

But they pointed out a few things that made me think.

it's not affected by warp bubbles
it can use a covert ops cloak
it can fight battleship rats

Overall, it's a better ship to travel around nullsec with AND do some ratting to get my sec status back to normal, so that by the time I'm ready to enter highsec, I can do so without penalty.

In fact, the discussion made me think very hard. But I can't afford to buy a T3 ship + subsystems + fittings. So my friend suggested I blog about this and get people to donate to help me with my travels.

I thought that's a great idea! So he decided to donate some faction fittings for me, but that wasn't really going to work - any physical donations would have to be retrieved by me, and I didn't want to have to go galavanting around the galaxy to retrieve stuff for a ship to help me go galavanting around the galaxy.... If you know what I mean.

So it has to be donations of ISK only. And that's when I came up with another cool idea.

I decided to make a large blank image that's 1,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels in size. For everyone who donates ISK to Black Claw (in-game), I will put a copy of their avatar on this image and, over time, fill it up with the avatars of all those who donated to help me around the galaxy.

It's a bit empty at the moment, but this is just the beginning....

Those who have donated to help me travel New Eden

Click on image to expand to full size

CURRENT DONATIONS:

645 MILLION ISK

In order to ensure all avatars can be seen, the minimum avatar size will be 10 pixels by 10 pixels (eg. 10 million ISK donation). Of course, I'll accept all ISK donations even if they're only 100,000 ISK, but I will only place avatars on this image if they've donated 10 million ISK or more.

So if someone donated 100 million ISK, then their image will be 100 pixels wide. If there's ever the unlikely event that someone out there that actually donates a billion ISK or more, then I will add 1,000 pixels to the size of the 'canvas' to allow for the expansion. As avatars are added, I will upload new versions of this image.

Note: if your corp or alliance wants to donate ISK, I would be very grateful! In this case, I would use your corp or alliance logo as your 'avatar'.

This is my way of thanking and rewarding all those who would like to help me with my travels, who are expressing their generosity in donating ISK to help me buy and fit a T3 ship. Everyone who donates will be recognised and thanked by having their avatar placed onto this image.

When you send me ISK in-game, please have 'Around New Eden' as the reason for your donation, so that I know to place your avatar on this image.

I would also really appreciate it if you share this blog post with your friends.

Naturally, I will provide updates in this blog on the donations, and my progress towards getting and using a Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser.

Thank you for your support!

Around New Eden - Day 13

2011-10-28T23:51:00.001+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

PUC-JZ

After entering this system I made a bookmark, and while I was doing that I did a system scan. Oh, look at that, a new anomaly!

Angel Sanctum

This one seemed to have a huge pirate complex, with 8 battleships and 3 battlecruisers flying around it, obviously protecting it.

There was also a factory complex situated in a broken blue crystal asteroid... Fascinating!

5FCV-A

No anomalies in here, so have a planet instead....

O-OVOQ

No NEW anomalies in here, so have a rat Dramiel instead...

SB-23C

As you marvel at this view, do you wonder if there's anyone on that planet, in this very moment, that's marveling at their sun rising on a new day? I do.

And then I fly on to the next system...

92-BOX

Ooh, nice... an Abandoned Ship Wreck in this system!

"After thousands of years among the stars, the space lanes of New Eden have become littered with countless abandoned ships. The twisted and gnarled hulls of these empty vessels float silently, offering up no explanation as to their lonely fate."

Here was a sad monument to the hazards of space travel. Some ancient space shuttle smashed up against an asteroid, with debris slowly floating around, surrounded by cloud of gas that had long ago stopped expanding...

Y4-GQV

I was making bookmarks in this system while talking to someone in my chat channel (BLACK'S TRAVELS channel), and they were recommending I use a T3 ship to travel around nullsec. I scoffed at the idea, pointing out that I intend travelling into highsec and a T3 ship is likely to get attacked by CONCORD because I'm still -9.3 and flashy red.

They pointed out to me that a T3 ship will allow me to battleship rat, use covert ops cloaks, and go to warp while in warp bubbles. And with the ratting I can do along the way, I can get my sec status back up faster than I can say... well, faster than I can say some really long words for a period of time...

They even gave me a donation to help me towards getting a T3 ship, and after thanking them for their act of generosity, I got an idea.... but I'll discuss that in a separate post.

I went to the next system and then realised I'd forgotten to take photos of this system, so I came back....

WTIE-6

This was very pretty.... a system just FULL of gas clouds stretching dozens of light years across, filling space as far as you can see....

1L-AED

I found another planet in here that was on fire, and decided to take a photo of the surface of the planet. I love these planets...

1C-953

After taking a photo of a planet here, I again moved on to the next system...

1X8-JB

I found a nice water world here with a few storms active. That was pretty cool.

Y-DSSK

I decided to get a photo of a Customs Office receiving some goods from the planet it was above. I don't think I've been that close to those offices before. Interesting... for a few minutes.

Next...

B-ROFP

I was able to take a couple of nice shots in this system.

There was also the first lone soul out here that I'd seen for some time. I waved, but he ignored me. I felt sad.

But I also decided to call it a night. After doing 12 systems, I was exhausted!

See you next time!

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

Around New Eden - Day 12

2011-10-27T06:48:00.000+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

F8K-WQ

After looking through some Eve photography tips from the wonderful Katia Sae I did some configuration changes to my camera drone and tested it out. I liked it! I think there's more sharpness to the image now.

I also tested out the difference between planet mode view and normal view. I hadn't thought about that until I saw Katia talking about it. Nice...

Planet Mode

Normal Mode

So yes, sometimes planet mode can provide a much better view of a planet. I like it.

Moving on to the next system....

YUY-LM

I think I must have been using the On-Board Scanner incorrectly over the early days of this travel, because I now seem to be picking up cosmic anomalies in every system I go through.

Angel Hub

Once again, the Angel Cartel is active in here - they seem to be everywhere - with another ship yard. There were also three Angel battleships, two battlecruisers, and 5 missile batteries. Definitely well protected.

AB-FZE

So I'm seeing that the various cosmic anomalies in the different systems are all the same, if they're named the same. This is good, 'cause then I just need to keep a list of the anomalies that I discover, and when I discover new ones that are the same names, I'll ignore them, and just look at the ones that I've never seen before.

I love the way you can see the sun shining through the atmosphere of the planet..

N-6Z8B

This system was huge! I noticed upon arriving that the furthest gate was about 100 AU from my location. A long way!

Angel Haven

So the anomaly in this system was quite interesting... There was a chemical factory flanked by a couple Factory Guard Sentries...

Along with an entire fleet of battleships, battlecruisers and destroyers nearby.

I'm starting to feel that, at least for a while, I'm going to be taking lots of photos of cosmic anomalies - until they're all the same, and I've got nothing new to take photos of. Then I'll return to landmarks, planets, or other interesting objects or events.

52V6-B

No new anomalies in this system, so I had a look at the planets. I found another planet on fire, and decided to take a photo in normal mode and then experimented a bit in planet mode.... Wow. That's all I can say....

And this one, a planet with rings. Oh my....

You know, finding new things to take photos of, and even finding new ways to take photos of things that everyone takes for granted... This is becoming quite enjoyable. It's almost as if the travel to all the systems is almost incidental, and the real attraction is what I can find in each system.

Ok, that'll do for today. See you next time...

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Around New Eden - Day 11

2011-10-25T22:12:00.000+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

I woke up to find Giribaldi still on the comms, teling me that he was waiting for me to do my blog post so he could read it! Sheesh, talk about demanding fans... But I couldn't disappoint him, so I did my Day 10 blog, and then started on my Day 11 travels.

QM-20X

I got bored with the planets in here, so I took a photo of the star instead. Yawn.

504Z-V

Every now and again I used the D-scanner to see if I can find anything random in space, but always with no luck. Not in every system, but maybe in about 10% of those I've passed through so far. But today, in this system, I struck it lucky! I found 6 Cosmic Anomalys. They consisted of:

2 x Angel Forsaken Rally Point
2 x Drone Herd
Drone Squad
Drone Surveillance

I decided to take a look at them after I made a tactical bookmark.

Angel Forsaken Rally Point

"Operating from the heart of the Curse region, the Angel Cartel is today the largest and best organized of the space-based criminal factions. The Angels are divided into several groups, each with a very special function; it is commanded by the Dominations. In the century they've been lurking in deep space, they have stolen, plundered, or sabotaged countless number of ships and kidnapped, assaulted, or murdered thousands of people. The Angels recruit members from all the races, and are thus not bound to any one zone of operation; instead, their reach spans almost the entire known universe. Many believe that the Angels got their power by uncovering Jovian technologies hidden in their ancient homeworlds, now infested by the Angel Cartel. "

Now, I'm sure that many people have done these kinds of cosmic anomaly's, but I haven't, and I'm also sure many others haven't. So maybe you'll enjoy these photos.

It was an interesting graveyard of smashed up ships. Were they smashed up by the Angel Cartel ships, or by the anomaly? I have no idea, but I moved on to the next one, only to find it was exactly the same as the first. So I moved on to the Drone Herd...

This place was fascinating. An old, ruined station of some kind had some fresh new drone installations, including bunkers and a goddamn drone elevator.... Fascinating!

I moved on to the Drone Squad and was presented with this message:

"Rogue Drones appear to have taken over this station ruin and made it their home. Your sensors pick up the faint signature of frozen bio matter, the remains of the station's inhabitants no doubt."

This was a station?? Holy crap.... It looks like some huge, freakin' starship that intersected with a large asteroid. This would have to be one of the most amazing sights I've seen out here on my travels so far....

But I head on to have a look at the Drone Surveillance...

This was quite interesting. A whole bunch of drone bunkers linked together with long, spindly 'walls'. At the top of each wall was a light missile battery. Drones are such interesting... what? Creatures? Robots? No idea.... (Unfortunately, I discovered that some of the photos I'd taken of the missile batteries didn't turn out, but at least I have one of the main structure.)

NE-3GR

I found some more anomalys... This time an Angel Forlorn Hub and a Angel Hidden Hub.

I went to the Angel Forlorn Hub and wow! An ancient Space Stonehenge with a ruined monument, celebrating something that has probably been lost in time...

There was also an ancient, badly damaged stargate. It also reminded me of some kind of starship... I'm wondering if ancient gates and bases were also starships in some way, but have since been either so damaged that we can't tell, or simply had their propulsion systems destroyed or removed over the milennia...

Then I went to the Angel Hidden Hub and found a couple of shipyards, with lots of ships flying around protecting it, along with the mining colony setup on the nearby asteroid.

These Angel Cartel fellows are pretty amazing, I have to say.

Well, I've taken a lot of photos over these past few systems, and I think I'm going to have to spend some time processing them, so I'll do that now and then head off to bed.

See you next time!

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Around New Eden - Day 10

2011-10-25T21:32:00.000+11:00

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

OR-GZQ

Once again I'm in a dead end system, with no one around. Even the planets are just boring. How boring? This boring. Yeh, really.

But I just got an idea for something to add to my blog posts, to show the routes that I've travelled each day. I'll just do a few more jumps around GW, and then I'll sort that out. You might enjoy it...

ZJ-GOU

While I was flying around in this system, looking at - well, not much at all really, except for another boring planet...

Anyway, while I was flying around I was speaking to Giribaldi, another friendly fellow. He was telling me about some kind of drama going on between TEST alliance 'super capital investment fiasco', that you can read about on EveNews24. I'm not really into such dramas, but I thought I'd share it with the rest of you, 'cause I know some of you just LOVE dramas!

He also cautioned me on scams occurring with transferring ISK to aurum, but seeing as how I've got zero interest in aurum, I told him that's never likely to happen anyway.

Then I fell asleep. And so ended Day 10, with only two new systems visited....

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"Black's Travels" in-game channel

2011-10-25T19:30:00.002+11:00

Due to popular demand from some of my fans, I created an in-game channel where they can hang out and talk to me when I'm online. If you want to do the same, please join this channel:

BLACK'S TRAVELS

Maybe I'll see you there?

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Eve Bloggers has a new Community Manager

2011-10-25T13:13:00.001+11:00

Back in February 2009 I created the Eve Bloggers Portal (www.evebloggers.com), a single location for the sharing of all the Eve blogs and their posts. I also created the Eve Bloggers Facebook group which, surprisingly, seems to still be active, even though I have gone through phases of forgetting about it over the past couple of years... Also in early 2009 I created the in-game chat channel 'EVE-BLOGGERS' for Eve bloggers to keep in touch with each other, and I'm happy that it's still quite popular today.

I set them all up to be low maintenance, so that I could have them going in the background without much of my own involvement. The biggest area of maintenance and administration was evebloggers.com, because I've been responsible for adding new blogs to it about once or twice a month, on average.

Over the previous two years, there had been various blogs that had come and gone and were now inactive. I had a listing of over 700 blogs, and I knew that I needed to cull quite a few. I also know I couldn't do this myself due to my own lack of time. So I decided that I needed to get someone to help me.

Back in March this year, I put out a call to the community to find someone to help me with administration. Would you believe that out of the hundreds of people that read my blog, only one offered to help? I was a little disappointed with the lack of interest, but not that much - I was excited to have at least one person wanting to help!

Their in-game name is Biore, and he was very friendly and available, and sincerely wanted to help with whatever I needed help with. So I tasked him with going through over 700 blogs and itemising those that needed to be removed. What would have taken me weeks, took him a few hours. Holy crap! Needless to say, I was impressed. I then went through his list and started removing the inactive blogs from my list, and managed to get it down to about 500-something blogs, but then got distracted again by Real Life.

Six months later, I contacted Biore again (just the other day) and asked him if he was still interested and available in helping. He was - yay! So I made him the new 'administration assistant' to the Eve Bloggers Portal.

Over the weekend just gone, I transferred the RSS feeds of all the Eve blogs (641 of them) out of my applicable personal RSS folder in Google Reader (which was driving the feed behind www.evebloggers.com) and transferred it all over into its own Google Reader account, updating the portal accordingly so that the blog updates were coming from the new RSS feed location. I then gave Biore access to that account, along with instructions on how to remove the RSS feeds of inactive blogs.

I will continue to administrate the Portal itself, with the adding of new blogs to the site and the evebloggers RSS feed, and Biore will look after the removal of inactive or irrelevant blogs.

I'm very excited that this move has been made, because I feel that having an enthusiastic assistant like Biore will be a great step forward in the management of these Eve Bloggers features.

Also, after thinking about it and then discussing it with him just yesterday, I felt that it would be a great idea for EVE BLOGGERS to have its own Community Manager, with access to the Facebook page, as well as to the EVE-BLOGGERS channel in-game. Biore agreed with me, and graciously accepted my offer.

Therefore, please join with me in welcoming Eve Bloggers' new Community Manager, Biore!

Within the space of 48 hours, he has managed to get the list of 641 Eve blogs down to only 234. As Biore said to me, it's a shame that so many Eve blogs have come and gone, and no longer active. From the 700+ blogs I once had a list of, there's now only 200+.

I'm still encouraged by the regular influx of people wanting their blogs added to the list and shared out via the portal. You can see the list of blogs as they've been added here, on the Eve Bloggers Latest Blogs page. As you can see, every single month there have been new people joining the list of Eve bloggers.

Please make sure you add yours to the list if you haven't already done so.

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Around New Eden - Highlights of Curse

2011-10-23T21:52:00.002+11:00

I decided that I would make a post after I've finished each region and just touch on the highlights of my travels through that region.

Day 1

I started my journey in Curse, in Doril. Sadly, I apparently missed out on the landmark in that system. But you know what? I'll get it when I return. :)

After doing 9 jumps around Curse I finally got my first brief moment of adrenaline. I jumped into K-QWHE and discovered I was in a bubble around the gate but luckily for me there was no one around. However, that was the only moment of adrenaline on day 1...

By the end of Day 1 I had done 12 systems. I thought that I would do an average of 15 systems a day and would do the entire galaxy in 416 days. Assuming 3 days of game play per week, that would take me 138 weeks, or more than two and a half years. By Day 9, however, I had done an average of 6 systems per day. This would mean it will take me about 866 days, or 288 weeks - five and a half years at my current rate!

I'm enjoying this. :)

Day 2

I undocked from the station in AAM-1A and found someone had undocked with me, trying to ambush me with their Dramiel. I managed to re-dock and prevent their foul deed from succeeding, and eventually I moved on once they got tired of waiting for me.

Landmark in CL-85V: there was an 'Unidentified Cartel Hideout' that I took some photos of.

Over in 8G-MQV I watched some of my corpmates on a warp bubble, hoping to get some photos of them killing some hapless victim. But after half an hour of waiting with no one turning up, I said my farewells to the corp and went on my way.

Landmark in J7A-UR: some 'Derelict Ruins' were in here. Apparently a mystery to anyone that finds them, including me.

Day 3

Nothing much of interest on this day, but I did go through 8 systems.

Day 4

Not much of interest, but did meet another friendly pilot in here - medvedstvo. It was good chatting with him. He inspired me to discover the history of a region as I travel through them.

Day 5

I made a 'station exit' bookmark under an apparently camped station that turned out to be an exceptional idea when I had to undock from it a short time later and they were still there. I managed to get away smoothly.

Took a photo of a carrier.

Day 6

Landmark in ZZ-ZWC: another Unidentified Cartel Hideout. There's a few of them around, it seems. And I thought about all the Jovian technology they apparently have access to, and why they can't use some of it to clean up their hideouts...

Landmark in K-MGJ7: an Abandoned Mining Colony

Day 7

Got some nice photos on this day of planets on fire... Amazing stuff. Nothing else of interest.

Day 8

Another brief moment of excitement! Jumped into a system and found a warp bubble around me, with a Sabre and Stiletto waiting for me to show myself. I did, but managed to elude them and get away, although they were 700 metres away from decloaking me... Unfortunately, I was too busy making sure I got away from them that I forgot to take a photo. *sad face*

Took a photo of an Archon carrier.

Finally completed the Curse region and jumped into Great Wildlands.

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Around New Eden - Day 9

2011-10-23T20:32:00.001+11:00

Region: Great Wildlands

I moved on from UT-UZB to the next system en route...

BY5-V8

One thing I've noticed since being here in Great Wildlands is that I've not seen any traffic through UT-UZB while I was sitting in their studying the map of the region. And then I moved over to this system, BY5, and there's still no traffic. In fact, I'm beginning to think the place is as dead as this desert planet...

7-1DWY

I really enjoy finding a landmark in a system, and I found a 'Ruined Minmatar Outpost' out here...

"Fighting for a nation still in its infancy, the stoic and indomitable people of the early Minmatar Republic suffered frequent and catastrophic losses at the hands of the much larger Amarr Empire. Countless outposts on the edge of patrolled space fell to the scorching lasers of Amarrian marauders. To this day, these structures remain as silent reminders of freedom’s price."

This outpost had a large gas cloud that seemed to have erupted outwards from behind the station, but now was motionless in the vacuum of space. According to the memorial quote, this was one of those outposts attacked and destroyed by the Amarr Empire. While taking some photos of the outpost and an Arch Angels ship, I changed some of the graphics settings so that there was less shade and more light. This meant some of the detail could be seen a lot better.

Just before I left 7-1, I received a message over the comms from one of the locals, Nunuuika Avery, who wished me well on my travels. I thanked him. It's great to meet people who wish me well. Makes a nice change from meeting those that want me dead, with extreme prejudice...

TET3-B

In here I found an 'Abandoned Mining Colony':

"Throughout the history of space flight, countless mining corporations have tried and failed to strike it rich among the stars, fuelled by dreams of lucrative profits and grand adventures. All too often, however, these naïve dreams are met with the cold reality of ambivalent police forces and roving pirates that are all too eager to exploit the lax policing."

While taking the photos, I marvelled at the workmanship that had gone into such a structure. I'm finding that as I'm travelling around and witnessing the after-effects of battles and massacres, I'm left saddened at the losses I'm seeing. I know it's all historical, but we all know these things happen today as well - the efforts and lives of a great many people are taken in battle all over the galaxy.

F-5FDA (Scalding Pass)

I moved into F-5FDA. It's actually in Scalding Pass, but I needed to go through it to continue on in GW. I was about to move on, but then I realised there was another Abandoned Mining Colony in this system, so of course I had to go take some photos...

It was essentially the same as one of the abandoned mining colonies I'd found back in Curse. Some things just don't change, I guess...

9-34L5

I found some Natural Phenomena....

"The depths of space are home to all kinds of cosmic anomalies, from concentrations of electromagnetic disturbance to dense clouds of rare gas. These types of areas are valued for the scientific knowledge they could impart. Though they are often dangerous, these phenomena are also the subject of frequent research expeditions."

You know, while taking photos of the strange rock formation at this location, I discovered that the modification I made to the graphics configuration meant that part of the background would show through the object in the foreground... How odd. So I had to change it back again to get some better photos.

At least now I know what to do to make quick changes to get better photos, depending on what it is I'm taking photos of...

This one looks like the sun shining through the tentacles of some kind of space monster, with a pirate ship observing...

GF-3FL

I was wandering around looking at the planets in this system when another of the locals (hi PinkPanther86!) said hello, and that they were having a read of my blog. We talked for a little bit about whether or not I've been killed yet (I haven't), and they wished me well in my future travels.

I was about to finish up for the day and go off and watch a movie, when my OUCH CEO started chatting with me about some ideas he had.

Look in this space in the near future for some podcasts from yours truly.

See you next time!

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Around New Eden - Day 8

2011-10-22T20:08:00.000+11:00

LJ-YSW

All the planets in this system were pretty boring, but I managed to find one that was ok...

G-0Q86

Jumping back into G-0 I discovered a warp bubble around me, with a Sabre and a Stiletto within 13km of me, and 20+ others in local. Busy, and dangerous for me! So I waited a few moments and then moved in a random direction, cloaked up once the gate cloak dissipated, and then changed direction, moving away from the direction it looked like I was headed. The stiletto immediately moved towards me, and managed to get about 2.7km from me before continuing on and away from me. I stopped biting my fingernails, waited until I was outside the bubble and then warped away to a tactical bookmark on another gate - but not before accidentally dropping my cloak. This meant they saw which direction I was headed, so when I arrived, so did they.

This is the reason why making tactical bookmarks is a good idea, because you then go to your bookmarked location 200km from the gate, and watch them wait for you and then jump through, hoping you'll follow, and then jump back, wait for a while, and get tired of waiting and go do something else.

I liked this photo...

While waiting, I went and got a massage, made some calls to friends, and then returned to the console. I was sure they'd gotten bored of waiting for me by now, so I went to the G-R gate to make a bookmark before jumping through.

Except that suddenly local lit up with 'Primary the Archon!', so I went and had a look for it. I found it at one of the stations, but there wasn't anything happening. I took a photo of it and a Dominix, and then returned to bookmarking.

While I was out there bookmarking, I found another beautiful scene, so I had to take a photo of that too...

And then I was wondering. By this time there was about 30 in local, and I wondered why it was so busy out here. So I asked if anyone wanted to be interviewed about the history of this area of the region. But no one was keen, so I had a brief conversation about retards and warp bubbles and then moved on.

G-R4W1

This was an empty system, which was good 'cause it meant there wouldn't be any scouts watching for me to jump back.

There was some nice photo opportunities in this system, with some pretty planets on fire...

After jumping back to G-0 I saw there was now over 40 in local. It was getting busier! I really needed to move on... I warped to the KLMT gate bookmark, and saw 4 ships sitting at the gate before jumping through. Looks like I needed to wait a while again.... The Initiative and Darkside sure were busy in here. It was entirely possible there were cloaked scouts on this gate, and they were all waiting for me on the other side... I waited about 10 minutes and then jumped through, happy to find the system empty. Yay!

But now I was about to move on to the next region, Great Wildlands.

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

UT-UZB

Interestingly, where Curse had a primarily green-yellow backdrop, Great Wildlands is blue.

After wandering UT's planets for a bit, they were all really boring. So I got a good photo of one of the Customs Offices receiving some goods from the planet below.

Now that I was in a new region, I had to work out a plan to visit every system in it, ending up with a departure point leading to Cache. There was a lot of systems in this one, so it was going take me a while...

See you next time!

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Around New Eden - Day 7

2011-10-22T18:18:00.000+11:00

G-OQ86

After coming in from an empty KLMT, I was surprised to find 18 others in local. I waved a hello, but no one replied. After having a look I learnt that most of them were from The Initiative alliance and Darkside alliance. I talked a bit more in local after about 20 minutes and someone told me that they're all still sleeping.

I also decided that I won't take a photo of just any planet, if there's nothing else of interest in a system. Insteat, I'll go to each of the planets in a system, take photos of them all, but just keep the best one. Going to each of the planets will also help create a 'safe spot' bookmark in every system.

This particular planet was quite impressive. I could see the fires burning across the lands...

Y-K50G

Another empty system, but oh my... another planet on fire. They look amazing!

I also found another planet that was almost like it was on fire, but it was blue instead of red.... What's up with that?

K88X-J

So far, it looks like the most interesting planets are the ones that are on fire....

BPK-XK

An empty system with a starbase! I docked and contracted back to their owners the two bodies I'd collected along the way.

CL-1JE

One of the planets here had lightning storms raging throughout the soupy atmosphere. Was very pretty to sit and watch for a few minutes.

J4UD-J

After finishing this system, I headed back through CL-1JE towards the entrance to Great Wildlands, with only two more undiscovered systems in this region to go.... I was getting excited!

But now it was time for bed.... See you next time!

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CCP fired 20% of their staff

2011-10-20T15:46:00.002+11:00

I had written a blog post earlier today expressing my annoyance about CCP's decision to fire 20% of their staff, along with most of its community management team, and likened it to a slap in the face to the Eve community, particularly those sections of the community that were responsible for organising campaigns with the express purpose of hurting CCP's business.

A lot of people are discussing this occurrence on the Eve forums and in Eve blogs, and most of those discussing it are against what CCP did, particularly with the firing of most of the community management team. There's a general feeling that CCP no longer cares about the community, and as a result the community management team was one of those departments that were no longer needed.

But ultimately, what CCP does as a business is entirely up to them. It's not up to us to assume we know what their business is experiencing, and the decisions they have to make that result from factors we may know nothing about. They may still care very much about the community, but have made a business decision to have new community team members. We just don't know. The coming days and weeks may give us more information.

I was personally shocked that CCP's community management team seemed to be significantly affected by CCP's actions, and my own shock resulted in a post I didn't need to make. After thinking about it, and taking into consideration some of the feedback from readers, I decided to remove the post as being inflammatory. To those that read it and were inflamed, please accept my apologies.

I wish all those who no longer have a job at CCP all the very best with their future, and I'm very sad that you are no longer involved in something that you've been very passionate about. Thank you for all your hard work, dedication and support of the community over the years.

Around New Eden - Day 6

2011-10-19T23:13:00.001+11:00

I decided to change the formatting of how I'm presenting information and photos. I think this way looks a lot better...

ZZ-ZWC

Upon arriving in ZZ I found another "Unidentified Cartel Hideout":

"Pirate hideouts are often found tucked away inside the deadspace pocket of a high security system or floating more openly in the lawless sectors of space, where they attract questionable clientele. For the Cartel, these places serve as a home and base of operations. At any given time, the occupants must be able to answer the call to arms or provide sanctuary to ranking members of the Cartel’s shadowy leadership."

I took a few photos of the hideout, taking note of the extensive damage to the infrastructure of the station. It looked like there'd been a lot of fighting here, with some explosions blowing out the sides. There were a few Cartel battleships and battlecruisers orbiting it, and I wondered how many Cartel people were still using the inside of the station, doing their best to survive.

You know, with all the power that the Angel Cartel is alleged to have, what with access to Jovian technology, you'd think they'd do a better job of repairing and maintaining their hideouts, wouldn't you....

But maybe it's just a ruse? Maybe the damaged appearance is just part of a camouflage cloak. Maybe there's a shining city inside the cloak that we just can't see, and may never see.

That's what I think the truth is....

I went back to G-G so I could go to the last two systems in this sector of the region.

UW9B-F

I arrived here just as a Dramiel warped in, so I maintained my gate cloak until he jumped through, and then had a quick look around this system. The local station (Guardian Angels Logistic Support) was of a design I couldn't remember seeing before, so I had to take a photo of it before moving on.

K-MGJ7

This is the home of my blogger buddy, Myrhial Arkenath. In my research today on the history of Curse, I discovered that she's been quite active around these parts, often working hand in hand with the Angel Cartel on many different kinds of illegal ventures.

I saw that there's an 'Abandoned Mining Colony' here, so of course I had to go have a look at it.

Throughout the history of space flight, countless mining corporations have tried and failed to strike it rich among the stars, fuelled by dreams of lucrative profits and grand adventures. All too often, however, these naïve dreams are met with the cold reality of ambivalent police forces and roving pirates that are all too eager to exploit the lax policing.

I had a wander around this location and took quite a few photos, as you can see. It was truly amazing the things they had done to this mining colony, how they had brought together a number of asteroids, drilled them out for housing and connected them with habitat sections. And there was a mining drill bigger than a battleship!

Just... wow.

Sadly, Myrhial wasn't here, and in fact the system was quite empty. It wasn't the busy hive of activity that she'd made it out to be. But then I remembered that we're in different timezones, and I was reminded that I will continue finding empty systems in my Australian timezone that are normally bustling with activity in the US and EU timezones.

But I don't mind. It just makes it that much easier for me to actually travel around unmolested.

I now had to travel eight jumps up the already explored pipe back to HLW, so I could continue on into uncharted territory.

Tip for new nullsec travellers: if you want to avoid being caught on mobile warp bubbles, warp to a planet that's near your departure gate first, before then warping to the departure gate. The reason for this is that it's far less likely the 'catch bubble' will catch you warping from the planet than warping from your arrival gate, if it's set up to catch ships approaching from that angle. It will allow you to stay quite a bit safer than if you were to simply warp to the gate.

KLMT-W

I got a nice photo here of a ringed planet, but now it's time for bed.

Goodnight, and see you next time!

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Around New Eden - Shattered Planets

2011-10-19T16:04:00.001+11:00

Last week someone left me a comment about looking for the shattered planets. They failed to respond to my query for more information, but I've managed to hunt down what they were talking about.

I had forgotten the stories I had heard of planets being shattered by the effects of the wormholes appearing around the galaxy. My research found that there are 7 shattered planets in K-Space (known Space), and another 2 shattered planets in W-Space (wormhole space). I won't be going to the wormhole areas at this stage, but I will certainly make it my mission to visit the shattered planets in the following regions:

Seyllin - Essence region
35-RK9 - Syndicate
3HQC-6 - Outer Ring
EAWE-2 - Stain
SL-YBS - Great Wildlands
T-IPZB - Delve
Z8-81T - Immensea

There's also anomalies that I'm going to investigate in 5-CSE3 (Paragon Soul) and Y0-BVN (Vale of the Silent).

When I find these locations, I'll record photos of them and do some exploring of the systems. Interestingly, every single one of the planets that were affected were the first planet in each system...

Some very extensive investigations have already been done by the following:

But that doesn't mean I can't stop in and have a look, right?

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History of Eve - Curse region

2011-10-19T11:03:00.000+11:00

UPDATE: I've made this page my 'Player History of Curse' page. I will do the same in the future with all the regions that I visit, dedicating a page to the timeline of that region's player/corporation/alliance history. Please enjoy:

Player History of Events

2003 YC105

The Eye of God corporation is one of the oldest corps in the game, basing themselves in Curse before moving on to the Outer Ring. They were the founding member of the NORAD Alliance (before alliances were official entities in Eve).
[Added 24 Oct 2011] Curse Alliance formed, founded by Vengeance of the Fallen, Red Alliance, Nomads, STK scientific, Red corsairs, Black Omega Security, mOo Corp, Sinister Corp and a number of 'local' corporations already living in the Curse region. During their time they would eventually conquer and own 12 regions, including Curse, Great Wildlands, Scalding Pass, Cache, Wicked Creek, Detorid, and Insmother.
[Added 24 Oct 2011] It was alleged that mOo Corp was involved in pirating activities while in Curse Alliance, and this resulted in a major war occurring between the Curse Alliance and Stain Alliance. (mOo corp left Curse Alliance before the war ended, and eventually returned to pirating.) The border between Curse and Catch in 0SHT-A was the location of many battles, but eventually Curse Alliance lost the war and were driven out of many of their regions.

2004 YC106

The Queens of the Stone Age corporation was founded and commenced pirating activities in Curse and Empire space.

2005 YC107

Shadow alliance moved to Curse from Catch and Stain, settling in S1DP. They were eventually kicked out by the Tau Ceti Federation [TCF] in 2006, and moved to HLW.
[Added 24 Oct 2011] Curse Alliance disbanded due to internal conflict.

2006 YC108

The Coreli corporation moved into Curse where it began developing neural booster technology.

2007 YC109

It was announced that Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate, based in in Curse and Catch, was part of a large Goonswarm coalition of alliances that had formed up to attack Lotka Volterra. Totaling approximately 15,000 pilots, with more than two hundred capital ships and spread across 3 timezones.
Infinitus Odium [INFOD] moved into Curse to assist GoonSwarm against Lotka Volterra.
The Shadow alliance were again attacked by TCF in 2007, and were forced to flee from Curse. TCF, RA and Goons were doing their best to remove their enemies from Curse and Great Wildlands.
The Clown Punchers Syndicate [BOZO] were active in Curse from 2007 through to 2010. [Black Claw: they were known by my corp as the pilots with the foullest mouths in all of Eve. The number of BOZO's we had to block so we couldn't see their filth on comms was truly amazing.]

2008 YC110

Ghost Festival [PRETA] was founded and is based in Curse, with Myrhial Arkenath as its' CEO, and a member of the NARAKA alliance. According to records, it is the longest running dedicated roleplaying corporation in Eve, engaged in an extensive number of illegal enterprises with the Angel Cartel.
Ushra'Khan relocated to Curse to rebuild, while launching raids into Providence and seek out new allies.
The Littlest Hobos corporation joined Ushra'Khan in Curse for a while before joining the Ushra'Khan alliance.
Atlas alliance moved into the Curse region to support the 'Greater BoB Community' (GBC) campaign against its enemies. This involved 350 capitals and 600 fleet ships. While initially successful, the forces were eevntually defeated in a series of large capital battles in Tribute.
The Purgatory. corporation was founded, active in Curse and other Empire areas. Their focus is on training new pilots with mostly PVE operations.
A Tau Ceti Federation (TCF) alliance fleet entered Hemin and began to attack a starbase registered to The Requiem alliance. A TCF dreadnought was isolated and at risk of being destroyed. TCF then jumped in an Avatar-class titan which detonated its doomsday device and cleared the field of enemy vessels freeing the dreadnought from its difficulties. In response, The Requiem opened a cynosural field through which a Ragnarok-class titan jumped into system. Several carriers were also deployed by The Requiem together with numerous subcapital vessels. The total TCF fleet was approximately 120-strong combining capital and subcapital assets. While subcapital losses on each side were roughly the same – estimated at 65 for The Requiem, 60 for TCF plus some allied losses – no TCF capitals were lost and the Ragnarok, registered to Game-Over corporation, was destroyed together with 5 carriers of The Requiem alliance.

2009 YC111

A Band of Brothers (BoB) Avatar-class titan, registered with the Black Nova Corporation, was trapped and destroyed in H-ADOC by a 120-strong GoonSwarm fleet supported by Pandemic Legion forces. While over 90 battleships are believed to have been fielded none were lost in the operation. A BoB Revelation-class dreadnought was also destroyed during the action.
Morsus Mihi were redeployed a number of times from Curse to assist with the defence of GoonSwarm assets.
After completing their very first mercenary contract in Curse, the Controlled Chaos alliance was extended an invitation to join what became known as the “HEX” coalition to invade Cloud Ring. A campaign was waged against Dara Cothrom & allies which was met with large resistance when Cry Havoc, Mostly Harmless and other Northern Coalition entitles became involved. Concluding the Cloud Ring campaign Controlled Chaos absorbed an allied alliance, Eradication Alliance, and took settle in 57-YRU during the month of April.
Red Alliance lost their sovereignty in Insmother region, and regrouped in Curse.
The Aggression alliance (now disbanded) was active in Curse, engaging in guerilla operations along the Doril pipe and slowly strangling the 0.0 alliances that relied on that route. In mid-2009, they were allied with ATLAS alliance, but within the space of a week of ATLAS resetting them, they went from over 2,200 members, 25 corporations, 62 systems and 6 outposts, to only 10 members in a single holding corp.
Gentlemen's Club alliance, while residing in nearby Scalding Pass, harrassed occupants of Curse at every opportunity.
A lightly-escorted Nyx-class mothership from the STYX alliance was ambushed and destroyed in Utopia by a force of approximately 25 ships from the Krautbreak alliance. Apart from the destruction of the mothership, each side took a small number of battleship losses.

2010 YC112

OUCH (Open University of Celestial Hardship) began 'nullsec survival and PVP training' operations in Curse, teaching new pilots and 'carebears' how to survive and fight in nullsec.
Pandemic Legion moved to Curse.
Burnt out by alliance warfare, Quantum Industries corporation leaves RAZOR and tries Wormhole Operations and briefly joins Brick Squad in Curse in an effort to revitialize itself. The attempt is deemed a failure and QI enters a hiatus, keeping only a small active member-base of veterans and returning members
Majesta Empire and Controlled Chaos had a road trip to Curse for a week, setting up a nullsec base of operations in Hemin.

2011 YC113

Coreli Corporation reactivated and set up operations in Curse, joining with Angel Cartel loyalists in the Naraka alliance.
Aggravated Assault is an alliance formed by Appetite 4 Destruction, based in Curse.
An assault into the Curse region by Test Alliance Please Ignore, Gentlemen's Agreement, and a number of other Deklein coalition members was put on hold to accommodate a call for help from the Northern Coalition. The Curse strategy was initially to create a diversion into the Drone Russian Forces lines by disrupting sovereignty in the south controlled DRF region.
Razor Alliance was in Providence and Curse searching for their soul or something.

Does anyone else have any more information about Curse? Please send it to me so that I can update this page.

I'm still working on a timeline of Eve based on recorded histories of player corporations and alliances throughout the regions that I travel in. It's a big job, so any help from you guys would be really appreciated.

[Added 24 Oct 2011] Information has been gathered with thanks from the following sources:

Eve Online Wikipedia - Player Corporations
Eve Online Wikipedia - Player Alliances
@NHBoehm (Twitter) / Sorcerers Apprentice (character)

Around New Eden - Day 5

2011-10-17T21:30:00.001+11:00

I went back to Y-D and discovered about 30 pilots showing in local. After warping to the only station (at a distance) I found a number of the locals camping the station exit, so I decided to make a station exit bookmark before I docked there. Luckily for me it was easy enough... The exit was from the bottom, so I just maneuvered directly under the station and then moved downwards until I was at a reasonable distance and then made the bookmark. Then I docked in the station.

The reason I was docking at the station was to check where my jump clones were. Imagine my surprise when I found out I had none! Then I remembered it was my sister that had jump clones... duh!

So I undocked and found a number of ships still camping the exit, one of which was a Sabre. One of the ships tried to bump me off the exit path but I quickly warped to my bookmark before he got close enough to hit me. Good thing, otherwise they would have tackled and destroyed my ship. I was surprised the Sabre didn't throw up a bubble though.

After warping to the gate that was next on my route, I found another corpse! It was about 80km from the gate, surrounded by the wreckage of a number of ships. I suspected that a bubble had been here, and poor Nitrous Nine had lost himself another clone....

After I scooped the body and quickly warped back to a tactical bookmark, I saw a cyno field light up and decided to go have a look. It was only a Nidhoggur carrier though, which disappointed me. I was hoping to see a Titan! But I took a photo, went back to my tactical, and then on to my next destination.

ES-UWY
After jumping in here I took a photo of the gate, and then made myself a bookmark, as per standard procedure. Then I flew back through a few systems I'd already been to, so I could continue on to the next systems.

EQX-AE
Nothing to see here, move along.... Although, after checking through some statistical information I discovered that the previous 24 hours has seen the most NPC kills in this system throughout the entire region, with over 11,000 kills. Very busy!

H-ADOC
Three stations in here with 5 stargates and about 15 in local. My new friend 'medvedstvo' was here, and he told me about a big fight nearby where 7 Titans were destroyed. I asked him which system, and he told me it was in C-LTXS, in Wicked Creek. I've got 4 more regions to go through before I get there though. I said farewell and moved on. I'll have to go back his way again soon though, so I'm sure we'll meet up again.

OSY-UD
The best part about OSY was the photo...

G-G78S
This was another busy system with 4 stations, 4 gates and a dozen people in local. But not much else of interest.... After making some bookmarks I went to sleep.

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Documenting Eve's history by region

2011-10-13T13:37:00.002+11:00

I've come to think that it would be a good idea to provide some information about the regions that I travel through. From what I can tell, there's no real documentation of how things have changed in the regions over the years. Who was active in what region, and when? It could be an interesting mission in itself to hunt down the information of a region's historical background, and detail all the major events within that region since Eve's beginning.

So I'm going to try...

The official background of Curse is as follows:

"Curse is the old home of the Jove Empire. The Jovians departed their home centuries ago after the fall of their Second Empire and set themselves up in their current whereabouts to form the Third (and current) Empire. The cause of the departure was the dreaded Jove Disease, which only Jovians could catch. Having found no cure for the disease the Jovians decided to leave their home worlds in a desperate bid to rid themselves of the disease once and for all. The attempt failed. Today, the former Jovian systems are occupied by the Angel Cartel, the strongest pirate clan in the world of EVE. Rumor has it that the source of their power is old Jovian technology scavenged from the relics of old Jovian stations and settlements."

There's also an old Jovian poem associated with this region:

"Once we were mighty,
Stars bent to our will,
Our reach was infinite,
Our power incontestable,
With outstretched hands we tried,
To touch the face of perfection,
But we came too close,
To that which is not due mortals,
And our punishment is our curse,
Our endless sorrow."
- Translation of an old Jovian poem

What is the punishment they speak of? Was it the Jove Disease? I wish I could learn more about the Jovians.

Of course, we can't forget about the Angel Cartel, the sovereign owners of this region. They're one of the oldest and most powerful of the criminal organisations in the galaxy. Around 100 years ago they established themselves in Utopia and expanded from there, getting their power from Jovian technology discovered in their ancient homes - now owned by the Angel Cartel. Some of the most impressive ships available were created by the Angel Cartel: the Dramiel frigate, the Cynabal cruiser, and the Machariel battleship.

I'd like to know more about the history of Curse, and of other regions.

What's the history of this region as far as the players are concerned?
What major corps or alliances have come and gone over the years?
What major events have transpired that's worthy of being recorded?

I think it would be a great idea to gather as much information as I can and document it into a timeline, tagged by region and system where appropriate. This information can be searchable, and if people want to know if something happened in their region or system, they can search and get a player history of their location.

Do you have interesting information that you can provide me? I'd like it to be about major events in the history of a region, including:

major battles
major alliances and their history
major political changes
anything else relevant!

Send your knowledge to me. Either include a timeline if you know it, or just dates that you recall. Go as far back into Eve Online's beginnings as you would like. Help me to create a historical timeline of major player/corp/alliance events throughout the history of Eve Online.

Even if you have just one event to tell me about, please do. Include the date, and some information about what happened. I think this would be of value to the Eve player community, but I can't do it without your help.

Leave your submission as a comment here, or send me an evemail me in-game with your submission to this project. Thank you!

PS. if you know of a website that already does this, please provide a link so I can check it out. My research so far suggests it doesn't exist, so if it does I'd love to know about it.

UPDATE:
I've added a thread to the Eve Online forums asking for people to help out with this project and provide some information on what they believe are major events in their past that are worth being recorded. You can follow it here:

History of player events as a timeline

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Around New Eden - Day 4

2011-10-12T22:18:00.001+11:00

After waking up again in S1DP-Y I headed back to M-N to continue on the journey. I made a bookmark at the outbound gate first, of course.

Y-DW5K
Jumping into an out of the way system and finding 30+ in local is enough to make things a little jumpy. What would be worse is if they're all sitting around the gate you've just jumped into. Luckily for me, they weren't!

After getting clear of the gate, I checked the info on their bio's and found most of them were from 'Death Or Glory' and 'Gypsy Band'. I waved in local, but none of them waved back. How rude.... I got a really interesting photo of a nearby ringed planet, almost like a huge black hole.

QFEW-K
There wasn't as many in here as in Y-D, so I just spent a bit of time making a bookmark.

I also took the opportunity to check out a list of known attractions and landmarks around the galaxy, so that I can see if there's any I need to watch out for.

In the process, I found a blog another travel blog: Eve Travel

Mark726 has been documenting quite a few of the landmarks, so I'm going to do a bit of 'exploring' of his blog and see what information I can gather for myself.

CVY-UC
It was almost downtime as I entered this system, so I made a bookmark, took a photo, and then settled in for another nice sleep in an out-of-the-way system. Surprisingly, there were a few people in here, and someone even responded to my wave. I was able to engage them ('medvedstvo' of the Wreck Alliance) in a conversation over the open comms and they gave me some good feedback about the documenting of my adventures.

In fact, I had a really good conversation with him, and I thank him for taking the time to talk to me about these adventures I'm writing. He even gave me some interesting information told me that CVY is only 1 carrier jump from lowsec (Podion), and has 2 level 4 agents. No wonder it has a few pilots in it at this time of the day!

An interesting bit of history is that during the BOB days, it used to have a capital fleet base. Apparently they used to bubble every gate for 5-6 jumps around.

During the conversation I also found that the evemaps.dotlan.net website provides landmark information in the form of how many landmarks are in relevant systems, in each region. I think that's going to be invaluable for me.

Based on what I learned, I can see that the following landmarks have already been explored by me:

J7A-UR: Derelict Ruins
CL-85V: Unidentified Cartel Hideout

Apparently there was an Abandoned Mining Colony in Doril, but I didn't see it. Damn... How did that happen? Well, now that I have this resource available to me I won't be missing any more!

By the way, if anyone wants to send me a photo of Doril's 'Abandoned Mining Colony', please do. I'll update the Doril entry with the new photo.

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Issue 25 of EON Magazine is out now!

2011-10-12T20:09:00.003+11:00

I was just provided this information about the latest EON Magazine. Don't forget to get your copy!

Issue #025 - Published 7th October 2011

SHATTERED HORIZONS
Dominion was the last time the foundations of null-sec were reformed and, while intentions were good, two years on things haven't turned out quite as hoped. Now CCP is preparing to set things right again, only this time with long-term vision that could impact not just 0.0 space, but every part of EVE Online. Massively.com <http://Massively.com/> 's Brendan Drain explores the potential for EVE's long-term future and sees reason to be quietly optimistic.

EVE'S GREATEST SCAMS - PART 1
If you weren't tempted into EVE by the boasts of an impending expansion, it may have been due to the exploits of the players - those that have stolen and scammed their way to become New Eden's most notorious characters. From Nightfreeze to Cally and from Remedial to Istvaan Shogaatsu, we look at the 10 biggest thefts and most notorious scams that dominated EVE's early years.

NOBLE INTENTIONS
The Noble Exchange has probably been the most contentious addition to EVE since the game first went live, providing a means for characters to dress themselves up in specialist virtual clothing at a premium non-game-breaking price. We fired off a load of questions to CCP to see how business has been going and ask what's in store for the next iteration of NeX as a new expansion nears.

UNDERSTANDING INCURSIONS
Six months on since they were introduced to New Eden, we evaluate and explore EVE's most recent gameplay addition, with a guide to joining and emerging victorious against the Sansha hordes. Also in our expanded 15-page Knowledge Base Guide section we dig behind the back story to bring you the definitive history of CONCORD.

PLUS

In Crowd with CCP Zulu & CCP Tallest
0utbreak, Vuk Lau and Colossus Technologies profiled
The latest CSM and 0.0 Report
The CrazyKinux Story
All you need to know about hiring mercenaries
Alliance Tournament Testflight
The Rise & Fall of ATLAS
Apocalypse under the spotlight
Who's top of the BattleClinic Rankings?

Does anyone want to help me rat?

2011-10-11T22:28:00.002+11:00

You know, I've been thinking about the fact that my security status is currently -9.27... While that will certainly make for an interesting time travelling through highsec, it would be nice to have a sec status that means I don't have other pilots or CONCORD shooting at me while I'm looking at some kind of landmark in highsec...

So I'm putting out a request.

If anyone would like to have me join their fleet when I'm passing through their area and have me tag along while they're doing a bit of battleship ratting, that would be awesome. You might need to lend me a fitted battleship though, 'cause my covert ops ship just won't cut it... Don't worry though, I'll hand the battleship back at the end of the fleet op, and I have no interest in trying to steal it. It won't be a good ship to go travelling around the galaxy with!

I know that's a big ask, but in exchange you'll get a mention in this thread and on my blog. A bit of public appreciation for you. I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do.

Send me an evemail in-game or convo me. Don't just invite me to a fleet unannounced, or I'll simply reject it as a bad attempt to try and warp to me and kill me.

Around New Eden - Day 3

2011-10-11T22:05:00.001+11:00

Still in Curse region

It's fun waking up in new and exciting places each day! Well... some of them are a little more exciting than others. I think D87E-A had the same people in local that were there when I went to sleep...

V7D-JD
Decided to get a photo of the station in this system, just to add a bit of variety. Oh, I fixed the controls on the camera so it no longer includes the system location. I know it added some identification to each of the photos, but now it looks a lot better, cleaner. I'd like to thank 'mikestermike' for the tip. I had to do some playing around with configuration options, but eventually I succeeded.

5E-VR8
This was the last of the systems I needed to visit in the Paradise constellation. After taking a quick photo and doing a bookmark, I jumped out to make my way back up the pipe to VOL-MI, and then onwards. Speaking of bookmarks, I've decided to cut my travel time down by making bookmarks only at the outbound gates, rather than all the gates. Even a single bookmark is better than none, and in terms of travel, is better than all.

VOL-MI
Even though I've already been here and didn't really need to comment about it again, I had something new occur here. I found a corpse floating in space. Poor ol' Darf Smegma... I decided to retrieve the corpse and carry it with me until I can dock somewhere and contract each of the corpses back to their owners. Just in case they want them for religious purposes. Or something.

I scooped the corpse, cloaked and then quickly warped back to my tactical JUST as a dozen Outbreak pilots entered the system. I saw at the bookmark off the gate, and waited for them to leave before continuing on. A Loki arrived at my gate, just as everyone started disappearing from local. Outbreak were moving on in a different direction. Yay! I waited a few minutes after the Loki jumped through before jumping as well.

HLW-HP
Seven stations in this system! Wow. And I was surprised to find that I've actually been active here before, with all three gates bookmarked already. That's good, it makes things easier for me. After taking a photo of the lovely planet and star, I checked the map. Now, HLW is a bit of a T-junction. If I go 'east' it will take me to a number of systems that would lead me eventually to Scalding Pass, while 'west' would take me eventually to Great Wildlands. Since GW is my next region, I decided to go east, to complete all those systems before heading back to complete the western systems. Just as I was about to warp off, the single local tried to invite me to join a fleet. I don't think so buddy! This fella wasn't born yesterday.

RA-NXN
Upon entering RA the first thing I noticed was the beautiful view of the nearby planet and star. I took a photo after going to a tactical bookmark, and then checked the dozen pilots in local. Oh, look at that! They're all from the Goonswarm Federation.

XX9-WV
In here I found some Russians talking amongst themselves. Not being able to understand, I ignored them and flew to a star, and then to the outbound gate before making a bookmark.

M-N7WD
Leaving the Russians and their cyrillic conversations behind was refreshing. I saw a lovely view of a ringed planet in the distance. I think that's a nice photo.

It's interesting how I haven't seen any bubbles since K-Q. It's like that section of Curse is full of people that use bubbles, while everywhere else is bubble-free. Interestingly, the bubbles are only used from Doril to 8G, an active travel route from Empire space.

S1DP-Y
I took a photo in here and then was about to leave when my systems went offline (Downtime - it's 10pm for me here in Australia). Must be time for bed!

Statistics

I've added some statistics to the sidebar, showing how many systems there are in Eve, and how many I've done so far, and how many regions I've completed, and how many ships / pods I've lost. After every post update I'll also update the statistics.

Yesterday I'd completed 0.44%

See you good people next time!

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Another fellow traveller

2011-10-11T12:01:00.002+11:00

I just found out about Katia Sae exploring Eve as well. She's been doing exactly the same as what I've just started doing, but she's been doing it quite a bit longer. I think she's putting a whole lot more effort into the system documentation than I am, but I can see I can learn from her efforts.

Is there anyone else out there who's exploring or travelling?

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Around New Eden - Day 2

2011-10-11T08:51:00.002+11:00

And so begins day 2.

I noticed that there's another occupant of the AAM-1A system, who was also sitting in the station with me. I spent a few minutes watching, but he didn't undock. Could be AFK, I thought, so I undocked my own ship. Lo and behold, he's undocked too, in a Dramiel. He probably was waiting until I disappeared from station and then undocked to try and get me.

So I tried to dock up again as I have no station exit bookmark here, but had to wait 15 seconds before I can do so; I made sure not to try and move off my undock path, or I'd become vulnerable. It looked like he tried to bump me but failed and I dock up again, safe and sound. I waited in station until he finally left the system, and then I undocked and made myself a station exit bookmark while there's no one else around, quickly followed by a gate bookmark as well, while wondering if he's preparing a gate camp with his friends on the other side of the only gate out of here... I waited a few minutes to see if anyone would jump through, and when they didn't, I jumped through into K-Q. No one was waiting for me, so I warped over to the CL gate.

CL-85V
After getting through the gate without a problem, I entered CL and immediately saw a beacon announcing an 'Unidentified Cartel Hideout'. Naturally I went to have a look. Nothing much of interest, apart from a lone pirate battlecruiser, but I got this information about it:

"Pirate hideouts are often found tucked away inside the deadspace pocket of a high security system or floating more openly in the lawless sectors of space, where they attract questionable clientele. For the Cartel, these places serve as a home and base of operations. At any given time, the occupants must be able to answer the call to arms or provide sanctuary to ranking members of the Cartel’s shadowy leadership."

EW-JR5
From CL I jumped into EW. I took the opportunity to modify my graphical settings to try and get better photos. (I use an iMac, but with all the problems with the Mac client, I use the Windows client in a virtual desktop which runs much better than the Mac client, but I normally have the graphics settings 'optimized for performance'. Since I'm not going to be involved in PVP for a time, I think it'll be ok to increase some of the graphics settings for 'quality'.)

MDD-79
Planets look a little better now. That was all that was interesting in here though. The locals don't like me too much, so I didn't hang around too long. I make my way back through EW and CL.

8G-MQV
I took a photo of some of my corp mates camping a bubble and waiting for some juicy prey to get caught in it. I waited about half an hour to see if I could take photos of them shooting someone, but no such luck, it was a slow period. I moved on with farewells from my OUCH corp mates coming through comms. It might be two or three years before I'm back here again....

VOL-MI
After taking a photo in this system, I headed 'south' on the map, towards the route leading to Catch, but I won't be going that far. I'll just be doing the constellation systems down there instead.

K-B2D3
One of the things I plan on doing is making 'safe' bookmarks for gate travel, to avoid catch bubbles if I ever need to in the future. Since I've never been active in K-B before, now the bookmarking begins...

PO4F-3
I entered this system and was surprised to find 5 stations! I decided to have a look at each of them and see if any of them offered a pretty photo. One of them was suitable. After bookmarking some gates, I moved on.

V-IUEL
As I flew across this system to the next, I pondered upon my decision to fly around nullsec first. I think all the really interesting sights and landmarks are in highsec rather than nullsec. But that's ok. All these places need to be visited anyway, so it may as well be at the beginning.

OSHT-A
A bunch of pilots from White Noise and Against All Authorities were in here. At first I wasn't sure if they were working together or against each other, but after they started abusing each other, I realised they certainly weren't friendly with each other! While ignoring the foul commentary coming out of the comms system, I made some bookmarks, but they were still at when I finished it so I went to my bunk to read a book for an hour. I didn't want to risk jumping through the exit gate while some of them were sitting on it. When I came back to the cockpit they were all gone. In studying the map, I realised that OSHT is the entry point to Catch, and as such, is probably regularly fought over as an entry point to player-controlled nullsec.

JWJ-P1
More of the red background... I've decided that even though this constellation is called Paradise, it looks a lot like Hell....

J7A-UR
Well, after JWJ being so empty, I was surprised to find 5 others in local when I entered this system. But I also noticed on the overview that there were some Derelict Ruins:

"The ruins of some projects and expeditions are still unknown to this day. Either too secretive or minor to have been remembered in any empire’s history, these ruins remain a complete mystery to the local citizens and scholars alike."

These ruins made me feel a little sad, wondering how many people lost their lives in the construction of this artifact before they had to leave for whatever reason. Were they attacked? Was it a disaster? It's a mystery...

D87E-A
At the centre of the Paradise constellation, it was almost as busy as J7A. Five gates lead in all directions, so it took a little while to make some bookmarks. By the time I'd finished, it was bedtime. The days, they just fly by...

Map of travels so far
I decided to take a quick snapshot of my galaxy map, which shows where I've been so far. As you can see, in all my years of being a pod pilot, I haven't travelled very far from a few regions. This adventure will change that.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll hear from me again tomorrow.

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Around New Eden - Day 1

2011-10-10T11:20:00.001+11:00

After a very small amount of preparation and a decision to forget about ratting to improve my sec status, I set off on my journey with the expectation that most of my highsec travels will be done in my pod, unless I can get away with it with a covert ops ship instead. I'll test it and see, but for a while, I'll be using my Covert Ops ship to travel around a few nullsec regions. In fact, according to my mapping calculations, I'll be travelling 17 nullsec regions before I hit an Empire (lowsec or highsec) region.

Curse Region

This is where I'm beginning the journey, and where I'll one day end it. Curse is an NPC-controlled nullsec region, so the entry points aren't as well-patrolled as the player-controlled regions.

Doril
There's nothing of interest here, so I warped to the sun for a photo and discovered that someone had put up 3 'catch bubbles' at the sun, and then left them there. That was interesting enough to take a photo...

Utopia
Again, nothing of interest, and it was completely empty. I took a photo of the star and then warped off to the gate to the next system.

Litom
Another boring place. To be honest, I'm expecting there to be PLENTY of such places... I decided I'd start taking photos of the background view of the system instead of the stars if I couldn't find anything else of interest. At least they seem to change with each system.

Jamunda
I was alone in here, with nothing to see but the beautiful backdrop of space and the rings of a nearby planet. Jamunda is on the edge of Catch, and since that's not scheduled just yet, I headed back to Utopia to go to Hemin.

Hemin
Bored. Another boring photo. At least it's good there's so few people around this region while I'm travelling.

Jorund
Ah, something interesting at last! Well, sort of... There were some mission agents hanging around the Farit gate, so I got a photo of one of their ships.

Farit
This is a dead-end system with nothing of interest. Not even anyone hiding out there. So it was back to Hemin I go, to head 'up the pipe' to the rest of Curse.

RMOC-W
Now we're into the weird-ass names that are more 'designations' than names. There were a few people in this system, and I found them hanging out around the K-QWHE gate with a couple of bubbles. I took a photo, and moved on to the YKE gate.

YKE4-3
Even though it's off the main 'pipe' there were a few people hanging out in here, probably because of the station. Nothing to see, so I moved on to K-Q.

K-QWHE
Immediately upon jumping into this system, I found myself inside a mobile large warp bubble surrounding the gate. If I was in a pod, I'd probably be screwed, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. Were they cloaked? Local had maybe a dozen showing, but no one around the bubble.

I started moving in a random direction and then activated my ship's cloak. As soon as I was cloaked, I changed direction and headed downwards, just in case anyone tried to decloak me by moving in the same direction they saw me moving. By the time I exited the bubble I still hadn't seen anyone, and as I warped away I figured that maybe it was an old bubble that someone had left sitting on the gate.

CL-85V

No photo here, because after jumping into CL, I checked my map and realised I'd forgotten a system! I warped to a tactical bookmark and then back to the K-Q gate, jumping back in and then on to the gate of the system I'd missed.

AAM-1A
Another dead-end system off the main route meant that no one was around. I looked at the clock and saw it was midnight, and decided it was time for bed. After taking a photo of the station I was going to sleep at, I signed off.

End of day 1 with 12 systems recorded.

Let's assume I'll do an average of 15 systems a day. It will take me 416.6 days to do 5,000 systems. If I do 3 days a week, it'll take me a bit over two and a half years to complete.

This adventure should keep me occupied for a while...

Please DONATE to help me travel around New Eden

A fellow traveller

2011-10-10T08:46:00.002+11:00

Over on the Poetic Discourse blog, Poetic Stanziel is also doing some travelling, but she's only going through just a bit more than 200 systems.

I'm enjoying reading about her adventures. It's giving me an idea of what to expect on some of mine.

My path around New Eden

2011-10-09T17:40:00.001+11:00

So I've just spent a bit of time working on my pathway around New Eden. The map to the left (click on it to enlarge) shows the route I'll be taking, which takes in every single region of New Eden without going through the same region twice.

I'll be doing this mostly in my pod (sometimes I'll be in a shuttle...). Over 5,000 systems.

I'm starting in Curse, and ending in Curse. I don't know how long it'll take me, but I will complete it. I'll be taking photos in every system and compiling them into a database of sorts. Not sure how yet, but I'm confident the details will work themselves out over time.

AFK in pod in nullsec

2011-10-09T12:11:00.005+11:00

I've been jumping around nullsec in my pod, after losing my stealth bomber to some warp scrambling rats, the little pricks.

Then I got distracted by a housemate that needed something urgent, and forgot I was in warp to a gate. Then the housemate made me a cup of tea. Then I sat down with them and chatted about stuff. Then I remembered I was flying around nullsec in a freakin' pod and quickly jumped up and left them. Housemates don't understand Eve....

So I got back to the computer and saw the pod - still alive! - only a few hundred metres from the gate. There was someone there in a Proteus, and they were only a few km away. How long had they been there?! Then I saw that they were wanting to open a convo with me.

friend > Would you please get your capsule off the gate, you are making me nervous :)
Black Claw > I can't believe I went AFK in my pod on a gate in nullsec
Black Claw > thank you for not killing me!
Black Claw > lol
friend > I was trying to protect you, at least a little
Black Claw > that was very, very kind of you.... why?
friend > I will be joining The alliance later today probably
friend > I was going to take the easy kill and noticed the alliance
friend > I am joining [censored]
Black Claw > oh, I see
friend > why exactly were you afk at a gate in 0.0 ?
Black Claw > so you're giving up CEO?
friend > yep
friend > need to get some pvp time in
Black Claw > I'm just talking about this in corp chat
friend > gonna get some of my corpies into [censored] too

I mentioned this in corp chat, and then copied it to my new friend:

Black Claw > Black Claw > I go stupid for a few minutes, afk in my pod on a gate, and the ONE guy that's joining the alliance checks my info before he shoots, and decides to protect me
Black Claw > :)
friend > :)
friend > I'm hoping you don't teach afk pod-camping gates in OUCH. :)
Black Claw > so you're a friend of one of the [censored] members?
friend > Yeah, [censored] and I go way back
Black Claw > no, 'afk in pod' is not a class we teach ;)
friend > Back in the Derelik [censored] days :)
Black Claw > [censored] is an excellent member of the alliance. I think you will be too
Black Claw > thank you again :)
friend > no problem
friend > see you soon :)
Black Claw > o7

I need to be more careful about flying around in my pod....

Black Claw's going sightseeing

2011-10-07T13:57:00.000+11:00

Back in 2006, in my first year of play, I decided to go sightseeing around New Eden:
http://blackclawtravels.blogspot.com/search/label/sightseeing

It didn't last very long before I returned to my duties because my corp at the time had war declared against it.

But now, five years later, I'm ready to return to my sightseeing adventures. My blog is BLACKCLAWTRAVELS.blogspot.com and its original name was The Travels of Black Claw, because that's what I was going to do. Now that I'm no longer the CEO of OUCH and I have more time on my hands, it's what I'll be doing again.

I'm going to go through every region in the galaxy, and visit every system. I'm going to take a screenshot of some kind of item of interest in every system, whether that's just the sun, or a beacon, or a Titan wreck. I'll put the screenshots on a special Flickr account and have them linked via the blog. I'll also, of course, blog about the travels and my experiences.

I know others have done this before. But that doesn't invalidate me doing it either. Others have fought in fights too, doesn't mean I shouldn't.

I'm going to do this systematically, slowly and carefully. Every system, every screenshot, every experience - noted and documented. I'll be printing out region maps and going through every system and crossing it off.

But first I have to get my security status back under -2.0, so I'm going to go ratting for a week or so until I'm 'free' to return to 1.0 highsec systems again. Boy, that'll be an experience....

As I travel around, I'd like to make friends wherever I go - and try not to make enemies! I'd like to build a network of friends throughout the entire galaxy, and take screenshots as we meet and have parties. You know, I've never seen a Titan in all my years. I'd like see one. Maybe I can?

As I meet people, I'll shout out to them on my blog. If they have blogs of their own, I'll link to them. Maybe they can shout out and link to me too after we've partied, and we can promote this adventure together.

And wouldn't it be cool if I had people joining me! We could have 'Black Claw's Roaming Sightseeing Fleet'....

Well, I think it's a cool idea, even if you don't. :)

OUCH takes its training seriously

2011-10-06T13:24:00.000+11:00

There are some people out there that think that because Eve Online is a game, it shouldn't be taken seriously.

However, your choices in Eve have consequences, and those consequences have an impact on your assets. Assets that you worked damn hard to build up. Assets worth millions, or hundreds of millions - even billions! You value these assets, and you would rather not lose them if you can help it. Your assets are a result of your significant investment of time and resources in this game, and you take that very seriously indeed.

It's all well and good for people to treat Eve as a game, as a joke, but they're usually the ones out there with few assets of their own, while trying to take your hard-earned assets away from you. Usually with extreme force. They have more experience at this than you have at avoiding or preventing them.

That, of course is where OUCH comes in. We understand how serious you are about your own personal investments of time and resources, and so we take our training very, very seriously.

Your time with OUCH is a continued investment into your survival, and the survival of your assets. We teach you:

how to survive travelling in nullsec
what dangers to look out for and avoid
and how to fight

It's that 'how to fight' bit that's pretty important too. Not only do you want to protect your assets by being aware of the dangers out there when you're moving them around, but there will always come a time when you might have to fight to protect them.

OUCH will teach you how to setup combat ships, how to use them appropriately, how to work in fleets with corp-mates, and how to kick ass!

We take ass-kicking very seriously.

So if you're looking for an organisation who takes YOUR investments seriously, then consider joining OUCH today.

If you want instructions on how to join us, then join the OUCH-UNI channel in-game.

OUCH has a new CEO

2011-09-16T16:46:00.001+10:00

As of today I am no longer CEO of OUCH.

I've handed the role over to CampoV, who has been my trusted Lieutenant, my right-hand man, and my Training Director for the past year or so. He has effectively been running OUCH from within the US/EU timezone, and has been responsible for the training that has been developed and implemented since I handed the training over to him in 2010. Today I have rewarded him for his hard work and dedication by officially handing over the leadership.

With me being in the Aussie timezone it's been a challenge to effectively run the corp. Right from the beginning I knew that I had to find trainers and leaders in the US and EU timezones to manage the state of affairs while I was asleep. It took some time, but I was able to achieve my goal. I developed a core group of Directors that took on senior staff roles, and I could not have continued without them. OUCH's success so far has been thanks to all of them.

Why did you hand over the CEO position?

I'm not so egotistical to think that the corp couldn't survive and prosper without me. I am not the corp. [Edit: I'll revisit this in 12 months and see if I'm right... :) ]

From the beginning of OUCH's inception, I knew that this was just another step in my ongoing path through the Eve Online galaxy. OUCH was a great idea that needed to be developed and implemented, but I knew my leadership was only temporary. I knew that one day I would hand it over to someone else.

So I set in place the mission, and I looked for the leadership staff that would share my vision for OUCH, who would follow it, and who would promote it. Once I was satisfied that CampoV supported that mission, and waited some more until he himself was ready for the role, we organised the transition that was completed today.

My involvement with OUCH is not over, and it might never be over. I am now a Director of OUCH, and will be responsible for recruitment and public relations moving forward. Oh, and maybe a bit of management advice every now and again.

This is OUCH's mission that I'll continue to promote:

Mission Statement
OUCH provides nullsec survival and pvp training to help new pilots and carebears survive and overcome fears about the dangers of nullsec, and become valuable assets for any nullsec corporation or alliance.

What next?

Now that I'm no longer CEO, I'll have just a little bit more time to do some other things that I want to explore. My alt, Alexia Morgan, is a Director in a new lowsec PVP corp called Kadavr Black Guard, and will be assisting its recruitment, growth and operations. Now I can focus a bit more on this.

As Alexia, I want to do the following:

I want to do more hunting for the abandoned POS's of inactive corps and organise battleship fleets to go smash 'em up and scoop the loot
I want to be involved in more wars
I want to get better at PVP (I never considered myself a good PVP'er, and OUCH started as a nullsec survival corp... the PVP training came when I had good PVP'ers onboard who could provide that training)

As Black Claw, I want to do the following:

continue to help OUCH grow and become the premiere nullsec surival and PVP training corp in the Eve galaxy
promote OUCH's activities more in the public arena, eg. blogging, Twitter, etc
get more involved in PVP (see my PVP comments above)

As you can see, I have some nice plans for my enjoyment as Alexia, so I'm quite looking forward to that!

Thank you

To all those who have supported OUCH, or gone through OUCH training and moved on, or are even still in OUCH today - thank you for your support. Without every single one of you, OUCH wouldn't be the successful corp that it is today.

And it's only going to get better.

Eve Online Education Organisations

2011-09-08T12:09:00.004+10:00

This is exciting! I got an email from CCP today to advise me about the new Eve Wiki entry about Educational Organisations being run by corps and alliances within Eve. I was very excited to see that OUCH was already included and even had appropriate content provided by CCP.

Eve Online Educational Organizations

I've done a little bit of editing to tidy it up and get it up to date (some of the info and links were to stuff from last year), and now it's ready for access.

Just another element in the exposure of OUCH as a training organisation. Yay!

ECM and the Art of War

2011-09-08T11:38:00.000+10:00

There's a lot of people that seem to think that using ECM ships is cheating, which is quite odd when you take into account that CCP developed these ships to be used. If using them was 'cheating', then they would be removed by CCP, Eve Online's developers.

But no, using ECM ships is not cheating. Instead, it's taking advantage of ship resources (when available) in order to gain an advantage.

"All warfare is based on deception.
Therefore, when you can attack, it must seem as if you can’t.
When moving your fleet, you must seem idle.
When you are near the enemy, you must make them believe you are far away.
When you are far away, you must make them believe you are near."
- Black Claw's Art of War

The real issue is not with ECM, but with the people that are too lazy or too stupid to learn how to deal with it. Instead of thinking about the situation and coming up with strategies on how to mitigate the effectiveness of ECM ships, they cry. Boy, do they cry.

Every time someone complains about something in the game rather than thinking of a strategy to deal with it, I see a child who just hasn't matured enough to cope with a changing environment. Maybe they will, one day. But for now, they throw tantrums, cry, and complain that their opponents are cheating. Or they're gay. People that use ECM are gay, they say.

Stupid. Really stupid.

And it's really sad when people that you once respected as being your adult equals, when confronted by ECM ships and ECM tactics, break down and cry and scream and do their absolute best to show you that they're really small children with no ability to cope or think outside the box.

I have no time for them.

The Art of War Alliance is for smart people who want to use their brain and understand how to fly smart. Most people fly stupid, and after some recent crying and gnashing of teeth by some ex-alliance members, I've decided that we just don't want those kinds of people in our alliance.

I've had reports that some corporations and alliances that pass through our operational areas of nullsec do their very best to avoid us, apparently because we use ECM and we cheat. I laugh a lot when I hear these stories.

"Therefore, to fight and conquer in all battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without actually fighting."
- Black Claw's Art of War

You have to remember that OUCH is the primary member of the Art of War Alliance, and OUCH is filled with noobs and carebears. it's a great feeling to know that elite PVP corps and alliances are wary of us.

Of course, sometimes they want to fight us, and sometimes we fight them back. Sometimes we avoid them.

"It is the rule in war:
If our fleet is ten to the enemy’s one, surround him.
If five to one, attack him.
If twice as numerous, divide the fleet into two.
If equally matched, we can offer battle.
If slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy.
If unequal in every way, we can flee from them."
- Black Claw's Art of War

It amazes me how many people think that 'real PVP' is all about fighting losing battles against overwhelming odds. You're not a real PVPer unless you repeatedly engage ships you can't win, and you avoid using ships or tactics that will help you win because you believe that doing so is 'gay'. They're the ones that call you 'gay' or 'faggot' because your single frigate runs away from their fleet of battlecruisers.

It's amazing how much stupidity there is in Eve Online. If we could smell in space, we would know it is filled with the aroma of stupidity, left in the wake of all those that travel the systems, imagining how 'elite' they are because they lose their ships against overwhelming odds.

The fleets of OUCH and the Art of War Alliance are commanded by people who understand the Art of War. It's an essential element to our success, especially when our fleets are populated by pilots who are inexperienced at nullsec PVP or even to the game itself. Most of our successes against the 'elite' are from noobs and carebears who are taught how to modify and use the environment to their advantage,

"There are five essentials for victory:
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior fleets.
He will win whose fleet is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
He will win who, prepared, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the civilian leadership.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, you will gain as many defeats as victories. If you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will always fail."
- Black Claw's Art of War

No matter what people say about our tactics, they work. And at the end of the day, if you're going to engage in battle with someone, you should be choosing to engage to win. If you don't think you can win, why fight? We're often engaging in guerilla warfare tactics, knowing when to fight and when not to fight. It means we win much more than we lose.

After some recent experiences within the alliance that have been great for helping me learn new things, I've decided that any potential new members to the alliance must agree to certain expectations based on the Art of War. If they're going to fight within the Art of War Alliance, they need to commit to learning and practicing the Art of War. And flying ECM ships to gain an advantage over your opponents is allowed and encouraged - with appropriate support and leadership, of course. :)

I don't want any more stupid in the alliance, it leaves a bad taste.

Tales from the front line #5

2011-09-05T13:15:00.002+10:00

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'.

It's all part of the service

Open University loves to bubble camp. As part of our null security survival training program, members of OUCH religiously bubble camp the same single system in Curse almost everyday. We do it to provide basic PvP training for our students, but admittedly, we just like it.

Unfortunately, we've recently discovered that bubble camping is NOT Real PvP. Truly, we did not know this. We don't know how this could have happened. We were trying so hard and it certainly seemed like PvP to us.

We have learned that from the POV of our adversaries, all OUCH does is gank 'poor innocent travelers' in pods, noobships and shuttles (not to mention pvp fit dramiels, vagabonds, and cynabals) when they land in our mobile warp disruptor bubbles. We dishonorably use ECM and EWAR to score cheap kills on Real PvP pilots just looking for a good fight (and a killmail or two). We don't even fly real ships, (just cheap cruisers and frigates, and "damned cloakies"). And when a fleet of Real PvPers (in HACs and BCs) comes in, we hide instead of giving them a "good fight".

Damn. You caught us. Guilty as charged. Mea culpa.

What our detractors don't understand is OUCH provides a valuable service. We provide ready targets for solo pilots and small gangs on roams, looking for something to do. Sometimes we fight (and kill) cruiser and battlecruiser gangs who fly all the way (or titan bridge) from their home bases to get a shot at killing noobs who don't do Real PvP.

Now, sometimes we just safe up and watch them kill our bubble. It happens. You just can't please everyone. Bubbles are cheap.

Either way, we give these pilots something to do. Sometimes, we send them home in pods, where they can complain to their mates that Real PvPers don't use ECM. Alternately, they go home in their ships, pausing only to call us rude names for not engaging their 6 (sometimes 20) ship BC gang with a handful of frigs and cruisers.

Either way, if OUCH didn't provide this vital service, many of our adversaries would just roam through Curse bored to tears, flying from gate to gate with nothing to do. For these pilots, OUCH brings vitality to otherwise boring lives.

Here's feedback from interaction with some of our adversaries:

"Don't you guys get bored doing the same stuff everyday?"
"Everyone in Eve knows about your stupid bubble camp."
"I'm going to have to come back and grief you everyday now."
"Fight me, or I'll kill your bubble."
"I still like you guys, I just hate what you do."
"We would have owned you if it wasn't for that Blackbird."
"You obviously don't know what a good fight is."
"Come on kids, go to bed already."
"You guys suck."

Sometimes we wonder if it's worth it, bubble camping a small unimportant system trying to teach new players that null sec doesn't have to be scary. It's testimonials like these that keep us doing what we do.

And for that, we like to send a "Thank You" to all of our happy customers.

Sincerely,

Bren Genzan
Open University of Celestial Hardship

Tales from the front line #4

2011-07-21T13:52:00.000+10:00

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'.

We watch, and sometimes, we learn

Open University of Celestial Hardship [OUCH] is part of the Art of War Alliance. We train newbie PvP pilots to fly and die in NPC null security space. We do a lot of bubble camping.

Bubble camping is the lazy pilot’s PvP. We hang out and shoot the bull, watching for traffic. It’s kind of like duck hunting, ‘cept the ducks can get pretty big, and more often than not, they shoot back. It’s the perfect way to break a brand new pilot into PvP. The pilots of Open University and our brothers and sisters of Art of War Alliance have gotten pretty good at killing the careless, foolish and fearless.

We’ve seen a lot of cool things in NPC null, dodging the huge BC/BS fleets travelling through on their way to battles in SOV null, dealing with the smaller BC fleets looking for trouble. We’ve been hotdropped by Black Ops gangs, and Titan bridged battlecruiser fleets. We give fights to the guys who bring just enough fleet or ship to make it interesting. We hide and wave as the large fleets barrel through looking for something to kill. They deride us when we don’t engage their bait. We try to act surprised when local lights up, and the dozen or more battlecruisers that were waiting next door jump in.

With the lull in the summer, we are trying a few new things, but we had a chance to observe several fleets camping in the systems that we normally camp. It’s pretty interesting and even amusing.

We’ve seen a decent cloaky gang, Falcon, Hound, cloaky Sabre (not too unusual ) and a cloaky Vagabond (a bit unusual) running a gate camp or two. The cloaks allow them to choose their targets, and the ‘dictor bubble holds their target hopefully long enough for the Sabre and the Vaga to overcome their targeting delays and get scrams/points/webs their prey, while the Falcon protects them and the Hound brings the DPS to let them kill medium to large sized ships. They were pretty successful.

We’ve seen a Pilgrim, Vaga, Hurricane and Drake try something similar on a bubble camp. We engaged them with a frigate/cruiser fleet, mixed it up, and withdrew, keeping all of our ships intact. They in turn commenced to camp our bubble, the lot of them, cloaked up on it in scram/web range. They could not catch our interceptor, so we unanchored and pulled the bubble out from under them before we had a chance to see if their plan was going to work.

We’ve come to understand that “Everything cloaks in Curse”. Dramiel? Yep. Cynabal? Seen it. Armageddon? You bet. Rattlesnake? Hmm… Was that last week or the week before? Pretty sure it was last week.

We’ve watched a formidable gang camp our normal hunting grounds: 3 battleships, 4 battlecruisers, 2 logistics ships and a Dramiel. Multiple bubbles to catch traffic. The battleships sat on the bubbles, the rest of the gang on a tactical to warp in to the bubble that caught the traffic. But we didn’t see them catch anything except a beating, when a medium sized battlecruiser gang filled their dance card, killing several ships without taking significant losses.

We’ve seen Strategic Cruiser boosted Nano ‘Canes, Nano Drakes (yes, plural) , Vagas, and Cynabals. If a Tengu or Loki jumps in and stays one second longer than it takes to pass through the system, we can pretty much bet on his speed fit friends arriving shortly.

We’ve seen a small gang play our game: Rifter, Thrasher, Hawk, and Blackbird camping on a gate that we’ve been known to camp. That’s a play in our playbook, and they were playing on our field. We ran a play of our own on them and sent them on their way.

We’ve seen our former blues, but still colleagues, from Eve University bring large fleets into our region. Well balanced fleets heavy on EWAR, designed to herd new pilots into a PvP experience, which is no easy task. We respect that. But they’re way too big and we don’t think that they are going to find the fight they are looking for in our region of space.

And that’s the crux of the matter. It seems that most fleets are built around bringing overwhelming force, something that other fleets might think twice before engaging. But the bigger the fleet the harder it is to find a controllable fight.

That’s the catch 22: You want to be big enough to fight and win, but small enough to get the other guys to bring you the fight. Sun Tzu would say, that the good general wants to appear weakest where you are strongest.

Open University does small gang PvP. We fly light ships in small gangs, and when people want to engage us, it’s because they think they have a chance. But we don’t fight fair. We work hard at finding advantages and exploiting weaknesses, and if we don’t think that we can handle our opponent’s 7 ship Minmatar Rush gang… well… we let them go.

“So sorry, no kill mails for joo. Joo ‘ave a nice pocking day.”

That large bubble camp gang with the battleships we talked about earlier? They certainly had firepower, but they lacked mobility and they paid for it when the BC fleet showed up. That small gang we spoke of, playing our game? They were doing alright, and we’re sure they had scouts and a plan, but they couldn’t account for all the folks in local and it cost them a handful of ships.

For us, a 12 ship fleet starts to get complicated and a 20 ship fleet is about our limit. We balance our fleets with light and heavy tacklers, DPS, stealth and spread quite a bit of EWAR around. We’ve learned that if the fleet is too big, (or the ships are too big) people avoid you. As the ships get bigger, it becomes harder to bail out when things go bad. And if the fleet is too big, or the ships are too big, other fleets will up-ship or plus-ship so that they are bringing more than enough fleet to dominate you.

Ask any permanent Open University member how many guys the other fleet is going to bring to kill one Rifter, and you’ll get the same answer: “All of them.” That’s more than enough.

Staying light allows Art of War Alliance to be mobile and hostile. Our new guys might be flying T1 'cause they are inexperienced, but our veterans appreciate that you can fly a T1 Frigate or Cruiser and keep it fun. Killing command ships with frigates makes for great stories: you haven’t lived until you warp away after the tackle, trailing fire and smoke while your mates finish off that warship that cost 1000 times more than the ship you’re flying.

We’re not afraid to engage guys bigger than us, or in more powerful ships, but we do it on our terms. We’re fast, light and territorial killers. Like barracuda. Go small or go home.

Bren Genzan, Chief of Operations, Open University of Celestial Hardship [OUCH]

Are you rage quitting too?

2011-06-26T18:29:00.001+10:00

So many people rage quitting over Incarna and the macrotransactions... Me? Well, I just wont be buying the things I don't want, as I always have.

Ok, so you're quitting in protest. I wish you well. Could you please donate all your stuff to OUCH? The nullsec survival and PVP training Corp could really do with your donations, and your stuff would help a great deal of people.

Please contact Black Claw in-game to organize your donations. Thank you.

Tales from the front line #3

2011-06-08T13:18:00.000+10:00

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'. This is a recent engagement that our OUCH members were involved in. I want to remind you that these professional soldiers were - only very recently - noobs and carebears. There's no shame in being new, or being a carebear, because OUCH exists to help you grow. Just like it helped the below-mentioned members grow.

Gatecrashers
It was a normal day in our favored hunting grounds, with the exception of having two bubbles (one for each gate) up due to the size of the gathered fleet. I had chosen to come out in a covert ops scout to expand my growing inventory of tactical bookmarks and provide probing support and additional EWAR to the fleet, which appeared to have sufficient tacklers for the afternoon's festivities.

The traffic that day was enough to keep things interesting, but was also primarily singles and small fleets that are a welcome sight compared to the overwhelming blobs that usually interrupt our activities. Eyes in the adjacent systems kept us well informed about our next potential customer as they approached the system, and several ended up in the bubble as a snack for the wolves gathered around it.
This continued satisfactorily for a while, but then our eyes reported ships setting up a medium bubble next door. The fleet composition was a Myrmidon with ECM support from a cloaky Blackbird. It was noted that they had placed eyes in the system we were camping as well. We coexisted for an hour or so, with occasional report from our scouts.
Then one of our experienced pilots spoke up in fleet, "You know I could fit-up a tanked Vexor real quick for bait."

This simple statement was initially met with resistance by the FC, but the tactical planning and evaluation machine had already been set in motion. Experienced pilots began offering their analysis of the situation and our potential for successfully breaking the neighboring camp. The FC was reassured of our chances and planning began in earnest, while a lone pilot docked to begin crafting the bait.
The only remaining doubt was the possibility that our potential prey might have friends beyond the gate they were camping. This was put to rest by a scouting report that there was no relief available for the unsuspecting targets beyond the gate. "Clear to grid and scan, two neuts, different corp and alliance."
While this was happening, our quartermaster was busy contracting the remaining modules necessary to bring the bait ship online. Then the Vexor undocked and made its way back to the bubble for a final debrief before departing on its perilous mission of deception and mayhem.
The final plan was to ineptly pilot the baitship across our system, falling into our second bubble. This would hopefully be within sight of the cloaked spy stationed there by our targets. Following this the bait would then slow boat to the gate before jumping into the next system and warping into their waiting "trap" and engaging the hopefully eager Myrmidon pilot and his Blackbird partner. Knowing that eyes were watching the gate, the non-cloaked elements of the fleet aligned to their gate tacs and awaited the FC's order to warp to tacs and proceed through the gate to ultimately warp to the baitship, and hopefully victory.

A forward scout had achieved a position off their bubble which would be ideal for our ECM and EWAR pilots to engage the targets with an impressive array of electronics that has tipped many a fight in our favor. Our ECM ships were directed to warp to the scout when they entered the system.
In preparation for the orchestrated chaos that was about to occur, I positioned my cloaked Buzzard at a tac which was a short warp from the gate to the neighboring system, and the targets which lay within. I watched with excitement as the order sent the baitship into our bubble just off the gate and watched as it slowly cleared the bubble and made its journey to the gate and jumped beyond.
Voice comms were eerily silent until the baitship pilot reported "in warp to the bubble... in the bubble... Myrmidon engaged!"
Suddenly comms came alive, "fleet warp to tacs, go to gate, jump on contact." The order was answered by a flurry of reports that pilots were in warp. I initiated my short warp to the waiting gate as the first ships were arriving at tacs just off the gate, and jumped as the tacklers and damage boats were hitting the gate behind me.
Upon entering the neighboring system, I initiated my warp to our scout at 50km, hoping I would be in a good position to employ my sensor dampener and tracking disruptor while engaging my cloaking device in mid warp. I could not have hoped for a better vantage point.
The rest of the fleet swooped on grid and engaged the Myrmidon as the baitship reported that its cap was dry and was rapidly loosing armor due to the Myrmidon's neutralizers. We would learn later that the Myrmidon was fitted with a full rack of neutralizers and not a single gun, relying instead on its drones to put out the damage necessary for its purposes. Being unaware of this, I decloaked, engaged my sensor booster and targeted the Myrmidon, bringing my tracking disruptor and sensor dampener online, while a friendly Blackbird and Falcon set about removing the Blackbird's ability to jam our tacklers, which were swarming the Myrmidon.
To remove any possibility of the Myrmidon escaping, an interdiction sphere was launched. This unfortunately prevented the warp out of our baitship, which was deep into structure and was subsequently lost to the Myrmidon's drones. This was our only loss of the engagement.
Meanwhile, the Blackbird who had been jammed to impotence by our own ECM pilots warped out to our dismay, only to return to the killing grounds a short while later. The Myrmidon was almost through armor at that point, but we were soon to learn that it was hull tanked! Let me say it again, hull tanked!
The Blackbird's return was a grave error on the pilot's part, as I targeted it and cut its targeting range as soon as the ship exited warp. The doomed pilot hovered in space as a Rifter disengaged from the melee below and streaked with laserlike precision to the now aligning Blackbird.

"Scram web" was nonchalantly announced over comms by the Rifter pilot, who could probably tackle a cruiser in his sleep. My vantage point, some 80km from this maneuver, afforded a fantastic view of the purple box settling into what appeared to be a slow and deliberate orbit of the now trapped Blackbird, as the statement "Blackbird is jammed" was calmly passed via comms.

Following this flurry of activity, the Myrmidon slowly melted before our combined firepower as his accomplice watched, awaiting their own turn to go up in flames.

I locked the Myrmidons pod as it was expelled from the wrecked ship and tagged it briefly with my tracking disruptor, before reengaging it on the immobile Blackbird, just for the hell of it. Ultimately, the Blackbird pilot's pod escaped, perhaps due to the time they had to prepare their escape. The real prizes however, lay burning at our feet.
The fleet then set about looting the wrecks and cleaning up, while I engaged my engines and reengaged my cloak, delighting in the excitement of the hunt and the success of the operation. Afterwards, we set a course back to the bubble we had left unattended in our system, while leaving the bubble placed by our prey intact and unmolested. It was a good day.

I hope I have accurately portrayed the events of the engagement in such a way as to give credit to the intentionally unnamed pilots who made it all possible. These pilots are the reason that I came out to null, and are the primary reason why EVE and OUCH are providing the best online gaming experience I have had in twenty years of online gaming. Many thanks.

We're changing the rules

2011-05-29T15:34:00.001+10:00

A long time ago, OUCH started out as the 'school of hard knocks'. it encouraged the students to get out there and practice what they learnt from written guides on our forums. These guides were based on my experiences over the years, and the experiences of others, and they taught the basics of nullsec survival and PVP. We had ship programs that provided T1 frigates to the members, so they didn't have to worry about losing their own ships; but still, the fights they got in to were their own, and from them they learnt how to survive.

It was tough being a student back then in the early days. We didn't have any trainers apart from me. And being in Australia, my availability to the rest of the US/EU members was limited. I did what I could, staying up late and getting up early, so I could be there for them and take them through the guides, teaching them how to create bookmarks and why, and taking them on lowsec and nullsec roams to teach how to avoid gate and bubble camps.

I taught about travel, scouting and intel, and I did my best to make sure that what I taught was passed on, so that the students could become the teachers and they could teach the members I was unable to teach myself. Those who were skilled at PVP were given the responsibility of teaching others their PVP skills, because I know my specialty isn't PVP. :)

It worked well. Eventually we built up a training department, and then an operations department, and we created training modules and graduation programs. The rules within the Corp slowly evolved to accommodate an increasing professionalism, and the expectations we had from ourselves and our students started to change accordingly.

It's reached a point where I have a solid group of senior staff who are professional and committed to the goals that we started with. The rules have been working well, and allowing us to move forward. We've been very successful in establishing ourselves as a known and respected PVP Corp in our operational areas of nullsec.

My involvement has become peripheral to the daily activities of OUCH and the alliance that was built up around it. My senior staff are doing a fantastic job, and I can just sit back and relax.

Except that's not me... I can't just sit back and do nothing, which is why I'm creating a new venture with my alt Alexia Morgan and her Corp, The Punishers.

Even though my alt is going anti-pirate, I decided to maintain a relationship between them, so I declared that OUCH no longer condones piracy, and Black Claw is no longer a pirate. He's now trying to rat his security status back to normal. Well, he would be if people would just stop trying to kill him wherever they see him....

As result of forbidding acts of piracy within OUCH, I've had to recently kick out a few of my members who decided to ignore policy and bait highsec pilots into can-flipping so that they could then be attacked. "But we were mining and forced to respond!" they complained to me after getting the hard end of my boot. How often do miners fly with webs and scrams on their mining ships? Some people are really stupid.

But it showed there's a few changes needed in the Corp policies and regulations, so we're working on revising those at the moment. We're also going to make our regulations public, once we've completed them, so that interested pilots can see what will be expected of them once they make the choice to join us.

OUCH will no longer be the 'school of hard knocks'. We're going to be a professional training organization, with professional expectations of it's students. We're getting serious about what we expect from our students, and what they can expect from us.

To provide you with a teaser, we're not going to allow any students to enter nullsec and/or engage in PVP until they've completed a number of training modules. Too many of our students needlessly die because they just don't know what they're doing yet, so we're going to change that.

The old days are over. The new days are just beginning. The rules are changing, and exciting times are ahead of us as we grow and embrace our professionalism.

OUCH Frequently Asked Questions

2011-04-19T22:11:00.000+10:00

Thanks to our Training Director, we have a Frequently Asked Questions post about the student requirements within OUCH, which currently sits on our forums in the student area. I just wanted to add a few notes for you to be aware of while you're reading the FAQ:

1) The FAQ applies to students within OUCH, and is from the perspective of "Now that I'm in OUCH I have some questions..." From reading this, you'll understand a lot about what is expected of our students.

2) The Student Folders mentioned in the FAQ are a requirement for all students to create on our forum. This is where a record is kept of their training, achievements, and any relevant discussions they might want to engage in with trainers or mentors.

3) If you're intrigued by the training concepts described in the FAQ and feel like you'd like to be a part of it, then join us so you can be. :)

4) If you're reading this and you've been playing for a few years and now you're looking for a challenge in your Eve career and you think that helping OUCH with our student training, PVE or PVP in some way just might be it, then contact me to discuss this.

And now, on to the Frequently Asked Questions!

The graduation requirements say I have to graduate within 90 days of joining OUCH. Real life might make this impossible. Can I get an extension?

Yes. We strictly adhere to a real-life-comes-first policy. If more time is needed, post a reply to your student folder letting us know. At some point, however, your ingame title will be changed to Trial and if your absence is prolonged, you might be removed from the corp. If this happens, when you become active again simply re-apply to OUCH and we'll re-activate your student folder.

I'm a six-year-old character and can fly every ship in the game. Do I have to fly the student-fit frigate?

Yes. We will train you to competently pilot a no-frills frigate. The skills you learn while a student can be applied after you graduate to other ships and fittings, but will serve as a solid foundation. Your student time in OUCH will focus on a very particular small-gang role, that of secondary tackler.

Are there any exceptions to the student-fit frigate requirement?

Yes.

1) You may travel-fit a frigate for navigating through null. Typical travel fits include a cloaking device, microwarpdrive and warp core stabilizers. You may put your combat modules in the cargo hold and re-fit when desired in nullsec. You may also use the travel-fit frigate for the nullsec run graduation requirement, though an empty cargo hold is advised.

2) If you wish to participate in PVE activities, consult the folks in Logistics about what ship and fitting you should bring.

Do I have to set up on the Singularity server?

No, you don't have to, but it is highly recommended. Some things will be taught and practiced on SISI that won't be available to you on Tranquility, such as how to place the mobile small warp disruption bubble.

The training module sessions conflict with my real life schedule. Is there a workaround?

Depends. Our trainers have real lives too. We do sometimes hold module sessions outside of the times scheduled to accomodate groups of students who have similar time constraints, and in some cases will hold one-on-one sessions depending on a trainer's availability. However, please do your best to make the scheduled sessions.

Will OUCH help me make ISK to support my PvP habit?

No. However, we do have a Logistics Department that is involved in ISK-making activities and you are welcome to participate.

How then do PvPers support their habit?

Varies by pilot. Some buy PLEX, some engage in PVE, some in industry or trading, some have other accounts they use for making ISK. You'll need to figure out what works for you.

How do I become a permanent member of OUCH?

Within 30 days of graduation, apply to one of our Departments: Operations (PvP), Training, or Logistics (essentially PVE). If accepted, you then become a permanent OUCH member, though pilots in the Operations Department must maintain a monthly combat record of at least four fights to remain permanent members. Failure of an Operations Department member to meet this requirement will result in that member being removed from Operations and placed in 30-day post-graduation status

What if I graduate and don't apply to one of the Departments?

If you haven't applied to a department within 30 days of graduating, you will be removed from OUCH. You're either a student or a permanent member - there's no inbetween.

Do you have a ship replacement program?

No. However, some modules can be made available to you in our nullsec HQ and we do offer a number of ships at a discount to the market via corporate contracts.

Does OUCH have a POS or sovereignty?

No and no.

Does OUCH have corporate hangars?

Yes. However, as a student you will have read-only access to a couple of the hangar divisions.

Does OUCH have a loot policy?

Yes. What that policy is differs between Operations and Logistics. Ask your op leader.

Tales from the front line #2

2011-04-12T16:00:00.002+10:00

I proudly bring you another 'tale from the front line'. This is a recent engagement that our OUCH members were involved in. I want to remind you that these warriors were - only very recently - noobs and carebears, just like you probably are. There's no shame in being new, or being a carebear, because OUCH exists to help you grow. Just like it helped the below-mentioned members grow.

Please enjoy:

‘Maelstrom's in the Bubble’
I log onto Teamspeak after logging off for a short break from EVE to see nine killers in the PVP OPS 1 channel. So I drop down to the channel to see what’s going on. “Maelstrom on D-Scan” is called out, seconds later “Second Maelstrom on D-Scan” is announced. I immediately begin logging into EVE.
I hear primary being called and pilots calling out points all the time I’m frantically trying to log into game only to find myself in [CENSORED] station instead of the system of the engagement. Jamm’s are announced on both battleships.
“He’s shield boost tanked” is called out. I immediately begin assessing the situation in my head as I wait for session change to be able to change ships. Another pilot announces “We don’t have enough DPS to break the tank!” I select my Sacrilege to bring the pain…
As I undock I call to my fellow capsuleers to hold onto them, I’m on the way with more DPS. As I’m warping to the gate I’m going over the info that has been given out in my head when I realize that comms are eerily silent. I hit the gate and jump on contact calling it out over comms. Once on the other side I warp to a tactical bookmark, and then with gritted teeth into the fray I warp.
As I'm locking the primary still our comms are pretty silent. My ship acquires a lock and I unleash hell. At this point I go into combat mode and the military trained part of my brain engages and assumes control. I begin asking for reports from out ECM pilots and begin assuring we have points on both BS’s. The flow of information begins again, I smile.
“+1” is announced over comms. “Any relation to the Mael’s?” I ask.
“No, we have a rifter on D-scan” is the reply. The gears in my head begin to spin even faster now. Do I let the Rifter go and keep my focus on the battleship? Or do I feed him to the the blood-frenzied sharks currently swarming the battleships? A few heartbeats later I decide. This is our system - intrusion will not be tolerated by a single rifter.
I call for two of my best tacklers to move to the bubble and greet our new guest when/if he arrives. A few seconds later “Rifter in the bubble!” is called.
“Grab him” I call, and almost immediately the tacklers respond with their confirmations of tackle. They have been trained well. I quickly give orders for two of my pilots to hold the battleships and for everyone else to get on the Rifter. “KILL IT” is the order given after I receive the confirmation that all free pilots are on him. He pops almost instantly and his pod is scrammed quickly thereafter. Not wanting to waste time I call for the pod to be killed without waiting for everyone to get on it, and give orders for everyone to get back on the primary Mael.
The Maelstrom's shields begin to very slowly melt way when he engages his shield boosters again. Concern on whether or not we can break his tank is voiced in comms. Seeing how much shield is being boosted I realize that he must be dual boosted, which means he’s running a cap booster. “He’s using a cap booster with charges and they cant last forever.” I assure my pilots over comms. Sure enough, his boosting amountv soon cuts in half which means he’s dropped down to one booster. His cap charges are running low. His shields begin to dissipate at an increased rate and before long he is in armor. As his structure begins to quickly bleed out I call for my tacklers to prepare to grab his pod and for the rest of my fleet to switch primary to the second Mael upon the first's destruction. The Maelstrom explodes in a glorious ball of fire, but unfortunately his pod escapes.
Having tasted blood my pilots descend up the second Maelstrom like a pack of rabid piranha. And his tank doesn’t seem to be quite as strong as the first. It begins melting at a much faster rate. When intel reports that a small fleet consisting of interceptors, Dramiels, and a Flycatcher have landed on the gate next door with a Dram jumping into our system. “Stay on target” I call out, “Dram on D-scan” calls out another.
Decision time again, I quickly assess our situation and decide to not and try to get a tackle on the Dramiel unless he attempts to engage us first. We are so close now to bringing down the Maelstrom that I need every bit of DPS we can muster to pop it before this fleet jumps in on us.
“Dram in the bubble” is called. I watch as it quickly turns and begins burning for the gate, “He’s bugging out,” I call out over comms.
“Fleet jumping into system,” reports our scout next door just as the Maelstrom drops into structure.
“Bring him down now, we're about to have company!” I demand over comms, and like the vicious killers they are, they comply. The Maelstrom pops just as the fleet is identified on D-scan. “Warp to tacs” (tactical bookmarks) command is given out and all pilots warp off to safety with zero losses. We decide to give the incoming fleet a free pass while we reload and let the adrenaline run its course out of our system.
While I know this is not a AAR (after action report) in its true form and more of a narrative from my POV, it gives an account of what I saw and my emotions during the engagement. I am extremely proud of all the pilots involved in these kills. An extraordinary job was done by our ECM pilots who kept our opponents jammed for the majority of the battle. All fleet members followed orders precisely and quickly. While I am aware that my spelling, grammar, and just general use of the English language is frighteningly horrible I hope you enjoy this account as much as I did. I am a proud member of Art of War Alliance and look forward to killing with you all again.

Takedown of a Cynabal

2011-04-08T10:21:00.001+10:00

Just recently, some of our guys had a great time taking out a neutral Cynabal in nullsec. Below is the action report from one of the OUCH fleet members. (I've taken the liberty to censor some sensitive information.) This is an example of what our OUCH members are doing out there:

The [CENSORED] gate bubble in [CENSORED] was slow. Very slow. So slow that the FC had asked the fleet if a roam would be more fun. Just as fleet members were considering the roam or logging for the evening, intel comes in from [CENSORED]: Neutral in system.....Cynabal on scan.

I keep open on another computer several webpages, one of them is an eve-wiki page. I quickly look at Cynabal and see this:
Fast. Really fast. Faster than a Vagabond due to # of low slots + base speed.

25% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret rate of fire
10% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret damage per level
10% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret falloff per level

Hmm. As one of the fastest ships in our little camp with a scram (the other being [CENSORED] in his Incursus), I am going to share primary tackle duty. Noting that there is no bonus to tracking speed, I felt that if he came into the bubble, we could hold him and I could stay under his weapons if I kept the afterburner on.

He lands on the [CENSORED] gate in [CENSORED] and enters are system. We wait. "Cynabal on D-scan" is called out. And then he lands 5km from me. The fight is on.

It takes almost 4 seconds for me to get a lock once he became vulnerable. "Scram!"...."Web!".... a few more calls came out. I am about 6-7km or so, well within my scram range and web. Afterburner is on. Drone: out. I start to apply damage. Shield buffered. Going to be a long fight.

FC calls out "Drones. Target drones". I quickly hit my drones tab and target the Hornet EC drones he has. I switch damage over.

During this whole time, our quarry has targeted me and had begun shooting and applying a neut. I watched my capacitor run dry. It didn't take long. Once I slowed, his 425 Auto IIs caught up with me.

"[CENSORED], get out of there", called our FC. I was into structure now. With the neut, I didn't have the ability to warp away. Once I started aligning, my transversal was gone. No warp, no transversal...*poof*.

I was spamming warp already, so my pod zipped out (he didn't have a point, but I didn't want to be an easy target). As I left the field, the FC called out that the Cynabal's shields were gone. The ship didn't last much longer after that, nor did his pod. No one else in our fleet was lost. 17,500+ damage was delivered first class.

In essence, we traded a student-fit Incursus for a 170 Million ISK Cynabal. It was a good deal.

Lessons:
1. Know what you're going up against. It helps to have cheat sheets if you're memory is as alcohol-damaged as mine.
2. Speedy frigs can be effective.
3. Neuts suck.

I do want to thank those in the fleet last night. What a crew! And especially the FC [CENSORED]. I really appreciated [CENSORED]'s precise and calm FC-ing. A real pro.

An OUCH poster for your desktop

2011-04-06T15:39:00.001+10:00

I've been very excited to engage the services of Rixx Javix and, as I'd hoped, he's outdone himself with his work for OUCH. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a poster for OUCH. Feel free to save it to your desktop or share it with your friends.

[Click on it for a larger view]

Tales from the front lines

2011-03-30T12:22:00.001+11:00

The below is what I hope to be the first of a series of 'tales from the front lines'. These are stories written by members of OUCH about their experiences out there on the front lines of nullsec combat. If you like what you read, maybe you'd like to join us

I'm a relatively young combat pilot, on the staff of a non-profit null security space survival corporation. Our job is to train pilots of various levels of experience to be unafraid of living in null sec, and to give them the skills they will need to move on in their careers as combat pilots. We have decided to do that by "maintaining a blockade in null sec, interdicting traffic bound for Empire".

Blockade duty is boring: Sometimes you fight, sometimes you run, but mostly you wait. And wait. And wait some more. And it seems like nothing is going on. Then BAM, a stealth bomber decloaks in the bubble, or a small T2 gang jumps in come in and tries to gank you, or a large gangs sweeps through and your gang runs to your safes, your skirts flapping in the wind. Sometimes, you don't see a soul for hours, and you ask yourself, "Isn't there something better that we could be doing?" It seems to be a lot more fun to be in the small gang looking for a bubble camp to break, or the large gang sweeping through null looking for a battle. But then I look at it from our adversaries point of view.

* * *

A member of a neutral alliance based a half dozen systems away lands in a bubble and loses his ship. He tells his corpmates that there is a camp in system N1-4U2. An hour later, another guy gets caught in the bubble and he complains about it to his mates. After a couple of days of this, there are a bunch of people in that alliance that really are annoyed that their travel been restricted. A few of them head over to N1-4U2 to "teach those guys a lesson". They pop one or two ships but they don't get away clean, the campers kill the bait. The next day, they attack the campers using the same tactic, but the cowards don't give them a fight. They kill the bubble and leave. The campers put up a new bubble, and later that evening, kill another alliance pilot.

Days later, the bubble camp is up again and a recon ship lands in it. The campers web and scram and take the ship quickly down into armor. Then local comes alive: stealth bombers and recons appear from nowhere, lock and kill several of the bubble camping fleet. They just got hot dropped by a Black Ops gang, who are very pleased with themselves for the battlecruiser kill they got today. That will surely teach the campers not to be so predictable. But hours later, those stupid noobs are back, camping the same gate in N1-4U2.

On the weekend, the alliance organizes another raid, a dozen ships. They scout N1-4U2 with a cloaked ship for an hour, bring in their fleet and the campers run off to safes like a bunch of screaming girls. The only casualty in the contest is a Mobile Small Warp Disruptor. The fleet leaves, and the campers set up another bubble.

Meanwhile, the alliance from the system next door, they jump in and engage the campers every day. Sometimes they get kills, sometimes they get killed, but most of the time, they just kill the bubble, smack-talk a bit and move on. Our campers look forward to them coming by to visit, and put up a new bubble.

But a few of the members of the big alliance down the street decide that something must be done about this camp. They get a recon ship and station it spying on the camp and wait for the opportunity to implement their plan. A fleet stages in at the closest POS: cruisers, recons, HACs and battlecruisers, ready to take on a camp of, well, pirates from their point of view. They closely orbit one of the largest ships in the game, an Erebrus. They are ready.

The recon uncloaks and lights off his cyno and 20 cruisers and battlecruisers jump in and destroy a 6 ship frig and cruiser fleet in seconds. They cheer, and pat themselves on the back, sending a clear message to these pirates:

Your scouts cannot protect you. We can take you, without warning, anytime we want. We own you.

A few hours later, they get word from one of their corpmates: The bubble is back up in N1-4U2. Don't those noobs ever quit?

They put out an advisory to their alliance: N1-4U2 is permanently camped. Proceed with caution. Various members place dedicated scouts in system, alts to log in and check the system status. Some place cloaked alts and leave them up for hours at a time. They are not the only corporations to do so.

All of them watch and gather intel. They fly through in big fleets. They fly carefully when solo. They change the way they operate to avoid this camp when they remember. When they forget, they end up in the bubble and more often than not, in their pods. N1-4U2 becomes a very popular system. The pilots of the region start to learn that they can find a fight there if they want it, but if they go overkill, all they'll find is a bubble.

* * *

I'm just one pilot, in a small alliance. We've got a handful of experienced combat pilots, teaching brand new players how to fly and die in null. We fly mostly T1 Frigates and Cruisers. We're nobody special, yet what we are doing, playing our Eve, affects hundreds, maybe thousands of pilots as they fly through a small "useless" system in a quiet region of NPC space.

Proceed With Caution. That's a snapshot of the Eve PvP dynamic. No TCU required.

How to be a CEO

2011-03-29T17:00:00.001+11:00

I've had the pleasure of being a CEO now, in one form or another, for the past 5 years. In that time I've run an industrial Corp, an anti-pirate Corp, a pirate Corp, and now a PVP and nullsec survival training Corp.

But I do know that I'm not an expert - there are others out there who are much better and more dedicated than I am at building highly successful Corps and alliances. All I've done is developed my own style, in line with my own interests, and achieved some success along the way.

But when someone asked me the other day if I had any advice for them on how to start their own Corp, I felt reasonably qualified to give them some tips and advice. As a result, I decided to put the results into a blog post, so that you readers might get some value from it too.

So let's get started...

1) As a CEO you're going to have to acknowledge to yourself that you can't do it alone, and you shouldn't even try. You need to get some dedicated people onboard with you that share your goals, so that you can work together on them. So you need to...

2) Develop a 'mission statement' for what you want to achieve in the game, and how you want to achieve it. This is going to define everything you do, and even how you do it. By making this public in some fashion you will attract people who want to be part of your vision or even support it, and it's the latter who may end up becoming your 'senior staff'. If your mission is simply to relax and have fun, then make sure you detail that, or you'll get people joining who might take it all too seriously.

3) Establish operational policies for all activity within the corp. The policies establish the rules for all members, so that they understand what they can and can't do, and what the penalties are for disobeying the rules. Make sure these policies are in line with your mission statement, and the image and reputation you want to create. Include policies for industrial activity and logistics, security and PVP operations, and even wartime operations when affected by wardecs. Common sense goes a long way.

4) Get dedicated department chiefs to manage each of the depts, eg. a PVP Chief, PVE Chief, Industrial Chief, etc. You won't have the time to manage the departments individually, nor are you likely to have the expertise, but you WILL have time to manage the Chiefs who'll each have their relevant expertise in those areas.

5) As soon as you can, form a group of 'senior officers' from members that are eager and willing to step up and give you advice about how things should be done. These people need to have experience to back up their advice and support. Make sure they are sensible and obviously promoting the best interests of the corp and your goals. Only trust those who want to support the growth of the corp, and don't lose sight of what your vision is. Anyone who tries to change your mind or lead you in a direction away from your vision, dump them immediately. You'll be better off without them.

6) Never give anyone Director status, and never give anyone access to the Corp wallet. However, if you really think you must, then make sure you protect your assets by doing the following:

- transfer most of the corp funds out of the master wallet and into your personal wallet where they can't touch it
- transfer needed Corp assets out of Corp hangars and into your personal hangars

The reason for all the above is because anyone can betray you at any point, and you want to minimize the temptations that might encourage them to betray you. If more money is needed, you can transfer it back into the Corp as needed. If assets are needed, you can hand them out one at a time as needed, and make sure you get them back when finished.

7) Transfer at least 51% of corp shares to your CEO. This will ensure that you maintain ownership of the corp and even if you do make people Directors and they try to vote you out of ownership, they can only succeed if they can get a majority vote against you, as voted by shareholders. If you own the majority, you can always ensure any votes you don't like will fail.

8) Always pay your bills. If you have offices, make sure you pay your monthly rental costs, or you'll lose it. If you have assets in Corp hangars, you don't want the hassle of having to go to that station and retrieve them from being Impounded.

9) Run your corp as a 'dictatorship', where the final decision is yours and yours alone. Running by committee will ensure that your decision-making process is tied up in committee discussions which never go where you want them to go. Let your senior staff and even Corp members provide advice and suggestions and feedback and input, but at the end of the day it's your decision as to how you want your corp to move forward. When people make suggestions that are in line with your vision, allow those suggestions to move forward as actions. But if the suggestions are in opposition to your vision, then smash those suggestions into the ground where they belong.

If people don't like it, they'll leave. Let them. You want people that support you and support your vision (make sure you publicise it to your members, as per rule #2 above).

10) Learn everything about the Corp Management tab, including corp wallet, setting up divisions, managing and monitoring members, accepting applications, and how titles and roles work. Understanding all of the Corp management options is essential.

11) Blog about your experiences. You'll be surprised at how many people you'll attract and recruit simply because you're writing about your corp, its' activities and your own activities. Be a public figure, as that helps with your notoriety. But...

12) If you want professional, fun, respectable members, make sure that you are being exactly what you want in your corp. If you're an idiot and smack talk others all the time, then that's the kind of recruit you'll attract. If you're mature and talk about the level of fun you have, then you'll get mature people looking for fun as well. Be the kind of person you want to attract. (Interestingly, this works in life too. :)

13) COMMUNICATE. It's very important that you establish and maintain effective communication between yourself, your senior staff and the corp members. Set up a forum to allow discussions between members - it's essential, regardless of what type of corp you run. Learn about how to administrate the forum, including various levels of permissions related to different sections of the forum. If you don't want to learn that, find someone who is skilled in forum administration who can do it for you.

Communication is what keeps a corp together, and is what motivates it to work together. Keep everyone informed about changes, new developments, or items of interest. If the leader is silent, the members lose morale and move on. If there's very little for you to actually communicate, make sure your senior staff and dept chiefs are communicating about their departments instead. Always keep communication going, so everyone knows what's going on with whom.

I hope all the above helps to get you started. It's a lot of work to run a corp, and it's a lot MORE work to run a successful corp. But working out what you want to achieve from running your own corp will be very important to determining how it grows and operates.

Don't forget to keep it in alignment with your own personal values. If you're not passionate yourself about the corp and the goals you have for it, then it simply becomes a huge chore that will bore the hell out of you and make you want to quit playing. Keep that in mind.

This isn't enough! I need more...

If anyone wants more personal help, I'm willing to offer my time and knowledge on Corp management in exchange for ISK (which will be considered as donations to OUCH's funds). Also, I'm available to create an alliance for you if you can't do it yourself.

Contact me if you would like to discuss anything further.

Help Wanted

2011-03-11T09:17:00.001+11:00

There's two things I need help with, and I decided to put it out there to the community.

The first thing: admin assistant for www.evebloggers.com

I lead quite a busy life, and give myself only a small amount of time each day to Eve Online. in that time I'm usually managing OUCH (nullsec survival training corp) and the Art of War Alliance, dealing with administration issues, membership queries and management, and diplomatic relations. I rarely get time to actually fly, but that's ok, as my game is now admin and management.

But as a result of the immediate need for my daily involvement in this way, I have very little Eve time for anything else. That means that evebloggers.com is suffering from my lack of time to manage it. It's a project in its own right that serves the Eve community, and it's suffering.

I've been able to organize some assistance within OUCH, which has been fantastic and freed up a lot of my time to focus more on 'big picture' management.

I need that now for evebloggers.com

What I need is someone to help me with adding new blogs to the site, so that I can focus on other admin-related tasks for the site, as well as promotion of it to the greater community.

If you have time, and you'd like to help me and the Eve community, please contact me at evebloggers@gmail.com. I'll provide you with training to know what needs doing, along with ongoing support.

The second thing: tell me when you're mentioning OUCH or evebloggers.com

I read every single blog update that passes through evebloggers.com. I get excited when people mention OUCH and I usually visit their site and thank them for the mention. I also have an alert that tells me when someone sends or includes me in a tweet (to either @Alexia_Morgan or @Black_Claw or @eveblogs) so that I can keep up with mentions in the community.

However, I don't listen to podcasts at all. They just take too much time that I don't have. And if I'm listening to anything, it's usually relaxing music to wind down from the rest of my life...

So I'd like to establish a couple of new hash tags for you all to use with your tweets that would really help me out:

#eveouch
#evebloggers

If you promote either of those, or even if you just mention OUCH or evebloggers.com in a podcast, please use those hashtags in your tweets so that I can receive them in hashtag alerts, have a listen, and then promote you even further with my own comments or posts.

Thank you for your help!

The veterans are quitting Eve

2011-02-23T13:46:00.000+11:00

You know, I've been seeing all this whinging and whining from all these Eve bloggers who are quitting because they don't like how Incarna seems to be turning out.

You know what? They're just the same as those whinging, crying carebears who don't like game mechanics being used against them and they want the game to be changed to suit them.

This is a game created by a company called CCP. It's their baby. How it turns out is, at the end of the day, entirely up to them. The fact that they try to please the players (always a good thing), and even include a player-filled organisation to help them understand the needs of the players is an excellent thing. It helps them improve their product so that they can get more people using it.

But ultimately, the business can do what the hell it likes with its product, that we pay for the privilege of using.

Regardless of what it does or doesn't have, or what is delivered or not delivered, it's still Eve Online. These players who decide to quit because it's not turning out how THEY wanted it to turn out, all they do is remind me of spoiled little rich brats who throw a tantrum because they're not getting what they want.

Harden the fuck up.

Actually, no... stay soft. And stay gone. The rest of us who love this game don't need you hanging around in it, whinging about how it's not becoming the game you want it to be. This game is better without you, because there'll be less whinging in it.

CCP Shadow joined us in eve-bloggers chat

2011-02-20T09:49:00.006+11:00

I was in-game yesterday when I noticed something I hadn't seen before - blue text. Eh? What's that? Lo and behold, for the first time ever in my Eve life, there was a CCP dude in the same chat room as me (eve-bloggers), and talking to me and everyone else. Exciting! So I thought I'd share the chat log with you. I've taken the time to mark his comments as blue, just like in-game.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Channel Name: eve-bloggers
Listener: Alexia Morgan
Session started: 2011.02.18 22:41:14
---------------------------------------------------------------

[ 2011.02.18 22:41:14 ] EVE System > Channel MOTD: Happy new year everyone!Welcome to our community of Eve bloggers. If you have a blog, please mention this channel on it and help spread the word! Are you on FACEBOOK? Then join the Eve Bloggers Facebook groupStay up to date with the Eve Bloggers portal
[ 2011.02.18 22:41:17 ] Cyberin > closing out one sometime soon though, selling my cap char because caps are boring
[ 2011.02.18 22:41:23 ] Placid09 > so why didn't you ever pick one up Shadow? they aren't to hard to start with
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:05 ] Placid09 > yeah, I'm selling one of my orca pilots soon, slimming the herd a bit
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:18 ] Alexia Morgan > o/
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:27 ] Placid09 > o/
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:30 ] Kalaratiri > o/ Alexia
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:36 ] CCP Shadow > friend of mine was going to teach me but that was around when I started EVE. So, 2007, and most other interests faded for a while. :D I moved back to the States and just never did it.
[ 2011.02.18 22:42:43 ] CCP Shadow > hi Alexia
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:04 ] Alexia Morgan > /emote blinks
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:04 ] Mike Azariah > heyas AM
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:07 ] Alexia Morgan > wow - blue text
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:13 ] Kyoko Sakoda > So I heard there was a party in this here channel.
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:18 ] Placid09 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:18 ] Alexia Morgan > hi Shadow - I'm honoured to see you in here :)
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:23 ] CCP Shadow > how goes OUCH?
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:23 ] Mark726 > I don't think I've ever seen CCP outside of the help chat
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:27 ] CCP Shadow > well thanks
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:32 ] Alexia Morgan > OUCH is going reallly well, thanks for asking
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:44 ] CCP Shadow > Mark, I'm going to be spending more time in game.
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:52 ] Mark726 > well, welcome :-D
[ 2011.02.18 22:43:52 ] Kalaratiri > CCP arrives, word spread, channel hits 300 people in half an hour :p
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:10 ] CCP Shadow > I believe I wrote about OUCH a while back when I was a writer at Massively.
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:12 ] Aaron Kalee > now if only my clients would stop crashing...
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:17 ] Mark726 > lol, telling the tweetfleet about it is what got me on here, admittedly... I should be doing ohmework >.>
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:19 ] Placid09 > there are a lot of great instructional videos and sites... I'm self taught, just started by playing around with guitar tabs online and being in a metal band in high school
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:36 ] Kalaratiri > Guys, recoomend some people for me to follow on twitter :p
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:44 ] Aaron Kalee > cyberineve
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:46 ] Aaron Kalee > :D
[ 2011.02.18 22:44:52 ] CCP Shadow > Kala, I don't see that happening. ;) Well if I timed this differently would've been ideal, but I may also pop by on the weekend.
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:01 ] Mike Azariah > that would be nice
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:32 ] Dacil Arandur > Hey CCP Shadow, nice to see you
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:33 ] Alexia Morgan > your writing at massively was fantastic. If there's any other ways you think we can work together to promote OUCH and evebloggers.com (and this channel) I'd be very happy to talk to you more :)
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:37 ] CCP Shadow > hi
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:38 ] Dacil Arandur > It's cool that you are back in the tweetfleet now
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:46 ] Mike Azariah > before you guys come on as 'blues' are you given a briedfing paper on subjects to avoid?
[ 2011.02.18 22:45:55 ] Dacil Arandur > lol
[ 2011.02.18 22:46:16 ] CCP Shadow > Alexia, that's part of what the Community team does. Granted I'm not on EVE Community anymore but I'm still working with them everyday.
[ 2011.02.18 22:46:56 ] CCP Shadow > Mike, I'm fairly well trusted at this point (LOL) so I know what to avoid. ;)
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:05 ] Mark726 > someone in eve trusted?
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:07 ] Mark726 > I don't believe it
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:28 ] Kyoko Sakoda > He could probably successfully scam all of Jita
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:34 ] Alexia Morgan > lol
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:39 ] CCP Shadow > and Alexia, thanks for the compliment. Sometimes I miss the days when I could just write all day, but i'm pretty happy here.
[ 2011.02.18 22:47:54 ] Alexia Morgan > what do you do exactly now, if you don't mind my asking
[ 2011.02.18 22:48:07 ] CCP Shadow > I'm the DUST 514 Community Manager.
[ 2011.02.18 22:48:11 ] Alexia Morgan > oh wow
[ 2011.02.18 22:48:12 ] Masada Akiva > hmmm... medal creator is being broken...
[ 2011.02.18 22:48:43 ] CCP Shadow > So, actually I think I said this yesterday or today on Twitter -- people ask what I do day to day since we're pre-launch...
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:01 ] Alexia Morgan > I have a question - how do I get a job at CCP? ;)
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:03 ] Masada Akiva > drink coffee and hit on the girl programmers?
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:25 ] Mark726 > shadow, are we getting DUST pics at fanfest? I know you said to not expect major announcements...
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:33 ] CCP Shadow > I spend a lot of time following the industry (MMO and FPS titles), reading the various DUST 514 threads on EVE O, other forums, the fansites
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:41 ] Mike Azariah > /emote guffaws "Girl programmers? You crack me up"
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:56 ] Mike Azariah > <--sarcastic, do not go all emo on me
[ 2011.02.18 22:49:57 ] Cyberin > OOHHHHH..>IDEA!!!!
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:06 ] Mark726 > lol, applebabe is gonna pod you now :-p
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:09 ] CCP Shadow > and in general planning for how I'm going to run my department and what we're going to do on a community level ramping up to launch and post-launch
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:21 ] Mike Azariah > My former CEO is a programmer
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:24 ] Mike Azariah > and a mother
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:30 ] Mike Azariah > so I assume the female
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:34 ] Cyberin > Shadow can't give/buy/sell/take anything...but...he can talk in channels! I'm gonna go do the double your isk scam in Jita, you wanna back me up and say I paid you your isk Shadow? :D lmao
[ 2011.02.18 22:50:39 ] CCP Shadow > Mark, I'm not sure what art assets or video there is or might be. I'm not in Shanghai right now or I'd know.
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:01 ] Mark726 > ah
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:04 ] CCP Shadow > Not really. Sorry.
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:05 ] CCP Shadow > :D
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:24 ] Mark726 > lol, its like he doesn't want to get fired or someting
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:31 ] CCP Shadow > imagine that
[ 2011.02.18 22:51:39 ] Alexia Morgan > Shadow - what do I need to keep an eye on to see what jobs are going at CCP?
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:04 ] Mike Azariah > obituarioes
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:09 ] Alexia Morgan > lol
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:11 ] Mark726 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:18 ] Kalaratiri > XD
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:20 ] Mark726 > there's a job page on the actual CCP page, isn't there?
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:21 ] CCP Shadow > We're keeping the jobs listings up to date. This last year we hired quite a number of people so we're slowing down a bit. The only positions available at present are the ones listed.
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:28 ] Mark726 > job postings get passed around the tweetfleet now and then
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:30 ] CCP Shadow > www.ccpgames.com/jobs
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:35 ] Alexia Morgan > thanks :)
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:40 ] Kalaratiri > Damn, was about to link that
[ 2011.02.18 22:52:48 ] Kalaratiri > I always get beaten to things :p
[ 2011.02.18 22:53:01 ] CCP Shadow > just curious though, was there a particular job you're seeking?
[ 2011.02.18 22:53:07 ] Mark726 > oh, PS, happy Hulkageddon Eve everyone
[ 2011.02.18 22:53:18 ] Alexia Morgan > yes - I'd love to be involved in community management in some fashion
[ 2011.02.18 22:53:36 ] Alexia Morgan > hmmm
[ 2011.02.18 22:53:55 ] Mark726 > you *want* to put up with us obnoxious fanboys (and girls)?
[ 2011.02.18 22:54:20 ] CCP Shadow > There are no vacancies right now on the EVE Community team, but I'm REALLY hoping we can hire soon. As to DUST Community, I am a team of one for right now.
[ 2011.02.18 22:54:58 ] CCP Shadow > Mark, for all the bad stuff there's generally way more good. That's my impression 1 year into this.
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:13 ] Alexia Morgan > absolutely Mark - helping out Eve players is what I love doing. Currently I do it by promoting the blogging community, as well as providing a training corp for noobs and carebears But getting more involved in the real behind the scenes stuff would be...
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:16 ] Alexia Morgan > excellent :)
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:28 ] CCP Shadow > also, i'm an EVE fan or I never would've ended up here. :)
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:37 ] Kalaratiri > Hmm, I'm torn who to vote for in the csm
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:48 ] Alexia Morgan > evebloggers.com currently has about 750 Eve bloggers - but I'm weeding out the inactive ones to tidy it up
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:50 ] Kalaratiri > Thinking either Seleene or Roc
[ 2011.02.18 22:55:51 ] Mark726 > heh, I would tend to agree actually. I pretty much love the tweetfleet and the bloggers, at least most of the time
[ 2011.02.18 22:56:14 ] Cyberin > i'm voting for me
[ 2011.02.18 22:56:42 ] Kyoko Sakoda > Shadow: Pie or cake?
[ 2011.02.18 22:56:55 ] CCP Shadow > cake
[ 2011.02.18 22:57:06 ] Kyoko Sakoda > Interesting.
[ 2011.02.18 22:57:40 ] Farmer Tedd > the cake is a lie
[ 2011.02.18 22:57:51 ] CCP Shadow > btw, as to above and job vacancies, i have no idea when more positions will open up but the listings are current to the best of my knowledge.
[ 2011.02.18 22:58:05 ] Alexia Morgan > thanks - I'll be keeping an eye on it
[ 2011.02.18 22:58:13 ] CCP Shadow > Black Forest Cake? yes please.
[ 2011.02.18 22:58:49 ] Kyoko Sakoda > I had an apple fritter the size of my fist today, need not more sugar.
[ 2011.02.18 22:59:12 ] Mike Azariah > OIi, I'm not even up for consideration?
[ 2011.02.18 22:59:28 ] Mike Azariah > /emote grumbles about Roc getting all the fans
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:10 ] Alexia Morgan > MA, are you going for this CSM too?
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:11 ] Mark726 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:25 ] Mike Azariah > . . .
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:27 ] Mike Azariah > yes I am
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:36 ] Alexia Morgan > I see
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:44 ] Mark726 > I honestly haven't made up my mind yet with CSM
[ 2011.02.18 23:00:59 ] Mark726 > when does voting start again?
[ 2011.02.18 23:01:10 ] Alexia Morgan > I thought about CSM a couple years ago, but never followed it up - maybe in the future I'll have a go
[ 2011.02.18 23:01:16 ] Mike Azariah > To tell the truth I think that the biggest problem is when there ARE really good candidates
[ 2011.02.18 23:01:20 ] Mike Azariah > and lots of them
[ 2011.02.18 23:01:22 ] Cyberin > who's gonna vote for me?
[ 2011.02.18 23:01:32 ] Mike Azariah > the decision process actually starts to break down
[ 2011.02.18 23:02:07 ] Alexia Morgan > I think Roc is motivated by anger against CCP for taking away Capsuleer. I see his focus is on business aspects
[ 2011.02.18 23:02:33 ] Alexia Morgan > taking away isn't right - more like lack of support
[ 2011.02.18 23:02:42 ] Mike Azariah > /emote nods, writing a post right now about 3rd party stuff, dammit Mandrill did a great piece earlier
[ 2011.02.18 23:03:19 ] Mark726 > I don't think he's motivated primarily by that
[ 2011.02.18 23:03:33 ] Cyberin > i won't vote for Roc simply for that reason
[ 2011.02.18 23:03:39 ] Alexia Morgan > same
[ 2011.02.18 23:03:47 ] Cyberin > i don't think CCP should have anything to do with 3rd party apps..that's why they are called THIRD party
[ 2011.02.18 23:03:53 ] Alexia Morgan > MA, I voted for you last time - I'll be doing it again
[ 2011.02.18 23:04:11 ] TetraEtc > MA ran last time?
[ 2011.02.18 23:04:18 ] Cyberin > i know who i'm voting for next year, not sure about this year yet
[ 2011.02.18 23:04:45 ] TetraEtc > i know who you all should be voting for in 2 years time :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:04:51 ] Mike Azariah > /emote facepalms
[ 2011.02.18 23:04:59 ] Cyberin > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:12 ] Cyberin > i knew you ran both years Mike, I still love you :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:30 ] CCP Shadow > How did this go from apple fritters to SERIOUS BUSINESS?
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:41 ] Alexia Morgan > we're a crazy bunch in here, Shadow :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:46 ] Mike Azariah > welcome to eve bloggers
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:52 ] Alexia Morgan > conversation ebbs and flows in all directions
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:57 ] RexMurphy > lolz
[ 2011.02.18 23:05:59 ] Mark726 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:00 ] TetraEtc > it could be worse.. the dust514 channel is crazy
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:00 ] Cyberin > because EVE IS SRYS BIZNES
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:00 ] Kyoko Sakoda > Be glad this isn't VETO Alliance.
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:06 ] Mark726 > I think I voted for Mike first time he ran
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:10 ] CCP Shadow > I used to come in here a while back
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:25 ] Alexia Morgan > hey Shadow, what brings you in here today?
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:28 ] Mike Azariah > so you were the other one, mark
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:32 ] Mike Azariah > /emote shakes head
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:33 ] Mark726 > :-D
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:37 ] Cyberin > go get more devs to just in here Shadow, lets have a party
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:44 ] Cyberin > jump*
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:47 ] Cyberin > /emote can't type today
[ 2011.02.18 23:06:55 ] Kalaratiri > Agreed, want dev party
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:00 ] Cyberin > speaking of typing...i should be working on that post i promised today...
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:00 ] Mark726 > YESSSSSSSSSSSS
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:00 ] CCP Shadow > In general I would like to spend more time talking with the player community, beyond the forums, beyond social media.
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:12 ] CCP Shadow > I figured this would be a nice way to kick it off.
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:17 ] TetraEtc > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:26 ] Cyberin > what i would personally like, is more dev comments on blogs :D
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:30 ] TetraEtc > get in the dust 514 channel... need someone to lay down the law occaisonly :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:07:56 ] Alexia Morgan > Shadow, we're very happy you're here
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:04 ] Alexia Morgan > I'm recording this chat and will be posting it on Black Claw's blog
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:18 ] Mark726 > its always great to see CCP interaction with the community :-D
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:19 ] Kalaratiri > twitter is confuzzling me
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:24 ] Mark726 > how so?
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:28 ] Kalaratiri > I knew htere was a reason I didn't use it
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:47 ] Kalaratiri > can't work out how to add a profile picture -.-
[ 2011.02.18 23:08:53 ] Kalaratiri > such a basic thing...
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:10 ] Alexia Morgan > Shadow - is there anything you'd like to say to the eve bloggers and the eve community for the reprint on Black Claw's blog? :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:12 ] TetraEtc > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:38 ] TetraEtc > just randomly.. is there an eve bloggers list on twitter?
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:40 ] CCP Shadow > Drink more Ovaltine
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:42 ] CCP Shadow > :D
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:44 ] Alexia Morgan > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:48 ] TetraEtc > LOL
[ 2011.02.18 23:09:52 ] Cyberin > CCP Shadow > I love Cyberin, he is my favoriteist person ever
[ 2011.02.18 23:10:10 ] TetraEtc > Cyberin > I like tanks
[ 2011.02.18 23:10:16 ] Alexia Morgan > there is, but it's not very active because evebloggers.com is a portal to other active blogs - it doesn't generate its own content or events
[ 2011.02.18 23:10:17 ] Cyberin > tanks are cool
[ 2011.02.18 23:10:25 ] CCP Shadow > There's less realism without the blue text.
[ 2011.02.18 23:10:42 ] CCP Shadow > Sry, was just on the phone with arrangements for tonight.
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:17 ] Mark726 > tetra, I don't think there's a formal list
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:18 ] CCP Shadow > But I stand by my statement. Drink more Ovaltine. Also brush and floss.
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:25 ] Mark726 > though there's a number of informal ones
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:31 ] Mark726 > the tweetfleet is really the only formal list
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:37 ] Alexia Morgan > thanks Shadow :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:11:48 ] TetraEtc > Ovaltine aye.. time to go shopping
[ 2011.02.18 23:12:41 ] CCP Shadow > Hate to say this, but I'm going to have to run in about... 15 minutes or so
[ 2011.02.18 23:12:59 ] Alexia Morgan > yeh, me too - I've got cats to take to the vet for yearly vaccinations
[ 2011.02.18 23:13:03 ] Kyoko Sakoda > Me too. Food. Been inspired by Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime.
[ 2011.02.18 23:13:24 ] RexMurphy > eveyones so busy
[ 2011.02.18 23:13:50 ] CCP Shadow > Rex, it's Japanese for dinner. Japanese!
[ 2011.02.18 23:13:58 ] Aaron Kalee > i have nothing to do except shoot at people tonight
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:00 ] Aaron Kalee > (ingame)
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:11 ] Cyberin > stupid alts...
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:32 ] Kalaratiri > Doing an interview, so going a bit quiet. (btw try interveiwing someone IC, its harder than you'd think :p)
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:36 ] RexMurphy > im only shootin at sleepers
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:52 ] RexMurphy > come find me and shoot at me Cyberian
[ 2011.02.18 23:14:54 ] Mark726 > lol, best of luck with that kala
[ 2011.02.18 23:15:07 ] RexMurphy > :D
[ 2011.02.18 23:15:10 ] Cyberin > come to Syndicate and i'll shoot you
[ 2011.02.18 23:15:21 ] Alexia Morgan > CCP Shadow who do I talk to in order to get an advert for OUCH into the game when people log on? :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:15:51 ] CCP Shadow > I should know this, but don't.. One moment.
[ 2011.02.18 23:16:09 ] Cyberin > /emote pays attention to this answer
[ 2011.02.18 23:18:18 ] Mark726 > huh, my p4 stuff actually went up pretty significantly in price
[ 2011.02.18 23:18:25 ] Mark726 > i'm rather surprised by that
[ 2011.02.18 23:18:27 ] Kalaratiri > don't suppose anyone can tell me how to add a profile picture to twitter?
[ 2011.02.18 23:18:43 ] Mark726 > lol, give me a sec kala
[ 2011.02.18 23:19:20 ] CCP Shadow > Hmm, well it's after hours. Tell you what, best way is to ask me directly via petition. You'd want to select 'Other issues' in the first category, 'Community' in the second category, and in the title "For CCP Shadow" so it'll get directed to me.
[ 2011.02.18 23:19:33 ] CCP Shadow > I can ask around and let you know.
[ 2011.02.18 23:19:42 ] Dante Chusuk > its related to advertising in EON magazine if i remember correctly
[ 2011.02.18 23:19:54 ] CCP Shadow > Dante, I think you're right but I am not 100% on that
[ 2011.02.18 23:20:01 ] Dante Chusuk > http://eonmagazine.net/contribute/ads/
[ 2011.02.18 23:20:03 ] Alexia Morgan > ok, thank you very much - and thanks for dropping by, I'm sure everyone will agree that we hope to see you more often in here in future :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:20:08 ] Kyoko Sakoda > It is, but there must be a way you can advertise without doing so in EON?
[ 2011.02.18 23:20:26 ] CCP Shadow > oh np, but i'm not leaving quite yet
[ 2011.02.18 23:20:40 ] Alexia Morgan > I am - I wanted to get the thanks out of the way before I go :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:21:25 ] CCP Shadow > gotcha. well i'll see you around soon. 07
[ 2011.02.18 23:21:28 ] Alexia Morgan > o7
[ 2011.02.18 23:21:38 ] Kalaratiri > Fly Safe, eat well
[ 2011.02.18 23:21:47 ] Mark726 > fly safe o7
[ 2011.02.18 23:22:15 ] CCP Shadow > Kyoko, any current film projects?
[ 2011.02.18 23:22:18 ] Mark726 > kala, http://support.twitter.com/articles/127871-how-to-change-your-profile-picture-or-information
[ 2011.02.18 23:22:32 ] Kalaratiri > Thank you
[ 2011.02.18 23:27:30 ] CCP Shadow > Sweet. Ball is rolling. Shanghai in April.
[ 2011.02.18 23:27:34 ] Kalaratiri > interesting.. I don't have the picture option
[ 2011.02.18 23:27:46 ] Mark726 > yeah, neither do I actually
[ 2011.02.18 23:27:49 ] Mark726 > bizarre
[ 2011.02.18 23:28:17 ] CCP Shadow > maybe it's Old Twitter vs. New Twitter views?
[ 2011.02.18 23:29:08 ] Mark726 > I don't know what to tell you kala, sorry :-S
[ 2011.02.18 23:29:17 ] Kalaratiri > np
[ 2011.02.18 23:29:44 ] Mark726 > I wanna go to shanghai :-(
[ 2011.02.18 23:29:48 ] Mark726 > actually, I want to go to fanfest
[ 2011.02.18 23:29:55 ] Mark726 > but neither is gonna happen anytime soon :-(
[ 2011.02.18 23:30:17 ] CCP Shadow > This is my first Fanfest.
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:18 ] CCP Shadow > Wondering if I should build up a brennevin tolerance
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:21 ] Mark726 > where are you based?
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:30 ] CCP Shadow > I'm in the US for now
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:48 ] CCP Shadow > Relocating to our Shanghai office for about 6 months
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:53 ] Mark726 > nice
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:56 ] Mark726 > where in the US?
[ 2011.02.18 23:31:59 ] CCP Shadow > Could be longer.
[ 2011.02.18 23:32:00 ] Mark726 > if you don't mind me stalking
[ 2011.02.18 23:32:01 ] Mark726 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:32:08 ] CCP Shadow > New Jersey. And I don't mind.
[ 2011.02.18 23:32:48 ] CCP Shadow > We don't have NJ office, they just let me work remotely. For now, anyway.
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:05 ] Mark726 > yeah, they only have Atlanta, Iceland, and Shanghai, right?
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:09 ] RexMurphy > The Jersey Shore!!!!
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:16 ] CCP Shadow > also Newcastle
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:33 ] CCP Shadow > That's a DUSt 514 team based there.
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:33 ] Kalaratiri > hmmm newcastle..
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:37 ] Mark726 > ah
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:42 ] Kalaratiri > 2 hour drive from me
[ 2011.02.18 23:33:53 ] CCP Shadow > Rex, pleased to say that i've never seen that show.
[ 2011.02.18 23:34:07 ] Mark726 > he's never seen it, he's just been on it :-p
[ 2011.02.18 23:34:27 ] CCP Shadow > I just ignore the cameras and suddenly I'm famous.
[ 2011.02.18 23:34:52 ] Mark726 > punching people helps too, I hear
[ 2011.02.18 23:34:54 ] RexMurphy > you are a lucky person. the gf streams it from her pc.. about a meter away from mine
[ 2011.02.18 23:35:17 ] CCP Shadow > I'm not a reality TV fan at all.
[ 2011.02.18 23:35:56 ] Mark726 > I like cash cab
[ 2011.02.18 23:36:06 ] Mark726 > does that count?
[ 2011.02.18 23:36:08 ] RexMurphy > ha
[ 2011.02.18 23:36:10 ] CCP Shadow > You should buy her some very nice headphones. Because you care. About her.
[ 2011.02.18 23:37:26 ] RexMurphy > Breaking bad is a good show
[ 2011.02.18 23:38:13 ] CCP Shadow > I find that I almost never sit down to watch shows when they air. Pretty much Hulu all the way, or Netflix to watch a whole season in one go.
[ 2011.02.18 23:38:27 ] Mark726 > lol, I recently discovered www.allstepisodes.com
[ 2011.02.18 23:38:33 ] Mark726 > I'm currently making my way through DS9
[ 2011.02.18 23:39:27 ] CCP Shadow > oh wow. quality?
[ 2011.02.18 23:39:35 ] Mark726 > eh, not fantastic
[ 2011.02.18 23:39:44 ] Mark726 > but for my purposes it works fine
[ 2011.02.18 23:39:48 ] CCP Shadow > sure
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:30 ] Mark726 > ok, I finished my market run, so I suppose I should take off
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:35 ] Mark726 > 200mil in sell orders \o/
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:44 ] CCP Shadow > well i'm definitely going to be late so I've got to to as well
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:50 ] Mark726 > lol
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:57 ] Mark726 > welcome to the channel, hope to see you around here a lot :-D
[ 2011.02.18 23:40:58 ] RexMurphy > See ya!
[ 2011.02.18 23:41:11 ] Kalaratiri > bai :)
[ 2011.02.18 23:41:17 ] Mark726 > fly safe, all o7
[ 2011.02.18 23:41:22 ] CCP Shadow > Was nice meeting you all, and I think i'll be talking to you more on Twitter too
[ 2011.02.18 23:41:37 ] CCP Shadow > 07

Action Report - 13 Feb 2011

2011-02-14T17:18:00.000+11:00

This is the first of a planned series of reports based on 'after action reports' that OUCH / AWA members write on our forums. I decided to share them with you all, to showcase the ongoing adventures that members of OUCh enjoy.

So a small fleet of about 10 pilots got bored with camping a bubble (a common operational activity in OUCH) and went out on a roam through Curse and Catch, flying a mix of frigates and a destroyer, and including some equipped for e-war.

They spent a while travelling around before arriving at some nullsec space owned and inhabited by blues, and ended up deciding to go back home. This was when the action began...

They encountered The Initiative who engaged the rag-tag fleet of frigates with their Vagabond, Dramiel and Ishkur. After the dust cleared, OUCH had lost 4 of their frigates and the destroyer, but the other guys had lost their Ishkur and Dramiel. Not a bad exchange...

So the small fleet re-shipped and had a few skirmishes here and there with nothing substantial, but then were escorting a 'blue' freighter when it was ambushed by A4D and lost.

Lessons were learned, mistakes were acknowledged. And the learning goes on.

Cleaning out old Eve Online blogs

2011-02-14T12:34:00.004+11:00

For those that don't know, I'm the owner and admin of The Eve Online Bloggers Portal. When I'm not running OUCH or the Art of War Alliance, I'm admin for evebloggers.com.

What this means is that every now and again I add new blogs to the site, so that everyone who either subscribes to evebloggers.com or visits the site will see the most recent updates on the front page from the Eve Online blogs out there.

I just had a look at the number of blogs that I have listed at evebloggers.com - there's 750 blogs about Eve Online that are listed. But I know that not all of those 750 blogs are currently active, or currently about Eve Online. People come, and people go, and blogs get lost by the wayside or changed as the interests of the author change.

So I'm going to start a new project. I'm going to go through every single one of those 750 blogs and I will remove:

every blog that hasn't published a new post in 6 months or more
every blog that doesn't have anything related to Eve Online on their front page

I'm wondering how many blogs this will remove, but the end result is going to be a more accurate number of 'currently active Eve Online blogs'.

I imagine this will take me a few weeks, but I think it will be worth it. Once I'm finished, this page will be a lot more accurate: Eve Online Player Blogs

If your blog is going to be one of those that get removed but you'd rather not - then get your act together and start posting about Eve before I come to yours. :)

Do you fancy yourself as a trainer?

2011-02-10T11:38:00.008+11:00

* Are you skilled at PVP?

* Are you knowledgeable about how to fit ships for PVP?

* Have you spent a lot of time in nullsec?

* Have you had experience as a Fleet Commander (FC)?

* Do you have an interest in helping people learn how to PVP in nullsec?

* Are you looking for a new challenge with your Eve 'career'?

If you answered YES to all the above questions, then I'm looking for you. Yes, that's right - you personally!

OUCH is the Open University of Celestial Hardship. We're sort of like Eve Uni, but we teach people how to survive and succeed in nullsec PVP. We use SISI and real-life nullsec PVP for the training, and we have a policy for our students to only use T1 frigates until they graduate. This helps reduce the financial and emotional impact of their losses, and teaches them how to work together to overcome bigger ships or bigger fleets.

Training Department

We have a Training Department that you, as a trainer, would be a member of. You would answer to our Training Director who oversees all our trainers and is ultimately responsible for the quality of training being given to our students.

Lesson Plans

We already have a documented series of lesson plans that are used by our Trainers when they run their training classes. These lesson plans form the outline of how a class is to be taught, and what they're to be taught about.

You would be welcome to provide your own input into modifying the lesson plans into something better than what they are, but you would need to follow the plans that have been outlined.

Why? Because we're ensuring consistency in our training. All students get the same training, the same way, so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to knowing what to do in nullsec, and how to operate, and what is expected of them.

What are the Lesson Plans?

The lesson plans are split up into modules, and they consist of:

Module 1 - Overview Settings

Module 2 - Client ESC Settings

Module 3 - Client Interface

Module 4 - Bookmarking

Module 5 - D-Scan

Module 6 - Tackling

Module 7 - Weaponry

Module 8 - Fleet Ops

Module 9 - Hunter / Prey

Yet to be documented:

Nullsec Survival - Travelling through nullsec, and Warp Bubbles

Each of the lesson plans includes step-by-step instructions on how to teach students the module, and what to teach them.

Why have you made it so easy?

We want to encourage more trainers to come onboard. The easier we make it for people to take on training roles, the more likely we'll have people willing to take on those roles
We want to automate the process as much as possible. The current Training Director and current trainers aren't going to be around forever. We have a system that allows new trainers to come in and continue the cycle. There's always going to be students - we need to make sure we always have trainers too.

We've set up a system that allows anyone to become trainers - with a few basic pre-requisites, of course (see questions at top of this post) - and we've made it as easy as possible for them to start training the way we want our students to be trained.

As I said, you'll have an input into making it better, because we're always on a path of improving how we do things.

Interested?

If you're interested in finding out more about how you can be involved as a trainer and helping people grow in this game, and helping them learn how to survive and fight in nullsec, then send an in-game evemail to Black Claw and we'll go from there.

Thank you for your interest.

Recreating my alter-ego, Alexia Morgan

2011-01-20T22:18:00.006+11:00

As most of us know by now, we've got a new character portrait creator. Personally, I think it's just awesome, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they enhance it over the next few months or so.

Last night I created a new Black Claw but unfortunately I, like many others, misunderstood the UI and thought that when I clicked on Save, it would save the 4 snapshots I created and allow me to go back to them later to pick and choose. When that didn't happen, and I was stuck with a character portrait that I didn't want and didn't like - I was pissed! Luckily for me, so was hundreds or thousands of others, and so CCP is going to allow those who don't like what the've created to have another go. Phew!

In the meantime, however, tonight I played with Alexia Morgan's new portrait, and I must say that after 4 hours of playing around with it, I've got a portrait that I REALLY like.

In the process creating the character and ending up with facial features that I really liked, I had this hairstyle:

After doing a bit more playing around, I came up with this:

Do you know how long it took me to get the right hairstyle with the right makeup? Man, I feel like a girl.... Anyway, I started playing around with the poses, lighting, angles, etc, until I finally got the exact look I wanted:

So then it was just a matter of zooming in with the camera, and SNAP! Alexia Morgan is immortalised again:

Alexia is a warrior-woman, a leader of OUCH and the Art of War Alliance (in partnership with Black Claw, of course), and there had to be the look of the warrior about her. She's gazing into the distance, calm but determined, strong but very feminine.

I'm very happy with the result.

When I can, I'll be recreating Black Claw, and I'll take similar snapshots of his development progress, with explanations of why I chose what I did.

New Eden poster

2011-01-12T07:39:00.003+11:00

EON Magazine have updated their poster of New Eden. Click on the image to the left there, so you can see a larger version of it.

From EON Magazine themselves:

As it's a new year things need refreshing. So continuing on that theme, we decided to give the New Eden poster a little facelift and an update. Individually they are $14.95 however the cheapest way is to purchase the whole poster bundle.

You know you want this on your wall, so hurry up and order a copy. :)

Is your corp looking for new recruits?

2011-01-06T09:26:00.012+11:00

One of the biggest issues that corps have is recruitment. The Eve Online forums have a very popular and effective recruitment section, and you do your best to qualify your potential recruits by specifying exactly what you're looking for. But then you've got a lot of time spent on recruitment interviews, where you ask questions of the applicant about what they're looking for, what their experience is, and why they're looking for a new corp.

Along the way you're trying to guage what kind of person they are, how you feel about them, whether you think they'll fit into your corp or not. Usually an API key is necessary to help you feel comfortable about who they are and what their motivations might be, although this is never guaranteed either.

OUCH's graduate placement program

We're going to start a new program within OUCH now that we've got our training department moving ahead in full swing - the placement of graduates with those corps out there who are keen on not having to qualify or interview their recruits.

You see, those people who have graduated from OUCH have already been qualified for you as fine, upstanding citizens of Eve. They've joined OUCH to learn nullsec survival and PVP. They've gone through 11 modules of nullsec survival and PVP training, have at least 10 real kills on their killboard, and proven themselves fit to traverse large expanses of nullsec without being killed.

What does an OUCH student have to achieve to graduate?

In order to graduate, our students have to complete the following training modules:

Basic PvP

1. Overview settings

2. EVE client ESC settings

3. EVE client interface

4. Bookmarking

5. D-Scan

6. Tackling

7. Weaponry

8. Fleet Ops

9. Hunter/Prey

Nullsec Survival

1. Travelling through Nullsec

2. Bubbles: Mobile Warp Disruptors and Interdictor

During their training, they will be involved in fleet operations within OUCH, our alliance, or with our blues, to practice what they're learning. They need to get at least 10 kills to count towards their graduation.

Once they've completed the modules, they than have to travel across 15 nullsec systems in a T1 frigate. They then have to travel back, so a total of 30 jumps through nullsec. They cannot be killed during the test, and they have to take screenshots at certain points that show their ship, the time, and the system. They have 5 hours to complete this test.

When they have satisfactorily completed all the graduation requirements (this includes a review by senior staff to ensure they have completed their training requirements in a meaningful way), they are given a decoration which they can then proudly display that says they are a Graduate of OUCH.

So how does that help me as a CEO or recruitment officer?

Graduates of OUCH have done the hard yards to learn how to survive and engage in PVP in nullsec. They have proven themselves to be fit and capable members of any nullsec corp or alliance. Admittedly their training has been in T1 frigates and cruisers, but once they've done the basics they're free to start flying T2 ships like stealth bombers and interceptors, etc, as they continue to work on their skills for more advanced ship combat.

* OUCH graduates are unlikely to be looking for a quick buck via corp theft. Any pilots of 'unsavoury disposition' are weeded out during training.

* They're not going to require basic training on how things work in nullsec.

* They're not going to waste a lot of your valuable time asking stupid questions.

* They're familiar with effective 'wartime operations policies' for highsec wardecs.

Would you like to know more?

Contact Black Claw in-game or via a reply below this post. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Where do I sign up as a corp for your placement program?

Again, contact me and we'll discuss it. What we'll need is your corp name, contact details, and a description of what the corp does and what would be expected of OUCH graduates who might want to join your corp.

This information will be put on our forum for graduates to see, and anyone that wants to join participating corps will be able to follow up with your nominated contacts.

We would expect that you have at least 20 active members in your corp to make it worthwhile for OUCH graduates to join you if they're interested.

I'm not a CEO or recruitment officer, but I'd like to join OUCH and do this training!

All pilots of any age or background are welcome to join us. Join our public channel OUCH-UNI if you want to ask any questions, or contact Black Claw via evemail. Alternatively, just join us. We'll accept your application as soon as possible, and get you started with your nullsec survival and PVP training as soon as you're able to.

A day in the life of OUCH's CEO

2010-12-23T14:15:00.004+11:00

You know, there's no such thing as a typical day in my life as I manage OUCH and the Art of War Alliance, so this post is going to be more general than specific. I wrote this because it was requested of me - I'm sure they'll enjoy it, but I hope you enjoy it too.

My day starts around 6:30am when I wake up. I drag myself into the study, collapse into my comfy chair (I'm still waking up!), and check my Gmail and deal with all the emails that came in overnight, answering those that need answering, viewing interesting web pages that they might link to, or just deleting them as rubbish. I then check Facebook and see what's new. One of my friends might be sharing the latest US government outrage about assassinating Wikileaks members or torturing people they don't like, and I'll rage a little and then go and get some breakfast. I usually have muesli with yoghurt and honey and milk, and come back to eat it while I log into Eve Online.

As I log in I look at the top left of my character picture see if there's any new messages for me. I know it's going to be an ordinary day when maybe I've got maybe 2 or 3 emails. I like ordinary days. When I see there's 10 messages or more waiting for me, I sigh and wonder who started another war.... Luckily that doesn't happen too often.

Not that war's a bad thing! To be honest, I get excited when a new war starts, because then I start yelling at people via evemails to tell them what to do as I prepare the alliance for the war that's about to unfold.

But on an average day, I continue logging in while eating my breakfast. (Well, I do that on a not so average day too, but I digress...) I wave o/ in all the channels I'm in (corp, alliance, public, blues, intel, personal, and occasionally evebloggers). Sometimes people wave back. Then there's wave parties as everyone waves. I like that.

I log on to Teamspeak but have myself in the AFK channel so I don't have to talk to anyone while still waking up, and then in Eve I check the messages that have come in. These are either enquiries about joining OUCH or the alliance, or requests for reimbursement for lost ships during training or PVP operations, or queries about training, or someone giving me intel about regional activities, or updates on what I missed out on while I was sleeping. Being in Australia, I'm usually asleep during the peak US / EU times, so I often miss out on the all the excitement. Except on weekends, when I can play during the day at the same time as everyone else. Then I can potentially join in on whatever fleet is active at the time in the alliance or with our blues. I like weekends.

I very rarely chat with anyone at this stage, unless they've private convo'd me to ask me something or tell me something. Then I'll briefly chat with them while still eating my breakfast. I try to keep it short though, because I have to get ready for work after I've done my morning Eve routine...

When I've logged in and there's 10 or more messages, I'm usually also inundated with private convo's or lots of corp/alliance chat - "OMG! WE'RE AT WAR! WHAT DO WE DO! WHAT DO WE DO!!!!! I'M A TEAPOT, I'M A TEAPOT!!" Then I have to calm people down and start issuing instructions. I write alliance mails to remind everyone (which will be for the first time for any newer members) about the alliance's Wartime Operations Policies, referring them all to the relevant forum threads so they can get the appropriate information for their wartime activities.

The senior staff have their own operational activities during war, which is usually gathering intel, establishing scouting operations, and informing everyone of what they need to do. My communications to the corp is separate to the communications to the alliance, and I remind everyone in OUCH that all PVE is banned during war, to read the forum for OUCH's wartime operations policies, and I make sure I threaten to kick them out if they continue to engage in PVE during war.

I've kicked members out for exactly that in the past, so everyone knows I take these operational policies seriously. As a result, we've had wardecs against us cancelled by aggressors because of the success of our policies. I consider them 'victories', of course, which I'm very happy about.

So after dealing with the administration of the corp and alliance for maybe an hour, I log out of Eve and check the forum, answering anything on there that I feel I can provide input on. (Sometimes I do this while still logged into Eve.) Then I prepare for work, and then head off to work. If it's a 'new wardec day', then I'm going to be late for work...

I check evemails via Eve Gate occasionally during the day, answering any queries that might come in, etc.

When I get home from work, I usually log in to catch up with the things that I couldn't do via Eve Gate. I'm usually brain-dead from work, so I just quietly chill for a while. Then there's dinner, maybe a movie on occasions, before I get back into Eve in the hour or two before downtime.

At this time it's usually pretty quiet, so I catch up on forum posts, evemails, or consider my strategies for the future of OUCH and the alliance. I occasionally talk to people that are active, answer queries about training, corp or alliance membership, communicate with blues, or - occasionally - undock and go look for a fight. I know - shocking! As if I get any time for PVP....

If we're at war, I usually do less administration and spend the time moving around highsec in a cloaked ship, antagonising the war targets with my presence, gathering intel, and occasionally waiting for the right moment to pounce. Sometimes I'll lead a fleet of members into battle, always conscious of the benefits of guerilla warfare. I treat all engagements as training operations, teaching the members about how to operate during war, and why certain tactics are important.

After downtime is just before my bedtime, but things start getting a little more active in Eve when EU players start coming online in their morning. My 2IC / Training Director usually comes on at this point, and we're often discussing training plans, PVP operations, or dicussing strategy relating to the future of OUCH and the alliance.

As the time approaches midnight, I'm often considering the day's events, taking into account strategic discussions, and then occasionally writing some alliance or corp message to communicate the evolutionary changes, training or strategy of the corp or alliance, and what those changes will mean to members. I also check the forum to see what other input I can provide, or feedback I can take from discussions to help me decide the future plans of OUCH.

One thing I've always been very clear with is my management style. I try to get people taking ownership of various areas of responsibility so that the workload of running this place can be shared. Maintaining a healthy balance between my life and this game is important to me, you see, so I don't go to the extreme with my in-game time.

This has worked out quite well over the past year, with encouraging others to take on training, answering queries from people about training regimes and ship fittings, and forum moderation. My day usually includes maintaining all those different areas, with all the people that are assisting me with them.

I consider myself a benevolent dictator. OUCH and the alliance are mine alone, and I will not let anyone else take on an in-game position that could potentially be dangerous to my position (eg. taking away my CEO role or disbanding the alliance). Everything that ends up happening is in line with my underlying strategy.

You see, everyone is encouraged to give me ideas and suggestions about how they think OUCH and the alliance should operate, and while I listen to their suggestions, if it's not in alignment with the direction I want to go I will end up telling them why I won't allow it. However, if their suggestions are in alignment with my vision, then I'll allow their suggestions to evolve through discussion and planning, and become part of how we do things.

It seems to work pretty well, which I'm happy about as I have no intention of doing it differently.

Communication with other corps or alliances is part of my game too. Some people PVE, some PVP. I communicate. I love communicating, negotiating, and generally being a diplomat. I love the conversations designed to either obtain information from hostiles, or obtain friendships. When TEST alliance recently moved into our area we were almost wardec'd by them, but I managed to change that around to becoming blue with them instead. From that point on we had a wonderful relationship flying with them, being involved in roams and camps throughout various nullsec systems.

Anyway, once I've finished all my conversations in-game or in Teamspeak, finalised all the evemails I need to respond to (or initiate), and checked the forums, I usually say goodbye to everyone, go back to my Gmail and tidy that up before heading to bed. I take my iPad with me to check Facebook while in bed, browse some RSS feeds in Google Reader, and then fall asleep around midnight.

Thus ends a day in the life of the OUCH CEO.

All of the above is, generally speaking, my standard day. It certainly does keep me busy! But I've been doing that for a year now, and still loving it. At this point in time, I have no intentions of stopping - especially since more and more people are starting to get onboard to help me, which means there's just going to be less work for me. Woohoo!

Ahem. I'll go now...

You want epic? I'll give you epic

2010-11-29T10:53:00.004+11:00

Yesterday morning in Eve I was involved in the most epic battle of my gaming experience. Let me share the story with you….

The fight started with about 10 of us in cruisers and frigates, camping a bubble and gate in nullsec. Our fleet consisted of the Art of War Alliance, and some guys we were newly blue with. We attacked a small fleet of ships that came through the gate, killling probably 5 of their cruisers. Then another of their fleet jumped in, a Dominix battleship that quickly dropped a cynosaural field, which opened a jump bridge with a system far away. Suddenly two supercarriers appeared!

Yes, our frigates and cruisers killed some cruisers, so they use a cyno-battleship to hot-drop supercarriers against us. Firstly - what a bunch of losers! Secondly - we fled the battlefield, withdrawing to tactical bookmarks.

But then another alliance (Bat Phone) very quickly heard about the supercarriers nearby their own roaming fleet and jumped in and started tackling the Dominix and supercarriers so they couldn’t get away. The Dominix was primaried and warp bubbles went up, but the supercarriers were repairing the Dominix (maybe 'cause it was their way home?). The call went out in local for people to bring battleships or capital ships, and soon enough the Dominix was destroyed. Then the supercarriers became the target of this small-ish fleet that thought we would 'give it a go'.

We rejoined the fight ourselves, offering our assistance as best we could. I was flying a Pilgrim, which is a combat recon ship and good at sucking a target’s capacitor dry, so I was one of the ships doing that against the supercarriers.

Initially there were probably 30 of us, but within 10 minutes there were ships and fleets and alliances coming from all corners of the region. There were phone calls made to people to get them to get in the game ASAP! The supercarriers were repairing each other so that the combined fleet against them was hardly scratching their shields.

A Rapier appeared and dropped another cyno, and a carrier appeared before the cyno and Rapier were destroyed. The carrier immediately added its repair capabilities to the supercarrier that was taking the most damage, but within a minute it was destroyed by our fleet.

Then the pilot of the most damaged supercarrier logged off but the ship was stuck in the bubble for 15 minutes. The other one managed to slowly crawl out of his bubble and warped off, but then came back again to continue repairing his buddy, who disappeared once his 15-minute log off timer was up (your ship stays there for 15 minutes even if you logged off, IF your ship is being attacked and can’t warp off).

So now all attention was given to the supercarrier that had come back, and more warp bubbles went up around it. Someone called out for Titan pilots, and soon enough a Titan appeared on the field to add its firepower against the remaining supercarrier. By this time there was almost 100 pilots in this system in NPC nullsec – a system that rarely gets more than 20 or so. Neutrals passing through were stopping to watch the awesome sight, and we were all too busy to worry about targeting them.

Meanwhile, in the middle of this huge capital-ship battle, there’s me in my little Pilgrim, sitting off the supercarrier at about 7km, doing my bit to neut the hell out of it. The artillery fire, autocannons, lasers, missiles, torpedoes and huge explosions from almost a hundred combatants were lighting up space all around me. It was truly awesome.

Eventually the supercarrier was killed, unable to survive the combined forces of around 85+ ships against it, ranging from frigates, many battleships, capital ships and a Titan.

In the aftermath, everyone agreed in local that the system was now blue, and no one would attack each other. The supercarrier wrecks were looted, and over the next 20 minutes everyone started drifting off, back to whatever it was they were doing before the supercarriers arrived. The watching neutrals moved on.

I was sitting there probably for an hour afterwards, cloaked, watching pilots moving around, looting the wreck, taking photos, salvaging.... Blues, oranges, reds and neutrals – today, for a short while, everyone was blue.

It was awesome.

Black Claw's update

2010-11-25T13:48:00.000+11:00

Hello there, I bet you forgot about me, right? Well don't worry, I hadn't forgotten about you. I've just been busy, and haven't really felt that there's been anything really interesting to write about.

OUCH is still recruiting (when we're not at war, that is), and we have training happening on a daily basis, including roaming through nullsec to put into practice the things that the members are learning during training.

Speaking of wars, we've been involved in two wardecs this week, both due to coalition support.

Oh yeh, I should tell you about the coalition. The Art of War Alliance made some new friends over the past few weeks, and we've somewhat formalised our relationship into a 'coalition of alliances'. Since there are 3 of us, and all our names start with "A", we've called it the A3 Coalition. As good a name as any, I think....

First order of business was attempting to support each other with wardecs - if one is wardec'd, the others wardec the aggressor, so that we're all involved. Unfortunately, this had a cascade effect that made it prohibitively expensive, so we quickly learnt that won't work! We're now changing that policy to something more suitable, but I'm not going to tell you what that is. Security measures, and all. I know you understand.

I'm really proud of the fact that we're doing so well against war targets. I don't mean we're killing them repeatedly, I mean they're not killing US repeatedly. This is because of the wartime operations policies I implement within the alliance. As soon as a war starts, I initiate the policies and everything changes. We've pretty much won most of the wars we've been involved in since these polies were created.

However, I'm not going to say any more on that. If you're interested in finding out how to win your own wars that you're the victim of, then contact Black Claw in-game to discuss how the Art of War Alliance can help you.

Along the way I've been doing the occasional PVP myself, and I've learned a few new things of my own. While the Cynabal is a tough ship, it's also a shit magnet like you wouldn't believe. I've had fleets chasing me through nullsec in an attempt to kill me. I'm sure they're phoning up their friends and telling them to log on to help catch the Cynabal, 'cause people have logged in and joined in the chase. I've had fleets of stealth bombers appear out of nowhere in an attempt to blow me out of the sky. All of them failed, luckily for me.

But it made me realise that the ship gathers too much attention, and because I'm more of a solo pilot without any fleet support, I've decided to park it away at the back of the hangar. Instead, I'll use the other ships that don't get so much attention. Like the Hurricane. I've got a setup that I want to test in battle that I think is pretty cool. But I have to find the time first!

It's amazing how much time is spent in-game on corporation management, alliance diplomacy, and coalition setups. While I enjoy it all, don't get me wrong, it doesn't leave that much room for PVP'ing. Thank the Gods that at least training is sorting itself out, so I don't have to do that too.

Until next time, fly however the hell you want.

OUCH and AWA featured in EON Magazine

2010-10-30T09:05:00.002+11:00

I was honoured to be approached by EON Magazine a number of months ago, who asked me if I minded being featured in an upcoming magazine. After thinking about it for about 0.034 seconds, I said no, of course not. So they sent me a whole bunch of questions and asked me to answer them with as much detail as I could, which I did.

The feature was published in their October issue, and it was exciting to see my words there for everyone to see! Thanks EON. :)

However, due to space constraints they had to edit out a lot of the information I sent them, so I wanted to put that information here, in my blog, so that the missing gaps were available for people to read. Please enjoy.

HOW DID YOUR AWA GET STARTED?

A long time ago, back when I first started playing Eve Online in 2006, I got the idea to translate "The Art of War" by Sun Tsu into something that was applicable to Eve Online. Ever since then I've been playing around with the Art of War theme, writing the occasional Art of War articles for my blog as well as having some of them published on various Eve-related websites. I was also featured for this on www.massively.com some time ago, but I've not completed publishing my series of articles. When I was trying to come up with a name for my alliance, it struck me that a good name for it would be the Art of War Alliance. I was surprised it was available, and snapped it up as soon as I thought of it.

I think it lends well to the theme of OUCH, teaching nullsec survival. A theme I'm thinking about at the moment, but yet to implement, is having the alliance available to teach corporations the 'art of war', or how to survive wardecs. Where OUCH teaches individuals how to survive in nullsec, AWA might teach corporations how to survive wars. I've survived two major wars so far in the past four years, and even won two wars against pirates, forcing them out of the area they were inhabiting, so I feel like I have a small amount of experience to draw upon as I work out how I'm going to move forward with this idea. I'd like to incorporate Sun Tsu's Art of War into what I teach within the alliance.

OUCH WOULD APPEAR TO BE THE FOCUS OF THE ALLIANCE. TELL US ABOUT WHY YOU SET UP OUCH?

Towards the end of 2009 there was some discussions within the Eve blogging community about Eve University, and how it was difficult for new players to get to learn the game because of politics and elitist attitudes. On December 2 I made a blog post that said:

"Here's a tip for the new players:

The best University is in 0.0 space. Suck it up, gather your belongings, and head out to the Open University of Celestial Hardship (O.U.C.H.)* and you'll learn more there than you could ever possibly imagine...

* Just in case you're wondering, O.U.C.H. is not a real university. It's more like the 'School of Hard Knocks', but O.U.C.H. sounds better than S.H.K...."

From that off-the-cuff bit of satire sprung an idea. The next day I started using Google Wave to invite discussions on the idea of a corp that provides nullsec survival training. By 14th of December, OUCH was brought into existence as a real corp providing nullsec survival training. We had donations of ISK and material resources, and was invited to join an alliance that would help provide support. We officially opened on December 29th, and started accepting applications. Within a month we had over 100 members. It was an exciting beginning!

WHAT IS THE FOCUS OF THE OTHER CORPS IN THE ALLIANCE?

I'm currently very relaxed about alliance membership, as right now it's simply about three things: 1) getting numbers into the alliance, 2) providing industrial support to OUCH, and 3) facilitating further PVP training or operational activities.

Any corporation that wants to join AWA is made to understand that as far as we're concerned, the only requirement we have of them is that they continue their normal operations that they did before joining the alliance. Being in the alliance allows them to participate in training or PVP operations in lowsec and nullsec should they want to, or allows them to build ships and fittings for OUCH and the alliance - again, should they want to.

We've just recently got a corp that wants to focus on wormhole PVE operations, and another that plans on using a wormhole POS as base of operations for PVP raids into lowsec and nullsec, so they're planning on working together. These corps, and the industrial member corps, not only benefit from being able to join in on OUCH's training and PVP operations, but OUCH members benefit by being able to join in on the operations of these other member corps as well.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE ALLIANCE AS A WHOLE?

When I formed the alliance my original plan was that we'd have our own sovereignty in nullsec by the end of 2010. However, I've come to understand that I might have been a little hasty with such lofty ambitions. For now, the alliance is simply to bring together a bunch of like-minded corps who want to have some fun doing their own thing under a common banner.

Member corps know that the focus of the alliance is with OUCH and nullsec survival training. All members understand that alliance activities and operations revolve a great deal around OUCH's operations and goals.

As we move forward, I'd like to see some very strong corps join the Art of War Alliance with a strong commitment to help the alliance obtain and hold our own sovereignty in nullsec. When that happens, then I can start working with the CEO's of such corps with plans on achieving this. Until then, we're just out for some relaxed, casual fun with the focus being on teaching people how to survive in nullsec and get more kills than losses. I operate on the principle that 'if you build it, they will come'.

WHAT WOULD A CORP MEMBER GET FROM THEIR TIME IN OUCH THAT THEY WOULDN'T GET FROM EVE UNIVERSITY?

When I first started discussing the idea of a nullsec survival training corp on the Eve forums, I was ridiculed by a number of people, particularly by some Eve Uni 'enthusiasts'. It was their opinion that in order to start up a training corp of my own that I should join Eve Uni to see how the 'professionals' did it. That seemed ridiculous to me. The whole point behind OUCH was to move forward with my idea of what nullsec training should be like, not what Eve Uni thought it should be. I thought it was sad that my invitation for discussion on the forums quickly sank into such fanatical outpourings of negative emotion, but it only reinforced in me to provide something different to what Eve Uni does.

To my understanding, there was a lot of political infighting and strangled policies last year which caused the problems amongst new members not being able to get any appropriate training. Since I established OUCH, however, Eve Uni's leadership changed and I believe it's been for the better. I was approached by their new CEO and we had a great discussion about mutual goals and beliefs, and we're blue and friendly with each other.

However, I believe that Eve Uni still only provides highsec PVP training, but their biggest problem is the number of wars that they're involved in, which forces them to almost always be operating under wartime operations policies. This really screws things up for free and easy PVP training in highsec, as they always have to hide from war targets looking for easy kills against the noobs.

OUCH provides nullsec survival and basic PVP training. Training and operations in highsec are rare to nonexistent for us. A number of our members and trainers live in lowsec and nullsec, and as for myself, I'm a -9 security status pilot/pirate who just stays in lowsec as much as I can.

The 'celestial hardship' part of our name is true. We don't protect people from the harsh realities of life in lowsec and nullsec. In fact, we push them into it.

War? In nullsec you're ALWAYS at war. Every day, every minute, every second, you're doing everything you can to stay alive. If you see someone who's not blue, you can be guaranteed they're looking at you as a potential target. Unless they're flying a PVE or industrial ship, in which case they're looking at you with fear, knowing THEY'RE likely to be the target.

OUCH teaches people how to survive in nullsec. Simply put, Eve University just doesn't teach that. They teach highsec PVP, whereas we teach nullsec survival. We cater to different niche areas of training.

What Eve Uni teach would actually complement what we teach. The two aren't mutually exclusive, but can go together. What you learn in Eve Uni can then be applied in nullsec once you learn how to survive out there.

Of course, we also teach some basic PVP, but we teach it in T1 frigates and cruisers. Using cheap and expendable ships and items, we throw our members into the deep end and they learn from practical experience. We provide theory and instruction, but the experiences are real. OUCH members learn from getting their asses kicked by hostiles out there in nullsec. Repeatedly. But our motto encourages this. We don't pussy-foot around. We don't have tissues for people to wipe their tears. We shove them into a ship, and get them out into nullsec. As they die, they learn, and the more they die, the more they learn.

There's a reason we're called OUCH!

WHAT ARE YOUR RELATIONS LIKE WITH OTHER LEARNER CORPS AND ALLIANCES IN EVE?

Apart from Eve Uni, we have no relationships with other learner corps and alliances. We've pretty much mostly kept to ourselves. We provide a niche service and as far as I know, no other corp or alliance in Eve Online provides dedicated nullsec survival training 'for noobs and carebears' like we do. Obviously there's a lot of corps and alliances in nullsec that provide PVP training, but they also expect their members to have already learned some basics of nullsec survival before they've joined.

There's been a couple of corps I've heard of who also provided training to some extent, but my approaches to them were ignored, so nothing ever evolved to the point of even discussing any kind of relationship.

We don't mind being alone, with few blues. It just means there's more targets to practice against.

YOU HAVE VERY LOW ENTRY REQUIREMENTS - VIRTUALLY NONE, IT SEEMS - IS THAT EVER A PROBLEM?

I've tried to maintain strict security policies in line with the 'open university' theme. Everyone is welcome, and there are no security or reference checks. We used to have free ships and items, which most members were grateful for. But it's been the few idiots that come along and decide to take everything they can for themselves that have slowly caused an evolution in the availability of free ships for our members.

By evolution, I mean we no longer provide free ships or fittings. Instead, we provide cheap ships to corp members, and the ships are built by corp members who are looking to make a little bit of money and support OUCH at the same time. We're also just starting to develop a program of providing pre-fitted T1 ships / fittings for members to buy as a package deal, jump in and then lose them in combat.

And that's when our ship reimbursement program comes into play. Every time a member loses a ship, all they need to do is send me an evemail with the killboard link of their loss and OUCH reimburses them for the value of the lost ship. Combine that with their insurance payout and they can actually afford to buy another ship with fittings and maybe even come out with a profit!

So our ways of supporting our members have had to evolve to cope with the selfish, greedy blackhearts that think it's a great idea to steal donations from the corp, and screw things over for as many people as they can.

But we'll never increase our entry requirements. All that's required is a commitment to learn how to survive in nullsec. We no longer provide access to corp hangars, and no one person ever has access to anything more than the ships available for a cheap price via corp contracts.

When people find they can no longer steal from us, or they're unable to gain any kind of selfish benefit, they quickly move on. They're not the kinds of people we want in the corp anyway, so they're quickly weeded out without much effort at all.

WHAT IS YOUR OWN PERSONAL ROLE WITHIN THE AWA (ARE YOU DEMOCRATIC, AUTOCRATIC, ETC) AND HOW DOES YOUR ALLIANCE OPERATE INTERNALLY (WHAT DIVISIONS, ETC)?

The alliance is about 3 months old, and I'm still building it. As per some of my comments above, with it being a casual and relaxed organisation, there's no 'divisions' as such. Instead, we have the member corps making their various operations available to other members of the alliance.

I run OUCH and the alliance like a 'democratic dictatorship'. All CEO's and Directors of member corps are invited to be on an Executive Council. Everyone can tell me what they think is best, and if I have an idea, I present it to corp or alliance members for feedback, discussion, criticism and suggestions for improvement. The ultimate decision rests with me, but I take note of what people are saying, and I'm willing to change my plans according to better ideas, or significant rebellion against my own ideas.

At the end of the day, while I have a vision about where I want to take AWA and OUCH, I'm aware that it's much better to tread softly than to bash heads.

COULD YOU LIST WHO THE MAIN DIRECTORS ARE AND WHAT THEIR ROLES ARE?

Black Claw. And.... my alts.

And... oh wait... no, just me.

I learnt a long time ago with past corps I've been in, and an alliance I once took over, that if I have others sharing the control, then I have no control. So I now make sure I keep all the control. This baby's mine, and if people don't like it, they don't have to be part of it. It's that simple.

IN WHAT ECONOMIC SPHERE DOES YOUR ALLIANCE OPERATE IN? HOW DOES YOUR ALLIANCE PRIMARILY MAKE MONEY (AND WOULD YOU SAY YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL)?

Make money? Hmmm... Maybe I'll get back to you on that once we start making money....

WHAT ARE YOUR POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS WITH THE FRONTIER (O.O) ALLIANCES AND THE CORE EMPIRES? AS A "NEWB" ALLIANCE YOU MUST BE LOOKED DOWN UPON?

Mostly hostile. We have more reds and oranges than we do blues. Our standings scheme is simple: reds are those who actively seek us out, looking for the easy kills against our noobs, and oranges are those who are known to be hostile but we should simply be cautious around. But anyone not blue is a target to us, as we operate on a NBSI (not blue, shoot it!) policy.

I think the ones who we've made red to us are probably the ones that think it's a great idea to hunt out the noobs for the easy kills. I'm not sure that achieves what they want to achieve, since that's what OUCH is all about - the more we die, the more we learn, and the better we become. They're helping us, rather than hindering us.

Some of those who are orange to us have actually learned to respect us. There's a lot that can be done with T1 frigates in nullsec, and some of the local inhabitants have learnt to be very cautious if OUCH members are around. I like that a lot. And some even run in fear. I like that a lot too.

IN WHAT REGION(S) OF SPACE ARE YOU BASED AND WHAT IS LIFE LIKE THERE?

Our highsec location is Derelik, which is right on the border of Curse, a nullsec region that is NPC-owned. We chose this spot because there are less gate camps controlling entry into nullsec, which makes it just that little bit safer for noobs and carebears to use as they learn how to operate in nullsec. With less focus on 'chokepoint' ownership from the nullsec inhabitants, it becomes more like lowsec but with nullsec PVP tactics, and that makes it an ideal environment for nullsec survival training.

One of the goals I have is to 'own' our area of NPC-nullspace, simply by our presence. I want dozens and dozens of OUCH members in the nullsec systems that joint with lowsec, so that WE 'own' the chokepoint. I think that would make it a lot more interesting and exciting to provide the nullsec survival training that we do. We would base ourselves in nullsec, instead of where we're currently based (lowsec and highsec).

Life in our little area is still quite interesting. Because it's on the edge of nullsec, we still get some of the nullsec corporations hanging out in our area and providing some tension. And of course, there's a corp that are all flying battleships and simply engage in large-ship PVP in lowsec, and ignore our T1 frigates buzzing around. Occasionally large fleets of nullsec alliance pilots fly through on a roam, and we all dock up and wait for them to pass by. Life is great.

HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR COLLECTIVE COMBAT ABILITIES AS AN ALLIANCE?

Well, if 1 is a bunch of noobs that have no idea, and 10 is a fleet of Titans, then we're probably about 2.5. Our killboard has a lot more green than red, which is nice to see when I wake up every day.

UPON WHICH MEMBERS WOULD SAY YOUR ALLIANCE MOST DEPENDS, AND WHY?

Apart from myself as the alliance leader, I'd say there's no single members at this stage that the alliance depends on. We're still growing, and I'm sure such dependencies will come in time. Just not right now.

WHAT ARE YOUR LONG-TERM GOALS FOR THE ALLIANCE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ENSURE IT SURVIVES BEYOND THE OTHERS?

To own our own sovereignty in nullsec, so that we can have a nullsec base of operations where our members can hang out in, learn nullsec survival and PVP, and have some safety to go ratting or do missions in the nullsec systems that we own.

For AWA to survive in order to reach its goals I follow a simply philosophy: NEVER SURRENDER. Always push on, no matter what.

The only reason corps and alliances fail is because their leadership quits. If you don't quit, your goals WILL be realised. You just have to keep striving for them.

WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR 3 OR 4 MOST SIGNIFICANT MILITARY OPERATIONS TO DATE (COULD YOU STATE WHAT REGIONS THEY TOOK PART IN, WHEN, WHO THEY WERE AGAINST, A BRIEF SUMMARY OF HOW IT ERUPTED, WHAT HAPPENED AND HOW IT CONCLUDED)?

1. When I created OUCH I joined an alliance at its executor's request. He wanted to support OUCH's goals, and after much discussion I joined with him. However, I think it was in January that our membership of that supporting alliance fell apart. The alliance executor decided he wanted to move the alliance to a different region, and follow a different goal. He tried to hijack OUCH and pull it out from under me. His manipulation of OUCH members led to about 20% of our members at the time leaving OUCH and going with him instead of staying with OUCH.

2. Two weeks after OUCH's departure from that alliance, we had war declared against us by some unknown highsec griefing corp that seemed determined to destroy us. We'd never encountered them at all until they declared war, but they told me they had a budget for the war, and their excuse was that we had been seen flying with a previous enemy of theirs. Sounded like mercenaries to me, and I thought their excuse was pathetic, since they weren't attacking their 'enemy', only the weak corp (us) that had been seen flying with them....

That war lasted two months, and moved from highsec, to lowsec to nullsec. We transferred the 'battlefield' locations into areas that we had a more even footing by allowing others to get involved on our side. Eventually, after 2 months of sustained war, they cancelled the wardec and moved on.

I was very proud of OUCH members for holding on during such a period. At the end of that 2 month war I went from about 140 members to 130 members. We lost some, we gained some, but in the end we survived their attempts to destroy us.

I always wondered who paid them to seek out OUCH's destruction. I'm sure it wasn't the alliance executor who tried to hijack OUCH and then steal all the members for himself....

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? IF NOT, COULD YOU MAKE ONE UP, PLEASE?

"You're going to die. A lot. But along the way you'll learn how to die less."