Eve Bloggers

There's a movement of Eve Bloggers that's arisen, of people writing about their adventures in the Eve galaxy. If you're one of them, then join the in-game channel for all the Eve bloggers. It's called EVE-BLOGGERS.

I hope to see you in there.

Returning home

My roots are in Gallente space, and today I realised I need to return there. Not because of any soppy, heartfelt emotions drawing me back... No. For me, it's because I realised I'm working for the wrong people.

I'm Gallente, and here I was, working for the Minmatar. And their worthwhile rewards for my service were blueprints for Minmatar ships. I realised I was wasting my time.

I'm specialised in Gallente ships and their tactics. Minmatar ships are unknown to me... and here I was, working hard for Minmatar rewards that I can't use...

Stupid, stupid Black Claw!

So I've packed my few important belongings into my nice new battleship, which I only got yesterday (that was an exciting day!), and I'm heading off for Gallente space, where my rewards will be in accordance with my abilities to use them!

I found an agent and a system that's only 14 jumps away from where I was based, and I'm en route as I type this. Autopilot through highsec space is a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately, it's only a high-quality level 2 agent, but considering I was only doing level 3 missions at the moment, I don't mind working my way up again.

The only other issue I'll have is that I'll have to re-establish my mission setups in my new territory. My agent used to send me missions into any of 4 regular systems (Gulfonodi, Aeddin, Teonosude and Gelfiven), and so instead of having a single salvaging ship that I'd have to go and get and bring back, I set up a salvager in each system. This reduced travel time, which increased the available time for actually doing missions, thus maximising potential income. I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone who runs missions and salvages.

Anyway, setting myself up again in the new systems will involve more salvaging ships needing to be set up. I think that until I can afford to do this properly in each system, I'll be fitting salvagers and tractor beams to the battleship (a Dominix). I won't need the same firepower on the ship as I did with the level 3 missions, so my drones can do all the work while I salvage the remains.

It's going to be fun! I'm looking forward to returning home, finding new adventures, and meeting new pilots. If you're Gallente, and you're flying around Oursulaert systems, look me up and say hello. It'll be great to meet you!

Missions, tanks and battleships

As I venture through the various missions, talking to other pilots here and there, I've been taking on board a lot of their advice and building up a nice tank for my Myrmidon battlecruiser. I've trained up the Hull Upgrades skill to level 5, and I've installed T2 armour hardeners. It really makes a difference...

I did a mission that saw me warp in on a bunch of rat pirates, and there was about a dozen ships that immediately started to attack me. I activated the modules and started picking the ships off one at a time. I quickly discovered that there were 4 battlecruisers throwing their combined firepower at me, assisting their brothers in cruisers and frigates.

It was quite a battle, and I was excited to see that my own battlecruiser easily tanked everything they could throw at me. They all died to my railguns and drones, and victory was sweet.

I also tested how long I could maintain my cap while maintaining my armour tank. With 4 Cap Recharger II's sitting next to my afterburner, I could maintain the dual Medium Armour Repairer II's and the rat specific hardeners and Damage Control Unit II for about 7 minutes before the cap ran out. But if I threw on an extra cap recharger, I was able to hold the cap indefinitely at about 50%. After 12 minutes with it sitting at 50%, I gave up.

Unfortunatelly, my systems use the Apple OS, which means that both the skill training and ship fitting simulation programs that many other pilots use is unavailable for me. I have to make do with advice and personal experience. It's ok... I don't mind. Just means that I get to see how things really work, instead of in the simulations.

I'm using my missions to save up for a Dominix battleship. I'm not too far away now. I got excited last night when I realised that most of the modules I have in the battlecruiser can simply be transferred over to the battleship, saving me a lot of money. I'll have to upgrade the armour repairers, the guns and the afterburner. But that's a small cost to having a much larger tank.

I've been able to up the missions to level 3, and earning a bit more money than before... I'll have that Dominix faster than you can say OMGITSAGATECAMP!

Burnt by lowsec

It's been a few weeks since I last recorded my adventures, and while I've been quiet, I certainly haven't been bored. I've been taking on missions from Native Freshfoods and doing a few level 3 missions. Unfortunately, they weren't paying too much, so I decided to change agents and started working for the Republic Fleet; the money from level 2 missions has been equivalent to what I was getting from the previous level 3 missions... Go figure.

Coincidentally, the other few members of my corp were doing the same thing, so now we're working on getting the corp standings up so we can start implementing jump clones.

Some of the missions had been taking me into lowsec space, and while I tried to be careful, I lost two battlecruisers to pirates. As you might guess, this annoyed the hell outta me, so I made a very significant decision.

I've spent most of my career traveling and fighting around lowsec space. But after losing so much to pirates this time around (like, 300 million in ships and fittings over the course of a month - a lot when you only had about 400m to start with), I made the decision to stay out of lowsec systems with any ships I don't want to - or can't afford to - lose.

This is probably something that a lot of people already do, of course, but my time in lowsec made me overconfident, and I've suffered from it as a result. But no more.

Now, the only time I've gone into lowsec is after carefully using the map to check how many pilots are in space in the previous 30 minutes, and how many kills might have happened in the previous hour. If I think it's safe enough, I'll go in with a shuttle and do what I need to do (usually some kind of transport mission).

I've also been training up my cloaking skills, and once I took my Myrmidon for a spin through 5 lowsec systems and back, using my Improved Cloaking Device to keep myself invisible. It worked well! But I'm yet to use the Covert Ops Cloak on my Helios, which I'll have finished training for in just a few days. I'm expecting that to be just awesome. Bring on the cloaky goodness...

Oh, the only other time I'm likely to head into lowsec with my battlecruiser is when I have safety in numbers, like yesterday when I lost my 'gate camp virginity'. For the first time ever, I was a member of a gate camp, and for the first time ever, I was fired upon by sentry guns!

We got ourselves a kill, some poor soul who was flying a Rupture without any modules fitted. He was angry, as you'd expect, and lit up local comms with his smack talk. It was both amusing and sad at the same time. Amusing that he would fly a 'naked' ship into lowsec and expect to get away with it, and sad that he was relatively new to piloting and this was probably a big loss for him.

I still need to work on my 'carebear' feelings for other pilots and their losses... I need to get involved in more piracy/combat actions to eradicate these feelings from my system.

And I will, while I do missions to build up my money and buy bigger and better ships. In the short term, I'm training for a Dominix, which I could actually fly right now - if I had the money. So it'll have to wait. In the longer term, I'm going for the Arazu. The Dominix for missions, and the Arazu for real combat.

The future is looking bright. :)

Ooh, a shiny battlecruiser!

Due to the focus on missions since my last post, I've been training some mission-related skills. After almost losing 2 tanked Vexor cruisers on the first stage of a 3-stage Recon mission, I decided that it was a mission requiring a bigger tank than what I could have on the cruiser. When the pirate rats take your tanked cruiser into structure before you've even gotten halfway to the acceleration gate, then you need to change ships.

Advice on the pilot message boards said to use a shuttle. I did - it got destroyed before it even travelled a single km.

So battlecruiser it was....

After training up, I went to the shipyard. Oooh, look at that - a Myrmidon! Damn that's a hot looking ship. Here's my card, transfer it to my hangar - thank you!

I fit it as a tank, and it sure did work a treat. Those damn pirate rats got it down to 2% armour, but I reached that acceleration gate and moved on to the next stage of the Recon mission.

A bit annoying I had to spend a 40m on the ship and fittings to complete a mission that made me only 250k.... but that's ok. It's an investment into my future. With a battlecruiser at my disposal, it'll last me for quite a few missions.

The Myrmidon has definitely been a good investment. It has drone and armour repairing bonuses, and considering I'm pretty much a drone specialist, it works really well. There have been very few missions at this stage (apart from Recon) that have actually gotten through the shields before my Hammerhead II drones rip them all apart.

It's funny... I still can't avoid seeking to fight other pilots. I think it's in my blood, even if I am a dismal failure at it.

After refitting it for real combat against other pilots, I've taken it on patrols through a few lowsec systems, looking for someone to fight. But strangely enough, where they've been out hunting me in my cruisers and frigates, they don't seem to want to deal with the battlecruiser...

In the same time that I would have lost 3 cruisers, I couldn't find anyone while in my battlecruiser.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

So anyway, it's nice to be on a path to making decent money. My agents recently upgraded from a low quality level II, to a high quality level II. I'm looking forward to moving on to level III missions soon. Once that happens I'll start training up for a battleship, so I can take on those level IV missions. Bring on the money!

To help with that, I've ventured into salvaging. My ship is fitted with a single railgun to gather agro where necessary, and has a drone link augmentor to extend my drone range, and the rest of the turret slots are fitted with tractor beams and salvagers. It was pretty frustrating crawling around to all the wrecks to loot them, but now I can pull them to me AND salvage them! Much faster, and lots more money to be made. I... like it!

I want a Force Recon ship. That's my long term goal right now. If anyone has any suggestions on which one I should be going for, please tell me now, so that I can start training appropriately.

The measure of insanity

I had some losses - big losses, like 130 million worth of losses over a period of a week - and decided that I really needed to re-evaluate what I was doing. I had no illusions that I was the victim of bad luck or cheating scumbags. My own lack of skill and experience was directly responsible for those losses.

It was an ancient Earth scientist who had some kind of quote I've never forgotten - 'The measure of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results each time.'

I'm not insane, so therefore I had to stop repeatedly doing the same thing! If what you're doing doesn't work, then just stop doing it.

So I've stopped looking for ships to attack, for opportunities to engage in acts of combat against other pilots. It's just not working for me.

Instead, I've taken to cleaning up my corp and focusing on regaining that 130 million ISK, plus more. I jumped in an Iteron V, loaded it up with Cargo Expander II's and Giant Cargo Cans (giving me about 32,000m3 of hauling capacity) and proceeded to jump around the galaxy picking up all the assets I had laying around, and bringing them back to HQ.

Speaking of HQ, I moved it. It's no longer in lowsec space, and is back in highsec. The main reason for this is because the corp is full of people that aren't very skilled in lowsec combat, and it's 'safer' in highsec space. This is important as I intend recruiting new pilots and slowly teaching them the ways of Eve - eventually including combat.

My plan is simple. Focus on missions, and raise some money. I think this is because I've been burnt really badly by how much I've lost recently. I need to get that back, and create a significant buffer for future such occasions, should they occur again.

At the same time as I focus on raising money, I'll also be working on building up my combat skills, but not alone. No longer solo. It's just too dangerous for someone that's not completely sure what they're doing.

Instead, the corp (under my direction) is investing in Rifters. Lots of Rifters. Dozens of them. And cheap T1 modules to fit on them. The corp will buy them, fit them, insure them, and replace them.

Scorpion's Sting is going to eventually become a corp focusing on hunter-killer packs, with gangs of Rifter pilots roaming lowsec looking for prey. When we have some decent experience in gang combat against other pilots, I'll consider moving into 0.0 space. Old friends offer opportunities for support that I might eventually take them up on.

But those days are far away. I have only 2 other members right now, both friends of mine, and one of them is brand new as of a week or so ago. I found out he was gate camped last night and podkilled... his first experience at it! I think he needs some new trousers now...

As I rebuild this corp, I'll be looking at getting some skilled combat pilots to focus on training and lowsec patrols. I'll also be getting some miners and manufacturers so we can become self-sufficient with our manufacturing needs.

If you know someone who might be interested in joining a corp and working to build it from the ground up, have them get in touch with me. We'll have much to discuss.

Back to basics

Ok, after flying around with a nice new Taranis (interceptor) setup, I spent a couple of days not having much luck finding anyone. But then I found Servenser and his Rifter sitting in a belt. I decided to engage, and quickly moved in. Unfortunately, he was well equipped to deal with me and my interceptor, and in the space of about 10 seconds, I watched in shock as my shields-armour-hull were whittled down before I had a chance to do a damned thing about it.

With that all too familiar ring in my ears from my exploding ship, I sat there in my pod, shaking my head to try and clear the dizziness, and then I quickly warped away to a safe spot.

The Taranis failed me. I used a setup suggested by my new teacher, Garmon, but it didn't matter. The other guy was better. And it 'only' cost me 22 million ISK (for ship and equipment) to realise there was no point spending so much money on failures.

So after dying to Servenser and his friend, Taranis Sinarat in a Manticore, I went back and jumped into 'Cherie', my trusty Thorax, which at half the price of an interceptor, is much better value. I've had 'Cherie' for quite a while now, and she just hasn't failed me. Every time I've got a kill in a Thorax, it's been THIS ship. It's named after an old girlfriend of mine; very beautiful she was....

I joined up with Garmon, and together we went on a bit of a patrol. Me in my cruiser, him in his Rupture. We found a Thrasher (destroyer) roaming the asteroid belts, and after pinpointing which belt he was in, we warped in and engaged.

It was over relatively quickly. My drones and blasters smashing away at the Thrasher, and Garmon's Rupture doing most of the damage, the destroyer wasn't able to last too long. We let the pod get away, and Garmon grabbed the loot while I scooted out to a safe spot.

We continued searching for a while longer, but I was fading fast. It was past my bedtime, so I said farewell for the night and went back to dock.

I was doing some solo hunting tonight, and found a lone Rupture in a belt. I've never fought a Rupture before, so I thought I'd give it a go. I warped in at 100km and sized him up. He didn't move to me, so I activated the MWD and started moving in. I got to within about 50km and activated the target lock. At the same time as I got a lock, he dropped a bunch of ECM drones, waiting for me to come in range. With a sinking heart, I looked at the drones on the overview and knew that to continue fighting would be pointless. Against the ECM drones, I would have some serious issues trying to keep a lock on the guy.

So I immediately started to a warp, following the same trajectory as what I'd been travelling so I could reduce the align time and get out of there fast. Just as the warp engaged, he got a warp disruptor beam on me - I could see it beginning to surround my ship - but he was literally a second too late and I escaped the energy tendrils and warped away from the asteroid belt.

In the local comm channel he squawked his surprise that I must have had warp stabilisers, but I told him I'd already started warping out when he tried disrupting me, so he was too late. Then he questioned why I didn't want to fight, and I told him that it'd be stupid of me to fight when he had all those ECM drones waiting for me.

He expressed his sadness that everyone runs when he drops the drones, and I told him he should have dropped them AFTER I had committed to the fight, then it would've been very different as I wouldn't have been able to warp away.

Long story short, we got to talking and decided to have a duel - first to hull. I wanted to see how my Thorax would actually compare against a Rupture. We used drones, and it wasn't until he was just blasting away at my hull that his ECM drones dropped my lock on him, but even though they were late, he was still at about 80% armour when I was into the structure.

While repairing, I realised I forgot to use my armour repairer... That's what happens when you get kidnapped by Night Elves and imprisoned or more than a year... you forget how to adequately use the equipment on your ship...

So we tried again, this time without drones and just guns. I remembered to activate the armour repairer this time (still kicking myself about that), but it still wasn't any use. Once again he got me to my hull while I could only get him to about 75% armour.

So I thanked this guy for his assistance in helping me understand that a good Rupture is going to be better than a Thorax. A most invaluable lesson.