It’s Friday, it’s [CENSORED FOR OPSEC],

Y114.05.23

It’s x-up time!

Well, it’s not but soon will be so let’s get the idea out there.

Questions, questions
Which fleet to join, which ship to take? Which mid-slot mod & can I even find it in the new inventory system? Which of my kids will spew up in bed before the fleet disperses and get me popped light years from home? The only certainties are that it will cost me time & money, either in ammo, ships or cleaning product.

Decisions, decisions
Go with the alliance fleet? Probably won’t fly with me corp muckers, but maybe more chance of getting on a kill report [that’s killmail to you old folk] and [marginally] less chance of getting handed my arse on a plate, all good things for the corp killboard stats which need some input right now.

Go with me corpies? The lack of discipline, knob gags & sheer number of uncoordinated smoke / drink / food breaks will probably ruin it, but hey it’ll be funny as. And imagine the alliance kudos if we bag something as a corp.

Or just whore it up in high-sec – nah, I can always sell some of the kids toys and trade a PLEX.

o7

0.0 Local

Y114.05.22

I SAW A GOON, I SAW A GOON!

Now that's really up to date.

o7

Scary monster

Y114.05.21

It seems most of the corp felt the same way about the pirate lifestyle, so we had a vote [well the grown-ups had a vote, I just spammed corp chat], the outcome of which was for the corp to join some [very] old friends in a null-sec alliance.

ZOMFGWTFYOUREPLAYINGWITHTHEBIGBOYSNOWNOOB

While it is safe to say that I am quite excited by the prospect of fighting people for a reason - man, logistics are a pain in the arse and it’s not really that far either.  Jamyl only knows how it’s done properly.

A week, and most of my ISK later, I have a few ships properly fitted and ready to get popped, er I mean rock in the staging area; updated and moved my clone; moved a bunch of T2 & Meta 4 mission loot that ’might come in handy one day’ closer to the staging area; trained medium T2 autos [w00t] and now I won’t be proper on 'til the weekend.  Well, that gives me some more time to mission whore in the posh clone before I jump into the cheapie, eh?

There is one downside to the move, but no biggie really - it has interrupted the Tengu skill plan I had just remapped for.  Fortunately it’s a Per/Will remap, so T2 autos are good, as are the missile skills I have never bothered with before.

Currently training - not the Tengu but all those little bits you need in PVP to level 3 until this remap has served its purpose - that Nanite stuff, some EWAR skills, being man enough to undock when there's a red in system, you know.

It's too late for you now but it's update day, so queue up a long one - I've thrown Caldari Cruiser V in there just in case.

I will be off to the local hostelry for a few pints of Slavers favourite Amarr Victor later if anyone fancies it.

EDIT: I think that's up to date now.

o7

Yarrr

Y114.05.20

To recap from the last post -

1 – No bloody escalations so not flown the Ruppie yet
2 – Didn’t happen [see below]
3 – Lol
4 – Yay, BC V win!  Bring on the changes CCP
5 – Almost…

The corp joined a low-sec pirate alliance a while back – the same bunch who we toyed with a few times, had a couple of goodfights™ and popped my beloved Momo.  I think I probably dropped the same faction ammo I got off them in a previous encounter - a Myrm for a Myrm and all that.  Nice bunch though – I even did a short haul for one of them.  For free.  I thought he might have given me a few ISK, though.  Fucking pirates.

It was all good - taught me about regular d-scanning, passing / collecting intel and a few of us did some low sec rat anomalies which was different from the yawn of high-sec.  Well, they were harder - I was omni tanked in case of trouble, rather than having a rat specific tank.  And I was mashing d-scan all the time and shitting it when a neutral or red [oh noes!!!1!!!!] popped up in local.  In between repping my inappropriate tank at the station, of course.  Ah needs me a Tengu, boi.

We put up a POS, which was more good experience for a POS virgin, though I didn’t [and still don’t] actually know anything about research, you can’t moon mine in 0.4 and I only got to shoot my own cans with my newly trained Starbase Defence skill.  The corp did well out of it though and that’s what counts.  No, really – we did and it is.

Which is all great, but I don’t actually want to be a pirate and shoot people for no reason other that they took a shortcut through a single low-sec system.  I need a reason and the corp got me one.  Tidy darts.

Currently training - Tengu [see above]

o7

An update

Y114.05.05 

So, carebear for a year - great corp, 3 local L4 agents on the go, some exploration & complexes, an incursion, a few corp roams in low-sec.  All good stuff, but there is plenty more out there I want to try.

1 - Needed a non-rail cruiser for 3/10 DED complexes found through exploration, so I mined the minerals & built a Rupture.
2 - PVP it up - moar low-sec roams and stuff with the corp.  So I've got a jump clone with free mission reward implants and built some Rifters to lose.
3 - Save some ISK, rather than fritter it away on shite.  A bit like RL, this one.
4 - Get Battlecruisers V out of the way to future-proof myself against the rumoured introduction of racial BC skills and set some proper skill training goals.
5 - *Cough*  Get this blog going properly.  *Cough*

o7

Exploration

Y114.05.04

I’ve only really been interested in Radar or Unknowns when I explore.  [The scanner can now be filtered to get rid of other clutter].  I probably read somewhere that they were the best.  I use a Helios fit with a Cov Ops cloak, Sisters launcher, Codebreaker & Analyser modules & a Hobgoblin II.  It has a Gravity Capacitor Upgrade for a 10% boost to scan probe strength & a Memetic Algorithm Bank for a 20% boost to the hacking bonus.  I’ve not yet found anything I can’t find [sic] or hack.

Radar’s –

The drone will take care of most rats which turn up while I’m hacking the cans.  Sometimes I get lucky and get some nice loot worth maybe 10-20 mil, more often than not, bugger all.  CCP have apparently fixed the overview so you can see which cans you have already hacked o/ CCP!

Wormholes [Unknowns] –

I will sometimes just have a peek through a wormhole to see where it goes – don’t forget to bookmark the hole on the other side, folks! – I’m sure I will go through one soon enough straight into a camp, but hey – shit happens.

Complexes [Unknowns] –

Great little sites if you get an escalation which could lead you a faction spawn, if you are lucky.  Need to get another cruiser to run these properly as rail = fail against Blood Raiders.

DED complexes –

Not really found through exploration, but by looking at the star map for local reports of naughty rat behaviour.  Only 1/10’s available locally, which only allow a frigate through but they are good fun if they haven’t already been farmed by someone else.  There is faction loot to be had at these sites, not great stuff but good for your own fits.

So, must do more in WH’s this year & try some Mag sites.

o7

Happy Birthday

Y114.05.03

Having been high-sec carebear for the past year & never having been into 0.0, I though I'd treat myself to a null solo roam 'cos everyone knows that is where the real action is.

Jump clone - check

No implants - check

Rookie ship - check

Balls of steel - check

Can of lager - check

Jump headlong into 0.0, align to planet, check local, check d-scan, check overview, do it all again.  What's all the fuss about, there's no-one here. WTF?  Who's locked me?  Why can't I move?  What was that bang? OMGWTFBBQPWND. Spam warp, save pod, jump back into civilized society, dock up, breathe.

So, checking the loss mail, I got whacked by a Sansha BS - I was thinking so much about getting podded off a real PvP'er, I didn't even register the incursion.  Twat.  Why not on overview then?  Because for some reason, although show pirate & NPC's are ticked, they keep randomly not showing.  Good job I am not worthy of Incursion fleets then.

Right lets deselect then reselect show pirate & NPC's, get another rookie ship and jump into an Incursion to check the settings.  They work.  At least I knew I was going to get popped this time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

o7

The Beginning

Y114.05.02

After learning the ropes through the tutorial missions, I went out and did some missions to get some ISK together and progress through the ship sizes –

frigate > destroyer > cruiser > battle-cruiser > battleship

Once I got into a destroyer, I started the Blood Stained Stars Sisters of Eve Epic Arc and promptly lost a few of them to NPC rats in Mission 27, Burning Down the Hive.  Arnon is called the lost ships capital of EVE due to this mission as it can be the first time you get proper caught by a bunch of web / scram drones.  I was into a cruiser by the time I finished the arc. Er, probably.

At some point during this, I joined a friend’s corp with an eye on training up to play with their alliance in Syndicate, but kept putting it off and the corp left the alliance.  Lesson learned - just get stuck into PVP on day 1.  This did however provide me with my first proper death at the hands of a real person.

Twat

For some strange reason, I thought it would be safe to go mining under a wardec.  I cheerfully loaded up an Iteron with a couple of giant secure containers and after checking local for reds, warped to a gate to grab a belt 1 jump away.  As I returned with cold lager in hand, I heard the telltale scream of my shields being hit and found myself in a pod.

Ah.

Presumably because we were in high-sec, he didn’t pod me and I limped off home thoroughly chastised.  Lessons learned –

1.  Don’t go AFK during wardecs.  Not even for lager.

2.  Think carefully about mining during wardecs.  Well, mining in general really.  Unless you need the minerals to build something or you're watching porn.

3.  Don’t piss off your alliance [& possibly corp] by being a twat.

On the Move

With the Sisters arc complete, it was time to relocate to the corp HQ some 20-odd jumps away.  A nice corpie kindly agreed to freight all my stuff over there for me, taking most of the pain out of it.  He also advised me to leave some kit back there for missioning, but I’ve not returned to it since I left.  A year ago.

I pre-emptively got my own back by not offering to web his freighter on every jump so it could enter warp quicker.

o7

Race

Y114.05.01

The one question I get asked more than any other, well, the only question I've ever been asked by the one bloke who ever asked and still never made it out of Neverwinter Nights, is what race?  I went with Gallente, mainly because of the RP aspect & er, that’s about it.  It means very little other than looks, the rookie ship & the skills to fly it.  Any and every other race can be trained to the same standard in a few hours.  Caldari birds are the fittest though.

If you have mates in game & you are likely to be joining their corp, you may want to pick the race in which space they are based.  If you mission, you will be missioning [primarily] against specific rats and the best ships to fight them are often those from the race whose space you are in.

Race	Description	Tank	Gank	Damage	Primary Rats	Need
Amarr	Slavers	Armor	Lazors	EM / Therm	Blood Raiders / Sansha	EM / Therm
Calamari	Missile chuckers	Shield	Missiles [+ Rails]	Any	Guristas	Kinetic
Gallente	Cheese eaters	Armor	Rails	Kin / Therm	Serpentis	Thermal
Minmatar	Slaves	Both	Projectiles [+Missiles]	Any	Angels	Explosive

So, Amarr should give the best tank & gank against Amarr rats [Blood Raiders / Sansha].  Of course, you also get missions against [among others] Guristas in Amarr Space & they are weakest to kinetic damage…

So you just cross-train Minmatar / Caldari which have a selectable damage type.  And Gallente drones ‘cos they are the best.  Except for the Minmatar ones.  Cross training also unlocks pirate faction ships, which are great for blitzing those missions.  I cross-trained Minmatar and now have more SP in that than Gallente.

Woo, a Gallente who flies Minmatar in Amarr space.  NURSE!

o7