Tuesday 16 October 2012

In search of space

Y114.10.16

Warrior on the edge of time
In a departure from the Caisman norm of droning on about what I’ve done, I have thought of something else to drone on about. Preparing for DUST 90125, CCP have just announced these changes to the chat windows, which I am looking forward to seeing in the flesh when I log in tonight. Reading the accompanying thread, I see the usual requests for the removal / delay of the local channel member list in null as in W-space.

Choose your masques
My take on the EVE lore of it is this - in W-space, there are no gates or stations [POS excepted] and therefore no means of Concord monitoring who goes in or who comes out of a system, whereas in null there are both. This feeds the information to the local channel and explains why local is immediate in K-space [hi, lo & null sec] and not in W-space. Following that lore, stations could be said to have similar monitors feeding into local for those logging in or out.

When you jump through a WH [from K-space], you would remain in the local channel of the system you entered from as there would be no means to monitor your departure. You would remain in this channel until you either spoke in WH local and appeared there, re-entered K-space and either activated another gate / station, appeared on grid with another pilot or committed an act of aggression [which currently alerts Concord anyway – think of the 1 min aggression cool down timer.]. This would give those exiting WH’s a tremendous advantage of surprise to the natives as they wouldn’t know anyone was there until they appeared on grid. Remember that WH’s can link K-space with no W-space in between.

The flaw and exploitability of this of course, is that one could simply log out and then back in to disappear from local. So log on and off [in K-space] should also trigger appearance in local [think of Concord monitoring pilot numbers in space as it currently does].

Or just keep it the same. Discuss.

Fly safe.

o7

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Dissident aggressor

Y114.10.09

Sad wings of destiny
Sad news this week as a great corp is leaving the Alliance, but this has been ameliorated some by the news that an ex-corpie is bringing his current corp in and our founding member has rejoined – happy days. IIRC, he was FC’ing for my first proper PVP loss when losing shit seemed to mean something – remember that, kids? Welcome back one and all.

Sinner
Crikey, just got final blow on someone in lowsec and I won’t be doing that again. What do you piwate guys do for the 15 minutes after you’ve done it, rat to get the sec back up? Protip, kids - Don’t forget to add the guy you gave kill rights to your watchlist – just in case. There’s a lot of debate on the EVE-O forums about how broken lowsec is, but I really can’t comment. There do appear to be some new changes to criminal flagging coming up soon, so let’s see if it makes a difference. Whatever, the charts are nice.

Victim of changes
A few other changes are also mooted by CCP - live events , and a bunch of ship rebalancing Not read much but they seem to involve some frigates. Like the idea of Logi frigs. Check the forums – cruisers get some love, there are new destroyers, a mining frigate and everyone’s favourite ships get a shafting that some may consider long overdue to either help the Goons or hinder the Goons depending on what episode of Firefly is currently on repeat.

Grinder
Not going to have much game opportunity for the next little while, so JC’d back to hisec to get the training times down as there is a bunch of stuff I’d quite like to train that doesn’t involve Logistics ships. Also need to toady up to the Minmatar Elders while keeping the Empress happy. New boy corpie got me started with a local Slave corp [o/] and so the standings juggle begins – 16 + faction for one, 16 + faction for the other... Fuck the overflowing PI silos, they’re not going anywhere and I’ve just sold the last lot and bought some hulls for the corp. #1 corp PVP chum is also away for a bit but we shot some shit last week so as long as no-one does anything too stupid, the oh-so-important KB stats should be ok. Let’s hope there isn’t a CTA :/

You don’t have to be old to be wise

But you need to be old to have trained what you want. Like Logistics.

Fly safe. For Trevor.

o7

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Gambling ≠ billionaire

Y114.10.03

Born to lose

So, like so many others I checked out this Somer Blink microlottery this weekend. So far I have won a couple of things I’ve cashed in for ISK, an Ares and another ship which I will decide what to do with when I work out wtf they are. Still up on the initial investment though and they give you 150 mil credit if you buy a GTC through them. There will only be one winner in the long run.

Made my first bil
In losses :P
6 pods, 3 Drakes, 3 Thrashers, 3 ‘Canes, 2 Ruppies, 1 Naga, 1 Itty V, and not to forget old Momo the Myrm. His spirit still lives on in Son of Momo who is docked up somewhere in the depths of Metropolis helping me repair Minnie standings.

Fortunately this weeks, er, alignment issues [saved the pod twice \o/] have been offset by some top Corpie KB action, keeping the Corp stats respectable and the Blink wins took the sting out of it. I'll penalise my own stupidity [again] by buying some hulls for the Corp [again] as the last ones I put in the hangar seem to have gone [again]. I think I took a Thrasher once. Best get on the deep space comms to my trusty cruiser & dessie builder and fire up the Transit to go pick them up.

After losing 2 in 2 days, I was reluctant to take out the new shiny I bought a little while back and took the Fleet Stabber round the block to shoot a couple of bubbles.

Wannabe FC
Like all PVPers, I see myself as a backseat FC – align, warp to outbound, hold on gate, primary the Scimi’s, don’t bump the fucking Titan, who fucking lemminged? - well how hard can it be? Obviously I am lulled into a false sense of security on this one as I don’t think I’ve flown with a bad FC. Just a couple of things to learn – what ship does what [only 200 or so to remember], what tactics / ships / fits / ratios to ask for, where to go, what might we find when I get there, how to get home again – just a couple of things.

Intel
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions.

Of course, I am but a DPS grunt and know nothing of such witchcraft, but if I ever want to step up to the plate and use Leadership for anything other than making me feel IMPORTANT, I need to get on and learn stuff. A few useful things I have seen and had recommended to me are Korgan Nailo’s quick reference sheet, Kiritsubo’s ship reference card and EVE Uni’s [again, sorry :P] alphabetical ship list. Thanks once again to the people who put real time [no doubt when they are supposed to be working] into these guides. I can’t vouch for the content, but I have the first 2 printed, laminated and next to me on the sofa with the jump bridge and local tactical maps. Never used any of them, but they are there. The thing I use most in a PVP fleet is the Dotlan site for checking systems and keeping some directional awareness going. Ombey does a great 2d map pdf which is always worth having, but I personally find Dotlan easier and quicker to navigate.

Training
It begins with L – guess.

Oh, they are small shit I can't fly so I'll cash 'em in.

Fly safe

o7