December Character Review

December has come and gone so quickly and its already time to post the latest character review.

Continuing to build the skill base to fly a max skill a Rifter I have resisted thus far to skill for a couple of ships, notably basic Battleship skills and also a fast tackler skill plan. My willppower holds true and I am still on my original plan with some 403 days remaining on the plan.

Differing on last month the proportion of learning skills has of course started to diminish compared to other skills. Total skill points have increased by ~1.3m with the lions share being in Gunnery. Kirith now has every skill on the plan at a minimum level of IV, excluding of course skills which have level V prerequisites such as T2 Rockets, Thermodynamics and Advanced Weapon Upgrades. Yes I do not have Thermodynamics yet , it should be at III by the end of January. I am happy with the progression and you do notice the difference in game, sometimes I do yearn to fly something bigger and more nasty but I hope I remain true to my plan.

Wallet balance after selling the faction armor repairer & low-grade snake implant sits just over 100m isk.


In terms of Battleclinic stats, some notes:
- The Tuskers are now ranked 52nd
- Kirith has 141 kills for 29 losses
- Kirith has now tipped over the 1bn isk destroyed mark.

Not too shabby for a 3-4 month old character I think

You know when sometimes...

You know when sometimes you just shouldn't say some things.

Like when you say "This vase has been in our family for generations"

Then you turn around and knock it off the shelf, smashing it into tiny pieces. Well, the last few days since I posted about the Cap Boosted Rifter have been a bit like that. You see, I almost knew it would happen too, and that from the moment I sang its praises it was doomed. So here follows the highs and lows:

I'm watching local and see a pilot in system in a Rifter, I recognise his name as someone I killed a few weeks back and thus decide to go play tag with him. I eventually locate him as he must have been docked up. He's in a belt with a Catalyst and a Stabber. None of the belts occupants were Tuskers so I report the activity to the Corp and jump on in myself. The Catalyst had popped by the time that I landed and the Stabber was engaging the Rifter. The Rifter pops as I'm 30km away from the Stabber. I report this to the corp too incase anyone else fancies a look. The Stabber engages me and I maintain a distance around 20km to attempt to wear down his cap through his use of the MWD. I'm taking a fair bit of damage but coping well enough until a couple of corp mates lands in the belt. The Stabber is taking damage fast and I want to get on the KM so hit . . . approach. Like an idiot. Certainly enough my dear old Rifter went boom and I was kicking myself. I'd also failed to attempt to use any hostile effects on the Stabber with him being so far away so didn't get on the KM either. Bah! At least the Stabber died.

The "Macro haulers" that pass through Hevrice have a new tactic it seems, they are posting noobships at the gate and setting them merrily dawdling off 340km from the gates to scout for their haulers. Of course being that far from the gates, the gate guns can't hit an aggressor. So I set off after one of them in a cheap throwaway fit, unfortunately as I'm 50km from the gate a couple of frigs jump in and decide they don't like me. They MWD after me as I'm trying to warp away but stop me in my tracks. The Rifter catches me first and is taking a fair toll. I think I could have perhaps taken him out if it weren't for the Tristan catching me tackling and setting his Warrior II on me as I had the Rifter down to half armour. Another Rifter down the drain.

Later in the evening I'm on a roam with a corp fleet and we find a mission running Megathron. He's a 2004 character but his fits is nothing short of appalling which has to suggest that the account can't have been either his all that time or active all that time. After a bit of dodging some larger fleets that were in the area we jumped in and took it down very fast. The pilot lost his Pod too, unwilling to pay the ransom.

Logging in yesterday I set off shooting the noobships that are on the gates taking out three Impairors and the pilots Pod twice too. Afterwards a gang is formed up and we head off. This gang ultimately ends up in a fight outside a station, first our "bait" blows up an Arbitrator before the cavalry arrives (I missed the KM), what happens next is rather strange as a Curse appears in front of the station and agresses. Again I don't target him before he is gone in a pretty explosion followed by his Pod, apparently the pilot lost around 2.5bn in implants from full +5% hardwirings along with a high grade slave set! I missed both KM's again though, Grrrr! The Curse pilot says that lag killed him, but I swear I have never heard that lag spikes launch your drones? The pilots in the station however won the day by undocking in one, then two and then three battlecruisers which ripped our small ship gang to pieces quick smart before we could effect an escape.

Last thing before logging last night we encountered a small gang of Zealot, Dominix, Guardian & Pilgrim on a gate. They agressed us and the Zealot went down, but not before the pilot BBQ'd my Rifter in around 4 salvos, along with Noir's Rifter soon after. We didn't have quite enough in our gang to break break the guardian so a tactially withdrawal was ordered.

Hail the cap boosted Rifter!

First and foremost I do have to say how much I am pleased with my decision to join the Tuskers, its been really enjoyable so far and I don't see any reason for that changing.

I've gotten in on a few skills since my Christmas day post, so without further rambling here we go:

I'm following a pilot in an Iteron "Mark something" who isn't a macro player out of the station and he appeared to warp to a belt. I follow him and sure enough he is trying to turn around and warp somewhere else. I waste no time in locking him and tackling him. At 30% armour he warps away, so he must be stabbed. However a look at local shows the pilot is no longer online. I decide to wait in the belt for him to log back in as local is predominantly friendly. I soon notice a Stabber on scan and the ship designation doesn't match any I am familiar with. I suspect that he is weighing up his options as to whether he can jump to the belt and kill me before any help can be sent to my aid. A minute or two later he lands in the belt with me and engages. I kill his drone first and then its a matter of whether indeed he can kill me before help arrives. My little Rifter is doing an admirable job of repping back the damage aided in no small part by its cap booster. It holds out long enough for both the cavalry to arrive and for us to take down the Stabber. Had I been without the cap booster I would have lost this fight and the cavalry may not have arrived in time to take out the Stabber. Although we didn't get a returned "gf" in local afterwards, I did get a mail later on commending the Tuskers and giving that "gf".

A Rifter is spotted in a neighbouring system who seems to have cottoned on to the fact that we are trying to pin him down. The pilot hunting him leaves the system and I jump in to see if I can get him to engage me in another Rifter. The pilot acknowledges my presence as a blogger in local immediately. I warp around the system a little and he states in local that I can come fight him at the Sun, I am in warp to a belt at the time and local is quiet so I warp to the sun, find him and we tackle each other. I report this to the other two fleet members sat on the other side of the gate and they are soon on their way to me. I'm asked not to kill him before they arrive so I turn off my weapons which gives him time to rep from 30% armour back to full while I still tank his damage (hurray for the cap booster again). The fleet lands and I resume fire, it's looking close and he pops while I have 40% hero tank remaining. The pilot comments that it wasn't fair as he thought he would only fight me, I am confident that had I not ceased dps to await the fleet he'd have died much quicker and it wouldn't have been close at all. He was unfortunate enough to lose his Pod afterwards, we did not attempt a ransom as local spiked and we decided to GTFO so he was sent express style to the clone vats.

A Catalyst was spied in the home system, we get quite alot of them. A corp mate and I determined to find him located him after a couple of minutes at a belt. He and his Pod died swiftly.

Logging in last night I picked up a Myrmidon on scan as I exited the station, thinking he must be in a mission I warped to a scan spot to confirm, I joined a fleet in a neighbouring system incase I found the Myrm and wanted backup. The fleet were busy finishing off a couple of pilot's at the time. Rubbing my eyes in disbelief a couple of times as it appeared that the Myrm was ratting. I went straight in after it, the pilot was pretty young. He was tackled quickly and I reported it the the fleet. I kept fire on his drones when they were deployed. applying some damage to his ship when I could. His Drones would probably have killed me before backup arrived were it not for my beloved cap booster keeping my tank running (<3). Backup landed and the Myrm went down quickly to the 5 Rifter based hulls assailing it. The pilot decided to mess around with the ransom request so was sent quickly to his clone bay of choice.

Being the only Tusker pilot in our home system as another Catalyst decided he wanted to go ratting I felt it my duty to defend the belts from the evil Catalyst, the pilot may have been new, but clearly required educating. It didn't take long to find, destroy and Pod him.

Two things are clear in my mind after I have written this;
1, The new fleet finder system is great for corp fleets.
2, The cap-boosted Rifter may lack a web but its survivability as a tackler is excellent.

Your money or your . . . erm ship?

So today is Christmas, and I have been online so I guess that makes me pretty sad.

Anyways, enough of that. Yesterday evening a casual gang was going, skipping over the details I'll focus as per usual on the fun things that happened.

First we have a Coercer, the pilot didn't seem to understand that by jumping into low-sec space concord would not protect him. Local chat was entertaining with his comments while we held his pod. He was sent on the Pod express to the clone bay eventually though. The Pod mail seems to be missing for some reason, perhaps it will turn up one day!

The next event was scanning down a mission runner in a Hurricane. He certainly was taking his time about the mission too. So it was that five of us piled into his mission and took his ship rapidly into structure. Halt dps was called and the last shot fell bringing it to around 70% hull. The pilot was offered three options:
1. Pay 50m isk to save his Ship & Pod.
2. Eject from his ship and leave the area.
3. Sing us a song on EVE voice.
The pilot chose ejection, he didn't have the 50m to pay so it was that one of our pilots docked up and returned to claim the prize. As it would have been rude not to, I picked up all the meagre misison loot while waiting out my GCC.

Today I have been off and on sporadically. Decided today was the day to make a run to Jita to sell some loot. Early this morning Kirith was lucky enough to get on a Firetail kill, even if I was in a cheap ratting ship it still contributed to the kill.

It's been pretty quiet online, but I'll be about tonight again I think so we'll see what shows up.

Seasons Greetings

Wishing all you (few?) readers out there seasons greetings. I hope that chap in the red suit & hat with the Reindeer entourage bring you everything you desire be it material or otherwise. For me it's a some time to rest away from work.

Is your character buying anything shiny and new as a celebration? I can't quite decide if or indeed what Kirith would like.

Which Battleship?

A very quiet couple of days for me, seasonal workload and commitments plus being away last weekend meant that I haven't had much time online again. I did catch a couple of kills, a Catalyst who foolishly shot at me while I was trying to get a Thorax at a gate to shoot me (the Thorax warped off)and an Amarr Shuttle that was sat on a Faction Warfare complex gate for some odd reason, yeah a SHUTTLE! Go me . . . ;)

I have been thinking lately that I should train up a Battleship for nuking things like POS's, not for roaming piracy. We're talking pretty basic fit for the time being. What I would be interested to hear is which Tier 1, non-faction Battleship gives the best sustained DPS. I'm not fussed if it's not Minmatar. If you have a recomendation of a fit to match your suggestion of ship then that would be super!

After my comment about being very poor in the isk stakes I stumbled into a faction rat cruiser yesterday that dropped me a Faction medium armor repairer & a Low Grade Snake implant. Once sold, these two will go a long way towards that Battleship, so I look forward to hearing your comments.

PS, everyone have a nice Christmas if I don't post again beforehand

Well that was fun

In the run up to Christmas I have been online less than I would have liked.

I'm back in the Tuskers home zone clone and went out with a small gang last night. Some lag spikes seemed to scare off some people so systems were pretty quiet. We picked off a Caracal running a mission along with his Pod, but other than that we didn't manage to get anything else juicy, though there was a possibility of an Ishtar in a mission, but he was pre-aligned and warped out denying us the kill. The fleet dispersed and as it did so I continued making bookmarks in neighbouring systems.

A little while later it came across voice comms that there were several small(ish) ships in a neighbouring system. I warped over to have a look and it was discovered that they were anchoring a POS. There wasn't enough time to stop them anchoring it unfortunately and a lot of the ships at the POS fled as we warped in.

I landed some 90km away from a target and burned as quick as I could towards him. On my way in an Iteron landed 20km in front of me, as I closed within point range as he struggled to align to warp out, he folded quickly but got his Pod out (the killmail has vanished though). Now closer to the Thorax engaged by Tarik, a Caracal landed. I got point on the Caracal and held him as a Rifter landed, the Rifter was called primary. The Rifter had me tackled but no-one had point on him. Switching fire to the Rifter while orbiting the Caracal to ensure I didn't lose point the Rifter went down along with his Pod, the pilot can't have been thinking of self preservation. With the Rifter down I put my Rockets onto the Thorax as my Auto's didn't have the range to hit it and my Auto's onto the Caracal. Once the Thorax was down the combined fire of Jag & Rifter quickly brought it it's knees. The pilot failed to pay the ransom on his Pod and was terminated. Burning back to the POS another Iteron landed and was destroyed, the Pilot's Pod saved by the POS bubble going up. Some of our corpmates had now entered the system and proceeded to find another of their haulers at a safe carrying some POS modules. He died quickly too, again failed to pay the ransom and was eliminated.

It all happened really quite quickly but was such good fun. I do hope that I see more fun and frollicks like this.

First Fleet with the Tuskers

The last few days had been spent placing jump clones in the required places and setting up the hardware in some of those locations. That done I decided to go and have a poke around to set up some safe spots etc. While creating some bookmarks in Hevrice I scanned a Catalyst down to a belt, on warping in he had gotten himself trapped amongst the 'roids, he was around 20km away but couldn't escape for bumping off rocks. I saved him the trouble of getting himself out of the belt by taking away two of his obstacles, his ship & his Pod and thus giving him an express trip straight back to his cloning facility. Not wanting to get stuck between the rocks myself I stopped 5km away and just blew him to bits.

Afterwards I joined with an ad-hoc fleet of Tuskers. I spied a Drake at a FW complex and upon reporting it to the fleet the FC he instructed that we go and pay him a visit. He was quickly tackled and pulverised, I'm not sure whether he primaried me but I was just into armour when it popped. He paid the ransom to save his Pod and was bade farewell. There was mention of moving to a neighbouring system so I warped to the gate, forgetting about my GCC my Rifter got smashed to bits by the gate guns. Fortunately a corp mate was able to recover the few modules that survived (thank you).

Returning to the station I got into one of my stash of "Cheap & Expendable Ships" (Meta 2 fit with no rigs), until finances allow my T2 fit Rifters will have to be just for solo work. Can't really afford to lose them to gate guns like that. All my isk does tend to come from Piracy, perhaps with a few rats killed here and there to try and get some nice faction drops. Thus my isk supply is very scarce, were talking a balance of less than 5m normally.

The gang moved on and on our travels we found several ships, some were destroyed by the gang before I could even lock & shoot! but I did manage to get on a few killmails. Though I missed the Merlin KM, I got in on the Pod's. I completely missed a Thrasher & Pod kill but did manage to get on another Catalyst & Pod mail. My evening ended playing cat & mouse with a Taranis at a FW mission warp gate. I was designated to tackle him, which although I did the contents of the mission decided they took umbrage to me and I went down very quickly. I'm thinking that a heavily tanked cheap Rifter could be worth looking into, maybe with no offensive capability? I headed home after the Taranis nuked my ship but was pleased to hear that the fleet destroyed the Taranis after I had gone down.

My first Tusker fleet was what I expected it to be I think, excellent, especially considering that the FC was FC'ing for the first time. I was pleased to be a part of it and am sure that I'll be in a lot more to come.

Going to Clone Jump again soon I think to roam my normal space lanes and hopefully make some isk. I have a few erm, controversial Rifter fits in Heimatar that really need testing. There's probably a good reason you never see the fits I am testing anywhere but we'll see how they go and you can all laugh at them when they show up on killmails. I have a couple of cheap fit ones to learn in with Meta 2 gear and no rigs and a couple of T2 ones once I hopefully work out how to best fly them!

100 kills!

Without further adieu I announce that i have reached 100 kills, pretty much all of them solo apart from i think two.

My fights today were pretty nice against a couple of Rifters who were well fitted. One player was older, and one younger than I which was dictated in the quality of the fights. Against the older player we were pretty evenly matched until low shields when i took the lead. Although i ended the fight at 50% armour I wasn't permanently running my repper as I didn't feel i needed to so I was rather pleased. The second Rifter I found waiting out his GCC at a Moon, he wasn't paying attention as I landed but i soon got his attention. He went down easy and I don't think i even went into armour. I snagged his Pod too and was about to pick on a Thrasher in system when another pilot destroyed it (the pilot of the earlier Rifter I had killed), he was in a Rupture this time and i knew he had a good fit so I stayed away and unusually for me utilised caution!

Although my application to EACS (see previous post) has gone in to get my jump clones it hasn't been processed yet so perhaps it'll get done tomorrow.

How Jump Clones Work (For newbs like me)

The Tuskers have a couple of bases of operation in the galaxy and I also have my "home" system which I'm fond of so I thought it would be great if I could easily avoid travelling ~40 jumps to get there, then another ~40 back should I choose. The answer; Jump Clones

For a few days I have been looking at Jump Clones and their workings. I was loosely aware before doing some research into the subject of what they were for, but had no idea how to get them, set them up and use them. Well now I think I have worked it out (please let me know if any of this is incorrect and I'll change it).

- You need to have trained the skill Infomorph Psychology to at least level I. Level I lets you have one jump clone, level V lets you have five jump clones.

- To get jump clones, you or your corporation need to have standings of 8.0 or better with the owners of a station which offers cloning services.

- You need 100,000isk for each jump clone you wish to purchase.

By far the easiest way to get the standings for jump clones is to join the Corporation "Estel Arador Corp Services", which is free. This corp has excellent standing in many parts of the galaxy. To join this corp you need to:

* Right click your portrait in the local chat frame and select "Quit Corporation" then "Remove all roles & grantable roles".

* Wait 24 hours for the roles to clear.

* Apply to join "Estel Arador Corp Services". You can find them using People & Places -> Corporation search -> Estel Arador Corp Services -> Right click & show Info -> Apply to join

Once you are a member of EACS:

1 Check out the list of stations here: Linky
2 Fly to the station you want to install a jump clone in.
3 Click on the Medical Bay
4 Choose the right hand jump clones tab
5 Select install
6 Confirm the payment of 100,000isk
7 If you want more jump clones, fly to another station from the list and repeat steps 2-7. You cannot install 2 jump clones in the same station.

You can use the clones as soon as they are installed, but can only clone jump once every 24 hours. Each jump clone is initially devoid of implants, though you can install them and they retain them as normal until podded. You can only install the implants when the jump clone is "active". You don't need to keep the jump clone in the station that it is initially installed in, it works just like your normal clone and you fly around just as normal and can leave it wherever you choose. NEVER however clone jump from one clone to the other in the same station as one will be destroyed and lose implants.

Once you have your required number of jump clones, it's time to re-join your normal Corp and go about your business.

I have trained Infomorph Psychology to III and this is how I will deploy the clones:

Undisclosed System : Heimatar
Undisclosed System : Molden Heath
Undisclosed System : Verge Vendor

With these in place and appropriate ships and modules at their locations I can jump around as I see fit and avoid making any (more) silly mistakes getting out of a camped station by simply clone jumping somewhere else. I'll also have a mobile clone which I haven't found a home for, Jita perhaps!

I haven't done all of the above yet, I'm waiting on role cooldown before joining EACS and I still don't have the hardware in place in Molden Heath yet (nor the isk to put it there).

CrazyKinux's EVE Online blogroll

Just a quick note, I haven't been able to find time to create carnage today in game but I'm pleased to report that this blog has been added to CrazyKinux's EVE blogroll. Follow the link from CrazyKinux's Musing blog link down the page to a whole host of other players blogs.

A busy weekend

Well,this weekend has been kill filled. At least by my standards it has anyway and I'm rapidly approaching the 100 kill landmark.

It all kicked off with a Bellicose, I found him in a belt in a 0.1 system ratting. He was up against 3 cruisers and I landed some 30km away. He had plenty of time to flee before I caught him but didn't take the opportunity so I laid into him. His shield tank was pretty good until his cap ran out. When this happened he logged off, but I can only assume he didn't know that his ship would stay put. With the cap gone the rest of the ship fell apart quite fast but his pod disappeared very rapidly so I couldn't catch it. I waited for him to log in and when he did he had quick reactions and his Pod had hardly landed before it shot off to the confines of a station.

Shortly after this I caught an Atron engaged in some faction warfare installation capture. I had seen the pilot around alot before and was surprised to see them solo in a system, even more so when I landed 60km from them and was allowed to approach under fire from the 6 Matari NPC battleships. I caught them and only a few salvos was needed to reduce it to a wreck, a couple of faction warfare pilots had arrived in the system so I didn't hang around to claim the Pod or scoop the loot, not fancying my chances much against a Jaguar & Loki.

Now we come to tonight, and this has to be my busiest night of business to date.

Entering Ofage I spot a pilot who I have had some decent fights with, Kiormin74. I notice her criminally flagged so warp to a safe and find her attacking another of my "old friends" in their Rupture. I picked off Kiormin first, who safely warped her Pod out. Her Rifter had been down to 60% armour when I engaged so it was an easy kill. Switching quickly to the Rupture so that it couldn't escape it was also at around 60% armour. It went down nice a swiftly only just scraping into the lightest of armour damage to me. I knew the pilot never paid ransoms so just nuked his Pod. The system was pretty busy anyway so I didn't fancy hanging around. Scooping some loot to brim my cargo hold I warped out as four frigate hulls came screaming in. A timely escape.

Sitting at a safe, waiting out the GCC a one year old in a Rifter came up on scan. I did wonder if it was a trap as he wasn't moving around alot but when he warped to another belt I followed, caught him with 40% armour and shredded him and his Pod not wanting to see if I got hot dropped on by the four frigates again. My cargo hold still full I had to leave the corpse and loot.

After time was up I headed to dock and empty the hold in my home base. I decided to head back out to Ofage again. Arriving I continued to chase a pilot in an Incursus around who I had failed to catch all evening (kudos to you sir). While doing so I had kept eyes on the scanner for anything else opportune that I might take a look at. Earlier I had found a Hoarder at a POS with an unanchored Moon Harvesting Array but sadly it's shield was up so I could only watch. Scanning the site again, the shield was down! so I headed back to the moon, bookmarked the tower so I could warp straight back to it and the Hoarder. The Hoarder pilot must have been afk so I releived him of his ship and Pod in short order. But now what to do about this PoS tower and array? I hadn't the first clue about them. I asked in corp for some advice and it seemed that the tower was only offline and not unanchored so there was nothing short of a large fleet that could do much to it. A little depressed I decided to light up the Array as I couldn't carry it and after over a full hopper of ammo it blew in a very satisfying explosion.

As a side note I should in the next few days have a some hardware in place around Tuskers HQ, so I guess I better make plans to head over there. I am thinking I want to get some jump clones in place in Aralgrund, Hevrice & Bosena (I'll need to get some hardware around here too). First though, I shall need to work out the mystery of jump clones, and how I get them & how they work as this is yet another thing I haven't a clue about. Time for some research this week I think.

Deeming myself worthy of a rest I retired for the evening to write this up and head off for some well earned sleep.

November Character Review etc

First, apologies for no posts for a few days.

I'm now a Tusker, granted I haven't been online for more than an hour or so since becoming one but OOG commitments have prevented this and it's something that I hope to remedy in the coming days, weeks & months. I have a lot of reading up and setting up to do. Setting up of channels, Ventrillo etc and reading up on the forums of anything and everything (within reason) that I can. I'll be heading back to forums after making this entry to keep on reading as I beleive that I should at least be upto speed before doing anything else.

Next, the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that my bounty has gone (/me sad panda). It happened the evening that I dropped my Tuskers application in, exiting the station I found it camped by a Devoter, Harbinger & Moros. The first time I managed to redock and in hindsight I should probably have logged off and tried later, but I tried a second time and was bumped out of the docking area and nuked to oblivion, my Pod was locked super fast too and again think I was bumped away from docking, in the blink of an eye I was back in Aralgrund station with no implants. Fortunately I only lost a cheap mix of +1 & +2's, but I can't afford to replace right now so it is irritating. Part of the reason I beleive I lost the Ship and Pod is that I was trying for the first time to use my desktop PC to play EVE after I had recently upgraded the memory. It just can't handle EVE aswell as my laptop and lags too much, thus I doubt i'll be trying that again for anything but safe runs on my hauler.

So, as I mentioned in a previous entry I intend every month to post a short character review on Kirith. Kirith to date after taking learning skills to optimal for the "Rifter plan" has been building a solid base of skills to support his Rifters, this is a plan that will continue to be followed so long as my willpower stands. It's massively long at nearly 440 days total but I don't beleive that Minmatar Frigate skills can be improved much/at all beyond that and the skills picked up will of course benefit hugely when stepping into different hulls in the distant future. Here's a pie chart of Kirith's skill spilt as at a few minutes ago:


Currently Kirith is training: Acceleration Control IV

Tuskers application accepted

I'm delighted to say that my application to join the Tuskers has been accepted! Tonight I should be able to get accross to one of their offices and drop in my offical paperwork.

Yesterday wasn't a tremendous day from a combat perspective. I took out a Caracal ratting pretty easy early in the day. His Pod went too when he failed to pay a ransom. Nothing great dropped from him though, but I was surprised to see a frigate size afterburner on a cruiser.

Later on in the day I lost a Rifter, I was set to ambush a cruiser (Scythe) in a belt when a couple of pilots from Arkane Dominion (AD) entered system. One proceeded to engage the cruiser I had been shadowing, Suspecting a trap by the AD Rifter & Drake tag team I attempted to interupt the Rifters attack on the Scythe but arrived just as it popped some 40km away. The Rifter warped out and I followed, half expecting to be greeted by the Drake aswell as the Rifter. Only the Rifter was present as I exited warp and landed practically on top of him so I engaged. However in a moment of stupidity I had my EMP & Gremlin ammo loaded from the Caracal in the morning but had reset my orbit range to Barrage. My DPS was very poor as a result and whilst his shields went quickly his armour didn't go as fast as mine as I adjusted range. My lack of a Damage Control on my "Gank" Rifter was a telling factor here and left me a little despondent of it's performance. I have slightly better feelings towards it now thinking back to how fast it sliced up the Caracal but it isn't really sold to me yet, but I still have two more of them ready and waiting for their maiden flights.

Tuskers application submitted

After plenty of thought, my application to The Tuskers has been submitted, hopefully it will go well but only time will tell as they say. Just to reply to a readers comment on joining M34N, I don't think that they would want me, given the fact that I only fly Rifters and it seems to be that they coming looking for you rather than taking applications :)

The only kill of the day has been a Reaper... whoopee! It landed at a gate at the same time as me, so I waited to see if he would shoot me, he did and he died swiftly. I let his Pod go as I wasn't sure the gate guns would appreciate me opening fire and therefore didn't rate my survival chances!

Tempted to apply to the Tuskers

I have to say I am very tempted at the moment to apply to the Tuskers. Many of the bloggers that I follow are applying there, and I have oft been tempted to apply before. The only factor deterring me from applying has been voice comms, which I have mentioned in a prior blog post. Well times change and it now has become a possibility for me to don a headset and join TS/Vent. I daresay that throughout the course of today I'll make my decision on whether to apply or not.

Kite Kill

It's been a few days since I posted anything. So I'll do a little bit of an update.

First, I lost a Rifter the other day to an Incursus. Granted the pilot was older than me but I thought that I would have put up a better fight than I did. Pursuing the pilot through a couple of systems I scanned him down to a planet. When I landed he was roughly 40km away, I started my approach as did he and at 20km I was pointed. The Incursus pilot maintained his orbit around 14km-20km and pounded me with his Railguns, I thought for a while that I would be able to tank it, but that did not prove the case. I wasn't able to eat into his orbit either as he would MWD out of range if that ever looked like a danager and overheated his modules at just the right time to ensure that I wasn't flying out of this one in my Rifter. Kudos to him, gf's exchanged in local and it set me to thinking whether an artillery Rifter was worth a go. I have knocked one up on EvE-HQ that I might try. Does anyone have any experience in them?

Targets have been scarce as I have mentioned a few times. Today I roamed into a system with a Myrmidon and Thrasher. They were in conversation, and when I appeared my bounty caught their eye. They seemed to be discussing ratting and killing me, how rude! I chased the Thrasher around for ages and nearly caught him once but fell just a tad too short and he warped out. I then pursued him out of the system and then back into it again! finally catching him in a belt, looting. He had a nasty fit and soon removed my shields and half my armour before I took up a wider orbit to lessen his damage, this strategy worked a treat and from 5km I reduced the Thrasher to slag in a pretty explosion then locked and dispatched his Pod after he didn't want to pay a 20m isk ransom, maybe a little extortionate but that's besides the point.

I had been reduced to a single spare Rifter in the hangar so I bought another 7 in, complete with fittings. I had decided that I would try a new variant this time and see how it went. It just tops 100dps with my skills which makes it my most powerful Rifter loadout. The Thrasher today was it's first kill, but the lack of a Damage Control was apparent. We'll see how it goes though, I have three of them to test out.

Here's the fit:
H: 3 x 150mm Autocannon
H: Rocket Launcher
M: Afterburner
M: Web
M: Scram
L: Gyro
L: 200mm Plate
L: Small Armor Repairer
R: Small Projectile Collision Accelerator
R: Small Projectile Burst Aerator

An encounter with SUICIDAL Larsen

After a long roam yesterday I came across two newer players, both flying Thrashers. Both appeared to be docked up, sometimes launching only to redock again. I played the being patient game for around 20 minutes and decided to leave the system once both players appeared to have logged off. Entering the neighbouring system I discovered one of the pilots must have escaped without me noticing and had not logged off. The Thrasher was in a belt that could be scanned from the gate I had jumped through. Warping to him I landed and he was far enough away to warp out. Following his trajectory I landed at his destination and caught him. Both he and his Pod went down swiftly and without fuss.

Next, the other pilot who had logged off jumped into the system, again in a Thrasher. I was about to hurtle off after him when a Pirate who I had been wary of for a long time entered the system. I had pinpointed the Thrasher by this time but decided to hold position. SUICIDAL Larsen was his name and he was in a Claw Interceptor. I warped around a bit but maybe it's paranoia but I could swear he was after me. Locating the Thrasher again I decided to use him as bait, keeping him on scan until the Interceptor went for it which within a couple of minutes it did I warped in. Tackling the Claw I went through his shields quickly, however his armour tank was incredible and all my damage was repaired. Meanwhile I was taking plenty of damage and was soon cap dry. I escaped with my pod and exchanged gf, commending him on his ship & skills. That was one tough Interceptor and I consider myself lucky to have gotten my Pod out.

Tonight has been slow again as there are lots of big gangs out there. One gang I saw had 10 Drakes present and a whole lot of support too. I did manage to snag a Rupture and its pilot's Pod too a moment ago, which is always a nice thing to end an evening on. I took out his drones first, he had three with a mix of medium and light. He had a pvp fit, unfortunately most of the T2 fittings in it blew up with the ship. It's actually quite nice to take out a ship that's pvp fit rather than someone unprepared in a belt ratting ship.

A little comic relief

Well this morning in another of my old haunt systems there were three members of a corp (Arkane Dominion), now the other week it was two of their corp members who executed the excellent trap on me with the Jaguar and the Raven. A little scanning and checking in history told me that two of these were newer players and one was an older more established player. Scanning located a Rifter, a Caracal and an Osprey. The cruisers appeared to belong to the same player, though this of course could be a ruse like the old priate trap trick of renaming a ship to that of a new player in the system. Through scanning it was determined that the Caracal was certainly mobile. The Rifter had disappeared, I assume docked up. The only pilot I was concerned about was the older one. I scanned the Caracal to a belt and found that it was the older player (bah!), Well I was comitted now so engaged and settled into orbit. Getting his shields down to around 45% before Warrior I's were committed I switched fire to them. The Osprey warped in and shortly after an once I had locked him he warped out, leaving his corp mate to his fate. The Drones went down, but this had given opportunity for the Caracal to recover shields back to 90% as it was clearly active shield tanked. Returning my fire to the cruiser it's shields went down steadily. Armour and structure went quickly too but I needed to reload when he was at 5% structure which was rather frustrating! Guns locked, stocked and ready to rock I took him down in a pretty explosion. The pilot escaping with his pod before I could lock it. I offered gf in local but it was clear that this guy had something to say. The local chat log is below.

[09:31:39] Kirith Darkblade > gf
[09:31:57] Enkious > lolz not really...
[09:32:01] Enkious > i had a rat attacking me.
[09:32:20] Kirith Darkblade > Yes, that made all the difference ^^
[09:32:42] Enkious > um.. ya.. it did
[09:42:55] Enkious > come out come out where ever you are....
[09:43:38] Kirith Darkblade > Yeah, right. Fight on your terms. I don't think so
[09:44:00] Enkious > I did on yourz..
[09:44:06] Enkious > ;p
[09:44:17] Kirith Darkblade > Yes, that's what non-consensual pvp is afterall
[09:44:24] Enkious > it's just a blackbird...
[09:44:30] Enkious > Dun be so scurd...
[09:44:33] Enkious > can't handle the Ewar?
[09:44:38] Kirith Darkblade > Plus your mate in the Wolf who just disappeared
[09:44:51] Enkious > Xander Seven > i would offer to help, but i need to log soon
[09:44:55] Enkious > him?
[09:45:02] Kirith Darkblade > Yeah, him
[09:45:04] Enkious > Enkious > thats ok.. i want to kill him
[09:45:12] Enkious > yeah, hes gone.
[09:45:22] Enkious > would u rather me get the drake?
[09:45:34] Enkious > all tech ii?
[09:45:40] Kirith Darkblade > I don't really care much, as I will not fight on your terms
[09:45:59] Enkious > I only have 3 missle bays on here...
[09:46:10] Enkious > it's not like i can get threw your armor n e ways
[09:46:13] Kirith Darkblade > Bring a T1 frigate and we'll have a fair fight
[09:46:21] Enkious > hahaha you so funny
[09:46:39] Kirith Darkblade > Indeed. I'm a pure comic genius
[09:46:44] Enkious > Enkious' Blackbird
[09:46:48] Enkious > thats what i got on it
[09:46:53] Enkious > Tiz Weak
[09:47:22] Kirith Darkblade > Anyhow, thanks for the loot earlier. I'm off to put it in my hangar
[09:47:46] Enkious > thats fine.. run away like a dog with his tail inbetween his legs.
[09:47:54] Kirith Darkblade > Ok, will do
[09:47:58] Enkious > Thought so..
[09:48:01] Enkious > Kids...
[09:48:03] EVE System > Channel changed to Wiskeber Local Channel

It gave me a laugh

Finally some action

Having yesterday finished my extended roam route, today I followed it. I managed to snag a new player in a Thrasher in one of my old haunts, he did about half shield damage to me by the end of the fight. I caught his pod too and sent him swiftly back to the clone vats as being so young he wasn't worth a ransom & I'm still working on getting the cherished -10.0 security status.

The main event of the evening was catching up with a player running cosmic anomalies in a Cyclone. Some research on Battleclinic showed that this pilot knew how to fit his ships well. The pilot had escaped me earlier in the evening so I decided that I would try my luck anyway. We fought in a system with Faction Warfare complexes and it was at a Large Complex that I found him waiting. Engaging each other I had a flight of horrible Warrior II'2 after me whilst being Nos'd & Neuted. I made the Drones my primary target but already at this stage knew how it would end. Every time I started damaging the drones they were recalled and relaunched. Some small mercy was that his 425mm T2 Auto's couldn't hit me, but alas that they didn't need to and the Drones were more than up to the task pretty smartly dropping me into my escape Pod. I warped out to fight another day. I had a nice conversation with the pilot afterwards and hopefully will fight again some other day.

One other event of the evening that is noteworthy is that along my new route I came across three gatecamps. Being 25, 15 & 8 ships. I don't know whether they were Faction Warfare pilots or pirates but I wasn't hanging around to find out. Being fortunate that there were no Interceptors present I was able to make good my flight from each without being locked. I certainly will be more wary in future.

Oh so quiet

That about sums it up recently. It's been extremely quiet in my home "neighbourhood" of late. Maybe it is a consequence of my plummetting security status or just other factors. I've also been away on a family matter (18 hours spent travelling by train!) for a few days and thus been offline. Due to these factors my kills have been very few and far between.

My last kill was back at the weekend where I caught a Cheetah with its pants (cloak) down skulking at a Moon in Mateber. I'm sure that they won't make that mistake again any time soon. Unfortunately I wasn't able to carry all of the nice modules that it dropped in one haul and by the time I returned to the wreck it's previous occupant was sat over it in a Sleipnir.

This evening has been another poor night on the hunt. I took the opportunity however to extend one of my roam routes, planting some useful bookmarks along the way. Perhaps in the next few days I'll head out that way again and see if I can find anything, I will just need to be wary as it sends me into Faction Warfare territory.

Rifter Loadouts

Inspired by a few recent blog articles by Wensley & Kane Rizzel I thought I post the loadouts of the Rifters that I currently fly. Now remember I'm only three months old and am without deep pockets or alts (excluding hauler) to finance me. I tend to fly one of two loadouts at the moment and alternate between them. When my current stock of Rifters is exhausted I'm going to try two more variants, but I shan't post those until they are tested.

"Classic" Setup
High
3 x 150mm Light Autocannon II
1 x Small 'Knave' Energy Drain
Mids
'Langour' Drive Disruptor
Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler
Lows
200mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates
Small Armour Repairer II
Damage Control I
Rigs
Small Projectile Burst Aerator
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator

"Cap-Boosted" Setup
High
3 x 150mm Light Autocannon II
'Limos' Rocket Launcher
Mids
Small F-RX Cap Booster (200 Charges)
Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler
Lows
200mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates
Small Armour Repairer II
Damage Control I
Rigs
Small Projectile Burst Aerator
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator

I have had much success with both loadouts and when my skills were lower I certainly found the cap-boosted fit easier to succeed with, especially against Neut ships. I alternate the fits now to give myself some variety and am looking forward to trying out some fits perhaps with less tanking capability but more gank capability.

Kills are like buses

I go a couple of days without a kill then two come along within 5 minutes of each other.

Yesterday I did find myself a Rupture ratting, all was going fairly well in the fight though his drones took a large chunk of armour away, but the damage was manageable as I had all bar one drone down and was working on the last until his two friends arrived. Deciding to scarper rather than engage in a futile fight I warped away as he didn't have me pointed. The pilot was confident that he would have blown me to pieces. Though surely that begs the question of why he called his mates in?

Today I had roamed unsuccessfully until I decided to do one last circuit before calling it a night. Locating a Vexor pilot ratting and after a little belt hopping I pinpointed him and engaged. He was fighting a couple of Angels as I landed within 3km of him and pointed him. He sent his four drones after me so I decided taking them out to be priority, in hindsight I didn't really need to as the hardly did any damage to me. He was equipped with ECM and a tracking disruptor, he did get a succesful ECM jam off on me but didn't warp out or attempt to. As soon as my sensors were online I repointed him and started ignoring his drones as a known and very effective pirate entered the system and I had a feeling I knew where he was headed. I had my warp out point selected then just as the Pirate appeared in a Jaguar I engaged warp and the Vexor exploded. Beautiful timing for the explosion. Parking in a safe spot the pilot of the Vexor mentioned that I was lame for jumping him ratting and that the rats did most of the damage. I say, he should be more careful in future, regardless of who did the damage.

The pirate left the system again shortly afterwards, his departure heralded the arrival of a new player in a Cormorant. Guessing he was headed for belt 1 my scan reported a positive hit and I dived in, landing 10km away I approached, pointed and destroyed the Destroyer very quickly, nailing the Pod too. I had a brief conversation with the pilot afterwards at his request. He didn't realise the dangers of low security space and wanted to know if his ship was really gone. I gave him a few bits of advice so that maybe he is a little more aware next time.

Mixed Fortunes

It's a been a few days since my last entry here. Things have been moving apace in life outside EvE which left me playing a lot less than normal.

I managed to bag a couple of ship & pod kills when I have been online. The Thrasher pilot was very surprised at the speed I scanned him down, he died and his pod as he didn't want to pay the small ransom.

The Rifter I bagged tonight, he was new player who didn't see me coming or get a single shot off. Deeming it pointless to ransom his pod I scooped another corpse.

Then my fortune changed. I noted a Jaguar pilot in system and fancied my chances. I did smell a trap as the pilot had followed me from a previous system but I decided "what the hell". I scanned him down to a belt and he engaged me. Yep, definitely a trap I thought. He was MWD and artillery fit so easily kept me at 20km while he hit me and kept me target painted and pointed. Another player from his corp entered the system and soon the belt in a Raven, the Raven wasn't really doing any damage on me but the Jaguar began to. Unable to break free I accepted that this was going to end only one way. I warped my pod out safely and commended my adversaries on a well executed trap. They allowed me to come back and scoop my modules which was nice, and wholely unexpected too.

Ambushed!

So I log in and depart the station in the accustomed fashion. In my home system there is a Rifter piloted by a Corp mate of the Rifter I destroyed last night, he's skipping about between belts, apparently not ratting thus I decide that I think its a trap. Lestaways, I find him and attack, once I attack local is increased as the pilot from last night enters the system. I finish off the Rifter as the Rupture arrives on scene. I lock and destroy the Rifter pilot's Pod for good measure before switching to the Rupture. I am heavily pinned down by the Rupture and taking heavy damage as I was already at 60% armour after the fight with the Rifter. Sure enough my Rifter explodes and I warp my pod back to home base for a ship swap. Exiting the station I attempt to find the Rupture, but its at a safe and soon warps out of the system.

During the course of the day I see the duo again on several ocassions, unfortunately for them their ambush trick won't work a second time.

On my roam I find myself in another system bordering high security space, a young pilot in a Thrasher enters the system just as I am about to leave. Deciding to stick around I scan him down to a belt and warp on in, he's under fire by a rat so I tackle him and have soon destroyed the Thrasher without a scratch due to his artillery fit. The pilots gets his Pod out very fast.

Still waiting out the Global Criminal Cooldown timer another pilot enters the same system in a Stabber, again they're quite young so after a spike in local clears I track them to a belt. I get them tackled quickly but then get rat agro. Switching from killing the Capsuleer I take down the rat in short order before coming back to them. It doesn't take long for the Stabber to be destroyed and I manage to snag the Pod and destroy it too bringing me ever closer to that -10.0 security status.

Replication

Last night was quiet again. I did find a couple of targets in Tabbetzur system but sadly there were two other pirates in the system from the same corp so I didn't feel like taking the risk of engaging only to find myself under assault from a third party.

Later on I did find a pilot whom I had fought on a previous occasion in a different system. I scanned them down to an Angel complex in the system. Warping in the overseer tower had been destroyed so they must have been in the second room. I headed back to my home base to grab a spare room key that I had in the Corp Hangar before returning to the complex location. Warping directly to the complex I scanned on my way in. I found that my quarry was on scan but not in complex, drat! Sat at the acceleration gate trying to pinpoint their location, they warp in so I immediately engage them. My adversary is in a Rifter and is five months my senior with a pvp fit. The fight is a long one but I prevailed and was rewarded with the obligatory pretty explosion. It took nearly 4000 damage to bring that Rifter down. The pilot escaping easily with their pod.

Checking the killmail I can see the reason it took such a beating to kill the Rifter, the pilot was using a T1 version of the Rifter fit that I was flying. Against other frigates this fit can take some punishment.

Back when I first fought (and killed ;)) this pilot I was flying a Cap-boosted fit, they were in a classic fit Rifter. After the fight they requested my fit, which I obliged in giving and it seems that they liked it and started using it themselves!

Embarassment

The nights roam started off just dandy. Exiting my home base station a player a few months old is surfing the belts. I scared him away on my initial warp in, so after waiting a little while I warp back and catch him. It's a nice easy fight and he's soon down in a pretty explosion. I locked his Pod too, offer ransom but get no reply so wish him "byebye" and send him back to the clone vat.

The embarrassing antic was yet to come, some time later I arrive at a gate and an Incursus is there. I wait to see if the pilot will agress me and am cheered when after a minute or so that they do. I start an orbit as they approach and in a moment of not engaging brain tackle them, in my infinite eagerness to fight I have agressed them before they me thus incurring the horrible wrath of the sentry guns. Bidding farewell to Miss Boathook I warp away to a moon to lick my wounds and hang my head in shame. What a twit!

Feeling utterly demotivated I head back to home base and think on my foolishness to hopefully learn my lesson.

Surprising new player

Last night was another deathly quiet night in low-sec. Roaming for nearly two hours without finding a soul, as per usual on my way back to base I find myself a target. A new pilot in his shiny new Rifter. Tracking him to a belt, he is canny and makes a run before I am in scram range. Trying to ascertain where he went based on his last known trajectory I select a location and pursue. Unfortunately I had not picked the right one. Scanning around for a minute he disappears off scan. I warp back to the area I had found him before and find him immediately at the belt that he had warped from previously. He really must have wanted to loot his wrecks. I was 20km away so thought he would warp out like before, but I am surprised as we both head for each other. I find myself locked and under fire. We settle into the dance of death and I am doing very little damage to his shields so it's taking a lot longer to break him than I expected. He is actually through my shields before I am through his but I can comfortably rep the damage without issue. I then break his shields and am quickly tearing his armor and structure away. Pretty explosion ensues and his Pod warps away extremely quickly denying me another corpse for the Corp Hangar.

I was quite surprised with a few things in this fight. The speed the pilot got his Pod out, the speed at which he did damage on my shields and the low amount of damage I did to his shields. He had 200mm Auto's and triple Nano's. Perhaps the Nano's made him too slippery for me to hit effectively. Who knows! Maybe this is someones alt character and he knew about getting his pod out safely. I doubt I will ever know.

Stoopid mistake

Lets recap on yesterday first as it won't take long. Sunday must have been the day of rest for a lot of people that's about all I can say. When eventually I did come across a Cyclone in a belt and duly pinned him down, took out his drones and 60% of his shields. To find that a Pilgrim decloaked nearby, as soon as he appeared on scan I warped out rather than take the assumed raping he would land on me. The Pilgrim was joined by a Hurricane shortly after and they finished off the Cyclone. Turns out I had a nice conversation with the Pilgrim pilot in local afterwards and he lives in the same part of the UK as me, it's a small world we live in.

Anyhow, on to the stupid mistake of the day. I found myself a nice Rupture, knowing as you will how I am a bit partial to a bit of Rupture in my Rifters. He was ratting, and as I fathomed his ratting route I lay in ambush for him. Surely enough he warps in like a good Rupture pilot and I approached and locked. Note here the key problem, I approached and did not orbit. Thus it was that I melted in the face of his autocannons and came to a delightful halt in front of him where he could rape me some more. Realising far too late the mistake I had made, I went bang before I could get into orbit. Hopefully a mistake I won't repeat anytime soon!

What happened afterward however, went some distinct way to compensate for my earlier folly. I stumbled upon a capsuleer around 4 months old flying a Hurricane. Deciding that I fancied my chances I followed him around which resulted in a little back & forth between systems and then to a belt where I guessed he may be waiting for me or hiding from me. Either way I was committed to the fight. Engaging a good orbit (this time) I set about the task at hand. He set a wave of three medium drones on me which I primaried as the biggest threat as he seemed to be artillery fit with some launchers. The drones went down pretty easily which enabled me to resume on the Hurricane itself. The Hurricane pilot convo'd me and was talking a little about this blog and ships, though conversation seemed to stop when I went into his armour. The fight was taking ages though and I was primarily concerned that other pilots may join in as per my fight yesterday, to that end I kept a keen eye on the scanner. Late in the fight another drone was deployed (or one that had been recalled) and promptly shot down. I was graced eventually with a satisfying pretty explosion, I requested a ransom for the pod and was instructed to nuke it, so I duly did without needing to be told twice. If anyone wonders how the Rifter held up in this fight, well it was never in any danger, comfortably repping to full and never going cap dry even with a web on me most of the fight. Here is a screenie:

Why don't I join a Pirate Corp?

I've been asked this a few times, so I thought I'd address it here as it has been a slow news day in EVE as I didn't find anything to kill all afternoon. Finding an EVE University pilot in an Incursus this evening before log-out being my only kill of the day (He went down very quickly), his Pod although I locked it, I managed to scram his drone instead. Ah well, another one to learn from.

As an aside I'd like to thank the mysterious individual who increased my bounty who came forward yesterday and increased it again further. A satisfied reader of this here blog, you know who you are :)

So back to the question of why don't I join a pirate corp. Well it is fairly simple and there are only two reasons:

1. I will not use voice comms and all pirate corps that I would consider applying to require this for gang work.
2. I have always seen myself as the lone gunman, fighting sometimes against overwhelming odds. Not having wingmen to come to my aid.

There is some baggage that supports reason 1, Over a year back I played World of Warcraft (I hear you groan) for about three years, and I played it at a fairly reasonable level and fairly hardcore with raiding and such. Whenever I would raid I used voice comms, donned the headset and promptly ignored life outside the computer which included my Wife and other commitments. As you can imagine looking back with hindsight this was really stupid and now considering myself a rehabilitated MMO gamer I refuse to ever return to that level of ignorance and absorbption again.

Millionaire Club!

Not exactly, at least not in the sense that you are probably thinking.

I am pleased to announce that Kirith now had a bounty of over one million isk on his head, or should I say his pod. It had been sat at 5,000 isk for a long while and I'm dead chuffed it his hit the million.

Tonight's roam started well with me popping a Catalyst who went down extremely fast as he was engaged with rats too and already at low shields. What followed was then a 2 hour period with no sniff of another kill. I thought I was going to get popped myself a couple of times tonight as the first occasion I warped to a gate as a gang jumped through and I was rather concerned you might say that there would be the tail end of the gang on the other side of the gate (fortunately not). The second time was a Mean/Hellequin coalition of a few ships sat on the other side of a gate, they didn't seem bothered by me fortunately again.

Deciding to call it a night and head back to my home system I find a couple of capsuleers in a Rifter & Rupture, I guess that they are working in cahoots. I warp to what I think is the right belt and the Rifter was there, I land 4km from him so point him and engage straight away. The Rupture arrives as I do so so I lock him too but he warps away. The Rifter is going down comfortably and I can handle his damage on me along with the two rats that are also firing on me. The Rupture comes back, which I really didn't expect, perhaps his fleet mate was giving him grief for running! I target him again then the Rifter explodes and I target and pop the pilots Pod too. Switching my scram to the Rupture I set about it and I'm now only really taking damage from the rats as the Rupture doesn't scratch me. He doesn't last long being a big fat juicy Cruiser though I wasn't quick enough to catch his Pod. I enjoyed the fight no end, fighting two pilots and the firepower of some rats and coming out well on top a superb feeling to end the day on.

Slim Pickings

A morning free of work as I'm in until late I needed to make the most of my morning on EVE before daily downtime, just a couple of hours play time. Expecting it to be very quiet I was not proven wrong. The majority of the time being the only capsuleer in the systems I roamed. I did manage to snag a couple of kills, though only one was a true kill.

I noticed a Catalyst in system but he soon jumped out. I had no idea where he went but had a 1 in 3 chance of being correct so making my choice I jumped. Bingo, lady luck had smiled. He had warped towards a gate to hi-sec but did not appear to have warped to zero, I picked him up on long range directional scan at the gate. I warped after him on the off chance he was autopiloting, not that I could fire first due to the sentry guns. When I arrived he was there, I wanted to get him to agress me so settled into an orbit around him locking him. Using my camera drones I could see that he had activated his shield booster so I knew the pilot was at the helm, after a few second he warped away. Assessing his trajectory I again had a 1 in 3 chance of selecting the right destination. Choosing belt 1 I engaged warp. Coming out of warp 1500m away from him. He went down fast and didn't even shoot me once (because he had no ammo judging by the killmail). I managed to snag his pod too which keeps me heading nicely towards -10 security status.

My other kill which wasn't really a true kill was an Amarr Rookie ship which had been abandoned by a Moon. Yes I really was bored enough to scan it down and blow it up!

Another repeat customer

Perhaps I am exhausting the supply of pilots new to the area of space that I roam or perhaps some capsuleers that I catch up with do not learn. Today I came across the chap who I killed at the weekend in his Thrasher again in a Thrasher and in the same system again.

Maybe he wasn't keeping an eye on local, I don't know. But I was able to scan him down quite easily and catch up with him in a belt. This time he was 25km away. I approached him and he locked me and began firing. I wasted no time in returning the compliment, noticing that I was neither webbed nor scrammed. The fight was a fairly close one with me bleeding into structure a couple of times but ultimately it was only going one way. After the pretty explosion I attempted a ransom on his pod but when given the opportunity to save his assumed implants he merely put something in local in what I assume was some variant of Russian.

What I also wonder about this guy, not that I am complaining mind you is why on earth did he engage me and not run away, I mean I had blown him up before on the previous time we met. He must have been optimistic. Perhaps next time knowing that I returned him to the clone vats will deter him from making the same mistake again.

Picking on twins in Rifters is a bad idea

Just before logging off I spy two Rifters flying together. The pilots are far older than I, but I decide to chance my luck. I warp to 70km from the belts and they are there waiting. I select my target and engage, taking heavy damage quickly from the combined assault of both my opponents I hope that I can take out at least one before I crash and burn. Although close to doing so it was not to be and Mad Manuel is consigned to the scrap heap in the sky. Gf's exchanged in local it seems that my adversaries enjoyed the fight too.

You win some and you lose some, but I had fun in testing the limits. Another day I shall have my revenge.

Monday night is Rifter night

So I sit my ass inside my Pod, two people (including me) in local and undock the station. I am greeted by a Rifter sat outside. While under the station protection he rushes over to orbit me, locking me as soon as I am out of the stations clutches. He opens fire so we tackle each other. My shields are gone in the blink of an eye and he's into my armour. I establish an orbit and break his shields. His armour is going fairly quickly but I'm already into structure, my repper doing a sterling job of giving me a sliver of armour back every time he unleashes a volley but I'm bleeding into structure. Then I break through his armour and his structure vanishes under a couple of volleys, leaving me on around 10% armour & sturcture. Wow that was close. I realise after the fight that it was the pilot who took out my last Rifter when I had killed the Hurricane. Netting a superb haul of modules drops I leave the field surprisingly victorious and having beaten a character a lot older. It seems that my guess about him overheating his guns last encounter was probably right as all three of his 200mm Auto's had taken some damage when I came to repackage them for resale.

After safely depositing my ill gotten gains I set about another roam and soon find a Rifter pilot, a new player. Deciding I should enlighten him on EvE pvp I find him in a belt but he escapes as he's 40km away from my warp in point. I return to a safe waiting for him to undock from his station. Undock he does a few minutes later, I warp to a jump gate guessing that would be his choice and find him arriving a few seconds after I do, he jumps and I follow suit watching for where he warps to. I happily follow him to a belt and this time point him before he can escape. It took very little damage to drop him. His pod followed swiftly afterwards.

Now waiting out my GCC another fairly young pilot enters the system, and again in a Rifter. After a game of chase around the planets I catch up with him and we lock horns. Again the fight didn't last long and I disposed of his pod afterwards. I think he would have fared better had he not chosen to fit short and long range weapons.

Repeat Customer

It has been a slow day today. After some early success in taking out a Thrasher, the pilot of which didn't seem one bit amused spamming local in what I assume to be Russian until I told him I didn't understand. Afterwards I had a dry spell for a while until I came across someone I had killed before in a Rupture (again) in the same system that I killed him in last time (last weekend I think).

I assumed he would have the same setup as last time, and it turned out that I was pretty much right. The evil Neut & drones. I however was not flying the Cap boosted fit that has been succesful vs Neuts so I was somewhat apprehensive. But if I don't try I will never know so I went for it. This time he must have forgotten about his drones as they did not put in an appearance. What surprised me the most however was how limited the effect of his Neut was due to my Nos keeping me going. Granted his damage in the entire fight didn't get through my shields as he didn't use his drones. Who knows if the outcome would have been the same if I needed to use my armor repper, but as it was I got rewarded with a pretty explosion. I offered a ransom for the pod but I didn't receive it so I have added another corpse in my collection.

A little time later I was convo'd by the pilot, assuming he was going to ask why I shot him (again) I accepted the convo. All he wanted to know was "were is my stuff". I told him that I had taken some and left the rest where it died. Usually I blow up the wrecks I create but on this occasion I didn't for some reason.

Rifter kills Hurricane (ableit failfitted)

Later on in the evening, in Ofage I found a Cyno Field, the scanner didn't show a POS or station at it's location so I warped to it and blew up the Kestrel that was generating it, a second frigate that was unmanned was 120km away so I took a trip over to it and blew that up too for good measure.

While waiting for my GCC to expire a month old player in a Hurricane entered the belts, quickly scanning him down and warping to him I had him pointed within a few seconds. I then wondered what the stranged noise was. The strange noise was from the Lasers that were on this Hurricane, now this abomination really had to die. He was fighting three Angel frigates which were going down very slowly. I made good progress through his ship and was rewarded with a pretty explosion. Now as I targetted his pod another Rifter entered the fray and tackled me. I had noticed the pilot who was rather old in local before I engaged the Hurricane but you know me by now. I had little shields to speak of remaining by the time he opened fire on me. I first took care of the Pod and then switched to the Rifter, I got him down to about a third armour before I exploded but his damage was incredible in the speed it tore through me.

Nevertheless I felt satisfied with my days work and my first Battlecruiser kill, albeit a failfit one. This last Rifter (RIP) also I think is my longest lived, nearly surviving an entire week!

The Hunter Became the Hunted

Today I had a days holiday form work so I it was a fair no-brainer for me to have an EvE day.

It was a quiet morning before downtime with a few people evading me in a Rifter and two Hulks. Jumping into my home system I found local crowded with a couple of people at POS's, a couple of old pirates docked up and a single "target" player. Deciding that it wasn't worth the risk of being jumped by the older pirates I left the target alone and moved on to the next system over.

The next system over was empty, so I warped to a gate many AU's away. Just as I arrived at the gate the target I had seen jumped into this system. Pulling a U-turn in my Rifter I headed back to a scanning safe. To be disappointed by one of the aforementioned old pirates jumping in aswell. Holding at my safe he didn't stay long and must have only been passing through, I set about scanning for the Rupture.

On a related topic, I don't know what happened to the fear of Ruptures I previously held, I seem to be rather gung-ho about attacking them lately!

Anyway, I digress. Eventually the Rupture turned up at a belt, I assume he had been in a safe. Warping into the belt my heart sank a bit when I saw him 35km away. Putting the pedal to the metal (If Rifters have pedals?) I closed the distance as quick as possible. Using the camera zoom I noticed he was moving away from me, but not aligned with anything, at 12km he turned and I thought he was leaving.

I got my lock and scram in before he could and we both started taking shield damage, he dropped a bunch of hammerheads on me along with a Nos, Neut, Web & Scram. This didn't look good! Primarying the Hammerheads I took a couple out before they were recalled, my cap had gone and I was struggling to hold scram and I could forget about the AB. Where I could I grabbed a Rep cycle and everytime my cap-booster had reloaded I dropped a new charge into the Capacitor. I was quickly down to below half armour. Taking care of the last Hammerheads I started applying damage to the Rupture itself. Damage on me at this point had dropped massively thanks to there being no more drones. My opponent was still getting the occasional Neut cycle out but he was clearly capped out but I made pretty quick progress down to half structure when I needed to reload. Slapping in new clips of ammo I resumed the offensive and at around 10% structure the pilot requested me to stop guns for 10m isk. Before I had time to reply the Rupture was a pretty explosion and I locked down the Pod. Deciding to offer a Ransom of 10m isk (see what I did there?) we agreed and I received the ransom and let him away with a day pass.

After the fight and good fights exchanged the pilot wanted to chat so I warped away to a safe. We spoke awhile about the fight and it turned out that he was a friend of the Stabber & Scythe pilots who I came across last weekend. I blew up his friends Scythe and Pod and the Stabber got away. He had been trying to hunt me down for a couple of days. This suprised me as I had no idea that I was being hunted! Perhaps we will lock horns again some time.

The overriding factor of this fight for me was that the Cap-Booster had once again saved my ass big-time.

First T2 Ship Kill

Well, I can't take all the credit for it unfortunately as the Angel Cartel had a hand in it also. Noticing a Harpy on Scan under the command of a 3 month old player I felt that I had a fighting chance of walking away, especially so if he turned out to be PVE fit (which he didn't turn out to be).

I couldn't find him in a belt but had noticed some Angel "mission type" rat wrecks on scan. Doing a scan with the system scanner picked up a couple of Cosmic Anomalies, warping to the first at 100km I notice him looting some 107km away. I warped out to warp back at zero to find him gone. I guessed I had spooked him. Despite that he was still on scan and again not at a belt so I decided to try the second Cosmic Anomaly, warping to zero this time. He was there engaged with some cruiser rats and a couple of heavy launcher turrets. Wasting no time in chasing after him I had him pointed, but he seemed to be faster than me so I became worried that he would get out of scram range. The Angels had taken around 30% of his shields by the time I fired. He was soon into my armour, biting deep with his use of a web while I was chipping away at his shields. My armour rep working overtime, I chewed through a couple of 200 booster charges to keep everything working and it was terribly close. I had already selected my pod warp point when he popped with me sat on 9% structure with a damaged AB, I think I had managed to get a Rep cycle in just in time to save my sorry ass.


Good fight was exchanged in local and I proceeded to wait out the GCC. Closest fight yet and my first T2 hull kill. I got some nice module drops too which will nearly pay for an entire new Rifter.

A little later in the evening I snagged a newb in a Rifter who entered a system while I was tracking down a bigger target, Quickly locating him I was quite surprised at how quickly he died. At least I was before I saw the fit. But hey, he was fresh out of the pram. Taking out his Pod too I at least now give him the opportunity to refit another Rifter.

Popped their Cherry

It's been a quiet evening all told, my only kill tonight being a Rifter. It had a pretty good setup. After a pretty short game of cat and mouse through two systems I pinpointed the Rifter in a belt and warped in. My quarry had the advantage of a web over me but it didn't seem to matter too much and was fairly quickly into structure. Her structure seemed to hold together longer than the armour for some reason. Post pretty explosion I attempted to get a point on the pod but was denied by the pilots swift reactions.

We chatted for a while in local following the fight, it's always nice to have a good natured conversation. During the conversation I discovered it was their first pvp fight, we talked a little about how the fight went, picking targets, soloing in Rifters and fits. I was very pleased to have dropped a ship equipped with some nice modules which I have added to my own stash to fit some more Rifters with saving me on some purchases.

I did take a screenshot towards the end of the fight but it seems I chose a moment when the target was blotted out by the sun so maybe next time.

1st proper Cruiser kills

Today had been very quiet, that is up until around 5pm. Truth be told I was getting a bit fed up as I had been roaming around all day without so much as a bite of action. This evening though I have been chasing frigates back and forth and killing cruisers, yes that's right more than one cruiser!

The first cruiser I killed (Scythe) was ratting in a belt with a buddy of his, who I recognized as a regular hauler pilot in the system. My initial guess was that he was mining with his buddy along in a Stabber to kill the rats. I was wrong though, the Scythe had been combat fit as was the Stabber. I primaried the Stabber but it was able to outpace me in my current Rifter which lacks a web so I swapped targets to the Scythe as I had only taken 30% of the Stabber shields off. As the Scythe went to low shields the buddy bugged out and docked up so I kept the pressure on. The pilot was saying "stop" to me in local but made no offer of a ransom payment. His ship went boom and I locked the pod. Asking him how much it was worth not to pod him I didn't get a reply in sufficient time to I blew his sorry ass back to the clone vat.

Later on in the evening I happen upon a normally quiet system which is really quite busy. Spotting a couple of newer pilots in local I see about tracking them down, one jumps out of the system so that decides who I focus on finding. My quarry came up on scan in a Rupture though I thought I had spooked him as he vanished form scan. Jumping between safe spots I found him again at a belt. Warping in he is engaged with a battlecruiser rat 35km away. I head for him as fast as my AB will carry me hoping he doesn't notice me (yeah right), 25km out he targets me! Then disrupts my warp drive!! Awesome news, the fight is on. I settle into a happy orbit as he very slowly picks away at my shields. The rat had already taken care of his shields for me so I set to it on the armour. At half structure he remembers that he has a web and uses it to pull some range but its too little too late and thereafter follows a pretty explosion with the cherry on top being his pod going pop too. I scoop the corpse and start looting his wreck when a Falcon decloaks 35km away, damned if I could stop the adrenaline shakes I just manage to click the warpout button before the Falcon gets close.

My third cruiser kill of the evening was another Rupture, doing a little research ahead of the engagement via battleclinic it seemed that he used drones and neuts. Now I don't like drones and I especially don't like neuts. All that said though I engaged anyway! After a little game of "chase through the belts" I caught him thanks to the fact that I can align quicker than he. It was my longest fight yet and boy did he like his neut. Without my cap booster I would have been dead as a Dodo. Several times my scram couldn't activate for lack of cap but he didn't capitalise. I took down his drones first as they were the biggest threat to me after the neut, thankfully they were T1. We then set about the dance of taking the rest of his ship away to get another pretty explosion \o/. I attempted to ransom his Pod for 100mil as this was no noob character, but he didn't pay so he went back to the vat.

To top it all off on my way to dock up I came across a Bellicose, seemingly mining in a belt as it had a mining drone out. Warping in I arrived some 40km away so again had to hope that I wouldn't get spotted on the way in. Somehow I managed to get to lock range without being noticed and really that was the end of it. The pilot must have been afk at the start of the fight as once in low shields they tried in vain to make a run for it. Unfortunately I didn't snag the pod on this occaision. Reviewing the killmail I have to say that the weapon loadout qualifies for a "lolfit".

If only I had gotten that Stabber earlier in the day I would have killed the full set of Minmatar cruisers in one day!