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