Friday 23 July 2010

New bounty

Logging in today, I find my bounty has rocketed to over 100,000,000.00 isk. Very impressive, now lets see how long it lasts!

Saturday 17 July 2010

The Beginings of A New Era

That's right, something new is afoot for Kirith. The training towards flying Minmatar Cruisers is underway and at the moment Medium Projectile Turrets V is cooking with 10 days remaining, after this skill I have Medium Autocannon Specialisation to take to IV and Minmatar Cruiser to V and then I shall be seen in space in rusty Matari Cruisers. I am looking forward to flying them, though I would have to say that I am looking forward to jumping into a huge DPS machine Hurricane soon after far more.

My blogging has been quiet as my house sale approaches conclusion, thus meaning I am taking time to find somewhere rather than playing EVE. My blogging will return to normal once things settle. I logged in for 20 minutes earlier today, my fist log in in nearly a week. As such I have nothing in game to talk about other than my new Cruiser raining.

I would like to mention that I found it very sad to hear that Mr Kane Rizzel is leaving EVE, a fact which really does sadden me. Whilst I have never crossed Autocannons with him, he is a figure in which I hold a great respect and I very much hope that he will return.

Saturday 10 July 2010

What's the most badass looking pirate ship in EVE?

My good friend, wingman and all around awesome pilot Kishin asked the other day, which ship in EVE do we think portrays piracy or a pirate the best? On pondering it, I find it a tough question to answer as there are so many different angles that can be taken. For example is it to be best defined by most successful, the one that leaves the victim feeling violated the most etc? I chose to think about this from a purely visual perspective, thus I present my shortlist of ships that I consider to be the most aesthetically badass looking pirate ships in EVE.

Curse (Amarr Recon)

Malediction (Amarr Interceptor)

Nightmare (Sansha Battleship)

Vagabond (Minmatar Heavy Assault Ship)

Vindicator (Serpentis Battleship)

Well, that's a quick top five and I admit that the pirates would have to be pretty well off to fly most of those as vessels of piracy, what do you think and do you have a view on the most badass looking pirate ship?

Friday 9 July 2010

Press Ganged

No, I wasn't but our latest Tusker recruit Laronz0 was. After only just over 24 hours after he joins the corp this very young and I hope he won't mind me saying, low SP pilot was effectively press ganged into FC'ing an ad-hoc Tusker fleet. Initially he was like, no you have got to be kidding until it became apparent that we were not and he finally accepted that there was pretty much no getting out of it. A few tips & old chestnuts were spoken into vent to our newest FC along with a few puns about his World of Warcraft past concerns wipes, pallys bubbling & Rogue Vanishing and whether he knew EVE was different and that we would be upset if we wiped! All said in good light hearted jest of course.

And so we departed Hevrice in a mix of Frigate & Cruiser hulls with a couple of cloaky proby alts. Well they did and I caught up after finishing up a loot split from an earlier Raven kill with my much loathed Jaguar, determined to lose it in a fire. I was also flying one of the proby alts. (Love having two computers again!). The probers and a scout roaming ahead here follows a brief account of what we found and where we found it:

Oulletta
In system our scout had gone after an Ishkur in a belt only to find it at a pounce approximately 200km off the belt. He burned for it but as he did so a Hurricane landed. Doing a quick 180 he pointed the 'Cane and the fleet descended. The 'Cane quickly died. Killmail. We had seen the Ishkur warp out to a safe and quickly had probes on it, in fact it was that quick that some people were still in warp from the belt whilst our scout and myself were gang warped by the prober right on top of the poor Ishkur who melted quickly Killmail

Amoen
We sighted a few ships but they either kept an eye out for probes or we were unlucky. We headed on and decided to take a peek in a high sec pocket, the pocket required us to jump through a high-sec system. One of the probers found a couple of Myrmidons doing a 5/10 complex. We sent in two tacklers and quickly caught them and held them while the fleet jumped through high-sec and warped in. Myrmidon one went down quickly Killmail as I was en-route to gain secondary point on the second Myrm. Kishin stays behind and holds Myrm pilot one's Pod missing out on the KM for Myrm two. The second dies equally quickly Killmailbut the pod instawarps.

Iges
Returning to the comfort of low-sec proper we caught a ratting Thorax and his Pod in Iges Killmail.

Covryn
Moving a system or two over we bagged another ratter in his Vexor, though he managed to get his Pod clear

At this point it was getting very late and I headed back to Hevrice to dock and log for the night. In short, I had a terrific evenings fun and our newest member and newest FC handled himself in excellent style. A bunch of kills for no losses!

Wednesday 7 July 2010

The Evil Bastard

And so, nothing much has occurred since my last post due to a general lack of time in-game. And so I thought that I would take the opportunity to write a little about my first proper Dramiel.

First lets begin with the fit that I used:

H: 150mm Light Autocannon II x 2
H: Rocket Launcher II

M: Catalyzed Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
M: Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
M: Medium Shield Extender II
M: Warp Scrambler II

L: Micro Auxillary Power Core
L: Nanofibre Internal Structure II
L: Gyrostabiliser II

R: Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer
R: Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer
R: Small Anti-Thermic Screen Reinforcer

D: Warrior II x 4

With this fit I managed a ridiculous number of kills (70+) and loot drops alone have paid for this ship & fit several times over. It eventually met it's end going for tackle on one of two Genos Occidere Tengus playing in belts in Hevrice. I was of course sad to see it go.

In reviewing the performance of my first fit on this nasty little ship only one point really stands out as needing to change. That point is the rigs. Sure against EM & Thermal damage it's ok but more often than not having a larger shield buffer I feel would be better and so, when I come to buy my next that s liekly what I will fit for.

A number of people are surprised that I don't even fully T2 fit ships, some state that the Dramiel really demands Faction pimp nevermind just T2. I have a serious dislike to spending inordinate amounts of isk on ships that are guaranteed to get exploded. Forking out the chunk of isk on the hull was a leap of faith in itself, nevermind extra shiny toys. I find also that there is a distinct link between the number of shiny components and the speed at which it gets hopelessly destroyed, and no it's not the way you would expect!

I am now in my second Dramiel, which has a completely different fit and no MWD. It already feels lethargic and I am struggling to love it but I shall persevere as it hasn't had a truly insane ability test yet. A second report on it will follow once it has been destroyed.

In short the Dramiel is an extraordinary ship which inspires utter madness in it's pilot, it is rightly feared.

Friday 2 July 2010

June 2010 Character Review

It's a couple of days late, for which I apologise.

June has been a weird month for me, it kicked off with the Alliance Tournament which seems like oh so long ago. Then I was swept up with the Dramiel whirlwind and destroyed a host of ships with it. Since the loss of the Dramiel though I have struggled to find the inclination to fly. Tonight for example I was determined to get out there and fly. And I did just that, but only for 25 minutes. In that 25 minutes I managed to lose Blog Moar!, the Wolf which I have talked about a couple of times. It was lost valiantly tackling a Myrmidon whilst a corp mate attacked it with his Ishtar. Now I am logged off again feeling a bit "Meh, can't be arsed". The biggest factor in this for me is that June also saw my trusty laptops graphics card overheat and completely wreck my laptop. I have been attempting to fly on my desktop PC but I just can't get my mojo using a desktop. Fortunately though my new laptop is scheduled to arrive on Monday so I should be back to my pillage & plundering ways soon enough.

After some catch up on the Rifter plan for having diverted to the Dramiel I had three level V skills to catch this month before getting myself into the interleaving of plans. Motion Prediction, Rapid Fire & Sharpshooter are now all resplendent at level V, Hull Upgrades V has only two days remaining now. 229 days remaining on the Rifter plan. I don't expect much progress on that plan through July as I will be getting Medium Projectile Turret to V along with Medium Autocannon Specialisation to IV. Maybe just squeezing out one or two Rifter skills.

I have purchased my first Cruiser hulls already in anticipation. Five Ruptures & Stabbers, Two Bellicose & Cyclones and a single Hurricane. A drop in the ocean in numbers as I will have another five Ruptures, eight more Cyclones & nine more Hurricanes joining them soon. Moving them is a logistical "challenge" but I do like to keep a very well stocked hangar.

PS. I also plan to buy a Scythe for my comedy collection.

Kirith sits at 16.3m SP right now, major gain in the month is clearly to Gunnery. I did have to train Target Painting up for the Tournament, but other than that blip things went to plan.


My trading alts profits dropped again this month to 104m from 138m the previous month which is disheartening. Following the "free" 100,000 SP's from CCP (Thank you)I chucked a load into trading skills for my Hulk pilot to make him a much more effective trader. It early days of course as this was only a few days ago, but early signs are good. My probing alt as has been mentioned previously has now finished getting his skills to a good standard so i have moved onto my Freighter alt which again is an isk sink to train up even without the actual purchase of the Freighter!

Some stats:
Tuskers: Rank 20 on Battleclinic
Kirith: Kills 678(188 in June), Losses 108 (4 in June)
Kirith: ISK Destroyed 18.9Bn, Lost 1.1Bn