Solo Roaming in Battlecruisers

Kirith is for the most part a solo-pirate, rarely working in gangs. It's certainly not that I don't like to, I just don't have the opportunity to be online when they are are taking place. A fair proportion of Tusker Fleets that do terrorise the spacelanes include Battlecruisers and they are lets face it, a staple of low-sec piracy.

Kirith spends most of his time sat in Frigates, not Battlecruisers but nevertheless keeps a stable of them dotted around various systems. By spending most of my time in small ships I feel/know that I am missing out on some targets.

When I exclusively flew Frigates I always felt that bigger ships were really slow and cumbersome and to this day I have always been reluctant to fly them as I perhaps mistakenly was convinced that I would constantly be getting caught on gates.

I now feel that I want to start flying Battlecruisers more in solo situations and doing more roaming. But that then poses the question of which one and with what loadout?

This is where I hope that you, my pretties can help me. Which Battlecruiser do you think is the 'best' for solo roaming in low sec and why?

Personally I fly Minmatar and Caldari Battlecruisers and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I preferred the Drake of the BC's that I do fly , I don't believe though that the Drakes I fly are optimal as solo boats so I'm trying to work up a better loadout.

Anyhow, any pointers greatly appreciated!

Post Rifter Plan - Revisited

Firstly, thank you to those kind readers that offered feedback on the previous post. Very much appreciated.
 
The first skill plugged in was Assault Ships V which is now completed, true to form I went out to test it and lost a Wolf! It was a blessing to lose it in some respects as it was an heirloom from when my fittings skills were not what they are today and my next one will be something of a fire-breather in terms of deeps.
 
Next up we have Caldari Frigate V for the Hookbill and Hawk which will be followed by Amarr Frigate V for the Vengeance. This will then have me at all races racial frigate skills at V ready to train up the appropriate weapon skills.
 
Once this is done I expect I'll do either Interceptors or Destroyers to V.
 
Then the focus will shift to big stuff with me training for T2 large projectiles, opening up the Tornado and then on to Minmatar Battleship V.
 
It's probably best I don't commit to post Battleship at this stage in case I change my mind! I am sorely tempted by a Tengu or Loki though!

EVE PvP vs A Tandem Skydive...

(Yes it's me in the picture)

A few days ago, a blogger made a post and during said post they drew comparison between the adrenaline hit you get from EVE PvP. 

They said that the adrenaline hit probably was nothing compared to say, doing a skydive...

Well, as someone who happens to have done a Tandem Skydive from 12000ft and obviously has done EVE PvP I feel qualified to comment.

My conclusion is that from my experience I get a better adrenaline high from EVE PvP by a huge margin than from the skydive. The only adrenaline hit I'd put close to EVE PvP would be driving alongside another road car at 155mph down an A road!

My friends tell me I'm weird when I teel them this, so maybe it's just me!

Why Do I Play EVE?

I read a fellow bloggers post recently and it touched in why they play EVE. It made me think, why do I play EVE?
 
There are a few reasons that come to mind, do in no particular order....
 
My first introduction to MMO's was through World of Warcraft the same as many other people. I joined WoW back in the vanilla days and was part of a guild that used to raid eventually becoming an officer and the guilds main tank for 40 man instances. This I did hardcore for about 3 years. Crossing into the first expansion, Burning Crusade I rolled a new main character, changed my focus and set myself the objective of being the first player to have 10 level 70 characters on the server. I achieved this too. It was after Burning Crusade that I switched to a different guild to do more raiding which came at a time I had been made redundant. I ended up gaming at least 16 hours per day for nearly 6 months. At this time my wife and I were relocating to Cornwall so after 6 months we moved. I took it as an opportunity to go cold turkey, realising that I had allowed WoW to take over my life. I managed just fine, flirting with games like LoTRO, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online and Magic Online off and on. It was during this time that I remembered EVE as the guild master of my original WoW guild once posts about it. I did research and subscribed to blogs, absorbing as much as I could. I then went back and forth to WoW a few times always walking away, although in fact I went back to WoW briefly during my recent absence. It's too easy now tbh and still had a horrible habit of snowballing in terms of taking my time. I ended up trying EVE and started blogging about it at the same time. What helped me stick with the game is that I can ensure it doesn't take over my life; my character gets better when I am offline.
 
Next. The shakes, I rarely get them anymore but when I do it's incredible. That adrenaline rush. If you haven't pvp'd in EVE yet then I urge you to do so, you are missing out on something possibly unique in a game. I mean on occasion they've been that strong that I have had to dock and log and go for a quick walk to stop them!
 
Next. The camaraderie, I fly with The Tuskers. They are a great bunch of people, family friendly banter, extremely competent pilots who are dedicated to exploding spaceships.
 
Next. Spaceships bro! I mean I get to fly spaceships! A fair amount of my childhood once we actually got a computer was spent playing Frontier Elite 2. I still play it from time to time. EVE is something of über Elite 2 on steroids to me.
 
Variety. I love the variety in EVE. Depending how much time I have I can log in and pirate, carebear, trade, haul, or just chat, whatever takes my fancy.
 
The graphics. Although I run EVE on low settings, whenever I buy a new ship I haven't flown before I crank them up to max. The graphics can be breath-taking.
 
Now this will sound sad, spreadsheets. I get to use and make spreadsheets to use in conjunction with a game, admittedly I am an Excel junkie and yes I will seek professional help :P.
 
Every character is different and nothing may be what it seems. Ok some will have the same skills, but no two people are the same. In piracy I love this and when you warp in in someone, as Forrest Gump's momma said "you never know what you're gonna get".
 
So that's a long-winded me, what about you?

First Day Back

So this evening upon getting home from work I got my home pc and laptop setup to play eve. After that was done I was left with only 90 minutes to play spaceships. Less time than I would like, but that frequently tends to be the case!

So I log back in and am in Adirain. Sat in station in my Breacher (of doom!), I have three other ships in station. All BC's which is odd as I normally only keep one in Adirain along with a Rifter & Cruiser. I notice I need a clone upgrade and decide to do that later.

Local is busy but everyone is docked in station with me. I decide now is a good time to move my prober back to low-sec from Villore. Before my absence I made the mistake of allowing my sisters combat probes to time out in space and had needed to buy more.

Villore being next to Old Man Star I jumped in. Now being I a Covops I expected to be safe....

Wrong! Whether I failed/lagged or was too close to one of the campers when I jumped through I don't know. I selected my warp to target then  my cloak broke after I activated it. Instantly locked an popped, I was amazed to get the Pod out tbh.

So I turned around and went to Dodixie to replace my Covops in exchange for 30m iskies. This time I headed back to low-sec via a different route! Safely!

Anyway, back to Kirith. After my prober shenanigans are done I undock in a Drake, Adirain is busy but little in space. A Sentinel, Rifter, Thrasher, Arbitrator, Tristan are all in system at different times but I fail to nuke any of them.

The arbitrator warps away as I land with him. the Tristan swiftly pulls range, picks on a Warrior II and then warps off in armour. The Thrasher pulls range as I attack him on station and escapes.

Other notable(ish) events in Adirain were being yellow boxed by a neutral Hurricane on the high-sec gate until he got bored and jumped out as BC vs BC with gate guns on their side isn't a fight I'd choose! And I blew up a Covetor and his Pod.

I eventually decided to return to Hevrice to downsize ship. On my way one system out I cross jumped an 8 man gang coming the other way. Lucky timing! Docking up I switched to a Thrasher as another small gang jumped into Hevrice.

Undocking I warped to a watch point on the Jov gate to get eyes on their fleet and fed back their fleet composition over vent as Sulei had formed a BC fleet to counterattack. The gang jumped from Hev to Jov and then on into Aeschee. In Aeschee the two enemy gangs engaged each other. Sulei put the Tusker gang in Jov on the Aeschee gate and jumped in to the two gangs. Meanwhile I was busy reshipping to a Drake and making my way to the Tusker fleet.

Sadly by the time I arrived the gangs were broken and had scattered and I missed out on the mails.

So, not the busiest or most explosive of evenings but it's good to be back.

Connectivity Restored

Just a quick post to say that I finally have internets again and shall be returning to the space lanes in due course.

Oh, and I have an itchy trigger finger..........

Unsavoury Practices

Some time ago, a few bloggers wrote about the practice of killmail whoring which struck something of a chord with me. Since then I've been meaning to do a post on the very same topic, however I've chosen to expand my post to include blobbing too.
 
I have noticed since returning from my EVE break that a number of people have outspokenly commented in game when I've been looking for fights to the effect that you'll never get a fair fight against a Tusker and that there's always a blob just waiting on the other side of the gate.
 
I don't really know where this perception has come from but based on the number of people who comment it's fair to say that it's a widespread rumour. I guess that to some people two vs one can be a blob whereas to others ten vs one is a blob. Depends on your perception I guess.
 
On occasion total overkill can't really be avoided, there are just times that someone will be unlucky and jump into a small gang and get popped. At other times, with around 100 members based out of the same station there are going to be frequent occasions where there will be more than one Tusker at a time in the systems up to 4 jumps from Hevrice.
 
Generally though the Tuskers has a lot of lone gunmen (solo pilots). And whilst there might be three in system with a target they are probably acting independently albeit all three may be chasing the same catalyst in belt IV! What I'm getting at with this is that sometimes overkill happens without intent, which leads me nicely onto....
 
Killmail whoring....
 
Whilst overkill does happen, and can be legitimate there are times when it just shouldn't if fair etiquette is observed. So, if I land at a target and another Tusker is engaged then I will not engage, sure I may lock the target but not activate offensive modules. Typically unless it's obvious I will ask my corpmate if they would like assistance. If not then I'll move on.
 
Not all pilots do this, and i personally find it pretty irritating and poor form when someone whores the mail just to get themselves on a killmail.
 
A particular kill of a missioner springs to mind from a few months ago. I'd probed his mission, warped to it and caught the guy. Another corpmate enters system and wants to get on the kill, I'm dumbfounded that he joins my fleet, warps to me and proceeds to whore the mail of my otherwise easy solo kill!
 
I am at heart a solo pirate and as such I feel particularly aggrieved when someone wants to piggy back on my efforts to pad their stats.
 
Just so you know, I'll avoid where I can going overkill and killmail whoring. If I have the option to ship down/up to present a fair fight to fight someone, then you can bet your ass I will!

December 2011 Character Review

Happy New Year!

With my recent move in real-life my game time ceased early in December, knwoing that this was coming I managed to squeeze in a few days play before my internet connection was severed. I'm still waiting for my phone line to be installed, the joys of the provider postponing my install date due to additional cabling works required (you would have thought they would factor this into the original install date, no?).

Let's have a look at Decembers stat's:

21 Ship kills (20 solo)
10 Pod kills

2 Ships lost (both in solo situations though I got my loot back from a Rifter I lost)
0 Pods lost

57,131,745 isk income from ships destroyed
65,000,000 isk income from ransoms, including someone who paid me 50 million to not attack him while running a storyline mission!

8,554,144 isk cost of losses

113,577,601 isk 'Profit' for the month

Considering that I only actually played on about 4 occasions, I consider that I did really well in December. In the month I lost a Rifter taking on a Jaguar, retrieving my loot after I undocked a Hurricane and nuked the offending Jaguar who hadn't looted my wreck. I also lost a Rupture taking on a Drake, which in hindsight was a poor idea, the pilot however took pity on me and transferred me a 25 million isk for my loss.

A partilcular kill this month was fairly spectacular, qualifying as an entry for the corporation monthly competition for kill of the month. I killed a PVP fit Arbitrator in my Breacher. Whilst the pilot, Asterix the Gaul is fairly young, he's taken the scalps of a number of the locals who've dared engage his deadly Cruiser. I decided to pit my Breacher against it so that I could stay outside neutralizer range, whether I could survive his Drones was the key deciding factor here, and he came equipped with four flights of Drones. The Breacher is microwarpdrive and long point fit, but through the use of a faction MWD it's cap stable and can buzz around at high speed permanently. Needless to say, it was a hairy engagement but through much overheating I took out the two flights of light drones, at the expense of my entire armour. The medium drones were much more comfortable to handle and destroy before finally laying waste to the ship itself.

I've spoken with Asterix a few times and he's a capable pilot, only interested in PVP and flying ships that are cheap to lose, hence the total lack of tech 2 and high meta fittings. He also sits within a starter corp, a ploy to attract people to engage him. When asked about his moderate negative security status he replied that he couldn't resist attacking a killing Socratic who just wouldn't shut up one day!

Skill distribution looks like this:

With Propulsion Jamming V done on 31st December, the Rifter Plan is finally complete and decisions on what to train next have been taken. The first skill in the queue is Assault Ships to V, once that's done I think I'll skill up Minmatar Battleship V and Large T2 Projectiles for some heavy hitting firepower & also opening up tier 3 Battlecruisers. After that, well I have some ideas....

Christmas presents for my characters will include a Stabber Fleet Issue for Kirith, once I can decide on a setup I like. I've also bought my mission running alt a full set of +5 implants as they safely reside in high security space knocking out level 4 missions.

Talking of the alt accounts, 232 million isk profits made through station Trading. Much lower than normal but then I only did 5 days trading. I did profit nicely from the introduction of the tier 3 Battlecruisers.

I may take a look at the year gone by and how things have changed for Kirith in  future post and it would be nice to set him some goals for the coming year.

Fly Dangerous o7

Rifter Plan Completed

 
After god knows how long I am delighted to celebrate that the Rifter Plan was completed on the 31st December 2011!

I am now able to fly a max skilled Rifter with every skill that affects it trained to level V! Of course, those skills will scale very nicely with every other ship I fly.