November 2011 Character Review

Hi again, still working through my backlog of blog topics whilst adding some to the list. It feels like it’s been a quiet month for me with limited in game time, there has definitely been a big sense of anticipation and excitement over the Crucible expansion deployed this week.

Let’s take a look at the statistics from November first:

25 Ship kills (15 Solo)

7 Pod kills

4 Ships lost (All Solo)

0 Pods lost

138,489,544 isk income from ships destroyed

13,000,000 isk received from ransoms

102,819,227 isk cost of losses

48,670,317 isk ‘Profit’ for the month

A far better month than last, achieving a fair profit. The beginning of the month was much busier than the latter half, due to me having low game-time which I was fully expecting. I lost two Jaguars, a Bellicose and a Rifter.

I’m still not loving the Jaguar; one loss was to a Rapier as I got entangled in an asteroid belt whilst chasing another ship. The other Jaguar to a Wolf who was waiting for an agreed fight with a corpmate and caught me as I was trying to warp out to leave them be.  I lost the Rifter being overconfident in attacking a Crusader, really not expecting a web instead of point. The Bellicose, well I decided to fight a Rapier who had uncloaked nearby despite the fact that I was already aligned and ready to warp, not the best plan tbh but I got bored J.

This is how my skill distribution looks at the moment:

 

Continued dedication towards the ‘Rifter Plan’. Acceleration Control V, Thermodynamics V & Energy Management V completed. Still on course to have completed the Rifter Plan by the end of the year. Thank you to all those who commented on my last post about what to do next, no decisions reached yet.

I still toy with the idea of buying a Fleet Stabber & Scythe, but as yet haven’t done anything about it.

My alt accounts continue to do excellent work on my behalf. 526m isk profits made from station trading. Contract trading on a single contract slot is sporadic at best, but when I get a buy/sell I make a bonus 10m isk for negligible effort. Skill training swapped back from my Prober to my mission alt this month who has been padding those social skills to make maximum benefit of LP gains. I’ve been looking again at the option of a Carrier and don’t feel that it’s necessary at the moment so may go for something mission busting like a passive Rattlesnake.

Shopping...

In the caharacter review I mentioned that there was a temptation to blow my trading profits by buying more and more ships for Kirith. Needing no encouragement, although it was given by long time blog follower Kirith Kodachi.

I've not been in space in a while, so have decided that I needed some retail therapy. Therefore today I logged in my alt sat in Jita who holds Kirith's pursestrings and decided to buy fittings for the following unfit ships in his hangar:

3 x Bellicose
5 x Breacher
1 x Ferox
1 x Probe
2 x Scythe
5 x Vigil

My pending-transport cargo container in Jita now is brimming with modules awaiting the next transport run to low-sec.

I'll admit that the ships above are far from renowned for their combat prowess, but that's the reason they have sat there unfit and therefore unused. As a result the fits I've chosen are a very eclectic mix! I'm sure as and when they inevitably appear on killmails some laughs and raised eyebrows will be seen. I've splashed out a bit too on a few of the loadouts which is blatantly nonsensical but I got a bit carried away with the likes of a complex MWD on one of the Breachers! It's all fun though, right?

I have been known for doing this sort of thing before, fitting a couple of Slashers & Bursts for combat in the past. Amazingly I still have both of each, the Slashers have bagged a kill or two aswell!

I should get some time in space this week but am not sure that I'll get these new toys this week. Time will tell!

EFT Warrioring

So when time in space is limited, one's attention turns to EFT. The perpetual question of what to do with some of those unfitted hulls that are in my hangar comes back to mind. A multitude of Vigils, Breachers, Scythe & Bellicose bought in a moment where I thought "one day i'll come up with some miraculous fit for those" but didn't...

Quickly getting bored of trying to find a viable PVP fit for any of the above, bar the Bellicose which met with more success my attention swings back to Hurricane, Drake & Cyclone loadouts. Before long I've input 3 new Drake fits I wan't to try, 1 Hurricane fit and a Cyclone fit.

Of course now having theorycrafted the fits I want to buy them, and of course replace that Drake I lost last week. So after spending close to 200m iskies in Jita on hulls & modules I await the next transport bringing new shiny & rusty toys to low-sec.

Hopefully I shall regail you with tails of their dominance in due course.

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

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.

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!