Scythe Down

It is with heavy heart that I must say farewell to my Scythe, I had fit it for entertainment but really had become fairly attached to it. I did enjoy undocking and baiting some local hoodlums (like myself) to attack it. It has paid for itself many times over.

I had been determined to see if I could take out an Assault Frigate with it, so on Saturday I found one, a Jaguar. Were it not for some fine GTFO efforts by the pilot Gun Dam I'd have killed him without much risk to myself, as it happened he got out with 40% hull.

Later in the day though, I fought him again. This time though I made a big mistake, well two. First I had run out of all but EM rockets so was shooting at his highest resist, second and more fundamentally I burned out my guns really early and had to sit there for a long time just waiting to be taken apart.

Props again to Gun Dam for engaging me a second time, a good fight and based on his comments I think I just gave him his first above class kill pre Tuskers application.

Now, should I buy another now the fit is known?

September 2011 Character Review

Hello again,

I haven't blogged in a little while. I've not had the muse to find a subject to blog about and rather than witter on about nothing in particular I decided to wait for a more structured post. Like this one.

So another month has gone by, first let's take a look at the stat's:

25 Ship Kills (16 of which Solo)
10 Pod kills

1 Ship Lost (1 of which in a Solo encounter, Cable I'm looking at you!)
0 Pods Lost

107,666,853 Isk income from ships destroyed
0,000,000 Isk received from ransoms (Sadface)

6,018,788 Isk approximate cost of losses

101,648,065 Isk "Profit" for the month

Clearly it's been a very efficient month for me, nearly a clean sheet were it not for that single Rifter loss at the beginning of September. Although my time in game nowadays is a total shadow of what it used to be I have found that generally on every occasion that I do get to log in as Kirith I manage to get a kill. My target selection is relatively careful in that I tend not to engage members of other large local corps on the basis of risk of being ganked. With such limited in game time I tend to base myself out of Adirain on the boarder of the high-sec Arnon system from where the first Epic Arc starts, although Hevrice remains my true base of operations.

The level of profit for the month too I find very satisfying given the few number of kills, and it's a nice top up to my other income sources. Sadly I don't get opportunity to participate in any formal gang operations due to how their timing works with my availability.


Missile Launcher Operation & Gunnery have seen the biggest change in skill points. I finished off Warhead Upgrades V and as mentioned last month runded off the skills I needed to use ECM drones. I'm still cracking on with the Rifter plan with around 96 days to go to finish it off and be able to fly a max skill Rifter. I also love how these skills will instantly affect practically everything else I will ever fly. Tactical Shield Manipulation whilst not an amazing skill by any means is currently training. I hope that my willpower remains strong and that by the end of the year the Rifter plan will be as good as nailed.

I didn't really try any new ships in September other than having fun with one of my Scythes which I had in my hangar already, the Scythe has paid for itself already after having claimed the lives of two Rifters and a Thrasher. I've thought about buying some of the Caldari ships that I'm not so well skilled for for something different but yet to commit. Perhaps I'll try the Scythe or Stabber Fleet Issues for size.

The alt accounts are still doing very well for me, particularly in station trading with profits of 585 million isk even after having nearly a week where I didn't do anything. Always keen to find further ways to expand my isk resources I'm looking at building a character for resale at the moment. Otherwise I'm thinking along the lines of an Archon for one of the alts.

For Laughs

This Sunday I had some time in game and that time turned out to be great fun.

There were some fun a frollicks with a Dominix & Drake combination who seemed to come to Hevrice looking for a fight. Three BC's from The Tuskers formed up and took up the offer of a fight, Kirith in a Drake. Turns out the Dominix was active shield tanked and it happily shrugged off the kinetic damage from our three Drakes. The Drake working with the Dominix landed some 50km off and I went for point on it, which unfortunately took my dps off the Dominix. My Drake vs the hostile Drake, both HML fit we spewed misiles at each other with gleeful abandon as I was a long way away from the Dominix and out of range. Unfortunately whilst we were have our own little head to head one of the Tusker Drakes went down against the Dominix. My fight with the Drake was pretty even but as we both were close to being broken I (over)overheated my launchers and managed to melt them. Warping out to repair my heat damage and regen shields our opponents fled the field and left system, it was a fun fight but I have to learn to better manage my overheat. gf's exchanged in local.

Later on I switched to Grumblecub 2 and jumped in to the neighbouring system, Jov. I spotted a Mantcore in a faction war mission and warped in. The Manticore was about 170km away but I burned for it anyways, I got within 26km before they warped away but not before they had fired a couple of very ineffective Torpedo volleys at me. I warped out and then warped back to the mission where I waited patiently. After a short while the Manticore lands with me and is destroyed in very swift order, the best part of this was having no GCC as he'd agressed me earlier. Over the course of the afternoon I kept checking to see whether I could catch them again as they came back to try and finish the mission, sadly to no avail.

Back in Hevrice, I spot a Rupture in space. It didn't belong to anyone in The Tuskers so I dock and reship to one of my own Ruptures. By this time he's left system so I set off in pursuit towards Aeschee. In Aeschee he's flitting about and I'm not sure what he's doing. I know who the pilot is but can't fathom his random warping. Eventually I pin him down to a belt, warp in and destroy if swift order. I had hoped for a more challenging fight but was satisfied to have gotten a kill in a Cruiser as I don't fly them very often.

Back to Hevrice and I decide that I'm a little bit bored. I get into one of my Scythes, this is one of the hulls which I mentioned the other week that I wanted to have a laugh with. Undocking I'm fearful that I'll be laughed out of space but set off in search of targets.

A few systems from home I park in a belt trying to act like a good little miner and it isn't long before a Rifter pilot tries his hand like a moth to the flame that is a miner in low-sec. He lands and I'm upon him determined not to let him get away. I engage and literally within the blink of a eye he's toast and warping his Pod out. I literally laughed out loud and couldn't stop giggling. I had destroyed him before a corp mate could even land in the belt, it was so so fast! Again no GCC.

Within minutes of securing my loot I'm back in my belt "mining" and another Rifter lands with me, another dance and another dead Rifter. This one did better though taking me into 80% armour and trying to make a run for it. Through careful overheat of propulsion, point & guns he doesn't make it out. No GCC again.

I can't see this tactic working for long before people get wise to it, but at the moment its hilarious!

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!

Back to what I enjoy most in EVE

Long standing blog followers may remember that I used to have a knack of finding and destroying poorly fit Battlecruisers with my humble Rifter. Well earlier this week I managed to lure one out to fight me after scaring his Scythe in a belt. After a little banter between us he was convinced that his Hurricane would have no problem destroying my Rifter and warped to the belt I remained in. It soon became clear once we were committed that he had underestimated the power of the little Frigate. I offered him the chance to pay a ransom to keep his ship, he declined saying he didn't have enough isk. Of course that meant that I had to destroy his ship. Snagging his capsule afterwards he was in no mood to pay a ransom on that so I transported him back to the clone vat. Apparently he's going to quit EVE don't you know?

Well, he didn't as since then he appears to have lost even more ships.

On unrelated news today I took delivery of my new Battlecruiser stock, Seven new hulls and fittings for six new and untested loadouts. Four Drakes, two Cyclones and one Hurricane. I've now fit them all and look forward to taking them out.

Also, given my new fitting ability post learning skill removal I've bought a single new Rifter with a untested fit to have a play with. Grumblecub will see you in space soon.

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

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.

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!