Hey again space fans!

Nice to see a few familiar faces in the comments of the last post. Hey guys (&gals).

I should probably do an update on September as the scores are now in and I could also do a character review I guess. That said I'm using a computer at work during my lunch break to pen this so I don't have the information handy. Next time perhaps if you lot of filthy pirates are still interested?

So what can I tell you about thhat's happened this last week....?

Well, I moved about 25 ships from Hevrice to a new staging system (Dastryns). One day I'll return the isk investement in that carrier! Choosing what to take is tough though, blimey. I'm indecisive enough at the best of times. I've tried to cover lots of bases with what I took but as I'm still re-learning so who knows if I've taken a good selection!

I've blown up lots of space pixels, both my own and other peoples. Got my first Tengu kill (I think), yes I know they've been around years now. Caught him in a mission/escalation with a Vengeance and held him while a corp mate in an Ishtar squished him.

Had some great conversations with some new players, one of which put up an awesome fight in a Thorax yesterday morning: Thorax Kill

Bought some new hulls to play with like a Hookbill, Comet and Kestrel. We'll see if I can break my habit of losing expensive faction hulls this month.

When I left, battleclinic ranked my 434, well my inactivity has seen that drop down to 1,238 so I have a lot of catching up to do. Best get the game face on!

Oh, and another thing. What happened to bounties? I was sat on a 200m isk bounty when I went away and now it's gone. Where did the iskies go? Anyone know?

Until next time, when I have more time to write . . . . o7

So, umm, Hi.....?

Well, it's been a while hasn't it....

Subsequent to my last post two and a half years ago a lot has changed!

I've had lots of real-life changes and boy has EVE changed. Hopefully a few of your stalwarts are still out in space. I've seen that good old Miura Bull & Kirith Kodachi are still out there and several familiar faces still in the Tuskers. o/ guys.

Out of game I've moved house several times, got married, and got a Spinger Spaniel (Humphrey). I'm still living in Cornwall in the UK though and still work at the same place too. Though I can't remember what job I had back then so guess that might be different now. Can't imagine leaving Cornwall.

In game, well much of my last post still stands really. Ship changes galore and the trusty Rifter isn't too well balanced against the other T1 frigs out there anymore. Crimewatch changes and how much are plexes nowadays? Over a billion iskies! There are loads more changes but summary to say I felt like that noob just logging in in the first week of play wondering where to start.

Thankfully I've persevered and am enjoying EVE again. I've been back through most of my ships in Hevrice and brutally pulled them apart in an effort to find loadouts that will work. Old rigging had to be scrapped as they just weren't appropriate anymore and one hell of a shopping list from Jita! I can't say that it all works, but it's a start and I'll learn and tweak accordingly.

Coming back to EVE I found that Kirith wasn't in the Tuskers. It wasn't a big surprise as inactive members are periodically removed from Corp. As I'd left a post on the corp forums before I un-subbed I was allowed to reapply and rejoin the Tuskers. It still feels like home and has the same air about it. I haven't had much opportunity to get on corp comms yet sadly as my headset had befallen some mischief wile I've been away and frankly sounded to other that I was in a blowing gale when i spoke. New headset arrived yesterday so all sorted on that front now.

Now, being back in the Tuskers there aren't many members still based out of Hevrice. Lots of members have moved several jumps away and are based there. Hevrice still feels like home to me though and I'm a little reluctant to move. That's saying nothing of the roughly 100 fitted and rigged ships I have there in my hangar! No small feat to move even with a couple of carriers at my disposal. I'm slowly moving a few hulls over but it's going to take time to work out what I want to house there.

Since playing properly three years ago I trained a number of skills I can't remember even thinking about while not quite being active and in space. I keep being surprised at having things like Electronic Attack Frigate at V for example. Coupled with my own  skills there are new ones that I can train and new modules that exist. Hull rigs, drone damage mods to name just two examples. I have so much to learn!

Anyway, I've waffled quite a bit for this post so hope to be back with more to say. Back to spaceship violence and to add to my kill tally for September, 76 so far!

See you soon

Facing a cliff

Hi There,

Not entirely sure how many people are still following me as its been a while since my last entry. My apologies for going dark with no notice.

Though my accounts never lapsed I was not in game properly until recently. Much has happened over the last few months out of EVE. Things like moving house again coupled with a huge uplift in workload.

I doubt I'll return to the levels of play I had previously, but this is EVE and you never can swear to things like that. I have decided that live streaming has to be parked as I can't justify the space on a dual screen rig plus my new house doesn't get fibre broadband yet.

Anyhow, I wanted to talk about my experience in coming back to the game.

Returning to EVE has been hard. I return to be met with changes to most ships I can fly. Additionally I have many ships in my hangar all of which were fit and are now equipped with obsolete fits. The crimewatch changes also happened changing the aggression and flagging rules.

So where do you begin when confronted by this degree if change?

Crimewatch perhaps is the least disruptive as I have flown how I used to and suffered no unexpected problems. I do like that you can now dock safely after fighting in a belt. I still have little clue about the changes though.

The changes in ship roles and stats. Well that's a bit more frustrating as although I'm learning I still know little about the changes made to ships I'm warping in on. Obviously this also affects my choice of ship to undock too. I've found that I'm undocking ships that haven't changed like the Rifter and losing them easily against newly tweaked opposition.

To overcome this problem I've decided to basically get everything in my hangar exploded and start over building load outs from scratch again. I will have to refit many ships in my hangar with weird and sub-optimal fits to lose them but I guess that's part of the price of taking such a long unplanned break.

Enjoy reaping my ships!

o7

Recovering Addict

Figured I should post up to let you know where I'm at as posting has been none existent for a month and the stream has been down just as long.

I've not been in game other to maintain skill training and keep my accounts plexed. This due to two reasons:

Firstly, the state of Faction Warfare has really put me off the game. A number of Corp-mates have been lured into doing the FW isk faucet and to an extent I don't blame them. Their boredom threshold must be far greater than mine! I'm encouraged that the end is in sight, albeit months away but until it's changed I doubt I'll be in game.

Second, which should probably be first is that I'm moving house again. This time I hope will be the last time in a long time. Finally leaving rented property behind and stepping onto the property ladder again as its certainly a buyers market. The inevitable period of sorting out and getting settled begins. I have the joys of BT to look forward to and seeing if they can get it right this time!

Out of EVE then I'm trying to curb my gaming time because truth be told I feel like its an unhealthy addiction. This has seen me having a go at a few different games:

Diablo 3, so repetitive.

Guild Wars 2, I just can't get excited by it.

League of Legends, it's like being thrown back 15 years.

World of Tanks, good fun but I'm not going premium. Love the cool looking tanks like the Leopard & Hetzer. Yes I only have tier IV tanks at the moment.

World of Warcraft, dear god how easy is this game nowadays. Feels like a five year old could go all epic in minutes.

I'm considering keeping up the character reviews, though they'll lack much content. Would you like to keep seeing what skills I'm training?

August 2012 Character Review

August heralded the arrival of a new PC for me. This meant that I no longer was playing on a two year old laptop which struggled mightily with heat issues. The new PC has allowed me to actually play Eve on something other than the lowest graphics settings and also has allowed me to start live streaming on Twitch.tv, something which I've wanted to do for some time but that the laptop couldn't cope with.

I don't know whether it is the addition of streaming to my gameplay that's changed it but I've been finding myself in a lot more fights, granted I've been losing quite a few. I think there is an element of wanting to engage as much as possible for the sake of good TV.

Here's are the kill/loss stats for August:

51 Ship Kills (33 Solo)

9 Pod Kills (9 Solo)

10,113,817,303 Isk Cost to victims (216,033,025 Isk received in loot drops)

9 Ships Lost (282,557,175 Isk cost of losses)

66,524,1500 Isk Loss in the Month

So, yeah 10 billion Isk in damage done in a month, that's got to be a record for me! These are the ships which I lost:

Crow. I lost this while interfering in a fight going on between an Enyo and a Drake. I wasn't the only one to interfere however as a Thorax also came to get in on the action. I ended up bouncing off an asteroid into the scram of the Thorax which was curtains.

Rifter x 2. The first I lost when I yellow boxed a Proteus on a gate. He agressed then 20 of his mates in T2 ships of assorted classes plus about 7 Battleships jumped through to kill me. The second I lost to a kiting Atron in a plex and his friends.

Thrasher. Lost to an Incursus & Atron duo, managed to take the Atron down with me. This Thrasher was arty fit and had zero tank.

Jaguar. Lost this when I engaged a Hookbill, paying the price for an MWD fit, subsequently got scrammed and kitied to my doom.

Prophecy. Left over from an old roam and with insurance about to expire it was lost to "damn" ECM and a 9 man goons frigate swarm. Tanked like a boss for a long time.

Stiletto. Lost to a Nighthawk whilst the gang was en-route, Nighthawk died though!

Dramiel. Lost to a Vexor and Jaguar combo. Landed on the Vexor quite by accident and paid the price for thinking it was  noob ratting Vexor.

Drake. Lost to a very close fight with a Cyclone on the way back home from Heimatar. My favourite fight of the month, closely followed by the Prophecy vs frigate gang.

Here's what Kirith's skills look like today:

This is what Kirith has been training in August and the skills he's completed:

Electronic Superioty Rigging I
Electronic Superioty Rigging II
Electronic Superioty Rigging III
Electronic Superioty Rigging IV
Combat Drone Operation V
Explosive Armor Compensation I
Explosive Armor Compensation II
Explosive Armor Compensation III
Explosive Armor Compensation IV
EM Armor Compensation I
EM Armor Compensation II
EM Armor Compensation III
EM Armor Compensation IV
Kinetic Armor Compensation I
Kinetic Armor Compensation II
Kinetic Armor Compensation III
Kinetic Armor Compensation IV
Thermic Armor Compensation I
Thermic Armor Compensation II
Thermic Armor Compensation III
Thermic Armor Compensation IV

At the end of the month Drone Interfacing V was training with nearly two weeks to run. It's part of my finishing off drone skills plan. As with last month there is always the temptation to cross train weapon systems but my will is remaining strong despite wanting to participate in some Tusker gangs which primarily are Armour HACS at the moment with the Deimos & Zealot being favourite, obviously neither of which I can fly.

I have continued station trading with my alt in August with a totally changed product list from the months before. It's certainly paid dividends, which is great as I've been losing lots of ships. PI has been inactive as I've preferred to get out in space and shoot things.

I haven't been in game the last week, nor done any streaming as my new PC developed a problem with the graphics card fan causing it to permanently run at 79 decibels. It has now been fixed so I'll be back in space in the coming days.

Total Ransoms Received: 632,360,662.30 Isk received in ransoms (22 million received in August) Battleclinic Rank: 433 (+5)
Bounty: 210,125,000 Isk (+15,000 Isk)

A Long Time Ago in a Constellation Far Far Away...

Welcome to the 39th Blog Banter - the community discussion that stretches across the many communities of EVE Online through the use of arcane bloggery. The conversation is open to all and readers are encouraged to visit all of the entries that will be listed below as the discussion progresses. Be sure to leave your thoughts there when you do.

For enquiring minds who would like to know more about the Blog Banters, check out this short explanation or read this overview of the subjects covered in the last year.

After a some heavy topics in the last few editions, this time we'll be taking a more relaxed trip through the thoughts of the blogosphere. The origins of this month's concept come from a suggestion from EON Magazine editor Richie "Zapatero" Shoemaker.

"Some say a man's home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox. 

In EVE Online, what does the concept of "home" mean to you?"

 ===============================================

A Long time ago some three years ago in a constellation in Heimatar Kirith's first home was found in a system called Aralgrund. Kirith moved there within a week of being "born", it remained his home until he became a member of The Tuskers. The system 0.4 security status and adjacent to a high security system, it was pretty populated with POS's and a number of null sec groups used it for jumping capitals to and from but ultimately fairly quiet.

It was a great staging system and I had many routes established for roaming. There were a few well known pirate groups operating nearby, M34N coalition & The Bastards come to mind first. I cut my pirate teeth in this area and I have thought of it as my home for the best part of two and a half years, even though I haven't been based there in such a long time. It says something that I still have a jumpclone there and a small stash of ships, the ships showing just what I flew when I lived there. I still go on brief visits to see how the land has changed. I must go back again soon!

Something changed recently though and it certainly wasn't concious but I no longer think of Aralgrund as my home but instead now feel that Hevrice is Kirith's home, it's taken a long time for it to become my home more than just a base of operations. I hope that Hevrice will remain Kirith's home as I definitely feel comfortable there with a huge familiarity with the neighbours and surrounding systems.

Although I'm trying to cut down the stable of ships held in Hevrice I still have over 90 fit ships in Kirith's hangar, any thoughts of moving even with two Carriers would be a logistical nightmare! A bit like moving home in real life.

So, home to Kirith is Hevrice.

A little quiet

I've been somewhat quiet on the blogging front, this is mainly as I'm enjoying broadcasting my live stream so much! I know I've only been live streaming a very short time but its been a blast.

I'm finding that I'm being more agressive in finding fights and taking greater risks. Sure this means that I'm losing more ships but its fun! There's an element that I want to make the stream into good viewing when I'm considering targets. It is also nice to be able to ask the viewers what they want me to fly.

I had my biggest isk loss to date yesterday to Balkan Express and it got caught on camera.

There have been several comedy moments too, like the UNDEAD alliance gang that jumped on my Rifter, all 20 or so of them including Battleships to the poor Russian Wolf pilot who lost his 150 mil Wolf and associated 280 mil Pod. He could've paid 15 mil to save the Pod but didn't even try to overcome the laguage barrier despite my best Google translate attempts.

I got myself into a 1v1 (which I don't normally do) against Astral Dominix, a fellow blogger and told him afterwards that he'd just been on TV! Gf Astral, maybe next time.

Following a suggestion I've also created an in game channel called KD Twitch, so you're welcome to drop in.

And finally, the censored panel isn't off centre, it's just hiding standings. It's the most common comment people make :P