Seeing a Prophecy Through

I haven't actually posted about when and why I own a Prophecy, but yesterday I lost it. It's turn had come around when it became the next ship with insurance due to expire.

So solo roaming around in this rather elegant battlecruiser and finding little of interest I entered Melmaniel, a system a few jumps from my home base of operations in Hevrice and see an Enyo on scan. He can only be at a Faction Warfare plex which my ship can''t enter. I resolve to warp there anyway and find him at the gate.

I waste no time in locking him up and swiftly get him to 20% armour before a Kitsune arrives and jams me, A steady escalation ensues which see me engaged by eight ships. My ship was doing a grand job of tanking, but with the jams there's nothing I can do until a corpmate warps in and scares the Kitsune off. He manages also to take out a Dramiel as I go down and pays for it with his Retribution too.

It was good fun, and I was blown away by the active tank of my Prophecy, certainly an unusual fit but I had great fun.

Credit to the Goons for a good kill! GF.

Next ship out of insurance is my Fleet Tempest, hmm maybe I won't go and derp that one just yet...

So, well yeah...

Today I had one of those moments where for ages afterwards I'm thinking how did that happen. Tbh it's still making me wonder now.

The event, I lost a Hawk after undocking from a station to be greeted by a flashy Zealot only 5km away. Awesome went my brain and I engaged it knowing how badly Zealots fare against frigates and I was in a dual web Hawk. What could possibly go wrong!?

I was surprised when he engaged me in return, less so when I was webbed and pointed. He was managing to pull some decent speed despite being dual webbed and getting fair hits on me. The additional surprise was his active tank which I was only marginally breaking.

My buffer fit could only last so long and inevitably exploded. Offering gf in local and complimenting an unusual fit I docked up somewhat confused.

I'm only contented by a well used phrase, that one should never seek to assume!

Farewell Dear Penfold

A sad occurrence has befallen me, a truly black day. My dear little Breacher, that unassuming T1 Minmatar Frigate known by me and by many by the call sign "Cor Blimey Chief" has passed into my hall of legend. Now just a picture on my cabin wall in the Hevrice station which Kirith calls home.

A case of preoccupation with the slow podding of a Thorax ilot diverted my attention from local scanners allowing a Jaguar to land atop my humble craft. The mediocre (read: non-existent) tank of the Breacher crumpled like paper in mere seconds and my adversary walked away with the deadspace MWD contained within.

Many a glorious kill had been achieved during its service and it will be sadly missed but cannot ever truly be replaced, to do so would be a slur upon its memory.

I share with you now the loadout of this fine and noble space-steed

3 x TE-2100 Light Missile Bay

Warp Disruptor II
Coreli C-Type 1MN Microwarpdrive

Overdrive Injector II
Ballistic Control System II

3 x Capacitor Control Circuit I

Farewell dear friend for you shall be missed.

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!

October 2011 Character Review

Hello,

Contrary to my position last month where I was at somewhat of a loss for topics to blog about, I now have a list of topics I plan to blog about. I'm not going to dilate this post with them as I prefer to keep my posts generally clear and about a single subject.

Time to assess some statistics, as an accountant in real life I do like playing with numbers, oh and spreadsheets! We'll leave the spreadsheets to one side though shall we.

27 Ship kills (17 solo)
9 Pod kills

6 Ships lost (4 Solo)
0 Pods lost

57,056,451 Isk income from ships destroyed
0,000,000 Isk received from ransoms (Sadface (again!))

154,078,063 Isk approximate cost of losses

97,021,612 Isk "Loss" for the month

Apparently its not been a very efficient month for me, the main reason being my two Drake losses, both PODLA type Drakes and both of which lost in fleet engagements. The first was a small Tusker BC gang versus a gatecamping BS gang and the second against a Brutal boosted Hyperion that annihilated three Tusker Drakes. November is going to be fairly quiet with limited in game time so I don't expect too much activity in the coming weeks.

I have some more experimental ship fits waiting for me in Hevrice, nothing ground breaking and I saw one of my experimental fits quoted on someone elses blog the other day, it's only a couple of Jaguars but I really want to love flying Assault Ships and it just never happens for me. I've also bought a replacement PODLA Drake along with a replacement artillery Thrasher. I lost an arty Thrasher yesterday and were it not for an error on my part (DERP: switched off guns!) would've won, so I've decided to replace and try again.

This is how my skill spread looks as of this morning:


More work towards the Rifter plan sees Tactical Shield Manipulation & Missile Projection V finished, Acceleration Control V is currently cooking. Another good chunk of skill points added to the pool, further enhanced over the norm by the recent addition of three +3 implants. I upgraded from my +2's to try and ensure that my Rifter plan completion target of December 31st 2011 can be achieved. It's going to be a close run thing!

I'm still toying with the idea of buying a Fleet Stabber or Fleet Scythe, but haven't settled on fits I'm sold on so we'll see how the month goes.

My alt accounts are still doing a sterling job. Only 383 million isk contribution this month from station trading, although I've only operated just over half the month so I guess that tells the story. I've decided against building and selling a character as an isk generator for now, as I was considering it last month. I have started doing a little contract trading, using just a single contract for now. In the next week, skill training should switch back from my prober to my combat alt to start the process of skilling her up for a Carrier. Which Carrier to go for I'm not sure. Archon seems the best mission tank, Thanatos for some versatility or a Chimera/Nidhoggur incase I am asked for helps repping a POS? Anyone able to offer some opinions?

Anyway, that's enough for now. Might get to go ingame soon.

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?

The Importance of Effective Communication

It's one of the biggest aspects that differentiates business as a whole, piracy in EVE can be consiered a business and therefore I would say that this topic title is appliicable and it is just as critical here as it is in the real world.

It is also an aspect of EVE that has provided me with much consternation since my return to the game.

As a corporation, The Tuskers use a mix of verbal communication through Ventrillo, and written communciation through corporation channels. The preferred method of communication being over ventrillo and it is insisted upon that if you are online in EVE then you should also be on vent. An excellent rule.

This morning provided me with a superb demonstration of why this is so important when I logged in to update my skill training to find an Armageddon in a belt in Hevrice. I had no intention when I logged in to undock, but curiosity bit me to see who was this other person in local. I should have logged into vent to advise my corpmates but I didn't. There is more than one reason for not doing so, the first was not really a good one and the second, well I'll come onto that in a minute. Ultimately I undocked, warped in on the battleship and sprung a trap. Losing a Hurricane, an avoidable loss had I advised my corpmates I am certain and we probably would have come away with the big "W". Once I was engaged, I put some comments in a text comms channel but these were too little too late.

Over the last couple of days I've seen this sort of thing happen a few times, admittedly this is the first time I've done it myself. I don't know the reason for it, or why there is a reluctance to use vent as its such a powerful asset, not using it costs iskies and pride. I imagine part of the reason for not communicating about targets, and I know I am guilty of this on rare occasions is the desire to get the solo kill. But really, we're a corporation and a team who should be working for the "greater good" and not individual benefit. I know for one that I should listen to my own lecture here. Today is the marker in the sand for me personally, and I want to rid myself of this bad habit.

Unfortunately for me, and the second reason for me not being on vent is that I seemingly have developed a technical issue since re-subscription which prevents me being understood by everyone else when I speak on vent. Don't get me wrong, I don't speak swahili or anything and my communication skills are very good, they have to be in my job. My vent is normalized and connected/logged in just fine. I can hear everyone else clearly, however when I speak a proportion of people can hear and understand me just fine but a bigger proportion of people say that either they can't hear and/or understand me. It's doing my head in to be honest and I wish I could fix it. It is having a detrimental effect on my ability to work with and effectively contribute to my corporation and is just completely doing my fruit in! I'd love to hear any suggestions on how it could be fixed. For the record, my headset is just fine.

Pop!

It's not been the busiest few days, getting on for just a few hours of an evening this week. It's had its low points, like where I landed on gate just as a gang of 10 or so faction frigates did in my Drake resulting in me losing not only my Drake but also my Pod and along with it my bounty which was up to over 110m too.

Last night though, saw my most enjoyable moment since returning. Typically, and doesn't it always happen when you need to log off to go or do something? Just before I needed to head out to collect my girlfriend from work I land off of a belt in Adirain. It was busy in system and I'd been chasing around after various craft in my Rifter. Eventually a Black Rebel Rifter Club pilot arrives. We start closing with other, until at about 70km a second Rifter arrives causing the Rebel pilot to bug out after I assume fearing a TARP! I sadface in local and he suggests meeting for a 1v1. I mention that I have to log to collect the girlfriend, so we will settle that score another day. As we are talking the second Rifter is closing on me until at about 20km I decide to engage him. I have friends in the system but this is serious business of Rifter v Rifter combat! So they are aware of my engagement and wait looking for other targets. So our two Rifters are engaged, and aside from me forgetting to activate my web for the first minute I'm having the better of things. I see ships on 360, a bunch of frigates so I overload everything and pop him just after his friends arrive. I thought I was a goner until I hear warp drive active and escape at 88% structure and a sliver of repped armour. Repping up in a safe I have to go to dock so that I can log out without the risk of agression in space, braving the sentry fire I dock and log wishing my fellow Tuskers good hunting. Based on the killboard it seems that they did.

I do beleive that I have reignited my love of the Rifter....

Jelly Legs

Ok, so this morning before I head to work I was back in the saddle of a Rifter. It's feeling a bit alien which I do not consider a great sign. In retrospect, the Rifter which I undock in is not what I'd consider my normal configuration for two reasons:

1, It's shield buffer tank fit.
2, It has an MWD.

I surf around my home area of low-sec for a while until after about an hour I find a Cormorant in a faction warfare complex. As I enter, he warps out. He's still on scan though so I warp out to avoid rat agro and warp back to wait on the acceleration gate in the hope that he will return. After around 5 minutes, although it seems far longer he warps back and I lock him up. What I don't expect is that I get tackled in return! His scrambler swiftly kills my MWD meaning that I can't get under his railguns in time, with the result unfortunately being that my Rifter goes boom. Gf's exchanged in local I warp home to lick my wounds and wait out GCC. Safely in my home station I realise that I'm still on the adrenaline rush. I stood up and walked away from my laptop while the timer ticked down needing to rid my body of my self induced high.

Seems it's going to be a while before I get back into the swing o' things.

Achievement unlocked, 20 points

This week I killed something which I had been wanting to do since I became an ebil piwate, I killed a Retriever mining in low-sec. Yes I know I’m easily pleased but it was awesome and I was very chuffed.

Other than this rather entertaining kill it has been another bloodthirsty week in the life of a pirate, feels like loads of ships have been helped to go back to their nature as micrometeorites and space dust. Battleclinic says I have now podded over 100 pilot’s too!

This week notably I had three fights against Ishkurs, Don, a corp mate of mine advocates that you should never kill the drones on a Ishkur and just concentrate on the ship itself. I do disagree on this and to date I have always chosen to kill the drones first. In a Rifter there really isn’t an alternative otherwise you die in a fire. My chosen method is to burn away from the Ishkur keeping him out of range and shoot the drones down as they come, granted this is easier when those drones are not Warrior II’s! In the three fights I have been fortunate that I have not been alone for the whole fight. In one fight I did lose my Rifter but in the other two I prevailed with a combination of overloading repper & AB while shooting the Drones, until my corp mates arrived anyway. The Ishkur is certainly a fearsome opponent for a Rifter. Sure while I kite the Ishkur and it’s drones I lose point and the Ishkur could warp off, but I tend to find that their bloodlust seems to make them not notice this, bonus!

This week I have lost a lot of ships including my first Thrasher loss, a lot more than I have in any week since I started playing I think, current tally sits at 7 since last Sunday. Quite an entertaining loss was to Trony, who said after the fight that he had come to Hevrice to kill me after reading the blog, surely my writing can’t be that bad ;D. Good fight again Trony and nasty Taranis you have there schooling both my corpmate Kishin and then me as I warped to his aid.

If you haven't already seen, Romeo Blackstorm has started a series of interviews of Tusker pilots, they are a great read and I thoroughly recommend them. You can see his latest interview with Tusker Director Ronan Jacques here.

Rifter Solo's Drake!

Well, the title of the post indicates what the highlight of my week has been. Detail of the fight is further down the post, needless to say I was extremely pleased with the result and my corpmates would attest that I wouldn't shut up about it for a while!

I had spent a fair amount of time in the Bleak Lands on our current campaign recently and was getting a bit disheartened by the difficulty in soloing effectively in a Faction Warfare zone in a Rifter, so many blobs around. The one time this week I found a Minmatar Militia Rifter doing a complex I got jumped by a five man Amarr Militia gang before I could kill the Rifter who sadly got away.

Noticing that I have lost a number of ships of late and not sold on my hard fought loot drops means that my isk balance has hardly moved. This made me start to think about other ways I could earn isk fairly easily. I moved my hauler alt to Rens to have a go at some small scale trading, as she's on the same account as Kirith I invested a few minutes only on training Trade I to increase my orders from 5 to 9 so as not to take away much precious training time from Kirith. Starting with a cash balance of only 300k isk 4 days ago i now have increased her value in buy & sell orders to over 10m isk, not bad for a few days work. I do some order management before and after I log off Kiriths sessions and usually in a morning too for ten minutes before work. I'm still finding my feet with what to buy & sell but things look good! I've also been looking at the feasibility of using a 21 day free trial to make a mission runner and see how much isk I can bring in during those 21 days, the down side of course being using the mission runner means I can't pewpew with Kirith. Jury is still out on that one.

The weeks combat review, Battlecruiser-tastic! As I mentioned getting a bit disillusioned with Bleak Lands I jump-cloned "home" to my old stomping grounds, I've had some good fortune since doing so...

Parting shots in Bleak Lands
Noir and I were hanging around in Huola and noticed a Harbinger zipping around, we both set out to find him and eventually Noir caught up with him at a planet. Calling in any corp mates in system to assist, Jolo undocking a Dominix heading on over as I too headed in, I was in an Arty Rifter which really was designed as something of a fast fleet tackler not suited to a DPS role. Noir's Thrasher went down and I soon started taking more damage than I could handle from drones as another Harbinger along with a Myrmidon & Kestrel had joined the fray. I had to bail, so warped out then back again after I had repped up. Jolo was doing an awesome job, having taken down a Harbinger and being well at work on a Myrmidon as I re-entered, again drones were sent after me but I went down as the Myrm did. The second Harbinger warped out just before the Myrm popped. I'd managed to get a point long enough on the Kestrel before I went down for Jolo to get one too so he didn't escape either.

Rifter Once, Rifter Twice
This chap was unfortunate enough to be caught by me twice on consecutive days. The fights were straight forward enough and he ran away as I warped in both times, only to return to ratting afterwards. On the second time of me jumping back in however he would turn and engage me, not that I'm complaining at all but....why?! He did it both times aswell so perhaps some folk don't learn.

Rifter kills Drake, Solo!
This kill has to be my most satisfying yet. Entering the system there is only me in my Rifter and this fellow in his Drake, he's ratting. Now normally any sane person would think, it's a Drake so why bother trying to crack it's tank. But I thought, might aswell have a go, I'll be able to gtfo if I need to. He's enagaged with the last rat as I land and makes no attempt to leave as I close, could it be a trap I wonder? Still deciding that I can bug out if I need to I engage. During the ten minute fight a number of pilots came and went through the system but none came to investigate our engagement, thankfully. My first priority was taking out his 5 Drones as they were doing a bit too much damage and had I left them alone I would have succumbed. Now to the formidable tank, I slotted in a magazine of EMP S and let loose, slowly but surely his shield was depleting until around 1/3 shield left, peak recharge. His damage to me was inconsequential and easily tankable with speed, I barely had to even pulse the SAR II. I overloaded my highs and pushed through his peak recharge into his armour. At this point I asked him for 70m isk for me to stop and save his ship and Pod, say that he didn't have it I proceeded to remove what remained of his ship. His damage had stopped on me by the time I killed him, looking at the KM it appears that he ran out of ammo, how embarrassing! Such a tremendous feeling when it went pop and put me on a high for the whole evening. I renamed my Rifter "Drake Bane" in honour! The fit on the Drake was not a bad one either, sure not T2 fit but still I am very pleased to have taken down this mighty tough ship piloted by a character older than I with a lowly Rifter.

Caracal
There's a Caracal sat on a gate to highsec, hmm looking for a fight I imagine. I warped to 200 from the gate and he jumps to high-sec. I decide to go sit in a safe to see if anyone else enters the system when the Caracal comes back. I went to sit at a planet to make myself easy to scan down, sure enough in he comes. I could be asking for trouble if he's assault launcher fit but I'm game anyway. Turns out he's Heavy Missile fit and can't really pose a threat to me so it's a simple matter of reducing him to a wreck. Later in the evening the pilot came back looking for me for revenge (his words), sadly he didn't get chance as he jumped into a belt and was ganked by a small four man gang. Pity

Rupture
Considering the very young age of the pilot, this thing took some killing. He was ratting and I engaged him, he took the rats out then started on me, I was taking a fair bit of damage as he kept spitting Warrior I's at me, each time I killed them he sent more. Well eventually he ran out of Drones so I could actually fire on him and he went down along with his Pod. Looking at the fit he had small weapons fitted which explains why I was taking more damage than expected.

One unhappy Cyclone pilot
While waiting out GCC after killing the Rupture, this Cyclone entered system and started, yep you guessed it...ratting. Still high on my earlier Drake kill I went in and was rewarded with the kill in quite short order, though perhaps it seemed short order as I was glued to my D-scan due to the high local population. After the fight the pilot convo'd me telling me to give him the 23m to replace the ship, when I explained to him that wasn't how piracy worked he was less than impressed and now vows to hunt me down for all of eternity, super I look forward to our next clash!

Stabber at a Gate
This fellow was keeping a low profile in system, hugging gates between warping to safe spots. Eventually his willpower failed when I had been sat at a gate for the best part of 5 minutes. I was 200km from the gate when he landed so was able to warp back and land close to him. I had 17km to cover to be able to catch him, approaching at overloaded max speed with overloads mid's I caught him with my scram and killed his MWD taking a ton of damage on the way in but once within 1200m of his and orbiting it was game over for him and I barely took a scratch from that point. Once he was down I then made a mistake and shot his Pod out under the gaze of the Sentries, figuring I could escape. Alas it was not be and my Rifter got toasted. I came back later in another Rifter and recovered all the loot so not too bad on the whole.

Harbinger
I really don't know what this was about. I had spotted this ship at a safe early in the evening. Returning some hours later it was still there, I asked my nearby friend in his Helios if he would mind finding it for me, which he did in a minute or so. The Harbinger appeared to be dead in space not moving. I warped in and took it out without even being shot at, so I assumed the pilot to be afk. Waiting with glee to see the contents I was very disappointed to find it an empty ship. Venting my frustrations on the pilot's Pod. The only thing I can think of is that it must be an insurance job wanting someone to nuke the ship, but they could have self distructed it to do that. Who knows...

The high & lows of heat

Last post I stated how I now could use heat, prior to actually being able to overheat modules I almost percieved it as a simple concept, overheat -> kill opponent however after using heat a few times its not quite so easy and requires some careful micromanagement. My initial observations:

1, Overheating individual modules by pressing the green bar over the module itself asks for trouble. It's too easy to overheat the module but turn it off in doing so. This cost me a Thrasher kill and lost me a Rifter in the process.

2, Trying to click on those small overload rack buttons is not what I want to do in combat. Keyboard shortcuts help a lot here, I have mapped CTRL 1-3 to overload my racks.

3, At Thermodynamics III the heat damage taken by my modules was pretty high, now I have it at IV it seem much better. Being careful not to burn out your modules is a fine balance. I find it awful as I'm colour blind to red & green which isn't a great combo when we consider the colours in play on the modules during overloading...

I can however sum up and say that heat does change to outcome of fights, my engagement with a Coercer this morning convinces me thus, more details below.

I haven't been in so many fights this week as I wasn't online Sunday - Thursday due to some OOG commitments, my usual synopsis below:

Coercer
This fellow landed on Noir at a Faction Warfare complex, Noir unfortunately got caught on the gate and called for aid, myself and Ka Jolo were in system and hurried to him, sadly we didn't arrive in time to save him but I managed to scram the Coercer and engage, I popped as he was at 15% armour, leaving Jolo to finish him off. My first engagement against a well setup Coercer and I can say that they are nasty!

Raptor Rasta the Caracal master?
This fellow the Tuskers had quite a few fights against last weekend, I think in total he lost at least 5 Caracals & was podded three times. I chalked up two Caracal kills, here & here. and his Pod once too. There is talk that whoever kills him the most times in our curent campaign is in line for a 10m isk prize, I'm currently joint top at the moment so if this becomes a reality I should be in with a shot!

Catalyst
I happened upon this fellow by accident. I had jumped into the system and found a Rifter on the gate with me. I wanted to Rifter to chase me so warped to something obvious, a nice faction warfare mission. I used the gate as I landed but alas he hadn't followed but entering the room there was this Catalyst. He warped out on seeing me so I tried to pursue but he evaded me. I went back to the FW mission to find a Stabber Fleet Issue on the gate with a regular Stabber just landing. I used the gate and re-entered the mission as the gate only allowed T1 frigs, destroyers and Indys. Less than five seconds after I landed the Catalyst came through too. He died quickly and my Rifter was never in danger.

Coercer
This morning I had an epic fight with this Coercer, he jumped me at a Faction warfare mission gate as I was going for a Rifter & Slicer inside. I took tremendous initial damage and only overheating my armour repairer kept me going while I closed to point blank range. Once the damage was holding I overloaded guns, and gradually removed his armour and hull. I finished the fight on 50% structure. I would have finished the fight ahead of this but had somehow managed to switch off my armour repairer, god knows how as it hadn't burned out. My victory was bittersweet though as after I repaired and dropped off my loot (which was plentiful) I got caught by the very Slicer I was after and kite-killed.

I hope tomorrow to be posting my latest character review.

Explosions, more explosions!

This entries title will probably bring a cringe from any WoW players out there as the cry from Grand Mekengineer Thermaplugg at the end of Gnomeregan! But anyway I digress.

It has been a busy few days in terms of explosions, I've both killed some and lost some and had some really exciting and fun fights amongst them, I think I have lost most of the fun ones though to be honest! I have now come to see the value in Thermodynamics and the ability to overheat modules, which has led me to bring forward my training of Thermodynamic a couple of weeks due to losing a few fights that I could have won if I could overheat. All I am missing to commence training is Engineering V which is now underway and Thermodynamics will be at III by next weekend well on its way to IV. I've also been doing some work on training plans for other ships after the Rifter, but thats for its own post I think at some point in the hopefully near future.

Lets summarise recent events then:

Iteron
The friend of mine who convinced me to start playing EvE has a couple of accounts and one of them took delivery of their covops frigate the other day. He brought it over to Verge Vendor and found me an Iteron in a belt while I was out of system, meaning I could warp straight in to the right belt. Not a great deal to say other than that it had three shield boosters fitted, not entirely sure why he thought that was a good idea. He declined the ransom and set his Pod to self destruct so I saved him the trouble.

Rifter & Griffin
Reports came over voice comms that a frigate gang was in our home system and had warped to a belt, many of us scrambled to the belt and I made for the system and belt as quick as possible. I managed to land when only this Griffin & Rifter remained, we Podded the Rifter pilot but I beleive all the others got away with the Pods.

Hyperion & Megathron
While we were engaged with the frigate gang (above) these two Battleships started firing on a corp mate as he undocked, once the frigate gang was despatched we headed back to engage in a mix of ships, we all had GCC though so I did not have great hopes for my Rifters survival. The Hyperion was about to go down as I landed so I headed to get point on the Megathron. I caught him easily and soon enough the rest of the gang had him pointed too, at this time though the Sentries started firing on me so I bugged out just in time with 40% structure!

Armageddon
This chap one of our probers found in a Wormhole remote repping his Tower, our gang dropped on him like a ton of bricks and toasted him. We managed to extract a sizeable ransom from him to save his Pod & Tower, which I have just bought and fit 18 Rifters with!

Catalyst
Not alot to say about this one aside from his peculiar behaviour. I don't know whether he knew that I was following him but he landed at the top belt, warped off then the same at the second. I assumed that he warped as he was ratting and there were non present but when he died and I saw the mining fit I did scratch my head.

Three in a Row
This morning I logged in to test my sound as I have been having issues with it recently. I undocked with no sound but an Incursus on scan at a belt, feeling it would be rude not to say hi and went in and killed him & his Pod. I then saw another Incursus and an Iteron on scan at a beacon together, making myself known I roasted the Incursus first then the Iteron and of course their Pods. Epic fail on the Iteron loot drops :(. The latter incursus pilot did tell me that he didn't want to fight in local, but hey what's a pirate supposed to when people make it so easy?!

As I'd only logged on for a few minutes I did force myself to dock up and log even though the system kept filling up with ships I could go shoot. My willpower taking control for once.

So onto the losses, I'll be quick as this is getting to be a long post.

I lost a Gank fit Rifter after a tangle with a Dramiel, the Dramiel broke off once I had toasted his Warrior II's it was just after that I sighted another Rifter in a belt and went for it. It was reasonably close but I didn't break through all of his armour (about 10% to go). I can only say in my defence that I hadn't recoved from the Dramiel and was flying a Gank fit Rifter which I still don't like. I think I only have one more to lose now :)

I lost a crap fit Rifter in a very exciting fight vs an older player in a Tracking Disruptor fit Rifter. This was very close and Thermodynamics would have won the day for me if I had the skill!

I lost a Rifter I had just picked up from Bosena when I fought the Rifter from loss 1 above, this was so close coming down to who got their volley in first. It was that close that I thought I had won when I heard the explosion! Sadly I was looking at my Pod, he confirmed finishing on 27% structure. I had capped out several times, so better cap skills or Theromdynamics would have saved the day.

The two latter losses were exhilarating fights which I really enjoyed despite losing.

I feel like I have missed covering a few things, but I can alwats write them up in another post if or indeed when they come back to me.

Oh noes, it's a tarp!

Yep, that's right. I fell into a tarp and lost another Rifter.

I was doing a bit of racing around looking for targets and as I warped to a gate I saw a Caracal in front of me. I don't know whether they were there by chance or were waiting for some peaceful citizen like myself to arrive. I didn't notice the pilot's name as they warped out as I landed, following their trajectory I went to the only belt at that location and landed right on top of them. Turns out that their Caracal was anti-frigate setup and I soon went down in flames, in retrospect there was no way that I could have survived that fight so that makes me feel slightly better. After giving "gf" in local they commented that I was free to collect my loot which was awfully nice of them. Note to self, don't pick on ~2 year old players in anti-frig setup Caracals.

Being in somewhat of a dry spell for kills I was itching to shoot something. I saw a Cyclone on scan piloted by a 2 month old player. He docked up as soon as I appeared and logged off without returning in the half hour I waited (Gave me time to make some bookmarks in the system though!). After I had pretty much given up waiting another Rifter pilot was on scan. Eventually he attacked me at the station and his ship had no chance of breaking my tank so I just selected keep at range and blew him to bits =). However I then made an error in that I locked and scrammed his Pod, then blew it to bits to stop him docking up. I did though completely forget about the sentry guns who quickly deposited me into a Pod of my own. Doh!

The Artillery PVP Rifter - Initiation

Yes, a strange post title and indeed combining the artillery and pvp in the same sentence. More on that later.

Quite a few kills in the last few days so a quick summary of them:

Vexor
I decided to jump clone back to Heimatar a for a 24 hour stint back in my "old stomping grounds" and looking in my hangar I remembered that before I headed off to pastures new with The Tuskers I had bought fit some PVP Artillery Rifters but had yet to test them. So I set off in one and eventually came across a Vexor in a cosmic anomaly. My heart sank a bit when he was 130km away and I was Afterburner fit. Worth a try anyway I deemed as there were plenty of rats closer than I so I might be able to close before I appeared on his overview. Keeping a close eye on him he was aligned to warp out but he either can't have seen me or assumed I had a short point fitted as I pointed him from 20km and settled into a wide orbit. My modest damage plus that of the rats was more then he could handle and he died quickly. I took out his Pod too when he wasn't paying the ransom.

Raven
I was missing my Corp mates so jumped back to Verge Vendor at the earliest opportunity. A Raven was spotted in a mission nearby, If I recall a 2006 character. A prober came a soon dug him out upon which we went in and took him out very quickly. His Pod went too when he was quite rude in our ransom discussions. I assume looking at the fit that he either must have been inactive some of his lifetime or that perhaps the character had been sold to another player. Triple tank type hull repairing Raven ftw amirite?

Rifter
Hevrice and its neighbouring systems are in Faction Warfare zone and there are quite a number of plexes and missions spawning. I decided to wait on one while doing some scanning and this little Rifter warped right onto the acceleration gate with me. I had advised the corp that he was inbound and two other fleet members landed to whore the killmail, unfortunately pirate willpower didn't hold long enough for the fourth member of the fleet to get on the mail and he got toasted no matter how much I kept asking for people to hold fire. He got away with his Pod though.

Myrmidon
Keeping my eyes on the scanner I saw this Myrm on scan before it docked up. I advised corp so they decided to undock a few ships on him as he undocked. Unfortunately as Rifters are not so good at tanking Sentry Guns I merely warped in to get on the Killmail and then warped out again. I look forward to the day I have something big enough to participate in.

Drake
Last night I logged in to find a T1 Frigate gate in action in Old Man Star. I headed out to join them as quick as I could. They had taken quite a toll on the locals by the time I arrived, listening to three ships being killed just while I was on my way! Unfortunately the killmails for two Incursus we got before this Drake that we killed are missing somewhere in the ether. This Drake and a Thorax were at a Faction Warfare mission that had spawned so we engaged, unfortunately it was a trap and we got obliterated, but not before taking the Drake down for the loss of three T1 frigs. Not a bad swap.

Imicus
I saw this on a gate and was certain it was bait for a trap so I jumped through the gate to have a looksee. Nothing on the other side so I jumped back through and killed it while the pilot must have been afk. I took out his Pod too so I guess he wasn't a happy bunny when he came back. I still have no idea what he was doing there though!

Rupture
This fellow was in Hevrice, I think the only unfriendly in the system at the time so I don't really know why he hung around. Heedless we proceeded to work on scanning him down and when we got very close to 100% he warped away. Not to worry though as within a minute or so a corp mate called point and warp to Romeo. A whole bunch of us blobbed him and saved Romeo's Exequeror from a sticky end (Cheer \o/) so the Rupture died fast. We snagged the Pod too when the pilot declined the ransom opportunity.

Merlin
I found this fellow in a Faction Warfare mission complex and discovered him 70ish km away. I reported it to corp anyway and a couple of corp mates were in the vicinity so tried to get there before I or he died. I was gratified to see him engage me, but it was a very close fight. I was capped out by the end and at 99% Structure but once I had broken his shield it was game over for him. Noir managed to get a single volley off at him but my other Corp mate didn't quite get a lock in time and I wasn't in a state to hold fire.

Catalyst
The final kill for this review is a 2 month old player in a Catalyst, frankly me getting this was pure chance as I picked up a Catalyst on scan as I left a gate. I knew he wasn't at the gate so took a guess at one of the belts on scan and warped straight there. I landed 3km from him and it was a quick death for his ship. I attempted a 5m ransom from him but he said had no money so I sent him via the Pod express.

To return to the title of this post relating to the Artillery Rifter, I can say that tracking is an issue. DPS is still reasonable as I think I get 93 from it. I will try versions with tracking rigs rather than falloff in future to see how much that helps. The trump to this ship will be Frigates with MWD's but they seem to be fairly rare. Of course the major weakness of this is the tank as it's paper thin but I'll lose a few and then decide whether to keep refining it or whether to ditch it for now like I did with the "Gank" Rifter.

In other news, yesterday was a sad day for The Tuskers. Wensley a long time and (in)famous? member left. The hole he leaves I am sure will be a large one but I wish him all the best in his 0.0 adventures. Although I didn't get to fly with Wensley, I'm sure those that have read his blog will feel like they have.

You know when sometimes...

You know when sometimes you just shouldn't say some things.

Like when you say "This vase has been in our family for generations"

Then you turn around and knock it off the shelf, smashing it into tiny pieces. Well, the last few days since I posted about the Cap Boosted Rifter have been a bit like that. You see, I almost knew it would happen too, and that from the moment I sang its praises it was doomed. So here follows the highs and lows:

I'm watching local and see a pilot in system in a Rifter, I recognise his name as someone I killed a few weeks back and thus decide to go play tag with him. I eventually locate him as he must have been docked up. He's in a belt with a Catalyst and a Stabber. None of the belts occupants were Tuskers so I report the activity to the Corp and jump on in myself. The Catalyst had popped by the time that I landed and the Stabber was engaging the Rifter. The Rifter pops as I'm 30km away from the Stabber. I report this to the corp too incase anyone else fancies a look. The Stabber engages me and I maintain a distance around 20km to attempt to wear down his cap through his use of the MWD. I'm taking a fair bit of damage but coping well enough until a couple of corp mates lands in the belt. The Stabber is taking damage fast and I want to get on the KM so hit . . . approach. Like an idiot. Certainly enough my dear old Rifter went boom and I was kicking myself. I'd also failed to attempt to use any hostile effects on the Stabber with him being so far away so didn't get on the KM either. Bah! At least the Stabber died.

The "Macro haulers" that pass through Hevrice have a new tactic it seems, they are posting noobships at the gate and setting them merrily dawdling off 340km from the gates to scout for their haulers. Of course being that far from the gates, the gate guns can't hit an aggressor. So I set off after one of them in a cheap throwaway fit, unfortunately as I'm 50km from the gate a couple of frigs jump in and decide they don't like me. They MWD after me as I'm trying to warp away but stop me in my tracks. The Rifter catches me first and is taking a fair toll. I think I could have perhaps taken him out if it weren't for the Tristan catching me tackling and setting his Warrior II on me as I had the Rifter down to half armour. Another Rifter down the drain.

Later in the evening I'm on a roam with a corp fleet and we find a mission running Megathron. He's a 2004 character but his fits is nothing short of appalling which has to suggest that the account can't have been either his all that time or active all that time. After a bit of dodging some larger fleets that were in the area we jumped in and took it down very fast. The pilot lost his Pod too, unwilling to pay the ransom.

Logging in yesterday I set off shooting the noobships that are on the gates taking out three Impairors and the pilots Pod twice too. Afterwards a gang is formed up and we head off. This gang ultimately ends up in a fight outside a station, first our "bait" blows up an Arbitrator before the cavalry arrives (I missed the KM), what happens next is rather strange as a Curse appears in front of the station and agresses. Again I don't target him before he is gone in a pretty explosion followed by his Pod, apparently the pilot lost around 2.5bn in implants from full +5% hardwirings along with a high grade slave set! I missed both KM's again though, Grrrr! The Curse pilot says that lag killed him, but I swear I have never heard that lag spikes launch your drones? The pilots in the station however won the day by undocking in one, then two and then three battlecruisers which ripped our small ship gang to pieces quick smart before we could effect an escape.

Last thing before logging last night we encountered a small gang of Zealot, Dominix, Guardian & Pilgrim on a gate. They agressed us and the Zealot went down, but not before the pilot BBQ'd my Rifter in around 4 salvos, along with Noir's Rifter soon after. We didn't have quite enough in our gang to break break the guardian so a tactially withdrawal was ordered.

First Fleet with the Tuskers

The last few days had been spent placing jump clones in the required places and setting up the hardware in some of those locations. That done I decided to go and have a poke around to set up some safe spots etc. While creating some bookmarks in Hevrice I scanned a Catalyst down to a belt, on warping in he had gotten himself trapped amongst the 'roids, he was around 20km away but couldn't escape for bumping off rocks. I saved him the trouble of getting himself out of the belt by taking away two of his obstacles, his ship & his Pod and thus giving him an express trip straight back to his cloning facility. Not wanting to get stuck between the rocks myself I stopped 5km away and just blew him to bits.

Afterwards I joined with an ad-hoc fleet of Tuskers. I spied a Drake at a FW complex and upon reporting it to the fleet the FC he instructed that we go and pay him a visit. He was quickly tackled and pulverised, I'm not sure whether he primaried me but I was just into armour when it popped. He paid the ransom to save his Pod and was bade farewell. There was mention of moving to a neighbouring system so I warped to the gate, forgetting about my GCC my Rifter got smashed to bits by the gate guns. Fortunately a corp mate was able to recover the few modules that survived (thank you).

Returning to the station I got into one of my stash of "Cheap & Expendable Ships" (Meta 2 fit with no rigs), until finances allow my T2 fit Rifters will have to be just for solo work. Can't really afford to lose them to gate guns like that. All my isk does tend to come from Piracy, perhaps with a few rats killed here and there to try and get some nice faction drops. Thus my isk supply is very scarce, were talking a balance of less than 5m normally.

The gang moved on and on our travels we found several ships, some were destroyed by the gang before I could even lock & shoot! but I did manage to get on a few killmails. Though I missed the Merlin KM, I got in on the Pod's. I completely missed a Thrasher & Pod kill but did manage to get on another Catalyst & Pod mail. My evening ended playing cat & mouse with a Taranis at a FW mission warp gate. I was designated to tackle him, which although I did the contents of the mission decided they took umbrage to me and I went down very quickly. I'm thinking that a heavily tanked cheap Rifter could be worth looking into, maybe with no offensive capability? I headed home after the Taranis nuked my ship but was pleased to hear that the fleet destroyed the Taranis after I had gone down.

My first Tusker fleet was what I expected it to be I think, excellent, especially considering that the FC was FC'ing for the first time. I was pleased to be a part of it and am sure that I'll be in a lot more to come.

Going to Clone Jump again soon I think to roam my normal space lanes and hopefully make some isk. I have a few erm, controversial Rifter fits in Heimatar that really need testing. There's probably a good reason you never see the fits I am testing anywhere but we'll see how they go and you can all laugh at them when they show up on killmails. I have a couple of cheap fit ones to learn in with Meta 2 gear and no rigs and a couple of T2 ones once I hopefully work out how to best fly them!

November Character Review etc

First, apologies for no posts for a few days.

I'm now a Tusker, granted I haven't been online for more than an hour or so since becoming one but OOG commitments have prevented this and it's something that I hope to remedy in the coming days, weeks & months. I have a lot of reading up and setting up to do. Setting up of channels, Ventrillo etc and reading up on the forums of anything and everything (within reason) that I can. I'll be heading back to forums after making this entry to keep on reading as I beleive that I should at least be upto speed before doing anything else.

Next, the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that my bounty has gone (/me sad panda). It happened the evening that I dropped my Tuskers application in, exiting the station I found it camped by a Devoter, Harbinger & Moros. The first time I managed to redock and in hindsight I should probably have logged off and tried later, but I tried a second time and was bumped out of the docking area and nuked to oblivion, my Pod was locked super fast too and again think I was bumped away from docking, in the blink of an eye I was back in Aralgrund station with no implants. Fortunately I only lost a cheap mix of +1 & +2's, but I can't afford to replace right now so it is irritating. Part of the reason I beleive I lost the Ship and Pod is that I was trying for the first time to use my desktop PC to play EVE after I had recently upgraded the memory. It just can't handle EVE aswell as my laptop and lags too much, thus I doubt i'll be trying that again for anything but safe runs on my hauler.

So, as I mentioned in a previous entry I intend every month to post a short character review on Kirith. Kirith to date after taking learning skills to optimal for the "Rifter plan" has been building a solid base of skills to support his Rifters, this is a plan that will continue to be followed so long as my willpower stands. It's massively long at nearly 440 days total but I don't beleive that Minmatar Frigate skills can be improved much/at all beyond that and the skills picked up will of course benefit hugely when stepping into different hulls in the distant future. Here's a pie chart of Kirith's skill spilt as at a few minutes ago:


Currently Kirith is training: Acceleration Control IV

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.

Kite Kill

It's been a few days since I posted anything. So I'll do a little bit of an update.

First, I lost a Rifter the other day to an Incursus. Granted the pilot was older than me but I thought that I would have put up a better fight than I did. Pursuing the pilot through a couple of systems I scanned him down to a planet. When I landed he was roughly 40km away, I started my approach as did he and at 20km I was pointed. The Incursus pilot maintained his orbit around 14km-20km and pounded me with his Railguns, I thought for a while that I would be able to tank it, but that did not prove the case. I wasn't able to eat into his orbit either as he would MWD out of range if that ever looked like a danager and overheated his modules at just the right time to ensure that I wasn't flying out of this one in my Rifter. Kudos to him, gf's exchanged in local and it set me to thinking whether an artillery Rifter was worth a go. I have knocked one up on EvE-HQ that I might try. Does anyone have any experience in them?

Targets have been scarce as I have mentioned a few times. Today I roamed into a system with a Myrmidon and Thrasher. They were in conversation, and when I appeared my bounty caught their eye. They seemed to be discussing ratting and killing me, how rude! I chased the Thrasher around for ages and nearly caught him once but fell just a tad too short and he warped out. I then pursued him out of the system and then back into it again! finally catching him in a belt, looting. He had a nasty fit and soon removed my shields and half my armour before I took up a wider orbit to lessen his damage, this strategy worked a treat and from 5km I reduced the Thrasher to slag in a pretty explosion then locked and dispatched his Pod after he didn't want to pay a 20m isk ransom, maybe a little extortionate but that's besides the point.

I had been reduced to a single spare Rifter in the hangar so I bought another 7 in, complete with fittings. I had decided that I would try a new variant this time and see how it went. It just tops 100dps with my skills which makes it my most powerful Rifter loadout. The Thrasher today was it's first kill, but the lack of a Damage Control was apparent. We'll see how it goes though, I have three of them to test out.

Here's the fit:
H: 3 x 150mm Autocannon
H: Rocket Launcher
M: Afterburner
M: Web
M: Scram
L: Gyro
L: 200mm Plate
L: Small Armor Repairer
R: Small Projectile Collision Accelerator
R: Small Projectile Burst Aerator