Well that was fun

In the run up to Christmas I have been online less than I would have liked.

I'm back in the Tuskers home zone clone and went out with a small gang last night. Some lag spikes seemed to scare off some people so systems were pretty quiet. We picked off a Caracal running a mission along with his Pod, but other than that we didn't manage to get anything else juicy, though there was a possibility of an Ishtar in a mission, but he was pre-aligned and warped out denying us the kill. The fleet dispersed and as it did so I continued making bookmarks in neighbouring systems.

A little while later it came across voice comms that there were several small(ish) ships in a neighbouring system. I warped over to have a look and it was discovered that they were anchoring a POS. There wasn't enough time to stop them anchoring it unfortunately and a lot of the ships at the POS fled as we warped in.

I landed some 90km away from a target and burned as quick as I could towards him. On my way in an Iteron landed 20km in front of me, as I closed within point range as he struggled to align to warp out, he folded quickly but got his Pod out (the killmail has vanished though). Now closer to the Thorax engaged by Tarik, a Caracal landed. I got point on the Caracal and held him as a Rifter landed, the Rifter was called primary. The Rifter had me tackled but no-one had point on him. Switching fire to the Rifter while orbiting the Caracal to ensure I didn't lose point the Rifter went down along with his Pod, the pilot can't have been thinking of self preservation. With the Rifter down I put my Rockets onto the Thorax as my Auto's didn't have the range to hit it and my Auto's onto the Caracal. Once the Thorax was down the combined fire of Jag & Rifter quickly brought it it's knees. The pilot failed to pay the ransom on his Pod and was terminated. Burning back to the POS another Iteron landed and was destroyed, the Pilot's Pod saved by the POS bubble going up. Some of our corpmates had now entered the system and proceeded to find another of their haulers at a safe carrying some POS modules. He died quickly too, again failed to pay the ransom and was eliminated.

It all happened really quite quickly but was such good fun. I do hope that I see more fun and frollicks like this.

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!

100 kills!

Without further adieu I announce that i have reached 100 kills, pretty much all of them solo apart from i think two.

My fights today were pretty nice against a couple of Rifters who were well fitted. One player was older, and one younger than I which was dictated in the quality of the fights. Against the older player we were pretty evenly matched until low shields when i took the lead. Although i ended the fight at 50% armour I wasn't permanently running my repper as I didn't feel i needed to so I was rather pleased. The second Rifter I found waiting out his GCC at a Moon, he wasn't paying attention as I landed but i soon got his attention. He went down easy and I don't think i even went into armour. I snagged his Pod too and was about to pick on a Thrasher in system when another pilot destroyed it (the pilot of the earlier Rifter I had killed), he was in a Rupture this time and i knew he had a good fit so I stayed away and unusually for me utilised caution!

Although my application to EACS (see previous post) has gone in to get my jump clones it hasn't been processed yet so perhaps it'll get done tomorrow.

How Jump Clones Work (For newbs like me)

The Tuskers have a couple of bases of operation in the galaxy and I also have my "home" system which I'm fond of so I thought it would be great if I could easily avoid travelling ~40 jumps to get there, then another ~40 back should I choose. The answer; Jump Clones

For a few days I have been looking at Jump Clones and their workings. I was loosely aware before doing some research into the subject of what they were for, but had no idea how to get them, set them up and use them. Well now I think I have worked it out (please let me know if any of this is incorrect and I'll change it).

- You need to have trained the skill Infomorph Psychology to at least level I. Level I lets you have one jump clone, level V lets you have five jump clones.

- To get jump clones, you or your corporation need to have standings of 8.0 or better with the owners of a station which offers cloning services.

- You need 100,000isk for each jump clone you wish to purchase.

By far the easiest way to get the standings for jump clones is to join the Corporation "Estel Arador Corp Services", which is free. This corp has excellent standing in many parts of the galaxy. To join this corp you need to:

* Right click your portrait in the local chat frame and select "Quit Corporation" then "Remove all roles & grantable roles".

* Wait 24 hours for the roles to clear.

* Apply to join "Estel Arador Corp Services". You can find them using People & Places -> Corporation search -> Estel Arador Corp Services -> Right click & show Info -> Apply to join

Once you are a member of EACS:

1 Check out the list of stations here: Linky
2 Fly to the station you want to install a jump clone in.
3 Click on the Medical Bay
4 Choose the right hand jump clones tab
5 Select install
6 Confirm the payment of 100,000isk
7 If you want more jump clones, fly to another station from the list and repeat steps 2-7. You cannot install 2 jump clones in the same station.

You can use the clones as soon as they are installed, but can only clone jump once every 24 hours. Each jump clone is initially devoid of implants, though you can install them and they retain them as normal until podded. You can only install the implants when the jump clone is "active". You don't need to keep the jump clone in the station that it is initially installed in, it works just like your normal clone and you fly around just as normal and can leave it wherever you choose. NEVER however clone jump from one clone to the other in the same station as one will be destroyed and lose implants.

Once you have your required number of jump clones, it's time to re-join your normal Corp and go about your business.

I have trained Infomorph Psychology to III and this is how I will deploy the clones:

Undisclosed System : Heimatar
Undisclosed System : Molden Heath
Undisclosed System : Verge Vendor

With these in place and appropriate ships and modules at their locations I can jump around as I see fit and avoid making any (more) silly mistakes getting out of a camped station by simply clone jumping somewhere else. I'll also have a mobile clone which I haven't found a home for, Jita perhaps!

I haven't done all of the above yet, I'm waiting on role cooldown before joining EACS and I still don't have the hardware in place in Molden Heath yet (nor the isk to put it there).

CrazyKinux's EVE Online blogroll

Just a quick note, I haven't been able to find time to create carnage today in game but I'm pleased to report that this blog has been added to CrazyKinux's EVE blogroll. Follow the link from CrazyKinux's Musing blog link down the page to a whole host of other players blogs.

A busy weekend

Well,this weekend has been kill filled. At least by my standards it has anyway and I'm rapidly approaching the 100 kill landmark.

It all kicked off with a Bellicose, I found him in a belt in a 0.1 system ratting. He was up against 3 cruisers and I landed some 30km away. He had plenty of time to flee before I caught him but didn't take the opportunity so I laid into him. His shield tank was pretty good until his cap ran out. When this happened he logged off, but I can only assume he didn't know that his ship would stay put. With the cap gone the rest of the ship fell apart quite fast but his pod disappeared very rapidly so I couldn't catch it. I waited for him to log in and when he did he had quick reactions and his Pod had hardly landed before it shot off to the confines of a station.

Shortly after this I caught an Atron engaged in some faction warfare installation capture. I had seen the pilot around alot before and was surprised to see them solo in a system, even more so when I landed 60km from them and was allowed to approach under fire from the 6 Matari NPC battleships. I caught them and only a few salvos was needed to reduce it to a wreck, a couple of faction warfare pilots had arrived in the system so I didn't hang around to claim the Pod or scoop the loot, not fancying my chances much against a Jaguar & Loki.

Now we come to tonight, and this has to be my busiest night of business to date.

Entering Ofage I spot a pilot who I have had some decent fights with, Kiormin74. I notice her criminally flagged so warp to a safe and find her attacking another of my "old friends" in their Rupture. I picked off Kiormin first, who safely warped her Pod out. Her Rifter had been down to 60% armour when I engaged so it was an easy kill. Switching quickly to the Rupture so that it couldn't escape it was also at around 60% armour. It went down nice a swiftly only just scraping into the lightest of armour damage to me. I knew the pilot never paid ransoms so just nuked his Pod. The system was pretty busy anyway so I didn't fancy hanging around. Scooping some loot to brim my cargo hold I warped out as four frigate hulls came screaming in. A timely escape.

Sitting at a safe, waiting out the GCC a one year old in a Rifter came up on scan. I did wonder if it was a trap as he wasn't moving around alot but when he warped to another belt I followed, caught him with 40% armour and shredded him and his Pod not wanting to see if I got hot dropped on by the four frigates again. My cargo hold still full I had to leave the corpse and loot.

After time was up I headed to dock and empty the hold in my home base. I decided to head back out to Ofage again. Arriving I continued to chase a pilot in an Incursus around who I had failed to catch all evening (kudos to you sir). While doing so I had kept eyes on the scanner for anything else opportune that I might take a look at. Earlier I had found a Hoarder at a POS with an unanchored Moon Harvesting Array but sadly it's shield was up so I could only watch. Scanning the site again, the shield was down! so I headed back to the moon, bookmarked the tower so I could warp straight back to it and the Hoarder. The Hoarder pilot must have been afk so I releived him of his ship and Pod in short order. But now what to do about this PoS tower and array? I hadn't the first clue about them. I asked in corp for some advice and it seemed that the tower was only offline and not unanchored so there was nothing short of a large fleet that could do much to it. A little depressed I decided to light up the Array as I couldn't carry it and after over a full hopper of ammo it blew in a very satisfying explosion.

As a side note I should in the next few days have a some hardware in place around Tuskers HQ, so I guess I better make plans to head over there. I am thinking I want to get some jump clones in place in Aralgrund, Hevrice & Bosena (I'll need to get some hardware around here too). First though, I shall need to work out the mystery of jump clones, and how I get them & how they work as this is yet another thing I haven't a clue about. Time for some research this week I think.

Deeming myself worthy of a rest I retired for the evening to write this up and head off for some well earned sleep.

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