One Small Step, One Giant Leap

And so, as alluded to in my last post where I was thinking of taking the first steps to getting into something other than a Rifter I have taken the first important steps. I have bought and injected some skill books, namely:

Destroyers
Minmatar Cruiser
Battlecruisers
Medium Projectile Turret
Drones
High Speed Manouvering
Shield Upgrades
Shield Rigging

And a couple of others that I can't quite recall

What the eagle eyed / regular followers will notice is that this doesn't include training for an Armageddon as noted last post. I figure that I can be useful enough for the time being in a Battlecruiser. My first port of call is going to be the Thrasher once I finish training Weapon Upgrades to V and Advanced Weapon Upgrades to IV.

After I have trained to fly these ships to an acceptable standard I hope to return to the maxxing of my skills to fly the Rifter. Time however, will tell.

And so I made a list.....

Lists aren't really my thing you see, and normally when I make them I tend to wish I hadn't. I'm really not a "list" person.

Well, yesterday I decided I would look at the four main factions in EVE and all the ships that they had to offer. From doing this I decided to make a list of the ships that I would like to fly, and by this I mean properly with are relevant skills trained to IV or V.

Well, oh boy and what a list it turned out to be:

Minmatar
- Broadsword
- Claw
- Claymore
- Cyclone
- Hurricane
- Jaguar
- Rapier
- Rupture
- Sabre
- Scimitar
- Sleipnir
- Stabber
- Stiletto
- Tempest
- Thrasher
- Vagabond
- Wolf

Gallente
- Dominix
- Myrmidon

Amarr
- Abaddon
- Armageddon
- Arbitrator
- Curse
- Damnation
- Harbinger
- Pilgrim
- Sacrilege
- Sentinel

Caldari
- Blackbird
- Caracal
- Cerberus
- Crow
- Drake
- Falcon
- Kitsune
- Rook
- Scorpion

It's one hell of a list I'm certain you will agree. I think this is the point I knew would come some day, the point I paused the Rifter specialisation. After doing pitiful DPS last night against the Archon, the ability to up-ship would have been very useful and as such I beleive that once I get my current skill finished and Advanced Weapon Upgrades to IV I will commence training for some thing bigger. I'm currently thinking of going for the Armageddon to keep in the hangar for killing "big things" and then going from there.

Tuskers & Friends kill Archon

Following Mynxee's post here I felt I really should mention that last night The Tuskers and some friends took down an Archon Carrier. It was a long affair with lots of changes of ships to bring in enough DPS to take it down but sure enough after a long old time it went down, the wave of ten or so pilots who came to help us out really spelled the end for him.

Special congratulations have to go to the pilot of the Carrier who didn't smack at all and put up an extremely strong Carrier all through the fight and did not self destruct.

-10.0 !!!

Just a quick post as I just got to -10.0, woohoo!

Topping the Campaign boards

I'll start by saying, what a week! Achieving 30 kills in a single week and all solo has got to be good going.

- 10 Pods
- 9 Frigates
- 3 Cruisers
- 2 Battlecruisers
- 2 Destroyers
- 2 Noobships
- 1 Industrial
- 1 Interceptor

All these kills have now put my on top of our current campaign scores & kills, sure I may not stay top scorer for long but getting there for me is probably a one-off that I'm really pleased to have done. Ordinarily amongst such successful pvpers I don't stand a chance of getting to the top of weekly scorers or killers. I would like to get 100 kills in the campaign, just as a personal objective. Thats going to be tough to achieve though.

I've had my share of losses this week too though, lost a ship to a POS (don't ask!) and lost a couple in fights with a Republic Fleet Firetail, the first fight saw us both bumping into a station and getting screwed over. The second fight at a planet was totally epic, my Rifter tanking over 6000 damage during the fight. It came down to a fight over Structure which I lost. I believe following talking to the Firetail pilot after the fight that his ship had faction/deadspace fittings so that makes me feel somewhat better, it was such a close fight though.

My alt I mentioned last week has been doing well for me with her trading in Rens, up to 37.5m ISK profit for me now which is very pleasing. I have also taken out a 21 day trial account to see if I can make a decent amount of ISK in those 21 days through mission running for around an hour per day. Currently the trial character has a net worth of around 18m so things are looking good, at the end of the 21 days all ISK will go back to the Darkblade crime family.

I'm going to stop posting about each fight, at least for this week as it would take too long and you probably aren't that interested in the more mundane ones. Thus I am going to select my personal highlights from the week. Although I have bagged two more Battlecruisers they were really easy kills so don't deserve any further mention.

First Interceptor Kill
This was the pilot of the Caracal last week who had wanted revenge on me but got ganked in the process. We danced around the system a while and whilst i could get to his location he was reluctant to engage me. He said that me chasing him worried him because he thought I knew I could kill him. After several meetings he jumped system with me hot in pursuit and again we danced around the system. Eventually though he engaged me and was doing a nice job of orbitting and keeping range slowing eating my shields. I decided to attempt to break orbit with some manual pilots and overheating of my mids, well it worked and i caught him just enough to shut down his MWD, it was quickly game over from there.

Smacky Pilots
I've had the misfortune this week to run into some pilots who felt the need to smacktalk in local following loss of their ship or indeed during the fight. I am a Tusker and I will not rise to it, though it has to be said that if you smacktalk me don't expect to have the offer of a Pod ransom. Here follows the rollcall of shame:

1 - Kreagan Longstrider
2 - Tysirus Hayden

Dual Rifters
The last time I fought two Rifters I died without killing either, yesterday however I fought a couple and killed both and podded one (who couldn't afford the ransom). The fight was also pretty comfortable for me, meaning no disrespect for my opponents. No overheating or micromanagement was required. I take this to mean that my specialisation in Matari Frigate combat is starting to pay off.

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...

January 2010 Character Review

Yes, another month has gone by and it doesn't feel like it. I guess being extremely busy OOG contributes a lot.

372 days remaining on my training plan sees that every skill remaining to train is currently at level IV, just a single exception is Advanced Weapon Upgrades which I have yet to commence training due to not yet having Weapon Upgrades, its prerequisite at V yet. Having all my skills at a minimum of level IV certainly show through in combat performance. Rarely are my losses of late down to another ship out-lasting me, usually pilot error!

I keep being tempted to train for something bigger, mainly so that I can be useful to Battlecruiser roams. I think my first Battlecruiser will be the Drake when I do eventually take the plunge. Heavy Assault Missile or Heavy Missile fit I don't yet know. My willpower is still holding fast though for now.

Kirith's total SP's have increased by a shade over 1.5m this month and conversely to last month his Gunnery skills haven't changed at all this month. Instead the rest of the skill trees have been worked on to give a much more even spread of SP's.



I have looked at swapping implants up to +2's from +1's but I haven't yet as I have the distinct feeling I am bound to get podded the moment I undock with them and I just don't have the isk to throw away like that. Also, as I jump clone a lot I would want to put the same implants in all my clones. Perhaps I will upgrade them the next time I get podded.

Wallet balance still sits at just over 100m isk at 104m isk.

In terms of Battleclinic stats, some notes:
- The Tuskers are now ranked 42nd, up 10 places in the last month!
- Kirith has 202 kills for 42 losses, my kill:loss ratio dropping this month.
- Kirith has been involved in the destruction of over 2.4bn of assets.

My Corp mate Noir Avlaa posted a similar character review last month, I hope he continues this as I find it extremely interesting comparing our two characters skill sets, Noir is just a couple of months "older" than Kirith.