A Pirates Life For Me - 6 Monthly Review

I started playing Eve in February of this year and after doing the initial career combat missions I embarked on the Sisters of EVE epic arc to acquaint myself to the game. When I finished the arc I didn't have much of an idea of what I wanted to do but I'd read the Evelopedia article on Piracy and thought that it sounded awesome and that as an avid PvPer in other games, appealed to me. 

And so in March of this year I trained a few levels of Propulsion Jamming and went forth! I didn't have a good grasp on the PvP mechanics and how to fly well in general and started out with some embarrassing losses, such as this Drake loss, in Mara. Coming to the conclusion that Eve was full of nasty people who preyed on newcomers I came onto the verge of rage quitting but the determination to carry on was too strong and after doing some research came across RvB. 

I'm sure most of my readerbase know of RvB but for those who don't here is a brief summary, taken from their recruitment post on the forums:

What is RvB?R-V-B is a long standing P-V-P institution that began back in 2007. The premise of RvB is two corporations, Red and Blue, which are constantly at war with eachother. You choose a side, join up and are welcome to get into action immediately. A significant portion of the fighting in RvB takes place in frigate and cruiser size hulls there are ample opportunities to kill and use every type of ship.

I learnt a great deal in my time in RvB and it put me in good stead for when I finally left to venture into lowsec. Basic skills such as proper fitting, how to act in a fleet, effective use of the approach, orbit and keep at range tools as well as a myriad of other things were shared by more experienced pilots and I really began to enjoy PvP. I wasn't an exceptionally good pilot as Eve-kill shows and the majority of my kills came from small-medium gang warfare where I played but a small part. I lost most of the 1v1s I took part in but would sometimes win against a less-skilled opponent. This is a summary of my performance in the months I was in RvB:

Month	Kills	ISK (B)	Losses	ISK (B)	Efficiency
April, 2011	32	0.36	32	0.13	73.60%
March, 2011	4	0.09	11	0.08	50.56%

I was inactive in May and June due to going away with work and having no internet access, let alone measures to play Eve. I wasn't even able to log on to train skills which was unfortunate as I missed out on two months of SP.

In July I decided to make the move to lowsec and my corp at the time was based in Ignebaener, a 0.5 system bordering the lowsec system of Lisbaetanne. I had my staging area and a safe system should I require one. It was from Igne that I made my roams out to Aeschee, Onne, Old Man Star and beyond, sometimes going up to the Black Rise and other times through Verge Vendor. It was at this time that I had my first brush with piracy and I loved it! Back in July I was still quite an incompetent PvP pilot with much to learn but I was learning and at a rapid rate of knots! Moving through to August and still averaging a negative k:d ratio I was nonetheless happy with how my solo PvP skills were coming along and I got in on some nice kills. Statistics for those two months are as follows:

Month	Kills	ISK (B)	Losses	ISK (B)	Efficiency
August, 2011	24	0.8	39	0.25	76.06%
July, 2011	15	0.14	21	0.24	36.75%

This takes us up to this month. I have to say that I'm mightily impressed with huge difference in August and Septembers statistics. I know that "killboard rep" means hardly anything to the discerning PvPer and is merely a tool for those with a huge e-peen to swing around or to laugh at failfits but I believe it's useful to track a persons progress month-to-month. One thing to mention with Septembers statistics is that I've been flying with the Tuskers for just over two weeks and having participated in some small-gang and ad hoc ganks of larger ships has somewhat "padded out" my kills. However I feel that this month my solo flying has for the most part been excellent in comparison to the past and I'm very happy with some of the kills I've made.

Month	Kills	ISK (B)	Losses	ISK (B)	Efficiency
September, 2011	46	1.76	23	0.43	80.39%

As you can see for the first time I've got a pretty decent k:d ratio and a fairly good ISK efficiency overall. One thing to mention is that I'm on the brink of going into an positive k:d ratio with 121 kills to 128 losses. If I fly well for the rest of the month and keep my exploding to a minimum I should hopefully get there by October.

I hope I've not bored you to tears with all this talk of stats and ratios but I think since starting to pew pew back in March I've come a long way, from a humble beginning as a highsec warring pilot to a now fairly-experienced  flashy red pirate, flying with arguably one of the best pirate corporations in all of New Eden.

Fly reckless o7