What a Return - The October Review

Greets,

Since coming back from my work trip I've had an excellent time yarring. To start with, there has only been one bad event: I foolishly lost a Rifter by warping to a gate with GCC. No more 100% efficiency this month but that is my only loss!

I think the most exciting bit of news that's come from this month is my first solo ransom to the tune of 100mil! I'll set the scene:

I was undocking from Hev V in my trusty Jaguar when a couple of guys called out in comms that a Retriever had appeared on d-scan. As luck would have it the foolish mining vessel was undocking from the Tuskers home station at the very same time as I was. Not daft enough to engage it on station I patiently watched to where the pilot would direct his ship...

...To the closest asteroid belt.

I couldn't believe my luck! Spamming warp to the belt I arrived just after the mining hull and promptly locked and scrammed it. Seconds later the miner vented atmosphere and I pointed the pod.

Inviting my hapless victim to the Tuskers ransom channel I set about getting some Isk off him. At first the pilot was unsure about parting with his money in case I popped his capsule anyway. Tawa and I convinced him that we always honoured ransoms by directing him to our untarnished ransom board. As the guy was a 2006 player I started at 100mil, thinking he probably wouldn't take it. However when my wallet flashed and I saw all the zeros I was elated and promptly let my satisfied customer go.

I had a flurry of kills last night while roaming in Adirain. I quite like Adi as I've had some good kills there and there's usually a good mix of carebears missioning or mining as it's next to Arnon and pirates preying on the aforementioned.

Last night I was looking for a fight when I noticed Taurean on the sun in one of his Maledictions fighting a Merlin. Asking on comms if he needed a helping hand (I was in my Jag again - love this ship), he said he was still a couple of hundred km's from the Caldari frig and if I wanted to have a go I was more than welcome.

Warping to the sun I found myself 170km away from both Taurean and the Merlin. I warped to a planet that was in line with my potential next victim and bounced back, 100km off the sun. I was still too far away though!

As I was burning towards the pair (who were now engaging each other), a Rifter landed just out of overheated scram range and then warped to his friend - the Merlin. The fight was on as Taurean announced he couldn't take on both of the frigates in his lightly-tanked inty. I bid him to join fleet and the moment he turned purple I initiated warp, landing within point range of both aggressors.

Suffice to say a half-damaged Merlin and a Rifter were no match at all for my assault ship and they crumbled. I got point on the Rifters pod and offered the princely sum of 5mil for his life. He was only a 10day old pilot and I thought he'd have no more than that. It turns out that the pilot is up to his eyeballs in PLEX's and could have afforded a hell of a lot more. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say!

A few minutes later, as Taurean was salvaging the wrecks that were littered about the sun (a couple of T2 hulls had caught his eye), and Yarr Beard was back in another Merlin. Taurean announced his ship was in no state to fight and when he called point I warped back in and relinquished another Merlin hull from Yarr.

Splitting the ransom and buying out his share of the loot, Taurean and I went our seperate ways after a successful few minutes blitzing. There was gfgf all around!

In summary this month has been pretty damn good. I may have only scored a total of 23 kills but I lost only the one ship, and a Rifter hull at that. My ISK efficiency has shot up to 98.12% which I'm happy with.

I've definitely made a profit this month with 102,500,000 in ransoms and the modules from the majority of my kills. Hopefully I'll manage even better in November!

Fly reckless o7

Back in New Eden

Those of you who read my blog regularly will have noticed I've not posted anything for the past few weeks. I went away with work and didn't even have internet access let alone chance to play Eve. I had intended to post a "afk for a couple of weeks" message up but in the lead up to my departure I forgot. Regardless I'm back now!

Since returning I've popped on a few times to update my skill queue and now have some respectable drone skills and also got Sharpshooter to V while I was away, of which I'm please with. Once I've touched up my drone skills to all IV or V (currently have some at III) I'll aim to get Battlecruisers to V.

My killboard currently shows 100% efficiency this month but with a paltry 12 kills totaling 53mil ISK in damages. I'll be trying to boost this number before Monday whilst keeping that perfect efficiency up. Easier said than done though!

I'm also going to be working on my manual flying skills. I feel that I rely too much on orbit@ and keep at range so I'm either going to find some asteroids or something similar and do some practice maneuvers before applying them in combat.

Fly reckless o/

Flight of Icarus

Bait is an oft-used tactic in Eve PvP and comes in various forms. Early last month some random guy in Adirain began trash talking in local when I declined to 1v1 him. I briefly mentioned this in my 'Settling In' post just after joining the Tuskers. This is one way of baiting people to fight you, by getting them riled up. It didn't work on me  but I did find his Thrasher sitting pretty on a planet which leads me onto another form of baiting:

The most traditional way - in my eyes at least - is the heavily-tanked, lone ship sat on a belt or a celestial patiently waiting for someone to pounce on what he thinks is an easy kill. Whenever I see a Maller on d-scan I always smile to myself and think "Haha, bait!" and ignore it. There's a pirate corporation in Old Man Star who like to leave a Punisher sat on the top belt and then warp in silly amounts of battlecruisers, ECM boats etc on anything that attacks it. I learnt that the hard way but it only took one lesson.

Fast forward to last night and I was out roaming with Tawa and one of the Sinners, Abellona. Initially we forayed into nullsec but after losing his Wolf to a Sabre with complimentary SUDDENLY FALCON! and Abe losing his Rifter to a bubble camp we decided to stick to lowsec and go up to Sinq Laison in our search for some pew pew. 

Reshipping from a 0.0-fit Wolf to an active shield tanked Jaguar we made our way system to system towards Eggenhelde. Along the way we killed a Thorax and a Vexor, probed out by Tawa, but they were both young characters and stood no chance against our two Jags and Rifter. On both occasions pods were pointed and upon invite to the ransom channel both victims declined to pay up.I did get two amusing quotes to add to my bio:

GOLDENANGELL > GO to hell!


Jean Benneau > arseholes

Upon jumping into Egg we found it to be pretty quiet so I went through to Siseide and then on to Dal. A Catalyst caught my eye on d-scan and Abe and I set about scanning it down. Despite our best efforts it get bouncing from cluster to cluster and in the end I mentioned the idea over comms for Abe to sit on the sun as bait. I suggested Abe for two reasons: Firstly he was a Sinner and as such unaffiliated with the Tuskers so anyone who had the sense to check local wouldn't be wary of out ploy, and secondly lone Rifters are far more inviting than a Jaguar, at least to a T1 destroyer. 

Checking local we noticed that the Cata pilot (who had warped in on belts as Abe was leaving and thus shown his identity) had a friendly corpmate in local. Tawa and I were confident we could handle anything they could throw at us in our uber-fit Jaguar (a fit I won't post until I've had chance to fully test it out). 

Abe warped to the sun and minutes few passed before the Cata warped in. Despite being rail fit he landed quite close to the Sinners Rifter. Not long after announcing point, Abellona relayed that a Stabber piloted by the destroyers corpmate had landed on the sun as well and that he was starting to take a beating. I was already mid-warp when this unfolded and as soon as I was greeted by the fiery sight of Dals star I pointed the Catalyst and began unloading autocannon shells upon its hull. The destroyer disintegrated pretty quickly, especially with Tawa firing too. 

When Tawa landed he pointed the Stabber while firing on the Catalyst so when it popped it was simply a case of applying dps. I was spamming d-scan furiously in between adjusting my orbit and watching the cruisers health bars. Stabber went pop soon enough and I offered a 'gfgf' in local. Abe had managed to escape in his Rifter and warped back to the sun to get some of the loot. We managed to point the Stabbers pod but our ransom wasn't accepted and he was sent back to the clone vat.

As we were wrapping up a Drake piloted by a FW pilot landed 60km from our position. Seeing local begin to fill up we bugged out quickly leaving some of the loot behind in the process. Nothing of great value was lost and it was a very, very good fight.