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.

Grab the loot Cable, Cable grab the loot!

Looking back at this months set of kills its become obvious that I have too many to write about in detail like I have done in previous posts. This month has seen me take part in the enforced distribution of other peoples assets 64 times. To describe all 64 kills would make for a cruelly long post that would probably bore many people to tears, if not myself as I typed it. I feel I'm past retelling the epic battles of tech one frigates shot-for-shot and so these unremarkable kills will fall to the wayside in Chasing the Blue Flash, to be replaced by adrenaline pumping tales that would envy the likes of David and Goliath and other famous combatants. And as advertised, big failures too. While I'm on the subject of fail lets start with what could possibly be one of the most expensive Jag losses ever!

Yeah that's right, a Centum A-type repper and an RF gyro and web were in my cargo hold. Why, you ask? It started when a fellow Tusker announced they were set to ambush a Loki in Old Man Star and so I pointed my Jag in the general direction of OMS and fired up my warp drive.

Unfortunately I landed a little too far from the battle and unfortunately didn't get on the killmail. As the Loki popped, his backup in the form of Hurricanes and an Arazu turned up. As our fleet began bugging out Sulieman asked if I could scoop the loot from the destroyed Loki before I gtfo. I did indeed grab the loot but the gods were not in my favour that day as I was the sudden and proud owner of four points. Trying valiantly to burn away from my captors I tanked a great deal of their damage before succumbing to an inevitable doom.

Morosely announcing the loss of my Jag as well as the epic loot, I took solace in the fact that the 300m repper hadn't dropped and then held a brief silence in memory of Septembers ISK efficiency knowing it would never recover. *tear*

All in all though it was a gf and despite not getting on the Loki kill it felt good to swoop in and grab some expensive modules before (attempting) to run away with it. I suppose you could say it was an "I was there..." moment.

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

Moving on up in the world

On Friday I began skilling Medium Autocannon Specialization and it's now at III, and training to IV. What does this mean for our daring author?

Hurricanes.

I can now fit T2 gank and tank on my favourite Minmatar battleruiser. Flying 'Canes will open up a whole new array of targets to take on solo and I'll be more use to the Tuskers when they call for backup. I intend to get T2 artillery trained too as I've noticed a lot of people fly arty Canes and I've seen first-hand of how much damage they can dish out. The biggest change I'll probably find with flying Battlecruisers is that I can now fight on stargates without grievous repercussions. No longer will I see a juicy target and not be able to engage because I was flying a frigate.

I've already lost one though the odds were stacked against me but I went down valiantly, the Myrmidon down to half armour when I exploded.

I have a few more fitted in Hev and I've gone with both shield and armour variants. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how they work both solo and in fleet ops. The added gank and tank will be a great asset to my versatility as a pirate and I think I can cope with the extra align time and drop in agility.

Settling In

Having recently joined the Tuskers I've got all of my stuff over to Hevrice, our home system. When my app was accepted I didn't have a great deal in the way of ships left and only 20k m^3 worth of modules in Aeschee. I took my scanning/missioning/station trading alt up to Jita and went on a massive shopping spree. A very condensed list would look like:

• 3 Hurricanes with Armour, Shield and nano fits.
• 3 Jaguars with shield fits
• A single Wolf, just to try them out
• 30 or so Rifters, with a myriad of fits ranging from cookie cutter 150+nos, 200+RL, to arty fits and the madman cap boosted, dual rep fit. 

I spent about 480mil in total and have loads of stuff in Hev. If I fly decently I shouldn't have to make another shopping trip for a while, though it did recently occur to me that I bought a bunch of MSE IIs, completely forgetting about LSE IIs for my Canes. I'll have to pop up to Jita in a Bastion for those! 

Since joining the Tuskers I've lost a handful of ships but more importantly got in on some good kills! Despite flying solo 90% of the time it feels really good to have backup at the other end of a mic just in case I come across a target too big for my current ship or if I bite off more than I can chew.

Looking at my most recent losses I know for a fact that some of them could have been avoidable. I lost a Jag to an cane on a gate in Onne. When he aggressed me I should have jumped through but instead decided to hold my ground and pew pew him. It didn't take long for his neuts to cap me out and I became a sitting duck and was gunned down. 

I then went on to lose another Jag to a bunch of pilots who don't have the balls for solo pvp. The Thrasher was talking smack in local after I declined a 1v1 (as per the Tusker Code). Despite declining a 1v1 I was actively scanning for him and soon found him at a planet. After getting him into armour his friends arrived - a 'ranis, Rupture and Dramiel and they took my ship apart but not before I gave the Thrasher the good news. After popping his ship the trash-talking destroyer pilot soon shut up and hastily left the system in his pod. I suppose I should have known it was a trap but I still went in.

I lost a couple of MANLY RIFTA!'s to foes I maybe shouldn't have engaged. For those who don't know, the MANLY RIFTA! comprises of 150's+nos, with a cap booster and dual armour reps and associated rigs. I think it's a good fit but I should probably have tested it out on other T1 frigs and not a Harpy and a Thrasher. I'll definitely be giving it another go though!

I then went on to get dropped by a B A N E gang for sitting 100km off a planet. I wasn't paying attention to d-scan as I was going through assets and chatting on comms to Tawa. My own fault really!

I've been part of some good kills though. Too many to list here and nothing out of the ordinary. Popped a 'ranis who thought he could handle the Big Cat, tackled a Drake whilst the Tuskers brought him down (went on to snag his pod too - go me!).

All in all it's been an excellent few days since joining the Tuskers. Despite some avoidable losses I've had a blast!

Fly reckless o7