Summer Sun!

"Immortals are never alien to one another."
- Homer, The Odyssey

I've found myself with a fair amount of free time recently and even though I can't actually play Eve I've been following the fanfest and reading the forums a lot in recent days. Doing so has lead to great withdrawal symptoms and I'm itching to get my yarr on. Unfortunately I won't be back in the UK until mid-September now which sucks a lot so I'll be whiling away my time making shit fits in Pyfa and perusing the forums.

I'm very much looking forward to the Odyssey, the summer expansion even though I'll be late to the party. The "new" scanner looks incredible, as do the revamped warp visuals; Eve is just getting more and more beautiful. On a side-note, if you haven't already done so post in this thread about CCP implementing high-res textures. They've allegedly said they'll do it if they garner enough want for it. And I do want!

Navy Battlecruisers seem pretty cool as well. My only bug bear is that the Fleet Issue Hurricane seems just like it's pre-nerf but with some more EHP. That sucks considering the additional price tag it will undoubtedly have. I just feel that the other Navy BCs have significant stat increases than the FI Cane, though that's probably down to my bias towards Winmatar.

The addition I'm looking forward to the most though is the Tags4Sec system. I think this will revitalize what many (and oft-time myself) think is a dying lowsec. No more will I have to trawl through FW plexes hoping that the Incursus inside isn't a stabbed farmer but instead can go back to belt pvp, best pvp! It'll be great to prey on carebears ratting to make moniez selling the tags and other pirates wanting the tags for themselves. I've been -10 or close enough for ages now and even though I don't feel restricted in my playstyle I'm very much looking forward to getting my sec up so I can antagonise carebears in highsec.

Odyssey is shaping up to be an excellent expansion.

As always, fly reckless o7

- Cable

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

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.