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

I am a pirate, daring and cunning...

The past few days have been privy to several events; popped a 'ranis in my Jag, won a fight against a Tusker, destroyed a Rifter in my Rifter and burnt out my guns in a rematch (lolfail, I know!).

However the highlight of the past few days - nay - of my short Eve career has not been one of the above. On sunday afternoon I put in my application to join the Tuskers. I'd decided to use the Scythe kill I made days previous as one of my above class kills and at the end of the day it was a fair above class. I was in a frigate, he in a cruiser. I can't help that he had fit it for mining! My application was accepted this afternoon by Man Barthelme and upon joining I was greeted warmly. Online there were many faces I recognized and I felt genuinely welcomed into the corp.

Those of you who know the Tusker Code will recognize the title of this post as being the first few words of the first direction of the code. Since joining the Tuskers only this afternoon I've had to decline two 1v1s as to accept them would go against the grain of the code. A part of me wishes I could have gone head to head but the majority of me knows that as a pirate I don't spin up the barrels of my autocannons at the whim of some pilot; I spin them up when I want, where I want an against whoever I want!

The next few days will see me moving my stuff around lowsec from my home stations littered around Essence to Hevrice. Whilst doing so I'll do my best to engage in every fight I can. Another segment of PvP has been made more aware to me since becoming a Tusker; Ransoms.

Before now I've never really made that much of an effort to ransom a ship or a pod. I've been more than happy to explode both hull and capsule and move on to my next victim. I've seen a couple of my new corpmates make successful ransoms tonight and it looks rather easy. Obviously ransoming a pod is easier than a ship as your opponent might not turn off their guns or withdraw their drones when you initiate the conversation but catching a capsule is easier said than done. I'll be trying both out and you'll be the first to hear about how well I do!

Until next time, fly reckless!

That Sweet Kill. Also teamwork!

Looking back on my past few posts I came off with the feeling that people reading this might be getting bored of me going on about an above class kill. Well, I can cheerily say that I've gone and done it though it wasn't as good as I'd hoped.

I was fitting a Rifter in Adirain and after undocking saw a Scythe on d-scan. Arriving at a safe I began the task of scanning him down to the belt, planet or other celestial he was (hopefully) sat at. It was at this time that an Incursus came onto scan as well. Seconds later I found the Scythe sitting on a belt but unfortunately the Incursus was there too and it wasn't too long before pod replaced cruiser.

Being used to arriving at a fight late I warped to another cluster-safe and spent the next few minutes trying to pin down an Imicus that had appeared, but to no avail. It was then that the pilot who had just had his Scythe asploded was back, and at the same belt! Without hesitating I keyed in the co-ordinates and warped in, making sure my scram was pre-overloaded. Landing right on top of the cruiser I engaged him gleefully.

It was only when it reached half armour that I realised the pilot wasn't firing back. The reason for this is that he was bloody mining. I sighed long and hard and popped the miners pod for good measure. I was/am still reluctant to use this as one of my Tusker-required above class kills because there was no competition at all. It still is an above class kill so I guess it counts. Its just I don't know when I'm going to find another cruiser to take on solo again so I may well end up using it. At least now you don't have to read about me whining about not having one!

The rest of the evening was spent roaming around and stuff(tm). I didn't find any action until Taurean Eltanin (whose blog you can find on the right -->) mentioned he needed help in baiting a Cyclone who had evaded his clutches. I was given a bookmark to a mission site and sat there waiting for the spooked Cyclone to return, while Taurean left the system to give the illusion he had given up on hunting him. It really wasn't long (read: five minutes, if that) before the mission runner popped up on my overview. I was on him straight away like a tramp on chips. Announcing merrily into comms that the battlecruiser was pointed I began the task of taking his drones out. Seconds later and Taurean was back in system and had landed on us started to smash through the Cyclones tank. Suffice to say it wasn't long before it exploded in a really pretty shade of blue. We tried to get his pod to try and get a random but it eluded us.

More stuff happened afterwards but my night was ultimately ended by my internet being really bloody annoyingly stupid and not working well at £$%^*()(&^%!


Fast forward to tonight and it was more of the same roaming and failing to find any action. I ran a few gatecamps, tried to engage flashy reds on gates who were too chicken to stay and play but didn't get any kills.  Tawa then mentioned that he had seen a Raven Navy Issue on d-scan who was presumably mission running. As he began scanning the carebear down I made my way back to Adirain. It wasn't long before Tawa warped on me and dropped a bookmark to the R.N.I.'s location. We had the help of one of the Sinners in a Hurricane and our merry trio warped in.

Landing on top of the Raven we made short work of melting his tank and upon reaching structure, Tawa called out for a cease fire and invited the pilot to the ransom channel that he made, but I share ^_^. The following is an excerpt from the channel:


[ 2011.09.03 20:36:54 ] Tawa Suyo > 500mil to keep the ship
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:04 ] Cable Udan > Hello Romulis :)
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:11 ] Romulis Blakk > Hello.
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:20 ] Romulis Blakk > I don't have it. Please...spare me.
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:29 ] Cable Udan > How much do you have?
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:17 ] Romulis Blakk > 19,785,341.27
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:24 ] Tawa Suyo > lol;
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:28 ] Romulis Blakk > in other words...I am broke.
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:28 ] Tawa Suyo > sorry
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:32 ] Cable Udan > Don't fly what you can't afford.
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:33 ] Tawa Suyo > 300mil minimum
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:35 ] Romulis Blakk > please don't do this..
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:44 ] Tawa Suyo > cya
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:10 ] Romulis Blakk > wowl..
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:15 ] Romulis Blakk > thanks..
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:27 ] Tawa Suyo > sure you only got 19mil?
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:32 ] Romulis Blakk > I just wanted to run missions
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:51 ] Romulis Blakk > That's all. Just missions.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:00 ] Tawa Suyo > 19mil to keep the implants then
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:05 ] Tawa Suyo > since you have that
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:11 ] Romulis Blakk > have no implants.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:24 ] Romulis Blakk > you take all the fun out of this game.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:39 ] Romulis Blakk > You really suck.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:49 ] Tawa Suyo > 2nd tutorial
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:50 ] Cable Udan > I'll say again, don't fly what you can't afford to lose.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:52 ] Tawa Suyo > don't fly what you can't afford
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:57 ] Tawa Suyo > especially in lowsec
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:57 ] Tawa Suyo > also
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:00 ] Romulis Blakk > This game isn't fun at all with guys like you in it.
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:01 ] Tawa Suyo > YARRRRRR
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:04 ] Cable Udan > :D

It was then that his ship and shortly after his pod went BOOM! I was kinda hoping for more raging tears than what we got. I suppose he genuinely felt hard done by. If he wanted to lower his chance of getting popped he should have:

a) Not been missioning in lowsec

b) Have read one of the many mission-runners guides to surviving in lowsec

c) Not gone flying in a Raven Navy Issue if he couldn't afford the ransom. Who seriously flies around in a half a bill ship and claims to only have 19mil?

So all in all it's been a good few days. I'm flying around in my second Jag, having lost the first one to taking on a Hookbill whilst absolutely gazebo'd. I have a total of three ready to go and will experiment with some fits I think. 

That's all for now as I'm tired and need to go and photoshop this posts image and get some sleep. Fly reckless, people!

Edited for spelling and clarity.

Holidaying in Lolsec

Good evening readers!

As I write this a large grin is slapped across my face. Tonight has seen me partake in three kills and one technical loss. Logging in after work I was pleased to see that over the night Minmatar Frigate V had finished and Assault Ships II was also trained, with III and IV being queued for the rest of the working week. I thought aloud to Tawa whether I should wait until I had AS trained to IV before undocking  in one. Tawa jovially replied that I should buy one and try not to fly it.

So I bought a Jaguar and after a quick scout of FHC decided on using the following fit:


[Jaguar, Big Cat]
Overdrive Injector System II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II


Medium Shield Extender II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters


150mm Light AutoCannon II, RF EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, RF EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, RF EMP S
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction


Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I

For me it's a solid fit. The tank and resists are good and it has loads more EHP than I'm used to, having flown Rifters almost exclusively for the past few months. Originally I wanted to buy a Wolf for the extra gank but I was eventually swayed by the pure versatility of the Jag and have realised it is probably a better solo ship (I will try out Wolfs as well though).

As you'll know I fly with Tawa quite a lot and he's recently moved up to Sinq Laison on what he's dubbed a "holiday". Yesterday he bid me join him as he'd had some hilarious kills such as this Retriever mining in lowsec. Today I made my way up in a bid to test out my shiny new ship and to see what all the fuss was with the pilots in this region. After chasing a few shadows on our way up to Egg I quickly stumbled upon the calibre of pilot that Tawa was talking about. A Thorax was mining openly in a belt into a Sigil. I couldn't help but laugh at this foolishness and decided to teach this guy a lesson.

Warping into the belt at zero I'd pre-overloaded my afterburner and point knowing full well that my potential victim would want to make a quick getaway. Unfortunately I landed 24km too far and my prey warped off to his pre-aligned escape route, a station. I returned to a safe spot and my wingman casually mentioned that being a carebear the pilots greed would soon get the better of him and he'd be out again before long. Sure enough not even ten minutes later the Thorax and Sigil were back out, albeit at a different belt. Aligning to the cluster I hit warp and crossed my fingers hoping to land within scram range this time.

Bish. Bash. Bosh.

Not a lot to say here; his fit was pretty fail. There was no tank or gank. I would have thought that if someone wanted to mine in lowsec he'd at least fit some guns to try and ward off potential aggressors. I considered opting to use this kill as my second and last required above class kill for my Tuskers application. Though Tawa is on the killmail you can see he did zero damage so it was indeed a solo endeavour, however it's not worthy to be used as evidence of my PvP skills so I'm still searching for that last cruiser kill. I was glad that my Jaguar had bloodied it's teeth though.

While I popped the Thorax, Tawa attempted to tackle the Sigil but the Pew Pew gods were not favourable and it managed to escape. I tried snagging the miners pod but he spammed the warp button vigilantly and got away.

Nothing much occured for the next couple of hours apart from roaming the local systems in search of more customers. There were a few baitships out there (like 2008 pilots who don't rename their Punishers whilst sitting pretty on a belt for example) which I ignored. My next fight wasn't far around the corner though and I found myself chatting to someone in local about PvP. My soon-to-be-adversary enquired as to what ships I flew so I replied that I'm mainly a Rifter fanboy due to them being cheap, efficient and hella fun to fly. I agreed to a 1v1 against his Wolf so we fleeted up and he found me at a disposable safe.

I was a little nervous about this fight as my opponent was an early 2006 character and so would have an obvious advantage when it came to skillpoints and quite possibly pilot skill too. As has been told by many players though, SP isn't the be all and end all and I soon found that my autocannons were easily chewing through both the shield and armour of my enemy's assault frigate, much to my surprise. It really didn't take long until my Jag scored it's second kill. We both bade each other a 'gf' and I was then offered another 1v1 - but this time I'd be fighting a Vengeance. I heartily agreed, secretly thinking that I'd bagged myself another easy win.

Little did I know how wrong I was!

The Vengeance soon appeared on my overview and I went in for the kill. It's shield fell quite easily while the damage it was doing to my own was  quite low. Sensing another win I adjusted my orbit while keeping good control of my overheated modules. As soon as the Amarr AF went into armour my damage completely stopped. I was using Barrage and was completely unawares that I was hitting the highest resists of my opponent. As my shields began to get low I realised this was a fight I wasn't going to win and I decided to disengage rather than lose my ship. Manually piloting I pointed my ship away from the orbiting frigate and overheated my afterburner and web, hoping to keep him slowed down long enough for me to get out of scram range. Within moments I was free and I warped to another safe. After the fight we both talked about our fits and how I was using the wrong damage type etc. before we went our separate ways.

What have I taken away from that fight? I must learn T2 frigate resists! Due to the fact that I never engaged them in my trusty old Rifters I didn't pay any attention to the numbers behind Assault Frigates and it came back to bite me in the arse. I'd previously read the Know Your Enemy articles by Azual but hadn't bothered with the T2 ones. I'll be studying them hard and fast now so another incident like this doesn't happen again. It could have been a lot worse and I could have lost my ship but thanks to some good piloting and my opponent not noticing my actions I got away.

Cue some more roaming with not a lot of action. I was still searching for targets but wasn't interested in the (everpresent) tarps and baits. Towards the end of the evening though when I was thinking about going to bed until Tawa chimed in that he'd found a Megathron doing a mission in a lowsec pocket. This piqued my interest and I frequently asked for scanning updates as I made my way closer to the system in question. It wasn't long before Tawa's awesome probing skills found the battleship and we both warped to the acceleration gate. Announcing he had a point I jumped in not far behind my wingman.

The following fight didn't take long at all and many lolz were being had between Tawa and myself over fleet comms. A battleship was being taken down a guy in a Rifter and another in a Jag! The pilot opened a convo with Tawa to try and organise some form of ransom. Unfortunately for the pilot (but fortunately for me as I wanted the killmail) he could only offer a paltry 17mil and it was decided that his mighty Megathron would be reduced to spacejunk. As you can guess the battleship soon went pop. Once again the pilot got away in his pod which was a shame - were were going to try and get the 17mil ransom from his pod instead. The dropped modules from his wreck weren't too bad and as we speak they're being shipped off to a trade hub to be sold and the profits split.

Who said piracy wasn't profitable?