Wednesday 11 April 2012

Master Procrastinator

I've been meaning to do another blog post for a few days now. I  lie, it's been more like a week since I originally planned to write this. Every time I think about it though, is when I see local spike in whatever system I'm docked in when I'm about to start writing, and then it slips my mind.

Especially with how long I'm leaving these posts  now, I'm more and more glad about the fact that I've been keeping fairly detailed notes on any fights worth mentioning. Of course most kills I've been getting are hardly worth mentioning, but I'm sure that's the way it is for most pirates in this game. The drops off those though are lending themselves to support my habits though, so I won't be giving up on that any time soon.



Speaking of supporting my habits, I've now got three colonies going for PI. They've been up for about 6 days when I write this, and I think that they're nearing the point of paying themselves off already. Not wanting to take too much time off of my combat-related skill training right now, I just got myself to Command Centre Upgrades III for the time being. It's enough to support two extractors, four basic, and two advanced production facilities, with nearly 100% uptime (on two of my planets, because I didn't search too long and hard, [everything is in 0.3 sec systems, just for ease] the extraction rate is slightly too slow to keep everything running all the time, but I don't have enough space to add more extractor heads). I'm hoping this is enough to make me self-sufficient for the time being. That said, even though I can fly assault ships decently now, I really do need to remember that bigger and harder hitting, is also harder on the bank to lose. I've still got some rifters I need to make good use of.


One other bit of news, is that I've completed the 30 day assessment period in Repo. and now am a full member, and quite glad to be.


Enough with the introduction, on with the show!


Hanging out in my old SW:TOR guilds Teamspeak, where Repo now has a channel if the need arises, I was chatting with my old guild leader from there. All of a sudden I got a message ingame that he added me to contacts in Eve. Soon enough, he was out in Placid with a Stiletto, so along with h0tsauce we went out roaming towards OMS. Not getting much action, I was a jump ahead of them in Heydieles and had a hoarder on scan. Not being too familiar with the system, and what ships are pos junk (now I know that hoarder is actually pos'd all the time) I jumped to a customs office. As soon as I hit warp, I realized that I actually had selected a different office from the one I had been scanning. Kicking myself for this mistake, and thinking I might lose the hoarder, when I land I realize how incredibly lucky I actually was when I land on top of a Viator that had just uncloaked at the customs office. Grabbing a point on it, the others jump in on me, and we drop the hauler. 
Able to get a point on the pod, we invite him to the ransom channel, and end up getting another 20 million ISK out of him in trade for his pod. Not bad for a random jump.


Didn't find much more on the roam there, until we came across a cormorant in a plex. Judaires had joined us by this point in a griffin, so we figured that even though Markocius was unable to get in, we may have a decent chance to grab this destroyer with the help of the Griffin. Judaries  went in, and was able to get a point on it, and was jamming it decently as we were heading through the acceleration gate, but when he missed a jam he was quickly forced to jump out. 


The major problem at this point, was they were both MWD equipped, and had gotten around 80km off of the gate, and I was flying a AB Rifter, with Hoss along side me in an AB Incursus. Being slightly faster, I was the first in range of the Cormorant, and he started firing, doing some serious damage from well outside my range. getting within around 15 KM from him, I was starting to realize I wouldn't get to him before exploding, so I started trying to put some range between him and myself thinking I had to get out of disruptor range. Yeah, that's right, I'm smart enough to burn away from a MWDing, single mid destroyer, to get out of point range. Needless to say,  it didn't go over. Adding insult to injury, Lucsar said something in local about "it's a Cormorant" which made me /facepalm after the fact.


Re-shipping into a Firetail  Iges (I've got an addiction to these things, they just look too cool), with just myself and h0tsauce left on for the night, we decide to check the ever fruitful Amoen/Avaux loop.
Hoss was the lead ship, and saw a Thorax and a Caracal on scan, both seemingly named after their pilots, but in Japanese. Both of the pilots being quite new he quickly scans them down to an area in deadspace. ith no complexes near there, he decides to head back to Iges where he has a probe. Going into system, I scan down where their mission is to try save a little time, but before h0t is able to come back and scan them down, they leave, and both seem to dock up. Waiting them out though, they both come back out fairly soon, but only the Caracal leaves the station. Eventually, being curious I warp to the station to see what the Thorax is doing, and fairly quickly he docks up. After about 10 minutes, with both of them docking/undocking/warping to the mission and back, hoss is finally narrowing down the scan with the Caracal down there, and the Gallente crusier sitting on station with me again. After a little while of this, he ends up approaching my ship, which hasn't moved the entire time since I warped in. After bumping me, I see him yellow-box me, and open fire. Winding up my autocannons, I start shredding his shields, and armor. Being such a new character, he really didn't have any tank to speak of on that cruiser, and it went down fast. 


Some time during our waiting games, Maleficas had gotten on, and joined us in trying to get these two cruisers. So as I was dropping the Thorax, h0t had gotten a 100% position on the Caracal, and they were both warping in. Scooping the loot from the Thorax, I soon followed. Landing with them already both laying into the Caracal, I start adding my damage to it, and it doesn't last long. 


I called it a night after that, and logged off in Rurotta. Getting on the next evening, I right away head into Avaux to see what might turn up there. Talking with the ECM Daredevil pilot (who has so many safe spots, it's not even worth me chasing him anymore, since he'll just warp from safe to safe) for a minute, I notice a 3 month old character enter system. Warping to the 9 cluster, which has the high-sec gate for the system, I see a Drake on scan. Thinking that chances are decent with a 3 month old character, and that if things go bad, I could probably disengage without too much trouble, I scanned him down to a belt. Jumping in, almost on top of him, I fire my EMP loaded autocannons into the Drake's legendary tank.... Which in this case, was less then the stuff of legends. Very surprised at how quickly his shields were going down I soon hit the dreaded max-regen point around 30%, so I overheat my guns just to be sure, and am quickly into his armor, which nearly evaporates even with EMP loaded. His structure didn't last much longer, and I'm greeted with the blue flash that I love. Getting a point on his pod right away, I try to ransom it, but never get an answer. It's too bad too, I probably would have gone for 5 million ISK or so, but he ended up losing more then 20 million.


Feeling good about how the day is going, I keep on roaming still in the Firetail. Ending up in Hevrice, I see a Rifter out in space. Warping myself to the sun, and hoping he might come in and fight, I wait there for a little while before trying to actually scan him down. Soon finding him at a belt, I warp in to zero and find him waiting for me. But, rather then me explaining the rest of it, you can watch it, courtesy of Jaxley, the pilot who I was fighting. 


Here's the killmail.

A couple notes from my end of the fight on there, as he says, I really should have loaded barrage, and also I really should have overheated my AB. Other then my guns, and other then on approach to try and catch someone quickly I never think to overheat my mid slots. 


That's it for now, 
Fly dangerous.

4 comments:

  1. Finding myself in a similar posting situation, ie fewer than normal. You're exactly right, only so many battle reports are worth writing about (a small percentage).

    I used to run 5 level 5 CCs in Jovainnon. This was before the player owned customs offices, but with that I was pulling in somewhere between 200-300 million ISK a month, depending on how diligent I was with the PI. I'm not real certain what a level 3 planet will net you, considering taxes and all, but you'll probably be able to figure out how much ISK it generates based off an average figure over a week or two weeks.

    The thing I don't like about assault frigs is that in cost, for 10-15 million more you can get a Battlecruiser with a much better insurance payout. It's a tough choice sometimes :/

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    1. That I suppose is the nice thing about being a low SP character, I don't have much of a choice. Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll have Cruisers flying decently.

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  2. Oh god those cruisers and that Drake! So many bad pilots in that pocket.

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  3. Very interesting to watch a fight from the other side.

    -Mal

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