Sunday 30 September 2012

Month in Review

It's been a while since I last posted here, mostly because I haven't been playing nearly as much of late as I had been before. There's been a couple reasons for this, most of it coming from that thing called life. Went to a wedding a couple weeks back, and came back with a graphics card which far outclassed what I had in my machine. The issue being, I haven't been able to get my computer stable since then (Drivers crashing), and I've prettymuch come down to it being my motherboard not liking an AMD card (had nVidia before).

Now, I would have gotten a new nVidia card by now, (the old one is promised to a friend already), but my car has proceeded to eat all my extra cash, though with a paycheque coming on Monday, I should have the money to get a new card sooner rather then later.


The other thing is, I've been getting a little tired of what I can currently fly, and have a few more major things coming down the pipe that more and more I've been wanting to just wait for and fly before I do much else.


Anyways, all in all because of this, it's been a fairly slow month for me, with my worst ISK efficiency since my first month of PvP. 39 kills, 12 losses. I didn't get many ~goodfites~, and most of the kills were low-value overall. I also tended to fight when I knew I shouldn't, against people that I know don't like fighting unless they've got the odds swung massively in their favour, along with flying more expensive ships overall.

It's been interesting. I look forward to getting back into the swing of things soon, though Guildwars 2 may eat up a chunk of my time once I actually end up getting that.

Fly Dangerous
Chord

Monday 10 September 2012

I just don't understand

Coming back from a roam today, I poked my head into Cumemare, the home of the Exploding Squirrels. They're a fairly large, active corp, that has mostly younger players, teaching them how to survive in low-sec. Decent people, I'm in their public channel.

Anyways, I came, and found a Crusader ratting. Being in my Stabber Fleet, I thought this looked pretty fun to me, so warping into the belt, I landed almost on top of it, but it easily had burned out of scram range before my lock resolved, as he was moving at 4km/s when I landed. Checking the wrecks of the rats he had killed, he burned back in, apparently looking for the fight.

Turning off my afterburner, which I had used to not overshoot the wrecks, he looked like he was going to be coming right close to me, so I punched the MWD, overheated the scram, and caught his Interceptor. That was really about it for the fight, he wasn't able to get a good orbit on me to get under my guns, because with my AB running I was just as fast as he was.

Destroying his Frigate, I caught his pod. Seeing as he was an '05 player, I went for the ransom on it.


[05:19:47] EVE System > Channel MOTD: You've missed a few payments on that nice ship of yours....Please CEASE FIRE and RECALL DRONES and we will negotiate a mutually beneficial solution.
[05:40:15] Dischordant > Hey there
[05:40:18] Dischordant > Interested in keeping the pod?
[05:40:36] Sothas > depends on what you want for it?
[05:40:49] Dischordant > 100m?
[05:41:20] Sothas > sure
[05:41:33] Sothas > red in belt
[05:41:48] Dischordant > Makes me think I should have gone higher. Send the money and you're free.
[05:42:30] Dischordant > 100m, not 100k
[05:42:41] Sothas > yeah, missed the zeros
[05:42:45] Dischordant > np
[05:43:30] Dischordant > o/
[05:44:09] EVE System > Sothas was kicked from the channel by Dischordant
Effective until: 2012.09.11 06:14
Reason: "Business concluded"


With that done, I figured that I would just be waiting out GCC and leaving system. Salvaging the wreck with my alt, I got 35m in salvage out of it too, not a bad little profit.

While salvaging the wreck, it didn't take too long to notice an Abbadon on scan, on scan towards the station. Checking the belt and planet in that cluster, sure enough he was at the station. But wait, he's not there anymore. Did he go back to the belt we fought in looking for a fight? No, not on scan there. He is at another cluster though. Warping to the ice belt in system, sure enough he's there. Spiralling in to make sure he doesn't land some massive hits on me before I can get under his guns, he doesn't even lock me until I'm in a tight orbit, with the afterburner running.

Tearing through his shields, he finally targets back and opens fire, not scratching me at all, and not launching any drones. Figuring this would be an easy time, I invited him to the ransom channel again. Wait. I kicked him, he can't join for 30 minutes. I guess I'll just go for the kill then.

Getting half-way through his armor, local goes up by two, a couple of his corp-mates have entered system, before long there's a Drake and Merlin on scan. Figuring I'd have company soon, I overheated the top rack to try and get through his buffer before they come in and start getting me. Keeping an eagle eye on the heat damage to my guns I let them get to 90% before turning the overload off. His backup still hasn't arrived, and he's deep into structure now, and pop goes the Battleship. 

I'm really unsure as to what he was thinking, with me still in system to go and grab a PvE Battleship, and go ratting. I wish I had thought about the ransom a little more and just invited him to a conversation and tried to ransom the ship, I really could use the money right now. Oh well.


Fly dangerous
'Chord

Sunday 9 September 2012

Satisfying blue flashes.

Well, after another unexpected absence (life worked out that I could make it off to a wedding that I didn't expect I was able to), I've been able to get back in the pod again for a while. Though I've been back for the better part of a week now, I hadn't had any fights worth writing about, until tonight.

I had been fairly lazy, with a couple of BPOs heading down via Red Frog, I was using my alt to mine, sort of. I placed him in one of the belts in Iges, getting some of the minerals that I wasn't able to get a good supply of in high-sec. Using a tanky Procurer for this served two purposes, first was to get these minerals, also was to bait anyone who decided that it would be an easy target. Sure enough, some people decided that looked good to them. Seeing an Enyo warp into the belt, I undocked Dischord's Hurricane, and went in after it. Before long a Merlin and Condor warped in to assist the Enyo.

Landing with Dischord, I right away went after the Enyo, with it being the most expensive ship on field. It right away started burning away with its' Microwarp Drive. Overheating my Battlecruiser's mid slots, I was barely able to keep him within overheated point range, while keeping the damage on him. Reeling him to around 20km, I turned the heat off, and soon realized that he was able to outrun me without the heat on the MWD. Having to once again heat all the mids to keep him from getting out, my MWD was reaching critical levels as he was once again to around 20 km range. Turning off the heat just too late, I saw the prop mod burn out, as I overheated the top rack to try get the assault ship, now spewing flame from it's hull before it was out of point range, and was rewarded with a satisfying blue flash.

With the other frigates having warped off when they realized the mining barge was heavily tanked, and thinking I would be coming for them next, I warped my alt off, to get his covert ops ship, which has a salvager on it, to try maximise my profit on the kill. As my cov-ops warps to the wreck, I notice a slicer warp into the belt. A pilot who I had talked to earlier who was interested in fighting my Wolf, so I decided rather then bring the 'cane against it, I'd grab my Assault Frigate. Coming back to the belt with barrage loaded, I landed on top of the Amarr Frigate and went to work. It soon became apparent that the pilot of the Slicer though was AFK, as he didn't move as his shields quickly evaporated. With it's armor nearly depleted, the pilot finally took control and set about trying to do some damage to me before his ship reached it's end.

Gloating to myself over the nice loot that the Slicer dropped, I was about to warp out when a Malediction warped in, and I thought it would be interesting to continue the fight, not thinking about the loot in my cargo hold, and more importantly, not checking my directional scan.

Getting the Malediction scrammed right away, along with my Nosferatu keeping my cap levels up, I overheated my armor rep and hoped for the best, especially once the Federation Navy Comet landed on grid with us. Cursing myself then for not having any Exile booster, I overheated all the things to try and make sure I took as much out with me as I could. Entering structure at around the same time as the Malediction (wishing this entire time now I had loaded Fusion also), my the overheated repair module pulling a bit of armor back every cycle, was enough to see another satisfying blue flash as the aggressing Interceptor exploded.

I still had some hope at this time that without the rockets pouring out of the Malediction, the rep may be able to pull back some armor against the Comet, but that hope was short lived, as before I was even able to turn my guns around towards the Comet, my Wolf 's hull let go, with my most expensive loss to date.

Definitely a fun few minutes. Looking at local afterwards, I think even if I had gotten that Comet, there may have been more coming for me, There were definitely more hostiles in local, but I don't know if they were together at all.



On the skilling side, still cleaning up a few holes in my support skills, though I've decided to train into a Loki sooner rather then later, after looking at a few fits, so while I was gone for a week there, I started on Minmatar Cruiser V, and I've been cleaning up the last couple skills I need to train the subsystem skills. I've already got the full Loki fit sitting in Slays. Not going to say anything more about it then it'll definitely be my most expensive lossmail when it eventually rolls around.


Fly dangerous
'Chord