December has been quite a month for me, most damage done, highest number of kills, and second highest efficiency. Though with that said, I also didn't play nearly as much as before, just had the luck that when I did play, things happened.
The majority of my playtime of late has been in the Amoen/Avaux loop against Malum Exuro/Forsaken Federation/Killers of Paranoid Souls, and their new friend Black Beard's Horde. Highlight of it all came early in the month.
Superpooper and Gallen were playing station games with Takezo Kensei in Amas. Eventually one of his lackies, Phjil came into system with me in a Brutix (I was flying a Drake). I heard the call from Super that TK had warped off station, at about the same time as Phjil had landed on gate with me. We were there looking at each other. Super went to the gate on the Amas side in a Interceptor. Phjil ended up aggressing me in Amoen so I jumped through, overheated all the things and went after Takezo. When I decloaked, he locked me up and took a shot at Superpooper (a non flashy) in his Malediction, which was orbiting the Tornado. Soon getting a scram/web on the Tornado, the gate guns and myself proceeded to rip through it's tank. He then proceeded to stick around too long and the Malediction grabbed a point on the pod, which was pretty damn expensive. As we finished that up, Phjil had come in and went straight for me, and soon after had more friends come into system. Gladly, none of them had a scram, so with an overheated point I was able to scoot out.
Another fight in the loop, I came through to see what was going on. Phjil undocked in an Eris for my Slasher. I knew from previous fights that he had rails on that ship. I had been sitting out in an instant undock at the time, and soon enough he warped out towards me. Overheating prop to get in close, it was closer then I had expected it to be, but soon enough the Eris dropped. I mentioned it to my friends in the loop, who decided they wanted to come over and laugh at him. After docking and dropping off the loot, I tried to reload my ASB only to realize that I didn't have the correct size of boosters, and three charges left. While sitting around, back in the instant-undock, Phjil decided to undock a Thorax and come after me once again, even though this time I had friends in system. No surprises, we dropped that fairly soon, though Dahullk ended up losing his Algos.
In Iges once again, I was greeted by the sight of a Scorpion and Raven, both the special Navy Issue ships. Looking through who was in system, I saw a couple members of the same corp as the same ships from a prior engagement. Grabbing the only ship I had around that I figured would have a standing chance against that kind of firepower (assuming that once again the fits wouldn't be great) I took my Stabber Fleet Issue out for a spin. Eventually catching up with the SNI on one of the stations, he aggressed me. With a stable orbit around him, afterburner on, I was easily repping his damage back, though a neut was causing me some minor issues. Eventually though I had a couple neutral Tengus on scan, and sure enough they were on station. I can't remember the exact details, but they were, or were former members of Suddenly Spaceships alliance, who had moved out of Covryn in the last while. Expecting that they would shoot the shiney, I figured things were good here. Much to my dismay, they locked my Stabber and started attacking. Knowing I was completely outclassed here, I aligned out, overheated the afterburner and was able to warp back to my home station. Docking up and resupplying, I put the call out in a couple channels I was in, and went back on the hunt as soon as the Tengus were off scan. Eventually, the SNI came to my station. Beginning the dance of death one again, I told my backup to come ASAP, they were slow to arrive due to war-targets in Stacmon, but eventually did come after the RNI also showed up as I had been winning the war against the first heavily tanked battleship. With more friends arriving on field, it didn't take long to mop the first, and second faction battleships up.
Another day, another Forsaken kill. Back in Avaux another day, with my alt I had found 2x Myrmidons, 2x Thoraxes, who had just killed a Venture. One system back from them, with Superpooper waiting in Aidart, we had two Drakes. Warping into the belt, I soon had point on the Myrmidon that was there (the other one on scan, but not in belt) and told Super to come, figuring that the backup would be coming quickly. Setting to work burning down the Myrmidon as fast as I could, I locked up the Thorax to watch it warp off, leaving his friend tackled in the belt. Soon the other Thorax came into the belt, just as Super was nearly landing, but it too also warped off to station and docked up, leaving our two Drakes to finish off their friend.
More Amas station games came up a couple days later, with Takezo and Lavoie. Eventually it got to the point with them in a Dominix and Megathron, and us with 3 Drakes and a shield Myrm. Having scanned out an instant undock that Lavoie had been using in his Mega (which we had scanned and seen the Cyno fit to, with them having multiple cap ship pilots online, out of system) we had a cloaky alt tackle him there, while we took kitey ships and wore him down, to see what would happen. Fully expecting to get pushed offgrid were he to drop the Cyno, we went after the Megathron. In my Vaga that I had left in system, Super grabbed a Scimitar, and Vulturus grabbed his Falcon to seal the deal. With the only damage coming from a Myrms drones, and the Vaga, it took a while, but we were wearing through the buffer tank. As he entered structure, the cyno went up, and a Moros and Thanatos came in. Just before this we had told the Myrm to go in and apply full DPS, which ended up in him getting tackled and dying after we dropped the Mega, as our Falcon had warped offgrid before making sure people were out.
All these fights with Malum and blues weren't without their losses though, I derped a Vaga to a Huggin (with links, I would've just eeked out of point range were it not for that), after losing a SFI too them a little while earlier. Hyps have a much longer damage range then I had expected. Not used to battleships.
That's definitely not all the fights I've had, but it's the best of them that I can remember. It's been a great month, hopefully I can get another like that this new year. I'm also nearing my first year of game in Eve, so that's pretty awesome.
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Friday, 4 January 2013
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Tornado for Hurricane
Got online tonight, and Superpooper mentioned that some of the Forsaken Federation members were active in the Amoen loop. These guys are fun to play with, though in the last fairly long while they'll only undock if they've got better numbers, or ship-types then what I/my friends come in, which pushes me towards nano-fagging around to try pick some off and disengage.
Heading in there today with my trusty Nano-Hurricane. The grid-nerf hurt my fit a little bit but not h orribly, so I'm alright with that.
Getting into Amoen I had a Drake and Retriever on scan, soon had them scanned down to the belt and warped in. Lock. Disrupt... nothing happens. Hit the disruptor and guns, still nothing happens. Remember about the damn green safety, turn it off, and got the Ret. The entire time this has been going on Superpooper was grabbing a drake of his own to come, once the Retriever was down, I pointed the Drake while loading EMP. Loaded, firing, taking chunks out of his shields with every volley. Mentioning Super better hurry, I turned off the heat on the top rack so he could get on. Not paying too much attention to anything as the Drake wasn't hurting to bad, Super mentions that he's too far off and won't be able to get in range, I look at distances, and sure enough the Drake is burning away while I had turned off my MWD to preserve cap. Overheating the mids, I gave chase, dropping point for a split second when he gets out to 30km away, but doesn't manage to warp in time. Able to re-establish point, I went and finished the drake.
Before we had left system, there was a Vexor on scan, after chasing him around I caught up to him on the Ruerotta gate, with Super landing I engaged, and soon saw the Vexor engage back. Dropped him pretty quick, though I think solo I'd probably have had issues breaking his tank before the drones/sentries did their part.
After repairing and dropping off loot, we ended up down in Avaux, with Super now in a sniper Oracle, and myself still in the nano-cane, since we saw 5 reds in system. After a few minutes, A Talos undocked, and warped off, coming back at a safe 200km off the station, sniping my 'cane. Getting the idea for Super's alt to probe out and warp us in on the Talos, we give it a shot, but sadly have the Talos warp off before we're able to do that. After trying to accomplish similar things afterwards with no luck, they started undocking more and more. With Super's Oracle forcing an Abbadon to dock a couple times, eventually they undocked a Hawk, Myrm and Tornado to go with the Talos and Abbadon. With Super's probes already in place, the Talos and Hawk warped in, with the Tornado warping to the hawk (which wasn't with the Talos, but still 200km off). Probed, warping... Talos warped off. Made the call to go after the Tornado and Hawk instead, though I figured already it was suicide.
Landing next to the Tornado, and about 30km off the Hawk, I right away set orbit to 500 and overheated the top rack, trying to get through what I hoped was a real thin tank as fast as possible. With the Talos warping back at 100 and taking shots, the Hawk burning to us, and an Abbadon & Myrm aligning to us, that was about all my hope. Sadly, the Tornado had a stiffer tank than I had expected, and the Hawk was there scramming me pretty quickly, so I swapped my neuts over to him. Finally dropping the Tornado, with my own ship nearly out of shields, I tried to drop the Hawk, and in a couple volleys nearly had him out of shield, at which point he warped off, breaking tackle on me. Had I been aligned at this point, I could have gotten out, but I was too slow, as the Abbadon grabbed me. I had been speed tanking the Abbadon before, but combined with the DPS from the sniper-talos, and Myrmidon there, it was not to be as my Hurricane dropped. 5v2, and coming out equal on the # of kills, and ahead on the efficiency, all good in my books.
I've tried flying the Bellicose and Stabber a few times now, and I think once I've got my missile-distance skills trained up a bit higher (they're both at 3 right now, both 4 should be sufficient I hope) I think that the Bellicose may be my go-to Cruiser. Good speed, decent damage + projection. The Stabber though. I'm quite sad about the state of the Stabber. It may have it's place for a new player in a nano-fleet or something like that, but by itself, it's basically garbage. I skirmished with it against a larger gang of cruisers, and a Thrasher, and going after the Thrasher, landing good hits, he wasn't all that close to dying when I had to warp out due to the rest of the gang getting close, and nearly being out of cap. I later lost it due to :badatkiting: against a Moa (Vexor just whored on the KM, I was as good as dead well before he arrived).
Still need to give the Rupture a real try, it seems like not all that much has changed, so it should still be decent, I'm just afraid it'll have Rifter syndrome, and be out-classed by all it's competition (and we don't have the Stabber to be the Slasher, and be a viable alternative).
It's been a fun few days.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Heading in there today with my trusty Nano-Hurricane. The grid-nerf hurt my fit a little bit but not h orribly, so I'm alright with that.
Getting into Amoen I had a Drake and Retriever on scan, soon had them scanned down to the belt and warped in. Lock. Disrupt... nothing happens. Hit the disruptor and guns, still nothing happens. Remember about the damn green safety, turn it off, and got the Ret. The entire time this has been going on Superpooper was grabbing a drake of his own to come, once the Retriever was down, I pointed the Drake while loading EMP. Loaded, firing, taking chunks out of his shields with every volley. Mentioning Super better hurry, I turned off the heat on the top rack so he could get on. Not paying too much attention to anything as the Drake wasn't hurting to bad, Super mentions that he's too far off and won't be able to get in range, I look at distances, and sure enough the Drake is burning away while I had turned off my MWD to preserve cap. Overheating the mids, I gave chase, dropping point for a split second when he gets out to 30km away, but doesn't manage to warp in time. Able to re-establish point, I went and finished the drake.
Before we had left system, there was a Vexor on scan, after chasing him around I caught up to him on the Ruerotta gate, with Super landing I engaged, and soon saw the Vexor engage back. Dropped him pretty quick, though I think solo I'd probably have had issues breaking his tank before the drones/sentries did their part.
After repairing and dropping off loot, we ended up down in Avaux, with Super now in a sniper Oracle, and myself still in the nano-cane, since we saw 5 reds in system. After a few minutes, A Talos undocked, and warped off, coming back at a safe 200km off the station, sniping my 'cane. Getting the idea for Super's alt to probe out and warp us in on the Talos, we give it a shot, but sadly have the Talos warp off before we're able to do that. After trying to accomplish similar things afterwards with no luck, they started undocking more and more. With Super's Oracle forcing an Abbadon to dock a couple times, eventually they undocked a Hawk, Myrm and Tornado to go with the Talos and Abbadon. With Super's probes already in place, the Talos and Hawk warped in, with the Tornado warping to the hawk (which wasn't with the Talos, but still 200km off). Probed, warping... Talos warped off. Made the call to go after the Tornado and Hawk instead, though I figured already it was suicide.
Landing next to the Tornado, and about 30km off the Hawk, I right away set orbit to 500 and overheated the top rack, trying to get through what I hoped was a real thin tank as fast as possible. With the Talos warping back at 100 and taking shots, the Hawk burning to us, and an Abbadon & Myrm aligning to us, that was about all my hope. Sadly, the Tornado had a stiffer tank than I had expected, and the Hawk was there scramming me pretty quickly, so I swapped my neuts over to him. Finally dropping the Tornado, with my own ship nearly out of shields, I tried to drop the Hawk, and in a couple volleys nearly had him out of shield, at which point he warped off, breaking tackle on me. Had I been aligned at this point, I could have gotten out, but I was too slow, as the Abbadon grabbed me. I had been speed tanking the Abbadon before, but combined with the DPS from the sniper-talos, and Myrmidon there, it was not to be as my Hurricane dropped. 5v2, and coming out equal on the # of kills, and ahead on the efficiency, all good in my books.
I've tried flying the Bellicose and Stabber a few times now, and I think once I've got my missile-distance skills trained up a bit higher (they're both at 3 right now, both 4 should be sufficient I hope) I think that the Bellicose may be my go-to Cruiser. Good speed, decent damage + projection. The Stabber though. I'm quite sad about the state of the Stabber. It may have it's place for a new player in a nano-fleet or something like that, but by itself, it's basically garbage. I skirmished with it against a larger gang of cruisers, and a Thrasher, and going after the Thrasher, landing good hits, he wasn't all that close to dying when I had to warp out due to the rest of the gang getting close, and nearly being out of cap. I later lost it due to :badatkiting: against a Moa (Vexor just whored on the KM, I was as good as dead well before he arrived).
Still need to give the Rupture a real try, it seems like not all that much has changed, so it should still be decent, I'm just afraid it'll have Rifter syndrome, and be out-classed by all it's competition (and we don't have the Stabber to be the Slasher, and be a viable alternative).
It's been a fun few days.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Monday, 3 December 2012
Expensive Battleships
Saturday night, just got back from grabbing a bite of dinner out of pod, when I saw Sadie the Goat mention "Raven Navy Issue" on scan on Iges, towards a moon with a tower, and no forcefield.With my alt out of system, I decided to bring him in and just be sure where they were. Coming into Iges, it was sat on the gate, 40km off with it's tech 1 drones deployed.
Rather unsure of what I had that could take it, I decided to grab my Cyclone, as the ASB nerf is coming up and I'm unsure of it's fit. Warping to the gate at range, I landed nearly next to the battleship, and locked it up seeing what it would do. Sure enough, it returned the lock, and opened fire. Soon though, the overview was lighting up. Nemesis, Scorpion Navy Issue, Cyclone. All were right there, though the damage wasn't too high, I took the blue-pill from my carghohold just in case. Mostly worried about the Nemesis at this point, I was yet unable to lock it, with it hitting me from over 60km away, but I was in luck, as he burned towards me and I could lock him, and set my drones on him.
Turning my attention back to the Raven, I overheated the top rack, trying to break his shields as quickly as I could. Looking back at the overview, I noticed the Nemesis was right next to me, and deep into armor. Taking my web and scram off the Raven, I put them on the Nemesis to ensure its destruction. Back on the first Battleship, I looked over at my still overheated guns, and tried to turn off the heat, too late. They deactivated from the damage. Ungrouping the guns, it showed they were completely burnt, not a single one left. Faced with only drone damage to try and break these ships, I made the call to eject after I had burned a couple more charges in my Ancillary Shield Booster, leaving the ship with four charges left sadly. As I docked up and jumped into my Vagabond, I got the Insurance Eve-mail. Warping back to the gate, the Cyclone had left, but both of the expensive Battleships were still there.
Going back to work on the Raven, who I had put into half armor previously, it took much longer than I expected for it to drop. Turning my attention to the Scorpion Navy Issue after that, the Cyclone came back. Through some piloting error, it got next to me, and alpha'd my capacitor. Turned out it was completely neut fit. With no cap to keep the Scorp locked down, it stuck around a while longer, getting into low-armor before warping out. Figuring a Cyclone to be a good runner up for a Scorpion, I turned my fire to him, though expecting it to warp out before I could kill it, as I was unable to maintain point. Updating my short-range D-scan, the SNI was back on scan, and sure enough landed 40km off again. With the Cyclone deciding to just stop near the gate, it allowed me to burn out of neut range, and get some cap to pin down the Scorpion. The Cyclone then proceeded to jump out of system, and leave me to finish the more expensive battleship (Repo.'s killboard doesn't like the lock-breaker module yet).
While all but the Nemesis pilot were really new from what I recall, and none of them are well fit (other than the Nem), it was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Eve. Nearly the most ISK I've killed in a fight also.
On other things related to the game, I'm pretty excited for Retribution. I've been training up my missile skills to a decent degree, so I'll probably be flying HAM Bellicose/Drakes soon. I'm really interested to see how the Stabber turns out. I've got a number of hulls to experiment with, so it should be good. Going to be training up rockets next for the Talwar, and I'll probably end up training Caldari and Amarr frigate to 5 afterwards, get a few more ships into the fold.
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Rather unsure of what I had that could take it, I decided to grab my Cyclone, as the ASB nerf is coming up and I'm unsure of it's fit. Warping to the gate at range, I landed nearly next to the battleship, and locked it up seeing what it would do. Sure enough, it returned the lock, and opened fire. Soon though, the overview was lighting up. Nemesis, Scorpion Navy Issue, Cyclone. All were right there, though the damage wasn't too high, I took the blue-pill from my carghohold just in case. Mostly worried about the Nemesis at this point, I was yet unable to lock it, with it hitting me from over 60km away, but I was in luck, as he burned towards me and I could lock him, and set my drones on him.
Turning my attention back to the Raven, I overheated the top rack, trying to break his shields as quickly as I could. Looking back at the overview, I noticed the Nemesis was right next to me, and deep into armor. Taking my web and scram off the Raven, I put them on the Nemesis to ensure its destruction. Back on the first Battleship, I looked over at my still overheated guns, and tried to turn off the heat, too late. They deactivated from the damage. Ungrouping the guns, it showed they were completely burnt, not a single one left. Faced with only drone damage to try and break these ships, I made the call to eject after I had burned a couple more charges in my Ancillary Shield Booster, leaving the ship with four charges left sadly. As I docked up and jumped into my Vagabond, I got the Insurance Eve-mail. Warping back to the gate, the Cyclone had left, but both of the expensive Battleships were still there.
Going back to work on the Raven, who I had put into half armor previously, it took much longer than I expected for it to drop. Turning my attention to the Scorpion Navy Issue after that, the Cyclone came back. Through some piloting error, it got next to me, and alpha'd my capacitor. Turned out it was completely neut fit. With no cap to keep the Scorp locked down, it stuck around a while longer, getting into low-armor before warping out. Figuring a Cyclone to be a good runner up for a Scorpion, I turned my fire to him, though expecting it to warp out before I could kill it, as I was unable to maintain point. Updating my short-range D-scan, the SNI was back on scan, and sure enough landed 40km off again. With the Cyclone deciding to just stop near the gate, it allowed me to burn out of neut range, and get some cap to pin down the Scorpion. The Cyclone then proceeded to jump out of system, and leave me to finish the more expensive battleship (Repo.'s killboard doesn't like the lock-breaker module yet).
While all but the Nemesis pilot were really new from what I recall, and none of them are well fit (other than the Nem), it was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Eve. Nearly the most ISK I've killed in a fight also.
On other things related to the game, I'm pretty excited for Retribution. I've been training up my missile skills to a decent degree, so I'll probably be flying HAM Bellicose/Drakes soon. I'm really interested to see how the Stabber turns out. I've got a number of hulls to experiment with, so it should be good. Going to be training up rockets next for the Talwar, and I'll probably end up training Caldari and Amarr frigate to 5 afterwards, get a few more ships into the fold.
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Brawling in Saikamon
So, with some discussions among the corp as to possibly moving to a new area of space for a while, it came up that there were some good looking systems out in the Bleak Lands to possibly check out. Feeling the need to get out of Placid for a while, I right away offered to check the area out. Grabbing what I needed, and heading out in my Wolf yesterday, I had a rather uneventful trip out. The first while I was in the area, I just wrote some reports on activity, and the local groups, but didn't look for any fights.
Today though, while sitting in station in Saikamon, I saw that there were a few more people in local. Deciding to check what was outside, I undocked, seeing a Cormorant, and Enyo on scan. The Enyo seemed to be towards the sun, but by the time I warped out there, he was gone, and both were on scan at a FW Major complex. Warping there, had the Corm sitting 40km off the gate, and the Enyo nowhere to be seen. Going though into the complex, the Enyo still wasn't there, so I warped back out, and came back for the Cormorant. Warping at range this time, I still landed around 40km off the Cormorant, but went for it this time. Figuring it was a rail-rant, I kept transversal as high as I could, though I wasn't sure how much good it'd do. He let me spiral in close, and never activated any prop mod, and his tank didn't last.
With short-range scan showing a Caracal, Thrasher, and the Enyo, I figured I had better bug out. Warping to my safe spot near the sun, I repaired my guns from heat damage while keeping an eye on scan, and where these guys were. The Thrasher and Enyo were at the sun, looking for me it seemed, so I warped at max range to get a good look at them. Blasters, and artillery. Warping at range to a planet, I hoped the Thrasher may land on top of me. Sure enough, waiting a little has the Thrasher right on top of me. He scratched me with a couple volleys, but not too much damage as his guns couldn't track, and the second destroyer popped.
With the Enyo landing on grid, I wasn't sure about fighting him yet with the Caracal around, so I warped back to my safe, and waited to see what they would do. With the Enyo still at the same planet, and the Caracal elsewhere, I warped back to the planet, to see the Enyo just over 100km off of my warp-in.
Hitting the afterburner and heading out towards him, he did the same, locking each other up, I opened fire just under 20km landing some glancing blows. I missed my normal timing to try burn away from him and keep range as large as possible, and soon he had his web on me. Overheated guns, point, and afterburner, I tried to open up as much space between his blasters and my hull as possible, with him already taking armor damage before even hitting me, I was already in good shape. Overheating the rep, I didn't turn it on nearly quick enough, and saw massive chunks of my all-too-thin armor get blasted away. With his ship taking structure damage already I was fairly confident, but didn't want to keep range at all yet. My armor repair getting a couple of cycles in, it was enough to drop him before any damage made it to my own structure.
With the Caracal on scan, I bookmarked the wreck, and got out before I was at any risk, and when the Cruiser wasn't on scan towards that planet anymore, went back and grabbed my loot. A good first time in the area.
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Today though, while sitting in station in Saikamon, I saw that there were a few more people in local. Deciding to check what was outside, I undocked, seeing a Cormorant, and Enyo on scan. The Enyo seemed to be towards the sun, but by the time I warped out there, he was gone, and both were on scan at a FW Major complex. Warping there, had the Corm sitting 40km off the gate, and the Enyo nowhere to be seen. Going though into the complex, the Enyo still wasn't there, so I warped back out, and came back for the Cormorant. Warping at range this time, I still landed around 40km off the Cormorant, but went for it this time. Figuring it was a rail-rant, I kept transversal as high as I could, though I wasn't sure how much good it'd do. He let me spiral in close, and never activated any prop mod, and his tank didn't last.
With short-range scan showing a Caracal, Thrasher, and the Enyo, I figured I had better bug out. Warping to my safe spot near the sun, I repaired my guns from heat damage while keeping an eye on scan, and where these guys were. The Thrasher and Enyo were at the sun, looking for me it seemed, so I warped at max range to get a good look at them. Blasters, and artillery. Warping at range to a planet, I hoped the Thrasher may land on top of me. Sure enough, waiting a little has the Thrasher right on top of me. He scratched me with a couple volleys, but not too much damage as his guns couldn't track, and the second destroyer popped.
With the Enyo landing on grid, I wasn't sure about fighting him yet with the Caracal around, so I warped back to my safe, and waited to see what they would do. With the Enyo still at the same planet, and the Caracal elsewhere, I warped back to the planet, to see the Enyo just over 100km off of my warp-in.
Hitting the afterburner and heading out towards him, he did the same, locking each other up, I opened fire just under 20km landing some glancing blows. I missed my normal timing to try burn away from him and keep range as large as possible, and soon he had his web on me. Overheated guns, point, and afterburner, I tried to open up as much space between his blasters and my hull as possible, with him already taking armor damage before even hitting me, I was already in good shape. Overheating the rep, I didn't turn it on nearly quick enough, and saw massive chunks of my all-too-thin armor get blasted away. With his ship taking structure damage already I was fairly confident, but didn't want to keep range at all yet. My armor repair getting a couple of cycles in, it was enough to drop him before any damage made it to my own structure.
With the Caracal on scan, I bookmarked the wreck, and got out before I was at any risk, and when the Cruiser wasn't on scan towards that planet anymore, went back and grabbed my loot. A good first time in the area.
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Carrier down! and ~goodfites~
This game just keeps getting better. Though this month started with my most expensive loss to date, it's come back, and I'm over 75% efficiency when I post this. Most of that though, came at one time.
I did some null-sec roaming a little while back, with a stock of Ruptures that I had earmarked to lose out there. While mostly unsuccessful I grabbed a Crow out of a Frigate gang, along with nearly a Hawk before the Kitsune was able to jam me, and I ran. Soon later I lost that rupture as I was expecting a Stiletto to actually try tackle me, but instead he provided a warp-in for the rest of his gang who were ~70 from me, but the Stiletto got out to range.
More recently though, while in Amasiree I noticed a couple players from Forsaken Federation leaving system, but not being in the rest of the local systems. Letting Superpooper and Vulturus know about it, I brought my prober out and scanned down the wormholes in system. The first one I checked, sure enough the Talos and Retriever I had seen were in the Wormhole there. As we all warped to the hole, the Talos came back to the hole, while I was sitting there with my cloaky alt. We were all waiting for him, with a Hurricane, Malediction, and Falcon. The Talos jumped through, and soon enough was locked down, didn't move and I'm guessing never had a chance to lock as we dropped him. Before long, the Retriever tried to get through too, but managed to get out. We all added him to watch list as we noticed him log out, and within about 15 minutes he was back on. All of us warping back to the hole, we didn't make any mistakes this time, and dropped his barge, and pod.
Heading back home after that, I noticed a Chimera on scan, and jokingly asked if anyone wanted to go for it. Sure enough, Andrejs, from Ninja Unicorns was interested. With Super getting a cyno ready, I probed out the Chimera, and went for tackle. Landing 100 off in the mission, it was pre-aligned and warped off.
Andrejs wasn't done with that though, sending a cloaky alt over, he parked it in the mission and we all left system. Soon enough the Chimera came back in, and he tackled it. For reasons I can't explain, I had jumped into a Rupture, instead of anything heavier for this. Warping in and getting tackle, the his cloaky alt had to warp out, as he couldn't light a cyno in the mission, and they bridged in multiple Armageddon Navy Issues, and regular Armageddons. As the Carrier's shields were running out Andrejs said in fleet that there's incoming backup so heat everything. Sure enough, members of Deadly Intent, a former Ninja Unicorns corp came in. As it turns out, the corp that (wasn't blue to Unicorns) the Carrier was in, is an alt corp of Deadly Intent. They soon drop my Rupture, and Superpooper's Pilgrim, but don't manage to save the Chimera.
So, that was my first Capital (and Repo.'s first cap kill), along with Pug's too I think. There was lots of drama in local afterwards as D.Int is apparently still set blue to Ninja Unicorns.
A couple days later, I was back in the Amoen/Avaux loop, seeing if any Malum or Forsaken wanted to play. Being in my Artillery Dramiel, I was hoping that they'd send out some fast tackle for me to play with, and at first that didn't happen. Instead, all I got at first was a sniper Talos and Oracle.
Eventaully Icon OClast came with his Ares trying to tackle me on station with some other ships around, but after a couple volleys he seemed to want to get back to the station and dock, but being in an untanked interceptor didn't do him any favours there.
Docking up and going for a while, I came back, and Civus Caldara was there with a Crow, on station. As more and more of them undocked, and we warped around a bit, Civus never really seemed interested in coming after me. With about 5 of them on grid though, he finally went for tackle. As he came in I got a couple volleys on him, but while trying to keep decent range from the rest of his gang, I let him get a scram on me. Watching his friends close in, I was worried. My drones were doing the best they could to avoid the demise of my Dramiel, as he orbited close, and my arties had trouble landing decent hits. His rockets started to chew through my minor shield buffer, and I had to start blowing through my cap, using my shield rep. Sure enough though, the first couple volleys that I had landed let my drones finish the job, and let me GTFO before his friends arrived.
After that, I played around with them a while longer, getting Phjil's Eris down fairly far a couple of times before getting out of lock range, and running to avoid the rest of his friends, before they brought logistics out, and I figured discretion to be the better part of valour in that situation.
It's been an interesting couple weeks. I'm really starting to get amped for the expansion and having new ships to fly, along with the HAM changes. I've pushed HAMs to the front of my training queue for a while now, and should have t2 trained, with decent support skills before the patch hits. I've already picked up a bunch of Stabbers and Bellicose' to play around with once the time comes, and there's a good chance that I'll end up grabbing a couple Drakes also. With the removal of the penalty for t2 missiles, Javelin's on the Stabber may be a good bet. It'll be cool to fly a few more ships again.
Another thing that I'll probably train sooner rather than later now is Command Ships, as I realized I'm 10 days out from being able to get into a Sleipnir. I really do have a bad case of "Ooh Shiny!"
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
I did some null-sec roaming a little while back, with a stock of Ruptures that I had earmarked to lose out there. While mostly unsuccessful I grabbed a Crow out of a Frigate gang, along with nearly a Hawk before the Kitsune was able to jam me, and I ran. Soon later I lost that rupture as I was expecting a Stiletto to actually try tackle me, but instead he provided a warp-in for the rest of his gang who were ~70 from me, but the Stiletto got out to range.
More recently though, while in Amasiree I noticed a couple players from Forsaken Federation leaving system, but not being in the rest of the local systems. Letting Superpooper and Vulturus know about it, I brought my prober out and scanned down the wormholes in system. The first one I checked, sure enough the Talos and Retriever I had seen were in the Wormhole there. As we all warped to the hole, the Talos came back to the hole, while I was sitting there with my cloaky alt. We were all waiting for him, with a Hurricane, Malediction, and Falcon. The Talos jumped through, and soon enough was locked down, didn't move and I'm guessing never had a chance to lock as we dropped him. Before long, the Retriever tried to get through too, but managed to get out. We all added him to watch list as we noticed him log out, and within about 15 minutes he was back on. All of us warping back to the hole, we didn't make any mistakes this time, and dropped his barge, and pod.
Heading back home after that, I noticed a Chimera on scan, and jokingly asked if anyone wanted to go for it. Sure enough, Andrejs, from Ninja Unicorns was interested. With Super getting a cyno ready, I probed out the Chimera, and went for tackle. Landing 100 off in the mission, it was pre-aligned and warped off.
Andrejs wasn't done with that though, sending a cloaky alt over, he parked it in the mission and we all left system. Soon enough the Chimera came back in, and he tackled it. For reasons I can't explain, I had jumped into a Rupture, instead of anything heavier for this. Warping in and getting tackle, the his cloaky alt had to warp out, as he couldn't light a cyno in the mission, and they bridged in multiple Armageddon Navy Issues, and regular Armageddons. As the Carrier's shields were running out Andrejs said in fleet that there's incoming backup so heat everything. Sure enough, members of Deadly Intent, a former Ninja Unicorns corp came in. As it turns out, the corp that (wasn't blue to Unicorns) the Carrier was in, is an alt corp of Deadly Intent. They soon drop my Rupture, and Superpooper's Pilgrim, but don't manage to save the Chimera.
So, that was my first Capital (and Repo.'s first cap kill), along with Pug's too I think. There was lots of drama in local afterwards as D.Int is apparently still set blue to Ninja Unicorns.
A couple days later, I was back in the Amoen/Avaux loop, seeing if any Malum or Forsaken wanted to play. Being in my Artillery Dramiel, I was hoping that they'd send out some fast tackle for me to play with, and at first that didn't happen. Instead, all I got at first was a sniper Talos and Oracle.
Eventaully Icon OClast came with his Ares trying to tackle me on station with some other ships around, but after a couple volleys he seemed to want to get back to the station and dock, but being in an untanked interceptor didn't do him any favours there.
Docking up and going for a while, I came back, and Civus Caldara was there with a Crow, on station. As more and more of them undocked, and we warped around a bit, Civus never really seemed interested in coming after me. With about 5 of them on grid though, he finally went for tackle. As he came in I got a couple volleys on him, but while trying to keep decent range from the rest of his gang, I let him get a scram on me. Watching his friends close in, I was worried. My drones were doing the best they could to avoid the demise of my Dramiel, as he orbited close, and my arties had trouble landing decent hits. His rockets started to chew through my minor shield buffer, and I had to start blowing through my cap, using my shield rep. Sure enough though, the first couple volleys that I had landed let my drones finish the job, and let me GTFO before his friends arrived.
After that, I played around with them a while longer, getting Phjil's Eris down fairly far a couple of times before getting out of lock range, and running to avoid the rest of his friends, before they brought logistics out, and I figured discretion to be the better part of valour in that situation.
It's been an interesting couple weeks. I'm really starting to get amped for the expansion and having new ships to fly, along with the HAM changes. I've pushed HAMs to the front of my training queue for a while now, and should have t2 trained, with decent support skills before the patch hits. I've already picked up a bunch of Stabbers and Bellicose' to play around with once the time comes, and there's a good chance that I'll end up grabbing a couple Drakes also. With the removal of the penalty for t2 missiles, Javelin's on the Stabber may be a good bet. It'll be cool to fly a few more ships again.
Another thing that I'll probably train sooner rather than later now is Command Ships, as I realized I'm 10 days out from being able to get into a Sleipnir. I really do have a bad case of "Ooh Shiny!"
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Back loving the Wolf
As the title says, this week I decided to start flying my old favorite more again, and I started taking my Wolf out more often, and it's been far from disappointing.
Since I've been able to fly larger ships, I've constantly been gravitating towards flying them, and I've put a lot of time in my Ruptures/Hurricanes, and had put most ships to the wayside (other then the arty-thrasher, which I flew when I wanted something smaller) and my Dramiel, which met it's end.
This week in my Wolf, I'm 6-0, all of the fights 1v1 (with two of them being somewhat arranged beforehand).
Started with Simon Pirodet. I landed on the Dastryns gate, about to head out roaming, when he came through in a Jaguar. He was flashy-red, so I right away went to engage. Pulling a little range, hoping he'd chase me after I aggressed, he warped off (I assume to load a better ammo-type). After a little chatting in local, we met at the sun and started our fight in earnest. I had been waiting there, and burned a little off the warp in. Locking and opening fire from around 20km, my "Kiting to be caught" fit (stolen from Ava Starfire) did what it was supposed to, starting to land some hits from that range. I closed in carefully, trying to stay out of overheated web range as long as I could, while whittling away on his shields. The entire time he wasn't hitting me all too hard. Finally feeling it was a good time to commit, when his shields were running low, and my armor was just starting to show some wear, I jumped in for the kill. He got his pod out, which conveniently he went to the station I call home. I warped there, and noticed he was self-destructing, so I took a pot-shot at it to whore on the killmail. It turns out he's also a regular in the Bringing Solo Back channel, which got me another fight with him later.
The day after, I was able to get on much earlier then usual and figured taking the Wolf through some FW areas (and running the static 1/10s in Placid) could be fun. Getting into Intaki, I saw Daniel Alpena, who is usually good for a fight, and usually flying a Catalyst, and he did not disappoint. Catching up to him at a Planet (he seemed to be waiting for me) I set my orbit out to the edge of scram range, and hoped I'd have the damage to break him sooner then he broke me, which I did. Ended taking some armor damage, but my rep soon took care of that.
While waiting for the nanite past to finish repairing my modules, I noticed a Cruor on scan, which I figured wouldn't want to fight, but I warped to the Faction Warefare outpost just in case. Seeing him on scan towards a planet with no stations, I warped there, only to find nothing. Scanning back towards the outpost I had just left, he was there, seems like he does want to fight.
Warping in, and landing nearly on top of him once through the acceleration gate, I overheated ALL the things, and hoped I'd at least keep my scram running with my nosferatu, as I didn't expect that his lasers would be too much of a threat. Sure enough all went as planned, I was able to keep him scrambled as my autocannons tore through his armor and structure. All this time, Simon Pirodet and I had been chatting, and he had been working his way over to get a rematch with a Harpy. As I finished off the Cruor, he came into system. So I dropped off my loot in a safe spot, repaired my damage, and warped to the sun. This time he knew how I flew this Wolf, and I was expecting a much tougher fight. He didn't disappoint.
Landing 30 off of him like I expected, I aligned somewhat away from him, but he never approached directly. starting to burn at an angle towards him, I kept a close watch until I was able to start landing decent shots, and right away started burning away. Range closed a little too much though, and he was able to get his web on me and reel me in. His shields dropped fast, taking big chunks with every volley, just to see them rep up again. My own shields were depleted quickly, and soon my overheated armor rep was going full tilt, and not nearly keeping up. My own DPS was higher then his ASB repping, with a little bit more armor damage peeking through between each cycle. Thinking I was probably going to be on the losing side of this battle, finally his reps gave out, with me having to cycle my own whenever I had cap. Blasting through his armor, and structure, the extra couple cycles from my rep kept me alive, with fire trailing from my hull. That was definitely a fight for the ages.
The last fight I've gotten with the Wolf isn't really one that was all that special. Heading back out to the 1/10 in Oicx, there was an Exodus. gang on the gate from Vlillirier, with a Retribution, and some larger ships. Jumping and warping straight to the 1/10, which only allows frigates, I activated the gate, and burned a little off the warp-in. With the Retribution following me, I locked and began firing as I burned away, in turn to see him burn away from me, at MWD speed. Getting around 40km from each other, I went towards him, overheated my AB and scram, and landed it, and that was about all she wrote. Not activating my armor rep, I was at around 75% armor when he went down. Not sure what laser boats are really thinking going after Minmatar t2, but I won't complain at all.
Definitely glad I decided to jump back into this frigate. Most of my fights of late in the larger hulls have been no more then ganks, so this is a very welcome change.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Since I've been able to fly larger ships, I've constantly been gravitating towards flying them, and I've put a lot of time in my Ruptures/Hurricanes, and had put most ships to the wayside (other then the arty-thrasher, which I flew when I wanted something smaller) and my Dramiel, which met it's end.
This week in my Wolf, I'm 6-0, all of the fights 1v1 (with two of them being somewhat arranged beforehand).
Started with Simon Pirodet. I landed on the Dastryns gate, about to head out roaming, when he came through in a Jaguar. He was flashy-red, so I right away went to engage. Pulling a little range, hoping he'd chase me after I aggressed, he warped off (I assume to load a better ammo-type). After a little chatting in local, we met at the sun and started our fight in earnest. I had been waiting there, and burned a little off the warp in. Locking and opening fire from around 20km, my "Kiting to be caught" fit (stolen from Ava Starfire) did what it was supposed to, starting to land some hits from that range. I closed in carefully, trying to stay out of overheated web range as long as I could, while whittling away on his shields. The entire time he wasn't hitting me all too hard. Finally feeling it was a good time to commit, when his shields were running low, and my armor was just starting to show some wear, I jumped in for the kill. He got his pod out, which conveniently he went to the station I call home. I warped there, and noticed he was self-destructing, so I took a pot-shot at it to whore on the killmail. It turns out he's also a regular in the Bringing Solo Back channel, which got me another fight with him later.
The day after, I was able to get on much earlier then usual and figured taking the Wolf through some FW areas (and running the static 1/10s in Placid) could be fun. Getting into Intaki, I saw Daniel Alpena, who is usually good for a fight, and usually flying a Catalyst, and he did not disappoint. Catching up to him at a Planet (he seemed to be waiting for me) I set my orbit out to the edge of scram range, and hoped I'd have the damage to break him sooner then he broke me, which I did. Ended taking some armor damage, but my rep soon took care of that.
While waiting for the nanite past to finish repairing my modules, I noticed a Cruor on scan, which I figured wouldn't want to fight, but I warped to the Faction Warefare outpost just in case. Seeing him on scan towards a planet with no stations, I warped there, only to find nothing. Scanning back towards the outpost I had just left, he was there, seems like he does want to fight.
Warping in, and landing nearly on top of him once through the acceleration gate, I overheated ALL the things, and hoped I'd at least keep my scram running with my nosferatu, as I didn't expect that his lasers would be too much of a threat. Sure enough all went as planned, I was able to keep him scrambled as my autocannons tore through his armor and structure. All this time, Simon Pirodet and I had been chatting, and he had been working his way over to get a rematch with a Harpy. As I finished off the Cruor, he came into system. So I dropped off my loot in a safe spot, repaired my damage, and warped to the sun. This time he knew how I flew this Wolf, and I was expecting a much tougher fight. He didn't disappoint.
Landing 30 off of him like I expected, I aligned somewhat away from him, but he never approached directly. starting to burn at an angle towards him, I kept a close watch until I was able to start landing decent shots, and right away started burning away. Range closed a little too much though, and he was able to get his web on me and reel me in. His shields dropped fast, taking big chunks with every volley, just to see them rep up again. My own shields were depleted quickly, and soon my overheated armor rep was going full tilt, and not nearly keeping up. My own DPS was higher then his ASB repping, with a little bit more armor damage peeking through between each cycle. Thinking I was probably going to be on the losing side of this battle, finally his reps gave out, with me having to cycle my own whenever I had cap. Blasting through his armor, and structure, the extra couple cycles from my rep kept me alive, with fire trailing from my hull. That was definitely a fight for the ages.
The last fight I've gotten with the Wolf isn't really one that was all that special. Heading back out to the 1/10 in Oicx, there was an Exodus. gang on the gate from Vlillirier, with a Retribution, and some larger ships. Jumping and warping straight to the 1/10, which only allows frigates, I activated the gate, and burned a little off the warp-in. With the Retribution following me, I locked and began firing as I burned away, in turn to see him burn away from me, at MWD speed. Getting around 40km from each other, I went towards him, overheated my AB and scram, and landed it, and that was about all she wrote. Not activating my armor rep, I was at around 75% armor when he went down. Not sure what laser boats are really thinking going after Minmatar t2, but I won't complain at all.
Definitely glad I decided to jump back into this frigate. Most of my fights of late in the larger hulls have been no more then ganks, so this is a very welcome change.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Whelping, and the blob.
Lately has been fairly slow, with the exception of a couple rather noteworthy events. Thursday night, we randomly had a bunch more people on then we were used to, so we decided to actually form up into a fleet. Someone asked the comp, and right away the two words Kitchen Sink were thrown out. I felt like bringing something a bit larger out, so I jumped in my Cyclone. We also had a Caracal, Rupture, Arbitrator, Jaguar, Slasher, and Rifter. Call went out as for who would FC it, I offered on the conditions that everyone didn't expect to come home with a ship, and that I'd whelp the fleet. Everyone was fine with that, and it was a real prediction of what was to come.
Getting three jumps from home, into Agoze, Maleficas who was scouting in his Jaguar said that there was a Vexor sitting on the gate of a minor FW complex. I told him to go for tackle, and soon enough we were all in warp to take him out. As soon as we all landed though, local exploded, lots of Destroyers and T1 frigs coming to help out the Gal-Fed Vexor. With the Vexor going down fast, the ships that nobody had noticed on D-scan landed, a pair of Blackbirds, which really were what turned this fight. Not being able to get a lock from right about when the Vexor popped, until I was finally taken down, the last of ours to die, I was effectively out of the fight for most of it, along with the Rupture. Our Arbitrator had been having connection issues all night.
If I say I'm going to whelp I fleet, I do it good.
Today, another great loss. Out in my Cloki, and there's a Harbinger ratting. Couldn't be bait right?\
It occurred to me after I had scrammed and webbed, that the pilot Jordan Frost, had baited us before. Sure enough, local exploded. Ships landed. I lost SP.
Last month was rough. Had a bad start to it, got pretty annoyed with the game for a while, ended up coming back strong and finshing the month with a positive efficiency (which is always my goal). I don't care much what it is, as long as it's positive. That'll be my goal again this month, but boy have I ever given myself a long road ahead of me.
I noticed the other day that I hit a few milestones recently also. Currently sitting at 500 kills on the Repo. killboard (Pods included), so I'm probably a little higher then that on Eve-Kill or Battleclinic. I'm also nearly breaking into the top 10k on the Battleclinic rankings, so I'm pretty stoked on that (for all that it means). It's not something I pay too much attention to. I've been in Repo. now for just over 8 months.
That's about all I've got to write for now, gonna be flying cheaper now, that's for sure. I'm damn glad I've started to come up with a steady income from running various lowsec sites now.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Getting three jumps from home, into Agoze, Maleficas who was scouting in his Jaguar said that there was a Vexor sitting on the gate of a minor FW complex. I told him to go for tackle, and soon enough we were all in warp to take him out. As soon as we all landed though, local exploded, lots of Destroyers and T1 frigs coming to help out the Gal-Fed Vexor. With the Vexor going down fast, the ships that nobody had noticed on D-scan landed, a pair of Blackbirds, which really were what turned this fight. Not being able to get a lock from right about when the Vexor popped, until I was finally taken down, the last of ours to die, I was effectively out of the fight for most of it, along with the Rupture. Our Arbitrator had been having connection issues all night.
If I say I'm going to whelp I fleet, I do it good.
Today, another great loss. Out in my Cloki, and there's a Harbinger ratting. Couldn't be bait right?\
It occurred to me after I had scrammed and webbed, that the pilot Jordan Frost, had baited us before. Sure enough, local exploded. Ships landed. I lost SP.
Last month was rough. Had a bad start to it, got pretty annoyed with the game for a while, ended up coming back strong and finshing the month with a positive efficiency (which is always my goal). I don't care much what it is, as long as it's positive. That'll be my goal again this month, but boy have I ever given myself a long road ahead of me.
I noticed the other day that I hit a few milestones recently also. Currently sitting at 500 kills on the Repo. killboard (Pods included), so I'm probably a little higher then that on Eve-Kill or Battleclinic. I'm also nearly breaking into the top 10k on the Battleclinic rankings, so I'm pretty stoked on that (for all that it means). It's not something I pay too much attention to. I've been in Repo. now for just over 8 months.
That's about all I've got to write for now, gonna be flying cheaper now, that's for sure. I'm damn glad I've started to come up with a steady income from running various lowsec sites now.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
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