Back in the Pod; Russian Invasion of Iges

New Eden is a strange place. There's something about it, that once it had set it's hooks, I knew that I wasn't going to be going back to any run of the mill online worlds. That was true, with one game coming anywhere close to getting me as into it as EvE did. That game had all the piracy I could want, but sadly was hindered by traditional MMO problems (gear > skill) and money-grabbing micro-transactions that lead to a P2W environment (Trion, I'm looking at you). So after a hiatus from any kind of major gaming (and the changes to Alpha/Omega clones, being able to sell SP and all that), I'm back in the pod and loving it.

I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing much blogging, but you can thank the generosity of Sven Viko VIkolander who gave a generous ISK donation (no, I'm not asking for anything of the sort) and some very kind words, I figured I'll start this up again. I'm also setting things up so that I may be streaming some solo PvP and the like at Twitch.TV/Dischordance though I'm not sure when that may be.



With that all said, on to the fun stuff.

Iges has changed since the last time I've been around here. New faces everywhere. I have some vague recollection of Eve University moving into the area, but they seem to have a few members present next door in Uphallant most of the time. The bigger change is a Russian alliance that has moved into the area, The Socket Was Closed. While a small alliance, most of the time they seem to have 4-10 members online in the area, with a mixture of competent PvP pilots, and some newbros as well. While in past days I spent a lot of my time heading over to the Amoen loop and playing with Unleashed Fury /Forsaken Federation/Malum Exuro, I've been finding plenty to do around home with the new neighbors.

My first run-in with them was a Vexor running a Rogue Drone site, that didn't stand too much of a chance. Later that day there was a Typhoon sitting in a large that I decided to try take an Atron after, not expecting anything (I found out later that this 'phoon is a friend of the Socket crew). He kept sitting there after, but I noticed E-Uni come in and go for him with a Domi and few others, so I came in and took a few shots. I had assumed that this Typhoon was better tanked than he was, so I primaried him even with more E-Uni members on the field than not. This turned out to be a mistake as he melted to the Dominix, and I was forced off field by the Brutix and Hurricane before being able to finish the Dominix kill as well.

The following day, the scrapping continued. I was running a rogue site and had them try to finish my Rupture, but ended up dropping an Executioner that attempted to tackle me instead. They struck back though, when I got caught on a gate and ended up firing on a non-flashy (I'm pretty sure my fate was sealed at this point any which way). At this point they still felt fairly confident running sites in their home system, which resulted in me finding more luck at a Rogue site with an Omen.

Lord Veliar, I'm not sure what he is to their outfit, but he's definitely the pilot that I've had the most trouble with in space. I'm a little rusty on the details of our first meeting now, but it didn't go well. I'm pretty sure that it's also his idea that ended up netting me a newb Harbinger kill as attempted bait. After that go there, he chased my Tornado in his Stratios for a while, and I decided to take the fight.

Warping to a Rogue drone site at range to him, I burned away trying to keep range. Volley after volley of his armor got stripped away by the large guns of my Tornado, but over and over it was repaired. 30K, 20K, 15K, his armor nearly depleted, and he starts aligning out. I realize this too late, and attempt to catch him, approaching and overheating my point but it's too late as his cruiser warps off.

A short while later, we go for round two. Thinking I've got it this time, it's seeming to go the same, armor being blown off, and repaired. Distances slowly decreasing. Unexpectedly he makes his move and overheats, catching me and getting into an orbit. From that point it doesn't take long and the Tornado is back to the Minmatar building pile. Talking to him after, I'm not entirely sure if I was that close on the first time or not, as he admitted to having Asklepian implants as well.

While I've had more run-in with them then that, I think I'll save that for another update.

I'm definitely glad to be out there shooting people again.

Fly Dangerous
'Chord

Final weekend in Eve

It's not like I've been that active in the last while, but this weekend will be the final one that I'm online with Dischordant for the near future. Life happened. I've had to cancel my subscriptions, Disco is done next week (while I'm not at home anyways), Stephen's account is still paid into August, so I'll probably carebear a bit, and possibly get a plex for Dischordant, but that's to be seen with how much time I get on.

So with that said, I set out to lose my Typhoon in a blaze of glory. I scheduled a roam with my Repo. brethren, and had a decent turnout yesterday. Sadly, TQ was having issues at the time, and other than a missioning BC gang we didn't get any fights in a fairly long roam. I had to leave right about the time as they reset TQ, and didn't expect to be back, but as luck would have it, I managed to get online just after the servers came back up.

So most of our gang roamed back, with the same luck. I suggested that anyone who wanted to join me should come out into nullsec, and other than a couple gangs much larger than us (we stirred up Moon Warriors, and they brought out faction battleships w/ multiple blackbird support, and there was a gatecamp in Poitot w/ assigned fighters, and multiple blackbirds/falcons), we found nobody that would fight.

Twice we blind-warped to camped low/highsec gates in Syndicate, twice we had the gang that was camping warp off (we had a Typhoon, Cyclone, Thorax, Slasher, Malediction at the peak when we were out there).

Coming back to low-sec, we eventually engaged an obvious hot-drop Arazu on a gate, and Erik lost his Cyclone, and Obsete his Thorax. There was a third-party that was there at the time, who eve-mailed me afterwards saying their Falcon had jammed a few of the gang that hot-dropped us, and that allowed me to get my Typhoon out. So much for losing my battleship on that roam.


So this afternoon I decided to solo-roam in Syndicate. I eventually found a Brutix in a belt and warped in. Landing 28km off with a scram, I turned the unweildly trashcan towards it, to watch him warp off before I could land tackle. Following the pilot to the station, a Caracal undocked, which I aggressed right away, forcing him to dock. With a few more ships warping in, I warped off to a far gate, hoping they were interested. Sure enough they were. Brutix, Oracle, Arbitrator, Caracal.

I had warped to a pounce, but they warped directly to the gate, the Oracle landed first and went through, but the others stayed. I figured that this was a great engagement for me, and went to work on the Brutix. Before it went down, the Oracle came through again, 15km away from me. I started slowboating towards him, as the Brutix had rendered my MWD inoperable. Once the Brutix was taken care of, the Oracle who wasn't trying to pull range didn't last much longer.

Turning my focus onto the Cruisers, I primaried the Caracal. By the time he went down, I was nearly out of armor, but figured things would be fine to finish the Arbitrator. With the Arbi in half armor, a Vexor warped in, so I started aligning out, noticing the Amarr cruiser didn't have tackle on me. With the Vexor 20+ km away, and not pointing me yet, I went for the kill on the Arbitrator, and got it. Hitting warp as soon as it died, I found that the Vexor had just managed to get in range to keep me there. I overheated all the things, but when the Armageddon landed, I knew that this was the end of my first Battleship. I had the Vexor somewhere in armor, but I can't say I paid that much attention to it. BR for the entire shindig.

I was quite happy with how it all went down. Thanks to Userper. for bringing it, and not out-shipping me right from the start, it was a damn good fight.

With that though, I'm signing off for an unknown amount of time.
Fly Dangerous
'Chord

That didn't last long

As of my writing this, my POS is under siege, by a force far larger than I can get together to defend it. I had some acquaintances lined up that were ready to go, but then I saw that the crew attacking had crit the hole, so that was the end of that. C'est la vie, I'll be losing ~1b by the time the dust settles. I got  my Loki out, which was what matters.

I'm not surprised at all though quite honestly, I've been mostly inactive even since I started in the wormhole, it was probably taking more for fuel than I was pulling in from my sporadic site running.

I'll probably be taking a break from Eve for the next while, I just haven't had the want to login over playing other games (Bioshock, League of Legends, World of Tanks). Accounts will definitely remain active, because I need them SP's. My alt is nearly into a boosting Loki, and then I'll probably start looking towards a Carrier afterwards.

That's it for now,
Fly Dangerous
'Chord

Wormhole: Day Two

Well, I can tell you already that daily postings won't be happening.

Logged on quickly before work this morning to make sure my tower was still standing, and to check what the other corp's towers were like. Mine was fine, their was... completely missing.

After work, I got on and sent the CEO an eve-mail, telling him that I wished he had actually stuck to his guns and given me a fight, he then asked if the people that "killed his pos" were called in by me. Turns out that after I had left last night, I'm guessing they kept dismantling the POS, but got ambushed and had a bunch of ships and modules killed by this other gang.

So today was rather slow. I ran my sites, found my new static when it finally came up, which was 7 jumps to Amarr, so I sold my loot, and grabbed a couple things I needed. Figuring I'd check the surrounding low-sec area for a fight, I went roaming in my Cynabal, and found a Drake running an anomaly. Figuring it'd be a PvE Drake, and would be tanked for EM/Thermal, as per the region I was in, I loaded Fusion and went after him.

He was slow on the attack, which meant I got lucky, as by the time I dropped him, I was just entering armor. looking at the killmail after? Fusion wasn't a good choice. Oh well, I can chalk that up to getting lucky.


I still haven't spent much time stalking other wormholes, that's probably what I'll start doing more tomorrow. I had rather limited playtime today.

Fly Dangerous
'Chord

Wormhole: Day One

So, last night I set up my POS, thought I locked myself out, realized I handn't but had let the corp that was there know I was coming, because I was about to buy me a route into system.

Overnight, I received an Eve-mail from the leader of the corp (I'd assume) basically telling me to get out or else. My reply? Have fun POS bashing. They incapacitated a disruptor and one gun, but left everything else alone. At some point during the day, I got a reply to my Eve-Mail, basically saying "well, there's this other C2 we found that you can go into, and we won't attack you, but if you stay we're tearing down your POS."

Finally able to get on and play, Krim and Mal from Repo. brought a couple ships into my POS, and figured we could have some fun fighting off an assault, so we waited, and waited. With them sitting in there, and not outnumbering us, I figured I'd take my PvE Cyclone and run the anoms, while talking to them in local. See if they'd take a fight. Two of two anoms cleared, and salvaged, and they didn't believe I had done any of the sort. Of course, it all happened off-scan from their tower, but they never even came out and checked.

Eventually as I finished salvaging the second site, I noticed that they warped off towards the cluster I'm based in, and thought they were gonna try get my salvager. And then they dropped off scan with their Legion and Harbinger. Before too long, the Legion's pilot was back in a pod. He also warped their Damnation off to the hole not long afterwards, it was then I realized they may be evacuating, but I didn't think quick enough to warp to the hole, especially after seeing it on scan there for quite a while. The static from last night had finally died, and he was probably trapped in the bubble they had put up there. Too late, I warped there, but he was gone.

Probing out for the new low-sec static, it appeared 40+ jumps away (though low-sec, I didn't check through high-sec) from my old base of operations in Iges. For the most part, other than moving the Damnation out into the new system while I wasn't paying close enough attention. With them spending most of the time sitting in their POS, I checked through the other wormholes in system, and eventually back in the low-sec system, noticed a Pilgrim on scan. Telling Krim and Mal, I warped Disco through as I probed it out, and then proceeded to put him back into the hole, and polarize him. Mal then went through the wormhole, grabbed tackle, and they proceeded to ransom the Pilgrim for 120 million.

Other than that, It's been mostly quiet. No kills for myself other than Sleepers. I've made ~45m on sleeper loot (I ran another site later, with them still sitting at their tower, even with this site on scan), along with the 40m that was my share for scanning down the Pilgrim. It's been interesting. I look forward to seeing what these guys do. I'm hoping for some ~goodfites~, though not really expecting them any more at this point.

I may do some daily posts for a while now if things go decently and are interesting enough to warrant it.

Edit: And just as I was about to log off for the night, they tried to get a Mack out of system. Krim and I were able to snag it. Of course Eve-Kill doesn't let you manually post Exhumers though.

Fly Dangerous
'Chord

And it's official

I'm in a wormhole. Everything I need is in there. It's not unoccupied, but I had everything completely setup before they realized I was in. 

I then proceeded to derp, and as I was moving some ships in, I warped to a wrong wormhole bookmark, and was sure they crashed it behind me (as they were running sites on the other side of the system as I ninja'd the pos up). I then proceeded to whisper a member of the 7 man corp who was online, and start to ask about buying the location to the "new" wormhole, when I actually realized I had warped to the wrong bookmark.

No more surprise, but I seem to be on good terms with them. 

Anyways, it's a C2 with a C2/LS static, so I'll be able to roam low-sec at will, while also always having some kind of W-Space to hunt too.

I look forward to the next while.

Fly Dangerous

'Chord

The End

Anyone who's been following this blog, has probably noticed that I've been less than active in the last while. That's somewhat to do with how active I've been ingame, but also that I've just not felt like blogging when I've had something decent happen.

While the title here may be a little misleading, I'm not done with Eve, and I'm not done with the blog. It is the end of the first real stage of my Eve career. I'm at the point where I've finished with Low-Sec Piracy. Within the next while, I'll be finding, and settling Dischord, and my alts into a Wormhole. Starting to do some of the PvE that I really haven't to this point, as well as using it as a base to PvP out of.

I've dropped my roles within Repo. and am leaving on good terms with them, a great bunch of guys to fly with. There's a good chance that I'll still fly with them for their ops, as I'm leaving a base of ships there, and have blue status with the corp. Anyone looking for a low-sec piracy group to join up with, I'd highly recommend them.

For the time being though, I'll be rolling in my alt's corp. Southern Lord Industries [SUNN.] (20m to the first commenter who can say why I chose that name&tag, and how they're related). There's a chance that down the road a group I used to play Rift and SWTOR with are going to be looking at jumping into a hole, at which time I may join up with them, but that remains to be seen.

Going to be interesting times ahead. I look forward to it. The end of one stage of my life in Eve, and the beginning of the next. Hopefully it doesn't take me too long to find a suitable hole.

Fly Dangerous
'Chord

~Goodfites~

It's been quite a while since I've had a fight that really excited me. There's been the odd good fight here or there, but most fights are one sided ganks, one way or the other.

Today though, was the first time in ages there's been a fight that made me want to write about it right away. It started off like what would be normal, I had seen an Executioner on scan in Iges, at a medium plex. I figured it would be someone that'd run right away. With that in mind, I grabbed my Arty-Wolf that had Shadow Serpentis disruptor on it, figuring the extra range might just do it. As I warped in, there was also a Jaguar on scan there. Landing put me right next to the Jaguar on the gate, who warped out before my lock resolved. Executioner was offscan also, so I set about trying to find the Jaguar. After following him and not finding him a couple times, I saw a Harpy on scan towards the plex again.

Warping into the plex, and through the gate, I landed 4km off the Harpy. Clicking away in space while spamming my MWD got me out of scram range soon enough, and I set to work dropping the other Assault Frigate, not really watching local at the time. I mentioned to h0tsauce that I had a Hawk there, and he jumped into a Retribution to come help. The fight at the time I thought was about done, as I was dealing some good damage to the Harpy, and he wasn't able to touch me, or catch me. His ASB did a damn fine job repping though, and it became apparent when I updated my d-scan that things were going to be getting much more interesting. Alongside hoss' Retribution, I had a Hawk and Enyo on scan. Before the Harpy was dead, I had an Enyo to worry about not getting caught by. A bit of manual piloting to keep out of range, and the Harpy was no more, letting me focus my attention on the Gallente frigate, at about the same time as the Hawk arrived, at about the same time as hoss did.


Going after the Enyo, I was able to get a steady orbit without  much issue, he tanked surprisingly well, getting a reload off on his ASB IIRC, partially helped by the fact that I had to reload my guns. The problem was that they were also joined by a Vengeance around this point. hoss had the attention of both of the rocket toting frigates, and lost his Retribution to their combined fire. Figuring that the Hawk which h0t had been softening up would be the better choice of targets at this point, I started once again, and before long had it in structure. While trying to avoid the Vengeance though, the Hawk was managing to pull some range. Correcting my course to try grab a point on him again, I wasn't quick enough. The bigger problem though I came too close to the other hostile, who scrammed me. My Wolf didn't last long past that point.

Having told hoss that I was scrammed, he came in a Maller to try help, but was too late at that point. The original Harpy who had re-shipped, and the Hawk were also back on the gate to the plex, and scrammed him, killing his Maller as I grabbed my Rupture, to go for round two myself.

Landing on the gate, all three of the ships they had left were there. Vengance, Hawk, and Harpy. I was fairly confident though, with dual-webs and dual-180 ACs on my Rupture. After a little difficulty as they scrammed me and took turns breaking web range, I managed to snag the Hawk, and with a little help from the Executioner that had been in the site, dropped him, though still having trouble landing decent hits due to the Harpy's tracking disruption. With the Hawk cleared out, the Harpy came next. Not landing decent hits because of the TD for the most part, I eventually neuted it out and got a couple volleys in, though hoss had re-shipped by this point and was laying into it with a Coercer. More explosions. The Veng managed to run through this all though.

Full BR from our KB is here. We barely managed to break even, though the Serpentis point is unaccounted for, I'm guessing the Veng grabbed it and got out.

The Thrasher was some random that showed up as we were cleaning up the Harpy, and went into the plex, and proceeded to go afk on the warp-in, so I popped him, and podded him (without pointing him) with my drones as I went to loot.

GF Drunk Chaos.

And after I posted this, ended up finding a Maller at the gate of a small plex in system. Taking my Drake out for a spin I went for it, and as usual, bait Maller was bait, though this time only for a single Vexor.

hoss once again provided backup for me, coming in his Dragoon, with the Maller at about 1/3 armor, the Vexor landed, and I made the call to primary it, as it'd be the majority of their damage. It melted.
At the same time though, h0t had taken a real beating (33 hp left in structure) and warped out, so it was just myself and the Maller, who had been pulling range on me. Aligning towards him, it was soon apparent that he was faster than I was, going over 100m/s while webbed, and myself going 40 or so. Spamming heat and hoping he wouldn't, and would let me get a MWD cycle in was no luck as he warped out to a safe spot.

Fly Dangerous
'Chord

1 Year of Eve

I had planned to do a larger post today, but got side-tracked. I'll probably get around to doing a more detailed rundown in the near future.

Today though marks one year from the creation of Dischordant, my main character. Sadly, I'm not all that active in game at the moment. Haven't had the drive to play for the next while, starting to think I may need to change things up and try something new ingame.

A few quick stats though, in the one year that I've played,

694 ships killed, for 43.53b isk in damage
259 ships lost, for 9.43b isk

Best month for isk killed was December, with 8.91b destroyed, followed by May, with 6.6b.

Highest ISK efficiency in a month was July, with 89.23% (4.78 destroyed, 0.58 lost), followed by December (8.91 destroyed, 1.17 lost)

I've been on two carrier kills, The first one written about here, and the second one being during the Tuskers FFA, which I never did write about.


It's been an enjoyable year. Still lots to learn, and lots of skills to train.

Fly dangerous
'Chord

December in Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slasher vs Drake

On voice,

me: "Anyone near Grispire? I'm warping in to tackle a drake"
darmwand: "I'm in Iges with Spar, four jumps out"
me: "point"

Was out running 1/10s in Placid with my Slasher, and came back near home. Figured I'd check the two back systems off of Pelille, and saw this Drake, on scan, with wrecks. Soon narrowed down to an anom. It was only after warping in that I thought about how I would break it's tank.

Landing around 20km off of the Drake, I warped in, and soon had tackle, set my orbit to 1000 and prepared to take out the drones, which... kept attacking the battleship rat. Soon my shields were depleted and I was cycling my armor rep sporadically, to stay nearly topped up. After he realized he wasn't going to be breaking my tank though, I soon found his four angry drones swarming my little frigate. Already having them locked up, I started going after them. Webbing them, and overheating my afterburner to mitigate as much damage as possible, the small buffer that is my ship's armor kept edging lower and lower. Overheating the small rep came next.

First drone popped... second drone popped, armor bouncing between 10% and 30%. I'm able to pop the third drone as he burns through the remaining armor, and take my structure down to 80%, but then, things stabilize. Final drone dies, and my rep brings me back to full. 81% damage on the rep, 82% damage on the burner, but I'm out of the fire. Now to cross my fingers that my help arrives before his does. Sure enough darm enters system with his Ishkur, followed soon by Spar's Brutix.

Inviting the Drake's pilot into our ransom channel I give him the option to eject, or his pod is forfeit, but asking while he's in half shield, we hadn't gotten an answer by the time we had him down to low structure. Holding him there for 10s, we still get nothing, and destroy his ship. Sure enough I call point on pod, and after making sure we've all gotten on, he wakes up in station.

Was nailbiting for a minute there, but that was definitely my best fight in a while there. Shoutout to Sard Caid again (two posts in a row now) for the Slasher fit.

Fly dangerous
'Chord

FW Blapping

Roaming today has been some of the most fun I've had in Eve for a while now. Lately, more often then not I've been flying bigger/more expensive things, but decided that today I'd go roam around FW space in an Artillery Thrasher.


The first one I fit, didn't last long, when it landed nearly on top of a Hookbill at a minor-plex a couple jumps from home. Heading back and fitting another one I went back out, with the first casualty being a FW farmer sitting afk on an acceleration gate. Not a real exciting kill, but it's a start to the day. After docking up to wait out GCC and get a bite to eat, my roam started in earnest.

Working my way out to Nennamaila, (and realizing after a couple jumps that I had things on short-range scan, and probably missed a few possible fights), I found a Catalyst at another minor plex. Warping in, and landing 10km off of him, I hit the micro-warp away, and without taking a scratch on my armor, dropped the other Destroyer. 

With GCC gone, and not able to get another fight in system, before long I landed on an Arbitrator/Executioner on a gate. Turning and burning, sure enough the Arb aggressed, setting his TDs on me as the Executioner chased and pointed me, while around 40km away from his friend in the Cruiser. With two-volleys dropping the Executioner into structure, I was unable to overheat my point in time, and keep in range for the finishing blow, and the Executioner got away. With a Firetail joining them, but the Arbitrator warping off, it seemed like it was over with this group.

The Firetail kept following me though, not aggressing. Warping to the sun, he seemed to follow and was on short-range scan, but never actually came, so I kept moving. After the third gate, of the same thing, he did follow me to the sun, landing at 100, while I had warped to 50. Overheating propulsion, I was soon in point range, while local jumped by two. With the top rack overheated, I started aligning away as the Executioner and Arbitrator from before landed. Overheating the point to keep the Firetail locked down, the last volley landed and I was able to turn my attention on the Amarr frigate, who was chasing at this point. Not repeating the mistake from earlier, I kept the warp disruptor overheated as I went for it, and in three volleys, was greeted by a wreck. With only the TDing cruiser left on field, I was a little worried about the drones that were coming after me at the time, until I saw they webbed me. Turning back around, he soon recalled the drones and warped off, allowing me to loot the field.

After waiting out GCC, and having lots of traffic through system (though I once again had my d-scan on short range, and never once saw them) I made my way to Aeschee, after trying to "warp-probe" a Slicer that was sitting AFK between two celestials, only to have it warp off when I was within a couple million KM.

With some local chatter when I entered that showed there was some activity, I soon found a Rupture sitting on a wreck in the ice belt, with an Enyo burning away from it, which was soon joined by a Slicer. I don't think the Rupture and two frigates were friends, but they weren't engaging either. Trying to get towards the two frigs ended up with the Enyo warping off, and Slicer just burning away. Thinking I may have a chance vs a Rupture, I warped at range to the wreck he was sitting on, just to have him warp off at the same time also.

Warping to the sun when that was all done, hoping for some kind of action, saw me landing nearly on top of a Hyena. Thinking that he was probably friends with the other frigates in system, I overheated all the things, trying to pull some range and blap it as fast as possible, and blap it I did. Two volleys. As I started heading for the wreck, a Retribution warped to the sun, one of the Black Rebel Rifter Club pilots, Ohm's Law's, along with the Slicer pilot who is in the same alliance, Captain John Crichton. Burning at an angle closer to the Slicer, but away from both of them the familiar dance started. Overheat. Warp/Tracking disruptors active. With about three volleys into the Slicer, putting it into low armor, it pulled range and I lost lock on it as the Retribution was nearing. Locking Ohm's Assault ship, I started firing while aligning away. I was less confident with both of them still on the field, figuring I'd have dropped the Slicer before having to worry about him. With him tracking disrupted, he wasn't hitting too hard, but he was still hitting. Pulling some range on him, he got beyond my lock range, and landed some much more solid hits. Being aligned to a celestial already, I took that as a cue to warp out.

With my micro-warp nearly burnt, and guns half-way dead, I let my shields recharge and started to look for them again, but other then a near encounter with the Ret and a Tengu, nothing happened. Waiting out my GCC in a safe near the sun, while paying attention to Sard Caid's stream, I suddenly noticed my overview change. The Tengu had probed me down. Luckily I had aligned to my out-gate, and GCC had just finished. Off I went!

Heading back towards home, I got to Agoze, with Xedam in system flying a Taranis. Seeing a Punisher and Hookbill at a minor plex there, I went after them, hoping they'd be outside for some backup from Xedam. Both were inside, so I told him I'd go in and let him know what happened, if they warped off. As exited warp from the acceleration gate, the Punisher was already gone, and the Hookbill warped out towards the 9 cluster. Warping after him, with Xedam also going out there, we landed and soon it was off scan, with nobody having left. Warping back to the minor, it was inside once again, but knowing he'd probably be waiting on the warp-in, I figured I'd rather keep the Thrasher to fight another day.

Checking Intaki, I found Gulidor in system, and warped directly to the minor plex, which was offscan. Seeing a Merlin on scan as I came in, I was surprised to the Gulidor's Merlin sitting at 0 on the acceleration gate. Spamming activation, I went through and warped off ASAP, not wanting to be caught at close range.

Landing in my safe, while chatting a little in local with him, I noticed the Hookbill from earlier, along with a Catalyst on scan towards the minor again. Sending him a message to see if he wanted to gang up to fight them (with Xedam a couple jumps out now, we really should have been in voice), and he agreed.

Warping back to the minor at 20, they were already gone, so I sat there. Sure enough, while talking with Gulidor, trying to figure things out, the Hookbill landed, 10km off of me. Overheating my micro-warp away from him, I got to 11km before the dual-webs hit, and he started reeling me back in. With my propulsion soon being shut off by a scrambler, it was nearly over. Telling Gulidor they had arrived as soon as I could I overheated my top rack, and had the frigate nearly out of shield (which I should have let Gulidor know) when I popped. It turned out that when he came in the Merlin, he went after the Catalyst, which he got into structure before losing his frigate. 

Good fights were had, and I'm currently auto-piloting my alt to Jita while I type this to grab a couple more Thrashers to do this with. I'm really enjoying that fit, and the fights it can take.

Fly dangerous
'Chord 

A few good fights

After a fair drought from ~goodfites~ and doing some carebearing/exploration on my alt of late (gotta afford all the ships I lose somehow, and I've tried to not sell Plex for a while now), the last couple days have been pretty fun.

Started yesterday, when Spar and Erik, two of our newer pilots were trying to catch a couple of ice-miners in Agoze, a couple times without luck, but with their spot bookmarked, I figured I'd take the Loki out for it's maiden voyage, and we went for it, only to not get enough points on the warp stabilized barges, and having them warp out.

Heading back home to Iges, there was a Megathron out running a mission, which we quickly ganked, nothing too much to write about that. Spar then had to get off for the night, and Erik went back roaming, before too long he told me that those guys were back at it in the belt. Having not bookmarked the site from earlier, I figured I'd take my Dramiel out for a run, so I'd have some speed to get to them if need be. Warping into the bottom of the ice belt, so I could grab a BM from a roid up top near the mining barge, an Atron soon landed on top of me. Burning off and locking, I realized I hadn't set my orbit/keep at range commands since a system crash had lost all my settings. Attempting to manual pilot a 20km orbit around the Gallente Frigate while going at around 4km/s didn't work all that well, and soon I was out of lock range. Good time to fix the settings. 

Soon he was joined by a friend in another Atron, which I start to go after, but still fumbling around with range control on them, I get the first into half armor when they warp out. Having not gotten a good bookmark yet, I stuck around in the belt, trying to get one right at the top, I was surprised when a Brutix landed nearly on top of me. 
Locking, and hitting orbit, I was surprised when I didn't suddenly start pulling range, sure enough my orbit had been set to just over 2km, rather then out to 20km. Correcting this, after eating a couple of glancing blows from the Battlecruiser, and using the shield-booster on the Angel frigate, I was soon in a comfortable orbit, with a comfortable shield buffer again, outrunning the tier one drones. 

While that happened, the Atrons had warped in once again, I had called for Erik to warp in, and he went after the Brutix, brawling it, while I dropped one Atron, who was chasing me, and then the other that was causing Erik issues (I've since told him a few things about proper killmail whoring). Focused back on the Brutix, we were able to drop it without any more issues.

Props to all of those guys for fighting, all quite new characters who are out trying to live in low-sec.


Today, getting online earlier then usual, I figured it'd be a good time to grab my last remaining Slasher and see if I could get any fights with some FW types. Getting to Intaki, I saw a Rupture on scan towards an outpost. Landing on the acceleration gate 10km off the Rupture, I hit the afterburner and got into a tight orbit. Working my way through his shields fairly well, he soon started to neut me dry, and I warped off to the sun, since he had nicely never disrupted my warp drive. Thanking him in local, I landed next to an Incursus, figuring this must be a sign, I overheated all the things and went to work, when I soon realized it was a gun-less button hugger, and figured it wasn't worth the cost to repair damaged modules.

With the Incursus pulling back gobs of armor every time it repped, I got in close and finally saw some structure, as the Rupture landed, while I had next to no transversal velocity. I overheated all the things once more, popped the Incursus, and barely had time to remember about my ASB before my Slasher followed suit.


After some carebearing this evening, Xedam and Vivien were out in Heydieles playing around with a FW group. Having picked off a Tornado before, they were baiting with a Stabber Fleet Issue, with a Caracal Navy Issue, and a bunch of other assorted Cruisers/Frigates/Assault Ships and a Falcon on the other side of the gate. Arriving in system with a dual large ASB Cyclone, Viv called the order for me to warp in and spring the trap. Opening fire on the flashy-red SFI, he started reapproaching the gate, while the gate started flashing repeatedly. CNI. Manticore. Vexor. Hawk. I didn't pay too much attention beyond that, and just locked targets as the Stabber jumped. Unfortunately, by the time he jumped, and I realized I should be focusing elsewhere the CNI had managed to just get out of overheated web range, so I set my neuts and drones on some Frigates, while taking a few shots (that barely landed due to being TD'd) on the Vexor, while Viv melted it. 

Using the blue-pill I had brought, the incoming damage was just higher then a single overheated booster was able to tank, but I soon capped out the Hawk, which was the main tackle on me. As the second booster ran out of charges, point/web dropped from the Hawk and I was able to get ~15km away, but wasn't aligned at the time. Thinking this was a great time to get out/get cap/reload, I started aligning. Suddenly, no targets! In the mess that was my overview, the Falcon had come. Xedam had been going after it, but we weren't on voice, so our communication wasn't the best. I lost the lock on the Hawk, and he burned at me right away. With very little cap to run the MWD, and no way to neut the Hawk off me, I soon found myself locked down once again. 

The first ASB reloaded, and was already pre-heated, but by this time I was already half-structure, and quite unsure. Seeing my structure drop just a little more between each cycle, the Falcon missed a cycle and I was able to get a lock on the Hawk, but without any cap to neut it off. I tried firing at it, to see if my guns would get a few lucky hits though. Structure nearly gone, the pre-heated second booster loaded, but before the second cycle was able to start, the last of the duct-tape blasted apart.

Xedam also was unable to get out, and lost his Thorax, though Viv did escape in the end. Battlereport is here, showing the Tornado from before I was there. Definitely a fun time, would do again.

Fly dangerous

Chord

Risk-averse PVP

I just don't understand it. Why are people in this game so risk averse when it comes to fighting. If they don't have some kind of major advantage, they just don't fight. I was just out running some radar sites on my alt, using a Myrmidon (my alt has shit all for combat skills, needs something like that to run the sites easily enough). Sure enough, I'm getting probed down, and I warp out, bring Dischordant into system for backup if needed. Sure enough, I see the alt of this character come into system also. Clue number one, I should have checked what his alt usually flies. I figured it would either be to probe down/warp in quickly, or links.

I bait at the sun for a while, as I had a friend next door who was ready to jump in, after a couple minutes of that, with probes that came/went, and no action, I left once again for the site, figuring he was probably scared off by being at the sun, and I went about clearing the site. Sure enough probes come back out, and go off scan (taking a while at that too, not the best prober in the world). Clearing a wave of rats, sure enough a Proteus uncloaks next to me, I should have warped out, but figured an armor-cane could stay out of range well enough, and I warp Dischordant in, adding as much damage as I could with my alt. Landing with Dischordant and firing, before too long, you guessed it, a Falcon decloaks, and that was that. I should have warped out with Disco, but I didn't I went for the Falcon, but was still in scram range of the Proteus when my alt's Myrm went down.

As a mostly solo pilot, the amount of people that won't even look at me unless they've got backup of some sort is astonishing. I know this game isn't fair, and people will use whatever they can, but seriously.


Another group I fight quite often won't fight unless they have either numerical, or ship superiority. We came with a SFI/Ishkur, and two T1 Frigates? They come with a SFI/Vagabond, and Battlecruisers. We fight them with 4 Battlecruisers? They bring 6 and a Battleship. I come in a Wolf? I get an Enyo and a Scorpion.

I play for the ~goodfites~ more then anything, but they seem to be few, and far between right now. I don't have a great income, and I know that some of these players I fight probably have more liquid ISK then I've had in game, but I suppose ISK efficiency is the most important thing these days, eh?

Oh well, c'est la vie. Time to fit up another Hurricane, and wait until I can properly play on my desktop again. I won't be trying to dual-box on my laptop after this failed experiment.


Fly dangerous
Chord