Votrian's Eve Blog

Withdrawn from X-7

2010-06-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Despite no official announcement, the Southern Coalition has called a halt on the invasion of Northern Coalition space. With AAA and ATLAS both pulling out, it left the five prong attack strategy in tatters. With the Northern Coalition greatly re-energised, it was inevitable that the attack - already precarious and relying on too many uncontrollable factors, was to fail and fail hard it did.

So the order was given by Mitch Taylor, Dark-Rising's CEO to pull back to Fountain and re-group. There would be other corporation operations planned and the 'fun' put back into play. Hell, we were even going to go ratting! However, I still had ships stuck in X-7 and all spaces in between.

Certainly, Fountain has its squatters and Pandemic Legion are swinging back through Delve and Fountain to cause some trouble and therefore, I hope to be involved. Should be fun.

Our orders are to relax and fill our pockers with isk before we see what else is coming over the horizon. It may even be possible that the Northern Coalition decide to come south. That should be fun.

Gratuitous Space Battles

2010-05-18T08:05:00.001-07:00

Me likey....

Gratuitous Space Battles

ATLAS leaves the front and we go back to X-7

2010-05-18T01:39:00.001-07:00

ATLAS sent an alliance mail and within hours it was leaked.

As I sit in X-7 I shake my head at the news but it wasn't due to any surprise, rather it was with some resignation. Unlike the campaign to take Fountain and Delve, the NC campaign was not well formed at the beginning and chaotic on too many occasions. There was no clear idea of what our goals were and how to do it. 'Kicking NC in the nuts' wasn't going to cut it for me. Of course, operational security concerns aside, it didn't feel 'right' and that most operations were outside of my time zone and too few for the number of alliances we had.

Involving five different entities/alliances (of which not all were ready at the starting line on the 1st April), it would have been a mammoth task for anyone to organise but take a look at the egos/characters of the leaders on BOTH sides and it was only a matter of time before some slight was given or received and then all bets are off.

The attack on H-W failed in its tactical goal of holding NC inside H-W AND the strategic goal of gaining meaningful ground and holding it elsewhere. It is my opinion but am sure it is shared by many within the alliance. It certainly didn't dent NC's morale either. So the SC lost this one. Simple and no amount of spinning will change this. However, there isn't too much doom and gloom or recrimination at least inside -IT-; we're just getting on with the next part of the campaign. Logistical headaches and all that. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this next stage might be. I am quietly confident that we've been re-grouping since the bulk of our forces pulled out of H-W last week and expect more ops this week. The NC is such a big beast, we should have attacked across multiple fronts, spreading their forces and not all ganged ourselves into H-W where numbers DO matter. Even if it was patiently snipping off outlying systems one by one over weeks and months of patient campaigning. Much more preferable than the monster cluster fuck that H-W turned out to be where pilots we're stuck logging in, the node crashed too many times, and no fun was had.

Compounding this, we have PL and friends back in our home system running amok and I was disappointed with how our 'home front' alliances had been performing. In fact, RKK had to relocate back to Delve to properly deal with the situation.

So, as I sit in X-7 I read with interest on the various forums all predicting the imminent collapse of the Southern Coalition.

I am living in most interesting times.

Retreat from H-W

2010-05-14T05:08:00.001-07:00

After losing my megathron, I raced back to X-7 to ship up but was then ordered to stand-down. The NC had rammed a massive number of pilots into the system and it made it impossible to log into the system. Over time, our beach-head POS towers were taken down one by one as well as losing a number of capitals as SirMolle ordered a breakout.

On a wider front, our allies had taken advantage of NC's home defence (distraction) by grabbing some other systems but the prize was going to be H-W as that was NC's staging system. Something tells me that they're not too bothered (yet) about the other losses.

Am back at X-7, morale is still high though most of us are bruised and battered. We're all eager to go in once more and after a few days, am sure I will.

Let's go.

Red Pen CTA

2010-05-06T05:37:00.001-07:00

First station about to fall in PB.

NC and SC

2010-05-06T05:35:00.001-07:00

The war versus the Northern Coalition (NC) started off well but then ground down to a slog. I was now based in X-7 and it appears that after a month, we made gains in terms of enemy POS towers killed but hadn't really moved out of X-7. The timezone for these operations is mainly US based so I am at work or asleep when the majority of operations are called. Still, like everyone else in IT, we're in it for the long run. Dark-Rising was informed that we would be at the front line for 12 months or more so we better get stuck in.

However, Pandemic Legion (PL) - after we kicked them out of fountain is now back harassing our space and Molle has ordered jump clones to be placed back in Delve / Fountain to allow us to respond properly to the PL attacks. Most of my main combat ships are now in X-7 as per orders so all I have is a HAC and a few other recons.

Gearing up for another war?

2010-03-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Dark had been given the Chimera constellation in Fountain - a rich area for miners and hunters alike. Our orders were to kick back, relax and to make isk. We've now put up our own outpost as well, in addition to the one that was already in place in the 7BX constellation and it was a good day to see it being constructed.

I ran back to Empire to check on my R&D agents, all four of them nestled deep inside their respective academic institutions. A quick email to them and when I visited the agents, they all had their latest research available for me. Tightly packed spools of data: tera-bytes of data, schematics and equations. This information is in high demand and I had buyers already lined up.

350M isk later, I jump cloned back to Fountain and joined up with a big Dark fleet and proceeded to run out into fountain to hunt down Serpentis ships. The bounty is rich and plentiful and my wallet started to grow. So did my boredom.

However, there's been persistent rumours that IT alliance and friends are to hit the Northern Coalition (NC), an alliance of alliances based in (surprise) the Galactic North. The Goons, renamed and rebranded have moved into Cloud Ring and right now, are of no relevance. So it is the North for us.

I can't wait but I reckon I will need more isk. Lots more isk to survive for howerver long the campaign will take. Not looking forward to the alarm clock ops or the lag or the ass-numbing waiting at a POS for something to start off.

EDIT:

I didn't post this as there were strong rumours about a new campaign. We had three weeks to make isk and then we would be on the front line for 12 months (?) - I tried to crack 1 billion isk in the time I had available but was unable to. I did have x3 fleet fitted megathrons available and other things. Instructions were sent out and I had to start re-locating most of my frontline ships to a staging area. I left my ratting and pvp ships behind in 7BX.

Looks like the NC is going to be the target and about time. Most of Dark-Rising are sick of the ratting and want to tear into our foe. I would have preferred to target what's left of the Goons, who have continued to break apart amidst tales of backstabbing, shady deals and hurt egos.

My next couple of posts will be from me en route to our target area.

May God have mercy on all of us.

Interesting MH Corp meeting minutes leaked.

2010-02-02T08:24:00.001-08:00

TRI is failcascading and goons only ally now is mostly harmless

Someone leaked a corp meeting from Mostly Harmless.

The fires are burning brightly I see.

2010-01-31T01:39:00.000-08:00

So much has happened in a short time. After my ship loss, I re-shipped into a new fleet megathron but am running low on the isk. There has been very little time to collect bounties, dropped loot or mining in Fountain as the focus of IT had switched to securing Fountain and pushing into Delve to assist -AAA- and friends. The first attempt failed but we were to regroup in Sakht and wait for titan bridges.

I started to sell off even more of my assets to feed the war machine - I can see how easy it is to get bankrupt fighting this war, as enjoyable as it is. Am down to my last 100M isk and need to make some of it back soon. Am even running low on ammunition and the markets in null-sec are poor in most places.

However, a bombshell was dropped earlier this week. First it was a few isolated voices here and there on the 'net and forums. Then they grew louder and my IRC started to ping and the voices became a wave of sounds and from this cacophony, I could make out the following: 'The Goons have dropped sov in Delve!'

I tried to get confirmation and checked the various system maps and indeed, it looked like chunks of Delve had lost the Goon stranglehold. What was this? I asked myself, did fate have a sense of humour after all? Was it an IT spy or a disgruntled GOON? Already, leading elements of IT alliance were massing on the Sakht to 1-SMEB gate and their intent was clear: smash their way into Delve and kill GOONS. I even heard that there were plans to re-take NOL; that fabled station that the Band of Brothers alliance had retreated to as their last stand when all around them was falling apart. Where we really going to re-take NOL?

Then SirMolle updated everyone on the GalNet forums:

At about 04.30 this morning, about 80% of Goonswarm sov dropped due to what they claim, "a faulty game mechanic". It also claimed that that this is due to a "bug". Many are claiming that the sov loss for many alliances are due to "not enough money in the right division in wallet".

AAA + allies have been kind enough to help us with Querious, while all Goons tried hindering us from entering into Delve.

Regardless of which, Delve and Querious are now burning. NOL has fallen after a cap battle over control in NOL.

The battle continues, and will rage on for a long time. The enemy gate is down.

From all of us, to all of you...

Karma is a *****, aint it?

I sat back stunned and re-read the message a second time. Indeed, something monumental had shifted.

The IT fleet piled into Delve while -A- concentrated on Querious and Period Basis. The Goons wailed at the unfairness of their ineptitude (forgot to pay the bills!) and performed a full-scale retreat back to their spiritual home of the Syndicate Region. Goons didn't even want to bunker down and make IT and friends pay dearly for Delve - because it would have been bloody and costly for us and not a forgone conclusion.

There's still plenty to do for us and with Goons departing there's a while host of opportunity seeking corporations trying their luck.

Am relocating more of my ships to a closer Empire staging point and ready for a move into Delve. Ratting and other care bear activities in Fountain.

Fountain and Beyond

2010-01-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

Due to operational security and the need to keep on top of various operations etc; I have been unable to post regularly. Nonetheless, with Fountain now more or less secure - I feel that I have more room to breath and therefore to post an update.

Since late November 2009; IT Alliance had targeted the Fountain region and engaged with the residents and their pets, namely Pandemic Legion and Sons of Tangra. There were lots of alarm clock ops due to time zone differences but the IT alliance steam rolled in.

PL and SOT provided a limited and at times, spirited defence but it was to no avail. IT Alliance was too much and too often. Assumed help from the Goons was not forthcoming and PL/SOT died. Of course, the usual forum shenanigans occurred where PL then said that IT would die horribly but had to hastily backtrack as system after system fell. Lots of tears and rage was to be had.

Anyway, it was fun if not a little exhausting.

I was simply a ship of the line captain in this entire time; flying the megathron as per standing orders and really enjoying it.

Once Fountain fell, it was time to consolidate and at the time of writing, systems are being parcelled out each of the main corps in IT Alliance. Dark-Rising has a nice couple of systems where we will call home and some awesome ratting areas too.

Of course, the drums of war continued to pound and most people assumed that we would turn our attention to Delve. -AAA- and friends had already sent in forces to contest the Goons for control and IT were asked to assist. So this week, I got titan bridged into 49-U in Querious (not Delve!) and got lost in the mayhem of the 1500+ pilots in the system.

I managed to get into a friendly POS and sat there until last night when Mitch Taylor organised us into a fleet and directed us out towards Sakht. IT alliance are not going for Delve at the moment; there's a lot of consolidation required in Fountain as well as taking a break. However, the attack by AAA and allies into Delve and Querious had presented a unique opportunity to us so we took it. Anyway, the node died and despite some frantic efforts by AAA to anchor a SBU, it failed. So, I was left there in 49-U until we could leave and that was with Mitch Taylor. Unfortunately, as I was literally only 500 metres from activating the Sahkt gate, after a 17+ jump journey from 49-U, a hostile bomber force came in and unloaded on us. I and a few others lost our ships and pods just metres from being able to jump.

Am now in Serpentis Prime and looking to move more of my assets to our new home. Am sure that eventually, we'll be back in Delve and Querious soon.

The Campaign for PNQY

2009-11-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

The attack and the taking of some high-end moons from PL and GOONS was merely a prelude it would seem. With some secrecy, I was asked, no ordered, to fleet fit my megathron and pack plenty of ammunition and drones and to regroup at the friendly POS in 6-C. I arrived ten minutes early synching in with the rest of my alliance mates. Plenty from DARK as well as RKK, EVOL and others. There was an air of excitement and a buzz.

As I dropped out of warp; I arrived at the POS and the huge, awe-inspiring form an Erebus-class titan blotted out the sun. It was there, sitting just inside the shields with dozens of smaller ships zipping around it, finalising whatever it was doing. A large fleet of over two hundred ships had already gathered and it was obvious the titan was going to bridge us somewhere. Rumour had it that we were null-sec bound.

Our fleet commander came online and within moments we jumped to a system; largely empty except a large POS tower and the second titan of the night, this time the Amarr behemoth. We were jump bridged a second time to a third location with a third titan! The logistics back bone to set this up must have cost plenty of isk but we jumped again and this time landed at our destination: FOUNTAIN.

I was immediately put into a fleet of battleship class vessels with two more fleets made up of support and scouts. We then proceeded to attack the towers dotted all around this system. The towers were held by an alliance calling themselves 'Event Horizon' (EH), an alliance that rents this part of space from the bigger Pandemic Alliance (PL) or the Sons of Tangra (Sot); not too sure which one. Our orders for the week were finally revealed to us by SirMolle, the alliance leader. They read simple enough, we were going to take this system and for the first week we would knock down all hostile towers and place our own towers. First order of the day were three towers coming out of reinforced and we warped over to the moon and began destroying the shields and armour of the various modules and then finally the tower. After each tower was destroyed, we placed our own - the idea was to try and reuse all enemy towers if possible. The assault was quite relentless with more and more IT pilots becoming available, replacing the ones we had lost.

EH, PL and GOONS tried to mount a number of counter-attacks but they did not achieve the objective of stopping the system slowly slipping into sovereignty neutrality. Once this was achieved, IT, with it's own towers raised over the fallen EH towers, would take over the station and claim victory.

It was exhausting work, alarm clock ops for me on Sunday and Monday (22nd/23rd) had taken more out of me than I had expected. We killed every hostile tower coming out of reinforced, no matter what time zone; such was the number and dedication of the IT pilots. Quite inspiring to be honest. While the various forums would use kill board statistics to accuse IT of losing the battles, our objectives was to take the system and by the end of the second week - we were well on the way to this.

By the 23rd November 2009, IT had 14 towers up as opposed to the zero towers by Event Horizon. We took down their towers and raised our own in its place; we even decided to try and re-use as many of the pos modules as possible. However, the real prize was the outpost in the system - once the out-lying control towers were replaced, the outpost would become vulnerable and we could send our ships and soldiers to eventually capture it. The clock is ticking now and by the 28th November, the outpost (affectionately called 'Yoshimi' by ex-BoB members) will be held by IT alliance.

There's been plenty of drama notably the 'friendly fire' incident where PL destroyed a SoT titan that was piloted by an ex-BoB member. Under the false accusation of this pilot defecting to re-join his former BoB colleagues now in IT; the titan pilot was caught and destroyed. The irony was that IT alliance had a hate/hate relationship with this titan pilot and would never take him back, titan or no titan. More details are here: From EVE-ONLINE (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1217733) - the dialogue is, well - fun.

The War Part One

2009-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

Been on a couple of alliance operations now with IT alliance and it's been fun, informative and at times, exhilarating and boring. Sometimes, all at the same time.

Have refitted most of my ships according to the alliance setups and I am joining in with as many operations as I can, there are daily operations across most time zones. It is clear that IT alliance has the Goons and Pandemic Legion in their sights and they've been attacking the high-end R64 moons of both these alliance over the last couple of weeks. Since I am not a dread pilot (am a carrier pilot, minus a carrier!) - I have been placed either in the heavy or light support gangs.

In one mission, I was in a close-range thorax and we went deep into enemy territory, harassing enemy shipping and having a blast but only for it to end when the FC warped the fleet into the welcome embrace of a station complete with a bubble and dozens and dozens of angry battle ships. I managed to escape but one third of the fleet did not.

A second operation had me in a fleet-fit brutix and we engaged a large Agony Unleashed gang - it was the third such engagement I believe and we eventually held the field.

Anyway, it is 11/11 and I will take a minutes silence in respect.

Stuff

2009-11-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

Been moving my stuff (again) to another system; been about three major relocations in as many months. While I have sold most of my stuff; I have had to buy and more much more as per corporation guidance. PvP ships in Stain all set up and then the order to relocate.

Oh well, no big deal, I just want to get back into the war. Plenty of ops now being arranged. Let's go.

What is IT?

2009-10-13T04:27:00.000-07:00

Finally with some time to update this blog. I haven't dropped off the face of the earth but the last three months in New Eden has been very busy with change upon change. I joined Dark-Rising when I was with the Federal Defence Union and followed DR into Minmatar space and fought alongside the Matari against yet another bunch of fascists, the Amarr.

It went well but the corp had ideas and ambitions beyond just fighting for bunkers and factional warfare and with some secrecy, we were ordered to liquidate as much of our assets as possible and have big, fat wallets and make ready for a trip.

The relocation to Stain was leaked to the various forums but DR arrived into Stain and immediately started hostile actions against Brick-Squad. Most of us had thought that DR would be here to stay in Stain and there was much rejoicing.

Below I include the various jottings during this time, it was never released to the blog but here it is:

The blog has been quiet for a number of reasons of security: Dark-Rising left Faction Warfare and we were sworn to secrecy about our relocation and the organising around it. Suffice it to say, DR along with Rekeiko (RKK) left Minmater space and relocated to Stain. The movement of our ships and equipment was done with as much secrecy as possible using jump freighters from corporations not aligned with DR or RKK. One cannot underestimate the effort that the logistic team in moving millions of tonnes of equipment halfway around the universe.

The journey started with an order by Mitch Taylor to liquidate as much of our assets for isk. We were told to have fat wallets and skinny hangars. It was a good opportunity for spring cleaning and after a semi-fire sale (where most things had to go); I convened at Dabrid as ordered and waited for the first of many titan bridges to Stain.

On the day of the operation, DR pilots gathered together and waited. RKK would be performing the titan bridges and when the Erebus-class titan arrived most of the chatter on the comms went quiet. While the titan class was now a regular feature of most null-sec alliances; it was still something else to see such a magnificient vessel up front and close. Awe-inspiring.

The plan was for Dianabolic in his Erebus Titan to jump bridge us into a target system and then a final jump. However, there was a problem and eventually, the FC decided that the fleet of 60-odd ships was to travel towards 5-J in Stain, through the traditional method. It would be 58 jumps.

So we jumped and jumped; with scouts racing ahead and skirmishers on either side and behind the main fleet - the armada moved steadily through Empire space, then we bade a farewell to Concord and raced through low-sec. Another dozen or so jumps later; low-sec was waved a fond good-bye and we were in null-sec space. Vast, sprawling and lawless. Opportunities await. We still had to keep radio silence for the time being but we got stuck into this particular corner of the galaxy. Fights with BrickSquad and their friends started immediately. We were given a target system to take and we marshalled our resources as best as we could. It looked like a long-term home for us and we all made ready to stay.

However, we were wrong about the long-term stay. In the background, the scattered remnants of BoB/Kenzoku were coalescing and DR has a long history with RKK, one of the founders of BoB/KenZoku alliance. It was with some surprise that a little over two months later, we were given an update: DR was joining up with a new alliance. It had no name nor did we have any idea who were the members but in the following weeks, it was becoming obvious who the other members were. The alliance was christened 'IT' with a sinister looking clown(s) as our motif. i was initiailly unsure whether being associated with clowns is a good idea but with the rebranding and the lovely, eye-catching imagery - most of DR embraced IT.

IT alliance was born and counted Viborg Odyssey, Evolution, Dark-Rising, The Executives (the core from Executive Outcomes) & x13. RKK also joined and it began to look like BoB was back. A quick glance and the alliance pilot total was quite an impressive number - we've become a medium sized alliance quite quickly.

So, the last few missions I had to jump clone back down to Empire to assist with the new alliance mates in removing some troublesome POS. Our orders are to remain in Stain for the time being but there's a strong feeling that the alliance is building up its resources and energies for 'something'. Thank Goodness for jump clones...

Taking the fight and getting it back

2009-07-30T04:27:00.001-07:00

The last month has been thrills and spills. Interestingly, DR decided to change tact and we went into capturing Amarr plexes and we helped the TLF secure Helmah. No idea how long we could keep it secured but at the moment, DR are on a break and enjoying the sun and drinks but we should be back in a week or so.

Dark Rising

2009-07-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks has seen some epic moments: I was involved in the titantic struggle over DR's POS in Taff, this reported by ISD and yes, it was even more epic and fun than the report suggests. Have also been taking part in the Militia fleets, not much plexing but more PvP as the TLF struggles to hold back the Amarr slaver scum, now allied with the Caldari Fascists - who, fresh from 'winning' the low-sec Black-Rise area is now increasingly helping out the rascist Amarr. Bring them on I say. I can't wait.

I was mainly using my taranis for my combat patrols but had to get a new set of ships once we put up a forward base in Amamake. Got a hatful of kills but lost the taranis to a war target, smartbombing scorpion on a gate. It had eight smart bombs and I was pulverised in short order.

DR has a goal, a great leader with a strong supporting cast of directors and an energetic user base.

Enjoying it and looking forward to more fights.

New Horizons

2009-06-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

Reluctantly, I tendered my resignation from The Water Margin (-TWA-) and by extension, the Federal Defence Union (FDU). The militia war would continue but my own objectives had changed throughout the conflict. The fascists had 'captured' all the available bunkers that were held by the FDU and had declared victory. The FDU showed, once again, their disdain for the fascists position and continued to fight the pilots directly rather than contest bunkers that guarded non-essential environments.

However, I wanted something else and realised that my experience in the whole Faction Warfare was down to the presence of a few corporations and pilots and now, many were taking their leave of the FDU and moving on; taking pilots with them. Dark-Rising [-DARK] was one such corp and having flown with and under many of their pilots in my time at the -TWA- / FDU - I decided to follow and now found myself in Minmatar space. They have decided to join up with the Tribal Liberation Force (TLF) - and fight the Amarr slavers; so Dark-Rising and their pilots are not sick of Faction Warfare just the grind of the Gallente/Caldari war. Personally, I think Dark has their own reasons for switching and it is part of a longer term plan. I am not privvy to it but we're changing one bunch of fascists for another and I don't mind a bit.

Luckily, I worked a lot in the Heimatar region before coming back into Empire space and had many ships and equipment stored in this region of low-sec space. Moving into the new home system of Taff was relatively straight forward if not back-breaking: I don't have any jump freighters handy and had to do it manually. Very dull.

Have moved most of my gear and began to refit my ships according to the prescribed fleet setups that Mitch Taylor has laid down. Plenty of T2 goodness I see.

Anyway, a new chapter becomes - my colleague Votrian Gamma is looking after Union Aerospace though many of my dearest friends have long since left New Eden. All except TFAce who I have asked to come in and join us here at -DARK. Like I said, a new chapter and I look forward to the next installment.

Losing some ground, gaining in others

2009-04-27T09:44:00.001-07:00

Due to illness and injury I had to take a step back from the ongoing skirmish (I can't call it war as it doesn't feel like it) - and on returning, I find that OMS and Tama are now 'captured' by the Fascists and they're moving into Placid region at the moment. Checking the kb, nothing has changed much; The Gallente are still killing the squiddies in PvP engagements while the Squiddies continue to roll through and 'capture' system after system.

Well, at least we don't have to wait long until all of contested space is 'captured' by the Fascists...then what?

The War so far.

2009-03-27T05:08:00.001-07:00

After almost two months of faction warfare, I have been promoted to Aegis Commander and the Gallente have supposedly, lost influence in Verge Vendor. The split between how the Caldari and Gallente view faction warfare is as far apart as ever and it's doubtful if both sides can ever meet in the middle.

On the one hand, the Caldari has grabbed 'control' over Verge Vendor - flipping the system and ensuring a semi-permanent presence of Caldari Navy and Caldari Militia pilots. However, nothing else has changed: the stations are still there, services and transport remain unimpeded and apart from the little change in the status of the system map, there is no evidence of any Caldari influence.

In fact, the 'capture' of Verge Vendor didn't even make the news, not even the regional news such is the non-impact of this happening though there was some bandwidth over in the GalNet forums amongst some of the capsuleers involved. While, I am 100% against the fascist Caldari state and their mad dictator, Tibus Heth, I think the lack of any recognition to the 22nd Black Rise, PERVS and CAIN (to name three) Caldari Faction Warfare corporations for their hard work is a tad unfair though not unexpected. Afterall, the leader of the Caldari State is the mad fascist, Tibus Heth. What do they expect?

However, this reflects the odd situation where the Caldari state has asked pod pilots to take the fight into low-security space and then try to secure it by attacking selected military installations and complexes. No effort is made to capture major systems and planets or even the star gates. The war, if one can be called that, operates with specific battlefield areas. The prize being a change in sovereignity on a map and nothing more. It is almost like ritual warfare.

Of course, if capturing systems (I use the word loosely) is the goal of a corporation; then the achievement of this by a corporation is a reward in itself. This is the goal of the 22nd, PERVS and CAIN - they want to change the colour of the map to be more Caldari blue and they're achieving it. In contrast, the Gallente are not as interested in map changes and I know many a Gallente pilot, for example, in Oulletta (which 'fell' to the Caldari Fascists) happily living and shopping and flying in what is now classed as hostile space. There is no discernible change in environment. Not even the service charges of stations change to reflect the will of the fascist provosts.

So what now?

Oddly, there is a call by the Gallente Federation for a concentrated campaign into Black Rise, and this recognition by the Federation has galvanised some sections of the the Gallente Militia into relocating into Black Rise and start seizing Protectorate assets. However, will we do enough to change the map? Probably not. Will the majority of the Gallente militia care? Nope.

I, however, will move to a system in Black Rise and see what I can do.

The war so far

2009-03-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

The war continues and after the euphoria of retaking Alsavoinen, The Gallente Militia lost another nine systems. The list is sobering: Ladistier, Costolle, Hevrice, Muetralle, Jovainnon, Vifrevaert, Melmaniel, Murethand and Iges. The Squiddies, much emboldened, are now pushing onto Old Man Star and Heydialies. Two core systems for the Gallente Militia. However, this has actually delighted the majority of the Gallente Militia rather than shock. To many, it means the targets are closer with less need to travel the long distances!

Thus the fundamental difference between the individualist, idealist and self-centered Gallente versus the fascist, drone-like attitude of the Caldari State Protectorate. The GalMil are still fixated on killing the enemy fascist capsuleer, the fascists however are bent on Lebensraum. Yes, the Caldari are fascists. While I have friends and acquintances who are horrified at the lurge and lurge of their Caldari State to the right; the once-noble Caldari have largely embraced the authoritarian, single-party, dictator-led state apparatus of Tibus Heth. Him and his jackbooted Templis Dragonaurs are now making a mockery of the traditional Caldari characteristics of serving the state and loyalty and hard work.

Now, defending and retaking territory is important to the war effort now. It should be important to the GalMil because it is important to the fascist squids. We should be (and have been) re-focusing on this as it affects the Squids more. The squids are determined, organised and focused on gaining ground and taking our systems. They are taking immense delight at the land grab while the average Gallente pod pilot, slouched languidly on a chair with a limp Gauloise cigarette in his hand merely shrugs and asks, "Where are the targets?"

As I ruminated last time, there are now many more GalMil pilots coming round to the fact that fighting the squiddies for our systems actually brings the fights. The fights that the GalMil so crave.

I joined a 'plex fleet around 00:00 EVE Time and was racing around re-securing the capture points, bunkers and facilities around Old Man Star and Heydiales - after a concentrated effort by the squiddies to take them during the week. Each time, our frigates engaged and destroyed or chased off the fascists; much to their chagrin. On more than one occasion, all we could hear on the GalNet channel was the fascist wailing at us to leave this system, so he could continue to capture the facilities and resources. We laughed and chased him off - what did he think we were?

Within the four hour operation, I had killed a brutix, caracal, blackbird, a couple of punishers and a few more frigates. In one memorable encounter, our fleet of eleven had taken on a fleet of twelve and destroyed their ships, for the loss of one frigate. The pod fascist fleet commander had asked, rather comically, 'we lost all twelve - how many did you lose?' to which we answered 'one....and he was already in half armour and felt sorry for you'. The quality and tactical decision making of the fascist needs some improvement when they're engaging us. However, they have been able to absorb the kills and continue to hammer away at our systems. Their goals are to take space and hold them....and this is what they're doing.

I wonder if the pod-fascists understand that ultimately, they're being used by Tibus Heth and his Templis Dragonaurs as canon-fodder? The occupation of the system doesn't (yet) alter the defensive structure of the system. Apart from near-worthless 'promotions' and medals for their work - what have they gained? The Gallente are a bit more realistic and blase about this and see the bigger picture as unless the fascists capture and control the stargates and planets; they have nothing. Meanwhile, we keep giving them a spanking and we keep losing more systems to them.

Status Quo.

As an addendum, I love the ishkur for this factional warfare. It's the best.

Retaken Alsavoinen

2009-02-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

I was now staring at a shiny medal as I had been promoted to Shield Commander after a hard campaign around Southern Placid - many systems were contested and some were in danger of being vulnerable. However, I am detecting a change in the Gallente Militia as they are slowly starting to rally around some other figures and corporations who have stepped into the vacuum left by FOOM.

Over the time, I have made a network of other trusted GalMil pilots, it is taken for granted that all public militia chat channels have been infiltrated and secondary, more secretive channels have been put in it's place. It was through this secondary channel that I responded to. Without another word, I was linked into a newly formed fleet of about 35 ships and placed into a squad and awaited orders. The fleet was being assembled in a high-security Gallente area of space. Once the majority of the pilots were in place; the fleet moved - the route was long; designed to throw off any pursuers and give a false reading of our destination as half way through - the route was suddenly changed and we did an about turn and burned towards our target system. Our scouts, scattered all around the target system reported no war targets and in the next 15 minutes, the fleet was assembled and I knew our destination: it was Alsavoinon - a Gallente system invaded by the Caldari State. Tonight, we were going to take it back and we roared into this system - setting up gate camps on both sides of the gate while the main fleet of battle ship class vessels moved towards the enemy bunker and proceeded to assault it.

Within hours, the bunker's defenders gave up: the Caldari state could not get enough pilots of ships to defend this lonely outpost and we regained a second system. A third is being eyed up and preparations already being made. We're ready and we're now very hungry.

Taking the fight to them

2009-01-30T05:59:00.001-08:00

In the short time I have been in The Water Margin, I have been thrown into the teeth of Empire fraticide. I have had kills now and so have many in the corporation. Have linked in with many a Gallente fleet made up of capsuleers from all over New Eden. The fleet commanders overall have been quite good with some outstanding ones really doing the business. It is heartening to see many pod pilots of Caldari and Amarr lineage fighting for the Gallente Federation as well; though am sure that most pod pilots see themselves above and apart from the other four races and the majority non-capsuleer populations. Since we are all practically immortal anyway.

My favourite ship-class (for now) is the ishkur-class assault frigate. It is relatively fast, deadly due to its compliment of ten tech 2 light drones as well as a rack of tech 2 small neutron blasters. With my skills, this green-skinned frigate is a monster.

As part of a defensive plexing fleet of about ten or so sub cruiser-class ships; we patrolled around the hot spot of Old Man Star down to Ladistier. Beyond were nominal Gallente administered low-security space but now occupied by the Caldari State Protectorate apparatus. Already, the squiddies were launching probing attacks into Old Man Star in an effort to take yet more territory. We scrambled around blunting the efforts of enemy capsuleers, most drawn from the 22nd Black Rise Defensive Unit - an infamous Caldari State Protectorate corporation and one of many an imitation of our own FOOM. Actually, am being a bit facetious - they may have been a pale imitation but the 22nd and their ilk have really stepped up and re-organised themselves into a focused and well trained unit.

Meanwhile, a large capsuleer fleet led by Mitch Taylor roared through on it's way to Tama - territory grabbing and defending nowhere near their radar: State Protectorate screams and deaths however were. There was a friendly wave from all pilots and then local dropped; the fleet was about 60 strong.

However, I have discovered that plexing like this usually attracts squids like a lure. There's no need to find them - just plex and sooner or later; they'll come. Our effort, meagre as they were, at denying an easy route to flipping the system did attract the attentions of some of the 22nd - one of their member in a comorant-class destroyer coming too close to us who we then casually dispatched at the gate leading into the security bunkers. I hope the Gallente Navy is grateful for our efforts and I eagerly updated the killboard.

I was buzzed by a crow and stiletto class interceptor while I was holding another area solo. They came in close locked me and fired missiles - I sent my drones after them and they quickly bugged out. Content to let me secure yet another site. It does appear that for some of the minor sites; a team of three pilots in destroyers can hold and defend the site quite well: one near the capture point and two near the warp in point to snag, web and dismantle the interloper.

Ten minutes later; there was a call on the fleet channel for assistance - most of the defensive pilots were spread out over three systems so quick reactions were needed. A pirate harbinger was around, sniffing around for any targets of opportunity. He had already destroyed one of our number around an inbound gate so we were eager for revenge. The harbinger was pointed on one side of the gate by one of our lone interceptor pilots. The rest of the fleet, now numbering seven ships of various classes, none bigger than a cruiser hull, waited for the pirate to jump through. 'LuckyPunch' was our pilot on the other side, relaying tactical updates to us.

"Pointed, he's moving towards the gate. Get ready."

We waited and spread out silently around the gate, priming our weapons and tackling equipment.

"He's now within jump range. I am going to fire on him and force him through." Over the intercom we could clearly hear the whooping sounds of missile fire.

"Pirate has jumped. Pirate has jumped. Prepare for tackle! I will stay here to grab him if he comes back."

The gate fired and the pirate held his cloak, no doubt figuring out his best course of action. He decloaked and burned towards the gate.

"There he is - pointed!" Yelled one militia pilot.

"We need to throw a web on him." I said as I too resolved my lock and sent my drones screaming towards the ponderous form of the harbinger. We destroyed practically all of his shields and a good chunk of his armour when the pirate managed to jump back. Meanwhile, on the other side of the gate; LuckyPunch tackled the pirate once more.

"Pointed. He's coming back towards the gate once more. Get ready for round two!"

The pirate returned and once more tried to escape but with assault frigates and interceptors buzzing around the gate - he had little chance and was soon caught by us. This time, we made sure and smashed his battle cruiser to scrap. We missed the pod however.

Great job by LuckyPunch for the initial tackle and brains to stay put.

We continued the evening with a venture into yet more Caldari occupied Gallente space and took efforts to resecure the space and flipping it to contested before we hooked up with a very large GalMil fleet roaring through. These guys, led by some outstanding pilots from the KDS Navy, had targeted a POS that an enemy militia corporation had put up. Intention was to destroy it utterly. I was dropped into a the support wing and held a gate with others in an attempt to lock down the system. We were successful but it took over 2.5 hours and in that time; we only saw three squiddies come through - and we missed all three.

So in one night I experienced a very wide selection of FW experience: from the relatively boring defensive plexing to the more challenging offensive plexing in enemy territory to mass fleet fights. What are my thoughts?

At this moment, territory capture and control is all with the Squiddies. While FOOM definitely saw the tactical advantages of plexing; the vast majority of the GalMil have not. Though I suspect that very soon, this will change and we will be faced with an uphill struggle as we attempt to recapture lost territory. From what I can see the GalMil has a split focus: it is either PvP or Plexing; with the former attracting 99% of the GalMil's atttention and resource. So, it is true that the numerically inferior GalMil is whipping the State Protectorate in most fleet engagements, despite the squiddies have almost 1500 more pilots. Pilot for pilot, the GalMil is better than his Squiddie counter-part. However, the GalMil pilot is nearly always solo or working in small groups. The squiddies tend to work in small to medium gangs with focus and it is this area of expertise that we are running behind the squiddy. Also, while we can amass a fleet of over 100+ at times, 60+ more commonly each night - the sheer destructive potential of this fleet means that PvP will not occur; an enemy with half a brain will merely dock up and let it blow past them.

We may laugh and jeer at the squiddies for turning tail and running but can you blame them?

Once we're gone, the squiddies come back out and nibble away at yet more territory.

The GalMil is under the impression that we can grab back the lost territory easily and while I am confident that we can; I do not for a second think it will be easy. For one thing, the Caldari Navy, brought into a captured system is ECM heavy and therefore makes any attacking fleet flounder if a) we we don't ECCM or b) have more than the navy can effectively jam. Meanwhile, Caldari attacking the Gallente sites only have to worry about close-range blaster boats backed up with remote sensor dampeners.

Anyway, am ranting a bit - seeing more of our home territory falling to these fascists get's my blood up!

A promotion and defensive work

2009-01-21T02:57:00.000-08:00

My rise in the Federal Defence Union has been relatively quick; my efforts and those of Lionsan and Wu Han in securing vulnerable Gallente systems have been recognised by the Gallenete Nation generally and the FDU specifically. No idea whether this rank allows me to order people around but it is a nice rank pin on my uniform.

In Gallente systems, it has allowed me to consume many a free drink and the prevailing of good company. The war isn't going too well however in terms of territory: the Caldari State Protectorate have retaken back the systems in Black Rise that fell to us; undoing the excellent work of FOOM. Squiddies are also grabbing system after system and the worst thing: most of the Gallente aren't bothered and this to me is disturbing.

The squiddies seem to like to take and hold territory, preferring to pit their capsuleer strength against the Gallente Navy. Slowly, this method of encroaching on territory, battling the navy, breaking the system and securing it (known as 'plexing') has garnered them some momentum.

The Gallente capsuleers are forever seeking our PvP opportunities, preferring to destroy their Caldari counterparts in pitched fights and not (it appears) interested in defending our own systems let alone taking enemy territory. This PvP bent has resulted in a very impressive Kill/Loss ratio against the Squiddies, even more impressive if one is taking into account the numerically inferior Gallente versus the almost swarm-like Squiddies. However; the danger of losing territory is becoming apparent to most of the FDU rank and file now. FOOM has left Black Rise to assist in defending Gallente space and with their departure, the vaccum up in Black Rise was not filled in. A day of infamy ensued when the squiddies took back 95% of their lost system in a single day.

So my work, as of late, has been spent securing Gallente systems in the Placid region that are classed as 'contested'. A single ship and pod pilot has the power to swing the fortune of an entire constellation - heady stuff indeed.

Securing sites

2009-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

Faction warfare involves territory and I have been trying to do my bit. There's many a low-sec Gallente system that has been marked as 'contested' on the interstellar maps and I have decided to see what I can do to secure them.

The steps for me was as follows:

1. Find what Gallente systems are currently classed as contested. Most people use this fantastic EVEMaps site.

2. Warp to the system and find the capture points in the system.

The capture points are usually hidden complexes so one needs to probe them out. You can either use a scan probe launcher or I find the on-board scanner to be just as good, if only a bit limited in range. I usually scan for 'cosmic anomalies' from the station and then move from planet to planet until I get a hit. Sometimes, even if a system is contested - you might not get an immediate hit. I just keep on trying until I get a hit or move onto the next contested system.

3. Warp to capture point and orbit around the point for a set period of time.

As soon as you warp to the cosmic anomaly; a dead space beacon will light up and be visible to everyone in the same system, if they have their overviews set up correctly to detect beacons. The dead space beacon will have a name such as 'Gallente Minor Complex' or some such.

Depending on the type; ship type restrictions may exist - most of the ones I have seen allow T1 frigates to cruisers and T2 frigates. Others are classed as un-restricted and any ship type can come in. I think it's possible to light a cyno in there as well.

Once inside; there should be the friendly presence of Gallente ships hovering around - the capture point is usually some structure between 50-80km away from the warp in point. To initiate the capture; one needs to be within a certain distance away from it and the exact distance required will be visible on the overview.

Hit the afterburner / micro warp drive and get into a tight orbit and start securing it - a count down will appear for the duration that you (and your corp mates) are within the required distance. Cloaking or using a pod / shuttle will not activate this process. It needs to be a combat ship.

Fight off anyone who comes in to disrupt your work.

4. Once the capture point has been secured after the set amount of time has been elapsed, it may be necessary to find more capture points until the system is secured.

I had to do this several times but with a number of fleet mates; it was possible to secure a number of these strategically important points almost at the same time. Once secured, the system name will remove the 'contested' title from the name.

5. Move onto next system and rinse and repeat. This is defensive plexing and aims to disrupt ongoing squiddie attempts at encroaching into Gallente space. You see, the danger here is that if the enemy contests enough of these capture points; then the central command bunker within the system becomes vulnerable to attack and if lost, the entire system moves over to the Caldari. The net result is that the NPC ships (currently friendly to the Gallente militia) become Caldari and infinitely more hostile.

I have been busy in Placid and the work (rather boring) of defensive work in securing existing Gallente sites is vital and has been recognised by the Gallente Federation - it's one of the few ways that you can get battlefield decorations and ranks.

As I type this, I have just seen more Gallente systems change their status to 'contested' - looks like the squiddie militia is active once more. At least we've invaded and held our ground in Northern Black Rise.

Faction Warfare - my first thoughts

2009-01-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

Faction warfare is an odd beast encompassing all the 'fun' of PvP and the grind of mission running. Throw in large scale fleet engagements and the strategy of holding and defending territory with the occasional pirate incursion and you have a recipe for fun and boredom - all at the same time.

My first taste of Faction Warfare, fighting under the Gallente flag has been very positive so far. The initial fight was in the meat grinder between Old Man Star (OMS) and Tama. Two low-sec systems that are being ferociously fought over by the Gallente and Caldari militias. OMS is a Gallente Federation system but it is contested, thus it has had enough Caldari militias attacking and taking over strategic solar systems to make it vulnerable to it's (possible) loss. Meanwhile, large chunks of Caldari held space in Black Rise has seen a loyal Gallente corporation, The Dead Parrot Shoppe (FOOM) grab and hold a hatful of systems single-handedly.

I was in the militia channel, a bit bewildered when a FC asked for available fleet members - I said I was ready and was in a fleet of 40 pilots and we were swept into Old Man Star to fight off a marauding Caldari fleet. The result was a conclusive victory for us; despite being outnumbered we hit the Caldari fleet very hard and knocked most of them down. A combination of very good leadership and target calling on our part and what looked like disarray and confusion from the Caldari.

The Caldari and their allies, the Amarr militias are collectively known as 'Squiddies', a contraction/shortening/corruption of CALAMARRI or Caldari + Amarr. Our nickname, given to us by these same squiddies is less flattering.

Still, while the Caldari state has now lurged full scale onto the right under the jack boot of dictatorship and the Amarr are still living under the misguided belief that they alone are God's choosen people, the Gallente are holding the line (just) against this wave of ignorance and hate. I have no information on how the Minmatar militia are doing but there's been little link up between our two militias.

The last week has seen me fly with a number of fleets under different FCs but am seeing a strong and consistent core of very competent pilots and corporations under the Gallente militia who take charge whenever there's a fleet forming.

It is a pleasure flying with Lionsan once more and we started defending some outlying Gallente systems from further attack by uncontesting (is that a word?) some of these systems thus preventing a full-on siege of the system's control bunker. The loss of which will eject the Gallente and their replacement by newer (and crueller) overlords. Working on these complexes within Gallente space has the advantage of the presence of the brave men and women of the Gallente Navy. Certainly, they have very nice looking ships - just check out the megathron above. Love the added colours!

Anyway, the war continues to grind on but the Gallente definitely have a plan and a dedicated core of pilots who can and do fight. Our militia is a lot smaller than the Caldari but the kills have been in our favour. The war in Black Rise is going well but I think we've have neglected to defend our own systems opting to go toe-to-toe with the squiddies; many in the Placid and Verge Vendor region are now classed as contested and indicates that the squiddies have been moving in. This war will be won as much on grabbing and holding low-sec territory, defending our own (especially the OMS area) and taking the fight to the squiddies. Since we're capsuleers, there is no real death to worry over and thus fighting, killing and dying is but a minor incovenience. So it comes down to territory and dominating local space.

Time to get more ships ready I think!

Joining the Militia

2008-12-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

Been keeping up to date with the faction warfare currently burning brightly around New Eden; it was bound to happen - the pod pilot community has now been pulled into the destructive orbit of the four empires and the lines have been drawn. Gallente and Minmater are standing against the Caldari and Amarr factions. The latter two working together more efficiently than the Gallente and Minmater.

My corporation mates, those now back and linking back in, have been experiencing FW but now want us to plunge into the fray. I have been busy in low-sec and I am hesitant to coming back into Empire and worse, into an essentially, Empire war spilling out into some neighbouring low-sec space.

Sometimes, I want to undock and travel unseen and unobserved around New Eden. A bit difficult if as soon as I enter, Caldari and Amarr FW pilots will spot me and come after me. Especially around Jita. Of course, no space is safe - not even in high security space but I don't want to expose myself further than is necessary.

It's been a tough decision but I am going to sign up with the Gallente Militia soon and fight for what I believe is right. With the convulsions between the Empires, I have watched with growing alarm at the lurch to the extreme right of the Caldari state and the rise (and rise) of Tibus Heth. The joining up with the Amarr militia has further alienated the Caldari state from me. While I am a keen follower of politics, I have always respected the Caldari state for it's business-like approach and the presence of decent individuals like Otro Gariushi. It's good to see that many Caldari born pod pilots are also fighting for the Gallente Militia.

The move means that I have to leave the CEO position of Union Aerospace Corporation to my friend Gamma and move across to a dedicated Gallente Militia corporation: The Water Margin. It's run by a friend of mine and with Lionsan and TFAce all itching to do 'their bit' in the war; it's foolish for me to prevent my two dear friends from following what their conscience dictates. The other corporation pilots such as Hal and Max and Eryrin are currently staying in UAERO and I hope that they go from strength to strength. They may even come on over and join us.

They may not.

However, I am excited over the move - fighting in low-sec has been for selfish reasons: protecting my own assets, securing a hidden belt of ore etc. Joining up with The Water Margin, means that for the first time, I am setting aside the selfish reasons and doing something much, much bigger than myself as an individual.

EVE Blog Banter #3 - my influences

2008-12-23T03:17:00.001-08:00

The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Roc Wieler of Roc's Ramblings. Roc's asks us to "write a story about a fellow EVE Blogger, or an EVE player whom has inspired you or affected you in some tangible way. After your story, describe why you chose them, and any Holiday wish you have specifically for them".

Well, this is most interesting and I can't wait to do a brain dump..

I have to say that the EVE Player who affected me the most was a real-life friend who one day mentioned to me about this game called EVE-Online, from Iceland (Wha?) and it was really, really different. I was casting around for a new game after being intensely disappointed by the slow death of Star Wars: Galaxies.

'Chrimera' was a long-time player and set up UNION AEROSPACE CORPORATION. It was based largely on the fake corporation from DOOM. We tried to get the ticker [UAC] but it was taken but [UAERO] was not. It was my first, and only corporation. I joined it and never looked back. Unfortunately, he sold his character almost two years ago. The character has been floating around somewhere and I am tempted to make an offer for it; just for old time's sake.

Therefore, Chrimera is the person who has affected me the most. He introduced me to this wonderful world and four years later, I am still here and still a bit bewildered over the multiple paths still ahead of me. There is no 'end game' for me - just a long and wonderful journey.

Since that time, I have met up with many, many people and I just want to give a shout out to a few, most are now out of the game but they made the world of New Eden so much more fun and real for me so....

Jack Brimstone - ex-UAERO pilot. I miss your steady temper, knowledge and calmness. Remember the first time we went to low-sec....in haulers? We joined a nominally PvP gang who were considering a jump into PF-346. We wanted to mine. Ah, fun times.

Ralus - ex-UAERO, left us for ASCN but a good friend and helped me set up our first POS. He also was the first co-CEO with me when Chrimera had to step down.
Maximillian Bozark - still here with me in UAERO and all-round missile fiend. A friend in RL and I hope to see him soon.
Eryrin - another UAERO pilot, been with us since the start. Recently hitched in RL and enjoying life with new family; but - come back soon.

Lionsan - back from his travels and with me and TFAce, we're going to jump into Faction Warfare. Famed for never flying with insurance, no matter the ship and always willing to give things a go. A real asset and a friend too.

TFAce - the rock, been a steadying influence in the corporation since his entry and probably the most experienced pilot in the corporation. He has, without complaint, kept the corporation forums up and running at his own expense and been working his socks off in the background. With me and Lionsan, considering taking the corp in a new direction.
Hal - crazy master of destruction and our first carrier pilot. He's also flown in a harrier jump jet in real life; that is very cool. Still with us but busy in real life too. Come back soon my friend!

Lts R0c - another crazy fellow with a passively tanked drake that was unreal. He had the uber-setup way before anyone else did in New Eden as he spotted the potential of this beast. Had to move countries and continents in real life and is sadly missed.

Flashfresh - well, we should know him. I have to say that I am delighted to see Flash doing his business in New Eden and the Blogsphere; his posts makes my day pass so much easier. Working with him is a delight too.

Others include: Elias Mooseblaster (weasels!), Mordred, Tish, Pro, Bracco to name a handful.

CrazyKinux needs no mention, you have given me an avenue to talk and blog to an appreciative audience and I cannot thank you enough!

Finally, to everyone in New Eden - have a merry christmas and a happy new year.

Other entries:

CrazyKinux's Musing: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: What will your verse be?…
A Merry Life and A Short One: EVE Blog Banter #3: What Not To Do
Mad Rant: My Hero
The Ralpha Dogs: A Greeting Card
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: The Station
Diving into Psyche Diver's Psyche: CK's Blog Banter #3: Praise and kudos
Roc’s Ramblings: Blog Banter #3 - PyjamaSam
Protosolus: EVE: Blog Banter 3 - A Piratical Legend
Blogging from inside the Pod: The ‘Jita Incident’
Achernar: Citizen Zhang
Cosmik R5's EVE Blog: Blog Banter: Tribute to an EVE player - Letrange
Letrange's EVE Blog: Is it December Banter time already?
Life in Low Sec: EVE Blog Banter #3: Reverend Book
Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #3
Votrian's EVE Blog: EVE Blog Banter #3 - my influences

Just been tagged

2008-12-17T07:22:00.000-08:00

It seems that I have been ninja double-tagged by both Dee Carson (AKA Miner with Fangs) and Articulated Sky.

I am IT until I pass it on...of course, there are rules in this game and they are:

- Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
- Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
- Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
- Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

I strongly suspect that I will be one of the last to link anyone else also, Flashfresh did something very cool and posted up eight facts instead of the required seven. One of the those facts is in fact, false. Genius. Check 'em out here.

So, what about me: Votrian Alpha and four year veteran of New Eden?

I work for a mapping company in the UK
Love paintball and out-door pursuits
Keen MechWarrior 4 player, MadCat chassis FTW
Love books, absolutely love them and favourite authors include Greg Bear, Alistair Reynolds, A C Clarke, D Gunn to name a few
I know Flashfresh in real life
Went to Fanfest 2006, my picture is in E-ON magazine
Allergic to milk

Ok, a quick check and I see that most of the other bloggers have been already tagged.

but :

Shahir's Journey by Shahir
OriasV, The Life of by OriasV (who just took a break this week!)
Seventy-seven thirty-four by Ulfskein Gangr
Musings by Vieve Tisserand
Down By Law by PegLeg Punk

You're all IT.

Whatever happened to salvaging?

2008-12-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

Lionsan has come back onto the scene and we had a good chat on what the direction the corp should be heading in the next few months. I have been doing solo work for much of this year and thoroughly enjoying it. However, it is a dog-eat-dog world out there in New Eden and even in normally safe Empire space; there's conflicts. The plans we have sound exciting and should yield much fun and isk.

I have been scanning and salvaging the hundreds of wrecks that litter the depths of space around Dodixie. The income isn't brilliant but steady and I need them for the rigs that I build. There is an odd loophole in the CONCORD law. While one can destroy the numerous ships belonging to the Angel Cartel, Serpentis, Guristas, EoM and Coreli to name four; the resulting wrecks do NOT belong to the you. The items inside the remains of the destroyed ships do belong to whoever killed them but not the wreck itself. The wreck is available to any pilot who can find them.

Some of the wrecks are full (of junk most of the time) and grabbing this junk is counted as stealing under the laws of CONCORD and therefore the owner of the junk items in the wreck, sees you as a criminal for a limited time. Therefore, one could be fired upon and CONCORD would not rush to my rescue, if some of said items appeared one's cargo hold.

Of course, this sets up a situation where one might want to get flagged and get shot at. One can then respond in kind and CONCORD will regard the pew-pew as entirely legitimate between the two (or more) assailants. This is a technique used by many to initiate conflict and confrontation within set parameters. So if I see someone come into my mission area in a megathron and he starts to take items from my wrecks - am sure he is trying to goad me into a fight.

Anyway, the shoe is on the other foot now for Lionsan and I were in Dodixie. I was the scanner and he was the salvager. My helios whipped into a scan spot and I dropped a fathom probe. My overview had hundreds of wrecks and I was determined to find some. My probe got a hit on the first attempt; several high probabilty hits in fact and I deduced that half were crowding around the station around Planet IX, a few were passing through the nearby star gate but three hits were out in the middle of nowhere and therefore, offered the best chance.

Most of the pilots left the junk behind them and we grabbed all that we could; some stayed behind and Lionsan just ignored them and powered past them in a rush to grab the salvage. Some were salvaging at the same time and seeing Lionsan in local, promptly started to destroy the wrecks, denying my colleague the spoils. At no point did Lionsan criminally flag himself to anyone; he enjoyed it nonetheless and the hangars are slowly filling up with parts for rigs.

Secretly, I think Lionsan wants to get himself flagged so he can shoot people. I would urge him to follow me to low-sec; where the rules are a bit looser.

Time to drop another probe.

Scanning peeps down - am for hire

2008-11-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

Love my arazu and it's very handy to scan people down - now that I am approaching Level V in all my scan related skills.

So it was with some luck that I was scanning for signatures when I got a call from a friend of mine; he needed me to help probe out a broadsword HIC who had leapt into a hidden safe spot after drawing aggression. Then he completely shut down his system in order to hide himself. The pilot was flagged as a criminal so it was an added incentive.

Through, a combination of residual halo from his weapons' discharges and the 'painting' of his hostile ship by the gate guns with an electronic, time-limited, rapid-decay isotope meant that he was still visible to the electronic eye in a very specific energy bandwidth. Well, visible until the isotope final expired and this was about 15 minutes.

I had to roll and I switched in a recon probe launcher and undocked. I was only two jumps from where I needed to be. Arriving at the target location, I was pleased to see my wallet was flashing. Payment recieved.

I dropped a fathom probe, as it was clear the HIC was less than 10AUs from the gate that he was hanging around. Investment in good skills and technology meant that I was going to get my results in under 44 seconds; not bad in an Arazu. My scan time in the helios is almost 28 seconds but it had no combat gear. The Arazu did have and thus was much more useful.

First attempt and I had a hit with a high probability of success and zero deviation.

"Hit. Warping to target." I informed my two colleagues. They started to align towards me as I leapt into warp. The target was 8.9 AU from his last known position and patiently waiting for his flag to expire and then the background radiation will hide his ship until it powers back up. However, I had time.

The warp tunnel collapsed and I was 2 km from the broadsword, blinking red and angry in my overview. I snapped on my warp scrambler and informed my two colleagues (actually, clients since they were paying for my scanning service) and within ten seconds, a curse and hurricane had appeared alongside. The firing began but the passive tank on the broadsword was immense and it took a good few minutes before the EMP shells knocked down the shields. The armour was stripped off in under two seconds and the broadsword blew up.

Amidst the cheering and hooting the capsule of the captain automatically ejected and shot off in a random direction. He was still disconnected and probably was oblivious to the loss of his ship.

"V, can you scan the pod down?"

"Usual fee please." My wallet blinked and I dropped another, more accurate but shorter range probe.

"41 seconds to a hit."

The pod appeared in my list of results 41 seconds later and I warped to it. My two clients followed me and gleefully popped the criminal.

I had already bookmarked the wreck and came back in a salvager and cut out some very nice salvage. All in all; a nice day.

Freighter Wreckage fun

2008-10-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I do come to the aid of friends and companions and even more so when I get paid and when Flash called that he and his companions needed some hauling assistance, I undocked my industrial and ambled over to the gate in question. I was informed that I was not hostile to them and that Flash had personally guaranteed my safety.

I arrived, the industrial creaking under the strain of yet another jump, and I saw a wreck. A massive wreck spinning gently 10km off the gate. There were at least two more haulers and some interested shuttles snooping around. There was even a rifter there too. Alongside the wreck was the deadly form of a armageddon class battleship. It looked like it was involved in a fierce exchange with the rifter. I was asked to haul as much of the goods as I could and this I did. I was simply stunned at the amount of goods inside the wreck and without asking too many questions, I did what I was asked. I was being paid for this work after all and not to ask questions. It became pretty obvious that Flash and his merry band of Bastards had tackled and destroyed an almost full frieghter and all under gate fire too.

I do have some sympathy for the freighter pilot but where was his escort and why was he passing through low-sec space anyway?

My question was soon answered in Flash's own recounting of the evening's fun.

Those Bastards. I do like them.

Phobos result!

2008-10-15T06:43:00.001-07:00

A result
Well, it was with some trepidation that I approached the CreoDron R & D station. I docked up and transferred to the sleek, whispering mono-rail, it whisked me to my destination, smooth and easily.

The results of my invention run were ready to be processed and one does not know how successful you are until the job is delivered and the results carefully analysed. Now, I am very sure that my data cores have been top notch. I have the top two CreoDron StarShip R & D agents working day and night for me.

A white coated laboratory assistance approached me.

"Would Sir like a drink?"

"No thank you. I would like to proceed directly to the lab results processing room please."

"Certainly Sir. If you would so kind as to follow me?" He led the way to a small room, crammed full of blinking monitors with a single comfortable chair.

I sat down and accessed the interface. The same feeling of nervous anticipation and possible disappointment flowed through me.

Not wanting to waste any more time, I asked for the results to be processed. The message notification filled me with joy.

'Great New! You were successful in producing a new tech II blueprint! Blueprint details include: Type: PHOBOS. Number of Runs: 1

Salvaging and loot

It is interesting that taking items from a destroyed wreck will flag you as a temporary target to the 'owner' of the destroyed wreck but one can salvage the wreck for spare parts and not get flagged. I took advantage of this last night as I went on a salvage hunt for the rigs that I had to make. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations that I had. I made sure that I left the contents of the wrecks untouched, just focusing on wrecks themselves.

I can see how this way of acquiring goods might prove to be quite lucrative. Flashfresh has pointed me to the corp called 'Suddenly Ninjas' who does more or less the same thing but on a much bigger scale.

R & D V: Some success....

2008-10-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

One problem with invention is that you don't know how successful you have been you 'deliver' the job. So it was with bitter disappointment that the kronos job failed. The message was that I learnt a lot but it wasn't enough to be successful. Taking the sting out of the failure was the success of the claw and crow blueprint, but I really wanted that kronos. No matter; am currently slotting in a few thorax BPCs in the hope of a phobos BPC!

Keep you all posted!

R & D Part IV

2008-09-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

It was with some excitement and worry when I arrived at the Croleur station. As I undocked, I made sure that I had all the items that I needed to kick off the research into a Kronos blue print. The R&D staff were very helpful and assisted my transfer of the items into the appropriate location. I checked and confirmed the following:

x1 3-run Megathron BPC,
x1 Stolen Formulas,
x35 Galletean Starship Engineering Datacores,
x35 Mechanical Engineering Datacores,
x1 Bucket of luck,

I entered them all into the drop down menus, all were correctly populated except the 'base item' - for a job like this should I have included a base item?

A final check and then, I hit the enter button. The station computer took a few seconds to check and digest the information and then it proceed to unpack the datacores and proceed with the work. I have no idea how the process works: for all I know they might have an army of slaved brains or hamsters or something working away but I was quickly informed that the results of the invention would be available in three-days time.

With a flutter in my stomach, I sat back and thought about the riches I could pull in if the kronos BPC was invented. I had did everything right: getting the stolen formulas had cost me a arm and a leg but I wanted to ensure maximum chances of success. However, the ultimate result is down to fate. So all I could do was to sit back and wait.

I also grabbed a few more items and since I was at Croleur, I wanted to take on the excellent facilities there and gathered the necessary items to invent a CLAW and a CROW blue print. Two deadly interceptors. At this moment in time, am just curious about the process. I have no idea if the claw-class and crow-class interceptors can sell once manufactured. I don't even know the base price of them!

Ah, the fun of R & D and manufacture.

Anyway, I will report back in three to four days.

Fingers crossed.

Back to R&D - Part III

2008-09-14T02:19:00.001-07:00

My trip back to high-security space was uneventful - I took suitable precautions through the passing of coin and favours amongst the inhabitants of low-sec. The trip several days, a slow meander through Minnie and Gallente space. I also touched upon Amarr space but the increasingly belligerent nature of the Amarr was making travel difficult.

Arriving back at the ship factories - I greeted the corporation workers; hammering away at the half-completed hulls of ships of all types. UAERO was currently filling in a number of orders and they would bring in plenty of isk. Speaking of isk, I checked through my emails and yes, there was the obligatory pile of mails from my three R&D agents. Mainly status reports but one or two more shrill messages demanding my attention.

My R&D Agents
I contacted Doppepuette Ciete, the most highly regarded CreoDron R&D agent. He was busy as usual, my requests to him striking the right balance of challenge and reward. He was working like a mad man - his research team had swollen in size and his substantial findings now all packed into information-dense data cores. A quick scan of the results and I have to admit, they were impressive. Clel Syctoneier, the number two CreoDron R&D agent was working super hard to keep up with Doppepuette. The number two agent was trying hard to over-take her corporate rival. Her results were of the same quality and I downloaded both sets of data cores. My final CreoDron agent was Roomfennan, specialising in Mechanical Engineering. She was quite junior - but worked hard to produce some excellent results. What she lacked in quantity, she made up with quality. I too downloaded this data.

The Data Cores
The data cores could be traded between other project managers. I now had just shy of 900 data cores containing schematics, notes and formulae. A quick scan of the markets and I could make an easy 220 million isk; minimum. Not bad but I wanted to use some of the data cores myself. There's a Kronos-class marauder I was planning to build. First step would be getting one of the corp's megathron blueprint copies and using that as the basis for inventing the blueprint copy for the magnificient kronos-class marauder. A backup would be researching for a sin-class black ops ship. Both should sell well I think, once built.

Anyway, time to review the requirements for the invention run. So what do I require?

The Ingredients
The first major item I need is an 'interface'. For Gallente ships, I would need an Incognito Data Interface, something that had acquired at a knock down price a few months back. Other items include:

x1 1 to 3-run BPC - Megathron (for Kronos) or Dominix (for Sin)
x1 Base Item (Not sure, items only?)
x1 Decryptor - Stolen Formulas
x1 Interface - Incognito Data Interface
x35 Datacore - Gallentean Starship Engineering
x35 Datacore - Mechanical Engineering

To pay for the stolen formulas, currently retailing at 53 million isk in Jita, I went to Jita with a cargohold of Gallentean Starship Engineering Data Cores. Sealed and information dense straight from the brains of my top-notch CreoDron R&D agents. There were buy orders for these cores of mine. Each data core had an asking price for 300-350,000 isk each. Sell 160 of these cores, use the money and buy the decryptor. Easy.

So that's almost everything in place.

A new agent?
Mechanical Engineering data cores are hard to come however. Roomfennan, while working hard, isn't throwing out enough results in the quantity that I is required. I need another new agent, specialising in Mechanical Engineering. I already knew this, so a few weeks ago I had my contacts seek out a suitable agent with a corporation that I have high standing with. When I came back - there was a new mail. I opened it up and lo and behold, there was a well-respected mechanical engineering R&D agent working for Boundless Creation; a Minmater Corporation. She was available and between jobs. Perfect. Her name is Teurodedik Uarmelo and I pinged her an email to arrange a meet.

Will be paying her a visit at her low-sec office within a few days. I hope she is as good as I think she is. I do need a L4 R&D agent specialising in Mechanical Engineering.

Rogue Drones

2008-08-29T04:06:00.000-07:00

You know? Rogue drones creep me out at one level but at another, they fascinate me. There is no other life form outside of us humans in New Eden- yet; but these rogue drones come close to being a second. They have sentience and can communicate, most of the time. Other times, they keep to themselves. Yet other occasions; they appear to go on a rampage.

The exact numbers and disposition of these entities is unknown but I can tell you, parts of low-security space are full of them. The new null-sec areas are also full of them, brave explorers push into the depths of space, seeking out new constellations and only to find that rogue drones have got there ahead of them.

Most of the time, I try to avoid them. However, in the last two weeks of solid exploration, all gravitmetric signatures have led me not to hidden ore belts, but to rogue drones. Not too sure while, am baffled to be honest. In all these systems, the deadspace signatures I get back are clean gravimetric responses with little deviation.

I am using the latest gravimetric probes with the hottest software upgrades and best survey computer around. Yet, drones. Just rogue drones - unless they got there ahead of me? Anyway, I felt duty bound to try and clear these drones and in my dominix battleship no less. . While, I didn't get any bounties - drones drop some compounds that I managed to reprocess. These compounds are alloys of metals that the drones themselves use for their own, mysterious uses.

Once I cleared a nest of them, I moved onto the next one. In addition to finding some mag sites; it has been quite busy.

I collected all the ores, minerals, compounds and salvage together and took an inventory; before I hauled all this stuff back to high-sec.

Not bad to be honest considering I was now not on full time. I especially like the BPC (not shown) I got. So not bad at all. Okay, many pod pilots can make this isk equivalent in a few hours or a day or so running missions for the most popular agents in high-security space. A few hundred million isk is a lot to me and I enjoyed making every cent of it.

The above lot will be making it's way back to our ship factory in high security space. I might stay in high security for a bit longer to mine veldspare and to continue with my invention work. This is something that I have neglected for too long. I have some very pressing emails from my R&D agents. I better get to them!

Next update will be from the corp's high-sec ships manufacturing hub so time to get those warp core stabilisers onto the iteron.

Four Year Old!!!!

2008-08-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

Four Years in New Eden and still going strong.

I can't quite believe it to be honest, as I still clearly recall the fun and thrill of undocking in a shiny new imicus and mining that first bit of veldspar. Loved the sound of the mining lasers. That was my first ship and I spent ages spinning around the outside of the ship and looking at it from all angles.

The imicus is still in one of my hangars somewhere but I tend to fly bigger and more expensive ships.

New Eden - I salute and looking forward to another four years. The universe still holds so much for me.

Sneaky Salvager

2008-08-08T04:03:00.001-07:00

On my way to another site, loaded down with exploration probes. I came across a wrecked tech 2 ship - the owner now nowhere to be seen. I quickly decloaked, looted the wreck and salvaged some goodies from it.

Then I recloaked and was on my way.

Need to check the price on this and I have picked up a fair amount of tech 2 salvage too in my travels.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The economics of building a marauder....

2008-08-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

An excellent account of how much time and effort is required to build a marauder class battleship. Currently, the hottest property around and so expensive!

Marauder Economics « The Ancient Gaming Noob

Low Sec Mining : the tools

2008-07-29T05:25:00.000-07:00

Every man needs his tools. For low-sec prospecting, this is mine. A rigged helios, I can get a scan result in under 22 seconds on my recon launcher. I have not yet invested in the most expensive implant though - the 8% (or is it 10%) in scan time should make a big difference. For exploration, my launcher is the generic one though I see the SOE ones on auction from 33million isk each. Might go for them - who uses the SOE launcher and probes and do they make a difference?

Low-Sec Mining : A continuation...

2008-07-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

To find decent ore in low security space, one has to go look for them. Each system has a number of known, stable belts. Whose location remain constant and each marked by a beacon, easily found by any interested pilot or pirate alike.

However, these belts have poor quality ore and for solo operators like myself, I need more exotic rocks to make it worth while. Most pilots are now aware that there are many 'hidden' belts - either shrouded in temporarily visible deadspace bubbles or rock fields that have a long and fast orbit, taking them out of a system and into the depths of space. It is these hidden belts that make me isk. Since they have not been found and exploited - the make up of the ore is usually rarer than the more stable belts. As an example, a 0.2 system in Minnie space usually has omber as it's rarest and most valuable ore. Omber is a great ore but it can be found in quantity and in far safer Empire space. No, within the 0.2 systems, hidden belts yields ochre and gneiss belts to name two.

Knowing this, I had been working hard on prospecting around a number of 0.1 and 0.2 systems; avoiding pirates of all types and fanatical capsuleers now embroiled in faction warfare - an Empire war by proxy in regions of low security space. The process for prospecting is quite simple:

1. I move from low-sec system to low-sec system, dropping exploration probes until I get a hit for a hidden field. It comes up as a deadspace signature oscillating on a certain frequency. All ore bearing asteroid fields, regardless of the ore type has the same, unique frequency. Usually, the hit is very, very faint. The more faint the signal return, the more hidden and therefore more valuable the ore will be. The last positive return was wafer thin in terms of signal strength - but it was there and so tantalising.

2. Once I have confirmed that the system has a hidden belt and it's available, I drop more accurate probes around each planet and scan away. Most asteroid fields, whether hidden or not, feel the gravitational pull of celestial bodies and therefore they have a varying orbit around the planets. The system I was in possessed seven planets but four were clustered close to the central star so one probe, dropped near the sun, covered all four planets. The three remaining planets, each got one probe. A total of four probes were deployed.

3. Once you find the belt (after many attempts) - warp to it in a combat ship and kill off any rats and come back in a mining barge. Rats occasionally wander back so make sure you have things bookmarked for a quick exit.

Simple huh?

So, in some detail: when I am sure that I have found a hidden belt and seeded the planets with probes, I proceeded to scan through the results.

I waited.

The first five hours yielded cosmic anomalies and other space debris but no deadspace signature. It's possible that the belt may have become 'lost' - the deadspace bubble it's in collapsing completely. To check, I dropped a new system-wide probe and yes, it confirmed that there was a hidden belt here and I reseeded the probes around the selected planets. I adjusted their placement slightly, emphasising the probes to concentrate towards the fourth planet. I just had a gut feeling that the hidden belt was sprawling out towards it.

Prospecting like this takes a lot of time and patience but being cloaked in a covert-ops I had plenty of time with little danger of being spotted.

After almost a day of patiently sifting through tera-bytes of data, there was small beep from the scanning array. I had a special rig built to scan for ores and it was a custom job, cost me an arm and a leg. Am hoping the isk I get from the mining will allow me to purchase one of those Sisters Of EVE exploration probe launchers. They are the dogs nuts, so to speak.

I examined the results and it was a creditable hit but it's accuracy was still about 0.75 AU. I warped there and dropped a more accurate but shorter ranged probe and concentrated on this area. Another an hour later, I managed to get within 7000km of the belt and dropped the most accurate probe I could find. It was close now and I knew that I would get it.

My covert-ops was whipping it's way towards the signature - the distance to it counting down and in a flash, I found myself inside a huge belt. Gneiss and Ochre in huge quantities all slowly rotating around their own axis. I couldn't possibly be able to mine all this before the belt disappeared once more: either due to it's own orbit taking the rocks out of the system or the deadspace bubble collapsing. Until then, I had time to mine and mine.

I can actually see this forming into a service: I go out and prospect and find these hidden fields and sell the location to larger, more established mining operations. Then the risk and reward of low-sec mining is borne by these organisations and not me.

Anyway, I have a 'low-sec mining op in a barge' setup already in place and hauled an industrial class ship and a repackaged mining barge to the station nearest to the hidden field and started the operations.

Mining in low-sec requires all hands and eyes on the job. None of this going to sleep and waking up to a hold full of ore. In low-sec, I need to keep an eye on local for unfriendlies, keep an eye for other scan probes (who's looking for me?) and the ever present Angel Cartel sniffing around. No afk here otherwise I would most certainly, lose my ship or worse.

A quick count told me that I have discovered a hidden belt with about 48 very large asteroids and a 50/50 split between Gneiss and Ochre and all varieties too. I started to cherry pick the best ore: the obsidian ochre and prismatic gneiss.

Titan Weekly

2008-07-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

http://titanweekly.wordpress.com/

A new podcast, well it's on Episode 3 now but nicely done.

Just wanted to give a shout out to it.

I want more!

EVE Blog Pack

2008-07-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Crazy Kinux's EVE Blog Pack

CrazyKinux is probably one of the best EVE bloggers around and he had a great idea of setting up an EVE blog pack. The general idea is that a group of bloggers all help each other out by linking to other’s posts, commenting on them mainly and spreading the word.

Rather then copy the list and risk it going out of date, follow this link:

http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/07/eve-online-blog-pack-expands.html

The above is maintained by CK (of course).....

Faction Warfare - Federal Defence Union

2008-07-25T01:36:00.000-07:00

It's finally happened.

The Podpilots have been pulled into the Empire wars through the raising of 'militias'. Those involved are proxies for each Empire's desire for war and vengance who are nonetheless hesistant in wanting to continue the fight within Empire space. Instead, the war now has spilled out into the wilder reaches of low-security space - the crazy buffer zone between the Empire and the lawless null-sec. Each of the four empires has one militia now.

Tribal Liberation Force now pulls in all Minnie-aligned pod pilots facing off against the Amarr's 24th Imperial Crusade. My beloved Gallente have answered a call to arms through the establishment of the Federal Defence Union, who would be marching against the Caldari's State Protectorate. However, in all militias, there are pod pilots from all other races mixed in - it's just not limited to the individual races. I don't have any information on the break down but I do know that there are a fair few Caldari fighting for the FDU and an equal amount of (misguided) Gallente flying under the State Protectorate.

Interestingly, the capsuleer alliances based out in 0.0 are not getting directly involved even if their help would be welcome. I am referring specifically to Electus Matari and CVA - both are tightly aligned to the Minmater and Amarr empires and have largely carried the Empire fight into low-sec and some 0.0 and I would have expected each empire to welcome some battle-hardened pod pilot alliance onto their side. However, no. That's not the case. Diplomatic efforts are ongoing but am unsure how this will pan out.

Back to mining

2008-07-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Mining is fun, very serene and relaxing. The recent copy of E-ON had a nice article about mining and while New Eden is a PvP game, there is still much room to work on the coal face, so to speak. For one thing, the corp ore hoppers are in danger of running low once more after the last batch of ammunition was stamped out and sold for a tidy profit. So I worked solo for two nights in the retriever and managed to get a respectable amount of ore (mainly Omber) back into the mining hangar.

During my trip, I had also neglected some of my R & D agents for too long and they were clamouring to get back to some real work as many of their research had reached significant milestones and needed me to sign them off before the next tranche of work could be started. Project management indeed. I checked the data cores and I was very pleased to see the amount of work they had put in. In light of this, I made some enquiries and obtained a data interface, at 65% of market price; thanks to a friend. Am going over there later tonight to see what's up.

On Leave

2008-06-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

On leave for a few days. Will be back for some faction warfare madness then!

EVE Areas of Interest (AOI)

2008-06-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Places of interest that I want to visit. Took me ages to bring this list together. Who can add more? I need to hyper link this to either pictures or maps or something. Need to get the new FW sites too....

EVE Gate
The Crystal Cathedral
The Black Monolith
The Myridian Strip
The Glass Edge
The Reactor Factory
Crimson Cathedral
Golgothan Fields
Fort Kumar
AZN Ars Orbiting HQ
C9N Titan Memorial - Steve's Wreck
46DP Darwin's Contraption Titan Memorial
Fatimar Outpost MY-W1V
The Alliance Barracks
The Carnival
The Hyperbole Nexus
Sister Camp
Thin Red Line
Reclamation Wreck
Margin of Error
The Crystal Dust Compound
Lord Bastions Ruins
Machine Head
Culture Recess
Assassin's Overhang
Insurgent Encampment
The Asylum
Sanctum Psychosis
Dream Port
Rich Man's Run
Survey Station
Rusty Ridge Mine
NOH Recruitment Centre
Frontier Stockade
Settlers Waystation
Bandit Hideout
Sentinel Rise
Clearwater Spring
Devil's Dig
Diamond Ace Den
Shady Acres
Hangman's Hill
Cactus Mill Lookout
Rush Town Ruins
Foul Creek Ranch
Red Rock Outpost
Municipal Junkyard

a Mule in EvE: Cyno generator for a chimera

2008-06-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

a Mule in EvE: Cyno generator for a chimera

Some nice screenies on a cyno.

Salvage and deep space probes

2008-06-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

It sometimes pay to have a salvager or two in place and a hauler close by. I was in a system running a low-sec mission with my corporation mate TFAce who was in a zealot and causing merry hell in the last mission. I left 'T' blasting these recently discovered Angels, hiding in a forward observation station, that I probed out (accidentally) using some exploration probes.

The mission with TFAce was a lot of fun, I was scanning for exploration sites and after a few attempts I found the weak deadspace signature that required a few sift probes to pin-point the Angel site. TFAce is devastating in his zealot and was dishing out damage and destruction on a wide-scale. He's suffering from an isk crunch at the moment, after falling foul to Concord and I offered a loan to him but he was ok.

TFAce has been a stalwart pilot and friend and it was good working with him. My intention is to do more low-sec work with him and prepare ourselves for the faction warfare madness that will be coming.

I was getting very weak hits on the gravimetric wavelength and it was entirely possible that I had discovered what might be a hidden asteroid field. However, unlucky for the Angels, my probes found their hiding place instead. Stubbornly, the gravimetric signal return was still too weak for me to get a lock on. I moved off from the discovered Angel site and had to head back to pick up more probes.

As I was powering back to the gate, there was a pinging sound as my ship flew through a shower of shrapnel and flash-frozen fluids.

A quick scan and there were three wrecks all within range of a gate. I slowed down and scanned the wrecks and was delighted to scavenge some lovely goods; a screen shot is above. One of the wrecks was a hauler and dropped three secure cans, packed full with ore.

Lovely.

Anyway, once that was done, I continued to my hangar and picked up more probes. The difficulty of finding this hidden belt probably meant that it contained quite valuable ore. I was not going to give up. I had a close approximation on where the gravimetric signature was and started to seed probes around this area, I used sift probes with a range of less than 0.4 AU but super sensitive. TFAce by this time had left for the night, leaving me alone in the system.

After almost six hours of scanning, I still had no results but was not going to give up. It was faint, very faint and so tantalising. Twenty-six hours later and half way through a novel, I got a hit. Small, faint and almost lost in the background noise. I double-checked the result and then warped to the search result, the scanner through luck managed to get a result with zero deviation and after a short jump, was spat out into a small asteroid field complete with the remains of some space cathedral. Interested, I hit the scanner and found about seven large pieces scattered about. The rocks were all of the Gneiss variety and very nice they were.

I then arranged for a mining barge and hauler to be made available and will be mining there soon. Unfortunately, there are pirates about. Need to be careful I think.

Quick Links and threads

2008-06-03T02:17:00.001-07:00

Been busy in RL and in New Eden but here's the links and stuff that have kept me occupied.

Like the previous screenshot of the enyo - the new modelled skin for the incursus is so cool.

To the news and stuff:

Anti-Cloaking Devices System Wide? Pod pilots rage and fall into the divide. I personally am in favour of the cloakers AND do not worry too much whether they are AFK or not. The full thread is here: EVE Online | EVE Insider | Forums

You Suck Oodin. Very funny thread here and like I always maintain, there are no fair fights in EVE. It does look like Garmon has been temporarily gagged and can no longer post... http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&amp;threadID=784946

Clear Skies - an New Eden film with a difference. Was absolutely blown over by this and I have decided to watch it again, and again. I want you to watch it here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=784625

Lovely music, very atmospheric stuff and ideal for the occasions when you want some peaceful and relaxing music to mine the 'roids to....AlienHand.dk - The Private Touch

Actually, AlienHand has his latest track - details and feedback is here.

Been a bit starved of EVE PodCasts and two new updates appear! The first is Warp Drive Active from that friendly Canadian, Winterblink and that Brit, Urban Mongral. The link is here; the second EVE PodCast is The Drone Bay from the same stable, the third is WDA Industry, episode five is here. Look no further than these three for all your EVE pod cast goodness. I do listen to a few more but that's a good two hours worth of New Eden related chat, tutorials and general chat.
Other news: someone made a contract to me for a Ship Interface for 73million isk, I did not accept it as I thought it was a mistake and wanted to check. True, if I accepted it would have been a bargain, even compared to Jita price lists but I like to consider myself an honest pilot. However, the contract was then cancelled so I have no idea who it was. Probably a mistake.

Lovely. Had to end with another screenie.

R & D (continued)

2008-05-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

OK - back to some more R & D as my agents have been demanding attention from me, I have been out in low-sec space for the past month and since I had some of the top people in Creodron working for me, it was not a good idea to leave them for too long.

Doppepuette Ciete has been driving his team hard but the results have been pouring out, all then packed into information-dense data-cores and available for my further use. Roomfennan is heading up my mechanical engineering team and the results have been a lot slower. Her project management skills are not as sharp as Doppepuette and the results show. However, mechanical engineering results are hard to come by and I am thankful for whatever she can give me. My third R & D agent is Clel Sycotonerier (pictured), rated as number two to Doppepuette in the Gallantean Starship Engineering field and she's driving her team hard to close the gap.

Now what does this mean for me? I mentioned that I needed to get into inventions and the potential is almost limitless. However, I need interfaces and decryptors.

The Interface is an item with unlimited use and since I am interested inventing Gallentean ships, then the interface I need is the 'Incognito Data Interface'. The other interface types are in this table:

Race: Gallente

Name	Used on
Incognito Data Interface	Ships
Incognito Data Interface	Ship Equipment
Inognito Tuner Data Interface	Rigs

The cost of the interface is around 93million in Jita.

A decent investment? Well, you need it to invent so I have to swallow my fear and part with the iskies.

Hmm however, I also realised that I should also look into decryptors. One time use items that modify the stats of invented blueprints in certain ways. They appear to vary greatly in cost but Jita is the place to go. They affect four stats: the chance of a successful invention, the final material efficiency (ME), the final production efficiency (PE) and the number of runs you can get from the end result. The base ME and PE of any invention job is a default -4 (negative four), the following show the modification to that number. So a job done with the War Strategon will come out with ME: -7 PE: -2.

The chance is the only thing that is different from any other bpc. It is exactly like it sounds, the higher the better. The best a decryptor can do is add 30%; the worst is make it 60% less likely. Once again, these are destroyed no matter the outcome of the job. The following is a chart the decryptors in game. Note they are located under the respective pirate faction on the market place: Amarr is Bloodraider, Caldari is Gurista, Gallente is Serpentis and Minmatar is Angel.

Stolen formulas is the best item but quite expensive. The other items, cheaper and probably more readul

Name	Chance	ME	PE	Runs
Stolen Formulas	1.8	-1	2	4
Test Reports	1.2	2	5	1
Collision Measurements	1.1	3	3	0
Engagement Plan	1.0	1	4	2
Symbiotic Figures	0.6	-2	1	9

Deep Space Salvaging

2008-05-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

Deep space salvaging is fun and can be quite profitable: many pod pilots leave their mission areas and the wrecks there, just floating in space. I come in and salvage all I can. Not bad and can be a nice earner. The salvage is even more profitable when the wrecks are Tech 2 ships. The parts salvaged from these ships are then used in the manufacture of T2 rigs - currently, license to print isk.

The Serenity of Mining

2008-05-12T00:09:00.000-07:00

Some more mining tonight. Mining is a very serene occupation, almost hypnotic. The UAERO corporation is running low on pyrites, a common mineral found in most asteroids. We've been very busy, industrial-wise as our markets have been busy. The haul was excellent and I continued to add to it the next day. Eryrin arrived in his hulk to add more Omber to the haul, good job!

On the R & D front, I have located a seller of decryptors and had just discovered some 'augmented' and 'integrated' drones. That is so interesting and a little bit of digging has revealed that these are drones with (illegal) rogue drone AI and rogue drone components added to it.

New Eden PodCasts

2008-05-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

Been a fan of podcasts ever since I managed to get this small device called an iPOD, a few years ago. I got a new iPOD and with the new iTunes, I started to trawl through all the available New Eden related podcasts available.

The first one is (or was) for me, was EVE-Network News, the URL now doesn't lead to anything useful but EVE-NN was hosted by Acix Reborn and the ever-controversial, Blackhole Bob. From what I recall, there were about half a dozen pod casts before it ended. The shows were fun and I loved the idea of them bringing in various pod pilots via Skype. The quality of the production was quite good and the website itself had a live web-cam and chat client available so pod pilots could chat away to the two hosts as the show was being put together. Very cool but I can't even locate any archive sites with the podcasts there.

'Podded' was a news, interviews and debates summary podcast that I found very useful. It lasted only a dozen shows but I loved it. The site is still live and you can grab the podcasts off it.

The above two are defunct but currently, there are a few podcasts that I subscribe to. They are:

Warp Drive Active - Winterblink and Urban Mongral prove to be two very funny and effective hosts. Winterblink especially, he does have a radio-voice. Both keep the conversation flowing and moving and WDA covers daily comings and goings within New Eden. They are going strong and I am a regular subscriber. I recommend it. Most shows are 60-odd minutes in length.

Drone Bay - an offering from the VirginWorlds MMO Podcast Collective. A stable of podcasts that cover a plethora of pod casts from the MMORPG world. The hosts are CrazyKinux, Crovan and Alsedrech, three great hosts. Knowledgeable and easy going. Every week they explore different aspects of this New Eden by providing podpilots with guides, tutorials, how-tos and everything else that may help . This show is for new pilots and veterans alike. Their thrust is a bit different from WDA and makes a nice complement to anyone's collection.

WDA: Industry. A spin-off from WDA and has it's focus on the financial and industrial side of things. Very interesting as it features quite in-depth features on pod-pilot created Banks and other financial vehicles. The hosts Benilopax and Lavista Vista. For those with an interest in all things isk and banking, give this pod cast a shout (or listen) - they've have 3 podcasts right now.

Probing and some success

2008-05-08T09:48:00.001-07:00

Been busy with exploration - wanted to take a break from the mission running, R & D, trading and scouting. I heard rumours of riches to be found in small research outposts, hidden away by the Angels and other factions within dead space bubbles. They could be probed out with some luck and hard work.

I like to think that I am quite competent using the ship scanners to sniff out the tell-tale signatures of hidden ships. Been doing this to locate ships 'parked' in deep space as well as scouting out for hire and it has been an excellent and profitable sideline for me. Using the other probes, the gravimetric sift, comb, pursuit probes (to name three different types based on range) would be a bit more different for me. These were designed to pick up dead space signatures: faint and difficult to detect spikes in radiation. They could also probe out ships but their main disadvantage is that exploration probes have a maximum range of 4AU and they're slow to return a hit. So, unless you knew that your target was safe spotted within 4AU of your current position and stationary, exploration probes are useless.

So this is what I did: went to a system and I dropped a multi-frequency probe in the system. This helped me discover what was there to be found amongst the background radiation. The return was a radar signature. Then I dropped a radar quest probe around every planet in the system. Some planets were close together and the probes overlapped but with some careful placement, it was possible to get a more or less system-wide coverage. Also, most, if not all exploration sites are within 4AU of a systems planets.
Once all the probes were in position. I selected all the scan types in the scanner menu (due to my skills allowing me to) them all selecting the five scan probes and hitting the 'analyse' button and waited. The results are chanced based due to the fluctuating nature of the background radiation and 'cosmic noise' interfering with the delicate scanning equipment.

My skills are pretty decent so I did not have to wait too long.

The results that came back were variable in quality and the first two attempts did not bring back the 'deadspace signature' type return. I had to re-try the scanning. Eventually, the scanner managed to pick up the whiff of something interesting.

It was a radar site, since the initial scan using the multi-spectral revealed a radar signature and finally, there itwas. The signal strength was quite low, at 0.2408 and was a fair distance away from my current location. However, I warped to the spot indicated and knew that the radar signature was now within 0.502 AU from where I had just landed. I was I had to destroy quest probe number 4 and dropped a more accurate radar sift probe in it's place. Strictly speaking, the signature was a touch over the maximum range of the sift probe but I took a chance.

Once again, I selected the required scan groups (cosmic signature, drone&Probe and ship) and selected all five probes and hit the analyse again. The Sift probe only had a life time of eight minutes so I could get a maximum of three attempts before the item expired.

I got a hit on the first go and this time, the results looked very promising: a radar signature with a signal strength of 2.3000, only 1,800km from my location and with a deviation of 0m. I cloaked up and warped to the signature and arrived into a bit of dead space.

Luckily, I was not de-cloaked on arrival by anything and had time to take some readings and observe the result.

It was an angel outpost, hidden inside a dead space pocket. There were data silos there with valuable data to be had and other items, ready to be liberated by yours truly.

Bookmarking the site, I left the dead space signature and docked up as quickly as I could, switching to a combat ship. To hack the data silos also required specialised hacking equipment and crew: something that I had from running similar operations in Friggi in the COSMOS constellations. My best hackers were loaded up on board, geeks all but with brain power to match the brawn of the heavy assault ship I was bringing to crash this party. I checked that the the code breaking modules were in place, having had to drop a warp disruptor to make room for it. So I came back in the Deimos and went at the site. There was an Angel stasis webifier tower that had me webbed from 55km - rather annoying but I sent my drones over there and they soon sorted me out. The angel pirates spawned only once and I easily killed them while my hackers got on with the job in hand. I waited impatiently for the results, the hacking modules blinking and flashing as it tried to brute force attack the Angel encryption. It finally cracked and we grabbed some data disks and bits. No idea on it's value (yet) but the Angels were fighting hard to prevent us downloading the data.

After ten minutes, all resistance ended and we grabbed everything else and salvaged what we could.

Good Links

2008-05-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

Some cool quick links to sites I visited over the last few weeks:

I like this one: just a useful link to a bunch of fun and memorable stories --> Fitz VonHeise's links to funny / true EVE-Online stories.

Like all pilots, we love ships and there's a rare ship's gallery is here.

A guide to boosters is here, I found this an interesting article as this is one (of many) areas of New Eden that I don't know much about. It doesn't explain the procedure for booster manufacture but there's a link on my EVE Link that does.

Am a fan of podcasts and here are the sites one should go to....

Warp Drive Active. Probably the best Eve-Online podcast at the moment. WinterBlink and UrbanMongral. Give it a try.

The Drone Bay is the second of three EVE-Online podcasts under the VirginWorlds Banner. The hosts are Crovan, Alsedrech and CrazyKinux. Bloody good.

In my working professions in real-life, I deal with maps - both paper and digital and hence I have always been fascinated and excited over them and what better than have the most excellent territory and influence maps? The link is here, moderated by CCP themselves. As for the community based ones, I can not thank Ombey and his 2D maps ENOUGH. Point your browser to his map site and his equally brilliant blog.

Taranis - love this ship and what ships for a fleet?

2008-04-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

In addition to the lovely Enyo picture in the previous post, I have been flying in the venerable taranis. It's not the fastest of interceptors but man, if (when) it gets close to it's target, the T2 neutron blasters will rip most things apart. I even took this ship into 0.0 and went ratting in it. Took some time to kill the larger battleships but it was a thrill. Missiles are the only problem but with the small size of interceptors, the damage is manageable. I have also managed to blast through bubbled gate camps in the taranis but it was more to be do with the poor positioning of the tackling ships than anything else. Will not be so lucky in the future.

Been looking at the calendars and have pencilled in some more corp missions into low-sec space. Specifically to improve our standings with a particular Empire corporation and also to keep all the pilot's interested in the corporation. A corporation that has been going now for almost four years. Longer than some marriages I might add and a fact that I am proud of.

For the low-sec missions and roams, I will be trying to figure out the most optimal balance for a three-ship fleet. Numbers is something UAERO doesn't have, skilled pilots though, we do. I already had a few operations, the last one had a lachesis, zealot and caracal/cerberus with us. I felt that it lacked EWAR, as 2/3 of the fleet was DPS based but with a lachesis as support - a single falcon could render the fleet dead.

I think a better mix would be a falcon, arazu and rapier? Maybe a Falcon/BlackBird, Ishtar and Curse?

It's a challenge for sure when you have a small fleet to set up. Much easier if you had a big fleet - you can rely on numbers alone to off-set any problem areas. So, what to do? What to pick?

Enyo with teeth

2008-04-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Did not realise just how mean the Enyo looked like with the new graphics. It looks like it is baring it's fangs....

A new R & D agent

2008-04-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

My R &D agents are working hard, they've been keeping me up to date on what progress they've had and most of it has been very positive. Certainly, Doppeuete has been driving his team hard and packing the precious data into datacores and preparing to make them available for me. I wanted to maximise my research and approached a third CreoDron R & D specialist, Clel Sycotonerier who also agreed to work for me. She was not as highly regarded as Doppuette, a fact that irritated her to no end. She got to work on some interesting tangential fields in ship design and I am very eager to see her results.

Am searching for some tools and encryptors now. A quick search on the market showed me what I wanted: 'Incognito Ship Data Interface'. They were multi-use and therefore could be seen as an investment. The price varied from 120million isk to 190million isk, so it was well worth shopping round I think. A saving of 70 million isk will mean that I am more than happy to do a one-hundred jump journey to get the item. Jita was even cheaper with most now around 102 million isk. The beauty and simplicity of the open, capitalist market. Out of interest, I also decided to see how much the results of my research would be on the open market. I was pleasantly surprised, each datacore could be sold onwards to other inventors for anything between 200-500, 000 isk each. Not bad considering I had a couple of prolific agents working for me.

So there is money to be had in R & D and in the components of R & D and not necessarily the end-products in the form of new ships and technologies. Just buying and trading in datacores appears to be an isk making venture. One needs patience I can see that but money can be made.

Anyway, I need to get a data interface in addition to the data cores and I should be in a position to start. Actually, just realised that I need a few more components to complete the picture. I better find them but work calls.

Low-Sec Roam

2008-04-17T02:44:00.000-07:00

TFAce and Hal joined me for a low-sec move through Heimatar and Metropolis space, we were going for a hunt in and around Angel Cartel space but we were prepared for pirates as well. TFAce had a hard hitting zealot, Hal in a missile spewing cerberus heavy assault ship and I was in the wonderfully pink, lachesis-class recon cruiser.

Should be interesting but I would have preferred a falcon or rook in place of my lachesis. ECM appears to be all the rage nowadays.

We undocked and I set the destination to be DAL, a place I know quite well have done a fair bit of business there. Encountering cosmic anomalies along the way, TFAce and Hal made very short work of them in; am impressed by their firepower and control.

In Klogori, there was one pirate in a hurricane, he was flagged so he had recently engaged in some criminal activity.

"T and Hal. Hold in system please. There's a pirate here, am scanning for him." I flipped open the scanner and narrowed him down to the top asteroid belt. I warped to the belt at 100km just to ensure that I would be out of harm's way. On landing, the hurricane was inside the belt - around 56KM. I fired up the remote sensor dampners and locked him but even with the new avionics, my disruptor could not reach him. The hurricane turned and warped out.

It was now going to be cat and mouse it would seem. Calculating the vector, I warped after the hurricane.

"Pursuing the hurricane. I think he went towards Planet III. T and Hal, status please?"

"Still quiet. Nothing here."

"Roger. Wait for my call. I hope to have him soon." I was confident that I could get the hurricane if I could land between 20-40km. I could dampen, disruptor and control the range then call in Hal and T to kill him.

Landing close to the planet, the hurricane had already moved. I turned and scanned again, he was close and just as I was warping out - the hurricane roared in and we almost collided.

"Damnit. He just warped to me. He just warped to me." I said, as I left the hurricane behind me. Unfortunately, my last statement was very confusing and Hal jumped in and was making ready to warp to me.

The presence of Hal and then TFAce spooked the hurricane pilot, who then left the system into Hadozeko. We gathered and regrouped at a safe spot.

"Stay aligned to the Hadozeko gate chaps - am going to investigate."

My Lachesis spun on the spot and then arrived at the Hadozeko gate - there was BoB crow interceptor zipping around though I wasn't worried. An exquiror came through and I made contact with the pilot just before he jumped. I asked him to keep an eye on a hostile hurricane that could be on the other side. The cruiser pilot acknowledged this and jumped through. Seconds later, I was receiving a may-day from the pilot. The BoB crow pilot had already jumped as well.

"TFace and Hal - come to the Hadozeko gate. I think the Hurricane just engaged and is flagged." We all jumped.

I waited impatiently for the gui to clear but even inside the pod, I could feel the explosions. Something was going on....

The hurricane had popped the unfortunate Exquoror pilot, the BoB crow was engaging the hurricane and I was about to give the order to engage when a brutix and falcon warped in to assist the hurricane. An extra brutix would be tricky when tackled alongside the hurricane - especially since both T and Hal were not in their optimals due to their recent gate arrivals but it would be the falcon that would be causing me the most problems. I could dampen him but he could still fire off a jam. The crow was an unknown and could turn on us and local was creeping up.

"T and Hal - please move off to a safe spot. Now please."

It was just as well, as we left - two armageddons, a basilisk and one other ship arrived from the otherside of the system. They were from a different corporation entirely but then it would have been a free-for-all. I had to protect my pilots and their ships.

Ah the fun of low-sec combat....

We found some very good cosmic anomalies but I should have brought the helios to scan out some exploration sites. Next time.

Megathron HiJack

2008-04-14T17:07:00.001-07:00

Had a call from a friend of mine that associates of his had managed to 'acquire' a megathron. In reality, my friend and his associates are pirates and had someone forced the captain of the megathron to eject, leaving the ship intact - though it was close to falling apart. The Captain didn't even bother to give an abandon ship to his crew. He just left, no doubt trying to save his precious implants.

I quickly changed ships and left my crew in a station as my pod was transferred to a shuttle and I made my way to the system. On arrival, I was vectored to the stricken megathron. It was a mess and was on fire from stern to f'o'castle. Ejecting from my shuttle, I got my pod to reintegrate with the megathron. As soon as the connections were made, I was flooded with warning lights and other indicators of the ship's impending doom. Quickly stabilising the ship, I made a broadcast to the remaining crew, urging calm and that they would be out of danger soon.

The ship was close to structural failure but I had enough experience to fix the damage and make the ship safe enough to complete a five-jump journey to a safe port.

The crew were relieved of their duties and the megathron patched up and then sold off to some shady middlemen. I got 25million isk for it.

Invention and all that mularkey......

2008-04-14T05:04:00.001-07:00

++Here we go!++

Slowly, like an ageing tortoise with a bad leg, I am crawling towards T2 Blue prints through the miracles (nah - lottery) of invention.

I can see that finally, with the Gallente Encryption Skillbook in place (at a snip of 4 million isk); that I have the skills to at least consider the invention route. With a fistful of megathron BPCs and the prospect of a possible Kronos BPC at the end of it - I am eager to start.

Some research is required. I have the skills but now what?

++Items and Agents++

By selecting the Invention tab on the BPC, I can see that it has a list of what skills and materials I need. I have the skills now but the materials will need to be sourced. I need to first collect data cores. Specifically, two types: Gallente Spaceship Engineering ones and Mechanical Engineering datacore if I want to invent ship BPCs. With my research project management, I can have upwards of four R&D agents working for me. Luckily, I have the highest ranking Creodron Agent available to me: Doppepuette Ciete. Not the friendliest of agents I have encountered but he is the top R & D scientist currently working at Creodron. He knows it too and I can't blame him to being just a touch on the arrogant side, now can I?

Now, since I needed two types of data cores, I had to make sure that Doppepuette could do the science and indeed he could. In addition to his impressive skills in Particle Physics he was pretty damn hot in the Starship engineering side of things. So I asked him to head my research team into Advanced Gallente starship engineering, specifically concentrating on hull types and manufacturing. I could then get much needed datacores (containing the team's findings) from Doppepuette at intervals of my own choosing.

Locating a second researcher with experience in mechanical engineering was tougher. I had the necessary skills to talk to researchers in this field but my search amongst the many agents I had proved to be inconclusive.

I wanted to grab those prize winning agents, with huge brains and more titles than one can shake a stick at but this proved, at least in the mechanical engineering field, to be very thin indeed. I did find a researcher, who's speciality was indeed mechanical engineering but due to my low standing with him and his division. I could not even approach him let alone ask him to head my mechanical engineering team. However, feeling a bit despondent, I did finally have some luck and found a junior researcher with Creodron of all places who was suitable. Her name is Roomfennah Ambettin and she was in this far-flung Creodron research post. It took me almost a week to reach her and chat to her face to face but it was worth it. After carefully explaining what I wanted her to lead on - she agreed to lead the second of my three R & D teams. While young and inexperienced, she had drive and enthusiasm and I all for it.

Doppepuette was already harvesting his results and packing the findings into datacores and within a few weeks, I could grab a fair few and even sell them on the market to the highest bidder. Roomfennah was slower however, the output from the team she was heading was producing a mere 4.85% of Doppeputte's output.

Oh well, next step for me would be to get hold of some decryptors and an interface.

Mining Haul

2008-04-11T04:03:00.000-07:00

A quick two-hour mining sprint with Hal and TFAce and we got the above rocks. Actually, there's a bit more lurking around the inside of the iteron but not bad and time well-spent. Considering no-one in the corp is maxed out on the mining front; I think we did quite well.

The corp has been busy stamping out ammunition and drones for sale, the order books are full and the isk is coming in - not billions mind but a steady income stream. Some of us are looking at invention and the with the stack of BPCs we have; I can afford the time to see if we can pop out a marauder or two. They are nice looking ships but so expensive; almost the same price as a carrier. They will continue to be at this premium price until more producers come online to either invent them or competitively build them to order.

Anyway, back to more mining!

Sentry Drones

2008-04-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Sentry Drones are cool, since I pride myself on being a decent drone pilot, am a bit embarrassed to say that I never did deploy these little monsters until only recently. There was a deep-space mission that had some pretty meaty battle cruisers protecting a complex that my agent wanted me to investigate and 'deal' with extreme prejudice.

I opted for bouncers as my electronic watchdogs and they had an optimal range of 40km and a fall-off of 35km; not bad but with better skills am sure I could increase this further. I had my target coordinates and slung the big old Dominix into warp, drone bay rattling with 40-odd drones and some shiny bouncer-class sentry drones.

The coordinates were super accurate: but I opted to land 100km from the entry point as I wanted to deploy the sentry drones and see them at work. Arriving at the site; I quickly saw that the target area was surrounded by frigate, cruiser and battle cruiser-class ships from the Angel Cartel. As per instructions, I was going to investigate with extreme prejudice and scanned the habitat modules. The Angels did not take too kindly to this and came at me - just as I wanted to. As soon as I had their attention, I deployed the sentry drones. Like aggressive watch dogs - they leapt to action - re-targeting the advancing enemy fighters when they were in range......and then dismantling them in a most satisfactory fashion. I found that the battle cruisers were the easiest to go down then the cruisers and then the frigates. Obviously, the smaller the craft the harder they would be to hit - even by the sentry drones.

No matter; most of the enemy ships were destroyed by the sentry drones before the little frigates got too close. When the frigates proved too difficult to hit, I withdrew my sentry drones and re-deployed my faster warrior II light drones. Combined with a webber, the angel frigates were chewed up nice and quick.

Keep on probing.....

2008-03-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

My technique is improving and as per previous post - I found that dropping more than one probe in a system, making sure that I consult the F10 map for best probe placement, means that I can get a fair coverage around a large system. Once all the probes have been seeded, I then do an 'analyze' on all the probes and away they go. The results come back under 32 seconds and a fathom (or snoop) probe returns a hit for a ship.....but only when they're passing through. I have also used the recon probes to find cosmic anomalies too.

The recon probes are thus better for a quicker, faster coverage - while the exploration probes are more powerful, I find that to use an exploration probe effectively, a solar system needs to be pre-seeded with bookmarks - 4AU apart or thereabouts. Useful if you explore a known system on a regular basis but not so good when you drop into a hot system, in pursuit of someone and need to probe them out quickly. You don't really have time to make bookmarks.

However, I have also used the exploration probes to find ships once it's quite certain that the target is within 4 AU of a bookmark or celestial body. I suspect that many peeps use previous mission locations and evaporated cosmic anomalies for their safe spots. That's a good idea - staying put in a safe spot isn't a good idea.

I still haven't found an escalating encounter anomaly - one that leads you to another location etc; maybe I have been just unlucky but I do like this exploration aspect of New Eden and you never know: the jackpot could be round the corner.

OMGWTF Happened to my GUI???

2008-03-20T08:46:00.001-07:00

No Joke, after jumping into a system my gui went all crazy. Luckily, I could still see my overview and continued to travel but what a trip! After a jumped to the next system, the gui cleared itself up. Weird but cool too.

Tools of the trade

2008-03-19T05:00:00.001-07:00

Scanning: Tools of the trade.

The contents of my helios scanning ships is above. A mix of nearly all the ship and exploration probes that one can have. I have an eye on the Sisters of EVE scan probe launchers and exploration probes as well as the implants but this is a long term goal for me now: running the lower-level agents for SOE can only get you so far. I have an invite from a higher level agent but she's in an area of very dangerous null-sec, claimed by the Scalar Federation; so I need to avoid it.

Me, Max, Hal and TFAce went on a low-sec jaunt and tried out scanning. I was keen to pass on my experience and skills to the others; since being able to travel unseen in a covert-ops as well as using the scan probes proficiently is in everyone's interests.

I easily found Hal's drake with a snoop probe, 32 seconds after I dropped it. Had more trouble with TFAce's zealot but I found it after a second attempt. Finding decent exploration sites is harder and there is a lot to find, if one has the patience and the money to burn through the probes. We managed to find a drone gravimetric site, a gistii radar site and Max managed to get six cosmic anomalies with a large concentration of Battleships in one of them. TFAce went after these ships with gusto and the salvage was excellent. Am trying to find more mission sites and hidden sites for salvage purposes as there's money to be made there am sure. Need to find some hidden belts as well, I chanced upon one by accident a while back but can't remember where it was!

Anyway, I used two types of scan probe launchers: a recon probe launcher and a scan probe launcher. Despite it's name, the recon probe launcher can be fitted onto any ship type providing it has the cpu / powergrid requirements. The difference between the two are:

Recon Probe Launcher

Can only use the ship probes (Ferret, Fathom, Spook and Snoop)
Ship probes are designed to find ships
They return results quicker than exploration probes
They have weaker sensor strength than exploration probes
They are effective over a wide range (0au to 40au)
System-wide scanning bookmarks are not essential

Exploration Probe Launcher

Can only use the exploration probes (sift, comb, pursuit types with the four signature variations 'magneto','radar','ladar', 'gravimetric', and 'unknown'
Exploration probes can find everything
They return results a lot slower than ship probes
They have very high sensor strength
They are only effective under 4AU in range
System-wide scanning bookmarks are essential - initial placement of the probe is crucial

I often found that I was able to go from a Quest straight to a Sift, and when I couldn't a comb will usually work - pursuit probes proved to be a bit useless, at least right now.

Using multiple exploration probes is good too and it's probably best to seed a handful of probes first (up to three) and then do a scan on all of them at once rather than one by one. I selected them via shift+click.

The F10 map is very useful and one can hover the mouse over any of the results / probes to get a break down of the results. Here I am dropping RADAR probes to find a rather elusive RADAR site. So far, I did not get a hit but earlier scans have told me that there is a RADAR site here and I am going to spend some time on it. It's a challenge now and you never know, it could result in a something nice. Fingers crossed.

WTF?

2008-03-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

WHAT THE F*CK?

My FACE! My Face!

Very disturbing. Yuck.

Probing

2008-03-14T04:56:00.001-07:00

Scanning is turning out to be quite addictive and after re-reading two excellent guides, I decided to have another crack at it. I use the Helios for most of my work but occasionally, for nostalgic reasons, I end up using the venerable imicus-class frigates. I started in this ship, running little trading runs in Oursulaert and have fond memories of this, elegant little ship. It handles very well and with the recent upgrade in electronics, it turns out to be a decent cyno-ship as well as a cheap throwaway scanner.

Have I managed to find anything? Well yes, but that would be telling would it not? All I can say is that it has been profitable.

Hoshi's Guide: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=431586

Advanced Scanning Guide:
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=445716&page=1

Missioning in Low-Sec....why?

2008-03-05T16:07:00.000-08:00

TFAce and I decided to try some missioning in low-sec and the first question was always: why? The risks are well known: pirates and a slightly skewed 'risk v rewards' in that, one can safely do most Level 4 agent missions in the missioning hubs in Empire. Well, not all agents are available and we wanted some freedom and lag-free fun. Also, the level 5 agents are mainly low-sec based and we've been basing ourselves in low-sec for a while. Might as well work there. Our ships were not 100% fitted for mission work either: we had webbers and scramblers on board just in case some unfriendly pirates came into the mission area. I had my eyes on the scanner the whole time but saw nothing. There were one or two gate camps from Evati to Egmar but nothing I could not run away from. The mission was fun though challenging: Serpentis in Minmater space no less.

However, the salvage was good and the good old catalyst did a fine job quickly and efficiently hoovering up the wrecks. Nothing faction obviously but some good named mods and the rest could be rendered down into minerals as required. The salvage materials will go into the hangar in Bawilan for rig production. I think the polycarbon engine housing rigs are the best in terms of isk return. Am hopeful that I have salvaged enough to make a decent run of them.

Mining Haul

2008-03-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight's haul with me, Eryrin and Max mining for a few hours. I clone jumped to our mining office in high-sec and went into the belts with gusto. After all the low-sec wanderings it's quite nice to switch down the pace a little and chat with corp mates. We had some peeps sniffing around the cans but we were watching him.

A few hours later and we had a healthy chunk of minerals.

Getting ready to JC back to low-sec tonight.

Killing a station camping Maelstrom ....with help.

2008-02-29T03:27:00.001-08:00

I work a lot in low-sec now and there's always a lot of work there as well as danger. Danger from the resident pirates of all factions and hues. In my area it's the Angels with a health (unhealthy?) mix of others.

Still, I take it in my stride and have ships set up accordingly and growing eyes in the back of my head.

This time, as I undocked from the station - I noticed a flagged criminal sitting above the station right next to his can. I recognised him a pilot called 'Kerjin'. A criminal, though I would argue whether you can class him as a pirate. As my megathron-class battleship slid out from the dock, my tactical computer detected a hostile target lock. It was Kerjin and my overview (already flashing red) indicated a lock and then he fired. My shields almost disappeared and I was impressed with his alpha-strike. Anything smaller than this ship would be in trouble. I was already aligned to get on with a mission but I decided to teach this guy a lesson.

I continued to align, the megathron slowly shifting along it's axis towards Ingunn V when I hit red alert on the ship. Claxon's wailed and my crew ran to their stations. This megathron was designed to come close, hit hard and get my marines on board. Getting a lock on Kerjin's ship - a maelstrom-class minmater battleship, tactical indicated it was 32km away. Too far for my ship to close before I was into armour. Kerjin however was very close to a secured can. I got the can to record it's location. My intention was to warp to the secure can's location and thereby land within 10km of Kerjin and kill him.

The megathron finally aligned and hit into warp. The damage was minor: all shield damage and nothing had penertrated into the thick hide of this, most beautiful, battleship. It was an armour tanker anyway. I was very unconcerned.

As my ship approached the warp in beacon, I quickly reviewed the last two minutes. Kerjin was using artillery units, high damage and low rate of fire. He was also set up for range and was probably shield tanking. Using the maelstrom's inherent advantages in shield boosting systems. I had to get close and due to his recent weapons' discharge, the emp surrounding the engines and the weapons systems interfering with the stations docking computer would bar his immediate re-dock.

On arrival at the beacon, I swung the ship around and ordered a warp in onto the can. Kerjin was still outside the station and I had to get him to continue to fire on me. My seven neutron blaster II canon batteries should be able to dish out a lot of damage and overcome his shields. However, the can he was hovering over was probably packed full of cap booster charges. He could tank my damage until he ran out of boosters. Had to bank on bleeding my damage past his shield recharge.

Bursting from warp, I arrived just a little above Kerjin, about 10KM. I immediately locked him and my stasis webber and warp disruptor snapped on. Kerjin then took my own alpha strike, at range, and his shield shrank by 15%. He locked me as I closed the distance, my afterburner glowing brightly as it pushed the mass of my ship towards Kerjin's maelstrom. An alpha strike by Kerjin knocked my shield systems almost down to 10% - my engineers shifting power from the rear shields to the frontal one but the blaster canon batteries were eating a lot of the available power. My next two salvos took Kerjin past 50% shield but he immediately boosted his shields back to about 95%. It was going to be a slow process as damage started to leak into my armour.

My next couple of salvos took him back to 45% but he boosted back up - almost to complete recovery. My drones slid out and added to the damage as did Kerjin, who sent what looked like webber drones.

Suddenly, my collision avoidance systems shrilled sharply and I was joined by an astarte-class battlecruiser, a raven-, scorpion- and maelstrom-class battleship. All four arrived at the same time and locked me and Kerjin. A quick glance and I could see that one was a pirate. All four were criminals. Not good, the scorpion fired on me while the other three concentrated on Kerjin. With the extra damage, Kerjin's impressive shield tank disappeared in a flash. Knowing that I could not take on four battleships, I recalled my drones just as I landed the killing blow on Kerjin's maelstrom. The drones buzzing round and sawing off chunks from the doomed infrastructure of the maelstrom.

I stopped firing and desparately tried to flush out the excessive heat and extra radiation from the weapons' systems. Otherwise, they would interfere with the stations docking computer and I would be stuck outside. The rule of thumb is a one minute wait, without any weapons' fire before the energies have sufficiently dispersed for docking to occur. Sitting their like a big target was not my idea of fun but the scorp and the other battleships had now locked and fired on me. I was not going to be tempted into firing at them. Oh no.

My megathron pushed through the still burning debris of Kerjin's battleship as I nosed my way closer to the docking ramps. Damage was now occuring on my armour, minor at first but increasing all the time. I was in no danger however. At least, not yet, I told myself.

Finally, I docked up - the station swallowing up the megathron.

To my surprise, concord had deemed that I laid the final killing blow, on Kerjin's maelstrom. Pity I could not pick up the loot or salvage the wreck. I chatted to some of the pirates who came in and it appeared that they were waiting for Kerjin to attack and then for them to come piling in. It was a trap and inadvertently I had sprung it for them.

Fun times indeed.

2008.02.28 17:48

Victim: kerjin
Alliance: None
Corp: Polis Action
Destroyed: Maelstrom
System: Ingunn
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 97628

Involved parties:

Name: Gallente Sentry Gun / CreoDron
Damage Done: 38765

Name: votrian alpha (laid the final blow)
Security: 0.3
Alliance: None
Corp: Union Aerospace Corporation
Ship: Megathron
Weapon: Warrior II
Damage Done: 24977

Name: Muhaar Gemeinian
Security: -7.9
Alliance: None
Corp: Hellequin Inc.
Ship: Astarte
Weapon: Astarte
Damage Done: 14127

Name: Redbad
Security: -9.7
Alliance: None
Corp: Tempered Steel Legion
Ship: Maelstrom
Weapon: Dual 650mm 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I
Damage Done: 11461

Name: Marak Bon
Security: 0.2
Alliance: None
Corp: Rastana CMP
Ship: Raven
Weapon: Bane Javelin Torpedo
Damage Done: 6869

Name: WayCharles
Security: -5.5
Alliance: None
Corp: Tempered Steel Legion
Ship: Scorpion
Weapon: Wrath Cruise Missile
Damage Done: 1429

Destroyed items:

Scan Resolution
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 64
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
Heavy Capacitor Booster II
Invulnerability Field II
X-Large Shield Booster II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 5 (Cargo)
Core Defence Operational Solidifier I, Qty: 3

Dropped items:

Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 42
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
Invulnerability Field II
Sensor Booster II
Shield Boost Amplifier I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Gyrostabilizer II
Republic Fleet Nuclear L, Qty: 270 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 450 (Cargo)
Berserker SW-900 (Drone Bay)

New Star

2008-02-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

A mysterious star. L5 Mission Madness

UAERO has been running combat simulation missions in order to fully familiarise ourselves with the new missions being made available. We're pretty confident that passive shield tanked ships with some logistical support (a dominix with remote shield transfers) should be the minimum. Two ships, minimum. The neutralising towers start their work from 50km away - too far for any close range gank setups to do anything about. In fact, my beloved megathron ships, all set up for short range killing will be blasted to scrap before I covered the 15km of the 50km distance to the target. A shield tanked, sniping rokh might be a good choice.

However, it is coming to the point where we are now ready to move off the simulation server and into the real thing. Many of the L5 areas are camped by pirates so this will add a new dimension to the fighting but am confident that we're prepared for it.

That Star

I spotted this a few months ago and then the astronomers went wild over it with wild theories thrown all over the place.

It isn't a super nova that's for sure. Latest theory is that it is some sort of worm hole, similiar to the EVE Gate. Maybe a natural worm hole? Others, less fanciable theories, state that this star is the herald of our doom and that mysterious aliens will come and devour us all.

Am inclined to believe the worm hole theory. I don't think that there is a cover-up of the facts but I do know people are afraid. Me, I think there's isk to be made. One a recent cargo run, I managed to take a snap shot and placed it in this blog.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=1788&tid=2

Level 5 missioning

2008-01-31T04:13:00.000-08:00

Newer agents have been appearing amongst some of the larger corporations and it took a lot of effort, work and isk to finally set up a meeting with one of these mysterious agents. The work was interesting but we found that carriers could not access the majority of the new areas. However, once we downgraded to battleships it was game on.

The areas were in the deepest reaches of low-sec space, far off celestial bodies and navigation beacons. We found that in these areas, some of the largest and nastiest ships were located and we had our hands full tackling these ships. L4 agent missioning ships had great trouble surviving in these newer, hostile environments.

The main danger were the energy neutralising towers, able to suck the capacitor dry in seconds and rendering the ship a useless floating hunk of junk.

A passive shield setup was required but it also needed some heavy resistances too.

In the end, we gave up - after my repair bill for a heavily armoured megathron came to a total of 86million isk!

However, am hungry to get back for more.

V

Red versus Blue

2008-01-30T15:44:00.001-08:00

I love this idea.

EVE Online | EVE Insider | Forums

Stupid.

2008-01-25T13:51:00.000-08:00

Ach Stupid. Not sure what happened here. I was sure I was cloaked and in a safe spot but when I came back (after only two minutes) I had this cheetah on me. I couldn't get out and with no weapons, the Helios popped.

2008.01.25 21:25:00

Victim: votrian alpha
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Union Aerospace Corporation
Destroyed: Helios
System: Arnstur
Security: 0.1
Damage Taken: 1928

Involved parties:

Name: szcheh (laid the final blow)
Security: 0.1
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Under Cover of Night
Ship: Cheetah
Weapon: Light Neutron Blaster II
Damage Done: 1928

Destroyed items:

Snoop Scanner Probe I, Qty: 57 (Cargo)
Sensor Booster II
Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I, Qty: 2
Scan Resolution Dampening
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Spook Scanner Probe I, Qty: 95 (Cargo)
Ferret Scanner Probe I, Qty: 42 (Cargo)
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Remote Sensor Dampener I
Hobgoblin II (Drone Bay)
Targeting Range Dampening
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Qty: 2

Dropped items:

Beta Hull Mod Inertial Stabilizers
Recon Probe Launcher I
Fathom Scanner Probe I, Qty: 38 (Cargo)
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
1MN Afterburner I
Ferret Scanner Probe I, Qty: 9
Scan Resolution
Targeting Range Dampening

Pod Kills Hurt

2008-01-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

Was running a mission in low-sec and all my ships are fitted for PvP with a tackling setup as per standard. This time in my incursus with T2 light blasters. I had some exotic dancers in my accomodation, they were on their way to some stag do for some big executive and I was asked to transport them through low-sec space for an obscene amount of money.

I was not going to turn this offer down.

As I entered into the calming depths of space, I checked my scanner and spotted two rifters in a belt. Then there was only one left to be replaced by a capsule. So there was a fight, but in the same communication channel, I discovered that one pilot was suddenly flagged for aggression and there it was: a pirate in action.

I changed my vector and accelerated into the belt, an incursus versus a rifter was not a good choice; the rifter is by far the best T1 frigate. I know, I fly them on a regular basis. However, I was hoping the pirate was chuckling over the kill and picking over the wreckage. He may still be ransoming the unfortunate pilot and would be distracted. Either way, I had an edge.

Landing in the belt, I was 80Km from the rifter and indeed, he had the pod scrambled. I had an afterburner and hit it. 80km is a long distance to travel and most pirates have friends nearby. Also, I know some pirates who frequent this area and I didn't recognise this chap. More fool him but surely he spotted me by now? I was 70km and closing.

60km and nothing. I could not lock him nor him me.

50km and I scanned around me to ensure he did not have friends nearby.

40km and I had a started a lock. I had a dampner on here and with that on him, he would find his locking resolution greatly impaired.

30km and on came the dampner, pulsing away. If he hadn't figured out my intentions by now, well it was pretty clear. My three t2 blasters started their initialisation sequences.

20km and my disruptor came on and he still had not locked me. Surely a trap? Leaving pirate bait was one of many a trap that I was aware of.

10Km and the returned my lock and well, auto canons have a long fall-off and he should be able to hit me. I noticed he had absolutely minimal shield damage as well.

5km and I started my blasters on him, the void ammunition chewing into his shields. The pirate returned fire and my shields flared as it absorbed the blows. This incursus was built to fight up close so I got even closer and was in under 1000m. The rifter scored good hits but I was more experienced a pilot and I could pick out weak points on the rifter and concentrate on them. The rifter was soon into armour and he tried to repair it. My blasters continued to hit, hard. My computer picked up a may-day call from the pirate and I realised that his associates were probably inbound soon.

I had to be quick and blasted the rifter to pieces. I then locked the pod and killed it.

Then I realised my mistake. The pirate was flagged for aggression but he was not an outlaw (yet) and hence, killing his pod resulted in the mandatory Concord security rating reduction.

SHIT.

It had taken me years to get up to 3.5 and then a ill-advised pairing with the notorious pilot 'Flashfresh' resulted in my security rating dropping to 1.7 and now, killing a pirate knocked me down to 0.7 and I thank the stars that it did not go down further. Still, I have a working relationship with Flash and we're friends if not fast-buddies. Yes, my line of work means that I occasionally consort with those deemed to be dangerous and undesirable.

I whipped the ship around and exited the belt just as two more pirate ships came screaming in. It was then I noticed that these were associates of Flashfresh; could the rifter pirate been a new associate?

Ooops.

Anyway, I wonder how long before I could get my security status back up to 4.0?

Low-sec mining? bah.

2008-01-08T01:28:00.000-08:00

A nice shot of my incursus to brighten my day. I use this mean looking ship for my everyday travel. Also, use it for the courier work I do for Creodron. The incursus is small, fast and hard-hitting and I love it. The Tech 2 brothers, the Ishkur and Enyo are even better but a bit more of a kick to the wallet.

The L4 mining missions are a challenge to be sure, the agents asked me to get them 3000 units of geodicite, a poor relation of Crokite. I was going to get paid 3million isk and a lot of loyalty points but jet can mining in low-sec with rats around you and pirates meant that I had to warp out and switch from the mining ship to a combat ship and back again. Yes, I considered using a Dominix with mining lasers and using drones for defence but didn't have the time to set one up. Anyway, jetting my ore out and wrapping it a thin, flimsy wrap was a bad idea. The agent had located a specific area for me to mine. On arrival, I only saw two rocks and I had to completely mine them out. Once I did, I grabbed the ore in several journeys but the can did not last and I lost the last 300units. Now problem is, the agent required the exact amount that was in both asteroids. Losing 300 units, I could not find another source ANYWHERE. I considered going out and scanning for the missing ore but decided that it was too problematic. I informed the agent that, reluctantly, I had to decline the mission.

He was pissed at me and tapped something in my record and obviously, made a note of my unreliability. Bastard.

Killing pirates and hauling stuff

2008-01-04T02:46:00.001-08:00

Killing pirates and hauling stuff

Hauling stuff in low-sec space is proving to be a profitable if, at times, dangerous business. Certainly, I have been locked and targeted by pirates and outlaws at the exit point of the station. The station guns, futiley firing at the outlaws and having virtually no effect. With a few warp core stabilisiers and nano-fibres; I have always managed to get away.

There is a breed of pilot that infest many a system however. Called 'farmers' or 'scum' or whatever in between by pod pilots all over New Eden.

I have no issue with people wanting to make isk and get on in New Eden; it's the reason why I am in this business too. However, they appear to spawn and block up exits and entrances all over the popular hauler routes AND they attract outlaws and pirates. It does appear that there are many groups or factions of farmers and they compete. Sometimes this competition breaks out into hostilities. Resulting in some of these farmers becoming outlaws themselves.

So one morning, I was undocking in my iteron, full of spare drone parts bound for Rokofur when I realised that I was being locked by someone. The exit point was chockful of other haulers, bumping and grinding into each other. The air was thick with expletives as other pilots yelled at the farmers to clear the exit points. As I slowed down, my iteron shook as it took a heavy missile. Then it rocked to the side as a slew of missiles hit me. What the hell? I thought to myself. Then I saw him, it was a pilot called 'Expanded111' and he was in a drake and was hitting me with missiles. I already toggled my shield booster on and was heading back to the docking bay. I successfully docked while the ineffectual station guns opened fire. The drake with it's massive shield systems easily soaked up the damage.

Checking the concord information, I discovered that Expanded111 was one of these farmers and may have mistaken me for a rival? No matter, I was not going to sit there and get blasted, not right outside my home station and not by a farmer. Switching to my thorax, I undocked. The drake was there, blasting some other hauler and also engaging a crow-class interceptor. A bad mistake on his part I think.

I locked him and let loose the drones. My disruptor came on and I set the thorax cruiser on an orbit of 1500mm; my heavy neutrons opened up spitting out anti-matter and void charges. They ate into the drake's shields easily and I was chewing into him. Expanded111 had then locked me and fired another salvo of heavy missiles at me, he failed to knock out an iteron, what chance did he have with a thorax set up for fighting?

My drones buzzed round him as did the crow. With all caldari ships, one has to overwhelm the shield systems and once through, they are soft in the middle. Their armour is poor and their hulls even more so. My blasters continued to pummel the drake's shields and I could see they were dropping too quickly for the pilot to recover. It was dying.

Once the shield system sparked and flared off, my anti-matter rounds melted off chunks of his armour and then a few seconds later, was into his hull. With it spewing out life-support gases and listing to one side, the drake, fearsome as it was, disappeared in a bright flash. The pilot's pod popped out and I quickly snagged it. The crow pilot and I killed the pod, smashing it open and flash-freezing the organic contents.

Later, I was doing my rounds when a caracal locked me and fired on me when I was passing through a belt, looking for salvage. What was going on? I thought to myself, I wanted to just get on with my work; this new year was going to get busy for the corporation and being shot at was a distraction. The caracal was an outlaw so not even bothering to open up a conversation with him, I grabbed my only available ship: a deimos HAC.

That should do.

I undocked and the outlaw caracal was still on scan though not in the same belt. Adjusting the scanner I narrowed the outlaw down to the third belt alongside another caracal. I checked my ammunition and ensured that I had a scrambler fitted to tackle and lock down the outlaw.

Hitting the engines, I zipped into the belt and landed in a shower of plasma and light. There was the caracal, it locked me immediately as I was only 15km from him. My scrambler came on ensuring that he was not able to warp out unless he had stabs on. His missiles arched over towards me, splashing over my shields. I waited until I was in my optimal.

Then I fired.

The destructive poweres of a deimos up-close is awesome. One salvo and the caracal was in hull, the tide of void ammunition completely overwhelming the shield systems of the missile boat. The next half salvo tore the caracal in half.

The pilot's pod popped out and I locked it. It did not warp away, probably because the pilot was still shocked of his ship's quick demise. I killed him without a thought since I wasn't a pirate, I had no intention of ransoming him.

The day ended with me testing out a Helios and there was another outlaw running around, this time in a Maelstrom. He was sitting at range and popping haulers and other ships as they exited the stations or the gates.

He obviously had long range howitzers installed and I tracked him in my helios, following him around. I always landed too far but I will get close. Close enough to kill him next time.

Killed a drake

2008-01-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

Was running some courier missions in my thorax when on approaching a station, I spotted a blinking drake. The pilot was an outlaw at -5.5 and was trading shots with a small and nimble Crow. Not wishing to let such pirates practise such outrageous behaviour, I powered up my afterburner and pushed my thorax up close and hit the warp scrambler, just to be sure. My small and medium blasters chewed through the drakes thick shields quite easily and the drake pilot decided to target me instead of the small nimble crow.

My thorax easily tanked this and we killed the drake, it's shield systems overwhelmed by a combination of anti-matter rounds and whatever ordnance the crow had. Into its armour and easier still, the Drake, like all Caldari ships, are not known for their armour and thus it was on fire and spewing out atmosphere within seconds. The Drake class battlecruiser exploded and the pod came out into the open. I snagged it with my warp scrambler and podded him, safe in the knowledge that his outlaw status meant no security hit for me.

I didn't get the drake kill mail and I assumed that the crow pilot did? I convo'ed him and he tells me that he has not. Odd but not matter, I had some more hauling to do and planning for the 2008 corp ops.

Welcome to 2008!

Freighter escort

2007-12-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

Mordred70 had qualified as a freighter pilot and was eager to help the corp move a lot of hardware in the cavernous hold of the Providence-class freighter. He parked the behemoth outside our Ikami office and arranged for short-range transport craft to move practically our entire office into the hold. We also packed into it's hold a few battleship-class ships, cruiser and frigates - all reduced down into travel-mode compact version. Crew quarters stripped out, weapons removed. All to make it easier to pack.

It took almost half a day to load everything, Mordred running his logistical officers ragged with the need for constant briefs but this is Mord and he runs a tight ship. Finally, by 19:00 standard EVE Time the fleet was ready to move. The chat channel was alive with good natured banter as the fleet moved out. The ships included a Providence-class freighter (Captain Mordred70), Eos-class command ship (Votrian), a deadly missile-spewing cerberus class heavy assault ship (Captain Max), an omen (TFAce) and another Cerberus (Captain Hal) - the latter working his way from Bei towards us due to his need to avoid all engagements with the Gallente Federation.

The freighter opens up some new and interesting lines of work, no-one can doubt the capacity of such a craft and now in our possession and the ability to move huge amounts of material - we are thinking of using it as a cheap Capital industrial ship, taking in the mined ore from our barges.

The move was successful - we had one or two persons come close to us but by the third jump, we were pretty slick and moving along the pipe at speed. Within an hour, we had arrived at our destination with no problems. A successful mission indeed.

Mordred70 then turned the huge shape of the freighter towards our mining office, once he had deposited the items in the Rokofur hangar.

There are now lots of possibilities and I have two new ships to move from the new location.

Myrmidon - post-nerf

2007-12-13T04:14:00.000-08:00

Went L4 mission running with Lionsan and TFAce in high-sec; it was nice to be back in empire space for the time being. In low-sec one needs to grow a pair of eyes in the back of your head. I was also keen to try out the myrmidon battle-cruiser after the introduction of bandwidth. I had to get rid of the ogre IIs heavy drones and instead, packed it with x30 hobgoblin II drones. A big drop in DPS I think.

However, the ship performed well and to be honest, I could have take out two of the four blasters I had and replaced them with the drone mods thus increasing the range and speed of my smaller drones.

The missioning was fun and relaxing - Lionsan had found a decent L3 and L4 agent that can give out good standings to us in our continued effort to unlocking that L5 agent. So far Max is the only one who has this available with Lionsan, I believe, close to doing same. I am a long way off though.

The new look of the myrmidon is nice, very nice. For the corp members with more powerful systems, it looks like a whole new world. Lucky devils.

I am now looking at the EOS-class battlecruiser as the entire class was recalled for some urgent refits. Not too sure how this would affect the ship class to be honest, but it is a gang ship first and foremost. It should be a force multiplier and not the main damage dealer. Quite certainly, there is a move to render as many ships useless as a solo-pwn mobile.

Tri KB

2007-12-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

Arzal is an ex-Corpie but we chat often and I am having a look at his corp/alliance's KB...
Triumvirate. Killboard - Campaign details - TRI Down South

Their current campaign down south is a mixed bag it would appear. Doing well against KOS and IAC, okay against S3v3rance but very poorly against Paxton Federation, Slyth and CVA. Against the first two, they have lost less ships but lost more isk. While against CVA, they have lost more ships and more isk overall.

Interesting! I know TRI has a fearsome PvP reputation but does this mean that they may have bitten off more than they can chew? CVA I have heard a lot about but not as a PvP alliance. Quite a pleasant surprise then.

Fighting so many opponents at once must be difficult wouldn't you say? I know it would be hard to field limited resources between so many opponents but then again, TRI are probably relishing the challenges. All power to them.

Test run with the Ark Royal

2007-11-28T02:43:00.001-08:00

We decided a test run was required to work out any logistical kinks in moving our carrier down to our office. Hal was the pilot while TFace and I were in cyno-generator capable ships. I opted for the humble imicus as it would be disposable if some opportunity pirates come along to gank me. The cyno-test was a success as we tested the route to ensure we all had enough full and that landing right next to the station did not result in an immediate kick-out. Something that would be bad for us.

Hal did brilliantly as he got to grips with commanding the behemoth and Lionsan revealed that he was Dreadnaught qualified too.

So the UAERO cap fleet, humble as it is - now is growing. We still need more cyno-pilots but it does look good. Max is currently diving off the fabled beaches in Saila but he has a new high quality agent contact that has promised us very challenging work.

An excellent L5 mission resource has been made available, information is still quite sparse but we're looking forward to tackling them and with a carrier in the fleet, it should make things easier. One would hope.

Also, we tried out the new ships GUI (codenamed 'Trinity') and early responses is that the improvements are breath taking. Even the humble Imicus looks so much better - so much, that I want to strap myself into one and take a ride in it. Yes, the humble imicus.

The next few months should be fun and challenging.

EVE TV and L5

2007-11-26T14:49:00.001-08:00

We're getting ready to tackle some level 5 missions now and here's a great resource that we hope to populate.

EVE TV is no more and I doubt we'll see it back as a weekly show, great pity but you know; if peeps would be willing to pay for it even £2 per show per person, it could have made all the difference.

Now I hear peeps crying about it leaving. Well, nothing in life is free.

Operation Greenhill

2007-11-21T04:16:00.000-08:00

We had a small fleet of four, two Drake-class battlecruisers and two Thorax-class cruisers. I had a call from a few agents who wanted UAERO to run a series of missions for them. Three agents and four pod pilots. Sounded like a good match.

We needed to improve our standings with Republic fleet anyways and while the tensions are getting high between the main players, it doesn't show amongst the more practical minded agents who just needed to get the job done. I agree with this sentiment exactly.

So the four ship fleet went out and for a whole day we ran missions for the three agents, soon working up a smooth operation. At times, we had to dodge pirates (or worse) who were out scanning for mission runners like ourselves. We saw snoop and the more accurate fathom probes. However, the firepower of the four ships we had proved to be overwhelming and we lanced through each of the missions in a very short time. Probably too short for a scan prober to get a lock on our ships.

Max had taken some leave back to Saila and to some hidden underwater resort. He is now ex-comms until he resurfaces. Pity as he is our contact for the new agent we have found, a very well regarded individual. Eryrin too had managed to convince another agent of high standing to give him a shot at mission. My Intaki cousin was in his trusty Ishtar class assault cruiser, which lasted all of 30 seconds I was told. Needless to say, he didn't return to the agent and next time, he needs the backup of the corp to make it a success.

The Ark Royal I believe has been commissioned and is ready for a shake down cruise. Hal is the captain and he will prove to be a superb carrier-Captain in time. Right now we need to get the damn thing out into play. Also, the recently published Eve Quarterly Report has made it's way into our hands and it makes fascinating reading for those interested in how New Eden works, economically.

Some interesting bits include there being only 32 pod-pilots that are classed as super-criminal and outlaw. They have a perfect -10.0 under Concord's security level. Additionally, there are another 4,200 criminal pod-pilots. On the other hand, there is one pod-pilot in New Eden with a security rating of +8.5, and only five other pilots with a security rating of +7.0 or higher. What does that tell you? It is easier to be a criminal, an outlaw, a pirate than one of the good guys. Pity that one can not get a big security gain when one pods a criminal, some calculation based on the criminals current rating. A bigger gain for a bigger criminal. Would be a nice addition to a (yet-to-be-announced) revamp to the bounty system.

Raven-class battleships are the most common - I remember when there was a shock announcement when this Caldari behemoth first was made know in New Eden; when it near decimated a Guristas strike force about a decade ago. Now look at it!

Holden Friendly EVE Comics

2007-11-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

A most excellent find by one of our corp mates: 'Holden Friendly EVE Comics' at this link.. http://luckystellar.com/HoldenFriendly/albums.php

LOL indeed, I hope there will be more.

V

CreoDron

2007-11-13T10:46:00.001-08:00

Am running missions for some L4 Creodron agents when I realised that this organisation does not possess any L5 agents! Ach - not good as I really enjoy working for them. Good news however, that the LP store will have more RP-aligned rewards but I see that Creodron missed out on the lurve. It would be cool to get Creodron specific drone implants or limited specialist drone BPCs or something. That would be sweet.

Mining Operations

2007-11-08T02:03:00.001-08:00

Mining operations are always quite relaxing for me but TFAce had been ambushed by some idiot. TFAce was in a short-range ship but the ambusher kept control of the range and killed my corp mate.

We have to be more careful and we were in force during the mining operation for safety. The ambusher was there in local during the operation but never undocked for more than two minutes.

Oh well.

CEO Address

2007-11-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

It's been almost three years since I assumed the CEO-ship of UAERO and it has been a wonderful ride. The corp cracked 35 members about three months ago and while we have some members who are now inactive (their roles and permission will be reduced accordingly) - we're a decent medium corporation now and I am proud of each and every one of you.

Anyway, enough of me talking about the past. I am want to look and talk about the future. It looks bright and we're part of it.

OK - here are our goals:

Get our first carriers out and into missions. Target: within two months.
Access our first L5 mission as a corp. Target: within two months.
Get at least two of our corp members into the new capital mining ship. Target: by the end of 2007. Currently Lionsan and Eryrin are aiming for this.
Get all our pilots either Recon or Black Ops or Covert-Ops qualified (preferably all three) - the corp will help with purchasing the necessary skill books. Target: All pilots by end of 2007. Black Ops preferred as we can say bye-bye to gate camps.
Permanent presence at Helgatid - making it our low-sec home. Target: 25% of corp members basing themselves there.
Get some corp members to run missions for ORE (in low-sec) to get hold of the ORE-specific LP rewards. Means a relocation to Outer Ring (unless ORE agents increase in number and location) --> the link is here and scroll down to LP Store Stuff
Devolve all mining operational planning to Lionsan and TFAce to organise and to lead. Target: within two months.
Devolve the L5 mission operational planning to Max and Hal to organise and to lead. Target: within two months

Just eight goals but all achievable.

I want to concentrate on recruitment and strategy and PvP.

Longer term I want to increase our corp membership to 45 and think about joining an alliance where we can have access to 0.0 space but this will be left to the corp to vote on. Too big a decision for one man to do.

So much to do but thanks to each one of you for making things easier and enjoyable, with the new EVE graphic engine about to hit us and LINUX and MAC clients as well as more shiny bits of kit AND me planning to go to EVE Fanfest 2008 AND a few LAN parties round Max's - what is there not to look forward to?

All power to you all.

Votrian

New LP Store.

2007-10-30T02:41:00.000-07:00

I run missions on a regular basis for CreoDron and for the Sisters of EVE (since I am heavily involved in a charity in RL) and I have always felt that the these minor factions have been hard done by in terms of their LP store.

Well, it looks like it is about to change and for the better too.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=515

Back to mission running I think and this could probably spread out the pilots even more.

Love New Eden!

Losing the Dom

2007-10-30T01:57:00.001-07:00

The Dominix is a mighty ship - even if it looks like an unwieldy clog. It is versatile and one remake itself in a myriad of roles.

I had it as a mega-armour tanked, triple-injected beast. With three (yes three) LARs. I jumped into an angel complex and immediately turned the boat around - needed to get some distance before they started to fire at me. Some of the BCs and other ships were uncomfortably too close.

Then the shooting started and I let loose the drones - carefully targeting the irritating webifier frigates buzzing towards me.

It was the last thing I did as the GUI then froze, my uplink to the camera drones outside was interrupted, all telemetry from the ship disappeared and I feared the worst. A minute later, I was back and in my pod.

Shit.

Maybe in the brief interruption, the drones accidentally aggro'ed the entire fleet? Even so, I would have hightailed it out of there as I was already aligned.

Dunno, but the introduction of lag certainly did not help me and I sat in the pod sadly looking at the smoldering wreck of 'Storm Bird', my battleship.

Feeling a bit dejected I flew back to Ingunn and docked up and drowned my sorrows.

Balance - yes or no?

2007-10-24T05:58:00.001-07:00

There's always something raging in the GalNet forums on why some ships appear to be overpowered and others too weak and therefore useless. At the moment, there is a ranging argument of changes to capsuleers ability to handle more than five fighters as well as the optimising the code for drone bandwidth that will mean the mighty Myrmidon can not field heavy drones anymore.

My thoughts on balance is that - first and foremost, the game needs to be fun and full of flavour. I believe that each race should have some advantages and disadvantages. Each race will have ships that are unbelievably DESTRUCTIVE, while other ships less so. If all ships were balanced, they would be the same except in shape and colour. Where would the fun be? So a bit of imbalance is not only inevitable but required. It will probably suck for those disadvantaged but am hoping that there will be alternatives in place or that the system is responsive enough that workarounds get discovered.

Take for example the Myrmidon. It can't (or soon can't) field more than five heavy drones and a smart enemy pilot should be able to take out the drones quickly and easily. It's not as if it's drone bay is the same as the mighty dominix now is it? However, there are arguments that heavy drones should only be fielded by battleships. What utter crap. Field whatever drones you want, providing you can fit them into the bay. Same argument goes for the EOS - is it the solopwnmobile? Nope. I fly one and while I have ganked a lot in it - I don't think it's that strong. It's good mind but only because it is so poor as a Command Ship. It should have a buff for the warfare link and gang bonuses. Pilots use it as a front line solo combat ship and not as a gang warfare vehicle precisely because it (and all it's counterparts) is relatively poor at the gang link shuffle.

Boost the gang warfare stuff!

Another related issue are that pilots appear to be having issues with thinking outside the box in many case. I am worried that as the clamor increases that we will be faced with a complete leveling of all ship types. That combat will become a matter of luck....as all ships are the same and probably fitted the same, where is the edge? I can see all races having a generic 'omni-cruiser' a vessel with five high-, mid- and low-slots and the ability to fit the same modules. Ahhh balance. Don't you love it?

New Eden's races each have their flavour and history. These differences make New Eden come alive.

Caldari have the edge on shield, missiles and ECM.
Amarr have the edge on armour tanking, capacitor management and lasers.
Gallente: drones, armour tanking and hybrids.
Minmatar have speed, autocanons and versatility in all drones, shields and armour. Their strength is in their versatility.

Mixing up the abilities and having some ships with odd abilities and out-of-race abilities (meet the Eris with missile bonuses!) is a beautiful thing. Not horrible like some pilots say and if you have a problem, the solution is simple: train up something else!

The carrier's now (or soon will) have a restriction on how many fighters they can field directly. Anything over the fifth fighter needs to be delegated to another pod pilot. This is a good move as it doesn't remove the ability of a carrier to field fighters but it means that the pilot needs help to do it. Certainly, the carrier is meant to be a support vessel and it would be good if they can increase the number of fighters fielded by a carrier but that each fifth fighter needs to be delegated or something. That would be a thing of beauty.

Anyway, whatever happens - things will change and I believe that the following needs to apply now: 'adapt or die'.

Operation Airbus

2007-10-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

A successful mining mission was concluded last night with Lionsan and Mordred in mining ships ripping into omber. Love the smell of freshly mined omber in the evenings.

The corp hangar is quite full of ore now and we'll be stamping out more ammo and ships soon to ship down to our low-sec office. The push to access the Level 5 agent is gaining pace; we need a reason for all the capital qualified pilots to bring their expensive toys out. I for one, have no restraint....except those caused by lack of isk.

Wonder what the level 5 command agent will offer? Meanwhile, I will clone jump back to low-sec and run some more Level 4 courier missions. Easy LP if you're smart. I hear that faction ammo sells well.

Dominix FTW

2007-10-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

I am rekindling my love for the the Dominix. Sure, there are the sexy Hyp and Megathron but the ever versatile Dominix is great. Am using it for running low-sec missions for Republic Fleet in an effort to improve my standing so I can get access to that Level 5 agent who has set up shop nearby. Currently fitted with a massive tank and cap to match - can run the LARs until the cows come home and then some. Need more cap 800 boosters however and will require a massive cargo run with VG to make it happen.

However, this Dom has teeth however and has decent pvp ability too. In short - there isn't a warp scrambler but with x4 heavy neuts; if you have no cap you can't warp. End of story. Perfect.

Back

2007-10-21T04:18:00.000-07:00

The office at Helgatid has been busy in my absence after a two-week vacation to Luminaire. Taking in the sites and sounds of that busy system. Feeling refreshed, I have come back to the corp offices with a dozen evemails flashing for my attention. Top of this was Arzal's decision to move to OMEN, a TRIUMVARIATE corporation. I was not too surprised as UAERO are not a fully-fledged, 24/7 PvP corp and this is what Arzal wanted. Will miss him but I am chuckling as I see his security rating dropping alarmingly!

To corp matters - am going full speed ahead with getting my and the corp standings up high enough to use the level 5 agent in the corp office. Having a L5 agent will allow us to finally unveil our carriers to the world. Am currently at L2 / L3 and as with most low-sec agents - they are quite high quality. However, I suspect that the L5 agent will take me about two months of solid work before he will talk to me. No matter, UAERO are patient.

Have asked (and will announce) Lionsan's role as our mining director. I want him to get into that new Rorqual mining capital ship. That ship looks lovely and the mining fields around Brin and Helgatid and Arnstur look very inviting. Am expecting to see a massive hulking capital ship destroying rocks left, right and centre.

All power to Lionsan!

Two megathrons and it isn't enough.

2007-09-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

Pirate corps were out in force last night. An anti-pirate force is being set up but am wary of them. I think most anti-pirate forces have too short a life span and that overall, most pirates are better at the pvp side of things.

However, am still interested in finding out more so have signed us up.

Arzal, Lionsan and I were out in our ships last night but Lionsan was ahead, six jumps with a Havoc Inc roaming gang between Arzal and I and Lionsan. Arzal and I idled in Helgatid but we did spot some more pirates from [MAD] hanging around, one was in local and in an Ishtar class heavy assault cruiser. Flashfresh was with us and our trio went hunting. Bad idea as the HAC was dancing around the planets and no intention of leaving. We managed to land in the same system but never had enough time to lock. Silly really, as we had no tacklers apart from Flash's wolf.

Finally, Flash managed to get the HAC around planet V and called us in. We warped in landing between 30-35km from the fast HAC. Even with our MWDs at full burn we could not get close enough to scrambled let alone web it. Arzal and I did send out our drones though.

Screaming across space, they chased after the nano-ishtar.

Ach, we should have figured out that the HAC pilot was skillfully buying time for his friends. So it came to pass, once we finally got close - local spiked and his friends jumped in. A deimos and other cruisers: no problem really. However, included in this gang were a celestis and a lachesis. Should have insta-locked these crafts and killed them. Instead, the lachesis got it's full set of dampeners on Arzal while I had the celestis.

My target range dropped to less than 2km and targeting time increasing to almost two and a half minutes. Cursing, I knew that I was dead. Just too stubborn to admit it. I was primaried and lost all my shield; I tried to tank but the deimos and others tore my armour to pieces. Hardeners notwithstanding.

I popped and was ransomed.

(sigh)

Lesson learned: in a small group, one needs to have force multipliers in the form of ewar. Small groups need to also instantly take out all opposition ships with even a hint of ewar. Forget everything else. Celestis, blackbirds, scorpions, lachesis, arazu etc - all need to die.

An expensive but very fun lesson. Time to get another ship!

I love the Domi

2007-09-26T04:23:00.000-07:00

This made me chuckle and here is a decent guide for Level 4 Domi pilots.

Hidden Drone Complexes

2007-09-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

Lionsan managed to scan down and discover a hidden drone complex. Some of these drones are huge and as big as battleships. They exhibited some rudimentary intelligence but not enough to fight off our ships. In only 45 minutes we had looted and salvaged a significant amount of rare alloy compound. Over time they will be collected and shipped to our factory in Bawilan. I have plans to stamp out more ships for the corporation's use.

We also went pirate baiting but Mordred in his drake class battlecruiser was probably too big a target. We should have went in with a nicely tanked cruiser. A BC bait means that we would attract too big a prey for our gang of three. Am pleased that the corp as a whole has seen the benefits of a low-sec office (as opposed to the 0.0 office we still have in syndicate) with decent rats, a nice variety of agents (L1 to L5), cosmic anomalies and even omber to boot.

However, one should not try to get too far ahead of ourselves. We need to consolidate around our new office and get enough ships and pilots down to Helga that we can make things work. Nothing worse than having pilots lose their ships and their nearest boat is over 20 jumps away!

Am missing my Astarte to be honest so must look into replacing this one as soon as possible. EMF is still on my list and I have kill rights on him; might have to get a locator agent on him soon when I know he has logged in.

V

Deimos has arrived

2007-09-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed. My Deimos-class heavy assault cruiser has arrived in Helgatid. I love it and I look forward to using it and soon. Last night, there was a massive influx of Havoc Inc players around the known camps; and not enough UAERO online or close enough to even think about trying to engage. However, what looked like a predominately Hungarian alliance (OMEGA) arrived in force and either wanted to pirate themselves or had a mind to chase after the existing pirates. I was running missions in Taff (0.2) so was far enough away not too let things worry me but got into a fast frigate and scooted after the armada. Havoc had docked up at the bottom station in Sotrenzur but the EVE maps revealed that large gate points had numerous pod kills between Eifer and all the way down to Orfrold.

Someone was busy.