Weekly report 3

This week has been a odd week, with some great fights, unbelievable kills and notable losses. Monday was quite a bad day I must say, me only fighting in a couple of engagements. The first was a organised 2vs1 until they brought a blackbird freind along. That didnt end well, with me biting the bullet. I then organized a small gang consisting of Jolo and cap'n tickles. We sought to engage the three other pirates again, and we eventually caught up with them. Again the fight didnt end well, due to the balckbird getting off a stupid number of jams, pretty much stopping all of us from getting a lock. We claimed a vexor kill but lost an arazu and incursus in the process. This was entirely my fault for being too brash, and taught me a lesson or two.

The second engagement was another 1vs1 but was not organised. A thorax pilot had been chasing me a couple of systems, but i didnt want to stop to fight as a brutix pilot was also on my tail. Eventually i gave in and tackled the thorax when he warped to me at a belt. It was a long drawn out fight, but quite an easy one i have to say. I webbed him and scrammed him, and sat at around 8km so that he lost a huge chunk of dps. He popped and i bolted as the brutix arrived at the belt. As it turns out the Brutix pilot was a really nice guy, and he had been chasing the thorax not me. He even kindly dropped of the loot from the wreck for me before saying goodbye.

The final fight was another organised 1vs1 against a thorax pilot which was dishonoured. I even posted a thread on C+P about it. Basically i was killing the thorax at a safespot, then she left our fleet and got a myrm friend to warp to me. The thorax died but unfortunately so did I. I have recieved an apology from the thorax pilot and some of the members of the corp, so i consider the matter done and dusted.

Tuesday was a fantastic day, and it began with me organising a small roam with me, egrat and cap'n. Going into vlrillier we spotted a megathron and retreiver at a belt. The original consensus was that the mega was the guard, but i decided to go have a look anyway. Realising that the mega was infact mining i slowboated towards him and tackled him, ignoring the fleeing retreiver. The rest of my gang warped to me and we made short work of the mining, honour tanked megathron. We couldn't beleive the pilots fitting, he whould have known better as he was around three years old.

The second kill was a pilgrim, who quite liked the idea of attacking me at a belt. I dont know but maller at a belt usually screams bait, but he took it. I was quickly capped before the taranis and jaguar came in and pretty much did the job, i got a few more volleys in and soon his tank broke. We got pretty good drops from this kill including a covert ops cloaking device.

Heading back to HQ we hooked up with Ka Jolo, who was flying a vexor and obeserving the movements of an absolution, arazu and thrasher. We decided to hang around, just to see what was up. It seemed as though the absolution was chasing the thrasher, and at one point he came to sit at a planet. We sent egrat in because his jaguar had stupidly high em resists and a great tank. When he called point the rest of us warped in and began shooting the absolution. The arazu decloaked and began its dampening from 60km away. It was futile however as all of us were withing 5km of the target, rendering the dampeners ineffective. The absolution was tanking like crazy, but soon ran out of charges. Ka Jolo's ecm drones were also reducing the amount of damage coming in at us, and eventually the absolution popped. We suffered no casualties, and we collected over 100M in faction loot. The arazu soon scarpered, and never bothered us again.

At this time i also stumbled across a pos with the force field down. I called the gang in and we destroyed the arrays and scooped what little stuff that dropped. We also bookmarked the location, and Ka Jolo sent a ransom demand to the owners of the pos. If they didnt pay up they would lose their nice shadow control tower and the batteries anchored to it.

Soon Ka Jolo and Egrat left the group, but we were joined by gilad in his vexor. We continued the roam, until we came across a FW gang in a complex. We had a vexor, maller, and taranis while they had a kitsune, harpy, comorant, kestrel, and arbitrator. I went in first as always and got them to attack me. They obliged and i called the others in. Cap'n was ordered to chase that kitsune down and kill it, as it was jamming all three of us heavily. I was taking heavy damage, but could last a while longer. Eventually the kitsune missed a jam on the taranis, and was insta popped. Now it was out time to shine. The vexor and I tore into the surrounding ships, melting them swiftly, I didnt even bother calling primary as they were dying so fast. After the last ship popped we caught a pod. The ransome we offered was refused and so he was executed. I ran a damage report, and we had killed all 5 of our targets and a pod without a single loss. We scooped the loot, and got our repairs done.

We then disbanded the gang for a while, as we all had things that needed doing. I headed back up to oulletta on my own, and came across ar mak who need help in taking down another maller. Me and Vajo responded and made short work of the guy. Vajo (stabber) and I fleeted and went back down to hevrice, rylack joined us with his harbinger.

I found myself once again being bait as I plopped myself down in a belt in Jovainnon, waiting for a curse to come get me. He came, and capped me in a couple of cycles. I called the gang in even though i had no tackle, as the curse had managed to get himself stuck in a group of asteroids. The curse melted as soon as rylack got a lock, and we were rewarded with another nice killmail.

We decided to head back up to ouelletta again, and avan sercedos (incursus), taco raptorian (myrm) joined us, while Vajo hopped into his hurricane. They sat outside the system while i had a look around. There was a huginn on scan, and we decided that I should be bait again. I went to the nearest belt, and indeed the huginn followed. He warped to 0, and I got a tackle, he was not going anywhere. I called the gang in and they warped to me. The huginn was dying quickly and at around 25% armour, one of his freinds in a broadsword appeared. I dropped my tackle on the huginn a everyone else had him, and tackled the boradsword. The huginn popped and we started killing the broadsword. Keeping an eye one scan things got interesting. A hyperion was closing in but we figured we could easily take a hyperion, so we hung around. Then another appeared on scan, then a tempest, then an armageddon. Once the broadsword popped i gave the order to get the hell out. We scooped most of the loot and the majority of us had made it into warp. Rylacks harbinger was tackled, and so was Vajo's hurricane. Vajo managed to MWD out of disruptor range and get away, but unfortunately we lost rylack's harbinger. Despite the loss I'd consider it to be a successful engagement.

While avoiding the BS gang i was tackled by my nemesis in a rifter, an obviously stupid move by him. I popped him without even breaking shield. Most of the gang left but avan, vajo and myself decided to head back to hevrice together. When we were there I decided to jump into jovainnon to get some loot i had left there. On the gate there was another curse, which i let attack me so i could jump through unhindered. I informed my two gang mates of the target, and i headed back to the gate. I jumped through again to see the curse was nanoed and had agressed Vajo's cane. We couldnt hit it from 30km away. So sneakily I ordered the incursus to intercept it and cut of its MWD. As soon as he called point, Vajo activiated his MWD and caught the curse pilot as avan popped. The curse died painfully and we scooped the loot. Checking the KM later we saw he had a faction disruptor worth well over 100M, however this got destroyed.

Wednesday was a day of heavy losses for me, where 5 of my mallers were destroyed. Three of these were lost to bloody gatecamps, that i always fall victim to. The other two were lost in 1vs1's. Both of which were good fights. The first was against a zealot, which I fought at a belt. I managed to get a tackle as usual, but unfortunately he was active tanked, I hate active tanks. Unfortunately i lost that battle but it was extremely close, he was left with about 40% structure. I figured i could have had him if i had switched to conflags at around 3.8Km away (I didn't switch because i thought optimal was 3km, but i was wrong.) That extra 50dps could have made all the difference. The second one was against a vexor, who 'had to drop of loot' before the fight. I thought ok thats fine. He then left the system, and i wondered why? there was already many stations in this system. He returned 5 minutes later, and I got him to warp to me. To my horror, I was loosing and my guns were doing pitiful damage. I popped when he was around 15% armour. I had the sneaking suspician he loaded up on EM hardeners while he was out the system, but i had no proof so i gave him the recognition he deserved.

Things were not all bad on wednesday however as i had a couple of victories, one of them truly remarkable. The first victory was against a stabber that agressed me at a gate. He circled at 12km, but i had trained thermodynamics and the overheated webs caught him easily. He popped but nothing of value dropped. Meaning that i was infact i lost money on that engagement, (repairs in the region of 500k for that fight, but loot was only 200km). This might not seem much but it does add up.

The second engagement was the best and most fun. On my lonesome i headed up to eugales, where i scanned down two harpies, a vexor, a crow, and a buzzard at a complex. Bored and in need of something to brighten my mood, i warped in. I was soon tackled and so was the two harpies. I killed them both easily, and began locking the crow and vexor. I got an overheated web on the crow and maybe a volley, but he warped off sharpish. The vexor also warped of barely a second before i got point. So in a 5/4 vs 1 I killed two and the others fled, I couldnt stop laughing as i am sure if they coordinated their attack i would have been mincemeat.

The third fight was a 2 vs 1, a harpy and thrasher against me. I killed them both with relative ease, much to my disdain. I scooped the loot, which included a deadspace MWD. Checking the killmail revealed pricey rigs and modules on the harpy, while the thrasher pilot showed more sense. I also got an easy rifter kill in that system. I have never understood the need to put pricey modules on fragile ships, it just seems silly. An example of this would appear later on in the week.

I only played breifly on the thursday, managing to kill an enyo and nothing else. As we move onto friday however things get remarkable. As I continued my roam of the FW heavy areas in search of a kill I stumbled across a sabre, who attacked me. I couldn't quite catch him but managed to force him to warp off. I safespotted and logged breifly as someone was at the door. Returning to my PC i logged back on to find the sabre just exiting the system. I also saw a succubus on scan at a gate. Tasty I thought, i figured it was worth going under sentry fire to kill one of those. Oddly enough i didnt have to, the succubus agressed and started orbiting me at 3km a second at a range of 7km. I sat there kinda puzzled, then i kicked it up a notch and displayed my toys. He grounded to a halt, as i pounded away at his rather strong shield tank. For the breifest moment i thought that he could permatank my damage, then i overheated. He exploded wonderfully, and i had a look at what dropped. My mouth watered at the goodies that had, a caldari navy invulnerability field and a dark blood small energy neut. I checked contracts to find 325M worth of loot. I then hurridly posted the KM to see what else he had. To my suprise the total fitting cost of this faction FRIGATE was to the sum of 1 billion isk. I could have hoped for more loot, but i was happy with what i got.

The next engagement involved me and a gang sitting around for a while while a prober scanned out an ishtar and a navy issue vexor doing a level 4 together. Soon enough we got a hit, and we passed through accelleration gate after acceleration gate. I had designated people to tackle each ship, but i needn't have bothered. The ishtar bolted but we got a tackle on the navy vexor. Irritatingly the rats in the mission decided to attack us rather that the vexor. This resulted in us losing a thorax, and me taking heavy damage. We got the vexor though and all the loot as we left for repairs.

After DT Hevrice was packed with many many FW'ers, perhaps around 17 of them but split up into to different groups (6 active complexes at the time). As usual i decided to engage the biggest of the bunch, around 8 people. As I landed they were 70km away from me so I just stayed put. Three warped out, two of which returned in order to get a tackle on me. The tristan and breaher died easily, and i warped out as the others left due to the complex being completed.

As i warped back to station and conversed with my corpmates who were active in the system, it became apparant that there was a typhoon sitting at a complex that would not allow his ship to enter. I warped there first in order to get a tackle, while the rest of the guys were loading up their ships. The typhoon had ecms loaded so my tackle was sporadic at best, but just good enough to catch him before he could warp out. Then the gang arrived consisting of a vexor, taranis, cyclone and stabber. The typhoon exploded and we scooped the loot, the typhoon failed to do any notable damage to any of us.

The larger gang that I had encountered before appeared in another complex. I told my gang to get ready. I went in first, spotting a tristan, incursus, rifter, ishkur, nemesis, lachiesis (RR), and a thorax. I approached and got them all to attack me. I called my gang to come as i began removing some of the frigates. I was taking major damage, and the exqueror was RRing some of the friagtes and the thorax. I managed to dispatch the incursus, tristan, and rifter, before my gang came in. The thorax, exqueror, and ishkur bolted. But we managed to secure a nemeis kill and another tristan and its pod. The other guys either left or safespotted. Those who safespotted were methodically scanned down and dispatched. The local population quickly fell as all FW'ers fled from the system. Hevrice was our's once again.

Saturday, the scheduled op started late as we took apart another pos, but we eventually got underway. The first kill of the evening was my nemesis (i should really stop calling him that considering hes never actually harmed me), but anyway he was in a rapier and agressed me at a gate. I jumped through and went to a belt to bait him. He obliged and was met by the tuskers gang, who killed him easily. He would go onto whine how we were pussies and yada yada yada, so did his corp mates, which is ironic because they use larger gangs than us and more often.

Moving up to ostingele we killed a faction fitted ishkur (well the gang did, I didn't because i'm too slow ;[ ). Then a typhoon appeared (pirate) sitting a few km of the station. I went in first and tackled him, noting the distinct lack of guns on his ship. I warned the gang (who were all in frigate class ships that he could have smartbombs fitted.) Sure enough he did ande began bombing the crap outta me, as the frigates stayed outside the bomb range. The station owner did not take kindly to the discophoon either and the sentries attacked him. His armour and shield went down very quickly, however this phoon was structure tanked. He took a while to bring down but we suffered no casualties. Apparantly he had spotted us before and had just fitted the ship to kill us, it certainly had the potential to ruin the day for us, but we kept sharp and as a result lived.

We moved from system to system without incident until we came into Aulbres, where we spotted a couple of ships on scan and noted the number of people in the same corp in the system (around 6) this wasn't worrying as i was sent once again as bait for a myrm and drake, while the gang sat outside the system. The drake arrived first and i put my tackle on him, the rest of my gang came oin and got to work on the drake. Soon the drake's myrmidon frind arrived, so i tackled him and we switched primary as the drake had a monster tank. Both were destroyed fairly easily, and once again we suffered no losses.

In the next system i was to come under attack from an arazu (non flashy so my gang could not help). However this guy was blaster fit, and had a hell of a shield tank. I won though popping the blarazu just before I entered structure. He even had a nice faction scram for me to take. After this there was little else to kill so we headed back home. Going back to the belt where we had the rapier earlier we took a little break (the gang sat at ss). Then a domi appeared on my overview, a little suprised i tackled him and called the gang in. We took chunks out of his armor, as he pulled in his medium drones and dropped sentries. He was jammed at this point however by pure luck, the sentries agressed joc who was 30km away in his sentinal. He insta-popped and the sentries agressed me again barely damaging me. It was an unfortunate loss, but we still killed the dominix.
The last kill for me would be a thorax at a FW complex. He had an ishkur freind, but he ran. Irritatingly as the ishkur left all the rats in the complex decided i was a better target. I called rylack for backup as i thought i might die, but i pulled through and killed the thorax, warping out in structure.

The last enagement for me was against another Blarazu. Unfortunately i would lose against this one. It was quite close though as he only had 20-30% of his shield left, after which he would have pretty much instapopped. It was a very good fight, and as i checked his killboard for any comments he made, it turns out he knew exactly what i had fitted and had prepared for it. Which only makes me realise im going to have to mix it up a bit.

On sunday we had another large roam, getting a few more nice kills here and there. Sunday was very much the day of the blob (I consider blobs anything above 5 men) as we avoided larger blobs while engaging smaller blobs. To be honest Sunday was very much of a blurry experience for me as I was feeling a bit under the weather. I could barely remember what we were doing 5 minutes beforehand. I also tested out a new maller fitting, which im going to keep under wraps for now. I got Grohal to shoot at it a bit, and he seemed impressed. However even a good tank could not survive the onslaught of the twenty man BS gang I jumped into, on the way back to hevrice.


Damage done:

3,879,338,083 isk

Ships killed in gang:

megathron, pilgrim, absolution, kestrel, comorant, harpy, maller, 2x curse, huginn, broadsword, vexor navy issue, 2x typhoon, merlin, tristan, myrmidon, drake, rapier, dominix, onerios, vagabond.

Ships killed solo:

vexor, 3x thorax, 3x rifter, stabber, 2x harpy, enyo, succubus, 2x tristan, breacher, incursus, arazu.

Damage recieved:

243,808,326 isk (171,808,326) isk after insurance

Ships lost to gangs:

5x maller

Ships lost solo:

4x maller

Lady luck is fickle creature (read: total bitch) + weekly report 2

I am feeling a little sad, dear readers. Why? A bad start to the week, and a grand total of 0 kills so far has made me feel inadequate. Three losses for me in two days, two harbingers and a maller so far. The maller loss was remarkably irritating as i lost a likely Rapier kill in the process. The fight began with me about to jump into Aeschee when a non flashy rapier appears at the gate. Not wanting to jump through to a certain slow and very boring death, I decided to warp back to the Hevrice gate. The rapier followed and this time aggressed me. Ignoring the little dps he was putting out i decided to stay, and try and get him to bump me off the gate. He tried and I gave him a taste of his own medicine. He grinded almost to a halt, as i stripped his shield (overheat is very nice, but heat damage bar is bugged). By the time I got him to 25% shield he was only 6km away from me and would not be able to escape me. Then the gate flashed, and a Megathron de-cloaked 15km away. I asked him not to interfere, but he does, robbing me of a sweet kill (one of my goals is to solo kill a rapier, I've not killed one yet in gang or otherwise).

The two harbinger losses were bad. Bad in a sense that they died pretty much as soon as i bought them. The first dying to a Russian gang after i fell for their bait (should have guessed by the number of guys in local, but hey ho). This was about 20 minutes after buying it. The second died even quicker on Tuesday. It died within 5 minutes of buying it, to a BS and BC gang, one jump from where i picked it up from. Now short on ships as the local market has declined, so that I cannot get essential modules, I have placed an order with a fellow Tusker to bring me a fleet of ships. The Tusker's logistical support is really something special.

In other news, I have been added to Mr. Crazy Kinux's awesomely extensive blogroll and mentioned in his latest speedlinking post here. He has also kindly told me that my blog will get a mention in the next Micro warp cast! I feel great to be welcomed into the EVE online blogging community in such a manner, and has given that extra little motivation to provide more good tales of glory and honour as an EVE online pirate.

Apologies for the unusually short post, but things better take a turn for the better during the week or else I may have to find a new diety. You can find out by reading my next weekly report, please keep the comments coming.


I am gonna have to cheat and just tack on this weekly report onto this blog post due to the fact this week I have done very little pvp. I have already told you about the poor luck i had at the beginning of the week. In response to this I decided to pop into 0.0 raise my sec a bit and earn some isk. Yes a little bit of carebearing but dont tell anyone! I am still flashy but dropped just over two points. I was focusing mainly on getting some isk, and i earnt over 150M, most of that coming from some nice faction drops. By saturday evening Bfoster informed me that the delivery of my order had been made, the bill was about half a billion but I also gave him a little extra for the trouble.

On Sunday I got back to HQ and began pirating again, it was a decent day at best. The first engagement was against a thorax pilot alot more experienced than I. I dictated range forcing him to switch to long range ammo, losing a large portion of his dps in the process. He also had a large plate and medium repper, this was bad news for me as active tanks are the bane of my existance. However despite his huge buffer and repper, I managed to pull through and destroyed him with just under half structure left.

The second engagement was not the most fantastic of fights, but it got me a nice kill. After repping after the thorax kill, I undocked and was agressed by a raptor circling me at 20km. I ignored it as it was merely a buzzing fly, non threatening but very irritating. I remained as i knew he had friends both in the system and in adjacent ones. His freind who was in the system arrived on the scene in a taranis. He locked and began to attack me, however he remained in web range, and you can pretty much guess what happened next. Lock, scram, web, boom. A quick check of the km reveals rigs that cost as much as the ship itself. I've personally never understood rigging small ships that die so very quickly, but i must be blind because so many people do it.

The third engagement involved an old rival of mine, I say rival but I mean a person that I feared early in my career. This guy (not gonna name for privacy's sake) used to roll around in ships that i never used to be able to match, and ive lost count of the amount of times Ive had to run from his curses. On this occasion he was in an omen which warped to me at a belt. A corp mate of mine also landed at the same time in his punisher (pure chance, he didnt know who was at belt) Unfortunately the punisher died quickly, and it was just me vs the omen. Now I usually think that the omens role is to stay far away and take out support in a gang, but this omen was fit for close range and wasnt the glass cannon i expected. We both took chunks out of each others armor, but his tank failed, and I got a nice killmail.

The final engagement was against a harpy and a thrasher at a station. The harpy was close range fit, and that doesn't do to well against me. His shield soon broke and a nice explosion followed. The thrasher already 30km away decided to bug out. He would return later, only to dock and bring out an Eos for me to hide from. He got bored very quickly and I managed to get out and have some fun. I encountered a few camps later on but managed to escape unscathed.


Damage done:

142,280,062 isk

Ships killed in gang:

omen

ships killed solo:

taranis, thorax, harpy


damage recieved:

153,348,216 isk (69,348,216 isk after insurance)

Ships lost to gang:

maller, 2x harbinger

Ships lost solo:

-

Weekly report 1

Well this will be a short one because I only began playing again on the Thursday but that does not mean this week has been uneventful, far from it. In my previous post I detailed my explosive return on the scene, and all though the remaining days of the week have not encroached upon the bar set on Thursday, I have been pretty successful none-the-less.

Friday was a pretty quiet day for me. I had a total of two a bit engagements losing two. The first engagement was successful. Jumping into Indregulle I saw a bestower belonging to one of the local pirate corps, not flashy, sitting 15km of the gate. He wasn't aligned or moving so i assumed he was afk. Normally I would try to avoid aggressing someone under sentry fire but i had an urge and so went with my gut feeling. I approached to within 3km (to use my high dps crystals) tackled him and let it rip. To my surprise he responded by tackling me with a web and scrambler, oh oh i said to myself as I noticed that he had reinforced his shield with extenders. Though by the rate i was chewing through them i wasn't particularly worried, the sentries cutting through my armour at an acceptable pace. Then I got him to armor. Balls I exclaimed, his armour was even harder to demolish (plates and a full set of trimarks). However i was still ahead on time and i eventually made him pop. I approached his wreck but decided against it as i finally entered structure. I decided to warp off to one of the abandoned poses I had bookmarked, the owners long since disbanded and the force fields down. My gambit worked as I avoided the revenge fleet who had jumped into the system baying for blood.

My second engagement didn't have a happy ending however. When my gcc ran out I decided to go heydieles rather than muetralle (the pirate corp's HQ), as it would be no doubt camped. Bad move. As soon as i jumped into heydieles a zealot landed at the gate. Clicking the warp button i aligned at my usual slow pace, but alas, barely a second before i would of warped i was tackled. I lasted less than 10 seconds. Oh well.

I was now officially poor as I spent quite a while jumping from system to system collecting loot that I had abandoned over the course of many many months. I scraped together more than enough to buy a new ship. My third engagement and second loss would once again in heydieles. Jumping into the system from OMS I spotted a armageddon 40km away and two AF's hugging the gate. Stupidly I decided to re-approach the gate rather than attempt to warp away (the gang hardly noticed me at first). We then locked each other, the armageddon doing quite a bit of damage despite the range. I couldn't harm the BS so i went for the Wolf as it came into range. This was my second mistake as he had not yet aggressed me and had positive security status. So now i had the gate guns on me also. Soon i popped, and being quite irritated I decided to call it a day.

Saturday was allot better. Even though I lost another two mallers, I more than made up for it. The first engagement was the most fun despite the fact I lost one of my ships. Jumping into heydieles from OMS (again), i was tackled by an enyo, ishkur, vexor, and catalyst. Bloody FW gangs. I first applied point and webs on the ishkur cutting through his tank like a hot knife through butter. Things looked hopeful as she popped and I switched to attacking the vexor. The situation drastically worsened as a wolf, ares, and a second vexor joined their buddies. I locked the ares as he was far too close to me, he not surprisingly fled to a greater distance. The vexor hit half armour as I hit 33% armour. I kept an eye on the ares, and true to my expectation he approached once again. Swiftly disengaging my modules i tackled the ares instead, he popped seconds later. Reapplying my modules to the vexor I hit structure. When i popped the vexor was left with less than 25% armour. I was certain that if i could overheat (22hrs training left) I would have killed him also. Checking the fresh sparkling killmails i received, I was delighted to see the ishkur had rigs and a faction afterburner. According to the Tuskers KB, in that engagement I had an 83% efficiency rating, very nice. As it was a fight I enjoyed thoroughly I will be sticking into my video.

The second engagement was short and sweet. I was on a roam before DT and as i jumped into Ouelletta, an ishkur was sitting at the gate. I locked him in an attempt to bait him into attacking. He kindly obliged, popping before he even broke my shields. I then logged out for a while as i had things to do in RL.

A few hours later I rejoined my Tuskers buddies hastily, listening in as your corpies kill stuff without you is not very nice. Our HQ had a rapid influx of pilots of ill repute, and once again I took my roll as Mr. Bait at a belt, trying to get a vexor, brutix, ishtar, and a stealth bomber of some kind to attack me so the gang can destroy them all. Well they took the bait, but i died in the opening stages of the battle. I spent the rest of the time half listening in on the vent chatter, and the other half ninja'ing the loot in a trusty impairor. The battle was hectic, us losing a few ships as well as our enemies. Then things got even more chaotic with the arrival of a veto gang, and the our original enemies calling for backup. I didn't pick up on much after that as my Internet cut out multiple times, then my PC decided to follow suit by blue screening.

Taking twenty minutes to assemble a new maller from highsec, I had little involvement with the others as they prepared for an alt operation. I wont disclose the details as I'm sure my CEO wouldn't appreciate it. The reason why it took 20 minutes to assemble a new ship is due to a medium pulse laser II shortage in Orvolle, hint hint. So i was forced to take a look in the nearby systems, eventually buying up the last 5 in Villore. I was then ready to roll, and into my second jump from highsec I duly noted the prevalence of FW do-ers. I warped to the station to scan down some folks. I picked up on 4 frigs and a stabber atone of the complexes. However the complex gate was not configured to accept cruisers. I took the risk and warped to the gate. The stabber was under attack from a rifter and merlin. The other frigs were in the actual complex. I locked and tackled the stabber in the nick of time as the rifter popped and the merlin ran. The stabber was going nowhere and was an easy kill. For the first time in a long time I also managed to get the pod. I offered a 20M ransom, but he declined as he had no implants and his clone was updated, fine by me, squish. Long after I called it a night Cap'n pointed out on the KM that the stabber had a 50M faction microwarpdrive in his cargo hold that was destroyed. Ignorance is bliss eh?

Catching up to some of my fellow pilots, I joined their gang for a little. They were being chased by a ferox, harbinger, and guardian (which went its seperate way after a couple of jumps.) After Bfoster lost his scout crow on a gate to the harb (due to the session change in progress bullcrap), we decided to turn and fight. I dropped a can at planet 6 in loes so that the gang can get to their optimal positions. We waited only a little while before the BC's warped on top of me. For the first time i wasn't primaried, the moa was instead and died. I tackled the Ferox and the Harb was primaried, they both popped in quick succession. We scooped the sweet loot, and made a damage report. The gangs consisted of: Maller, Rupture, Rupture, Ishkur, Moa vs Ferox, Harbinger. We only lost a Moa, so the engagement was extremely favorable.

Sunday was a relatively bad day for me, I lost two mallers to two blobs. Was quite dissapointed with myself this day, so in order to scrape a positive damage done/recieved ratio I decided to killmail whore when my fellow tuskers were taking down a megathron in OMS. I fitted a point to my transport executioner, and helped tackle the mega. In other engagements I tried to make my executioner useful by trying to tackle first a manticore, and then a falcon. Both pilots avoided me unfortunately. However i did manage to extract a 15M ransom from a harpy pilot at the other end of the galaxy map (picking up one of my previously abandoned ships from quite a few months ago).


Damage done:

1,085,894,809 isk.

Ships killed in gangs:

lachiesis, rupture, 2x harbinger, ishtar, vexor, ferox, megathron

Ships killed solo:

lachiesis, taranis, bestower, 2x ishkur, ares, stabber.


Damaged recieved:

129,490,725 isk (86,990,725 isk after insurance)

Ships lost to gangs:

4x mallers

Ships lost solo:

maller


Please don't regard the breakdown of damages as a boast. It is purely for my own records and for personal reassurance for when I feel down on my luck.

It's a new dawn, It's a new day, and I'm feeling AWESOME!

Today is thursday, and today there will be pew. I woke up this morning at 6.30 this morning, I was cold and very hungry. Some of you lazy buggers will be saying 6.30 thats crazy holmes. Normally I would agree, but I had my final exam to do at 8.30 after which I resubbed. It was unnaturally dark all through the morning, perhaps even the God's mourn at my return. But return I shall, and fire shall rain down from the heavens as I carve a path through the heathen armies of the carebear. Ok, i'll stop that now but before I get to talking about my first day back in the game, other events must be adressed.

First of all my work on my first official eve video begins, I have prepared the frame of the video including song list, duration, and more bothersome things. All that I have to do now is to make some good fresh fraps material and plug it in to the video slots. I will be using sony vegas pro for this video, just as soon as my brother gets me a copy (a legal one *cough*). The sheet of paper that I taped to my desk is still holding up nicely and with any luck the big glaring letters will remind me to simply press the F9 button, hopefully.

I have been watching the recent qualification rounds of the alliance tournament 6 and i have been enjoying them quite a bit. I have to give a thumbs up to CCP for reducing the usage of logistic ships. I absolutely hated the dual logistic setups, which in turn made many many fights incredibly boring. I was quite pleased with the duration of the fights as well, where one side dominates the other. Nothing quite as entertaining as watching a team getting wiped out in such a short space of time. One thing that has has suprised me was the success of the militia teams except the minmatar, lol slaves. Despite their success I'd still like to see the factional warfare teams to only use the ships belonging to their own races, I think its a bit more characterful and could make some interesting fights. While ghosting the eve-o forums regarding the tournament I picked up on the complaint that the start stop commands are not that clear. This resulted in several players jumping the gun and geting penalised for it. I think you have to be pretty damn stupid to start a fight 7 minutes before its scheduled, but then again EVE is full of idiots so CCP better go ahead and clarify things futher.

So for the first time in a while I logged back into EVE, and it was a good day, nay a great day. In the first day (couple of hours) I have done over 500M in damages without a loss. Here is what happened: realising I had very little isk I picked up my Devoter with the purpose of selling it (no isk to fit it). I was also invited to go on a Tuskers roam so i had to get a ship together asap. Luckily Ka Jolo informed me that he had a Maller with my setup on his alt. This was great news, I delivered my Devoter to Hevrice and traded it in exchange for three fully fitted mallers. One was ready now, the rest I have to get another time. With the fleet set up, consisting of a maller, vexor, ishkur, and two incursuses, we set off from our headquarters. I had been picked to act as scout due to my tank, and I was an easy target (lol).

The engagements went as follows:

1. I jumped into a system, with the rest of the gang on the other side. Sitting at the gate was a non flashy Lachiesis. This meant my gang couldn't get involved without coming under attack from the sentries. Grimly I decloaked and sought to approach the lachiesis. As expected he agressed and locked me down, but, and its big but, he strayed into web range. He was dual webbed and scrammed (close range module for extra tears). I slowly broke through his buffer shield tank, all the while he was doing respectable dps for a recon ship. Unfortunately respectable dps wasn't enough and he quickly popped, I was left with 70% armour. Scooping the loot I docked and got my repairs, even more eager to continue the roam.

2. Again I was on my own as I scouted out a system. Warping to a station to scan down the nearby belts I came across a non flashy Taranis 50km away from me. He quickly locked and MWD'ed towards me. We scrammed and webbed each other at the same time, but he must have been suprised at my damage, as he failed to shoot or release his drones before he exploded into a million fragments. Nice.

3. After failing to bait another interceptor at a belt in another system, I called the gang in. Local soon spiked and the other guys were ordered to dock in order to not spook the guys that just came in. There was a Curse on scan but he was smart and recognised the trap. A duo of a Lachiesis and a Rapier however failed to check local and warped on top of me, at 0. This would not have seemed so silly if it wern't for the fact the Lachiesis was fitted with damps and rail, and the Rapier is primarily a kiting ship. The Lachiesis was tackled and was taking heavy damage, when the gang came in and unfortunately the rapier bolted. The Lachiesis popped and we once again scooped the loot. Damn gang members muscled in on my kill ;D.

4. After the aformentioned fight we repped up and prepared to move out. At this point Cap'n Tickles called over vent that he was under attack from a non flashy rupture. I warped to the station willing to agress under sentries to help my gang mate. Unfortunately the large station placed me 30km away so I couldn't do anything. All that was lost was a cheap incursus. But this was not the point, we would have vengeance on this agressor. Ka Jolo docked up and climbed into his myrm. I provoked the rupture into agressing me and we duked it out. By about the time the rupture was in half armour, Ka Jolo was able to undock and attack the rupture (the myrm tanking the sentries reasonably well. The rupture de-agressed hoping to re-dock, in response I loaded up my conflags and let her rip. A nice blue flash was our reward. Not content, the Rupture pilot would be in our next engagement.

5. We passed through a few more systems with no luck, then we looped back round to head back to HQ. As always I went first, and picked up a Harbinger on scan. I warped to the nearby belt to bait him, and I was almost about to give up when he shows up on overview. To my surprise it was the Rupture pilot from before. We tackled each other and slugged it out. My friends jumped into the system and warped to me. Only seconds after my gang landed, a Falcon uncloaked 100km away from us. He jammed me pretty much permanently, but it wasn't enough as my freinds all had him pointed (Cap'n Tickles was now flying a Thorax). The remaining Incursus pilot attempted to go after the Falcon, who promptly fled, but unfortunately for Aldour he was too far away to help kill the Ishtar that had arrived on the scene. Free from the jammer, I was able to tackle the Ishtar before he could get away. The Harb popped to the torrent of blaster fire that assailed it, and the Ishtar followed suit soon after, not seeming to have any form of tank. Once again we collected the loot as the Falcon returned too late to save his friends. He fled once again, and we got to split the spoils, of which there was many, including some faction bits and pieces and officer DNA and tags. A t1 frigate and cruiser gang (with the exeption of Jolo's Ishkur) killing a Battlecruiser and HAC without a loss, is pretty decent in my books.

So my first day has ended, and the eye of the God's rest upon my armoured shoulders as I spill blood viciously and with glee. Hopefully this is an omen of times to come, but the best thing was the fact I frapsed pretty much all of it. At this rate my video will be finished in no time. More pew will follow so please keep an eye out for updates.

Retrospective pt 4

So here is the fourth and final part of my longwinded retrospective. I hope I've not bored you too much, but next week I shall be resubbing to eve and getting back in the game. In previous parts I described how I had yet to find a corp that I liked, but this was about to change.

After being thrown out of a corp after my trial period with no reason given, I resorted to browsing the eve-o forums in the recruitment channel. Up until this point I had usually applied to random corps who had offices in the stations I occupied, or had been invited by passersby. As always I began searching for a pirate corp, or one that is heavily involved in pvp. I wasn't particularly interested in joining 'famous' or well established corps, I would actually prefer to be with a corp from the very beginning and help it grow and develop.

This was how i came across The Sons of the Fallen, who had just started up and had recently joined the Brothers Grim. alliance. This corp consisted of three people, the two directors (who were friends IRL) and me. Shortly after joining I became the ranking member, as the directors had exams and took a break from EVE. Unfortunately they had not given me any roles or instructions while they were away, so essentially I became the only member of the Sons of the Fallen. I didn't particularly mind as I made friends quickly in the alliance, particularly the various CEOs and directors. In fact the alliance leaders K1rth and Chapters, and the corp CEOs Klothos and Red Armageddon became my best friends in EVE.

I have to say that my time in Brothers Grim was fantastic, the laid back atmosphere and the frequent ensured that I would stick with them for a long time. This alliance was not without its drama however, as one of the member corps recruited someone that would go on to steal from the alliance (not much at all but still pretty disappointing). We all accepted it and marked it down as a one off, but later another issue would plague us.

At time I also got into a fight with Mr. Ka Jolo at an asteroid belt. He was piloting a thorax and I was in my maller. It was a close fight but he managed to escape (blasted ecm drones). He offered me a place in his corp, but I declined as I was already spoken for.

We were currently at war with a number of corporations, having minor skirmishes here and there. We suffered a couple of losses as that was to be expected but on the whole we were doing quite well. Some people were not happy however, one or two reports came by my way about a pilot who had recently joined and had FC'd and lost on two occasions (Poor use of spies, bad primary calling). Then about a week later he had organised another fleet consisting of about 15 people. Quite frankly this fleet got its arse handed to it by a gang of 4 led by Nexa Necis i believe. I wasn't there on the operation, but Red, Klothos, and many others were rightfully peeved. I was asked to talk to the pilot who led the op, so i opened up a convo an simply asked what happened. I was met with hostility but i kept calm and asked him to give his side of the story. He gave it, but blamed the other 14 people for being crap (they weren't as I've flown with them before). I told him he needs to calm down and that I would offer him a chance to prove he had what it takes to FC. I offered him leadership of a wing in the fleet op i had organised for the weekend. I was then met with such a torrent of curses and 'who do you think you are' that I snapped and told him how pathetic he was blaming others for him mistakes and having this kind of attitude. The others were told about the convo and all of them called for the pilot to be expelled. (Although I had no roles in my corp, I was considered to be one of the alliance's leaders after running several successful ops and moving the alliance to a more prosperous area of lowsec.)

This is where things took a slight turn for the worse, but in no way could we have predicted it. We expected the player to be dropped from the corp. However the CEO pulled his entire corp from the alliance, saying that we were better off without them as they were the cause of several incidents. This was mainly due to their lax recruitment policies but that also made them the largest corp in the alliance. We lost a huge number of members that day, and it weakened us substantially. After we were decced further by another merc corp we felt the strain and had to organise a cease fire. I offered to try and convince the merc corp to drop the dec, and permission was granted. I had some dirt on this particular corp (minor dirt but it could still damage their reputation, and that's bad news for a merc corp). Their CEO said they 'didn't care' 'we're not currently taking contracts at the moment anyway' and other stuff. I thought that I had failed and left convo disappointed. The next day the dec was quietly dropped.

The alliance still continued to deteriorate while I went away on holiday. When I returned K1rth, Chapters, Red and I decided to start empire wars. So a new corp was formed and the alliance was left in capable hands. I joined the fight a week later as I had to grind my sec back up (a very long and ponderous affair. I made a little money but most of that was spent on replenishing my crystals and replacing a couple of ships that got ganked).

We had three simultaneous decs running, but in the three weeks I spent in high sec all i got was a bestower and a couple of noob ship kills. This was primarily due to K1rth putting the fear of God into the corp. He engaged 13 of them solo, killed an ishtar and a few others, and still managed to jump to safety. After that point they rarely undocked. I spent most of my time solo camping anywhere up to 7 people and they still didn't undock. I managed to get a few fights with the friendly residents of Amarr, which was quite fun. That was until someone interfered with a 1vs1 that i was having. I lost a maller, but i was so peeved I came back out in a harbinger and chased the bugger to a belt and swiftly dispatched her brutix. I can assure you she didn't interfere again. My conclusion? High sec deccing is ridiculously boring, don't do it.

Giving my farewell to the lads I went back to lowsec to kill something. I also sent a mail to Ka Jolo asking if his offer of a place in his corp was still open. He confirmed that and asked me to post an application on the Tuskers forums. I liked the requirements and questions, quite effective when your trying to get the general attitude of the recruit and his talents. An idea that I will steal when I form a corp of my own.

The Tuskers at this point was still quite young and had about 10 members. I quickly found my place in the corp, but being pretty much the only UK player at the time, I still soloed a lot. Not to say there wasn't any roams, far from it. I have to say that the Tuskers was the most organised corp i have ever been in, and their forums are top notch when organising operations. I have had the pleasure of being on a couple of these including Wensley's. I made many friends in my time in The Tuskers and had plenty of exciting times. I have never in my time as a Tusker come across a bad pilot and everyone had been very polite and considerate (this also meant i refrained from telling my dirty stories and jokes). As i mentioned in Part 1, over Christmas and January I've not been an active player, only really getting on to set my training. This hasn't been entirely fair to Ka Jolo as he has been very patient about my absence, but as I return to EVE I fear it is my time to leave the Tuskers. I will be staying in the Tuskers until the end of February at which point I shall give my final farewell.

It is time for a fresh start in more than one place. My old friends Klothos and K1rth have decided to start up a new alliance (Chapters and Red are as far as I know undecided). I have been given the opportunity to lead my own corp though I still haven't entirely decided on its focus (privateering more than likely) I feel that we have the potential to be quite successful. We have also decided to move to an area of lowsec that none of us have ever been to before. I hope to use all that i have learned from Ka Jolo about running a corp, and also to recruit only those who are as reckless as I am to make a force to be reckoned with.

So with my lateness in turning over a new leaf for 2009, I can only hope for good times ahead, and with me for the first time leading a corp you'd better watch this space......