Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The Tristan

I finally got my shopping done in time for what I thought was going to be an EVE filled Saturday night and Sunday. I wound up having to stay at work longer than I though on Saturday as well as having a function to go to afterwards so my evening was limited. Sunday brought more responsibilities and EVE time again took it in the shorts. I was able to undock a few times though.

I had been wanting to try the Tristan and came up with  a fit that I like and brought a few down. When I was fitting and loading I noticed I forgot to bring range ammo in so I undocked in a Slasher and went poking around. I found a Thrasher in a FW plex and swooped in. This is a bad fight to pick but I figured I would see if the Thrasher was artillery fit and try to get under his guns. The Thrasher is not artillery fit but I am bored so I close in with a tight orbit and go to town. The Slasher is still no match for the Thrasher. I go down with the Thrasher having 30% of his hull left.

I dock back up and cannot resist the urge to Tristan so I undock and start hunting my usual haunts, I find an Incursus in a plex and swoop in. Since I have the wrong ammo I will need to stay in close to his blasters and rely on out DPSing him. The Tristan usually does good with this and that is exactly how this fight ended. Tristan 1 - Incursus 0. I hunt around a bit more but have to turn in early for some early errands tomorrow.

Sunday comes and between chores at home and helping out relatives I only get to undock twice. I undock in the Tristan with just short range ammo again and it turns out to being the end of Tristan #1. I attacked a Tusker in his Incursus and could not break his tank, he kited outside my gun range with CN Antimatter and I was relying on drones for DPS. Not one to disengage I stay to the end then warped the pod safe to dock up and go take care of some more chores. More duties at home leave me with about 30 minutes at the end of the night with no targets to be found. I go home to Hevrice to dock up for the night.

I was hoping to get another bit of playtime in on Monday evening, I logged in to hunt for 30 minutes or so and found that an old friend had come back to the game. I spent my space time talking with him and getting him situated to play EVE again. Hopefully he will join us here in Stay Frosty.

I am having a blast playing around in lowsec. I understand that this may not be the play style for everyone but for me and my current RL demands it is working out nicely. Having corp mates that enjoy the same undock and shoot things play style also helps. :)

Friday, June 21, 2013

Catching up and the Sandbox

I have now caught up to current times and game time has been meager for the last few days. The times I have had have been short spurts spent on the Jita market buying some more supplies to welp. I will most likely have 2 to 3 posts a week from here on out. That should not matter much to my 3 readers. I do have a few things to say outside of Min's experiences.

I find that EVE truly is a "sandbox" game at it's core. There are some limited "theme park" features but they pretty much amount to a very small roller coaster, fun for almost 3 rides. The biggest chunk of content in EVE is the players. Once you get to the core of the "sandbox" the returns you get for your entertainment dollars are in direct relation to the amount of *effort* you put into the sandbox. If you are looking to be taken for a ride I suggest you find an entity in EVE that has a team dedicated to producing content for it's players, there are tons of them, they have tons of "rules and requirements". The people on those teams work hard at generating content and it can be a blast, it also has some long periods of dead time where you will have to entertain yourself.

There are many gauges of success in EVE, I think they are all traps. One can choose to fall into the trap of trying to measure their success at the game by some stack of assets, the size of a wallet, the green of their killboard or some stat on a website somewhere that is mired in complex maths. There is no "winning EVE". I choose to measure my success in the game based on my enjoyment of the time spent logged in.

EVE is a galvanizing experience. You will be hard pressed to find someone who has played the game or even looked at playing the game that think the game "ok". People love the game or they hate the game, after a period of years there are those that play the game every day and state they hate the game. In my opinion EVE is now prettier, more balanced and a better game than it ever has been. There is still room for improvement, but still pretty awesome. There are still some areas of the game I have not tried but will and some I will not just because I do not think there is anything I can do to make them appealing to me. I like shooting things and getting shot at.

I think I will continue to enjoy myself and fly mine like there are more on the market.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Creation

I began my 2nd EVE career when I received a 2nd shift assignment at work. I am unable to stop working, travel home and shut down immediately for the night so EVE became my "unwind" game. My regular FPS gaming friends at the time stopped playing for the night about an hour before I got home then and I was stuck joining random servers and pubbing, which in my opinion is not fun. A friend at work also plays video games and we would have long conversations about video games. We wound up talking about EVE and how cool I thought it was. He started a trial membership and we started poking around in high sec marveling at the vast universe and flying horribly fit ships in PVE. We began venturing into low sec, not because we wanted to but because that is where the agents we were working for sent us and we did not know any better. It usually wound up ending horribly for us.

To expose myself here I did give WOW a second chance during this time frame. It was the 2nd and last time that I did not get a week into the trial before un-installing. I just do not get that game. The first time I gave it a go was when my kids were playing it, I could not stand it then either.

My friend played EVE for a few months and then quit to "never play again" out of frustration with the "bad game mechanics" and "terrible PVP mechanics". I continued playing but staying low-key and trying to get a leg up on the steep learning curve. I found the game to be particularly challenging in it's complexity and wanted to "figure it out". I eventually joined a corporation that was in an alliance that was allied with other alliances.... This was fun but left me a lot of downtime because, null-sec form ups. I had other accounts that had characters training so I joined other corporations, that were in alliances, that were allied with other alliances.... You know, so I could sit with multiple clients open and wait for something to happen in a bad time zone on multiple screens.

By the way, in case you have not guessed, I still aint figured the game out.

My friend listened to me talk about the game while at work until he became interested again and started playing. At some point he got tired of the can flippers, ninjas and whatnot and started another account for PVP to teach those evil people a lesson. Min Hevn was born and skilled for a few months. My friend became bored with the game again and un-subbed to "never play again" again. After a while he gifted Min Hevn to me and I started skilling him again.

Min Hevn's skills were just beginning to get to where he was useful and my friend came back to the game. I gifted him back and he was trained for another 6 months, flown once in a while until my friend un-subbed to "never play again", again, again. By this time Min Hevn's skills were such that it was a waste to not do something with the character and he gifted him back. My situation changed and I was unable to devote much time to the game for a while and basically the game of "Skill Ques Online" started.

I finally thought I had a handle on my changed situation and had the bug to play again then realised that there is nothing happening on the large scale, or any scale for that matter in my narrow window of playtime. There was especially nothing that would allow me to dock up at a moments notice when I was needed at home. I started looking at other opportunities, about that time Rixx formed Stay Frosty and here we are.

I may be in your corporation, chatting occasionally and not playing. I do like the big fights, I do miss them, I just cannot devote the time right now.

Min Hevn apparently means something in another language. I did not pick the name, I do not speak the language. The guy who did pick the name does not speak the language either. So stop asking.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The (Belt Ratting) Orca?

I began last night running around in my Tormentor looking for a fight. I finally located something sat in a plex and figured I would see if I could get close enough to get under his artillery. I could not and was in the process of trying to break tackle as he was kite fit when a Thrasher landed. Welp, Tormentor down.

I dock up briefly to fit another frigate and go back out. The pickings for a lone frigate are still pretty slim at this point when a corp member ross jumped at the same time a flashy red Catalyst jumped with me. I called the corp member back to help out with the Catalyst as I know the Slasher will not take it alone. Corp member comes back and I engage the Catalyst. Corp member sits there and watches me die explaining that he couldn't believe I engaged on a gate. We then had a discussion about gate gun mechanics and security status / criminal status. Doh!

I dock up to go have some dinner with the family and come back to plan another shopping trip. I am about halfway into filling out my orders when I noticed the time. It is time for bed, morning comes early, I am just about to hit the log off button when Cellethen types "May have an Orca" in chat. Apparently he is probing the Orca thinking it is at a safe. Headphones come back on and I board a Thorax, he announces that the Orca is at belt 6-1 with a Hurricane. We scramble to put together enough DPS to put the Hurricane down and kill the Orca. I warp to 0 on the belt and there is the Orca, at 0 in the belt. I place my scram on the Orca, start targeting the Hurricane and he warps off. I lock up the Orcas drones and put my drones on them, corp members land and the Orca starts going down fast, I figure it is hull tanked but no, hull starts dropping fast and Orca dies. Orca fit is interesting to say the least, the cans that dropped in the wreck were empty. We got the pod as well. Interesting end to an evening, I am still trying to figure out what the Orca was doing in the belt. Mebe tag hunting :)

Looking over the pilots history on EVE kill he apparently has had a bad time in low sec this year.

I thought I had remembered trying to salvage an Orca wreck before and getting the "your ship doesn't have the cargo space for this" that you get with capitals but apparently I "miss-remembered". Salvage was junk.

Edit: The pilot of the Orca was "Snark Mailed" by a corp member and has since replied that he "was just testing his tank"

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

More Bad Luck

It seems as though lack of targets I can find for my frigates are becoming the standard here the last few days. I fit up a Tormentor that I wanted to try out a few days ago and was keen to give it a try. I did manage to undock twice this day and make my trips around lowsec. First trip I found nothing but a cruiser gang I ran from then a T3 gang I avoided. I went back to Hev and docked up.
Second time around I found a Slasher in a plex, it was the same Slasher from the Slasher vs Slasher fight the other night. He was not interested in fighting this time and ran away. I did a few more passes trying to catch him but he was watching D-Scan this time and warped off each time before I could land in the plex.

I will have to test the Tormentor another day. Time for bed.

The Bad Weekend is Bad

I had some time here and there this last weekend for EVE. I undocked Saturday evening and did my usual trip around low sec. Things were really dead and I was unable to find a fight I could take. On my second trip around I found an Atron on a plex gate. We both started targeting each other with weapons hot. For some reason when the target locked it started blinking and dropped. I re-targeted the Atron and when it locked I magically had 40% shield damage. This is not an excuse, more of a statement of SYSTEMS FAILURE. I have lost the fight even without the systems failure. I wound up losing the slasher on that one. :) Welp time for another boat, I tend to lose a lot of boats.

I undock again, start hunting around again and find a target in a Vexor. This is a bad fight to pick but I am bored and rush in to engage. I do not have a web fitted to kill drones and the Vexor probably has plenty to spare. I try to burn him down before I die, silly hull tanked Vexor. I did not win this fight. Well played Tezz well played.

Next day I undock in the morning to try and find a fight. A corp mate is trying to pin a Hookbill down so I undock to help. I finally catch the Hookbill on a plex gate he is aligning off. (I had forgotten that warps on grid with a plex gate always land at the gate, this is important!) I get the Hookbill to engage and corp member is in warp to me, I knew the Slasher would not last long vs. Hookbill but I figured to do some damage and at least keep him pinned till the corp member landed. I did keep him pinned till the corp member landed, 30km away from us :) Slasher dies in a ball of fire and the Hookbill warps off. I honestly do not think we could have taken the Hookbill with the Slasher and Incursus but it was worth a try.

Boredom tends to be the biggest cause for the loss of ships for me. I do not have the patience to not engage after a while. At any rate I am fresh out of time as I am needed planet side for family duties and dock up.

**********

I am starting to get bored with Moa, Thorax and the two Slasher fits. I may bring the next set of fits into play and start working through 8 at a time. I have thrown together a Tormentor fit that I am itching to try but it seems like people run from it for some reason. I have added Repair Systems 5 to the que and will start working on some local tanked armor fits that can engage on gate. I am missing some decent chances on the gates due to gate guns and their dislike for violence.

A Fruitless Journey

I find another 45 minutes to play so I boot the computer and log in. I want to get some solo on so I undock in my Slasher and start hunting the FW plexes. I find a Tormentor in a plex and warp in, land long point, close in overheated and land scram, nuet and turn MWD off. Tormentor warps out.....Stabs, fit them, annoy people, win EVE. I continue on in my normal short run through lowsec and find an Atron in a plex, I land about 40 off him and start burning, he warps off. I am 0-2 so far and haven't lost a ship yet.

I start to head back to Hev to turn in for the night and hear about a Gnosis in a site, corp scrambles to get probes in the system and start locating him. We have him at his site with the prober having eyes on him but do not get there before he warps off. We chase around for a bit with more scanning and more trying to catch him but he finally realises we are frigates and hits the gate and on out. It looks like tonight will be 0-3 with no ship losses. I dock up and head to bed.

Monday, June 17, 2013

The Bounty

I have exactly 30 minutes to play EVE tonight. I log in, board the trusty Slasher and head out. A quick scan next door spots a lonely Rifter in a plex. The once King of Frigates is a shadow of it's former self. It pains me to see pilots exposing the shame of this once proud vessel so I warp the Slasher in to relieve the Rifter of its burdensome pilot. I tackle the Rifter and go to town, poor Rifter is poor. Rifter soon gives it up in a glorious explosion as tribute to it's once noble past. I decide to relieve the pilot of his pod in effort to dissuade him from ever shaming the memory of the once fine boat.

As I am warping back to Hev to dock up for the night the NeoCom blinks at me. The Rifter pilot has placed a bounty of 1 whole millions of isks upon Min Hevn. Grats M8, Min's first bounty and a waste of your resources. We exchange a few emails where I tell him to stop being poor and he tells me to stop being a C***.

******

I am glad that CCP made an effort to make bounties a viable mechanic in the game. It is a shame that of all the iterations in the last few years they failed so miserably in this one. Bounties used to be a joke and they still are. The payouts are not such that bounty hunting could be a viable profession. Not that I would pursue that path but some might choose to do so. Someone could correct me here but I do not think I am wrong in this assumption. I guess it is a good thing that you can't let it build then kill your self with an alt to abuse the system anymore.

An Unplanned Evening

I had a follow up appointment and got home early from work. I planned to log on while some things were not requiring my attention at home and check skills then plan some more orders. I made the mistake of logging into Steam and was immediately convoed and asked why I wasn't logged in. I log Min Hevn to see whats what. I take a few minutes longer than I should to undock due to distractions and Cellethen is a bit eager waiting on a gate somewhere. He decides to engage a Vexor that comes through a gate in his Thorax without checking to see if the Station is a LONG warp to the gate. A Fleet Issue Stabber comes though and adds some more DPS. With gate guns, Vexor and Fleet Stabber on him he lasts just long enough for Durance and I to land and watch him explode. I target both ships on the gate then promptly land tackle and start shooting the ship with no damage. (I am so good at this game) I switch my DPS to the Vexor and take him down. I now have the Fleet Stabber on me and am not long for this world. We reship and warp back to gate the Stabber burns out of point range and warps off. -2 Thoraxes for a Vexor GG.

Durance and Cellethen are now in battle cruisers but I do not feel like shipping up I still have a hand full of Thorax to burn through so I stick with cruiser. We head out looking for trouble joined by another corp mate in his Punisher. We bounce back and forth from system to system not finding any targets. We run across a Navitas sitting off a gate for some reason. I engage the obvious bait which is not bait and we kill the Navitas. We start bouncing around the system and have folks on both sides of the gate. We are able to catch a few mining barges, one apparently on auto-pilot.... in low sec... A Procurer and a Retriever, I managed to lose the skill books we looted from one of these kills. Draiv catches an executioner in a plex and brawls him down along with his pod. We start getting bored again and I have to go soon so we take another quick trip up to Old Man Star to see what is about. We have a Navy Mega on short scan coming to the gate and decide to engage, he has friends and it did not end up as intended :). Durance and I DIAF with Cellethen running back home.

I dock up and fit a Thorax for another day when a corp mate pipes up on coms that a Brutix has him. We undock and warp to him killing the Brutix with corp mate in low structure from the fight.

All in all a good night for turning the computer on to check skills.

*****************

This brings us to within a day or two of present times. Fair bit measly I know.... As I said before my playtime is limited and there are a lot of times I logged on for 30-45 minutes of hunting and found nothing.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Moa for Breakfast and Slasher for Lunch

I have some appointments today which give me a few windows of opportunity for EVE. I board the Moa and head out. I do my usual runs through lowsec to either side of Hevrice and find nothing. I exchange some comments with a few Russian FW plexers, I do not understand them and apparently they do not understand me. I finally see a Ruppy on a gate and jump through with him. I engage knowing the gate guns wont like it but I have Drugs! I open the hold to take some of the illicit substance... I remembered to load cap boosters after the fight with Azn last night but not drugs.... Welp this is not going to end well, Moa dies a glorious death with the Ruppy in low armor. I am really good at this, dying that is.

I head back to Hevrice and fit another Moa and remember to load all the things this time. I then decide to take a slasher out. More banter exchanged with stabbed and cloaky FW farmers then off to take care of my appointment.

*******
I come back to the game after my appointment. I do not want to go to work with half my face numb, better wait for the feeling to come back. :)
*******

I meant to undock in a Moa again to see what I could find but there are corp mates out and they are all in frigs, all in gang. I board the trusty Slasher and check my cargo, yup, all the things. I undock to see where everyone is and start heading out. I run a scan on my way and with one person in local the Imperial Navy Slicer has to be him. I get him on narrow scan towards a FW plex so I warp and activate gate to find him sitting there on the button. I approach and engage with everything overheated, the INS has the potential to take my Slasher fairly easy if he is properly fit and skilled so killing his cap with my neut is critical. I stop taking damage at 5% shields or so and give him a GF in local as I wait for him to run out of structure.

I warp around to find the other corp mates in gang and we all meet up to start hunting.

AgroC finds an Algos and we warp to the plex he is in. AgroC gets on him first and I am able to land additional tackle before the Algos' stabbs let him warp off. He goes down fairly quickly and we are off hunting again. Someone calls tackle on a Coercer and we all warp over to give him some space love. The Coercer pilot makes the strange decision to switch to each new target that lands and start shooting them. I do not understand this if you are outnumbered, maybe if you want to piggy back killmails in a gang so you can be selfish and be on all the kill mails. Not solo and out-numbered you should try and kill one thing at a time and hopefully something dies before you do. However due to the small flock of frigates on him he goes down and we all warp off to repair heat and structure damage.

One gang member needs to run and take care of something, I have a few more minutes so we bounce system to system to try and find some more targets. I warp into a plex and the Atron in the plex warps off. I warp to another plex and the Atron shows up with a Raptor friend, I engage and start taking OMG too much for my little buffer from the Raptor and Atron. The other two gang mates land and an enemy Catalyst lands with them. This did not end well, we all DIAFed. We got the Atron though!

I have duties planet side and can feel my face once again. Better go earn money for EVE subscription.

*******

I should have been tracking the Security Status on Min Hevn. He had high 3 or 4 when I inherited him and that did not start dropping until I started with Stay Frosty. Min is currently at +1 or so, I do not remember where he was at when the events above occurred. At some point a post is coming on where I am with the fits, so far i think -2 or 3 Thorax, -buncha slasher, -1 Moa.
I do have some missile and rocket fits to try. I had thought that Min Hevn could fly all subcaps asides from BLOPS and T3s and fit all the weapons well. Turns out he is really lacking in missiles, that is being corrected as soon as a few other short skills are out of the way. I waited a while to train some basic armor skill or something, don't know why but before I fly any local tank armor fits I feel I need Repair Systems to 5. I also need some more drug skills for combat boosters, because, side effects.


Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Moa and the Fight that Dint Happen

I have been wanting to try the Moa in 1v1 and just for the LOLs I wanted to duel Aznwithbeard in some Moa vs Moa action. On one of my short evenings I log on and undock in the Moa, Azn spots it on scan and I ask for Moa vs Moa. It appears as though he has run fresh out of Moa so brings a Maller. He warps to the station I am at (we really should have picked a safe) and we start working on each others tanks. The fight is taking a good long time due to both of us having active tanks. We started having a casual conversation about who would run out of cap boosters first. I hit one of my reload cycles and a flashy Thorax shows up and starts targeting. (Some links may have started to be applied at this point.) Azn is pretty chill and pulls DPS as he does not know what the Thorax is going to do and warps off not wanting to spoil the 1v1. My reload cycle finishes and I wait to dock knowing with links and 8 cap boosters left I can tank till weapons timer runs out and dock up. Had I more cap boosters in the hold at this time I most likely would have went for duders Thorax.

****************************

Turns out Azn had one cap booster left for his Maller and I had eight when the Thorax showed up. He ceded the fight to me but, fyte dint happen. I will take my losses and wins as they come to the kill board. He caught a Tengu on scan at some point and was "Forever awash in the dishonor of 1v1". The links did not come on till the Thorax showed up, that Moa will tank a Maller, with the links it might have tanked both of them, but not for as long. :P D.D.D.Drugs are cool with the Moa. I wanted to try some more cruiser 1v1 with him on this evening but something planetside started needing attention and I had to go AFK then log.

The Other Slasher

Armor Slasher: I have a small amount of time so I undock in the armor Slasher and head out for a quick bounce around the neighboring systems. Warping system to system running D-Scan is not netting me any results. I finally find a Hookbill in a plex and decide to try and take it. Man the hook bill hits hard, I did not last long. I did not want that ship anyways. I dock up and head off to bed for the night.

Shield Slasher: I have another bit of time to burn 3 nights later and decide to take the shield Slasher out for a spin. I bounce some systems and find an Incursus in a plex. I warp in and engage, we set tight orbits on each other with all weapons live. His weapons turn off from my neut with 5% of my shields left. The Incursus pilot runs out of structure shortly there after.

Another short bit of time a few days later brings me out of the station in the shield Slasher again. I go next door and find a Tristan sitting in a plex. I engage, can't kill drones without a web and DIAF. Welp, time for another Slasher.

I fit, undock and start to head the other way through lowsec and a corp mate announces a Cruor on a plex gate. We decide we can take the Cruor and warp in. I engage first and we start to exchange some love. The Slasher is no match for the Cruor, it is a good thing that Minmitar guns do not rely on capacitor, I was able to add DPS until I ran out of structure.

*************

I am liking the shield fit a little better than the armor fit. They both have their strengths and weaknesses as do all fits. I like having the Neut instead of the NOS, I need to change either the scram or point over to a web in order to fight the tough little Tristan.

I am starting to find the need to group some of these events together. I was not planning on writing about them at the time and did not spend much time thinking about them afterwards or keeping any notes. As such there are several events where I chased this or that and failed without dying. Without the kill board to help me remember these times are gone forever. Once I do get caught up I will be able to write about the events the day after they happen. Hopefully I will forget less that way. Most of my playtime in EVE is when I find 30-45 minutes in the evening. I boot the PC, start EVE, undock and keep my eye on the clock. Sometimes this works, sometimes I regret it the next day.

Moar Yarrbitrator

I have enough time for taking a small gang out. Cellethen and Durance are keen to fly the Yarrbitrators again and I have not yet lost a Blasterax. Cellethen comes on and we get impatient waiting for the third member of our gang so we take a quick trip next door. We find Aznwithbeard in his Maller and engage, his Maller has quite the tank but does not stand up against the nuets from the Yarrbitrator and he goes down. We head back to station to grab a few more folks then to head out.

It seems as though Azn is stalking us as he is following in a Prophecy. He jumps with us into Costole and we warp off, I was looking to engage a small group of frigates a few systems over. Azn expresses his interest in taking our small gang on so we oblige him and warp back to the gate. His Prophecy tanks like a beast but "Neuts to Stronk" and he goes down, but not before killing Cellethen in his Yarrbitrator. There is some video of the fight taken by Azn, the fight in the video is "Prophecy vs Excessive Neuts". Turns out Azn is a chill dude, he does some stuff you can follow it here.

Cellethen reships to an Algos and we head back out. The small frigate gang I had spotted earlier has moved on so we wander about aimlessly looking for something to shoot. Cellethen manages to catch a Venture pilot and his Pod in a belt. Somewhere along the line Draiv managed to lose his punisher hero tackling a Tristan on a gate, the Tristan died as well.

I know I am missing some of the events from this outing. Memory does not serve me well these days. All in all a good evening, we killed some and we died some.

Friday, June 14, 2013

The Quick Gang(k)

Time is limited tonight but my friends have arrived in Hevrice and are itching to fly together again. We fit up a few cruisers and head out. I pick the Blasterax and they pick Yarrbitrators. We undock and start hunting, traveling several systems either side of Hevrice through lowsec yields no targets. We start heading back to Hevrice, a new person shows up in local so we sit on the gate. Shortly a Myrm shows up on short scan and lands on the gate. We jump through after him and apply neuts, webs, points, scrams, dps, etc, etc. Had this Myrm been properly fit he could have taken a few of us out before he died. Being that it was partially fit it did not last long. We roll around for a bit but as time is limited and people seem to be doing other things we dock up and I head to bed.

******

These events are still a few weeks back, I am trying to get caught up. Last night my friend Cellethen started poking fun at me about "role playing" for writing "in character". Which by the way, I am not very good at.

To him I say, It's not like my mixed drinks consist of Fruit Juice and Cream Soda.

The Slasher

Hulls and fittings have arrived in Hevrice. Going through several options it appears as though I made some errors in my orders. I have ordered M variants and not S variant and vice verse. I have also left some ammo types completely out of my orders. **Places more orders** At any rate I pick one of the fits that I did manage to order all the right supplies for. The small armor rep Thrasher. This looks to be a fun ship, the fit calls for a tracking disruptor that I can use although am not particularly well skilled for. It is E-War and I fell somewhat dirty for using it but since I have it, might as well use it.

I undock, head next door and jump through. A quick scan reveals an Algos in a plex. Slasher vs Algos seems like a bad idea but hopefully he is taking rat damage and will be something I can handle. You never know until you try. I enter the plex and engage, the poor fellow never stopped shooting the rat.I quickly relieve him of his ship and pod. I dock up to take care of some other business and drop loots off.

Business taken care of I undock again and head back next door. Another quick scan finds a slasher in a plex, I warp to the plex, activate gate and warp in. Slasher tackled! I set up a tight orbit and go to town. The enemy slasher had a small amount of shield damage when I engage so I add my turrets and tracking disruptor to the fight. He switches from rat to me immediately and applies his tackle to me. He drops my shields fairly fast and starts burning my armor, I activate the overheated armor rep. He runs out of shield and my armor rep shuts off from his neut, my nos catches a bit of cap and I turn my armor rep back on. This actually turns out to be a close-ish fight. He dies and warps the pod out with me at 20% structure left. At the end of the fight Mr Slasher complains it is a bad fight with him taking half the damage from the rat. Looking at the kill it turns out this is not the case although it may have been an even closer fight without the rat! **Min Hevn trains Thermodynamics from 1 to 4 immediately.**

I repair heat damage and run another quick D-Scan, I find a Thrasher in a different plex. I know this to be a bad fight to take but it is almost bedtime and you never know until you try. I also want to see how long the Slasher will last against a Thrasher. As it turns out, not very long! Thrasher goes down with everything overheated. I should have dropped loot off from the Slasher kill before I engage Mr Thrasher.
I take the pod back home and dock up to fit another Slasher.

I have convinced some old friends into flying again in the last few days. They have joined Stay Frosty and are currently situating themselves and planning logistics. Somewhere in the events for this evening there was some Venture chasing. I cannot remember the exact details but it turns out I am really bad at catching them. I am also apparently bad at ordering supplies,  there is more I forgot about.

***

On looking back at the Slasher armor fit there are things I do and do not like about it. It has very little tank, the repper is a must overheat item, it is very susceptible to neuts and Minmatar ships are horrible for cap as it is. I do like the web fitted, it will make taking the Tristan on a little easier as I can web the drones and actually kill them.
I will be perfectly honest here, in the 5+ years of playing EVE my experience with ships below the cruiser class is almost non existent. Even at cruiser class my experience is more along the T2 HAC, Recon and Logi ship types. I am working to improve that! These smaller ships are a lot of fun to fly, CCP has done a great job of balancing in the last year or so. Makes me happy there are so many viable hulls now.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Getting Frosty

I have been mostly inactive for the last 18 months due to planet side duties. During this time I had been keeping up with events in New Eden by tuning in to the EVE  Blog Pack along with a few other well written blogs not listed in the pack. Rixx Javix, the publisher, writer and editor for a magazine for Gentlemen of Notorious and Questionable Character put out a call for pilots to man his latest piratical endeavor. As a long time follower of his publication I answered the call. Casual, no pressure piloting sounded right up my alley. I joined, placed orders for hulls, modules, and various supplies then fitted a basic shield Thrasher, undocked and headed to the Hevrice solar system.

As I am flying I start to realise just how much things have changed in 18 months. My highly customized overviews no longer work as they should, the basic stats on all my favorite vessels have been changed, some for the better and some for not. Upon arrival in Hevrice I made a few safe spots and started going through my overview settings to repair the damage done by 18 months of improvements and development. Due to continuing planet side duties this repair process takes the better part of a week.

Realising the extent of the "improvements" by the various ship manufacturers I pulled out the fitting tools, updated my favorites, revised some fits and theory crafted a few more. Too many new things and "newly good hulls" to buy! I decided then to pick a hand full at a time and buy them in lots of 10. I then placed further orders for more hulls fittings and ordinance. I typically buy things in bulk, not that it is any cheaper that way, I just do not like to run out of supplies.

I finally get some "undock time" on the evening of 5.19.13. I was in the process of warping around system making some safe spots when a corp mate reported a small group of ships warping to the sun in Hevrice. We both warped to the sun, found a Thorax, Vexor and Caracal engaged. We decided to join the party and engaged the Thorax. Thorax goes down quickly, I go down next and the corp mate in his Enyo goes down. Vexor and Caracal warp off in victory. Combat, Glorious Combat. \o/

During this fight that I realised there were still issues with my overview. Things still not showing! I warped to a safe and aligned and started to go over my settings again. Knocking the rust off is turning out to be a process.

I dock the pod and quickly realise that my orders have not been delivered. Check local market and... low sec... I poke my delivery service and upgrade the shipping method to overnight and head off to bed.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Welcome to Tin Ship Min

Welcome to the Blog of the new pirate Min Hevn.

I have been playing the game of EVE Online since 2008. I did try the game when it fist came out, as an avid FPS gamer at the time it did not hold my attention for long. My family life was a lot busier then so I may just have not had the time to play, can't remember. I cannot remember the Character name or account. My experience so far has been almost exclusively nullsec. I came about the idea for the blog when a friend gifted me a character. I had been thinking of something "fun" to do with the character while training him. Rixx Javix's career with The Tuskers came to an end and he started Stay Frosty. I had never given alot of thought to the low-sec lifestyle and figured why not give it a shot. It sounded as if he was having a blast with piracy. At some point I promise a post on Min's creation and his history as it is.

Bee Tee Dubs, I have been having a blast so far.

I will be writing the blog from the view point of Min Hevn. I came on the goofy idea to try ship fits out in batches of 10. I will be trying to test out 2 - 4 ships at a time in fitting batches of 10. It might take me a while to get through the ships as my playtime fluctuates due to RL work and family constraints. From here on out all posts will be "In Character", unless of course they are not. On the Blog name... I am not creative.

I have dedicated my play time such as it is from Monday through Friday to solo, I do join the occasional small gang on these days and as well work with another corp member or two to pin down a target. My play time on Saturday night and some Sundays during the day will be mostly small gang with solo mixed in.
I will be trying to post at least once a week. For the first few weeks here at the blog I will catch up on the escapades so far. I am writing this blog for my own enjoyment, I reserve the right to stop whenever I cba to write anymore. You are more than welcome to follow along. I promise tales of bad decisions.

So far, 2 Slasher fits, a Thorax fit and a Moa fit. The Moa seems fun, would have won a fight with it once (more about that later) and engaged on a gate once, gate guns do not like that. The slashers are alot of fun, I am liking the shield fit better than the armor fit. It is hard to get excited about the Thorax, it is odd, green and covered in Hybrids. It is also mean, I will be trying to have fun in it. The shield Slasher may become one of my go to frigates for shenanigans.

If you come back to read my escapades for dazzling displays of PVP prowess and elite performances you will be disappointed. I am a terrible pilot, I will engage when I probably should not, I will run when I definitely cannot take the fight, unless I think it would be funny to welp. :) I am also lazy and will take the easy to find fights. I will get bored and engage on a gate when I know the gate guns will be angry and I too use bad ammo.

I will be trying to give the blog a cooler look at some point. Time is a finite resource that I am having issues managing. There is never enough.