Saturday, July 27, 2013

Mid Week Free Fall

While I have been able to undock several times this week I was only successful in finding targets on one night. The 8pm to 9pm US central time in EVE is hit or miss. Working Americans are going to bed, non working American NeckBeards are just beginning to trickle into the server. One night this week I decided to forgo a bit of sleep in favor of finding fights.
I set out in my slasher and found a Heron in a plex, usually these are stabbed and warp off but this particular pilot was set up for surprise when I fell upon him. I engaged with EMP loaded but could not beat his his shield boosting. I went down in a ball of flame. His booster with autocannon, rocket launchers and drones we too strong. A corp mate gave him a go a bit later in a Thrasher and was able to Alpha through his tank.
I returned to Hevrice to grab a Tormentor and head back out, taking a spin around the neighborhood yielded few targets until I came upon a Kestrel in a plex. I do like when I find targets that are defensively plexing, more often than not they are fit for combat and will not warp off unless you obviously outclass them. I warp the Tormentor in and engage the Kestrel with everything overheated, it turns out to be a close fight with my Tormentor in low structure as his Kestrel explodes.
I repair in station and head back out, not finding much I could engage in my Tormentor I head back to Hevrice to dock up for some sleep when I find 2 Coercers in a plex. I wanted to test the Algos fit I have when it is outclassed so I quickly swap out and warp to the Coercers. I was able to burn one Coercer down and had the other in structure when my Algos went down. I may switch that Algos back to blasters to make use of the bonus, I do like my projectiles though :).
I grab another Slasher and undock for one more quick trip around and find nothing :(. Returning to Hevrice I spot an Incursus on scan, locate him and swoop in for the fight. The fight is not to be had, this poor fellow had no business being in lowsec. His incursus barely scratches my shields while I rip him apart.
I have exceeded my allotted time for the evening and finally log of for sleep :)
I did log on every night this week, the other nights I stuck to my 30-45 minutes of allotted EVE time and have no stories to tell.

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

I started out with some inherited carebear sec status on this character that I have been able to bring down. The fall from +4 or so seemed to take forever, the fall from -2 has been increasing rapidly. Min is now a "proper pirate" with a sec status of -7.1. There have been a fair few pods along the way that have contributed to this.

As I have said before Min was a gifted toon. I have been unable to play in nullsec for the last 18 months due to RL commitments/constraints/responsibilities and at one time was considering unsubbing to EVE until life permitted me to play the game again. Fortunately for me Rixx was booted from Tuskers and subsequently formed Stay Frosty which has been a fun experience for me so far and I see it continuing to be so.
I am slowly increasing my non existent solo skills while burning through ISK. I have a "semi passive" ISK income, nothing special or sekrit, I have some market toons and buy low - sell high. I have been doing this since 2008 or so, in the past it was able to support multiple 0.0 toons in multiple locations. When I started marketing POS structures were still NPC items, it used to be a "goldmine". I set really low buy orders around nullsec staging points in high and lowsec then hauled to market hubs to sell for NPC prices or near so. After the changes and they became player built I had to change items and wound up leveling/training and setting up a few market toons. I have slowed my order modification quite a bit over the last year and as a result was not making ISK on some of my items. I have changed my items and now have my ISK flows on the plus side again. Getting Min set up for LowSec was a bit more of an expense than I thought it would be. So to keep from having to spend more of my non existent time earning isk I have worked out a budget for him and will be sticking to it from here on out. I actually do not think I am going to have them time to lose my budgeted amount in ships/mods each month but it will be fun trying to.

I am planning on watching AT again this Sunday so expect more distracted piloting. I will probably keep it down to afk losing frigates instead of cruisers this time. :)


Monday, July 22, 2013

Combat Distractions "Tournament Sunday"

This is not a post about the Alliance Tournament, it just happened to be why I sat at the computer for most of the day.

Saturday night I had told my wife that the 2nd half of the first round of AT matches was on Sunday and I would be watching. Having the short dead time between matches meant that I could chat between matches, which turned out to be undocking between matches, which turned out to be to my disadvantage.
I went roaming solo in a Slasher and fell upon a Rifter waiting patiently for someone to engage him. My particular Slasher fit of the day turned to to be too much for his anti-brawler Rifter. It was a good fight though, I left the field with his loot and my Slasher in structure.
I wound up going back to Hevrice and docking back up to watch some more matches while eating breakfast.
A short bit about bookmarks and my style of solo hunting. Once I enter a system for the first time I will warp around a bit making a few "inline" safes. Once these are made I warp between them and make some "deep safes", these will be a little bit harder to get pin pointed at for quick probing. I delete the inline safes and if I will be hunting the system frequently I will make one or a set of "Star Scan" safes. If the system is small enough you only need one perch that you can sit at and Dscan all celestials. If the system is larger you will need a set of them. If I am flying under distraction (know I could be needed inhouse at any given time) I will warp to one of my star scans and bookmark right before I get to it, then warp to the "temp" bookmark I just made. In a fast frigate you can usually align somewhere, turn prop mod on and scan lazily or even afk or tab out semi safely. This only works in a frigate or really fast cruiser, anything else and you will be probed and caught fairly quickly.
I wound up making the mistake of doing just the above in Hevrice in an AB fit armor Ruppy when the Goonswarm elimination match started. Goon were getting hammered pretty bad and my two in-house mermaids were outside the window from my gaming cave in the swimming pool. I tabbed back over from watching goons/mermaids and generally being distracted to find myself pointed by a talos. Welp that did not go as planned. :P
 Shortly after I was sitting watching AT and turned the volume on coms back on, we had what was apparently a badly organized gang going on and undocked a Thorax to join the fray, welp, that did not go as planned either.
Shortly after that I decided to take my Algos out for a spin and got caught at a gate by an Ashimu. Pretty much died in a fire.
Undocked a little bit later after the Alliance Tournaments were over with a small gang of corp mates. We roamed for a short bit and started chasing an Assault Frigate gang around then promptly jumped straight into a larger TIPIAKS gang where we all DIAFed.
I went AFK for a few hours to spend some time with the family and get some chores done around the house. Came back to make a few short trips around the neighborhood and found a Merlin in a plex. Jumped on him and was able to burn through his medium ASB Merlin before he could bring me down. It helped that his guns shut off from my neut before I ran out of shield buffer. I went roaming the other way and found another Merlin and jumped on it, a Stabber showed up before I could kill the Merlin that was not fighting back and killed my Slasher.
Got the pod back to Hevrice and undocked another Slasher to find a little mining op going on. 2 Ventures, a Catalyst and an Algos. I should have docked back to to grab an active tanked frigate for the destroyers. My initial plan was to take the Catalyst down then the Algos knowing that the Ventures would just warp off. When I landed the Catalyst started burning off while the Ventures warped off. Not wanting to not catch anything I nabbed the Algos and started in on him, The Catalyst came back in and I did not have enough time to kill anything before my Slasher shamefully died.
I got bored with Slashers and undocked an Incursus to find a nubship running around the belts. I fell upon him and relieved him of his free ship. I tried for an Atron but this dude is usually on the ball and warps off soon as you land. Wanting something faster to try and nab him with I go back for my Slasher and he leaves the system when the nubship comes back, I relieve him of his free ship again and the pod as well.
All in all a good day of EVE, bad for my efficiency rating, whatever that means. I had fun and would do again. I got some Tournament watching in, got to see my mermaids in the pool and exploded some ships to keep the industrialists in EVE in business.

I should do these things without distraction :P

Saturday, July 20, 2013

A Slow Week

I have had some time each evening for EVE this week. Unfortunately there is not much activity when I have been able to log on. I have been able to lose 3 Slashers and kill some nubs. I agreed to a 1v1 when I was fit for hunting and not brawling, the extra point on my Slasher does no good in a 1v1 frigate brawl, so I lose to an Incursus GF to the Tusker. I derped when hunting and became the hunted, GF random people I have never seen before. I tried a Slasher vs Navy Caracal because I was bored and of course lost :).
I have drastically improved my luck in KILLING VENTURES! I will take them where I can.
I have also been able to finally shed the bear status I inherited with +4 or so sec status Min is either near or at -6. My chances for fights at gates will improve now. This is either a good or bad thing we will have to see how it turns out :)
I made some improvements (I think) to the look of the blog, at some point I may get around to adding the CCP disclaimer thingy and add some EVE graphics as opposed to standard stock stuff.

********

In other news my stalker took to rapid fire mailing me when ever online. It was kinda cute till it got annoying, I set the CSPA charge to 1,000,000 and he sent several before getting tired of paying. He did come into the EVEOGANDA channel to troll us but angrily devolved into racial slurs and got banned. He continued to mail after that then mysteriously convoed me the next day where he stated "I Win" I have no idea what he won but GG, hope you had fun.

Fox Three (The Stalker) evidently got tired of being chased around in low sec FW plexes and made his own corp "Margaritaville" I think Jimmy Buffet would be awash in shame if he knew.

Monday, July 15, 2013

A Good Sunday

I did not set out to sit at the computer all day yesterday it just happened to work out that way. I started off by getting some more modules and ammo in to Hevrice so I can fit up a wider variety of ships to explode in glorious combat. Once that was done I grabbed some breakfast and boarded a slasher then set out to start hunting. I roamed around a bit and found an Incursus and Firetail in a plex. There were only 2 people in local and they were different corps. I figured to three way their little brawl and started working on the Incursus as he was closest to me. The Firetail played it smart and kited out changing his weapons to me, the Incursus then switched to me. I did not last long under the combined fire. I get the pod out and the Firetail finishes the Incursus off.
I head back to Hevrice to grab another ship and keep hunting. I board a Firetail and head out, I think things must have slowed down around this time as I went 18 gates and found nothing, on my way back to Hevrice I find a Tristan and Incursus in a plex and warp in. As it turns out it is a corp mate and a R1FTA pilot brawling, I lock both of them up to see how the fight is going and see the Incursus is about to die so I web him to shamelessly whore on to the KillMail
I get to Hevrice and dock up for another cup of coffee and grab a Ruppy to head out again. I wandered around several systems and could not get anyone to engage. I finally went to a medium plex in Jovanion and waited for peeps to arrive. TIPIAKS obliged me and came in with an Algos and 2 Enyos, the must have been engaged with a corp mate prior because he shows on the KM. I was able to burn the Algos down before the Enyos exploded my Ruppy
I set out in a Slasher again to start hunting. I wandered several systems chasing random ventures and stabbed plexers till I found an Incursus at a plex, I warp in, engage and suddenly Vexor. I almost burned the Incurus down before the Vexor did me in. I dock up for a minute or two to check some in house needs and board the trusty Reaper to travel back and get another ship. I notice a cyno on station and figure it would be funny to let the station guns kill the Reaper, so I did.
When I get back I see a Fed Navy Brutix outside station that is aggroed. I undock my Brutix thinking maybe the Extra DPS could take it down. That is one mean boat, some more Frosties undocked and tried to take the FN Brutix down when local spiked. Bait is bait and Ninja Unicorns that like Huge Horns come in with some ridiculous risk averse gang to kill some standard T1 small crap. All got out or docked before the gang landed except my Brutix and Tezz's Algos. Again that FN Brutix is a mean boat, well played random bait dude for the Horn Aficionados. Well played.
I undock another Slasher to  go hunting again, I wound up chasing some FW plexers around when I spotted a Retriever on scan. I locate him in a belt where I proceeded to Solo his entire Barge and Pod. The rocks must be protected! For some reason the barge kill and a Venture kill a bit later are not showing on killboards, which makes me sad I finally catch a venture and there is no  proof! Here is his pod.
There were a few other fights yesterday evening I won 2 1v1s against Rifters in my Slasher and lost a 1v1 against an Icursus in my slasher. I also went out in my Algos and killed this Thrasher in Herioc Battle.


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

There has been an interesting development in the last few weeks. I have apparently acquired a stalker. There is an NPC corp FW farmer that runs around in a stabbed Navitas. If you chase him he starts whining in local about some imagined unfairness of pirates chasing FW people who are just trying to plex and the only people who should fight FW farmers are other FW people. He places a 100K bounty on me and when he notices I die he mails me stating "I see you died", then places another 100K bounty on me. I don't get it but heh, if that is how he plays his game then more power to him. I choose to spend my $14.95 else-wise. It is entertaining though so thanks for that!

A few parting quotes:

Fox Three > f*** you stay frosty shitheads
Min Hevn > thanks stabbed little bear
Min Hevn > your tears fuel me
Fox Three > eat shit you p***y, join fw if you want to f*** around in a plex
Fox Three > you'lll never kill me, I'm too smart, go bully somewhere else

Fox Three> You do know the frostys are going to have to pay for this...

Saturday, July 13, 2013

The Death of a Reader

I began reading EVE blogs the day after I made the move from Blackberry to iPhone. I did not make the jump to iPhone as a leap onto any bandwagon. I like living in rural areas, I made the move from one rural area where Sprint had the best service to another rural area where AT&T had the only service. I like fancy toys and Blackberry seemed to be on the decline, iPhone it is! I have stuck with the iPhone for much the opposite reasons I like PCs over Mac products. With the PC you have a higher degree of customization available to you and because of that and the performance options that brings more games are developed for it. (That and its probably cheaper to develop for the PC) I do not need that same level of customization in my phone. I need one that works well, has enough "options" that I can do neat things with it in the few minutes I have to spare. That and I have purchased a few apps I don't want to have to repurchase. :)
The Capsuleer App was published and still active the day I made the switch so I grabbed it from the App Store. Prior to the iPhone and Capsuleer all of my EVE reading came from the various Wiki sites. I found this really cool little section of Capsuleer that had an RSS reader and began reading EVE blogs.
It wasn't long before Capsuleer development stopped and I started looking for another way to get to the EVE blogs. A bit of Googling brought me to the famous EVE Blog Pack link. I googled again for a decent iPhone app to read the feed, down loaded FeedlerRSS and resumed my reading of Internet Spaceships on the go.
As the blog pack changed and I followed links from listed blogs to non listed blogs my reading list grew and grew. Every few months I would log into my Google account and trim the dead branches of my reading list. Some of the blogs on my list I read as they were posted and some I would save for when I had enough time to read several posts, there are a few good reads that benefit from serial reading, Tiger Ears being one of them.
As my life has grown busier and busier over the last few years the ease of use and functionality of the Google Reader account has kept me connected to the game I had little time for with little to no effort. I was saddened the day I read the big G was discontinuing their service. I did a bit of checking around and found that several different groups were heading up efforts in developing a replacement for the service. By this time I had begun actively playing the EVE again and spare time was valuable, any time not spent with Family or Work was spent playing EVE. My confidence in someone coming up with a service that was as easy to use as Reader coupled with my lack of time has left me in a sort of rut. I did not start Feedly before the end of Reader and missed importing my lists. I have also not been able to find another service that is as simple as Reader was. As a consequence my reading has dropped off considerably, I have down loaded a few blog reading apps and will continue to search for an easy to use service.
There may well be an easy to use service that I have missed with my casual search of options, hopefully this weekend (mine are 1 day weekends) will lend enough time to play some EVE, find a good RSS service and get it linked to an App on my iPhone.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Un-Dock Experiment

I have been pressed for time the last few weeks with chores, holidays and family matters so I decided each minute I had to spare I would sit down and undock. While this lead to some actual piloting time it did not leave much time for writing about it. I am still having a blast with the smaller ships in EVE. I actually gave up on trying a few ships out 10 at a time. I do not think I have the patience to work on that, there are simply too many good hulls out there now to limit myself to 4 at a time. I think I have flown a bit of every race in the last few weeks.

A down side to it being "summer holidays" is that the little bit of time I have had to undock there have been few targets around. I think as well the rate at which Stay Frosty has grown has exceeded our available prey spawn rate. The area is getting to be hunted out and the targets that are available are getting smarter, stabbier and cloakier. I have "leeroyed" a few ships here and there. I am trying not to be too picky in the fights I take and it shows in my efficiency ratings :) I think that taking only the fights you are sure to win is more along the lines of risk averse as opposed to "smart".

One ship I do want to try will serve me 2 purposes. I want to fit an LOL DPS CovOps boat for hunting this new breed of site explorers. There seems to be an awful lot of them around these days. I also want to improve my scanning techniques. I did a bit of it at the beginning of Apocrypha and have not messed with it much since.

The corp is moving along nicely, there are certainly more people around to fly with which is kinda nice. I believe I am going to attempt to keep to my original plan of solo mainly on weekdays and small gang on the weekend.

I would do my usual and link fits and fights but as it is my time is limited and I want to undock again.

o7