A terrible post title I know....
I posted a while back on "Getting Frosty". I have been in the corp for a few months now and have enjoyed the stay so I decided to talk a bit about it.
Stay Frosty is truly a no pressure PVP corp. You can do what you want, when you want, at whatever frequency happens to suit you. There are a lot of corporations around that offer a "relaxed" and "casual" atmosphere where they claim there are no pressures. I have been playing EVE for over half of its life span and those corps, almost to the very last one of them, are lying. That or they have one person with 4 alts and 80 inactives. There will eventually be, "hey we noticed you never join comms" you can leave, or "hey you never fly with the corp blobs" so you can... etc, etc. You get the picture. Stay Frosty does everything it says it does on the box.
We have a unique mix of pilots in the corp. They range from people who do not have enough time in the game to be in lowsec and little experience that are out there pewing and having fun, all the way to some very experienced lifetime lowsec PVPers. There are even people like me, have been PVPing in this game for almost 6 years and quite bad at it. We have people that talk with the very niche verbiage that is only spoken in EVE and we have people that do not know simple MMO emotes. (Who does not know them? I mean really!) oh seven meight
We have had a few people join and then quit or leave for something else. I am sure we will have more leave and more join. Like I said previously, SF does exactly what it says on the box, solo, some small gang, no pressure. I think people have an idea that there will be more than that, hate to disappoint but there is exactly just that.
When I joined and occasionally since there is some hullabub about Tuskers this and Tuskers that. I understand there is something going on there, some clashes of personalities. I only know one side of it and I stand behind him and say he is right. I will also tell you there are more than 2 sides of any story and they are usually all "right". We live in Hevrice, Tuskers live in Hevrice, we shoot them and they shoot us. I don't know if anybody is winning or how you would gauge that. This is lowsec. We also occasionally shoot people together. I respect the Tuskers for the most part, even if they are reportedly a shadow of their former selves, I never knew their former selves. They are a decent group of PVPers. They have a few whinging smacktards but then most groups do.
The corp has had some decent success since it began. We have over 100 members, and most are active. The killboard is decent for a group that is over 90% solo with the varying skill levels we have. We have managed to have our first corp theft. The biggest shock of all is that since the corp began there has been no drama. That is unusual in EVE, typically there is monthly or even weekly drama in corps.
We have an open recruitment policy. That would not have been my choice but it seems to be working. It has brought an awesome group of people together. We literally have nothing to hide from spies, and the one corp theft, if it can even be called that, it is pretty much an embarrassment for any self respecting corp thief. I know I would set my sights higher than a few haulers full of T1 frigates and mods. Corp thieves were caught and stuffs returned. I think they were more embarrassed by how easy it was to find out who they were and being exposed than over the actual stealing.
I personally have been pleased with the experience and look forward to more. I went from someone with an hour to spend in EVE a few nights a week, who would log in and think about undocking in a frigate or destroyer for some solo then log off and go play TF2. To someone with an hour to spend in EVE a few nights a week, who logs in and undocks in a frigate or destroyer for some solo. I do not know what the change was, maybe just having like minded people to talk to. I still have my other toons in EVE. I simply do not have the time for 30 minute formups to do 3+ hour travel-fight-travel slugfests.
I don't always EVE
But when I do I have fun and enjoy the game.
Stay Frosty my friends.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
The New Reader - The Old Reader
This post is not at all related to EVE other than I use these services to read EVE blogs. :)
I dislike change. I especially dislike change for the sake of change. I understand in theory the reasons behind Google discontinuing the Reader service. It seems to me that there would have been some way that the absolute geniuses behind Google could have bent the service to their advantage. I guess this would be an example of one of the reasons I am not the leader of a F500 company. :) All said and done for me "the end user" it just felt like change for the sake of change. I do not care that they apologized in advance.
When Reader died I downloaded a few other apps. I had until that time been using Feeddler RSS for iOS and had it logging into my google account for feed reading. I gave a few of them a go and either did not like or did not have the time to give many of the services a good chance. I also failed massively and did not use them to log into Google in the weeks before it died, I understand the change in service would have went seamlessly in that case.
Of all of them I think I appreciated Feedly's style and polish the most. Feedly also looks really good on the iPad. I must have failed at something because I just did not take to the actual service as well as some people have. I finally settled for importing my Google Take-Out into The Old Reader and and going back to Feeddler RSS to log in to that service. Feeddler for me has a comfortable feel to it. I can mindlessly thumb through posts without having to think about what does what. Now if only Feeddler would update their interface to something a little fresher :)
Why is this important? I have limited time, I do all of my reading on mobile devices, either the iPhone when 100% mobile or the iPad Mini when I am partially mobile. I do not have the time at the desk to keep up on my reading. I do not have the time at home to sit at the PC and keep up with my reading. I would much rather undock and shoot somebody in the face or get shot. I carry my three digital age mandated devices with me where ever I go. I have the phone always in a pocket. I have the iPad in the front pouch of my laptop bag and of course the laptop for when I am at the one of 3 desks I use that does not have a computer already at it or I have to do more than a few sentences of typing and am not at the desk. Typing for an older guy really sucks without a keyboard.
At any rate I would highly recommend The Old Reader and Feeddler RSS to any who have a fair amount of blogs to keep up with.
I dislike change. I especially dislike change for the sake of change. I understand in theory the reasons behind Google discontinuing the Reader service. It seems to me that there would have been some way that the absolute geniuses behind Google could have bent the service to their advantage. I guess this would be an example of one of the reasons I am not the leader of a F500 company. :) All said and done for me "the end user" it just felt like change for the sake of change. I do not care that they apologized in advance.
When Reader died I downloaded a few other apps. I had until that time been using Feeddler RSS for iOS and had it logging into my google account for feed reading. I gave a few of them a go and either did not like or did not have the time to give many of the services a good chance. I also failed massively and did not use them to log into Google in the weeks before it died, I understand the change in service would have went seamlessly in that case.
Of all of them I think I appreciated Feedly's style and polish the most. Feedly also looks really good on the iPad. I must have failed at something because I just did not take to the actual service as well as some people have. I finally settled for importing my Google Take-Out into The Old Reader and and going back to Feeddler RSS to log in to that service. Feeddler for me has a comfortable feel to it. I can mindlessly thumb through posts without having to think about what does what. Now if only Feeddler would update their interface to something a little fresher :)
Why is this important? I have limited time, I do all of my reading on mobile devices, either the iPhone when 100% mobile or the iPad Mini when I am partially mobile. I do not have the time at the desk to keep up on my reading. I do not have the time at home to sit at the PC and keep up with my reading. I would much rather undock and shoot somebody in the face or get shot. I carry my three digital age mandated devices with me where ever I go. I have the phone always in a pocket. I have the iPad in the front pouch of my laptop bag and of course the laptop for when I am at the one of 3 desks I use that does not have a computer already at it or I have to do more than a few sentences of typing and am not at the desk. Typing for an older guy really sucks without a keyboard.
At any rate I would highly recommend The Old Reader and Feeddler RSS to any who have a fair amount of blogs to keep up with.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
The Major Heist
BREAKING NEWS:
Stay Frosty had its first corp theft, someone cleared out the hangers of all of our "new bro" frigates and destroyers along with our carefully hoarded supply of valuable fittings. The corp is in discussions on how to recover from this devastating loss. We are considering a donation drive or lottery, maybe even flying system to system panhandling to get our reserves back. If you have any intel or facts that lead to the apprehension and dispatch of this nefarious character we are offering a reward of an ENTIRE MILLIONS of ISKs. I honestly do not know how we will ever recover and become the power house that we once were.
I have no idea what was in there other than people dump random crap into the hangers from looting and some of us dump a few frigates in there from time to time to help out the newer dudes who fancy trying piracy. Good job random corp thief, you made a fortune and broke the frigate backbone of the corp.
It is actually kinda cute. I feel kind of let down that nothing of value was lost.
***************************
I was looking back at the week thinking how slow it was until I realised I have scored at least one kill almost every night. Not bad for someone who plays EVE one hour per day.
I have had a few Navy Slicers bumping around in the hanger for a while and just not flown them. I decided to give it a go this week and started out successfully with a few kills. I decided to take on a Navy Comet to see how it went and boy did that go wrong. The Comet was of all things fit for speed with a shield tank so I could not pull range and plink away with scorch. I have stolen the Comet fit and found it to be a fun ship. Most people do not figure a comet to be 5K m/s without heat so it is a good surprise boat. I have only manage one or two kills in it so far but it is a fun ship.
There has been some more action on the FW front this last week, apparently the Gallente are making a slow push to recap systems. Or they are just more active farming them and the Caldari are not interested in defensive plexing systems. I have no clue about these things.
I have tried a few times to bait the gangs that are out and about with very little success. I hop from system to system until I find a lone FW dude then I go park myself in a plex for a little while and wait for roamers to come though. Not very exciting but it finishes off an hour of hunting quite nicely. I tried to crash an I-Hub shoot with a couple of cruisers but the opposing faction crashed before I could reship and I only managed to catch a Caldari destroyer.
I had an awesome fight while trying to bait a small gang of frigates with my Moa. I had sat it in a medium plex with a Gallente FW dude in system and changed my ship name to "Federation Loyalist" (there was a Caldari gang rolling around) the Caldari dudes showed up on short scan while I was in the plex but warped off. Shortly after an Algos and Hawk showed up on scan and came in to the plex. I made short work of the Algos and started in on the Hawk. I was in an ASB Moa and the Hawk was dual MASB. It was a long fight with me boosting the top 1/4 of my shields one pulse at a time and him boosting 3/4 of his shields at a time. I burned through 3500 rounds each of Null and Antimatter till I ran out where he began killing my drones as I pulled them back in and sent them out several times. I motored over to where the Algos died and scooped those drones to the drone bay and lost them one at a time setting them out and bringing them back in. I then typed in corp chat "anyone want to kill a hawk?" planning to stop pulsing the ASB if no one came. A corp mate showed up in a Caracal to finally kill the Hawk. That fight was about 40 minutes of a cruiser fighting a frigate before I decided to do the dishonorable thing :) GF to the Hawk pilot!
I went out last night in a slasher and chased a Rifter around till I caught him, then he had a Crucifier friend show up. They both had me "TDed", there is no way I should have won this fight much less killed both of them. Anyways a good end to my short little roam.
I have brought another bigger hull in, hopefully I will be able to welp a Battleship this weekend. :)
Stay Frosty had its first corp theft, someone cleared out the hangers of all of our "new bro" frigates and destroyers along with our carefully hoarded supply of valuable fittings. The corp is in discussions on how to recover from this devastating loss. We are considering a donation drive or lottery, maybe even flying system to system panhandling to get our reserves back. If you have any intel or facts that lead to the apprehension and dispatch of this nefarious character we are offering a reward of an ENTIRE MILLIONS of ISKs. I honestly do not know how we will ever recover and become the power house that we once were.
I have no idea what was in there other than people dump random crap into the hangers from looting and some of us dump a few frigates in there from time to time to help out the newer dudes who fancy trying piracy. Good job random corp thief, you made a fortune and broke the frigate backbone of the corp.
It is actually kinda cute. I feel kind of let down that nothing of value was lost.
***************************
I was looking back at the week thinking how slow it was until I realised I have scored at least one kill almost every night. Not bad for someone who plays EVE one hour per day.
I have had a few Navy Slicers bumping around in the hanger for a while and just not flown them. I decided to give it a go this week and started out successfully with a few kills. I decided to take on a Navy Comet to see how it went and boy did that go wrong. The Comet was of all things fit for speed with a shield tank so I could not pull range and plink away with scorch. I have stolen the Comet fit and found it to be a fun ship. Most people do not figure a comet to be 5K m/s without heat so it is a good surprise boat. I have only manage one or two kills in it so far but it is a fun ship.
There has been some more action on the FW front this last week, apparently the Gallente are making a slow push to recap systems. Or they are just more active farming them and the Caldari are not interested in defensive plexing systems. I have no clue about these things.
I have tried a few times to bait the gangs that are out and about with very little success. I hop from system to system until I find a lone FW dude then I go park myself in a plex for a little while and wait for roamers to come though. Not very exciting but it finishes off an hour of hunting quite nicely. I tried to crash an I-Hub shoot with a couple of cruisers but the opposing faction crashed before I could reship and I only managed to catch a Caldari destroyer.
I had an awesome fight while trying to bait a small gang of frigates with my Moa. I had sat it in a medium plex with a Gallente FW dude in system and changed my ship name to "Federation Loyalist" (there was a Caldari gang rolling around) the Caldari dudes showed up on short scan while I was in the plex but warped off. Shortly after an Algos and Hawk showed up on scan and came in to the plex. I made short work of the Algos and started in on the Hawk. I was in an ASB Moa and the Hawk was dual MASB. It was a long fight with me boosting the top 1/4 of my shields one pulse at a time and him boosting 3/4 of his shields at a time. I burned through 3500 rounds each of Null and Antimatter till I ran out where he began killing my drones as I pulled them back in and sent them out several times. I motored over to where the Algos died and scooped those drones to the drone bay and lost them one at a time setting them out and bringing them back in. I then typed in corp chat "anyone want to kill a hawk?" planning to stop pulsing the ASB if no one came. A corp mate showed up in a Caracal to finally kill the Hawk. That fight was about 40 minutes of a cruiser fighting a frigate before I decided to do the dishonorable thing :) GF to the Hawk pilot!
I went out last night in a slasher and chased a Rifter around till I caught him, then he had a Crucifier friend show up. They both had me "TDed", there is no way I should have won this fight much less killed both of them. Anyways a good end to my short little roam.
I have brought another bigger hull in, hopefully I will be able to welp a Battleship this weekend. :)
Monday, August 5, 2013
Out of Excuses, Links and Tears
I have the immense fortune to be married to a wonderful woman. She has put up with my gaming addictions for a long time and has not complained too much :) At one time I had a different shift at work and my gaming time took place while she was asleep. I slept while she was at work and worked in the evening. It wasn't ideal as far as time for a relationship but we got through it and I had several years in which to play EVE 6 hours a day.
While I no longer have that kind of time I have worked out a schedule that lets me be responsible to my relationship and work as well as have a little time to play Internet Spaceships. This past few weeks have been unique in that I had a "valid reason" to sit at the computer all day Sunday, I work on Saturdays :(
The SuperBowl of EVE comes only once per year. My wonderful wife loves her nerd and puts up with this.
Thank you Darlin, you are the light of my life :)
I am not going to write about the Alliance Tournament, there are other folks that do that way better than I care to... It was fun watching, Congratulations to Pandemic Legion and Hydra Reloaded, the 1st and 2nd place winners!
I did have plenty of time to play EVE during the intermissions and breaks between matches. One thing, overall the polish of the tournament presentation over the years has drastically improved. One could almost say it looks professional.
Saturday night I set out in my Slasher to go hunt FW plexers when I came across a Rifter. I should have gone back and fit a web instead of the extra point but I am lazy, the fight was still fairly close. My Slasher dies with him in structure.
Time for a new boat! I grab a Tormentor and head out. I like this frigate, it looks cool and now performs well enough to fit it's name. I start hunting but things are pretty dead. I try and loiter on gates, in belts, at the sun, system by system. It finally pays off with a Tristan engaging me on a gate, negative sec status is finally paying off. Fight is kinda one sided, the Tristan is not long for this world, He loiters and loses his pod for it.
Moving on I find a Slasher that is willing to take on my Tormentor. This was a fun fight, I hate tracking disruptors unless I am the one using them. I got in close and he Neuts then TDs me. He is on orbit so I align out with him webbed and scrambled to try and get some better tracking. He shuts of his neut in prep for the ancillary repper to finish its nanite cycle and had forgotten to turn auto reload off. I think this fight would have been a close one had he not made a mistake. He died before the Tormentor was at half armor.
Moving on again finds me nothing but gangs on the way home. I return home to spot a Venture on scan and swoop in to get the kill, someone is just finishing the Venture as I land. So I grab them and remove another Incursus from space. Trying to swoop on a Caldari Destroyer in a different belt yields the same pilot in yet another Incursus by the destroyer wreck. I relieve him of his Incursus again but not before his friend arrives and sets upon me with a kiting Tristan. I went to work on the drones but just did not have the buffer left to get through them all.
Sunday I set out while watching AT and find a Probe next door at the sun.. probing. I relieve him of his probing probe and find some stuff. This exploration stuff does not look particularly profitable to me, especially with pirates blowing you up. I am un-ashamed to say, I am not above killing Cyno Frigs, they break the boredom.
I loiter on a gate too long baiting an Incursus, as it happens he has Tristan friend. The Slasher Dies.
I find the person who apparently like Incursus' again while hunting for another destroyer in my Algos and blow up his Incursus yet again.
I find a Dramiel in local that is having some luck killing dudes. He is apparently using a legion for links off grid. Yes, Legion links for a Dramiel and Condor. So I work together with a corp mate, using our own Legion links. We nab the Dramiel, and start bouncing plexs trying to catch the Condor and wind up catching a Comet. Corp mate logs for the night so I sit in small plex with my slicer and wait. A Tusker warps his Atron right on top of my Slicer and DIES. Links were cloaked up at this time, he did whine a bit about it as they know who my link toon is, but meh, links were cloaked.
A bit later I decided to fit a shiny that I bought from a friend. I undocked to check stats, then uncloaked the links and turned them on to check stats again when a Tusker showed up to test my tank. I aggroed, so he aggroed, then his friend shows up to add some DPS. I let them spend some ammo, lazy boating out with MWD at 1/4 speed. I finally catch the Caracal being lazy and crank the MWD for a point and web, Caracal down. I could not get the Rupture to bite but Tansyaster prefers kite fits and is fairly good at it. YES THE LINKS WERE ON WITH THIS ONE.
*********************
On Links and Tears
Links are part of the game, I do not harbor any ill-will for persons that use them. I have used them in the past for fleets, I have used them when baiting in solo situations where I will be facing a gang. I believe that you should take advantage of the elements of the game that benefit your situation as you see fit. I also find it hilarious when persons from a group that is known for using off grid links starts crying about someone using off grid links. That there be some Absolute Quality Tears.
I tend to not use them while 1v1 (unless baiting outclassed) and do not have them online all the time. I do not care if you believe me or not :)
I pay my own sub(s), I DO WHAT I WANT.
While I no longer have that kind of time I have worked out a schedule that lets me be responsible to my relationship and work as well as have a little time to play Internet Spaceships. This past few weeks have been unique in that I had a "valid reason" to sit at the computer all day Sunday, I work on Saturdays :(
The SuperBowl of EVE comes only once per year. My wonderful wife loves her nerd and puts up with this.
Thank you Darlin, you are the light of my life :)
I am not going to write about the Alliance Tournament, there are other folks that do that way better than I care to... It was fun watching, Congratulations to Pandemic Legion and Hydra Reloaded, the 1st and 2nd place winners!
I did have plenty of time to play EVE during the intermissions and breaks between matches. One thing, overall the polish of the tournament presentation over the years has drastically improved. One could almost say it looks professional.
Saturday night I set out in my Slasher to go hunt FW plexers when I came across a Rifter. I should have gone back and fit a web instead of the extra point but I am lazy, the fight was still fairly close. My Slasher dies with him in structure.
Time for a new boat! I grab a Tormentor and head out. I like this frigate, it looks cool and now performs well enough to fit it's name. I start hunting but things are pretty dead. I try and loiter on gates, in belts, at the sun, system by system. It finally pays off with a Tristan engaging me on a gate, negative sec status is finally paying off. Fight is kinda one sided, the Tristan is not long for this world, He loiters and loses his pod for it.
Moving on I find a Slasher that is willing to take on my Tormentor. This was a fun fight, I hate tracking disruptors unless I am the one using them. I got in close and he Neuts then TDs me. He is on orbit so I align out with him webbed and scrambled to try and get some better tracking. He shuts of his neut in prep for the ancillary repper to finish its nanite cycle and had forgotten to turn auto reload off. I think this fight would have been a close one had he not made a mistake. He died before the Tormentor was at half armor.
Moving on again finds me nothing but gangs on the way home. I return home to spot a Venture on scan and swoop in to get the kill, someone is just finishing the Venture as I land. So I grab them and remove another Incursus from space. Trying to swoop on a Caldari Destroyer in a different belt yields the same pilot in yet another Incursus by the destroyer wreck. I relieve him of his Incursus again but not before his friend arrives and sets upon me with a kiting Tristan. I went to work on the drones but just did not have the buffer left to get through them all.
Sunday I set out while watching AT and find a Probe next door at the sun.. probing. I relieve him of his probing probe and find some stuff. This exploration stuff does not look particularly profitable to me, especially with pirates blowing you up. I am un-ashamed to say, I am not above killing Cyno Frigs, they break the boredom.
I loiter on a gate too long baiting an Incursus, as it happens he has Tristan friend. The Slasher Dies.
I find the person who apparently like Incursus' again while hunting for another destroyer in my Algos and blow up his Incursus yet again.
I find a Dramiel in local that is having some luck killing dudes. He is apparently using a legion for links off grid. Yes, Legion links for a Dramiel and Condor. So I work together with a corp mate, using our own Legion links. We nab the Dramiel, and start bouncing plexs trying to catch the Condor and wind up catching a Comet. Corp mate logs for the night so I sit in small plex with my slicer and wait. A Tusker warps his Atron right on top of my Slicer and DIES. Links were cloaked up at this time, he did whine a bit about it as they know who my link toon is, but meh, links were cloaked.
A bit later I decided to fit a shiny that I bought from a friend. I undocked to check stats, then uncloaked the links and turned them on to check stats again when a Tusker showed up to test my tank. I aggroed, so he aggroed, then his friend shows up to add some DPS. I let them spend some ammo, lazy boating out with MWD at 1/4 speed. I finally catch the Caracal being lazy and crank the MWD for a point and web, Caracal down. I could not get the Rupture to bite but Tansyaster prefers kite fits and is fairly good at it. YES THE LINKS WERE ON WITH THIS ONE.
*********************
On Links and Tears
Links are part of the game, I do not harbor any ill-will for persons that use them. I have used them in the past for fleets, I have used them when baiting in solo situations where I will be facing a gang. I believe that you should take advantage of the elements of the game that benefit your situation as you see fit. I also find it hilarious when persons from a group that is known for using off grid links starts crying about someone using off grid links. That there be some Absolute Quality Tears.
I tend to not use them while 1v1 (unless baiting outclassed) and do not have them online all the time. I do not care if you believe me or not :)
I pay my own sub(s), I DO WHAT I WANT.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Being Lazy
I have not quite made my projected post frequency, as usual I under estimate the amount of time I am going to have to spend on "hobbies". Time to spend at the computer is best spent in space :)
I spent most of the day last Sunday logged in watching Alliance Tournament. I did not get to undock much as I was working from home on the second monitor. I am not going to do my usual linking of kills and deaths this time. Suffice it to say that I have killed some and died a lot. I have mentioned several times that my usual play time is rushed, short, and at a bad time for EVE. If I have been on for an hour looking for a fight I end up jumping into something I have no chance of winning. Such is life :)
I did manage to get my self killed by an Ibis and a Venture, it was awesome. Grats to them they played the fight well. I figured they would be set up to fight I did not figure to be jammed for 3/4 of the fight.
I also manage to lose a Megathron last night. I had gone roaming solo in a Slasher and could not find any targets I could get solo. I had spotted a POS bash by people I had never seen before but there were not enough corp members on to take the fight. I joined fleet with some Tuskers to see if we could get the random collection of dudes to fight. By the time we got in system the pos bashers had RFed the pos they were shooting and gone to a station. Not knowing they were going to fight we sent the heaviest tank in to bait on station and warped the rest in. Fight was kinda one sided, they wound up having alot more help than was initially at the POS. We traded a Rokh and a Megathron for an Oracle, Talos, Tornado and Caracal. The Tusker Maelstrom loss was from earlier when he tried to engage them solo. Another Corp mate of mine showed up and shot a Tusker I was in fleet with. He had no idea but it really did not matter we were going to die anyways :). All in all a fun fight, I wish we could have caught them at the POS before they finished RFing it. Fight would have been alot better without station guns.
I am enjoying frigates quite a bit, I have been flying mostly brawler fits for a few reasons. Brawler fights are easier to manage, I have some serious rust to shake off from 18 month of AFK skill training and I am usually a fair bit tired by the time I get around to firing up EVE. I am importing some kiting fits and some active tank fits as well as more of the larger hulls. I figure I should give all the industrialists the same amount of support. I have been supporting the producers of Slashers far too much :)
Min's missile skills are starting to get closer to where I want them. In 5 or so years of EVE I have flown missile ships few enough times that I could count them on one hand if I could remember them :). There was a short amount of time that I flew with some friends in a renter corp and shot Sansha with a Raven. That counts for nothing though. I am going to start playing around with some Rocket and RLML fits. Prepare for some variety in my loss column :)
The finals for Alliance Tournament are this weekend. I have one more Sunday this year with a valid excuse to sit at the computer all day.
I spent most of the day last Sunday logged in watching Alliance Tournament. I did not get to undock much as I was working from home on the second monitor. I am not going to do my usual linking of kills and deaths this time. Suffice it to say that I have killed some and died a lot. I have mentioned several times that my usual play time is rushed, short, and at a bad time for EVE. If I have been on for an hour looking for a fight I end up jumping into something I have no chance of winning. Such is life :)
I did manage to get my self killed by an Ibis and a Venture, it was awesome. Grats to them they played the fight well. I figured they would be set up to fight I did not figure to be jammed for 3/4 of the fight.
I also manage to lose a Megathron last night. I had gone roaming solo in a Slasher and could not find any targets I could get solo. I had spotted a POS bash by people I had never seen before but there were not enough corp members on to take the fight. I joined fleet with some Tuskers to see if we could get the random collection of dudes to fight. By the time we got in system the pos bashers had RFed the pos they were shooting and gone to a station. Not knowing they were going to fight we sent the heaviest tank in to bait on station and warped the rest in. Fight was kinda one sided, they wound up having alot more help than was initially at the POS. We traded a Rokh and a Megathron for an Oracle, Talos, Tornado and Caracal. The Tusker Maelstrom loss was from earlier when he tried to engage them solo. Another Corp mate of mine showed up and shot a Tusker I was in fleet with. He had no idea but it really did not matter we were going to die anyways :). All in all a fun fight, I wish we could have caught them at the POS before they finished RFing it. Fight would have been alot better without station guns.
I am enjoying frigates quite a bit, I have been flying mostly brawler fits for a few reasons. Brawler fights are easier to manage, I have some serious rust to shake off from 18 month of AFK skill training and I am usually a fair bit tired by the time I get around to firing up EVE. I am importing some kiting fits and some active tank fits as well as more of the larger hulls. I figure I should give all the industrialists the same amount of support. I have been supporting the producers of Slashers far too much :)
Min's missile skills are starting to get closer to where I want them. In 5 or so years of EVE I have flown missile ships few enough times that I could count them on one hand if I could remember them :). There was a short amount of time that I flew with some friends in a renter corp and shot Sansha with a Raven. That counts for nothing though. I am going to start playing around with some Rocket and RLML fits. Prepare for some variety in my loss column :)
The finals for Alliance Tournament are this weekend. I have one more Sunday this year with a valid excuse to sit at the computer all day.
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. :)
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 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
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