The Conquest of 6VDT-H

Day 7:
I logged in to find myself ten hours late and plus 4 mails:


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Mail 1:
Sent: 2011.01.31 13:23
To: Fatal Ascension,

    As the sands of time slowly pour forth we await our destiny!
    Step forward brothers and sisters and reach out ..stretch forth ...grab a hold of your destiny...it awaits you
    Countdown to 6vdt 1 hour !!
    Come and be a part of this historic event...Stand here with us...Be amongst those who stand victorious....Our destiny...goes hand in hand!
    In little under 1 hour we take that which was pre-ordained to be ours...IT was just keeping it warm for us ....Now is the time!
    Test will be claiming the station and system ..we will then guard the tcu as it onlines ..This is a mighty blow to the hated clown fuckers that sir molester leads ..Remember today
    Come out and join us Fatal ....I look forward to seeing you here !


Mail 2:
Sent: 2011.01.31 14:44
To: Fatal Ascension,

    O/
    This is the After action report for the fight in 6VDT-H.
    We have finally taken 6VDT and is now becoming Blue. I know there was quite a few FA members who just stayed in system for all 5 days this fight took. But finally we claimed their system.
    They decided not to fight us on their last timer. But now they are broken and their main staging system is ours.
    We shall keep pushing into fountain till it's all blue but this is probably one of the hardest systems to take and its finally ours. Keep a eye on the market in 6VDT and contracts guys for fire sales :D you will be able to buy stuff VERY cheap.
    Thanks all of FA that helped in this fight we should not need to do another 5 day siege on the station for anytime soon.
    See you all on the need battlefield!!!!!


Mail 3:
Sent: 2011.01.31 15:36
To: Ordos Humanitas,

    today the 6vdt op saw its final stage with the last RF timer on the station, our allies now own the enemy's main base in fountain and the op will be an official success in about 8 hours when the TCU is online and seals the sov. change.
    TPOG today had 6+ people on this op that's about 10% of the whole corp and made 100% of the online people at the given time when i looked at it. That is amazing, and one of the reasons i love you all :)
    There will be convoys and maybe jump bridges leaving the system soon after the 8 hour timer, if you can't make any of those stay safe, don't travel alone and tomorrow you might want to still be in the area anyway as the next station next door gets taken. However in 8 hours the all hands live out of 6vdt phase is over and we will slowly return to 1-N for taking care of your personal wallet as well as the corp wallet.
    Time to bring the same momentum into our other operations.
    Important pvp operations will continue to happen but mostly starting in PNQY, so you can easily reach them from our home.
    Thanks for everyone who stayed in system over the time and to everyone who came at least for the timers, thanks for not letting me sit here alone all day ;)


Mail 4:
Sent: 2011.01.31 16:52
To: Fatal Ascension,

    We aren't done yet!
    7BX (that's the system next door to 6VDT) must fall too. Station comes out of its final RF timer tomorrow (1st Feb 2011) @ 13:00.
    Don't pack up and leave 6VDT just yet if you're already here! Stick around and tomorrow we will take another IT system.
    OP TIME: 13:00
    OP TARGET: 7BX station
    OP OBJECTIVE: Take system and establish sov.
    Ships: Alphafleet > TACKLE > Bugzappers > kitchen sink

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I feel I should note that although the conquest may have taken a literal 5 days, it was spread out over 7. I should also make mention of that last two shiptypes: while I am not familiar with Bugzappers and am assuming those to be smartbomb fitted Battleships, the kitchen sink refers to a cup, as the action is expected to be so intense and sudden that taking a piss will result in your ship blowing up, your pod being destroyed, and you losing alot of money.



Having read the mails in my varied inboxes, I decided to dock at the station to repair my wolf. As previously mentioned, I had 19% structure remaining, and I was tired of bleeding fire into space. Thus, 6VDTackled By Aceites Rifter was the next destination, so named because the previous day a pilot named Aceites tackled an enemy ship in a rifter, holding down the target long enough for more points to warp in and land on the enemy vessel before his rifter was destroyed. It was an act of heroism (or bloodlust) well commemorated. It should be noted that Aceites had been a capsuleer for all of 3 days, and his determination was not only commemorated in this fashion, but he was given 350 million ISK by allies in 6VDT minutes after the enemy vessel was destroyed by ClusterFuck forces.


Upon arriving, I realized the station was still in rapecage mode. I burned towards the station, got my Wolf repaired, and burned out to returned to the FA POS.

Having repaired my vessel, I settled in for an uneventful night at the helm, wrapping up some personal business I brought along with me just for times like these.

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After several hours I managed to finish my personal business, namely running equations for 3-phase power systems and power calculations involving complex power supplies, currents, and resistances. It was not pleasant, but it needed doing.


Even at this late stage in the siege, we are still losing Coalition members. It seems like every 30 minutes we're losing another person who's AFK at a gate, or a station, or 200km away from everyone else, or ratting at a belt...and we ALL know that there is a group of hostile bombers who are here picking people off.


Everyone who has died in this fashion needs to go back to High Sec. If you weren't a capsuleer, your stupidity would have been bred out of the genome.


[04:47:08] Samej Arkanus > Confirmed Reds SB's-
5 Nemesis
3 Hounds
5 Manticores
3 Purifiers

See? CONFIRMED! Don't screw up our damn killboard!


This loss was unfortunate, as the pilot was hoping to catch stragglers at a gate and was instead ambushed rather severely: http://starfleet.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8741442

In other news, fleet is at its lowest since the beginning of the siege, numbering at 77. Local is at its lowest since the ClusterFuck (read: Coalition Forces) invaded 6VDT-H, numbering 195 pilots in system. Tomorrow the system next door, 7BX, becomes ClusterFuck property as we evict IT alliance.


My favorite quote of the night:
[04:53:52] Anela Cistine > We bubbled the sun?  Hardcore.
[04:54:03] WhiteyUSMC > rapecage the sun

Desperation at 6VDT-H

Day 6:
I woke up and logged in to the familiar camping scenario. I warped to my position on the 7BX gate and settled in.


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2 hours after joining a gatecamp, something happened. At my position on the 7BX gate (just outside of the bubbles) my overview lit up with hostiles. I immediately called out "7BX gate hostiles" over fleet, and MWD'd away. Even if it does blow up my signature, I'm moving at a little over 2km a sec and manage to warp out at 19% structure. I assume I had been primaried because damage was coming in somewhat fast for my range on the enemy fleet (40+ km).


I arrived at the FA POS, having repaired all my armor in warp, and warped out to rejoin the fight.


We warped around several gates, catching pieces of them most of the time: a bomber here, a few HACs there, a recon or two in between. Our pursuit was largely hampered by our own dictors who were bubbling the field without checking if the enemy fleet was actually in range...and this happened several times. We finally got the majority of the enemy at the 7BX gate again, and we annihilated it. It was here I got my first kills and tackles of the siege. I did not however get any killmails as the final blow.


Shortly after what I've been told was an AHAC fleet (I admit I was much too busy just trying to land points and bullets to notice), a drake shield fleet jumped in at the 15U gate. Our roughly 600 man fleet warped to that gate and utterly destroyed it. There's not really anything to report on that battle: Maelstroms alpha'd the basilisks and drakes while everything else shot primary targets and landed tackles.

It is worth noting that each enemy fleet numbered only slightly over 100, total enemy combined size estimated at roughly 250.


Since that last battle, looting went fairly quickly and camping resumed on the gates. FC's called off camping towers as those camping them were the recent targets of enemy Cov Ops gangs. Normal operations (read: chasing stealth bombers and never catching them, and camping gates and the station) resumed some 30 minutes later.


Note: The 6VDT-H Station comes out of reinforced at 02:00 EVE. We are expecting a final assault around that time by IT to save what was once their system and any ships still docked there.


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Something I've come to realize about being tackle in a fleet: manual flying is requisite, as targets can disappear rather suddenly and you can as well if you are not moving. Don't attempt to auto orbit or approach anything unless it is also fast tackle. Instead, manually pilot, and as another capsuleer has mentioned, don't target the primaries if you are a tackler. That primary is likely to disappear before you ever land your point on it.

The Siege of 6VDT-H

Day 4:
Today has been very slow.


The occasional ship has flown in, or flown out, largely getting away in my opinion to bored people mucking up comms, but these aren't soldiers, and can't handle long periods of military intensity. In fact, the periods are often extremely short, in the order of 5-10 minutes.


Yesterday an alliance member lost his stealth bomber. He was killing pirate vessels in the asteroid belts. I also just got word that there are two more alliance wrecks, Maelstroms (since no one flies Tempests or Typhoon) in the belts here. I understand that people are bored, but ratting in an enemy system with known hostiles about deserves the Darwin award. If you are too stupid to live, well, IT gets to kill you, and you get to lose your ship, and you don't get to have it reimbursed by the Ship Replacement Fund.


I believe the alliance has gotten a few kills today, however. As I had no part in those kills and everyone else, even gate campers, went to go whore on the killmail, I have no idea what was killed today and likely everyone else does.


I think I'll log out for a bit, get some rest. IT is moving out of their timezone and into ours, and they still haven't attacked. I don't get the feeling that they will today, as their numbers are dwarfed by ours and their morale is likely incredibly low. By the time I log back in, the Reinforcement Fleet will likely have made it here from PNQY. Yet another wave of Alliance and Coalition forces to punish IT for it's lack of strength.


And as a closing note, the order to spam local was given yet again, and local is scrolling by so fast I have no hope of reading any of it. It's probably a blessing, as I heard over comms that via local contracts an FC has been selling prototype cloaks for the price of improved cloaks.




Day 5:
Today started off rather well with a bomber and a maelstrom kill for the coalition. The Maelstrom attempted to escape, managed to jump into NDH-NV from somewhere in system. Nig Fleet (best fleet) gave chase, followed him through the gate, and destroyed his  Maelstrom and his pod.


I was a little slow because of orbiting the 8-8 IT tower inside the bubbles. The Maelstrom jumped through when I was 30km off. I bolted for the gate in my MWD fit Wolf, and when I was 20km off the gate a Crow appeared on the overview. Not wasting any time, I changed course and made for it.


While I didn't manage to catch it, the Crow managed to get blown up anyways, and the pod shortly after. For some reason the Crow pilot thought it was a good idea to run AWAY from the NDH gate but not towards any warpable spot in space. Having nothing left to kill at the NDH gate, I warped back to the 8-8 tower.


There was about a 5 minute lull in the action, and then a red pod showed up 139 km away from me at the 8-8 tower. He bounced around for a bit, and eventually managed to get bubbled by a Heretic. The Heretic was however a bit slow about killing pod, and I managed to traverse 60km and get close enough to shot the pod a few times with Barrage and land a Warp Disruptor II on it. I did not snag the killmail, but at least I was part of a killmail, however unnecessarily.


After having done that, I returned to my chosen station, orbiting the 8-8 tower, the last IT reinforced tower, at 30km, ready to make a quick tackle if anyone tries to escape.

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Several hours later:


Coalition forces have snagged another few straggling kills: a Hound at the 7BX gate, a Maelstrom at 3-1 caught in a bubble camp, a stealth bomber at the station, and all three pods. No losses known as yet, except for one idiot in a Maelstrom who burned 200km above a bubble camp to scoop some drones.

I'll have to leave again soon. So far just the one pod kill for me, but at least I have that.

The Invasion of 6VDT-H

Day 1:
Today I got word of the massive siege of 6VDT-H by my Alliance, Fatal Ascension, and its allies. While I was in logged out mode, ie, not at my ship (and if I was in it, it would be less than debris on a scanner), Fatal Ascension and allies made a push all the way from B-DBYQ (16 jumps) into 6VDT-H. Once there, every gate was heavily bubbled and camped, every enemy POS was rapecaged and reinforced, and the station was bubbled and camped beyond belief. I am told IT was brutalized, taking massive losses.


I was unfortunately not there, as my timezone of operations did not line up with this assault. I am also unfortunately in empire in a clone, and I still have a good few hours before I could clone jump back to FA space, by which time I would be back to a logged out status.


I am resolved to join the fight as soon as possible.




Day 2:
I entered logged in mode today, and clone jumped to HPSC immediately. I tuned into the Alliance channel, learned of an upcoming reinforcement fleet, and joined. I didn't have long, so I grabbed my Wolf, Agni, and made my way over to B-DBYQ as quickly as I could manage while stocking up on ammo.


I made it just in time to warp with fleet to the J5A gate, which is constantly camped by IT and its renters. When we landed on the gate, the enemy gatecamp disappeared. Within five minutes, we made for 6VDT-H.

About an hour later, we made it to 6VDT-H. It perhaps did not need to take as long as it did, but we picked up pilots from various systems along the way, and overall the siege will be stronger for it.


I write this sitting inside the FA POS shield. I do unfortunately have some other business that needs taken care of, but if things go south real fast, I will join in and help. Otherwise, my fellow pilots who aren't busy can handle the siege. From what I understand, most of IT isn't in my timezone anyways.




Day 3:
Today has been rather uneventful. I did learn that the Goons reset their comms, and after tuning in, I found myself listening to a lot of mindless jabber for an hour or two before something happened.


Unfortunately, that something was a friendly Maelstrom getting blown up. This may or may not be due to mindless chatter, but since the pilot seems to think not, perhaps not.


The only other business that has gone on today, aside from me camping the 7BX-6F gate, has been the occasional enemy battleship trying to escape, and one enemy fleet trying to escape in a rather hopeless way.


Of course, just after I wrote that, we got 2 battleships kills, both trying to escape POS's: one Maelstrom, one Apocalypse.


I only have another hour though, I wonder if I'll get to kill anything. I'd rather my contribution be more substantial than helping hold down a gate.


You know things are really slow when the FC is calling out, "SPAM LOCAL SPAM LOCAL SPAM LOCAL" like it's of vital importance. I'm undecided on how much spamming local demoralizes the enemy, but I would guess it's inconsequential compared to completely locking down IT's main staging system.


I just learned that there is another IT tower coming out of reinforced fairly soon. I just wish my scheduling allowed me to stick around for it and get some kills...who knows, if it happens soon enough maybe I can participate for a little bit.


Until then, I'll be camping the 7BX gate, hoping for an idiot or someone extremely desperate to come by.

Stuck between Null and Empire

CTA's for me go fine. I tend not to die, tend to in fact do good damage. It's the non CTA stuff that gets me.


I land in gatecamps, or get stuck on a gate with a Dramiel and incoming Sabre, only to jump to the other side to be pulverized by a 22 man gatecamp. Or something silly like that. A podding usually results, of course. It's null sec, I expect that sort of thing, though perhaps less often than it seems to be happening.


So, naturally, I fly without implants. But I find myself wondering how I could have handled the above situation better. I was in a shield buffer fit Rifter and I landed on a gate. 1 second later, a Dramiel landed. After a few seconds, he pointed me and hit the gate at zero while shooting.


I figured there was a gate camp as a sabre was incoming, but, I didn't feel I had much choice, so I jumped.


After jumping, there was no immediate dictor bubble, so I hit the warp for my destination. As I decloak, bubble goes up, Rapier gets me, I go boom, followed by a trip backwards one system where my medical clone was stored.


I at this point decided I needed to train interceptors, and clone jumped back to Empire for a few days.


Looking at the situation though, I feel screwed either way, just like I did then. Maybe I should have realized I was already dead and at least attempted to kill the Dramiel...that would have looked good on the killboard at least had it worked.


Before you suggest it, there was no intel on the intel channels about said gate camp.

What would you more experienced pilots do in this situation? Would you have attacked the Dramiel? Would you have jumped? Would you have tried to warp off (most likely ending in fighting with the Dramiel)?


I don't think my fitting is the issue (though feel free to me correct me if I'm wrong)...I think it's the decisions I make, or the situations I find myself in.

The New Employees

Today Pandemic Legion began (as far as I know) a siege on Pure Blind. This is primarily the region I rat in, though not many ops get done around here as far as I know.


I logged in to find 2 Sovereignty Blockade Units (SBUs) going up in RQH-whatever, onlining in an hour.


An hour passed, no fleet from the locals, FCON (Fidelias Constans) had been mustered to take out said SBUs.


30 more minutes passed before a fleet of roughly 20 came in and attacked an SBU. Shields dropped, it began taking armor. One cloaky Onyx decloaked and scared everyone off for 30 minutes.


The crew came back, took down some armor. Pandemic Legion jumped in, and while I don't think they got any kills, everyone scattered again. PL camped the SBU, repaired it, and jumped in 12 Motherships to reinforce the IHUB and every tower in the system, possibly the station as well (I don't know, wouldn't be surprised). A jump bridge I didn't know existed was taken out as well.


FCON was not outnumbered manwise. PL had mostly t2 and t3 ships, t2's being largely HACs, a few recons, a few Scimitars. FCON had a rather large number of Stealth Bombers.


Perhaps it's me being a bit silly, but can't 5 bombs be fired at once and exploded without killing each of the same type? Don't 5 bombs of any 1 type destroy, well, any sub cap vessel caught in the blast radius? And aren't the ships cloaky so as to avoid actually dying?


Gee FCON, I was in a Hound, and I would have joined your fleet, but you had no advert up. How come none of you even thought about fighting back with guerilla tactics? You have all the fixins, and they have targets to hit (ie, them). I just don't understand guys, help me out here.


Oh, wait...you're scared of Pandemic Legion, that's right, because instead of ATTACKING the one cloaky Onyx, you all ran and hid like cowards. Let's assume PL had in fact jumped in, then let's assume that people should have been aligned to the station in the first place since you were expecting a PL hotdrop. And even had they jumped in, since most of you were in small fast ships, like my Hound, it's pretty safe to say most of you would have gotten away with the sacrificial Myrmidon if that Onyx had tackle.


Thankfully, you get the chance to rep your towers, your IHUB, and put some new mods back up. No, you aren't going to kill motherships with Stealth Bombers, but you are going to be able to kill any sub cap ship with them, and this time you better fight for your space. Am I going on these Alliance ops so you can cower and rat and pick on pirates? No...no...it's 0.0 peeps, you have to be strong, and more importantly smart, both of which you were not today. Especially the smart part.


Get your shit together FCON, or you may find yourself out a system, out a station, resented, and homeless.

The New Look

Everyone had to make new avatars, and here are mine, Anjali and Truen1ght.

I really would have liked a cigarette option, moveable scars, and a character that doesn't start out looking like Keanu Reeves, but all in all I'm pretty happy with how my avatars came out. There definitely needs to be more customization in the clothing options, and the weight options....you can only make your capsuleer X amount of fat, and that kinda bothers me.

Still learning the tricks of Null-Sec

Firstly, let me apologize for an earlier entry, roughly two back, the one where I QQ'ed so much. I have to admit, the guys mocking me were right, because had I been PvP fit, I could have gotten away because the Dramiel that caught me was orbiting at 3 km or so. I could have neuted him to hell, scrammed him, and smashed him.


On to business then.


Ratting has not been making me alot of money, and I questioned why. Sure, my ISK per hour jumped from 5 to 6 by switching to the Maelstrom from the Hurricane, but it's not exactly a good improvement. "Should I be salvaging these wrecks?" I thought, and I asked, and it turned out the answer was yes.


Thus another 15 Million ISK went into a salvage Thrasher. I didn't want to be the guy who lost a ship in Hi-Sec because of the war. You never want to be that guy. I can see even now how salvaging wrecks help, and even though I don't plan to sell the salvage except every few days, it should be a pretty big boost.


My original Maelstrom fit, a Booster fit, really wasn't working. Basically it just sucked too much cap, forcing me to dock too much, thus making ratting even harder. I did some playing around and modified it some. It's not cap stable, but when I kill enough rats, I don't need to warp out and can just toggle the shield booster. The cap lasts notably longer however. Ideally I want to get some cap rigs on it, make it even more cap stable so I never have to worry about it, but Large rigs would bankrupt me right now, that's how little cash I got. In about 20 days I'm looking at switching my meta 1 1200's for t2 1200's, which should be a big boost in ISK/hour, not to mention outright damage. I might be tempted to go for 1400's though. More alpha could mean outright exploding even more ships, but we'll have to see.

Old fit: mid slots - 2 SBA 1, 1 XL booster, 2 invuln 1
            low slots - 4 gyro 2, 1 DCU 2, 1 TE 2


New fit: mid slots - 1 SBA 1, 1 XL booster, 2 invuln 1, 1 cap recharger 2
              low slots - 3 gyro 2, 1 DCU 2, 2 cap relay 2


I also recently figured out the Jump Bridge deal. A friend showed me the website, and now that I have that, well, I'm alot less likely to get ganked. Previously I'd only had 5 Jump Bridges with passwords. Now I can access the whole network, assuming IT doesn't take them down.


In terms of other things, alliance/coalition ops have largely been siege warfare as Fiddler describes it: alot of structure shooting, not alot of ship exploding. Necessary evil that it is, I don't want to do it every day, and it seems like there's an op on it every day. Let's face it, my Wolf ain't gonna lay the smack down on anything, and my Scimitar is still spacedust and salvaged parts.


Finally, I set up a bunch of gate safe and gate pounce spots for the route in from empire. Me and another guy have a plan to sell ammo, undercut the market, and make big bucks. Naturally, just as we decide to do that, the new Industry head starts talking about looking at the market and supplying things like ammo. -_-


I know it was an uninteresting post...but it's just an update. The next post will be about the new faces of Anjali and Truen1ght, and things I liked, disliked, and would have liked about the character creation process.

Blog Banter 24: Multiple Personality Disorder

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Welcome to the twenty-fourth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's Banter topic comes to us from the ever helpful Eelis Kiy, capsuleer behind the "Where the frack is my ship" blog. She asks: How does your real life personality compare to who you are as a character in EVE? Does a good leader of people in the real world make a good leader of pilots in game? Or vice-versa? Do your real-life skills help you with the roles you fulfill in your corporation or alliance? Or do you behave completely differently? Does the anonymity of the Internet allow you to thrive on the tears of others in New Eden whilst you work as a good Samaritan away from your keyboard? Or are you as mean outside of your pod as you are inside it? Have experiences in EVE Online affected your behavior, skills or attitudes outside of the game?

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The first time I wrote this, I was pretty matter of fact about how I was the same person in and out of EVE, and that like me most people are also.


I was a different person then. Probably unlike most capsuleers, I undergo regular sleep deprivation, which, if I may be so bold, drastically changes who you are when you are tired.


As a capsuleer, I find myself bold, daring, taking risks that any regular person would see as completely unreasonable at best. I attack others without provocation, steal, lie, and team up with others of the same caliber to engage in higher profile actions of that sort. I'm outspoken, a man of action, unrepentant when I break rules and doing anything to succeed.


As a regular human on earth, I am only this way when either extremely tired or exceedingly well rested. The first case happens occasionally, maybe one weekend a month, the latter happens rarely enough that I can count months between the instances. By and large, I am exhausted, but not so exhausted as to be my capsuleer self on Earth.


As a regular human, I'm rather introverted. Not shy, just uncaring. I don't have the mental resolve to deal with people. I go about my day, do my business, and keep to myself because that is what keeps me from being angry, and when it succeeds I can even be quite happy at points. It's because I'm so tired that I am angry and want nothing more than to be left alone.


That said, even when I am this normal (to me) amount of tired, I change when I hit EVE. I go back to the capsuleer I described above. I think a psychiatrist would label this as near Multiple Personality Disorder.


The problem is that in case, it isn't a disorder: it's a coping strategy. It enables me to cope with the harsh realities of EVE and Earth at the same time, vent, rage, fulfill desires I could never fulfill on Earth and not be hunted down and despised by everyone.


So how has EVE affected my life? For the better really. Without EVE, I'm sure I would have found another way to vent and everything else, but EVE is fun where perhaps some other things would be less so. When I'm not feeling up to Earth-life, I can escape to EVE, and when I'm not feeling up to EVE-life, I can escape to Earth. Perhaps it's a bit sad constantly escaping from one world into the next, but it works for me, keeps me sane, and provides me much enjoyment. I wouldn't say EVE has majorly affected my behavior however. I still take the same risks in real life as I always did, and do the same things.


It's a clear cut case of being a functional fruit-loop.

A Rough Edge on the Null Sec move

As it's no doubt apparent, I recently moved to null sec as part of Fatal Ascension. And, as it will also be apparent, in the 3 days I've done anything, I've lost 2 ships. One was a Scimitar, caught by a gate camp after an op and destroyed, the other was my only other ship out there at the moment, ie my ratting cane. And while the ratting cane wasn't great at ratting plexes, it did rat them, and I had some income, which I was building up to buy a ratting Maelstrom.


Because let's face it, Scimitars are expensive. And I ain't going on alliance ops if I don't have the money to keep buying ships. And right now, the income is coming off what is left of my Empire assets. Selling those should JUST put me over the edge in buying a ratting Maelstrom and fitting it half decently.

It's a bit frustrating though, because I'm waiting for my other ships to make it into null, and the person supposed to do it hasn't. Hasn't even logged in, so there's an excuse, but still...my other Scimi is there, my two other canes, my jag and wolf and rifters...without them out there I don't have any ships out there, ie I'm a useless egg hanging out doing nothing.


So having gotten my cane blown up today by an IT gate camp one system outside one of ours -_- ...(come on guys, friggin protect your space), I clone jumped back to empire with the intention of at least missioning for isk, only to find out I had no L3 ship, thus I am now selling these random stabbers and rupture and mods that I have hanging around....and it MIGHT get me to 200mil ISK.


I think Ranger only has a Cane and was as frustrated as me in ratting with one. Aelith lost a Maelstrom on a fleet op. I don't think Riddick has lost anything yet, not sure if he's been on any ops though either. And Moph while I don't think he's lost anything has at least gotten himself a Tengu today for ratting.


On the upside, I have 25 thrashers and 30 rifters. I'll have ships to fly, just not for ratting. A pirate's life for me! Yarr! Because it'll be my only friggin source of income without a ratting ship!


So, onto the battlereports.


The first lost was the Scimi. After an NC op basically screwing up IT sov, I logged out. I logged in the next day at a friendly tower, and made my way back to FA territory. I jumped through the first gate, got bubbled and scrambled and webbed. I burned for the gate AFAP, but still blew up as I jumped through, only my pod making it out.


The second loss was my ratting cane, fit for PvE. I was on my way to help a corpmate and made it one jump. I got scrammed by a Dramiel, then killed by 7 or so Drakes, and then got laughed at by the Alliance for "not having a proper fit". It should be obvious from the killmail it was designed for PvE, and it should be obvious from the killmail that the kill happened in OUR territory which was unguarded. Thanks alliance for being a bit useless there. Bad enough it was on our territory, but then you laugh at me for a PvE fit came.


If I wasn't so friggin strapped for cash I wouldn't have done it, but I needed some income. And so you fools that laughed at me, well, don't count on reps from me in fleets, not until I see you explode anyways. One explosion will do per. Maybe you didn't know I was a logi pilot, but by just NOT repping you I can cost you money, and you should think about that some. I can cause you frustration, ISK, and time.


Yes, it's out of spite. You can blow up once and then we'll be good. :)

Enough ranting and raving and mad revenge...I'll get over it, but you won't see me repping you for a bit, because it's expensive and my ship ain't getting reimbursed. It's not like I'm getting killmails...

Blog Banter 23

12/16/2010

Welcome to the twenty-third installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With Incursion giving us glimpses of what Incarna will have to offer (the the Character Creator), this month's topic, by @Minerpewpew, comes just at the right time. He asks "What are your thoughts on how Incarna will effect the current EVE Online social dynamic?" I'd like to see this questioning go a bit further. How will this affect EVE's player base? Who will Incarna attract? New players to the genre? Seduce old players back into the game? Will we see new players come in that will never leave their station? Please explore to the best of your abilities!

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I know that I personally would not have been drawn back into EVE by Incarna. I was on Hiatus for a while, wondering if I'd ever come back because I was pretty bored of the Hi-sec scene and the month long training times for Logistics 5 and Battlecruiser 5. I have the feeling that not many old players would have been sucked back into EVE with Incarna mostly because if they wanted to have a walking avatar as the main gameplay, they would have signed up for WoW or something similar instead.

I admit, there likely would be some old players attracted by Incarna, but I think Incarna is mostly for the newer prospective players. When I signed up for EVE I had assumed there would be a walking avatar of me, and I was surprised when there wasn't. Had I not been completely opposed to WoW, ie upgrading from killing Wolves to killing spiders, I probably would have quit right there. So in this way I feel Incarna is mostly for player attraction as opposed to retention. People already playing know how much stuff there is to do just as is.

In terms of player attraction, I do think it will attract more women simply because the few female players that I know blog have said that it would have been easier to get them into EVE and keep them in EVE with it. Guys will probably remain steady in terms of new players, maybe a slight increase because EVE will become more inline with other MMOs. I don't expect a huge uptick though, just more retention of the newer players instead of new players looking for a different MMO and being thrown off and giving up.

Players that never leave the station? How much will there be to do in a station? I suppose it is possible, but I doubt more than 0.5 % of players would do this. What good is playing a spaceship MMO if you aren't going to fly spaceships? I think it more likely that there will be characters, mostly trade alts and manufacturing alts, that never leave the station, as opposed to actual players.

As for the current dynamic, I think Incarna will mostly suck people deeper into the MMO, to the point where people actually do live two lives instead of just pretending to live a 2nd. More bloggers will crop up due to the increased involvement with people's own characters in order to tell their stories and flesh them out.

I admit though that what I write is based in ignorance of what exactly Incarna will bring. I assume some in station walking, probably bars where you can waste a few ISK on booze and enjoy a bar chat, maybe some trade market scenery, but what else beyond that? Quite frankly I can't see anything that would go on in a station (short of FPS) that would be as important as what goes on outside the stations.