SKINS

Coming soon are a whole raft of ship skins, these have story about them but I'm not really enthused about them.

The video gives lore behind the ship skin release.

People have requested for many years (probably from the time EVE was released) that CCP allow custom ship skins, seems they finally relented and have allowed a somewhat limited fashion. You can't create your own to paint your ship with but a lot of new skins are being released, representing a different in-game organisations/companies.

Whoop-de-fucking-do.

I just can't get interested in this at all, sure the game looks great and these will allow ships to change appearance and people can select what they like but its clearly micro transactions and must likely CCP hope will bring in more income.

It probably will be I really don't care, my ships look great in the stock configuration and unless I can use a SKIN that will modify my visibility or allow me to shake off lock attempts I don't care.

Give me new functionality or changes to existing things over cosmetic changes like this. 

We Need More Power

After getting excited and posting two decent posts in a day I have been waylaid by Mother Nature. A truely massive storm has hit New South Wales and aside from (what I believe) has been around 30cm of rain in less than 36 hours, over 100km/h wind things have been good.

Well nearly, we have no power. Have had no power since 5:30am on Tuesday and we aren't expecting it to return until either Sunday or Monday. At least that's what the rumour from the neighbours brothers friend, sisters worst enemy.

The entire coast I live on his been hit hard, there was mention of 200,000 homes without power yesterday and they've said this morning only 30,000 remain. The emergency crews have had a lot of issues to deal with so paitence is what we need ot have, 

I've had to resort to reading a book. Yes a real actual physical book although around 5:30pm when the sun starts to wane is the latest I can read it. Candle light just doesn't provide enough light for my eyes to be comfortable reading.

Still, I've been getting lots of time to think about new things to write about... 

Mine! Mine! Mine!

I was talking to a non-EVE playing friend in comms when I was poked. The Lord Arbitrator Chief Smurf was calling for pilots to get into "armour cruiser / AHAC / T3" for a probable fight just after downtime.

A quick change of channel, sorry Samantha but my bro's called, and I'm in a Loki heading towards the target system. People smarter than me have already setup bookmarks and all I have to do is enter the target, warp to a deep safe and logoff.

Done and I return to Samantha to suffer her continued commentary on Diablo 3 as she leaves a swath of destruction (she's much more entertaining than I make out and an awesome lady in general) in-game.

Shaking Hands Saying, How Do You Do

We're given more information on the target and our comms start to fill up with pilots from fellow WH organisation Haywire who have come to join us for this.

This was very good news as it meant that an old friend, Gizmo Tinker, who had recently moved to Haywire (form CFC/Goonswarm) would join us and here was a chance to catch up and have some fun together. Fun is a loose word considering the evil bastard was flying an ECMgu (ECM equipped Tengu) and I seriously had to stop myself shooting him every time I saw that ship...

Waiting

Downtime comes and goes, only cloaky ships login and start to monitor the target system and, sods law, nothing much happened. I was at the login system ready to login and there was nothing to login to.

The enemy target, a True Sansha Control Tower, came out of reinforcement around 15 minutes after downtime and so we had to be patient as a few enemy pilots logged in but really nothing happened. I was tempted to quit because it was getting late and I had work the next day but something must have made me stay.

So it was decided to provide bait and thus four T3's and two Guardians were asked to login and proceed to the tower and start to attack it. This was the spur that was needed and suddenly there was a raft of logins from the enemy forces and they assembled a fleet around three or four Dominx's with other decent dps cruisers and smaller vessels.

They warped to tactical off the tower and then into our bait fleet.

The Trap Is Sprung

They attacked our force and the order to to login, join fleet and warp to our "hero tackle" was given. Of course I was a little slow to cotton on to this and it was only as I heard tackle being made that I logged in, as always late to the party am I.

I entered warp and landed roughly in the middle of the furball, a "rage cage" of Medium and Large Warp Disruptor bubbles had been setup by the enemy to ensure the POS was suppressed but we didn't care. We had targets and they were in our sights.

Ships were pointed and the FC's issued orders, the Dominix's were easy to hold on to but we needed to get as much as possible in terms of other ship types. Those stuck in bubbles were easy but a couple were smart enough to burn clear and escape our clutches.

You didn't want that ship did you?

I pointed and webbed what I could and managed to get on a couple of kills and even, rather embarrassingly, managed to get the final blow on a ship after doing two cycles of damage. Hey a kill is a kill but I felt bad because two other pilots did nearly 95% of the damage and I sneaked in the final blow.

The Trap Has A Surprise

Whilst this was ongoing one of the fleet, who was still cloaked and near the enemy POS that had been erected, setup a Medium Warp Disruptor 300km from their tower to catch ships that were trying to escape the fight.

A Republic Fleet Firetail and the only Dominix to escape the main battle fell for this but fortune favoured a couple of other pilots who used different celestials as warp outs and they escaped to the safety of their POS.

The Firetail was able to escape initial capture and managed to warp into the POS but the Dominix did not and was roasted rather quickly.

Finishing Up

The battle was over in a couple of minutes and without a single loss and a nice 1.5b bill in lost ships to the enemy. The BR is very one sided but it was a very slick and professional engagement from my view and credit to our FC's, as well as Louis and Trinkets Friend for putting it together.

We took the opportunity to loot the field but also the decision was made to attack the POS ourselves. It looked inviting with research modules, lots of Enormous Containers and a Ship Maintenance Array ready for plunder.

A few people left system and reshipped whilst I took position on the high sec entry in case we had visitors as the fleet opened up on the POS.

Settling In For The Long Run

Our fleet was not setup for POS bashing and it took nearly 50 minutes to go from 25% shield to 0% and it was frustrating but extra ammo was bought in for those in need. Except me of course, I was told that I could not have ammo because it was 4 jumps in the other direction... 

Scouts were posted and we monitored d-scan (as you should in a WH) almost religiously but we were left alone to finish the tower. 

The enemy we had attacked returned in cloaky ships but only to watch, we had quite a nice conversation in Local with them and found they'd been preparing and working on this POS attack for THREE MONTHS and we come in and steal it from them.

It was all very cordial in the end and I hope our new Finnish friends learnt a couple of lessons from it.

They Think Its All Over

I can't remember exactly how long it took to finish off the tower but it was enough that I watched at least three videos on YouTube from The Might Jingles and his are normally 20 minutes long at minimum.

I have to mention a very unlucky enemy Nemesis whose pilot suffered a disconnection whilst watching us loot the destroyed tower from distance. We saw him appear and he was 75km from me so I MWD'd to him to get in point range, fortunately my drones were able to get there first and a friendly Oracle finished him off. The pod sat there as I pointed and webbed him and we sent him to high sec to the anguished cry of his corp mate in Local.

The end did come and whilst BUGGERY did not get the tower kill mail we did have fun killing everything else, resulting in some nice drops totally between 4b and 4.5b ISK.

Looting the remains actually seemed to take a lot longer than the fighting that happened, we made use of dropped haulers to move stuff out but a lot of trips had to be made as well as making sure that we left adequate escort in case an opportunity to pick off one of our ships was to happen.

Loot-wise there is nearly 2b ISk to be shared amongst those there for the kills and this isn't too bad at all. Ammo can be replaced and still leave a little ISK for investment or to buy something new to fly.

Energy Levels Replenished

Two good fights in one weekend, I'm quite exhausted and also I've found that my Bitter-Vet levels have dropped to very low levels thanks to this. 

You'll have to excuse me now, I have more blog posts to write as I'm on a mission from Bob...

Adventures whilst Fondling a Cumquat

Last week an Alliance mail was sent out announcing an operation for Friday night (AU TZ) as a C5 WH had been found that contained an alt corporation of a group that had recently attempted to "siege" our home system. I use "siege" with quotation marks because their attempt was so inept that I don't remember even one attack that cost us a ship.

The briefing mail was full of quotable gems like this:

They have a shittily defended POS. Like, if you lose a ship to it, you passed out from alcohol. Since we shall all be steadily drinking, there are some risks. Clearly.

duunnn dunnn... duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn

Fleet doctrine was detailed along with details for (possible) reinforcements, target priority and finished with the (I thought) quite optimistic:

There WILL be fucking content.

We'll see about that Doctor Prince Field Marshall Trinkets Friend, we'll see.

Order of Battle

The fleet doctrine was simple, built around sentry drone equipped Ishtar's and/or Vexor Navy Issue's with supporting Drakes and logi in the form of Basilisks. 

The VNI fit used makes it a very good utility vessel with some serious punch. My thanks to Bex for fitting me up a ship during the working day and contracting that over to me in our entry system. It was only much later that I realised I could actually fly and could have used the Ishtar but I quite enjoy flying the "Son of Potato" so I may give the Ishtar a pass, at least for the time being.

Son of Potato

On paper our fleet was quite good but it lacked serious fire power for a large tower bash, enter our Doctor Prince Field Marshall who arranged for a Naglfer to be bought into the C5 via a very fortuitous connected wormhole.

The dreadnought would provide not just seriously needed fire power but would almost guarantee "fucking content" as everyone wants to kill capitals.

The Alliance is Assembled

We had a good turn out, about fifteen to twenty pilots from the alliance (time zone was perfect for AU but not EU/US) were assembled by the time I got on comms. Morale was high and it really helped that the group were affiliated with the "inept" idiots who tried to attack us a couple of weeks ago.

We had a good mix of Ishtar/VNI and a lone Drake (flown by long-time blog friend Bex) plus a few logistics and other ships. It's only two days ago but my memory of the fleet composition is actually rather hazy, I put it down to lack of sleep caused by a second POS bash last night (more to come on that).

Most people got into the C5 quite quickly thanks to Siggy showing entrances and exits we could use, we did, alas, lose one VNI who passed through a WH but got caught and podded. Still they joined us later in a different ship so all was good.

Fondling the Cumquat

At the appointed time the fleet warped to the POS and started incapacitating the defenses, this didn't take too long as there weren't many but still took the best part of an hour at which point we started on the tower.

We didn't cluster into one area but, intelligently, we spread around the POS to offer as less an inviting target as possible for bombers and amusingly the dreadnought was located on the far side of the POS to the rest of the fleet. It wasn't obvious to me but in hindsight this was a particularly good bait offer and one that was eventually taken.

It took nearly 50% of the shields down before the enemy logged in to see what was happening, they swapped ships warped back/forth from the pos to safe spots and pretty much watched us watching them watching us.

The "absolutely nothing happened-off" continued til around 30% shields when we started to bombers and a few assorted ships enter and start to land on grid or within the POS.

At this point I would like to recommend visiting Localectomy for details on notable kills and the better written and funnier, view of the battle so head over and read this.

The first I knew that we were going to be receiving visitors was when a Sabre exited the POS near to the Naglfer and dropped a bubble. My initial reaction was to GTFO as we didn't know what we'd be up against but I'm proud to say I didn't leave, I trusted my fleet mates and I wasn't going to let them die in a fire. Yet.

The Sabre did high speed runs in/out of the POS shield dropping bubbles on the dreadnought as bombers and a couple of battleships appeared on grid. Targets were called and we managed to kill both the Sabre and a Heretic that were dropping bubbles all over the grid.

Being WH space I knew of the inconvenience that being podded, especially as we controlled the incoming WH's, and it was in our best interests to pod every pilot whose ship we killed. So it was with great glee that I locked and killed every pod that I could, one less pilot who could quickly reship in the WH meant less for us to face.

Concentrate all fire power on that...

Ships were being killed faster than I could lock, I remember seeing a Curse (major threat to the Naglfer), a Rapier (that the Naglfer blapped) and I heard about a Macherial and many other bombers.

I was only able to fire at one bomber and he was less than 10km from me and such was the power of his torpoedos that I went from full health to 45% armour in just three salvos. Forutnately in that time I locked and was able to kill him and of course, calling for reps showed how bad my battlefield positioning was as I was well out of logi range.

The battle lasted only a minute/minute and a half but we killed plenty and lost only a couple of ships.

Moonwalking Out of Dodge

With all the ships fighting the one thing that was surprising was how the Nagfler wasn't attacked in any seriousness: in hindsight this makes sense, take out the support first, pin the prize target in place.

After the battle ended we were able to (after some unneeded hilarity with webbing) extract the Nagfler from grid and left our beloved leader to extract from the WH and get safe somewhere.

The surviving sub-capital fleet moved to the exit WH and we held that whilst we awaited for all to arrive at which point a cat/mouse game was played with the, now superior in numbers, enemy fleet who chased us all the way back to high sec before and just after DT.

Fun Times

Well, fucking content was provided and it was very enjoyable. We may not have RF'd or killed the tower but we got a very enjoyable fight and lost little (aside from Bex's first ever Drake from circa 2010/2011).

The force multiplier that is good logistics pilots was shown and I tip my hat to my logi pilots. I may not have needed you as much as others but when I did you were there even if I did try my hardest to kill myself by flying away from them.

I was pleased with my contribution, sure its nice to get kill mails (not to mention get on them) but an otherwise boring Friday night entertaining and well worth ignoring the family for.

Forgetfulness can lead to Loss

A timely reminder happened today, the reminder was quite simple. Know your ship, know your fit and more importantly remember these things in the heat of battle.

It was tower day, I needed to empty my towers prior to filling them up with input materials. It doesn't take very long but it does require me to move between a couple of systems. 

So precautions are needed and revolve around having a scout, the hauler and "backup". The scout is a cloaky interceptor, but with some bite, and the "backup" is a combat ship who will remain a mystery as I didn't need to show it at the time and it's useful to have an Ace.

Average Day

I use an Impel to do my tower hauling as the Fleet Hanger provides at least twice the cargo capacity that T1 haulers have the reduction in "ferrying" is a trade of I'm happy to make. 

I'd successfully moved into system, emptied my towers, watched a 20 man gang pass through and was left with a couple of reds. My scout was already back in the home system and waiting just off the gate.

D-scan did not show anything so I warped to my gate to return home.

Battlestations

D-scan was still clear as I entered warp but as I landed on gate the "oh shit" moment happened. There was a Svipul there, and he was a red. 

He jumped, I jumped. 

There was no way he did not see an Impel landing on the gate, we both jumped.

He did not immediately appear, I held cloak.

Scout was switched to and made ready to decloak and provide "interference" and "backup" was warped to the gate.

Warp to bookmark, activate MWD. deactivate MWD and switch to Scout. Svipul appears on grid and I'm yellow boxed.

(combat) Warp scramble attempt from Svipul [ A.4.D] Tukuarikan Nells Bells to you!

At this point I was resigned to losing the ship. The cargo wasn't huge but combined with the ship it was a noticeable dent to the wallet. 

I switch to my scout and I can see both the Svipul and my Impel in the overview. Then there is only the Svipul, so I hold my decloaking and switch back to my hauler.

He's still alive, he has an Aggression timer but that's it, Impel still alive and no need for me to do the "pee vee pee" thing, today.

Wait. What Happened?

I'd done the right thing, using the warp/MWD trick but I had forgotten the Role bonus of the Impel:

2+ bonus to ship warp core strength

Warp scramblers have a strength of 2 and the Role bonus of the Impel means that you need two or more warp disruption modules to successfully "scram or point" the ship. The Svipul seems to have only had one scram so the +2 was reduced to 0 but because it wasn't negative, thus I was able to escape.

Of course I didn't recall this at the time and honestly it was only typing the details into chat with my CEO that I realised what had happened. I'm thankful I didn't have to call on my "pee vee pee" skills, I probably would have lost three ships but it's possible I may not have. Confidence in my skills is something I'm yet to develop.

"Backup" is still a secret and I didn't have to shoot anyone. I'm quite happy with that, but I'm certainly going to refresh my memory of the Role and Bonuses of each ship I fly.