And he died with a smile on his face...

We had a fight last night.

When I say "we" I mean PROLAPSE. and some allies in support of a group who were having their C4 Pulsar attacked by some Russians.

It was not pretty, it was not a victory and I lost two ships. But I absolutely had a lot of fun and I hate losing ships (who doesn't) but instead of rage quitting and getting angry I'm happy.

Since I started PvP has not been a major concern for me, sure I'll come join a fleet and try to blow stuff up but it's never been a primary EVE activity for me. I've always been happier and gotten more satisfaction from industry than I have PvP.

Batphone Abuse

Aside from comrades from Haywire, promised reinforcements and friendlies never materialised. The owners of the hole we were helping with had said that they'd be on field with us with several battleships and some logi, but these never appeared. Apparently (as TF says in his post) a Falcon, Bomber and Hurricane did come to the fight but these were very poor choices against the assembled foes let alone five Marauders in bastion mode.

The batphone is an important feature of EVE Online but, much like the story of the boy who cried wolf, you abuse it the towns people will eventually ignore you and you'll be left to be eaten by the ravenous wolves of New Eden.

Times Change

I loved this fight. 

I was dual boxing but my "battle station" gives me the ability to do this without needing to ALT-TAB or otherwise manage windows.

Neither Bex nor Trinkets Friend have written much about the details of the fight and I can't really add to it. I was focused on what I was doing not with the whole battlefield. I certainly made mistakes flying both the Scimitar and the Curse but in hindsight I know about them now so I'm better informed the next time I'm in a fight.

Failure of a Torpedo Delivery Service

I've been a little too busy recently and I have neglected my wormhole alt, I will be addressing that but I have kept up to date with goings on and it appears that a group have decided to camp our wormhole and "inflict suffering and loss" upon us.

In reality it seems to be a camp by a dozen or so bombers with light/medium cloaky tackle and much failure. Don't get me wrong, they have gotten a kill or two but these have been as much failures on our part as success on theirs.

Trolling Level V Completed

Today however they failed whilst attacking one of our members and lost a ~200m ISK Bomber which resulted in the following missive being sent:

Dear Solvenaria Azionchenkov, 

Thank you for your attempt to deliver torpedoes to me. Sadly for you, the quality of your service is sub-par and your torpedoes are wholly inferior in quality, clearly made by illiterate children in some broke-ass third world country. Therefore I am exercising my consumer rights by returning your torpedoes, with interest.  

In future I will take my munitions delivery via Danoz Direct, because they come with a free set of steak knives.  

Regards, 

Miskoranda

I have corrected a few, minor, spelling mistakes but otherwise this is as sent and is just brilliant. 

I will be logging in more often now my work load has reduced and this type of humour just makes me think I've found a corp that I can be myself in.

Sneaky Bastard

I bought a Lachesis last week, just after Proteus was deployed, and I fitted it out according to feedback and what I thought was the best fit. Subsequently a discussion on the Sudden Buggery facebook page corrected my fitting and I realised what a piece of turd it was. I was 75% correct in but the remaining 25% that I came up with was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

I will be refitting, as soon as I can get to high sec to inject a new skillbook (to use Medium Tech II Rails) and get some replacement modules. Until then I am in my "fit" Lachesis.

Setting the Scene

So on Friday evening I found myself logged in and listening on Comms. I saw that someone was at the Altar of Bob performing a sacrifice of a corpse (or two) and then a new name spoke in local. It appears we had a visitor and one that was stuck in our wormhole.

Succlebutt was that he was in a Crow and had been here for a couple of days as he had gotten stuck without a probe launcher or a bookmark to get back out. He had offered ISK for someone to help him, either with a probe launcher or a bookmark out.

Strangely no-one had taken him up on his offer.

White Knight

I'm a friendly type, so I'll help him. So I warped to the sun and dropped a can, containing exit bookmarks, letting him know in local that I had done so. 

I remained on grid in my Lachesis as he would not see that on d-scan and a few seconds later I saw a crow appear 100km from my position. He cloaked and I remained still then asked in Local if he was still there and seeing my ship.

He confirmed he was and uncloaked, I then said that I would logout so he knew I was not trying to deceive him. I then logged out.

Of course it is.

From the Wings

Whilst this is all going on I'm also speaking to corp mate Miskoranda who is in a cloaky smartbombing Proteus fit that has been named the Dick Virus. This is a superb ship for killing explorers or lightly tanked vessels and it was the perfect choice for this kill.

Miskoranda moved the cloaky within 10km of the can I had dropped and waited, before I logged I comfirmed he was in position and ready. He was, I logged.

It only took a few seconds after my screen closed before this:

Kill: John Elgrund (Crow)

Kill: John Elgrund (Pod)

Sometimes I shake my own head at how sneaky I can be, pretending to be a friend and saviour to someone and then letting this happen. Then that microsecond passes and I'm fine again.

This is what you get when you invade my home. Yarrrr!

New Digs

Last night I moved one of my combat pilot alts from my holding corp to a new home where I hope to be involved in a fair bit more pvp than I do now.

I rarely do PvP at the moment not because I don't want to but because when I come online fleets and people are typically finishing or have finished. Not to mention that industrial activities are quite the time sink.

However I've decided to move a little used combat pilot to a new corporation and will aim to spend at least two hours per day improving my woeful skills at pvp.

Geronimo

I was logged in last night and received a conversation request which ended up being the public channel for the corporation I was planning to join. There were a few people there, I said hello and a little banter happened. 

I was redoing my skill queue at the time and that was taking most of my attention as I had a lot I wanted to train but getting the order right so as to be useful and not "the third wheel" was important to me. 

Eventually the CEO of the corp asked when I'd be making an application and I decided to do so just then and there. It was very quickly accepted (within a minute I'd say) and then I was in a new corporation with some pilots who I hold in high regard. 

There was no API check or other security clearance required but I'm pretty sure I received a vouch from the friend who has been urging me to join. The CEO is not a fool and I'm sure he's vetted me before allowing me to join. I'm not interested in corp theft, awoxxing or any underhanded methods, that isn't me or how I play EVE Online.

I'm there to be a line pilot, learn as much as I can and have fun.

Getting Setup

The Corp Bulletins and Message of the Day (MOTD) for the channels I was in were excellent. I quickly found out Teamspeak details, Siggy password (for wormhole navigation) and the corp/alliance fleet-up (for fits and other fleet things).

Took no more than 15 minutes to get access to these systems and within 30 minutes I was racing to a high sec location where there was a wormhole that could be used to get to the home system. 

Teeny Tiny Hiccup

One small issue was I didn't have any doctrine ships available so I grabbed a armour tanked Loki that I have and will form the basis of my ship fleet for wormhole use. I browsed the list of fits in Corporation fittings and was disappointed to see that most I could not fly, so off I went back to Skills and reorganised my queue so as to train for more ships much quicker. 

In 126 days I'll be able to fly all but 2 of the 160 listed ships but in the next 30 days I should be able to fly all frigates and covert ops ships the only exception being Gallente and Minmatar cruisers/battlecruisers which I already have at Level V.

I've already sent a freighter to Jita to collect various ships and modules that I can or will shortly be able to fly and I'll slowly start moving them over the coming week.

The Future

I hope to be fully setup and ready to fight no later than Friday of this week, at least with Minmatar and Artillery/Autocannon based ships. I'm looking forward to getting some more experience with pvp with a different group to whom I've flown with before.

And what I learn here will be able to be used with my other characters.

Lost In Space

Wormholes are dangerous places, think 19th Century Wild West and you'll be in the ballpark for what it can be like. There are some things you do in wormholes and lots that you don't.

Up there in the top 5 rules of things you do would be:

Fit a probe launcher and carry combat AND core probes

A friend learned the hard way about this a week ago but he also found out that not every wormhole dweller is a merciless killer.

Setting the Scene

Our story starts in null sec where a new appearance in local piqued the interest of those in system. A lone Armageddon was spotted on d-scan but he had not come though either of the gates in the system. He disappeared and reappeared a couple more times before two more joined him in a Slasher and Phoenix respectively.

Caldari "Brick", the Phoenox Dreadnought

It was obvious that they were visiting via the wormhole that had appeared in system so a small welcoming committee was assembled and warped to the wormhole. 

Holding his cloak he sees the Phoenix jump through and align to a celestial when the Slasher uncloaks and webs the Phoenix to speed up its entry to warp speed. The Phoenix warps off and this is where Kiatae makes a critical mistake, as he admits.

Instead of moving to a point around 50km off of the wormhole in alignment with the celestial he remains on the wormhole whilst a friend, in another interdictor, warps at 50km to the same celestial as the Phoenix. The celestial turns out to be a POCO in the null sec system and on landing the Pheonix is 50km off him so he burns at him but isn't able to get in bubble range before the Pheonix warps back to the wormhole.

He warped to the wormhole and beat the Phoenix to it but launching a bubble with the dreadnought in warp would not do anything so he jumps through into wormhole space.

The Land of Bob

After the transition he saw the pheonix jump into the wormhole with the slasher and then he heard one of the most troublesome noises in EVE (wait, EVE has sound!). He heard the noise of the wormhole collapsing and it disappeared from the grid.

Like the EVE Online Forums, can contain Scum and Villainy

Kiatae was now stuck with hostile forces nearby.

For the next hour he warped around the system avoiding the pursing fleet comprised of cruisers, battlecruisers and assigned fighters. He managed to kill a Slasher and a Crow with a Stilleto taken to 3% structure before he had to bug out when the pursing gang landed 20km from him.

Options

Eventually the pursuit stopped and he was able to safe up. it was then he took stock of his situation and realised he had no way to get out of this system. He had only two options available to him:

1. Self-destruct his ship and pod
2. Ask for help in Local/EVE Online Forums

Option 1 was not an option, he didn't mind losing the ship but his implants were not something he wanted to lose. Option 2 was trickier, with hostiles in the same system he didn't trust them to help him.

So he posted to the EVE Online forums where he got more people chuckling and pointing out his mistakes than any real help.

Salvation

It must have been the two kills that meant that Bob looked upon Kiatae's predicament and decided that he would let salvation come, not in the form of death, but in the form of a roaming gang of YARRR and CO. 

Kiatae asked in local for assistance and YARRR and CO obliged by giving him a wormhole exit to low sec that he used. Kiatae, grateful after being stuck in the wormhole for 3 days, offered up 200m ISK as a thank you.

He then made it out to low sec and, slowly, made his way home after his adventure in wormhole space.

Karma

It appears that Karma struck the residents of J124942 for their attempts to kill Kiatae as on the 30th September they lost a small mining operation (2 retrievers, a Miasmos and all capsules) to a roaming gang of Grand Sky Wizards.

Bob was not impressed J124942 residents, not impressed at all and he reigned vengeance upon you...

The Waaaagh fizzled out

This will be a depressingly short post.

The wormhole operation is complete, It was a one sided battle where the attackers overwhelmed the defenders with some loot recovered.

Reinforcement Time

Scouts had been watching the tower over the weekend and multiple T1 and T2 large bubbles were anchored ensuring the there could be no escape from the tower if anyone did login and think of making a run. 

A ransom, of 3 billion ISK, was formally demanded to stop the assault and for us to leave but no reply or parley was received from the defenders. 

But at some point during the wait for the reinforcement timer to expire someone did login and made the decision to self-destruct the following ships so as to prevent them being looted by our forces:

• Archon
• Moros
• Revelation
• Orca
• Sin
• Armageddon
• 2 x Legion
• Dominix
• 2 x Hulk
• Primae
• Numerous additional mining barges, industrials and T1 frigates.

Approximately 12 billion ISK in ships were destroyed with an unknown amount of modules/salvage/materials being put into a Rorqual that was then logged off within the POS.

Scouts will remain, watching for the Rorqual to log on...

The Final Assault

The operation started at 07:30 EVE time on Sunday and was complete by 08:15 EVE time, 12 million Armour and 8 million Structure HP was melted very quickly by a fleet comprised of:

• Ishtars
• Vexor Navy Issues
• Oracles

and it certainly helped that the fleet was four times the size of the one we used on Friday night to reinforce the tower.

The operation was over so quickly that I failed to take screenshots and the two pilots whom were logged in, one in a Manticore, did not attempt to interfere with the remainder of the operation.

*UPDATE* Trinket's Friend has posted a more detailed overview of the POS bash and its worth a read. I didn't think it was my place to release all this information so that's why I haven't gone into as much detail. That said, TF does a much better narrative about this than I would have so have a read.

Loot

All incapacitated POS modules bar the Domination Webifiers were killed and any that could be recovered were and about 2.3 billion ISK of loot dropped from the Corporate Hanger Arrays and a couple of ships (including a Nighthawk) were left to be collected.

It wasn't as profitable as recent bashes that have appeared on news sites but for a C1 it was pretty good and all parties were happy with the way things have ended. No word on how the loot will be divided but with only one loss for the whole operation there isn't much need for SRP.

The Final Word

Bex had the final word, typing in local (not the safe POS password as we expected) but a small barb for the defenders who didn't turn up:

12B isk self destructed in hulls
2.3B isk in hard earned stuffs dropping to the loot fairy
Calling your aggressors space rich in local.... priceless.

It was a good bash, lead well and I met some new pilots whom I liked. If there was a report card it would be full of A's with the final comment of "good fun, will work with again".

Waaaagh continues

Assembly

We were slow to assemble, the Avengers we are not.

There was some nice banter going on in teamspeak and it was very enjoyable hearing a mixture of Aussies and Brits as we were getting ready for the POS bash. There was quite a lot going on but the most amusing thing to happen pre-bash was listening to Trinket's Friend lose his Golem in a wormhole. 

Props to him he took the loss like a true Bitter Vet and "it's only pixels" was said a few times but he received a lot of laughter and friendly abuse for it. He was rechristened "Captain Lossmail" so as not to forget what had happened.

The Target

As I'd said before the Intel was excellent so we had bookmarks on each of the main defence arrangements and once we were assembled our rag tag fleet of Vexor Navy Issues, Oracles and Prophecy's supported by two Guardians were warped to a point outside of range of the guns of the tower.

True Sansha Control Tower, mixture of guns, webs/scrams and ECM

Bex called time on our preparations and we warped in at 75km from the nearest defence group and started firing on the warp disruptor battery. DPS wasn't too bad although the Warden II's I was using couldn't hit so I had to move in a bit closer and use Valkyrie II's.

We took, on average, five minutes to incapacitate a module so we focused on what was an immediate threat or in the case of ECM what was annoying the hell out of our logi. The Domination Webifiers had an effective 97.5% reduction in speed to any targeted vessel but as we were stationary most of the time it was not an issue.

Pilots Appear

Just after we had finished the second or third module we saw a pilot login and warp into the middle of the POS in an Anathema. Intel had found previously that this pilot could use POS guns so we weren't surprised when the sporadic fire we were receiving started getting more focused and ECM batteries were attacking our logi more frequently.

No C-Beams glittering in the dark here

Fortunately even with a POS gunner the small and medium guns on the POS were no match for our buffers and logi so no ship was ever in any danger but after a while we noticed that the guns were targeting our sentry drones and this was successful in disrupting our operation to the extent that we switched from using sentries to drones and killing whatever guns were closest so we could use sentries again.

One of the targets used a Nighthawk to try to kill drones for about 45 minutes and he'd exit the force field and fire a few missile volleys before retreating, rather fast, into the safety of the forcefield. Impact was negligible and after a while we ignored him enough that he stopped doing it.

Poking out of the force field to fire a volley or two

After Downtime

Downtime approached and we safed up after incapacitating over half of the defences that were present and the decision was made to attack the tower after DT from the hole we had created in the defences.

A number of pilots also took the opportunity to refit their ships for closer ranged damage and this would have the effect of nearly doubling the fleet DPS. All the better for taking down the tower, which has a mind numbing 48 million HP in shields. Armour is a little better at 12 million HP but at least that should take only a quarter of the time it took us (8 hours) to take the shields down.

We finished the reinforcement phase a little before 3pm EVE Time after having started at around 8am EVE Time. I left rather quickly due to really needing to sleep but I understand that the tower was covered in T1/T2 bubbles and noone has been seen since logging in.

Keeping Sane

POS bashes are mind numbing, they are about as much fun as having a colonoscapy is what I once heard someone say. Fortunately teamspeak with the fleet was both lively and enjoyable, several people were of a similar sense of humour to me and I had a great time listening and laughing at others expense.

Some of the things that made us laugh and passed the time:

• Architeuthis Rex using google translate to try to communicate with the targets (who were either Serbian, Russian or from Eastern Europe) resulting in quite a lot of banter and confusion, theirs and ours.
• I tried to ransom the tower for 2.5 billion ISK, promising that "I'd leave if I was paid". I was not paid.
• I also translated the Rolf Harris song "Tie Me Kangeroo Down Sport" into Serbian (Google Translate again) and spend 5 minutes copy/pasting this in local. The targets were not impressed, so I just linked them the youtube video at which point we didn't hear from them again.
• Weird Wally putting various comments and (bad) jokes into local and fleet in order to entertain, there were several space tumbleweeds seen
• Althanear finally having to face reality that his girlfriend could get work as a Chris Lillie lookalike

It was a fun night, I met a lot of great people and I'm considering putting an alt into this group so I can join in the fun on a more regular basis.

Special mention to our high sec eyes, a strange Aussie (with breasts) from Canberra, Johnno Ormand who did a fantastic job keeping our fleet safe from high sec visitors and keeping us awake with good questions.

357th Typing Pool Star of Derp

By far the funniest moment came from Bex, not content with forever being ribbed about bringing the "wrong sized crystals for his guns" when T3 battlecruisers were released he has been awarded a medal by his corp for:

Glorious service in typography disemination and cryptography.

The medal was awarded for typing our fleet safe POS forcefield password in Local when someone asked our targets what their POS password was.

Local is not for Passwords dear Bex

There was consideral mirth and laughter after that happened and Bex will never live that down.

Next Phase

The next phase is due Sunday night Australian time, there was a full stront bay so we have to now wait the 1 day 17 hours for the tower to exit reinforcement so we can continue the assault and kill it.

Unleash the Navy Vexor Issue of Waaaagh!

Bex asked and I said Yes. It is party time in wormhole space this weekend. There is an eviction operation and general "if not purple shoot it" event happening.

I'm not really a PvP person but in this case its been a while since I've taken part in a POS bash in wormhole space that I'm actually quite looking forward to it. 

Operation

I know more about the target than I do some family members because planning has been excellent. As usual Bex has done his research and we have lists of targets, activity information and details of what has been happening in the target wormhole.

Tower vulnerabilities have been identified and weaponry tailed to inflict maximum damage and spots around all towers have been bookmarked ready for use.

Cast

Two of my usual compatriots, Bex and Althanear, are once more involved but this time I get to fly with a few people I've not had the pleasure before. 

I am a regular reader of a blog called Localectomy by an Western Australian based EVE player called Trinket's Friend. He writes well and his content is excellent, I've spoken once before to him but this is the first time I'll be working in the same fleet as him and I'm looking forward to it.

New challenges mean more new people to meet in EVE. Gotta love that.

Shipping into Waaaagh Mode

I've decided not to use my "main" characters for this operation and instead I'll be using a former friends character who has 72m skillpoints and has excellent Projectile, Drone and Minmatar/Gallente ship skills. He's not done much for a few months but he's got the skills needed for this operation so out of stasis he comes.

Awake after a long sleep

My first choice for a POS Bashing ship would be an Oracle but he can't fly this so looking down the list of ships I see the Navy Vexor Issue using Sentry Drones. He can fly this and by luck this is the ship he used for PvE'ing in high sec when he was more active.

The fit needed some work but an outlay of 50m ISK has upgraded the ship and fit to match that for the operation. We're ready to roll.

Althanear found out the nearest high sec entry to the wormhole and we all met there on Thursday night. We moved in and located safe spots to idle in until called upon.

Waiting

We've been waiting, watching and readying ourselves for the attack. Just waiting for the order to assemble and attack.

Pictures and details to come after the operation has completed, of course based on previous experience we are hoping for a lack of stront in the towers...

Ganking with a Supercarrier post Kronos

I logged in last night and saw a friend that I haven't seen for a while and before we could share any pleasantries he put this kill mail under my nose:

https://zkillboard.com/kill/39849856/

A couple of months ago he stopped playing because he moved back to his home country and alas he was missed but it's good to see him back and up to his old tricks.

A beautiful, but deadly, example of Gallente Engineering

The kill isn't great but what I was more most interested in was the comment he made that the damage he did on the Rhea from his Nyx was ONE salvo from his deployed fighters.

Kronos Changes

As part of the recent Kronos release, there were major changes to drones and these, in part, affected Fighters and Fighter Bombers:

• Drone skills now affect F/FB attributes
• Drone modules now affect F/FB attributes
• Drone Interfacing now gives a 10% not 20% damage increase per level
• Base F/FB damage reduced
• Reduce deployed F/FBs per racial carrier level from 3 to 1
• F/FB volume doubled (5000m3 to 10,000m3)
• F/FB hit points doubled (they're more hardy now)
• Super carriers receive a 100% bonus to F/FB damage

This means that carriers/super carriers will not be able to store and deploy as many F/FB's compared to before Kronos, but the base damage and hardiness increases and you'll be able to increase the damage and other attributes via Drone Modules and/or Skills.

Adding drone specific modules to a fit should certainly benefit the ship, the increase in attributes such as mwd speed, optimal range etc.. but more importantly, the amount of damage done. Drone skills should also provide a smaller benefit, certainly racial specialisation skills will add between 2% and 10% more damage per F/FB but better still the Navigation and Durability skills will make F/FB faster and harder to kill.

The Kill

The Rhea pilot had previously cyno'd into the system twice before, being caught once but escaping the other time, he was getting caught because he lit a badly located cyno on one of the system stations. 

Pack up your troubles in one ship just don't lose it when you jump

This mistake (a very common one with cyno's) allowed the Deimos to bump him away from station and prevent him docking, once off station the Nyx was called in and the story bought to a swift end.

As I said previously, the comment from my friend that the majority of the damage from the Nyx came in just one "cycle" of the deployed fighter bombers , thus minimising the time he was "in the open". Ten highly buffed FB's must have put out a tremendous amount of damage, I've seen ganks before and that required several cycles from the FB's to kill even a jump freighter.

What was different now for this, was it the fit or the increase in skills?

The Fit

My friend linked his fit so I was able to see how he was fit to increase the damage he was doing, and it was quite a fit to do over the damage he said in one volley.

• Three Drone Control Units modules in his high slows, each of these allows 1 extra fighter/fighter bomber to be used.
• In the mid slots he had two drone navigation computer II's and two Federation Navy Omni-Directional Tracking modules without scripts to increase f/fb base statistics
• The low slots he had the a mix of tank modules with four Federation Navy Drone Damage Amplifiers.

The type of F/FBs used do make little difference to the damage that is done but regardless 13 of them is some serious firepower. 

Fitting Theory

I'm not an expert with the numbers or how the game actually works. What I present are details as I've found them (and/or researched) and reactions by myself and anyone else involved. If you find an error, please write a comment and correct me.

I've previously played with Nyx fittings and one I had with no drone modules was reported by Pyfa (with a maximum skilled pilot) would be able to put out 9000 dps with a full set of 20 FB's. 

Keying in the details above, into a Kronos released Pyfa, and modifying the skills the pilot had to match those I know the Nyx pilot had I saw that this increased by 62% to a little over 14,000 using 13 FB's. Changing the type of FB used and even using a mix of F/FB's did alter the dps but it ranged from 11,000 to 14,500 depending on the F/FB's used. 

Conclusion

Wow.

The changes in Kronos seem to indicate, with this type of fit, that a 62% increase in damage from F/FB's may be seen. That is quite astounding. Of course different skill levels, FB's used and the defenses of the ship you're attacking will change this but still, that is a huge amount of firepower for a single ship.

To me this shows that the Super carrier changes in Kronos haven't hurt the ship to the effect many were speculating and they still are a very potent and dangerous entity in New Eden.

People who have them now have a very potent and dangerous vessel, so they should they cost enough. But with the changes to industry coming on the 22nd July 2014 with the next release it could very well see the price of these ships rise by 10% of more.

CVA makes us Persona Non Grata

I log in this morning to be told that we are now Kill On Sight to all Providence entities, including my former corporation/alliance.

I'm surprised at this as my Alliance CEO has always stressed how we must abide by the KOS list when engaging people outside of Providence. Obviously we want to be able to work with them and we all have friends still there.

But Why?

Intrigued I asked for a little more information, mainly "why" and I get sent a copy of the eve-mail between my Alliance CEO and the CVA KOS Admins.

It's interesting to read, some names I recognize and after reading I see why, quite plainly. Turns out a NRDS corporation had moved into a nearby low sec system and claimed a moon with the intention of (no doubt) mining it once the new Crius change comes in that allows moon mining in 0.4 systems. 

A cease and desist evemail was sent to the corporation, stating we considered the system our territory and the erection of the tower was an incursion into that. They responded "negatively" and so they KOS requested us.

How Rude!

It certainly was rude of them to do that and CVA have backed them up by stating, in the evemail to my Alliance CEO:

Because that space belongs to the Amarrian empire and trying to lay your claim on it and extort/bully others out of will not be tolerated.

So we're now Red to Providence and all entities who abide by the NRDS system.

I like the idea of CVA but I must say, personally, I've never had a good experience with any character that I've had to deal with. I don't mind being set Red although I'll have to be a little more careful in case -7- do a freighter gank in high sec and/or come roaming through our area.

Take That!

We got our own back though, we went and RF'd the POS they'd erected. 

*smug*

And then earlier today, as I'm at work, we finished the job and cost them a few billion ISK by killing the four Scorpions they tried to save it with. 

Jita Burned

The Jita Burn event is once more in full swing or is just finishing, not 100% sure but it was active over the weekend that just was. 

The kill roll can be viewed at zKillboard here and it currently shows at least 500 billion ISK worth of damage, however the Admin Note states:

This campaign reflects only kills happening in Jita, it doesn't count the surrounding systems, and it only includes the kills that zKillboard knows about.

These losses include both the attackers and those being attacked in Jita but still just looking at some of the losses a lot of people unwisely decided to ignore warnings or were just oblivious to the whole event.

And they paid for it.

Not. Happy. Jan.

The title comes from a series of adverts in Australia for Yellow Pages and you can read about it here, if you want to. It's quite amusing I write this as just recently Lorna wrote a post on this subject herself.

Anyway, to the point.

Sunday night is my night for tower maintenance, time to dust off the freighter and visit all my towers and refuel and resupply them. It's not glamorous but it pays the bills and is quite relaxing.

When I'm in space, even if I'm alone in a system, I will fire off d-scan periodically on my travels in case anything shows up. Until this evening nothing interesting ever has but tonight I saw a mobile siphon unit appear on d-scan.

Wait.. what did I just see. Yes, a dreaded siphon unit was active and very possibly on one of my moons. I continued my maintenance tasks and logged in another character who had some combat ships available and got him to a tower location where I thought any siphon may be.

Good guess by me, exiting warp there on my overview was the siphon unit. I right click and select Look At to get a better look at this interloper.

Interloper found

There was a small progress bar underneath the name of the unit which indicates how full it is, it around a quarter full so I warped to the unit, took back my product and destroyed the siphon.

It took two full reloads of my Purifier to kill the siphon, they are quite resistant to attack and I sent a mail to my corporation to let them know what had happened and to make sure we keep eyes open for more in the future.

And yes, I did note the name of the pilot who dropped the unit and they've already been added to watch list and so was another member of his corporation/alliance who was in Local when I logged in tonight. 

Conflicted no more

Mid February I posted soliciting advice on whether I should return to the character I helped kill my cut of the ransom they paid but that was dishonoured by the pilots I flew with.

Well based on the comments I got, thank you those that did publicly and privately comment, I decided that the right course of action was the give the money back to the pilot I helped kill. I have done that and I feel that I have done the right thing.

I wasn't happy when the ransom was dishonoured and although I took the money I didn't feel right having it. Returning it was the right decision, ransoms are to be honoured I believe and many of you have agreed with me.

Thank you.

Dancing with the Devil

Oh joy!

One of my favourite non-industry blogs has a new post and I'm hoping it's a sign that Jack Dancer, Rifter Pilot has returned to New Eden. I've been an avid reader for quite a while, living vicariously through his exploits. I just wish I had the balls to do PvP like he does.

Still, he's back and his writing is as expansive as ever and it was a pleasure to read his writings again.

Welcome back Mr Dancer and good hunting.

For every good action there is a corresponding screw up

I spent a pleasant evening setting up PI for three characters on five different planets, refuelled six towers and even managed to get myself some PvP for the first time in months.

Lock and Load

I'm not a great PvP person, I prefer the industry side of EVE, but I'm not adverse to trying to help out and I did last night in the last remaining Wolf that a friend sold me nearly two years ago. We snagged an empty Prorator and a Talwar trying to leave our base system, I didn't do the capturing but I was there to lend my dps and to help secure the pods.

 

The Wolf, based on the tried and tested Rifter hull

The Prorator was quite funny, we podded the pilot and his pod was worth more (128m vs. 120m) than the ship he'd been flying. The Talwar was just passing through but our bubbler managed to catch him as he left system and well, he didn't last at all long.

 

Screwing Up

 

Later on in the evening I was out in space doing PI setup when we had a red appear in local, checks of station showed he was not docked so d-scan was used and we caught a glimpse of a Gila. I went to report this in intel but instead what I wrote appeared in Local.

 

I'm certain it was the exiting of Planet View that caused the focus to shift from the intel chat window

to local but regardless I screwed up and kicked myself. Fortunately my fleet mate understood and my CEO was rather less impressed but he didn't yell (for once) at me.

 

Still, the guy remained in local for about 20 minutes, we think he was interested in Relic and Data sites we had, before he left not to be seen again.

 

PI Setup

 

After he left I had a period of time which I used to finish setting up PI on the planets in system. I've had four characters ready for PI setup for quite a few weeks but the 'click fest' and monotony that is PI meant I went to great lengths to avoid it but I knuckled down last night and did it.

 

I've now got four characters setup for PI, with all POS fuels being made across the characters. I've setup two alts to provide the P1 materials for making Enriched Uranium and Coolant and two mains producing Enriched Uranium and Coolant as the rest of the fuels on a one planet per item basis. It has worked nicely over the last few weeks.

 

I don't produce a huge amount of items but a consistent amount on five/seven day cycles. I've finishing Control Centre Upgrades V on one alt and if that works out well I will upgrade all my characters and try to improve output thanks to that.

 

Still what I have is working and making, passively, a couple of hundred million ISK a week for me and should I be able to get that up to 400m a week (which I think is very possible) I will be able to cover my POS fuel expenses.

The One where the author PvP's

It happens, occasionally, that I will PvP.

 

I'll be Arazu'ing you

 

I did PvP over the weekend with mixed results, I took my Arazu out for a spin and helped kill a Dominix fleet and then lost it to a pair of Deimos' that were hanging about. My fleet did get both Deimos' but alas a dual rep fit Deimos and no logi meant I died just before they did.

 

Free Hugs for all!

 

Usually I'd get in a huff and log off but I did not, I took the loss at what it was and moved on. I was actually quite happy whom I lost the ship too, Gerden BloodELF is a player I've known informally from my time in Providence and this was the second encounter I'd had in PvP with him.

 

The first time was my Zealot vs. his Rupture and I won that, in fact from memory that was my first solo PvP kill. This time he was back in something a little more advanced and my Arazu did not survive, fortunately the loot fairy did not favour him and my faction scram did not drop.

 

The Dominix kills were amusing, four or five had coming into system to help clear the way for some friends who were stuck. They managed to get them out but unfortunately the Dominix pilots had kill rights on them and when they jumped back into high sec I used this to be able to get point on one of the pilots.

 

I don't actually remember being shot at but I was neuted heavily, I never lost point but as I had no dps I had to rely on my fleet coming through and using kill rights too. Which they did and it was very gratifying to watch the Dominix's die on a high sec gate with CONCORD no where to be seen.. actually that isn't true.

 

CONCORD did appear a minute or two after the battle started, it seems some over enthusiastic members of a second defence fleet jumped into high sec and opened fire, albeit without kill rights. Oh how we laughed in my fleet, it was even funnier because of who it was that died, yet again proving that that particular alliance has only a single brain cell and it was not being used at that time!

 

The other Logistics

 

Losing the Arazu was annoying, I should have done a better job so I switched to Logistics for the next battle the next day. I'd logged in to see people requesting ships for a fleet and they were asking for Logistics.

 

Cue Sharpe, my Scimitar, I undock and login to TeamSpeak so I can hear what's going on. Turns out there is a gang SBU'ing a system and we were going to try and engage them.

 

A shield fleets best friend

 

That WAS the plan at least but it was clear from comms and various chats that the red fleet had a spy in our fleet who was relying everything in TeamSpeak to them. We did a few jumps around the area utilising jump bridges and it was difficult to get a warp in on the reds and after about 10 minutes the reds left via low sec to reship to take on our 'kitchen sink' fleet.

 

When they did return they bought significant reinforcements, we numbered about 30 and they came back with nearly double our number. It seems NC. reinforced them and as someone said "it once more proves that EMP (The Initiative) cannot do things on their own".

 

Nothing happened, some posturing was going on but no engagement happened instead it was decided to merge an Apocalypse Now fleet with our fleet as that would give us about even numbers. A good idea but unfortunately it meant using Mumble and not TeamSpeak and that's where I gave up, I cannot use that program and in order for us to use it we need to authenticate again a particular groups server and I will not do that as I have 'issues' with the group in question.

 

 

The Raven (Navy Issue)

One of my alt's keeps a clone in Mai in Domain because I have friends nearby who sometimes get a nice capital kill and I do enjoy whoring on mails under the banner of "helping".

 

This kill has already been covered, reasonably accurately, by The Mittani Dot Com but I wanted it share a little more information on this as, to date, it is one of the top 10 things that's happened to me in EVE.
 

Background

Mai is a two station system that is the domain of Cracker101 and Apex Bex. Cracker has a reputation of getting some excellent capital kills in system and his methods, which I won't detail, are extremely efficient.  Bex is an experienced pilot who himself has hunted pilots mercilessly in EVE since just after getting his first combat ship.
 

The Kill

On this day they were both in Mai idling when a Raven Navy Issue entered system and warped to a location near the only gate. Bex undocked in a prober and, from an off-grid location, probed the RNI down. It didn't take long, experience does count for something, and Cracker and Bex warped to the RNI location which turned out to be a L5 mission site.

 

Whilst this is happening I have logged in my combat alt and jump cloned to Mai. When I appeared in local I was told by Cracker and Bex to fleet up and warp to them. I hopped in the Proteus and undocked, joining the fleet as I did, warping to Bex I received basic information on target and the situation. I activated the gate and after landing I see Cracker has pointed the RNI about 30km off me.

 

I move in, lock the RNI and receive a return lock at which point I scram and point the RNI in case Cracker has to leave as he's starting to receive mission rat fire. He didn't in the end as the RNI melted very quickly under the fire of a Vigilant and Proteus backed up by whatever the mission rats had done.
 

Loot

It was not a hard kill nor was it particularly satisfying until the wreck was looted. We each scored a Pith A-Type Adaptive Invulnerability field (each worth in Jita 1.7billion) and the rest of the loot was taken to Jita for sale and the proceeds divided.
 

Aftermath

It was a very satisfying kill and did cause Bex to be very smug for the next week but then again, all of us were. That's a once in Decade kill, normally Cracker and Bex get poorly fit mission runners but today was different.

 

Credit for the kill should definitely go to Cracker and Bex, I was a supporting player and was very grateful to have shared the kill and loot.