It's Not About Living Forever

A Warning

2010-07-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 2. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms

A ships sensors receive a positive sea of data every couple of seconds. The quantity of information is mind boggling, and if delivered directly into a normal human's brain, they would surely succumb to a massive brain aneurism or something else equally unpleasant and apocalyptic for the individual involved.

As a matter of fact, this information IS delivered directly into a brain. Not a normal human's brain though. This information is delivered into the brain of an immortal; one of the pod pilots. Not just any pod pilot either. This particular pod pilot and I happen to be one and the same.

My augmented brain can not only successfully receive this data, it can organise it, sort it, sift it. I can plunge into the flow of data, pierce the skein, and look beyond the obvious. This data set comprises trillions of pieces of data, but I am only interested in one in particular. And there it is: that one, shining, point of data that I have been trawling this solar system for. This point in space, captured by my sensors, is the location of another ship. The pilot of which is an enemy, and one I would dearly like to introduce to my ships weapon systems. With a pulse of my thoughts I set my ship calculating angles, relative speeds, distances and a hundred other factors needed to make the successful warp jump that will take me to my target.

As the warp engines engage I mentally flick through the ships systems, ensuring their readiness for the coming battle. The glowing nexus of energy that surrounded the ship like a second skin, the shield, was fully powered. I went over every nanometre of the thick armour plating that made up the second layer of defence. Other than micro fractures that the stresses and strains of interstellar travel inevitably incur, the overlapping plates were free of any imperfections that my enemy could exploit. The hull, the skeleton of the ship if you like, was likewise free of imperfections.

The various enhancements I had fitted to the ship were active and fully functioning. Armour repairers were primed and ready to combat any damage with a flood of nanites. Hardeners subtly altered the molecular composition of the armour to increase their resistance to different damage types, reducing the electrical and thermal conductivity, increasing flexibility to better absorb and dissipate kinetic energy, and realigning plates to deflect explosions. The electronic warfare modules were all reading nominal, and were primed to disrupt and interfere with the targets systems. Turrets were loaded and zeroed, the magnetic fields that would propel the slugs to their target were reading stable.

The ship was ready, a weapon forged with war in mind; it was also a sublime confluence of power and wild beauty.

As the warp engines powered down, ready to deliver me to my target, I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline and other hormones, that set my heart racing and would make my reactions lightning fast. If the fight started to go badly it wouldn't only be natural chemicals flowing in my blood stream.

The ship decelerated and my target came in view for the first time. A sleek, shining spear of a ship, designed to invoke fear in the minds of enemies. To me, the shape of the ship gave me information; it's design, system specs, and capabilities. My targeting systems were already locked on to the ship, the computer calculating range, velocity, angular velocity, and many other values that allowed it to track the vessel with my ships turrets, and ensure good clean hits. I had come out of warp at close range and my electronic warfare was engaged immediately. The warp jammer did its job, and scrambled the warp engines to prevent any escape. Other systems affected the ships propulsion, and interfered with the calculations my enemies own ship was processing so that its turrets couldn't accurately track me.

With my prey snared, my weapons tore into it. The shield was weak, and it was overloaded and shorted out. The ships real defences lay in the armour, as did mine. The antimatter slugs hammered into the armour and slowly began to chip away at it.

My enemy had not been idle this entire time, he had responded in kind.

My own shield had collapsed in a very short space of time and my armour was being eaten away. With a mental pulse I activating my repair systems. Holding tanks containing nanites in suspension released the seals and allowed this liquid to flow across the surface of my ship. It was directed to any damaged areas and flowed into cracks and pits, repairing the damage I had sustained. The impacts wracked my ship, sending concussion waves through the suspension fluid in my pod. The armour repairs were taking a heavy toll on my ships power core, and the levels of energy stored in the ships capacitors were dwindling fast. My mind zipped to the capacitor injectors installed in my ship, and I got an extra burst of energy.

This was a tougher battle than I had expected and my mind was rushing from system to system, managing power flow, checking calculations, predicting enemy movements and tactics. My armour repairer wasn't coping with the incoming damage, it received some extra juice to force the nanites to repair more rapidly. I also shunted more power to my weapon systems to finish this fight quickly. Modules can only put up with the extra power I was forcing into them for a limited amount of time. The additional heat that is produced is too much for the ship to deal with and it can result in damage or even complete destruction of the module involved. It requires careful management to ensure this doesn't happen.

It was a tense battle, our ships evenly matched, but this stalemate couldn't last forever. One of us had to crack.

I started to gain the upper hand and the read out on the enemy ship was showing catastrophic damage to its armour, my weapons had blown great rents, and were in the process atomising what little remained. The slugs started burying themselves in the internal structure of my enemies ships before detonating. The shattered pieces of bulkhead, flash frozen corpses of the crew, and the internal atmospheric gases spurted like blood out of the wounds in the side of the ship. It began to list to the side, veering seemingly out of control. Another volley from my guns ripped into the ship eliciting another spray of debris out into space. Some of the holes I had blown in the ship were large enough for me to see right into the interior of the ship. I could see internal fires flickering in the depths, like jewels glimmering in a dark cave. Smoke, fumes, and crystallized liquids form a sickly miasma around the ship, it is in its death throes. Another volley from my weapons assault the ship, the kinetic energy imparted by the impact sending the ship spinning away from me. One of the solid slugs obviously hit something vital as internal explosions blossomed all over the ship, blowing out clouds of debris.

It's then that, near the front of the ship, several areas of the hull are punched away by rapidly expanding gases, and the pod of my enemy is jettisoned out of the stricken ship to safety. Before my targeting computer can get a lock on it, the pod is shunted into emergency warp and escapes. The now pilotless ship finally succumbed, and blossomed in a beautiful explosion as the power core went critical.

The shattered corpse of the ship, barely recognisable as such for very little remains, floated in space as a warning to others about venturing into my territory.

I Have a Rendevouz With Death

2010-05-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have a rendevouz with death,
at some disputed barricade,
it may be he shall take my hand,
and lead me into his dark land,
and close my eyes and quench my breath,
I have a rendevouz with death,
and I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not faill that rendevouz.

Cheap but Effective

2010-05-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Here is some footage from the exterior camera drone on my Scorpion battleship. I think it demonstrates quite nicely just how effective a cheap fit ship can be. After the insurance payout I lose only about 10million ISK. I jumped into a small camp consisting of a Vagabond and a Thrasher, but it quickly escalated out of control forcing me to deaggro and jump back through. The tank takes a severe amount of punishment from quite a few high DPS ships, and lasts long enough to get me back through without even a scratch on my armour. I will follow this up with a longer post regarding these sorts of setups and the reasoning behind them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqm_tzWCXTc

I apologise for the shoddy quality of the video, the camera drone is a bit knackered. If you can't quite make it out once the gang arrived thier was a total of seven ships wailing on me. They were: Hurricane, Hurricane, Cyclone, Vagabond, Rupture, Thrasher, and a Falcon. The heroic Scorp defended against that formidable amount of dps long enough for me to deaggro and jump.

Speed Freaks - Part II

2010-05-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

I've been rather passive recently and so once again let this slip a little, but thankfully not to the extent of the previous versions. I won't dwell on the subject though, instead I'll dive right back into the story.

At the end of the last entry, myself and Caster Rom were ready to embark on out epic Dramiel roam. I mentioned my fit briefly in the last time as well and for completeness sake, and the curious amongst you, this is the fit I had chosen to use on the inaugural run:

[Dramiel, Present]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Tracking Enhancer II

Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

Warp Disruptor II

1MN MicroWarpdrive II

Gistii B-Type 1MN Afterburner

Medium Shield Extender II

200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S

[empty high slot]

Small Ancillary Current Router I

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I

Warrior II x3

Warrior II x1

Fit aside, we set off into Cloud Ring to see what we could find. As it turned out not much. We had a couple of fights but they didn't turn into kills unfortunately. I had a close call when I nearly got snagged by a gang that was Blue to Cas but not to me, but the Dramiel's face melting speed ensured my survival. It wasn't till we got up into Fade that things started to get interesting in a serious way. We entered a system designated FI01-8 and got a few likely targets on scan. We chased a couple of ships for a while before catching a Caracal 100km of a gate. His paltry weapon systems barely scratched us and he went down in short order. My first Dramiel kill! The pod also felt the bite of our guns. This obviously got the attention of the locals as almost immediately a Drake landed on our position.

We quickly reorganised and engaged the Caldari battlecruiser. Before we had made any appreciable dent in the Drake's shields another battlecruiser landed on grid, this time a Harbinger. We backed off, burning a few hundred kilometres away. The two of them together were a little too much for us. We didn't leave the grid hoping we could drag them apart and engage them. Our patience was rewarded with Drakes departure. I swiftly warped to a wreck a few K's from the Harbinger and got a point, bullets swiftly followed; hammering into the ship. Caster quickly joined me, adding his weapons to the fusillade. The Drake pilot returned, this time in a Taranis. Clearly he was trying to fight fire with fire, but the Taranis is inferior to the Dramiel in almost every respect. On top of that, there were two of us. We quickly switched targets and the interceptor was reduced to space trash in short order. We returned our weapons to the Amarr ship, which we had kept pointed, that too was destroyed. We were just about to start collecting loot when the Drake returned! quite what he hoped to achieve we had no idea, but we turned our weapons on him without a second thought. annoyingly he decided to take out his anger on our poor drones and a we each lost one. It was all for nought though and his second ship of the engagement bit the dust. We caught his pod this time, and we cracked it open like an egg. It seemed at this point the locals had got bored of dying and remained docked in the station, so we moved on.

That was the peak of the excitement for this roam however as we didn't get any more decent engagements. We snagged a Manticore that, for some twisted reason known only to the pilot, decided to try and bomb us. He was dead before his bomb exploded, although he was quick witted enough to get his pod out intact. This is where the outing took a serious nose dive for me. As we were attempting to exit null sec I got sandwiched between two sizable gangs. One landed on me forcing me to jump into a second that was just landing on the other side. I made the hasty mistake of trying to cold warp away, which would have succeeded had some rude individual not put up a bubble at the last moment, yanking me unexpectedly out of warp. Before I could engage my mwd I was warp scrambled by several ships and blown to smithereens! With hindsight I should have just burnt away from the gate and then warped when I was well out of range. It was a galling mistake and one I won't make again. A short lived but brilliant birthday present! I shall have to save up for another.

Speed Freaks - Part I

2010-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm, unfortunately, going to gloss over the saga of my journey to and from Phaze-9, which was the arc I had embarked upon before I (once again) ran out of momentum on this diary last time. Suffice to say I had a good time, met some people, killed some people etc. I had the great pleasure of taking part in several very large battles, and, teamed with Caster Rom, won the Ushra'Khan cruiser tournament. However, I found the numerous rules of U'K too restrictive and they dampened my fun on more than one occasion. Having enjoyed the freedom of piracy before hand, suddenly having vast swathes of space where I couldn't attack people who weren't specifically marked as enemies really hurt. On one occasion I defied this rule to save a friend from otherwise certain death and was reprimanded for it. U'K obviously wasn't for me; I didn't have the self control. So, leaving several good friends behind I set out to forge my own destiny. I returned to my own corporation: Teeth of the Beast.

I won't expand on the happenings between then and now, at least not in this entry. I shall expand on a very recent adventure with the aforementioned Caster Rom, who, no matter where I go in the galaxy, always seems to turn up. I'm never sure if this is a good thing or not. I joke of course Cas, if your reading this. For this particular adventure Caster plus two other factors were the catalysts for it even starting. The additional two factors were my birthday and Casters amazing generosity. Having accidently let slip in a conversation with him that it was my birthday, and spending the next ten minutes dodging questions about my exact age, he proceeded to buy a present to mark the occasion. To my utter incredulity the present he had bought me was a rare faction frigate, the Dramiel. I happened to know that these fetch a pretty penny and that it was a very generous present. He hadn't only bought one either. He had bought us a matching pair and the cherry on top of the cake would be a Dramiel roam into null sec.

For those of you who haven't ever talked to another human being, the Dramiel is a frigate designed by one of the galaxies most feared organisations: the Angel Cartel. This thing is a masterpiece of engineering, I haven't quite decided whether the man who designed this was a genius or a lunatic. Now I come to think about it, only genius with the oily film of lunacy could have produced such a design. Unlike a lot of ships, this one looks like a weapon. It's flowing curves that come to deadly points epitomise the beauty in war and death. This combined with its, quite frankly, terrifying speed, surprising toughness, and respectable damage output make it a truly sublime ship. When I say speed, what I actually mean is SPEEEEEEED!!!!!!! I have witnessed these things moving in excess of 10km/s. It is this attribute which makes them an object of fear and awe in my eyes; many a time have I been in a system and left purely because one of these has entered local. I have also had the misfortune of being on the wrong end of their weapons and, without exception, I have died every time. This is what Caster Rom had handed me. God I love that man.

I eagerly broke out my wallet and bought a nice fit for it. I opted for a kiting setup, and splurged a bit on the afterburner, buying a Gistii B-type 1MN afterburner. This would give a big speed boost and wasn't that expensive as dead space modules go, weighing in at a moderate 14mil. This was a pirate faction ship, it deserved some preferential treatment. The kiting setup would give me much greater survivability and allow me take on a wider range of targets that a close range fit. You paid for this with less DPS, but I felt this was an acceptable price. Unbeknownst to me Caster had gone for a close range fit by fitting a scrambler rather than a disruptor like I had. This meant we would complement each other nicely. I can practically taste the explosions.

I Plead Lazy Your Honour

2010-04-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

I must apologize profusely for my lack of updates, or indeed any kind of activity, on this account of my life. It won't continue for any longer, this, I swear to you. Even if I don't find the time to write a finely crafted account of my actions, I shall at least write a few sentences to update you all on my progress, thoughts, schemes, etc. This scant, snivelling update will have to satisfy you for now, but a much larger update is in the works and I shall have it for you as soon as I can. I will endeavour to be multitudes better than I was previously to make up for my many months of idleness.

Mayhem - Part II

2010-01-09T16:02:00.000-08:00

So, fit complete, I headed out to test it. The first test wasn't anywhere near as eventful as I had hoped, but it was still a success. I went into Providence through HED- and moved up to D-G. This was a station system so I spent a while scouting it out and setting up bookmarks. I then settled down outside the station and waited for a target to undock. The very first thing that undocked was a Badger Mk II. A hauler that fell easily to my bomb run. The format for a bomb run is simple: sit cloaked until a viable target appears. Then move directly towards them, uncloak, launch the bomb and warp off. By the time the enemy knows what's going on, your long gone, and the bomb explodes. As you can see this first run was very successful, and this first act of violence towards the locals quickly got their attention. Several rather nasty ships undocked to protect any more undocking vessels and to deter me, scariest of all was a sensor boosted artillery Hurricane which was something that I really didn't want to mess with. A long range, fast locking ship is death incarnate for a ship like the stealth bomber. While the heat from my attack died down I moved into another station system and again set up my various safes and bomb spots. It seemed though that the owners of this station took immediate offense to my presence and a lot of ships undocked including several interceptors, a Dramiel, and some interdictors. Again all very fast, and quite capable if catching me if I attempted a bomb run. A collection of ships that is lethal to any stealth bomber. I backed out of there pretty quick as with that lot floating around I dare not uncloak. I moved back into D-G and set up ready to bomb again, but unfortunately I didn't get any kills. My continued presence though was starting to annoy them, and I received some intelligence telling me that they were forming a coherent gang to try and catch me. Before this could materialise I made my escape and headed home.

I took it out again the next day, still into Providence but a different area this time. The area I took it to was a dead end area where I knew there were several large industrial operations. I would try and bag myself some more kills or at the very least disrupt these operations. So I headed out and almost immediately jumped into a gate camp. No problem though, as soon as I left the protective cloaking field provided by the gate I turned my own on and was gone before they could even get a lock on me. I got to the first system that I had planned on searching for targets in. This too, was a station system, but before I set up shop I mapped out the jump bridges and set up safes and bomb spots. The activity around the JBs was limited at best so I moved into position outside of the station. Again a hapless hauler undocked and my bomb blew his ship apart. As I was warping away I inspected my read outs and realised that his cargo had survived. So I warped back at range to destroy the wreck to prevent them from recovering it. When I landed there was a Devoter sitting outside. I was out of its elongated point range so I uncloaked locked up both the wreck and him. Tracking disruptor on the heavy interdictor, and target painter and torpedoes on the wreck. The TD nicely nullified the Devoters weapons and I blew the wreck apart, denying them the cargo. A hauler undocked at this point, it was no doubt trying to save the cargo before I could destroy it. I targeted that as well and transferred my torps and TP to it before I could land the hit however, it warped off. I transferred my weapons to the Devoter and blasted through the shields and started working on the, sadly, much tougher armour. I didn't dare go into point range for fear of being pointed myself. This was definitely something I didn't want as I knew reinforcements would be on their way. Several of the aforementioned reinforcements landed on grid, including a Rapier and several T1 frigates, so I made a hasty get away.

Back at one of my scanning spots I detected a Cormorant along with a large quantity or wrecks. Assuming it was a salvage ship I scanned for anomalies and quickly located him. I warped in and landed about 50km away from the ship. Annoyingly he was moving around to quickly for me to accurately bomb, so I uncloaked, locked him up and put all my E-war on him. The ships relatively small signature radius protected him from a lot of the damage but even still by volley three he was in deep armour. The moment I appeared though he had signalled his friends and I soon detected a stream of inbound ships. This denied me the destroyers death but it did give me a great deal of intel on the ships that the rest of the pilots were flying. It was a very varied selection which included almost every ship class. I warped to gate and several of them had beaten me there. I had no intention of leaving though, I was having far too much fun messing with these people. Just as these thoughts were passing through my head, a stream of angry abuse came across on the local channel: demands to leave their system, and derogatory terms of abuse. Of course I found this extremely amusing and I told them so. The reaction was so child like I was practically crying with laughter: "Well we don't really care that your here anyway!". For a bunch of people who supposedly didn't care about my presence they sure put a lot of effort into catching me.

They set up several ill conceived and obvious traps. I sprung every single one and tried to catch several of them off guard. One of the worst traps was a slow aligning mining barge on one of the gates, guarded by a Brutix. I deduced that the moment I uncloaked to launch a bomb the barge would insta-warp and the Brutix would try and hold me there for the backup to arrive. I decided to go for the Brutix, from a basic inspection of the ship it looked as though it were fitted with T1 guns. I hoped the rest of the ship was as shoddily fit. I decloaked and launched by bomb. As I suspected the mining barge warped off, and the Brutix started targeting me. I responded in kind and launched torpedoes, and suppressed it's weapons with my tracking disruptor. My bomb had dealt it a serious blow; it's shields had been totally obliterated and a good chunk of its armour had been taken out. I hoped I could finish it before his friends arrived. The so far impotent Brutix didn't do anything to dispel this notion as it deployed T1 drones. Still nothing to fear from this ship. My torps were knocking chucks out of its armour and I reaching structure. I kept an eagle eye on my scanners and unfortunately a large number of ships showed up and were approaching at high warp. I stayed until they landed on grid, trying to finish off the battlecruiser, but it was not to be. I bailed before any ships could get a lock on me. I triggered several other "traps", but I didn't get any kills. More people piled into local, raising it to around forty. At this point I jumped through the gate into a massive gate camp. It consisted of at least thirty ships, but they couldn't catch me, ooooh no! "better luck next time guys!", I taunted in local. At which point I jumped into another gate camp and was promptly blown to smithereens, pod and all.

While the trip had a rather unsatisfactory ending, I felt that, as a whole, it was a success. The fit had faired very well and had foxed many an opponent. With it I had caused so much trouble I had pulled over one hundred pilots away from their regular duties in order to catch me. I had also significantly disrupted the industrial operations in the area, and I had gathered a lot of intel on the area. I had also mapped out many areas of interest such as POSs, jump bridges, and stations. I had set up many bomb spots and observation points. In actual combat this fit worked admirably and on more than one occasion I had been able to suppress one target with the TD, while attacking another. Bar a few scratches from some drones I had taken virtually no damage despite several small skirmishes. Seeing as I had mapped this area so thoroughly and the fit had been such a success I would definitely return, to harass the locals some more.

Mayhem - Part I

2010-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a quick brake from the tale of my journey to Phaze-9, to talk about one of my more recent adventures. If I don't, I will forget some of the details and the retelling will not be anything as entertaining, as when it was fresh in my mind.

I have been flying a lot of direct combat ships recently and decided I wanted a change of pace. So away went the battlecruisers and frigates, and out comes the stealth bomber. I fly the Gallente interpretation of the this ship class: the Nemesis. Based on the successful Tristan hull, this ship could pack quite a punch. For those that don't know, stealth bombers are frigate sized ships that that can use the extremely useful Covert Ops Cloak. Unlike other cloaking devices this highly sophisticated piece of technology has none of the setbacks that the other, cruder, forms suffer from. When cloaked there is no speed penalty, there is a greatly decreased lock delay after uncloaking, and most significantly you can warp cloaked. The last point in particular is a frighteningly powerful ability. It allows almost total freedom of movement around a system, even if it is crawling with hostiles. Other notable advantages this ship possesses, is the ability to fire torpedoes (huge missiles which are usually the purview of Battleships) and the unique ability to use bombs. Again the last point is of note. Bombs are an unguided explosive charge that can only be fired from a stealth bomber. They do not require target locks, but fly in the direction launched for a set amount of time before violently exploding. The damage they dish is surprisingly large and is distributed over a wide area. For all the destructive power these little ships have they are however, rather flimsy. All these traits, when combined, make this ship ideal for a hit and run, guerrilla style of warfare.

The version I fly, the Nemesis, seems to be particularly underused with the Caldari and Mitari versions being the favoured; the Manticore and the Hound respectively. The Nemesis seems to be a very poorly treated and fitted bomber. You quite often see horrible fits with shield extenders, and only one sensor dampener. First of all I see no point in wasting a slot by putting a shield extender on there. The ship, like all stealth bombers, has the structural integrity of a wet paper bag. Putting a shield extender on there is like putting the wet paper bag that is the Nemesis into another wet paper bag. In short it doesn't make enough difference to warrant losing a slot. In principle the Sensor dampener is a very good idea however, one of them is not going to make enough difference unless you are working at long ranges. At these ranges it is impossible to keep the tackle on your target and you become reliant on other pilots to hold them there for you. This doesn't seem to occur to many people though as I frequently see fits with both sensor dampener and a warp disruptor. At ranges where you can tackle with the disruptor the SD will make no tangible difference so you might as well have an empty slot. On second thought an empty slot is probably better as it doesn't drain your capacitor. Below I will detail my journey to a useful and functional fit and how the fit performed on its first outings.

I have been flying bombers for a while now and as I have gained experience and the learned to use new pieces of equipment my fit has evolved. It has gone through three distinct stages. This first stage, was after I had only just learnt to use the ships and their basic equipment. At this point in time I couldn't use bombs so the fit looked like this:

[Nemesis, Stage 1]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution

'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

This setup is in no way suited to solo flying and must operate as part of a group. It has no real way of defending itself and can't hold anyone down. The lack of a bomb launcher also means it isn't very viable for any of the guerrilla tactics normally associated with this ship. It served me well for a while but I soon learned how to operate the bomb weapon system so I upgraded to this:

[Nemesis, Stage 2]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

1MN Afterburner II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Sensor Booster II

'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
Bomb Launcher I, Scorch Bomb
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

As you can see the major changes are the addition of a bomb launcher and the replacement of the MWD with an AB. The fitting was rather tight so I had to downgrade the MWD. This was still very much a gang ship, as it suffers from the same limitations as the previous version, bar the bomb launcher. With the addition of the aforementioned launcher I could now start practicing with them. I had a few initial runs that didn't actually result in any kills but did provide me with the skills for setting up bomb points and escaping quickly. Between this stage and the next there was a minor change in the fit:

[Nemesis, Stage 2.5]
Ballistic Control System II
Beta Reactor Control: Reaction Control I

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Sensor Booster II

'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
Bomb Launcher I, Scorch Bomb
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Back in came the MWD and out went a BCU to provide room for a fitting mod allowing me to fit the MWD. This change came after my Nemesis was caught and destroyed in a gate that I could have escaped had I an MWD rather than the AB. The small loss in damage I felt was a price worth paying for additional survivability. These ships aren't cheap you know. The next change was definitely the most sweeping change yet. The others had merely been modifications and alterations, but this heralded a fundamental change in the way I would use and pilot the ship:

[Nemesis, Final Stage]
Local Power Plant Manager: Capacity Power Relay I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Warp Disruptor II
1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I, Optimal Range Disruption
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Torpedo
Bomb Launcher I, Scorch Bomb
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I

This setup is far more offensive in nature than the previous incarnations. I have thought about this setup in great detail and tried to make sure that every module serves a specific and useful purpose. The High slots need no explanation and they are the only element of the fit that remained virtually unchanged throughout this whole process.

The Med slots are where most of the thought has gone and where you see, in my opinion at least, most of the mistakes.

First off is the tackle, in this case it is a Warp Disruptor II. It has a base range of 24km and an overheated range of 28.8km. This is an essential module for keeping my prey in place so I can deal them a fatal blow. The longer range over a scrambler allows me to keep my valuable and fragile ship out of harms way. If I had some spare money I would substitute this for a faction point that has a higher base range, and consequently a higher overheat range. This would allow me to keep at an even safer range.

Next is the MWD. This module allows me reach great speeds, to keep me away from my target and get me safely out of camps.

The next module is my only form of defence on the ship, other than its speed. A tracking disruptor interferes with the targets turret tracking and range finding abilities. I have the choice of two different scripts to load into it to effect different parts of the turrets. The first script, and the one I most commonly use, is the optimal range script. This drastically decreases the range the turrets can effectively hit out to. With this module active ships can shoot as much as they like and I will take only a minimal amount of damage or maybe even none at all depending on the weapon fitted to the ship.

Finally in the last med slot is Phased Weapon Navigation Array. This is a type of target painter. It increases the signature radius of the target which means my torpedoes have an easier time hitting them. Effectively it means I can do more damage.

The Lows are simple. First off is the Nanofibre Internal structure II, this lightens the ship improving speed and manoeuvrability. Both of these are vital for me to keep out of hard tackle range (e.g. webs and scramblers) and to escape if things get a little hot.

The power relay when combined with the rigs allow me to run all of my E-war and be cap stable, which I believe to be very important, especially when dealing with large targets that take a while to go down. The last thing you want is for them to escape at the last moment because you ran out of cap. This has, rather embarrassingly, actually happened to me before. Also if the only thing keeping you alive is the TD, the last thing you want is for that to shut down due to lack of power. That could be a very expensive mistake.

Sweet Freedom

2009-12-16T05:20:00.000-08:00

At the end of my last entry I was left in low sec with no affiliations to anyone or anything; be that corporations, alliances, even my friends, who were scattered across the galaxy. I had to worry about none of them, I was completely alone. It was intoxicating: I was uninhibited, totally free. While I loved this feeling I wanted to give null sec a second chance. I don’t think I got the best view of it and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get as much combat as it had to offer. So the search for a new corporation became my primary goal. This time I would on more than the CEO’s word, and I actually do some research into the corporation and just as importantly the alliance they were part of. Whilst I was awaiting the results of my searches I obviously had some spare time on my hands. I couldn’t just sit in the station bar for however long it took me to find a new corporation, as pleasant as that would be. So I formed my own one man band, to have fun and to strike fear in the hearts of my enemies. The name I choose was “Teeth of the Beast”.

And so commenced some of the most amusing days I had had in a long time. You guessed it; I made a return to piracy. Quite a triumphal return I’d like to think. The ship I choose to use for this period of piracy was the Vexor, in my opinion, one of the best T1 cruisers currently in production. At this point, my base of operations was still located on the border with null sec. This resulted in relatively high volumes of traffic through the surrounding systems, so the likelihood of finding good targets was significantly increased. I didn’t want to be too trigger happy as I wanted to keep my sec status intact, so I had to lay down some rules of engagement for myself. I would not pod at all, this would give me a big sec status hit that I simply couldn’t afford. I would also only attack outlaws where ever possible as this wouldn’t result in any security status loss at all. I would stick to these rules unless the target was just too damn juicy. So with these things set in my mind I sallied forth in my ship and started looking for targets.

I decided to have a quick foray in null sec first of all. In null sec I would be free from the limitations of my rules of engagement as you receive no penalties for attacking and killing ships of pods. I was feeling reckless and was desperate for a confrontation and so jumped blindly in. I was fully expecting there to be a gate camp and to die horribly, but I was pleasantly surprised to find no camp at all. There were however several residents floating around that I fancied having a crack at. I loudly proclaimed my entrance into their null sec system and challenged some of them to a duel. To my surprise someone offered themselves up. We rendezvoused at the gate from which I had entered so if he and a fleet of buddies showed up I could make a hasty exit. To my surprise the ship that showed up was an Amarrian assault ship classified as a vengeance. He saw my ship, which is pretty lethal to anything frigate sized, and to my surprise still consented to our duel. It was a swift and very definite victory for me. The ship melted like an ice cube in a furnace under the firepower of my guns and drones. Despite the fact I was in null sec and would not be penalized for it, I didn’t pod him and allowed to escape with his life. I respected his honourable conduct. With my first victory under my belt, and the related spoils I had appropriated from his wreck safely stowed in my cargo hold, I returned to low sec and unfortunately was called away from my ship on business, so the pirating session had to end prematurely.

The next day I awoke early, and eagerly leapt into my Vexor and went out scouting for targets. I managed to locate a potential target, but annoyingly he was a neutral and so attacking him would have caused me to lose security status. The ship in question was a Rupture, a Minmatar cruiser. I warped around to see if I could establish what he was doing, and quickly established that he was following me which in all likelihood meant he was hunting me. This was ideal, it meant I could bait him into attacking me, and if he fired the first shot I could fire back without any repercussions to my security status. I waited patiently at a belt for his inevitable arrival and prepared for combat. The Rupture landed on grid and I immediately burned for him, I locked and prepared to fire. He aggressed almost immediately so I opened up with everything I had: drones, guns, nuets and e-war. We were both had buffer fits, so it came down to a contest of raw firepower. As the rupture approached one third armour, I was still ahead of him with just over half armour left. But it was still going to be a very close fight. He got down to structure; I had less than a quarter armour left. I wasn’t taking any chances and overheated my guns to ensure I finished him off quickly. My guns obviously struck something vital, as a violent chain reaction tore the ship apart. I let his pod go free, and looted his wreck for anything valuable that might have survived the explosion. I had a quick chat with him and congratulated him on a fight well fought and moved on in search of more targets.

The next potential target I found was a far larger than the cruiser I had just taken on. It was a Hyperion battleship, and from my scans it looked like it was ratting at a belt. I warped in to have a look see, and I landed pretty close to a ship that dwarfed mine. I locked him to see how his tank was doing against the rats. If it was poorly fit I may have been able to tip his tank over the edge and so get myself a nice kill. He was through shield and partially into armour but it looked like his tank was buckling beneath the damage of the local pirates alone. One problem: he was a neutral. I blasted my RoE out of the airlock and attacked him anyway, this was too juicy to pass up and hopefully one kill shouldn’t push me over the edge. I loosed my drones and trained my guns on the cumbersome battleship which was slowly turning to attempt to make an escape. I had that covered however and jammed his warp engines. I kept a tight orbit to him, almost rubbing hulls. This would ensure my angular velocity was as high as possible, which would make it far more difficult for his large guns to track me and hit me. He was positively melting under the combined damage of myself and the local scum. Paying closer attention I noticed that he was neither firing on me, nor was there any kind of tank running at all as far as my instruments were concerned. This puzzled me greatly, had this pilot just resigned himself to death? It got to the point where his ship had received so much damage it lost all structural integrity, and blew apart in a massive explosion. Upon closer inspection of the wreck I discovered that the reason it did not retaliate or attempt to protect itself in any way was that the ship was totally unfitted! I contacted the pilot to ask about this oddity and he explained that it was insurance fraud that he appreciated the help. A sec status penalty for no gain. How irritating.

I returned to the station and went to the bar for a meal and a drink. Once I returned to my rented quarters, I noticed in my alcohol induced haze that my communicator was flashing up a missed call. I chucked a couple of pills in mouth and washed them down with a glass of water. These would quickly flush the ethanol out of my blood stream and allow me to concentrate. Once these had taken affect I went over to my communicator and checked what was on it; several mails and a few missed calls, all concerning my search for a new corporation. One in particular stood out from all the others though: a call from one of the recurring characters in my life. A certain disreputable fellow by the name of Caster Rom.

Disappointment

2009-12-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Once again I have been lax in regards to recording my activities for posterity and, of course, your reading pleasure. For this I apologize. I have done much since my last entry, so it shall necessitate several entries which I will endeavour to deliver to you as swiftly as possible. Anyway here goes:

When last we met I was a member of a corporation called Gravis Unbound, which was in turn a member of an alliance called The Council. When I joined Gravis, I was promised all the pleasures of null-sec, but most of all I was promised my beloved combat, and plenty of it. This did not materialise in anything close to the quantity I had been promised. It turned out the CEO of Gravis had overstated in regards to both quality AND quantity. I spent a significant portion of my oh-so-precious-time looking for combat in any enjoyable form, but I was having very little luck. The council did not even seem to a particularly big mover or shaker in the alliance world at all and very rarely went on big operations. It turned out that the council was far more powerless than I had imagined possible for any null-sec alliance. We only seemed to hold onto our space by dint of some rather formidable allies more than with our own skill and determination, or so it seemed to me anyway. Enough of The Councils inadequacies’, and back to my quest for combat.

The corp I was part of had a fair few pilots in it, around sixty if I recall, and I hoped I might be able to galvanize a portion of them into going out on ops with me. I made myself the unofficial head of combat and immediately started trying to organise some ops. “Try”, regrettably, being the optimum word. I knew there were some inexperienced combat pilots among us so the initial op I arranged was a fun training op. I set down some basic ground rules:

1) There are no ship or fitting restrictions, but you may not bring a ship someone is already bringing. You get kudos for bringing an interesting ship/fit.

2) No outright destruction of ships unless all involved parties agree to it.

3) There are no other rules.

I instated the first rule so that people would hopefully get a good idea of various different ships and ship types capabilities. With over sixty people in the corp, if only a quarter showed up we would have had a very interesting and varied bunch of ships.The second rule was for all the people who could not afford the loss of too many ships. I hoped that this rule would also encourage people to bring far more expensive ships i.e. T2 ships, battleships etc.Rule three? Well if a game has too many rules it is confusing, and takes the fun out of it.

The format for the op would be for general introductions to combat and study of ships and fits to begin with, then head into some mock fights to see how people would deal with various types of ships. Then to make things way more fun for all involved we would then split in teams of two or three and they were to try and hunt each other down. This would give them good practice with the on board scanner, give them a chance to try out various team tactics, work to the strengths of the ships in each team, and learn how to exploit the weaknesses of other ships. When your ship was reduced to hull you would return to the “safe zone” and await the end. Last team with a member left “alive” would win a prize and a good time would be had by all. Now I know for a fact that if I had organised this when I was in the Tuskers every single pilot would have signed up and we would have had a great laugh. Out of a corporation with more than sixty pilots in it guess how many signed up? Give up? Four! God damn four of the bastards signed up. I had been frustrated before, by now I was incandescent with rage and disappointment. These people had no sense of fun and adventure and the alliance as a whole was a huge let down, and I felt they were somewhat of an embarrassment. Don’t get me wrong there were some people in Gravis I very much enjoyed flying with or spending time with but they were a sputtering candle in the dark that was the rest of the alliance.

I had been mulling over leaving for a while but this was a deciding factor in my leaving the corp and the alliance. Something that sealed the deal was some turbulence with our allies. It looked like they wouldn’t be our allies for much longer and I was certain that were they to turn against us we would be wiped out in a very short space of time. So I packed my gear and got out sharpish, transporting all my ships and modules out of null-sec with the aid of a jump freighter pilot in Gravis. Luckily I had got my security status to a point where could once again fly freely in high security space, and had built up a significant store of ISK. With both those things sorted and having safely exited null-sec and Gravis Unbound I was free to roam the galaxy to my heart’s content and to find my new place in the universe.

Rare and exotic

2009-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

These are two words to describe the ships that I encountered today. Another two would be deadly and lethal. I had a bit of an impetuous day today and as a consequence both the rare faction ship the Nightmare and the Tech III beastie the Proteus both ended up on a couple of my death mails. For your viewing pleasure these can be seen here and here.

I collected the Proteus death mail in null-sec. Me and a drake friend jumped through a gate, and to our delight found a falcon sitting there. We immediatly locked and attacked it. The falcon had the drake jammed and locked down in a very short space of time leaving only my DPS to break through it's shields. I had got it down to about 1/5 when the Harbinger and afformentioned Proteus joined the fray and attacked me. I immediatly deaggressed and went for the gate. I got in range but the gate wouldn't let me jump on account of my hostile actions and I would have to wait. It was a race against time; could my tank hold out against the two DPS heavy ships? Well obviously not and I have the death mail to show for it. The Drake pilot made it out alive.

The second wasn in high sec. Me and a corp mate went hunting for war targets and we located a couple in a nearby system. They were outside a station attacking another of our allies. It was a the Nightmare and a Hurricane. we decided we should go for the Hurricane. Now instead of doing the sensible thing i.e. waiting to see if I could cope with the Nightmare's DPS then attacking, I steamed towards the Hurricane and aggressed it. I immediatly regretted it as the Nightmare's guns tore into me. Once again I had the aggression timer and so couldn't dock staright away. The gauling thing is that my ship exploded just as I got docking permission. If I'd only lasted a few more seconds I wouldn't have a second Brutix death mail in the same day. Oh well, lessons learnt and all that. In this case I learnt (again) not to be too eager.

Advanced technology

2009-10-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

The money is pouring in. And it is wonderful. Although at the moment I have very little to spend it on. My money making battleship is going to cost only a small percentage of the money I have amassed, so I am going to be left with quite a large sum, and as always I want to spend it on something shiny. Up to this point I have only dabbled in Tech II ships, and stuck totally to the frigate variety. I have trained to fly all Tech II frigates, save interceptors. I hope to correct that soon, as I think it will be great fun to whizz around the battlefield at extreme speeds. Out of those I have flown, the ones i have used and enjoyed the most are covert ops ships and stealth bombers. I did fly assault ships for a while but I felt that their life expectancy was too low considering the price I had to pay for them; I was a lot lower on funds then. Unfortunately my electronic attack frigate plans have never been anything more than plans. Although I do own one and I have tested it out on a few friends' ships, I have never used it in combat. Aside from interceptors, I am now turning my attention Tech II cruisers. The elongated training time for them though means I won't, at least initially, be able to train for all of them. This means I am forced to choose.

As I stated above, I favour covert ops ships, so the logical next step would be to move to Recon ships. The Gallente recon ships are the Arazu and the Lachesis. The Arazu is stealth and electronic warfare orientated and the lachesis is combat and electronic warfare orientated. I think I would rule out the Lachesis straight away as the type of electronic warfare the Gallente recons are proficient in, sensor dampeners, does not really lend itself to outright combat situations. Also I was going to get a dedicated combat ship there are far more potent ships I could choose. The Arazu is much more support orientated. It's specifically designed electronics allow it to use the covert ops cloak which has none of the movement restrictions that less sophisticated cloaking technology imposes on the ships that use them. This means it can move at full speed when cloaked, and can warp normally as well. This allows it move around systems undetected and allows it watch enemies and helps it to more easily set up ambushes. It is most definitely a support ship, and can only be used solo in a very select set of circumstances as it is not big on damage or tank. The Arazu is quite a versatile ship due to its abundance of mid slots and can be fitted in various ways. Combined with the cloak it can be quite a nasty ship, and as a consequence it is one of the ones I am considering. As a bonus I don't need to do that much training to get up to it.

Heavy assault ships would be the next logical choice as I have all the prerequisites save the actual skill I need to fly the ships. This ship class is all about damage. The Gallente HACs are the Deimos, and the Ishtar. The Ishtar is a drone boat, and tends to specialise in Tech II heavy drones and sentry drones, neither of which I can currently use or will be able to use for at least a couple of months, so for this reason alone I am ruling this ship out straight away. As soon as I can use them I will undoubtedly use this ship as it is fantastic in all respects. That just leaves the Deimos, which has got the unfortunate nickname the "diemost" which, I admit, does not fill me with confidence. However, I am intrigued by this ship. I have had a play around with the fittings in a computer model and have come up with what I think are several viable fits that I would very much like to try out. You can certainly get an astonishing amount of damage out of it. If you go for pure damage though it does become somewhat of a glass cannon. For now, due to the fitting issues I think I shall leave this one be.

The next class of ship is the heavy interdictor. These ships are all about keeping the enemy in one place and preventing escape. To this end these ships can use a special piece of tech that lets them create warp disruption bubbles around the ship. No ship inside this bubble can warp and it also drags ship out of warp if they try to pass through. These ships can also put out a truly huge tank, worthy of a battleship if fit correctly. The Gallente 'dictor is the Phobos. For this ship I need to branch out and learn a bit of science so I can operate the highly technical warp bubble gizmo, other than that the only skills I need to train are some propulsion jamming skills so the training time is very reasonable. I already have pretty decent armour tanking skills, but a little brushing up never hurt anyone. The ships slot layout is pretty decent as well, especially in the mids. There are enough to fit a full tackle plus mwd/ab and some E-war or other gadget so it is pretty versatile. The downside of these ships is that they don't put out a massive amount of damage but they can sure as hell take it. I like these ships and the role they have to play so I am putting the Phobos in the possible pile along with the Arazu.

The last class of Tech II cruiser are Logistics ships, which as their name suggests are geared entirely towards support. I'm not adverse to that, quite the opposite. Logistics ships can turn the tide of battle, be it in a small gang or a large fleet. They excel at repairing damage to ships in the field and can do it from a significant distance if need be. The Gallente ship is the Oneiros and it specialises in armour repair. The training time for the actual ship itself is pretty quick but the support skills would take to longer than all bar the Ishtar. So, like the Ishtar this one goes on the long term pile.

So I'm left with just two: the Arazu and the Phobos. Out of the two the Arazu is the closest training time wise and I think that it would be a laugh riot to fly. On the other hand I think that the Phobos would be more useful for null sec and you can't argue with the massive tank that it puts out. As a character in one of my favourite holo-vids once said "The problem is choice".

On the road to redemption

2009-10-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

For the past several weeks I have been laboriously regaining my reputation with CONCORD so that I may finally return to the well supplied cradle of high-sec. It's a pain in the arse having to rely on other people to transport ships and equipment for you; you always have to wait. And I'm not that patient. I want my new shiny toys now! Also it will greatly cut down any travelling I may need to do, and make it a lot safer. I'm part way there, I'm now at just under -3.5 so I can now enter high-sec systems with a rating of 0.5, 0.6, or 0.7. Only another 1.5 points of security then I will be free to go anywhere again. It has been such a long time since I have been into high-sec.

Talking of new toys, I have had my first experience of bombs! I finished the necessary training for a couple of weeks ago, but had yet to use them. Me and a couple of corp mates decided to cause some havoc in a hostile system. We choose a system called X-70. It was currently being fought over by two alliances: Pandemic Legion and Maru'kage, so we knew it would be packed to the gunnels with hostiles. Sure enough when we got into local there were over sixty pilots in the system. For the first twenty minutes or so we flew around checking out the various stations and gates to see if we could get a good idea of what was going on. We decided upon a station to camp and we attempting to get into position, when I carelessly flew to close and uncloaked myself. There were several hostile ships hanging around outside the station, so I panicked and hit the "dock" button. This was a foolish mistake though as I, ironically, ended up being camped into the very station I had been attempting to camp. I was stuck there for about half an hour before they obviously got bored, and left. I immediately undocked and got away from there. We moved to a different station and set up in appropriate positions, without any blunders this time.

We didn't have to wait long for our first target to present itself. A Wolf assault ship undocked and I immediately gave the order to release bombs. I uncloaked, launched the bomb, and warped off before the pilot even had time to lock me. My partner did the same. The third member unfortunately had not got into position in time so only two bombs flew in the Wolf's direction. I got the automated damage report, but sadly the number was far smaller than I had hoped for. The ships small signature radius had obviously protected it from most of the damage. On the bright side I had correctly judged the distance and had actually hit the frigate, which is more than can be said for my corp mate who missed all together. No matter it was only a practice run. We moved to another station and set up bombing spots. A Hurricane undocked, and we went through the bombing drill. The ships far larger sig radius would insure big hits, and I wasn't disappointed. All three of us hit successfully this time, but our damage, although large, was not sufficient to actually kill the ship. It ended up about half armour. After that run, I warped to various stations and gates and started to set up good bombing spots. While scanning for ships I picked up one of the most awe inspiring ships in the universe: a Leviathan Titan. I had to go check it out as I had never seen one in the flesh before. I arrived at a moon to find the truly massive ship sitting inside a POS shield. I was severely tempted to chuck a bomb at just for shits and giggles, but I decided not to. I did however manage to grab a few shots of it on my pict-recorder.

While I was gawping at the ship, one of our trio reported a massive gate camp of Pandemic Legion ships sitting on one of the gates. I warped straight there, and decided then and there that we should bomb it. There were various types of ships, but among them some slightly thinner ships such as recons and tech I cruisers, that our bombs would be able to take out. We got in position as quickly as we could, but annoyingly they choose this minute to jump out of system and we missed our chance. At this point I was called back to JC on some business so we called it a day and disbanded, disappointingly with no kills, but equally with no losses. I have to say I did love causing trouble.

An Expensive few weeks

2009-09-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks I haven't exactly been careful in my headlong pursuit of fights. I have often gone out on my own, with no scout, no backup, and no real plan. This, quite obviously has lead to several losses, and expensive ones at that. Even worse, I have very little to show for these wayward adventures of mine. In the last ten days alone, I have lost four ships, including a Nemesis, and a Brutix. Yes, the Brutix I expressed such high hopes about in my last entry. These losses have totalled over 140 million ISK. In the same time period I have only managed to kill three ships. Albeit several expensive ships, but unfortunately you don't see the whole cost of the ship, just the modules they drop. If I had gotten all the money from the ships I'd killed I would be quids in, I would have made a rather large profit in fact. Total damage adds up to 365 million ISK. Off this though I only saw a measly 20 million at the most, so I have in fact made a loss of 120 million ISK. I need to change my ways. Bloodlust is doing a number on my wallet.

Out goes the solo roams in expensive ships and in comes caution. For the next week at least I will be concentrating on recouping losses, so 'plexes and ratting are the order of the day. Once I have done this rather tedious chore, I can get back into proper combat. As I said though, with a slightly different and more conservative approach. I need to view this more like a business, if I am to be successful I must make more than I lose. So, at least for a while, I will stick to fleet ops. A better chance of catching targets, and a smaller chance of being targeted. It's a win win situation. Hopefully my new and sadly cautious programme will show results and once I have bolstered my cash reserves I can continue with the reckless, adrenaline fuelled search for explosions.

Greener grass - Part II

2009-09-20T14:47:00.001-07:00

Having travelled through a few systems and traversing a few jump bridges we met up with our allies fleet. It was even bigger than ours, we now numbered around one hundred ships. To my astonishment we were one of several fleets moving to engage the enemy. The enemy in question was an alliance called The Sons of Tangra, and their allies. Not only did we have several fleets of battleships and below, we also had a couple of capital fleets; dozens of dreadnaughts and carriers waiting to be called in. We reached our destination and held position, waiting for the call. Another fleet was already engaging the enemy and apparently they had many more numbers than we at first thought. The intelligence was a little hazy, on the exact numbers. They obviously had the same problem as they were not engaging either. For about an hour it all seemed to be posturing. We moved forward pressuring them and they responded, so we withdrew. They did a similar thing, and nothing really happened. Then we got word that a fleet had engaged, they were outnumbered and losing badly. We were the closest fleet so we were sent to reinforce them. It was only nine jumps away but by the time we got there the enemy fleet had disappeared leaving only wrecks behind. Dozens and dozens of wrecks, both friendly and not. It seemed that the enemy choose this time to have an all out attack, several fleets engaged but the fighting was a stalemate, neither side gaining ground. We missed another fight, but caught a few of the rearguard, a Deimos and a couple of interceptors. Then the order was given to withdraw. My first fleet battle had been something of an anticlimax.

The next couple of weeks were rather quiet. Annoyingly I managed to miss about four fleet ops, but I did manage to get on a couple. That kept things lively and I also tested out a new ship type: the destroyer. These ships are equipped with eight weapon slots and excel at taking out frigate sized ships. I was having fun with it and the few mock battles in which I had tested it, it had performed admirably. I bloodied it for the first time during a gate camp. A Manticore landed next to me and I immediatly trained the Catalyst's many guns on it. It melted and I got some nice loot out of it. Shortly after I lost my first destroyer. A friendly Vagabond was being attacked by three enemy ships, a couple of hundred km of the gate. Two of them were frigate class ships, ideal for my destroyer. I fleeted up with him and initiated warp. Just as I got into warp about eight more ships landed next to the vagabond. Unfortunately they were enemy ships. There was nothing I could do accept watch my ship land right in the midst of the enemy ships. I was obliterated, along with the Vagabond.

I had also discovered the delights of hidden complexes. These hidden places had to be scanned out using probes, but could hold very valuable treasure. Teaming up with a few mates I did my first few, and made quite a pretty penny. Unfortunately, I didn't have a big enough ship to do these on my own so for now I will have to share the spoils. Because of said 'plexes and ratting, I was finally making enough money in null sec to once again move up a ship class. With great glee I purchased my first battlecruiser. A delightfully vicious ship called a Brutix. With this new toy I could finally do a few of the lower level 'plexes on my own. This would open up many doors for me as I would be able to be a lot more independent, and would significantly increase my ISK flow.

I hadn't flown a frigate for a while so I jumped in my old reliable Tristan and took it for a spin. It was initially rather dull as I found now viable targets. I had to escape a couple of gate camps, but that was about the only excitement I had. Then I reached a system brimming with enemies. I couldn't isolate any of them though and was just about to give up and leave when one of them offered me a 1 V 1. I was delighted and agreed. I warped to the pre-arranged point and met his Jaguar head on. An tech II assault frigate versus my tech I frigate. This was going to be tough. His guns hurt, but apparently so did mine. I burned through his shields with consummate ease, his armour was more of a challenge. I was forced to overheat almost every module on my ship to keep up with the damage he was dishing out on me, and to try and finish him off before he got me. It was an intense fight, one if the best I have ever had, but unfortunately I lost. But only just. The Jaguar was in structure when my ship died, so I think my little frigate made a good showing.

I made my move to null-sec and I love it.

Greener grass - Part I

2009-09-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Having spent the last few months running with the Tuskers, I have recently found myself longing for more action than a life of piracy can provide. Not that it is devoid of action, far from it, but as strange as this seems, I long for war. This may sound idealistic, but I want to have objectives to complete. When I undock I want to have a purpose other than meaningless destruction. So with a heavy heart I handed in my resignation and began the search for my new corporation. Unknown to me at the time I exited the Tuskers, my good friend Caster Rom was also on the search for a new corporation. He seemingly had the same urges as me and has joined a corporation called District 9, a member of the alliance Ushra'khan. They operate in the southern reaches of the galaxy around Curse. Meanwhile my search continued.

I advertised myself on several different channels and to my surprise and delight I attracted quite a lot of attention. Within a couple of days my inbox was full of mails inviting me to join dozens of different corporations. Some I disregarded immediately as they were not what I was looking for or the mails were just one liners asking me to join. If I was going to join a corporation, I wanted to be in one that wanted me enough to spend some time on the mails. Having sifted through the pile and gathered a few that I liked the sound of I joined public channels and had conversations with CEO's and recruitment officers. Again the ones that didn't suit me or were not particularly forthcoming about their operations I rejected, in favour of the ones that answered all my questions and were nice people. Eventually after narrowing my search down, I was left with one corporation: Gravis Unbound, a member of The Council. To my delight there base wasn't even that far from Hevrice; less than thirty jumps. It was also only eight jumps from Jita so supplying myself with everything I needed would be a cinch. So the arduous process of moving began. Luckily I could fit most of my essentials in my borrowed industrial in one run. There were only a few ships that I couldn't fit in but I flew those manually at a later date.

At this point I was still based in low-sec and getting to know the surrounding locations. I had to soak up a massive amount of information in a very short space of time. Once I was settled in with the corp in low-sec, it was time to move to null-sec. I tentatively moved a couple of ships out to an alliance station, using jump bridges to shorten my journey; another new experience. Remembering my last few forays in 0.0, I was being incredibly cautious. There was nothing to fear however as most systems were either empty or full of the comforting blue stars of fellow alliance members. I set up a jump clone in the alliance station so I could easily zip back and forward between the two places, without having to travel. While I was still sorting out all of my logistics, I was really getting to know the people in my new corporation and starting to learn about how the alliance worked. The size of it and the organisation required was staggering. I was determined to get as involved in it as much as I possibly could, hopefully that would mean I would get into more scraps.

The first major op that I went on with Gravis was so unlike anything I ever went on with The Tuskers, it was almost unreal. We were heading out POS bashing. A task I count as one of the milestones in this universe, along with others such as your first kill etc. Me in my stealth bomber, one guy in a battleship, and most impressively, three dreadnoughts. I arrived at the first tower we had targeted, all stealthy like. I got a good warp in for the slow dreads and as the tower was undefended, I decloaked and started firing. I might as well have been throwing rocks at it. The thing had millions of shield hitpoints, so I hardly made a dent. When the dreads arrived though it was a different story. They are huge, beautiful, and awesome in their power. They knocked chunks off the towers armour, although it was still a good fifteen minutes of constant shooting to get it into reinforced mode. We noted the length of time its Strontium would last for and come back when it was once again vulnerable. For the uninitiated I should explain. When a POS's shields are taken down to 25% they start to consume a resource called Strontium Clathrates. These make the shield temporarily invulnerable, but any other modules linked to the tower loose power. This gives the owners of the tower time to organise a proper defence.

While we were waiting for it to drop out of reinforced mode we decided to go for another tower. This one though was much more heavily defended. It had turrets, EWAR, a warp jammers. Once again I got a good warp in for the cumbersome dreadnoughts, but I remained cloaked. The guns would have atomised me in about the amount of time it takes the average person to blink, if I had uncloaked. The dreads arrived and I moved to a safe distance so they wouldn't uncloak me and they started pounding away at the various armaments attached to the tower. Priority was given to the warp jammer. After that was disabled, a couple of the guns were taken out, and then they started beating the shield. All was going well when a Lachesis appeared on grid. It quickly lit a cyno and three enemy dreadnoughts jumped in, along with a handful of sub-caps. Over the course of ten minutes or so the dreads pounded on each other. It was obvious the enemy was going to win because they had support, so the Gravis dreads decided to self destruct to deny them the victory. I valiantly sacrificed myself to destroy one of the wrecks and keep the valuable loot out of the enemies hands.

After all that excitement things calmed down for a few days, and I decided it was high time that I moved in null-sec proper, and started to utilise some of the ships I already had out there. I did a couple of runs back and forward to get a few ships down there. Once completed, I had a decent amount of supplies, a Vexor, a Thorax, and an Enyo down there. So having set up my base of operations, I began to explore the surrounding area, as always the first thing you must do when you move somewhere new. For the first few days I did very little other than rat to build up my isk reserves and set up safe spots. It was all going rather well until on my way back I was ambushed by a group of three pilots. An Omen, a Rupture, and a Ferox. My cheap and cheerful Vexor never stood a chance and was blown to bits. I brought word of this incursion into our territory back to the alliance and a small group of pilots, four including me, jumped in combat ships and headed out. I was trying the Thorax for the first time, and had opted for a fit geared entirely towards damage output. The other three guys were also in tech I cruisers. We caught up with them a few systems away and jumped them at a gate. A couple of people went for the Omen and me and the last pilot went for the Rupture. I have to say I was impressed by the damage my thorax was dishing out; it was blowing chunks out of the Ruptures armour. The engagement seemed to be going well when the enemy combat group got a reinforcement in the shape of a Sleipnir command ship. It immediately pounced on me and I melted like an ice cube in a desert. Being geared towards damage, I had a tank about as effective as a wet paper bag, so I went down in a matter of seconds. Another pilot lost his cruiser and we had to withdraw.

I experienced my second ambush only a few days later. Coming back in our home system, a Flycatcher and two Manticores attacked me. The Flycatcher held me and the stealth bombers brought me low. They were fit with micro warp drives so I couldn't get close enough to attack them. I had foolishly moved away from the gate so I couldn't jump through to safety. I desperately called for help, as my tank started to waver. At the last minute a friendly Megathron showed up and set his rep drones on me in the nick of time. The fearsome presence of the battleship scared my attackers away. If I listed every minor engagement I've had since moving to null sec I would be here a very long time, so I'll move on to something of greater significance: my first large fleet battle.

A mail had been sent out to every member of the alliance informing them that a fleet was being formed. I wanted in on this so I jumped in my ship and joined the fleet. There were about forty of us in total. I have to say, seeing so many ships in one place is rather awe inspiring. As if forty weren't enough I was told that we would be meeting up with a fleet from another alliance. We were waging war.

Bigger is better?

2009-08-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

I am now getting to the point where I have enough money and knowledge to begin to field cruisers more often, and with more effectiveness. Now normally a bigger ship is something to aspire to, and many pilots throughout this galaxy no doubt stare with slack jawed reverence at ships they immediately assume are better purely because they are bigger. Not me though. Admittedly I haven't had the greatest amount of experience with cruisers, but what little I've had has shown me that perhaps bigger is not always better. Not that I'm saying cruisers or battleships are useless, far from it, but I don't think that they are superior in every way to ships smaller than them like some people seem to think.

Cruisers have many advantages over frigates; they can field more fearsome weaponry, a bigger tank, and it expands your range of targets. On the downside however, they cost a lot more, are slower, and easier to hit. These last two in particular, seriously increase the number of potential enemies as well. Gate camps that I could have easily avoided in a speedy frigate, are now lethal to a much slower cruiser. The same goes for when you attack another pilots vessel. Where before, my speed and size protected me from damage, in a cruiser with it's much larger signature radius, I would be well and truly hit. A couple of examples would here and here.

As with everything in this universe its risk/reward: with greater risk, comes greater reward, and ultimately I will take the step up to bigger ships. After all, I can't stay small time forever!

The Hot Stuff

2009-07-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

With the completion of my lessons on thermodynamics, I have started to think about the application of this skill during combat; namely overheating. This is the art of increasing the power going to various systems for a short period of time to increase their effectiveness. So weapons fire faster, armour repairers repair more, nosferatus drain more etc. Basically everything is better. The downside however, is that the extra power creates extra heat that the systems can't deal with, which results in damage. So this means you can only overcharge the systems for a short time or risk rendering them useless which is not particularly helpful in a fight. Due to said restrictions it can be very important at which point in a fight you use this advantage. Used in the right place and it can mean the fight goes in your favour. Use it in the wrong place and the odds can quickly swing in your opponents favour. So I have done some thinking and talked to a few other pilots about how and when to use this ace in the hole.

Straight of the bat I thought of at least two examples of when overheating would have won me the fight. The first instance was a very close fight that I had with a Tristan that ended with me in my capsule and my opponent in less than half structure. A tactical overheat of both my weapons and my repair systems would have allowed me to survive longer and deal more damage. These two factors combined could have turned the tide of battle in my favour. The second example was when I lost an Atron. My little ship didn't quite have the speed to escape the Breacher that was orbiting me like a bird of prey. An overheat to the afterburner would have given me enough speed to escape its warp jammer and I would have lived to fight another day. It's easy to identify where an overheat or two would have helped in a previous encounter, but I suspect that pinpointing the ideal time in a fight is a lot harder. With so much to pay attention to, and battles being as fluid and ever-changing as they are, the moment when the critical overheat could give you the edge or break a stalemate can come and go in an instant.

I have several friends who make great use of overheating and I have also sought out other experienced pilots and coaxed them into talking about when they apply overheating and in what circumstances. The general consensus seems to be that there are several types of scenarios where it is commonly employed.

The first situation involves the longevity of the ship. For example, your armour is going down a little too fast for your liking and your repairer isn't compensating. The overheat increases its effectiveness, giving you additional time in the fight so you can finish off you foe or make your escape.

The second is damage related. Not quite able to break your enemies tank? Need to finish him off quickly before his mates arrive? No problem. A bit of extra juice to the weapon systems increase their rate of fire so damage is dealt faster. This Increase in damage can overwhelm a tank or make for a quick kill followed by a quick getaway.

The third is tackling based. Generally for warp scrams/disruptors. The overheat increases their effective range. Don't think you're going to get in scram range fast enough? Overheat and make sure you get that tackle, and ensnare your prey before it can escape.

These are just a few basic scenarios where this highly versatile skill can be used in. With a few minutes of thought I came up with several other ways that you could use it to gain dominance in a fight. When and what to overheat is also very situational so while there are a few scenarios and rules to think about they can all be blasted out of the airlock in a second and a whole new set of rules can apply. The more I think about this skill the more I realise how versatile it is and how long it is going to take me to identify when, where and what to overheat. I'm going to have to experiment with the application of this skill, I don't think that any amount of theory can prepare you for the various scenarios and their permutations that can be encountered in the real world. So of for some thrills and spills and plenty of heat!

Atron-tastic

2009-07-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

Continuing with my pledge to diversify my ship choices, I have been trialling the Atron. I have to say I love this highly underestimated little frigate, and I mourn the fact that it isn't more widely used. Mind you if it was, it wouldn't be underestimated so maybe it's not such a bad thing! While this little ship may not be able to support the DPS or tank of the more commonly used frigates it does have a rather large speed advantage. This gives it a tactical flexibility that the other frigates lack. This speed allows it to dictate range and so you fight on terms that suit you instead of that suit the opponent. It is much the same principle as interceptors. If things don't go your way though, using the Atron's speed, you can break out. It is also an ideal scout, and tackle ship.

I went for a blaster setup on this test run. Deciding that it probably wouldn't do too well going toe to toe with another blaster frigate, I went in search of cruisers; their guns being too big and slow to track me, when I'm in their face and have my engines to max. It wasn't long before I found one. A Moa class cruiser, that is generally a long range ship. Perfect. I warped in, locked and jammed him and orbited him as close and as fast as I could. He went down in short order, and I didn't get hit once. The pilot had fitted a rather peculiar tank that I had to break through. The little Atron obviously had more teeth then I had given it credit for as it did it in a surprisingly short space of time.

Next I had a few fights that I had to back out of, as they didn't favour me particularly well. One was a Caracal that I had against the ropes. He was only saved by the timely arrival of several friends so I had to get out of there sharpish. Shame really, I would have liked to clock up another cruiser kill in the Atron. Next I tried a mock fight with my friend Katsutro. I wanted to see how it faired against a tough, close range frigate like the punisher. I got some decent damage on him, but he was landing the occasional hit that was slowly eating through my armour. So I ramped up my speed. This stopped him hitting me, but I also started to have trouble hitting him. I need to train up some of my gunnery skills to improve my turret tracking to compensate for this. I wasn't putting out the damage so I had outrange his scram and escape.

The third engagement I tried, was more for shits and giggles than anything else. I didn't expect to beat the ships formidable tank, but I knew he wouldn't be able to hit me. You never know it might have been really badly fit. The ship in question, was the Amarrian heavy interdictor: the Devoter. He was an outlaw so I was free to engage him at the gate. I got into a tight orbit around the tech II cruiser and started blasting. His shields went down easily, but then I hit the anvil of his armour. It was evidently a well fit Devoter as the bar for his armour had gone down only a few percent after a minute or so of blasting. It was a passive tank so I could have beaten him down...it just would have taken about half an hour. Meh, I had half an hour to spare. He still wasn't hitting me, and I had a cargo hold full of ammo so I just kept blasting. I even wryly tried to ransom him for his ship, but he didn't go for it. Then there was a local spike, four or five pilots in the Devoter pilot's corp. All this effort for little old me in my 5mil Atron. It was oddly satisfying. I had to quickly outrange the warp jammer before his mates showed up. Not an easy thing to do when the person jamming you is a heavy interdictor. They have a 30km point, so I had to burn out of there fast. I went to warp just as a couple of battleships and a few cruisers landed next to their mate.

The next ship to feel the bite of the Atron's teeth was a rare faction frigate; a Caldari Navy Hookbill. It was an outlaw and had jumped through a gate and landed next to me. I locked and jammed it. I opened up on it and it started going down. My speed protected me from the worst of the fire but I was still taking damage. He was going down faster though, especially after Latro joined in. The pricey frigate exploded, but unfortunately his pod got away. He did have a few expensive modules fitted to his ship but, annoyingly, they had all gone up in flames and we got left with the dregs.

Next I wanted to try out the Atron as a scout/tackler. I tracked down a Harbinger battlecruiser, for the small fleet I was in. It consisted of me, Ronan, Latro, and a Tusker groupie. The fast lock speed makes the Atron ideal as a tackling ship. I warped in and immediately got point on him, and started blasting. He had already been mauled by the sentry guns at the gate he had warped from so we had a good head start. I held him there, once again sustaining no damage, until the rest of the fleet arrived. We went to work on him, and ate through the rest of his armour and structure. We were going to ransom him for his ship, but there was a local spike. All corp mates of his so we popped his ship. Just then a group of battleships and battlecruisers, landed on grid with us so we warped out.

This is where the so far heroic Atron met its match. Of all things it was a Breacher aided by rats. How embarrassing. The Breacher jumped me at a belt. It was fitted with an AB and a long point and orbited me wide at about 20km. I knew I wouldn't be able to get near it, but with some clever flying I could get out of its point range. I got to 23km away from the Breacher, I would be able to warp any second. Then the rats locked me, and webbed me. With my speed gone, I couldn't get away and I was toast. Ah well, it's only 5mil.

I've got to say I loved flying the Atron, and I shall continue to do so. I have plans for a rail gun fit that I also want to test out. And I still have those unformed plans to fly a Maulus at some point, I have a couple of fits in mind. Diversity is so much more fun.

Diversity

2009-06-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is something my ship choice has been lacking recently, as my kill board will attest to. I need wanted to fly something other than the ever reliable Incursus. So looking at the frigate choice, I plumped for Tristan. This sturdy frigate can fit something that, so far, I haven't really had any experience with: Rockets. So, being the good little student that I am, I went and did all the learning that I required for these babies, and then some. Basic training would not be enough for real combat, so I got some additional operation info and some tips and tricks on how to modify the missiles for longer, faster flight, and how to fit better warheads. Next, after seeking advice from a fellow Tusker and strong advocate for the Tristan, Leo Solunar, I bough myself a couple of ships and all the fittings I would need. I took it out on a roam with the Tuskers, the first target to feel the bite of my Tristan's weapons was a Harbinger battlecruiser. It went down in a very short space of time, we all stopped firing when it was on about 2-3% structure and tried to ransom the ship. The pilot wouldn't have it though so the ship bit the dust. The pod was snared but the pilot obviously didn't value his life as he refused ransom again. He woke up in a fresh clone. The second victim, also a battlecruiser, was a Drake, that Leo Solunar had probed out. We warped in and got a point on him, and he went down under the massed fire power of the rats and our fleet. This is where things got messy, the target identified was a Myrmidon. This encounter did not go well and several frigates were lost including my shiny new Tristan. Oh well. I had another.

The next day, for another change of pace, I hopped into a Vexor. This is a cruiser class ship that I flew a lot in my early days but hadn't flown for some time. My skills in it were average at best, but this didn't matter, as I managed to get in on two battleship kills. They were exploring a dead space complex together, and had been probed out. I arrived late into the battle so didn't get in an enormous amount of damage, but we still managed to bag a Dominix and a Megathron kill. As with the Tristan the previous day, what seemed like a promising start crashed and burned. Much like my Vexor. This is where my lack of skills started to show through, I was engaged by a Drake at a gate and was holding him there until the others arrived. However I could not dish out enough damage and couldn't tank the formidable damage coming from the battlecruiser. As a result my cruiser exploded, and the Drake escaped. Determined not to waste a night I went back to Hevrice and picked up the other Tristan that I had brought over. This time things went much better, and we notched up a few decent kills. The first was a Myrmidon. It was engaged by three of the fleet while me and Caster Rom went to get our ships. We both arrived at the scene just in time to make a few token shots at the ship before it was obliterated. The second kill was a much better showing of the Tristan's abilities. I scanned out a Caracal at an asteroid belt and warped in to get point. The mighty Tristan tore through the ship and I had it deep into armour before the rest of the fleet arrived to finish it off. I could have easily soloed it. The Caracal pilot obviously had a friend in the system, as just as he exploded a Hurricane landed on grid with us. While attempting to help his friend was very noble, it was a foolish mistake and died in seconds to our combined firepower. The Caracal pilots pod had been snared in during the action but he refused ransom and was killed.

Later that same night, after the fleet had disbanded I took the Tristan out to see how it performed without backup. The answer? Very well apparently. I managed to get three solo kills in the space of an hour or so. The first was a Burst who was foolishly sitting in a belt and mining. He went down in three volleys. There was nothing to be gained from killing him so I let the poor excuse for a pilot get away. The second kill was a Cormorant class destroyer I found clearing out a Caldari complex. He was so focused on his task that he didn't even notice me until I locked on to him, and by then it was far too late to do anything and his ship was engulfed in a ball of flame. I got the pod, but he refused ransom so he was destroyed without mercy. I ran across the pilot of the Cormorant again in another system, once again attempting to clear out a complex, this time in a Merlin. I jumped him again, but this time he was paying attention. Instead of running away, he targeted me and attacked me. It didn't end well for him, before I was even in half shields his ship died. He was on the ball though and his pod got away. I decided I liked the Tristan.

About a week later I went out on a roam with the Tuskers. Still in the Tristan, me and another pilot called Gilad Ayn, also a Tusker, took out a Thorax. Gilad got point and by the time I arrived the cruiser was almost dead, and I just got some token damage. Then someone else in the fleet said they had detected a few ships missioning. This was the perfect opportunity for me to test out my latest toy: a Helios covert ops ship. I had paid the hefty price for this ship, once again in the name of diversity. Also expanding one's repertoire of skills is never a bad thing. I set to work probing the battlecruiser out, and located the Myrmidon at a mission site. When the fleet warped in though he was far enough away to escape before we reached him. I warped back to the entry point, using the incredibly useful cloaking device to remain hidden. I was to notify the rest of the fleet if the pilot returned. Something much better happened however. I was flying around the gate when all of a sudden I uncloaked. This only happens if you come within 2000m of something else. I was confused because the only thing on my overview was the acceleration gate. Then an Arazu decloaked as well. This was a tech II cruiser, a recon ship. Basically a bigger, nastier version on my ship. The odds of bumping into him in the vastness of space were insane, but I had done it. Luckily the pilot wasn't paying attention and he didn't notice. I quickly called in the fleet and the expensive ship was reduced to salvage. The inattentive pilot had obviously gone to get a coffee or something. Then another stroke of luck; the Myrmidon pilot returned. With our fleet still sitting at the gate, he was jammed in seconds and quickly destroyed. The pod escaped. The rest of the night went very badly indeed. We scanned out a Mitari recon ship called a Huugin, and Leo went in to get point. The rest of the fleet warped in to destroy another expensive ship. Then the Huugin's friends warped in and the fight turned into an all out rout. It was fleet of tech II cruisers, with a Taranis as a tackler. Among them were two Vagabonds and an Ishtar. Three frigates were lost; Leo's Ishkur, Man Barthelme's Rifter, and Caster Rom's Taranis. All I could do was sit, cloaked at a distance and watch my friends get killed. It was certainly interesting though.

Licking out wounds we returned to Hevrice. Several people jumped in battleships and we scouted around for a target once more. We found one in Hevrice, a Megathron battleship. It docked up though so we blockaded the station. I was still in my Helios so once again I was watching, and providing information. The Megathron undocked and he was immediately locked, jammed, and hamemered by weapon fire. Then one of his friends undocked in a Nidhoggur class carrier. It launched fighters, and in a scarily short space of time decimated two battleships and a battlecruiser. Ronan and Leo both lost ships. It was a spectacular battle to watch, and rather awe inspiring to see the power of capital ships from the safety of my cloaked covert ops ship.

My most recent adventure, or rather misadventure, involved me, a friend called Brennander, and a Tusker called Ghoststalker. We went out on a roam, that initially went well. We bagged a Catalyst and narrowly missed his two mates. We scanned the two remaining ships to a moon and I warped there to check it out. Instead of finding our quarry, I found a young pilot in a Vexor. I reported the find and headed towards it. I got point, and called the others in. I had melted his shields and his armour was going the same way. Then he deployed warrior II drones. This surprised me, I did not suspect such a young pilot would have the necessary skills to use such deadly weapons. What I thought would be an easy kill turned into three easy kills for the Vexor pilot, as his drones tore all three of our frigates apart. Brenn lost a Merlin, Ghost lost a Rifter, and I lost a Tristan. After all those adventures, I've decided that I'm going to try and vary the ships I use as often as possible to keep things fresh and interesting. I have plans for a Maulus fit that I want to try out, and I want to try using the Atron as well. I'm also going to brush up on my cruiser skills and get out in those a little more often. I hope all the ships are as successful as my Tristans.

Protégé

2009-06-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

My good friend Katsutro seems to be loving his new life as a pilot. He has been contracting missions from local agents to rake a bit of much needed ISK; life as a pilot requires much more money than his previous, land-bound life. He has been very interested in my career lately, and has persuaded me to introduce him to my trade. My trade being, of course, piracy. So I became his teacher, of sorts. I have to say he has taken to it like a duck to water, even if I have rather cruelly thrown him in at the deep end. The deep end being nullsec raid with my new family, The Tuskers. I have already recorded the details of said raid, and you can read them here. After that things calmed down for him somewhat as I took him on a few little roams, most notably on one such occasion he had tracked down and pointed a Thorax. He then diligently called me in for backup, I had to destroy the drones that were eating away at his punisher, and then I moved on to help him destroy perhaps the worst fitted ship I have ever seen. He also managed to get in on some Tusker roams as well. He's getting heavily into it, and he is even considering moving his base of operations out of the cradle, that is high sec, to the much less forgiving wilderness of low sec.

One day, after I had had a particularly hard nights drinking, I was in no fit state to plug into my ship, let alone fly it in combat, so I conducted that day's lesson from a darkened room over the communications network. I directed him to a well known hunting ground, to scout for targets. He was practising using the ships on-board scanner; something every pirate must know how to use swiftly and efficiently if they are ever going to locate a target. He caught on quickly, and had soon identified a target at an asteroid belt. He warped in and landed in the face of a Catalyst destroyer. He locked, scrambled, and opened fire on the unfortunate ship. His shouts of glee over the comms caused my already considerable headache to send out further pulses of pain. Wincing I turned the volume down. His rampant paranoia had taken a hold of him, by the time I turned the volume back up. Another ship had landed on the belt with them, an Executioner frigate. It was a hundred kilometres away though so I told him not to worry and to finish off the destroyer. It was approaching him at high speed though and his worried enquiries about how to proceed floated over the comms. I urged him to finish off his target then go for the frigate if he wasn't too badly damaged. The Catalyst popped and his cries of happiness burst out of the speakers in my rented room. They were cut short by the Executioners lasers. He immediately engaged the agile frigate, cursing quietly.

This was to be a somewhat lengthy fight. The opposing pilot, while young, obviously knew what they were doing and had fitted their frigate to take advantage of its speed and agility. Kats couldn't get any solid hits on the frigate, as it was orbiting wide and he had close range crystals fitted to his ship. He had, unfortunately, forgotten to put a spare long range set in his cargo hold for just such a scenario. I advised him to disengage, but his assailants speed preventing him from getting out of scrambling range. The tough Punisher, Katsutro's ship of choice, was holding out though. At this rate it looked like the fight would end when the other pilot got bored. Kat's cursing and pathetic cries for help were increasing in volume now, and I was once again forced to lower the volume on my comms. I quickly swallowed a few pain pills to relieve my headache, and tried to get him to listen to me. I told him to get close to the asteroids, and see if he could get the orbiting ship to collide with one. It would be forced to momentarily slow down to avoid the lump of rock and minerals, this would allow the sluggish punisher to close the distance between them and get some solid shots in. It worked, allowing punisher to rip through the smaller frigates shields, but it was soon out of range again. The pilot didn't fall for it again, and was slowly whittling away at the Punisher. He begged me to jump in my ship and come to his aid. If I hadn't had such a blinder of a headache his tone would have sent me into convulsive laughter. The pills I had been chugging all morning had started to take the edge of my headache so I said I would. Laboriously, I climbed into my frigate and set off to save his skin. He'd owe me big time for this.

Several jumps later I landed on the belt with the two sparring frigates. Kudos to Kats he was holding out admirably. The wily Executioner pilot immediately registered me as a bigger threat and set in to engage. I was hitting it initially, but it altered its orbit to a much larger radius, and switched out to longer ranged crystals to pop at me from a safe distance. How tiresome. With a few feints, I tricked the pilot into coming closer and that was the end. The tenacious ship exploded and a torrent of thanks flooded the interior of my ship. Kats really needs to grow a backbone, and stop being such a snivelling wreck all the time. A life of piracy will soon crush that out of him. With my headache significantly worsened I docked up and fell into the rough cot in my room.

A Tusker at Last

2009-06-07T04:32:00.000-07:00

The last solo kill. This had been bugging me for weeks now. I'd had enough, today was the day I was going to get it. I plugged into my trusty Incursus and headed off looking for targets. To my unbridled joy, I came across one almost immediately: an Exequror cruiser ratting at a belt. I eagerly warped in and landed right next to him. I locked him opened fire and tried to scramble his warp engines. The paranoid pilot must have had a full rack of warp core stabilisers fitted to his ship though because he still managed to warp out. I took a hefty toll on his ship though, getting him into half armour before he fled, but that wasn't much consolation. The universe was teasing me. Presenting me with juicy targets, and snatching them away before I can land the finishing blow. Bitterly, I carried on with my hunt, scanning all the while. My next target was a Caracal cruiser, a missile boat. So long as it wasn't fitted with assault missiles, I would be able to dodge the majority of its fire. I scanned him down and landed on the belt; a little further away than I would have liked but close enough. I got hit a couple of time approaching the ship but once at orbit distance I was safe(ish). He was in structure when another ship landed on the belt with us: An Ishkur assault frigate. It was obviously this pilots mate as it immediately targeted me. I desperately tried to land the finishing blow on the Caracal, but the Ishkur got its drones on me. Once again I had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I escaped with barely a quarter structure. This was getting tiresome.

I was complaining about my rotten luck over the communications network to several friends when I happened upon a Cormorant destroyer at a belt. I locked and scrambled him. My guns tore into him, and, blissfully, he melted. The blossoming explosion of his ship was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I had broken my ill luck, and my Tusker application was finally complete. I put the application in and all I had to do now was wait for someone to review it. The ill luck was definitely broken, as I got a Coercer destroyer and a Rifter frigate on scan at a belt. I landed on a fight already in progress and targeted the frigate. It escaped though so I moved on to the destroyer. The Rifter pilot had already demolished the ships shields, and I finished what it had started. Eager for the next day to arrive, I docked up at the station and had an early night. When I woke up the next morning, I checked my mail. One of them was a congratulatory letter from Wensley of the Tuskers. Finally. I was a Tusker.

Death and Destruction

2009-06-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

What an eventful few days I've had. Full of delicious kills. It started with an invitation to go on a nullsec roam with the Tuskers. I was informed that this was, near as dammit, a suicide run to scout it out and see what we could come up with. It sounded like a right laugh and I immediately signed up. I had just taken a new pilot under my wing by the name of Katsutro and he was eager for some pirating experience so I thought I'd bring him along as well. As a Tusker pilot by the name of Joc colourfully described it we were going to "pop his pvp cherry". He was a friend that I had made on a station that I had kept in contact with, and he always wanted to hear about my latest kills. He'd finally had enough of merely hearing about them and filed for his pilot's license. Anyway I digress. We fitted out frigates for speed, and headed off. Quickly jumping through systems, not letting ourselves get distracted by potential targets, we quickly reached our destination. We jumped into nullsec and were instantly faced with a huge battleship gate camp. There were about eight or nine in total, but we were too quick and warped to the next gate. Where we met our first victim, a Hawk assault frigate. We outnumbered him eight to one, as we locked, scrambled, and destroyed him in mere seconds. He was too slow and his pod also bit the dust. As it turned out though, he was a scout for a much more fearsome gang than our paltry little frigates. The stargate we were next to begin to flash, warning or the imminent arrival of a group of ships. Before we could do anything, a group of heavy assault cruisers uncloaked from the gates protective field and attacked us. Losses were heavy. In a few minutes we lost four ships; me, Leo Solunar, Menthez, and Joc. We were out classed and massively outgunned. I managed to escape in my pod, but Joc wasn't so lucky. Leo Solunar also failed to escape.

I quickly fled out of nullsec to the (relative) safety of lowsec, and headed back to our home system of Hevrice. I later found out we took further losses; the same gang had followed the survivors and taken an even greater toll on us. Egrat's rather exspensive Claw was reduced to scrap, as well as Caster Rom's Incursus. Caster was also unfortunate and was podded. Sometime later Egrat had returned with another ship, this was also destroyed. It was not all bad news, though. Another kill was bagged in the shape of a Crow interceptor. Meanwhile, Katsutro, had somehow survived all of this. He had however, been seperated from the rest of group in the turmoil and was now desperatly trying to find his way out of the labyrinthine nullsec and back in lowsec. He pleas for help over the fleet communications network were hilarious. The terrified pleas for help turned into cries of terror as the roaming gang caught up with him and blew both his ship and his pod to smithereens. All I could manage was to nearly cry with laughter as I listened from the safety of a station. When we met up and had a drink afterwards, he too agreed it was one the funniest things he had ever heard when I played him a recording of it.

Things calmed down after that for a few days. I then went hunting on my own, still searching for that elusive final "above class" kill. I was in Adirain when the ideal target came up. While scanning I came across a Merlin and a Rupture ratting together. Quickly checking out the pilots, I discovered to my delight they were pretty new. The Rupture pilot, no doubt flying a ship he wasn't properly equipped to fly, would be an easy kill. The Merlin would also be easy but I didn't really care about him, he would probably flee the moment I landed on grid. I warped in and landed at the belt. I was a few kilometres out and unfortunately this gave the Rupture time to escape. The Merlin however made the rookie mistake of trying to fly between asteroids and had become stuck. Well at least I would get one kill. As his ship exploded, the Rupture pilot foolishly returned, perhaps in the vain hope of trying to rescue his friend. I pounced on him, and slowly began eating his shield away. His weapons were ineffective against me, doing barely any damage. I had him at about half armour and there was nothing he could do. Then I too made the rookie mistake of hitting an asteroid. My orbit around his ship had taken me into it. I lost vital speed. This allowed him, and the battleship rat also taking pot shots at me to land a few decent hits. They hurt. This unfortunate incident meant I had to warp out leaving the rupture to escape while I repaired. Curses.

Later that same evening I linked up with a few Tuskers to go after some likely looking targets, in the system. There was Alex Rudd, who did a truly spectacular job of scanning out targets for us, Caster Rom, and Rat Hick. We were all in frigates. The first target tracked down was a Vexor. Annoyingly I was on the other side of the system scanning for targets, and by the time I arrived the cruiser was already finished, as was its pilot. Our next target was somewhat larger. An Apocalypse battleship in a mission. Thanks to Alex we could locate the precise position of it and warped straight there. It didn't stand a chance. Our guns tore it apart. We were too small and too fast for it to bring its formidable weaponry to bear on us, and it was quickly reduced to structure. We held our fire and ransomed the pilot for his ship. We got a nice 60 million ISK from the pilot and allowed the ship to go on its way still intact. Just. Split four ways that 15 million each. A good start to the evening.

Next we managed to corner another known enemy in a Harbinger battle cruiser. Our samll ships avoided the fire for the Harbinger's guns as we blasted our way through the ships rather extensive armour. We eventually got through the armour and into structure. We attempted to ransom, but the pilot refused and we destroyed his ship. The quick witted pilot managed to escape, but there was a wealth of valuables left in the ships wreck that would fetch a pretty penny. This was turning out to be a rather profitable night.

A few solo frigate kills followed as we fanned out looking for targets. We jumped a group of known enemies at a belt but once again I stuffed up and missed the fight. We got two frigates and a pod in that encounter. Then Alex informed us that he had got a Myrmidon on scan so we warped to it and opened fire. Its drones caused us some headaches and we had to concentrate on taking them out for the first few minutes of the fight. Unfortunately we were too slow to save Rat Hick and his frigate exploded. This just left me and Caster to take him out. We beat him down into structure and again tried to ransom him. He wasn't having any of it though so we blew his ship to smithereens. We managed to lock and scramble his pod, and tried to ransom him for his life, but again he refused. We introduced his body to the cold vacuum of space. Alex then got a location for another battle cruiser, this time a Drake. We warped to it but it managed to escape. We chased it around for a few minutes before cornering it at a planet. We took care of its drones, and then began slowly powering our way through the Drake's formidable shields. It's missiles proved aggravatingly accurate, and I took a few good hits which forced me to withdraw or face destruction. Caster had to ramp up his speed in order to avoid the deadly warheads. Alex swapped his probing ship for a Stabber to supply the muscle to break through the Drake's shields. I warped back in to help break through, but the pilot targeted me again and took another uncomfortably accurate hit which forced me to once again withdraw. Alex got a hammering, but the giant finally fell. The pilot escaped but we got some nice loot from his wreck. After a successful days hunting, I retired to the nearest station for a good nights sleep.

On Teamwork

2009-05-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

Or rather the lack of it on the op I participated in last night. I started the evening roaming solo, searching for the ever elusive, final "above class" kill. I attempted to track a likely target: a caracal with a young pilot. Unfortunately he escaped without me being able to take a shot at him. So I decided to see if I could motivate a few Tuskers to do a little fleet op. I got three pilots on side; Caster Rom, Egrat, and Leo Solunar. We decided cruisers were the order of the day, so I hopped out of my faithful Incursus and into my Vexor. Leo and Caster brought a Thorax apiece, and Egrat brought along an Arbitrator. We spent a good fifteen minutes sorting out the fits for our ships, so that they complemented each other nicely. The Thoraxes were both gank fitted, the Arbitrator was decked out as a multipurpose support ship, and me? Well I was the bait. The Tuskers were well known in this area as pirates so no one would go for any traps they laid, which is where I came in. Not being officially associated with the Tuskers people would think I was soloing and try to jump me for an easy kill, at which point the other three would jump in to the rescue and duff up the ship intent on taking me out. If only our teamwork and communication were as good as our plan and setups.

We set out, jumping through systems looking for targets. We came across a few likely targets in one system: a trio of young pilots in mix of ships ranging from a battlecruiser to an interceptor. We tried to track them down, but we couldn't get a bead on them and they soon left the system. There was also a Hurricane battlecruiser in the system that I successfully baited but unfortunately failed to catch and hold long enough for my friends to show up. The next target was where the problems started. We got a Harbinger battlecruiser on scan and Caster managed to coax him into following him for to a belt. He called point and we started to warp. We should have warped earlier, cruisers are sluggish and we reached the belt too late to save Caster, but just in time to witness his ship exploding. The Harbingers weapons had shredded his ship in about thirty seconds. It saw us arrive and warped out. Caster escaped in his pod and I collected the things from his wreck so he didn't lose too much money. Then all of a sudden the Harbinger was back! He had made a mistake in returning, a mistake that the three of us that remained would make him pay for. We engaged. Just then we noticed Egrat wasn't here. We sorely needed his Arbitrator to jam the Harbingers oh-so-lethal weaponry with his ECM drones. We Desperately called Egrat back, the panic in our voices very pronounced at this stage. We had thought that with the Arbitrator backing us up we had a distinct advantage, its absence put the ball cleanly in the opposing pilots court and Leo's Thorax swiftly followed Casters as the ships lasers carve his ship into cubes. I was the only one that remained. If could just hold out long enough for Egrat to arrive, I could finish him. My Vexor held out well and tanked more damage than I thought it would. I dished out a healthy amount of damage, eating away at his armour with my blasters and drones, and just starting to bleed him into structure, unfortunately at this point I was deep into structure. Then Egrat arrived with his Arbitrator, and the tables turned, if only for a short time. Egrat's ECM drones jammed the Harbinger, and he lost lock. This had saved me I was barely on 10% structure. I focused fire hoping to get through the last of his armour, but he was tanking, and it was slow. I would get through his armour, get a shot of at his structure, then some of his armour was repaired. If Egrat could keep him locked I might just be able to....he achieved lock. I exploded. Egrat fled. The day undoubtedly belonged to the skilled pilot of the Harbinger, who also seemed to be in possession of a rather large bucket full of luck. With three loses and zero kills, we limped back to our home station of Hevrice and we called it a night.