Friday 13 March 2009

Lost in Space.

With the Apocrypha expansion upon us i'm going to try something that i've wanted to do for a long time - explore uncharterd space.

This long ago became impossible on TQ with the arival of Jump bridges, jump drives and various websites telling you everything you need to know about every system without you having to go and see for yourself. So as soon as i've packed up some gear i'll be diving head first into WH space with a mining barge, a combat ship and some provisions with the aim of making a thriving and sustainable home away from the current main empires.

Anyway, i'll update whenever i'm bored or the boss is looking the other way.

Monday 2 July 2007

Yet another great weekend. I stared it by getting a hanger full of alloys with two triple BS spawns, logged for lunch and then signed back in.


As soon as I’d loaded my corp chat exploded, “grab a ship, any ship!” WTF??

It turns out that one of our allies was under attack by another alliance that wanted to move into 0.0 space. We didn’t want this to happen so mounted up to help defend their space. 23 pilots left out home system and headed the 20+ jumps to assist.

Once we arrived we realised just how well defended they were the main gate had well over 140 ships sat on it, all with drones out and organised into groups depending on the ship role, the tacklers were orbiting the gate tightly, the snipers were sitting 150-200 KM from the gate (with BC & Frig support), and the damage dealers were scattered around with drones deployed so that no-one would get past.

The systems that we had come to defend were a bottle neck, with one way in and one way out. The aggressors were inside, being harassed by friendly gangs and unable to leave due to the gate blockade. No more re-enforcements could get through, unless they were on our side, and with constant gangs roaming to kill scouts the chance of a capital fleet jumping on us was remote at best.

After 10 minutes of sitting at the gate, waiting for a target to shoot the word came that they wanted to negotiate for terms. They had lost over 60 ships, and killed just three.

We’re not sure how it panned out, or what the terms were as we were thanked for the help and sent on our way home. It was then we decided to go for a roam around our space to keep the locals in check. Unfortunately no-one seemed to be out and we were left flying with no targets at all.


The fleet operation was very good practice though, and a lot of fun.

Wednesday 27 June 2007

One ship down, Hundreds to go.

I’m back to eve now after a short break in order to go to a very muddy music festival in the south of England. First day back I spent over 12 hours ratting, with hanger full of alloys I couldn’t decide what to do with it. I had three choices, sell it for 75% of empire value, refine it and sell it myself, or refine it and make stuff to sell. I went for the thirst option and I’m now the proud owner of over 1000 E-War drones of various sizes.

I’m hoping the demand for these if high, as no-one else seems to be selling them within 20 jumps. If they don’t I can always use them myself I guess…

Whilst I was waiting them to build I decided on to go for a roam. The first place I set as my destination was a collection of systems that are regularly frequented by macro’s in very full haulers. Unfortunately it must be a Chinese holiday as no-one was around so I headed on over to space belonging to Stella Polar, an alliance that for some reason or other are set to red with us, so shoot on sight.

Three jumps from their home system the map showed five pilots active in space, considering I was in a frigate I wasn’t overly confident about my chances but carried on regardless.

Jumping into the system I hit the scan button, nothing showed. Moving to the other star gate I scanned again, and got a command ship and a raven, with no POS on scan. I managed to scan them down to one of two belts and warped in, just in time to see then run away from me. Not sure why, I was in a frigate and unless ravens have received a serious nerf he should have been able to tank my damage.

Oh well, no fight so I headed home.

Three jumps from my home base I saw a shuttle slow boating it towards a gate, I followed and got a lock. Only to see it jump. Following the thought dawned on me that it could be bait for a gate camp on the other side. Unfortunately I was already going through.

An ship was sat on the other side and had me locked b4 I had seen him. Hitting all the buttons on my HUD I waited for the ransom demand, none came. Awesome, a good old fashioned fight. We had each other scrambled and webbed so neither was getting out until it was over. Unfortunately my NOS and two rocket launchers didn’t hold out against his 200mm cannons for very long and although I got him well into armour I died a valiant death trying to protect my little ship.

Luckily my pod escaped, as my clone was set back to empire, I’ve changed that now.

Back to the grind stone, going to buy myself some more BP’s and carry on building up the collection, only have 200 so far.

Thursday 14 June 2007

Peskey gate camps

Although it started nice enough it’s been a fairly annoying week.

During the weekend I did a bit more flying round shooting things than usuall, and even took a 50+ jump round trip to help some people out in their war (friends).

The call went out for help late last week, we were told that an alliance to our north was under attack and that Proper response were invading their space and trying to kick them out. As we were on good term with them our leaders said that we would help out with the fighting and send pilots accordingly.

Me and a corp mate set course on Saturday night and off we went, only to get their and find the whole situation in a mess, with no real leadership. No-one seemed to know what was going on, or where the bad guys were. Then talk came through that they were talking peace and that proper response may be surrendering. We wanted a fight god damn it!


Back we went to our own space, as reports were now coming in of a large fleet assembling in a system only 1 cyno jump from out home system, not a good place for it to be. Full throttle we headed back, guns at the ready, spoiling for a fight.

Half the way home we managed to catch up with two ships that belonged to a corp we know to be ISK farmers. One in an Iteron Mk 5 and the other in a Bestower, we decided to try and get them both.

As I was in the lead I over took them in warp (being in a frigate has it’s perks) and set up on the other side of the next gate they were due through whilst my corpie followed at a distance to help out once I had them locked in place.

Through one came, the Iteron, my eyes lit up. It could only be a matter of time before his friend came through and joined the (one sided) fight so I locked and activated my warp scrambler. Rockets tore through the space between us and into his hull, the ship turned, he was trying to warp. Then away he went, with his shield half way down he had got away. Going back through the gate I started looking for his friend when they both logged of. Any prospect of the kill gone.


We carried on home hoping that the fight would still be raging when we got their only to find it log over after the enemy fleet had disbanded, they either saw us mustering and thought better of it, or had met up to compare paint jobs. Either way, a night of crap PvP.

I then decided that it was time to fill up on some more skills and fly some much needed modules out to 0.0, so I clone jumped back into empire space.

I’d been their for less than ten minutes when I got killed at a gate camp in a 0.4 system. They were sat tanking the sentries on the gate, and popped my shuttle, and pod with a smart bomb as I warped to the gate. I lost a full set of +3 implants, I’ve avoided the market all day as I don’t really want to know the current value of them.

Tonight should be fun, back to empire, this time in a ship, so that I can re set my jump clone. Life sucks sometimes.

Monday 4 June 2007

Low Sec Stupidity

Just a few hours after posting the previous post I had an accident. Out of pure stupidity I got my nice shiny ship all blown up.

I was wondering back into empire space to put my ship to sleep for the night when I saw a kestrel sitting next to a gate all alone and with no pilot. Thinking that it was a bit weird I slowed to a stop and clicked the “Info” button, mistake.

Seconds later my shields began taking a pounding as two (yes two) ships de cloaked and shot me. Since I was in jump range I went through.

Safe on the other side I sat cloaked for a moment to see if they would follow, they did, I locked them both and started firing, only due to the late hour and several beers I had consumed I had (somehow) managed to lock the star gate. Concord didn’t seem to like this so they blew my ship apart in several well aimed volleys.

I can only imagine the look on my pursuers face when they lost the kill, but gained the loot (all T1, nothing to shout about).

Luckily the whole set up cost me less than 5 mil, I’m not that cut up about the loss, just the massive hole in my ego.

On other news, this weekend has been a busy little time for our alliance. The short story is that some people came spoiling for a fight, and we showed them the door, and got them to replace equipment lost during the fighting. Bless.

I may elaborate on this more during the week, depends what mood I’m in.

The plan for this week is to get back to empire and get some more of this skill finished. I may even see if I can organise some of the empire based alliance members into a low sec gang for a few hours, I’de love to get some FC experience, and I’m not sure 0.0 is the right place to start given the current climate, and the inability of my computer to handle more than 50 ships in the same grid.

Fly safe, see you on the beach…

Friday 1 June 2007

Low Sec Boredom

I haven’t had much chance to play lately, when I have its been back in empire. Don’t worry I’m not sat in Jita. I’m trying to get a big skill out of the way so I’ve moved back to empire so I can use the implants in my jump clone for a week or so. This has left me unsure as to what to do. My standing with agents isn’t very good, as I’ve never been much of a mission runner so I can’t make money that way. I don’t have the patients to run the trade routes, and I don’t have the time to make things, I’m only back for a week!

That left me with one option, PvP.

I’ve sold a load of alloy I had stacked in 0.0 to fund my little endeavour and have set myself up in a system close to the fringes of empire space. My chosen location is only 2 jumps from a well known gate camping position so people to shoot at are in plentiful supply.

I’ve never been a pirate, and don’t intent to be. The only people I’ve shot at have shot me first (or at least locked on). All apart from one, and this guy was just plain stupid.

I was already in a fight with a Kestrel in a belt, he’d been ratting prior to me entering and quickly warped away and docked. Moments later he re appeared in another belt I was in and locked me, tried to scramble me and his web turned on. He wanted a fight.

Seeing an opportunity I bookmarked a wreck 22 km from him and warped out of the system to the first planet in my overview.

Seconds later I descended back into normal space and a red blinking box announced the location of an unfriendly ship 3000km from me. I was fairly sure that the ship I had been fighting couldn’t have beaten me here so locked and checked the pilots info.

He was from an alliance that was at open (although not declared) war with my own and had been part of a several raids that I could remember just from the last few weeks.

What made this a bit harsh is the fact he was flying a shuttle, unarmed, sat next to a planet.

Missiles jumped from my ship and ripped his shields and armour away in one volley. His hull came next as he tried to warp away and soon only his pod was left, floating in a cloud of dust and twisted metal.

As the kill mail appeared I turned my attention to my previous “client” and warped back to the bookmark I had just left moments earlier. The kestrel was still sat their, in the same spot, 22 km away.

I locked on and began firing, he did the same.

Orbiting at 25km my ship kept out of range of his web and sensor damps. Slowly it became obvious that my missiles were doing much more damage than his and I saw his ship begin to turn away, possibly going for warp.

Seizing the chance I changed course and headed right for him, exchanging volleys until the last moment I had his warp scrambled. I turned of my launchers and opened the local chat window.

“Good fight” I said,

“u going to ransom” came the reply.

At this point the idea seemed fairly tempting 2-3 million would be a nice take to replenish my missile bays. I didn’t want a ransom however, so I pointed my ship towards the station and left him alone with a ship that was trailing smoke and body parts, quite content of the good fair fight that I had won. Besides, I had to repent for killing a shuttle…..

I’ve somehow managed not to loose a ship yet, which is bizarre considering I really don’t care about them. Their not hard to replace, and cost chump change, I’ve even been looking for fight. But I guess unless they outnumber you 4-1 no-one want s to fight any more.

What did ever happen to honour amongst soldiers?

Wednesday 16 May 2007

Friggin Fun

Another great night yesterday. A few of us were sat around in out home station, chatting about weapon rigs and throwing cats from the air locks when we decided some gang action would be fun. Seven of us ganged up together and headed out.

We had already decided that we would be using frigates as they are very cheap and we didn’t really have any desire to bring them home again. We were out to have some fun, and hopefully get someone else to come play with us.

We formed up at a gate and set of, with a scout always one jump ahead to call out contacts and the gang tightly controlled to keep us together.

And so it began….

Several jumps in and all we’d seen were friendly’s on they way to scout meetings and bake sales, a quick chat to see if any action was expected and we moved on. It quickly became apparent hat for some reason the inhabitants of the drone region had all gone home for the night, and although their were signs of fighting, (pod kills in last hour etc..) we were yet to find anyone.

Then, just as the banter became crude, and we started to comment on the colour of each system we hit pay dirt. The scout reported 5 neutrals in the next system. We were each assigned a belt and we jumped in, fingers hovering over the function keys ready to ruin someone’s day.

In we went…. changing session… they sky was red……right click……….bugger.


Their was over 15 asteroid belts, we had been assigned the first 5. By the time we had check them all they would be in deep safe spots. We cut our losses, although we hadn’t lost anything, and left.

Next time we would find out how many belts b4 we jumped into a system, lesson learnt.

After a dozen more jumps, and still no action we we’re starting to get nervous. Had we stumbled onto the test server?

Then we ran into some more blues, after a quick chat we found out that they had just came through a gate camp with multiple big nasty ships sitting pew pewing smaller more vulnerable ships. Sounds like my sought of fight….

We headed towards this mysterious gate with the belief that any self respecting gate camping pirate would gladly fight a few lonely frigates coming back from the depths of 0.0.

Moments later we were on the gate into the system that held hope of a good fight, our scout went in. Vent went quiet. The scout was silent……Loading,…….Loading………

Bugger, "The node has crashed me out!"

Damn.

But hay, who are we to complain, we figured we might as well jump, as even if their was a camp set up on the other side, that’s what we were here for!

We all jumped, are screens went black……screens still black…….still black……..

COME ON CCP THROW ME A BONE HERE!

For two hours I sat and watched my screen change through various shades of black, then maybe that was just the alcohol!


Once I finally got back onto the server took me 4 minutes to traverse the 400m to the gate so that I could jump. I wasn’t happy, especially since most of my gang were either still locked out or had long since logged in and been killed by rats waiting for the ship to respond.

So it was that alone I began the 17 jumps back to my home base so that I could log of knowing that my ship was safe to fight another day.

Then it happened, 6 jumps from home the call went across alliance chat that several tech 2 ships had entered our system and had been actively hunting ED members.

I saw red and started willing my ship to move faster, bolts were shacking, doors were rattling and the engine began to cry as I flew through gate after gate at breakneck speed.

Moments later I entered the loop where we had the guy cornered, I was in a Merlin fitted for drone killing and tackling, so sitting amongst the battleships and destroyers I felt a little small to say the least.

He came through the gate we were passing, I asked with cat like reflexes and jabbed his name until my fingers bled and knuckles wept. In less than a second I had him locked (impressive) and was racing towards him at 800m/s, closing the distance quickly I saw that my gang mates had only just realised he was in system.

His ship started to turn, he was going to try and run into warp. I willed my finger onto a button and it’s icon went green, I had him scrambled! He wasn't going anywhere WOOT.

Now orbiting at 1km I clicked the rest of by icons, NOS turned on, sensor jammers came to life and my web sucked the life from his engine. He was a sitting duck.

He must have known this, but instead of ejecting and warping away he fought on, T2 drones appeared and began shooting, I turned on my smart bombs, and the drones began to cry…..I laughed!


It was all over within two minutes, he was dead, we took no losses and I collected the loot. He was fully fitted with tech 2 gear and fought well. Unfortunately for him, he chose to fly with cowards, his friends logged off before we could hunt them down.


One kill for the night for the gang, which I assisted my making sure the victim remained for the show, I even managed to scramble his Pod as he tried to fly away from his wreck.


The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed during war.”

Chinese Proverb