A Slow Month

Real life has unfortunately prevented me from being in game very much this month so I don't have a lot of fights to write about. However I do have a shiny new set up and hope to be putting it to good use as soon as things die down at work.

I've taken out a TD firetail a few times this month to great success. http://r1der.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16234896 being a good example, with an optimal range script and the thrasher scrammed I'm able to whittle away at their shields with little threat to my ship. I had a fun afternoon flying a rifter, I managed to get in two fights with other rifters, which I won before being outgunned by a small gang of goons. The first goon ship to land was a dual rep incursus which was unable to hit me at 8,000k but my dps was too low to break the reps, I would like to try the rifter against an Incursus again to see if I would be able to run it's cap low enough to break it's tank. 

Last Friday I went on one of Judge Sarn's famous drunk roams, from what I remember it was good fun and we got in some great kills against some raging noobs, see   http://thethunderhorsechronicles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/judge-sarn-lead-black-sheep-on-another.html for details.

The largest part of my Eve time this month has been spent on forums and listening to podcasts. I first heard of http://crossingzebras.com/ through twitter, podcasts have never really interested me, I commute to work and tend to listen to music and read on my commute, however I thought that I would give Zebras a chance as Xander was doing interviews with all the CSM8 candidates who were interested and I'm always curious as to how the candidates will sell themselves. So far, with the exception of Night Beagle all the candidates have done well imho, evcn Xenuria exceeded my expectation of him. Some of them have a stronger platform then others, personally I dislike the "I stand for everyone" platform, it's not possible, in the end you will weigh up the options and decide what is best for the game based on your own personal experiences and biases, not the random guy who evemailed you a diatribe on why suicide ganking should be nerfed. Marc Scaurus is the candidate who I'm likely to be backing as he is the only guy to be standing on a low sec platform and is interested in making low sec as a whole more appealing to players, not just focusing on FW. He interviewed reasonably well, although I didn't get a strong idea of what he thought should be done to improve low sec only that he felt that it should be improved.

When I was a new player I spent about 3-4 months in the uni, I didn't really enjoy it, the corporation was too large for me and I found it overwhelming. I also quickly realised that large fleet fights weren't going to be my thing, and at the time that was the standard Eve Uni fighting style, so I left and became a pirate. However I have always been quite fond of the uni, despite it's flaws, the arrogance and pomposity of some of the members, it does a good job keeping new players in the game and teaching them the basics of Eve. I do spend some time of the Eve Uni forums and offer comments on subjects that I find interesting and think that my perspective might be of use, thus I read Kelduum's post on the 317b being taken away from the Uni. I came away disappointed, it appears beyond doubt now that John was botting, and thus the isk being taken away is the right thing to do afaik, no corporation or individual should be able to profit from botting. And no third party should be able to find out any information about what I've done on my account via CCP, it is private even if they stand to profit from my actions. Greed is a terrible thing and can impair even the most rational person's judgement.

On that note I'm off to play Blink and become space rich from gambling :)

Tusker's FFA

Apologies for the extreme lateness of this posting, I've been having issues with my computer and editing the video into a vaguely presentable state took far longer then expected. I also have lost the post that I originally wrote straight after the event so am just writing off the cuff.

At the beginning of January The Tuskers held a frigate free for all and I manage to spend the whole 6 hours flying in it. I had an absolute blast, I spent most of my time at the top belt just engaging the ship that was closest to me, all technique went out the window. I'm proud to say that I was one of the top losers for the event, I curse the fact that I left system to pick up one of my ships and thus missed out on an hour or so of shooting ships. 

I'd like to thank The Tuskers for putting together such a fun, well organised event, also for giving me lots of ships to explode :D

The video below shows some of my highlights from the event, apologies again for the poor editing of it, I'm still learning, hopefully next time it will be better.

EVE is real

......I even have to make shopping lists.

I do have a couple of posts planned computer issues have prevented me from uploading a video that I made of The Tuskers FFA but soon.

A Good Fight

Last night started out the same as most, I headed off on my regular roaming route, meandering through Essence, Metropolis and Placid in search of a fight. I decided to take out a Merlin, sticking to my Caldari roots, and with the hope that it's comparatively large tank would give me a chance against most ships despite being fairly slow moving.

As I slowly made my way to Placid I came across few likely targets, space was quiet, New Eden is a beautiful place so I enjoyed the scenery as kept moving.

Eventually I ended up in Melmaniel, with a Merlin on D-Scan. I started trying to find it, with Retribution's changes to the camera using D-Scan has become a delight, this video is awesome for showing you how to use it.

The Merlin appeared to be at a safe but as I had been scanning for him Rixx Javix, notorious capsuleer, appeared in system, flying a Condor. I considered my chances, the Condor would want to kite me and have a significant speed advantage but if I could get him into my optimum range his tank should melt fairly quickly, also it should be a fun fight either way so what had I to lose?

I warped to the sun and lay in wait....but not for long, the Condor was on my short range D-Scan, I readied myself for battle, and hoped that he would land on top of me so that I could web and trap him.

No suck luck, he landed about 180k away, no matter the fight was on. We both flew towards each other and started to engage. As I predicted he was staying away from me, and I couldn't get close enough to cause any damage. I overheated my afterburner and tried to fly to where I thought he would be. He whipped into range and his shields went down, whoosh and he was out of range again.

Then I have a slight interruption "What are you doing? Are you fighting?" My sister, curious as to the flashing lights of my keyboard. "Yes, can't talk now"

I check my mods for heat damage, afterburner nearly burnt out, I turn the heat off, it may be too late. My shields are slowly going down but I have time. Crap it- AB totally burnt out, I consider trying to leave the fight but quickly realise that I will probably not be able to outrun him. So I continue to the same routine, try to predict where he'll be and get there first. I succeed in catching him a couple of time, bringing his shields down low once but never manage to web him (I think, as a disclaimer this is how I remember things happening, I wish that I'd recorded it, to capture exactly what happened). And eventually my tank breaks and I explode. Good fights are given in local.

It was indeed one of the best fights that I've had for a while and I'm fairly pleased with how I played it. There are a few things that I would change:
1. The way my laptop is set up using my keyboard is hard so I have a Nostromo, I didn't  use it last night and my reaction time with my mouse doing everything just isn't fast enough. BTW shift plus F key is the best way to overheat. also I could have activated my web much faster doing this.
2. Ignore my sister, she matters not...plus although not is this fight, the other night I had Family Guy on in the background and got distracted warping to a gate and someone exploded me, external distractions are not good.
3.These I'm not sure about- Maybe if I had loaded Antimatter then my increased DPS could've done enough damage when I closed in on him to have destroyed his tank, without watching the fight though I'm not sure that I ever got in that close to him, I don't think I did, in which case null was the right choice.
Also had I carried nanite paste I might have been able to repair my afterburner mid fight, whether this would work in practice I'm not sure...

For those who find this TL/DR I had a good fight with Rixx and it reminded me why I love Eve so much, and why I wanted to blog too. I intend to blog about any interesting fights I have plus anything else that interests me and I have an opinion on, hopefully I figure out how to get Bandicam to work on my computer and there will be pretty videos of me exploding too.