Tuesday 25 February 2014

It's not all fun and games. Except for when it is

So life is grand. Lots of soft carebears about and not a lot to cause concern in the grand game of high-sec warfare. No targets who bare teeth when poked until suddenly there it was in my mail. A paid dec against another merc corp...

What you need to understand is that deccing the most elite null-sec PvPers in the game means we get their industrials and mission runners in high-sec. Their PvP boats and players are all home in Null-Sec and it's mostly easy pickings in High-Sec. When you dec another merc corp you are deccing another elite PvP grp that live breathe and eat High-Sec and know it's ins and outs as well or even better then I do. This means constantly watching over ones shoulder or shiny ships of my own go *pop*

Well after a week of cat and mouse with them we renewed the war for a second week and to be honest it hadn't gone our way the first week but thats the contract so again I prepared to play with them for another week. It was uneventfull for me as they were heavy in another timezone and I really didn't see alot of action from them. Then there it was a gate camp setup one jump from me with a Talos and a Jaguar. Surely they couldn't have not scouted the other side of the gate with neutral eyes and spotted my characters chilling in station. Perhaps they even had eyes on me...

So I down shipped a little, fitted for the fight ahead and sent out my un-named alts about the place to find the rest of the fleet if this was just bait. After checking every likely spot I decided that these two were infact alone or at the least I had about two minutes to end the fight. So I sent out the assult frigate first and my neutral reps. Just before I jumped the AF into the camp I undocked my good old faithful thorax which had been with me since my time in the uni and was a vetran of 4 roams and several small engagements in high-Sec. So risking a ship that had nearly made it to my trophy hanger and was just waiting for one final moment of glory I sent it on its way to the gate as I jumped the AF. Then all hell broke loose.

As the AF jumped local list lit up like a christmas tree. A log off trap. The oldest trick in the book and I was webbed and scrammed as i expected but with local fast filling up with flashies I decided that losing one AF was better then losing one AF and one remote rep ship so I backed off the RR and quickly refocused to getting the pod out and pulling out on the thorax ASAP. Well they were through the gate and had me pointed on the other side before I could turn around. With a tear im my eye I aligned for a safe and spammed the warp on both chracters. The AF broke first and it was off to a mid way safe prepared against such emergencies. When the Jag passing me in warp I knew it was the right call. Moments later the Thorax popped too and once again the midway safe was made. I gave GF in both Local chats and docked up at my safe stations. Well that wasnt good enough for one member who proceeded to smack talk me a little and link the war report in local and then smack talk a little more...

I had followed the pirates code to the letter and had respected them for their crafty trap and superior tactics (if it works blobbing with shiny is a supeior tactic, after all the victor writes history). Well with my favourite thorax dead and my AF removed, not to mention my skill as a high-sec merc damaged in the eyes of both my opponents and my native potential targets, I was stuck with a dilemma. I could either accept what had happened and continue my day, or I could seek vengeance. Well It doesnt take much to guess I'm not the rolling over type. The question was how was I, a realatively new pilot compared to my opponents, going to harass a 6 man group packing a heavy tackle Jag, a Talos, a Deimos and three Proteus? These guys had broken our home system gate camp time and again with equal aged pilots defending.

The answer was so black and white for me and i couldn't work out why no one else had done it yet. I took out a T1 frig and went after them to do something that all our shines weren't able to achieve, to kill one of them. Well it didn't take long to track them down. Our Intel channel was buzzing with warnings telling us all to dock up in those areas they were hunting. But I was no longer going to be easy prey!

Well they laughed I had come in a Tristan. Apparently I wasn't worth their time. That is until I caught the talos on the gate and proceeded to start burning the big boy down while the rest were in warp. Clearly not being able to hit me with those big guns he turned around and headed for the gate. It was a battle cruiser and wasn't going to get killed by my tiny Tristan anytime soon so after it arrived at zero on the gate ready to jump his friends started arriving on gate too. Finally I had some attention. So I burnt to a 'safe' distance about 80km away unaligned and sat there daring them to chase me off the safety of the gate. Well thats exactly what they did altho it was rather cautious. I knew they smelt a trap. What could this one tristan hope to accomplish? I wonder what is backing him up? Well those would have been my thoughts but clearly they wanted the kill so they followed as a pack.

Finally it happened the Jag seperated form the pack and burnt at me full prop. It seperating a good 60 km from the group after being kited. I then 'lost distance' and got in long point range. Sure enough we pointed each other and he started shooting and I did the only thing I could on that boat. Launched a wave of 5 warrior II drones. Staying outta scram and web range but still within point range I kited him further away from his companions while still letting him think he could catch me. Finally he hit armor and began to back off. I knew with how well he was repping that I couldn't possibly kill him before he made it back to his friends. So I did the only thing I could think of to keep him interested. I let him web me. Once he webbed he turned around and shot at me again. However I was burning hard at him and he was turning so within seconds I was out of web range and kicked it back up to full speed and hoped I had bought enough time to score the kill. Slowly his armour chewed away and he realised he had to get out. He aligned to a celestial and tried to escape. As he went into structure his shield booster kicked in agian and repped him up full. At this point a Proteus who I hadn't notice warped out landed about 12km behind me and started trying to blap away. If he had of changed to null m I'd have been dead at that range with 0 transversal however thanks to his mistake I stopped keeping speed with the Jag and turned hard...

Sadly it was the break the Jag needed and with shields still keeping up for the moment he warped out with tail between his legs. I hadn't managed to pop him as planned but I had forced a 6 man gang to save a t2 frig from a t1 frig and take their focus off the rest of the alliance for those precious few mins. At this point they all warped to station and the jag docked up and repaired, he then offered to 1v1 me without links or help...

Sure I believed him completly and mashed dscan while I microed my drones back and forth off of him. after about 3-4 mins of this and his cap charges undoubtedly running out and myself still having 6 drones to play with having only lost 2 a omen navy issue appeared on my short scan. Being a gate and not 1 of the fleet I had seen I kept going well sure enough it was one of them and I promptly kicked up the speed outta range as the shots fired from it...

Apologies flew in local about he didn't know that it was supposed to be a 1v1 and blah blah blah. I came back and had 1 more swing at which point he had clearly refit and was both scraming and webbing my drones. Now facing a t2 frig built to kill me I backed off and shot the talos again for good measure.  After I docked up and bought a new set of drones ready to harass them further as down time was fast aproaching and the war was due to end right after the jag pilot said in local 'I like you noragen, you have big cojones'.

This made my bio for some time. Well no kill to report but it was worth it for the respect earned and the fun had. They all jumped back into the Marmite one idiot gate camp on the other side who didn't bother to hop on coms to find out the situation or look in the intel channel and promptly killed him ending their night by docking up at the marmite home station.

Altho the only person who lost ships in our engagements was me I also felt like I had won a great victory. Lets face it ships come and go but respect can be a lasting currency (cheesy quote)

Wednesday 19 February 2014

You always remember the first time

The day started like most other days as part of an alliance that is hated by sooo many... *BORING*

I had spent some time on a gate camp with my fellow Marmites before deciding that I couldn't take doing that for hours on end. It just wasn't for me. So I went to Jita and killed people on the undock with another Marmite. after an hour of this I wanted to quit... This also wasn't for me. I found my way back home to Hek and was considering if I had made a huge mistake. It was at this point I was contacted by another Marmite who had seen me in local. After a minor scolding for not being in the correct Team speak channel I joined him in comms and found out he needed my help with some neutral reps he suspected were in waiting for a station game a friend of his was about to get into. I got on an Oneiros kill here and acquired and held point from 24 and even 25km by overheating which allowed for him to polish it off nicely before it could warp off. After this incident we got talking on Teamspeak and he took me under his wing and showed me the 'proper' way too hunt mission runners. This was the stepping stone I needed to get into this world of High Sec PvP which is often looked down upon but to be honest is as intense and trickier then any other I've experienced throughout my time in the uni.

After a few good kills he called it a night. But I was on a high. I had more kills to my name and had made more isk then in any one session of play before this day. I wasn't ready to quit for the day quite yet and decided to keep at it. After a near miss or two resulting in the potential victim logging off I finally hit mission runner gold. I found a Tengu. The holy grail of mission runner hunting. Not because it's easy to catch (if your good its dammed hard to catch you in one of these bad boys), not because it's an expensive hull or requires alot of skill points to fly, but because most people running one of these are making a load of isk and bling them something shocking. So after much patient hunting, scanning (I missed him on the station) and using every trick in the book (that I had really only read the index on at this point) to locate him in space he wandered back through the gate straight into the camp I had set-up...

I acquired and called point in an excited voice...  The missus gave me a look at this point as my headphones were off and I had just been talking to her about what I was doing. A sure sign I was alone on comms he burnt off the gate either trying to pull me off it to kill me or trying to get away stupidly who knows? It was an RvB pilot Care Bearing and once we were 40 off the gate he lit me up like a Christmas tree and it was on from there. It got close but after a minute of exchanges it became apparent that the Tengu was not walking away form this and began to deagress and burn back to the gate. Having kited me off it and being webbed I had a lot of time to follow and blap at him however if he knew how low my capacitor was he may have kept going because I was turning off hardeners to keep the guns going and to pulse the prop mod to keep up. I realized that if I didn't do something straight away he was going to hit the gate and be out of reach on structure with how the shield rep's were keeping him up. I burnt at the gate full prop then turned around for the bump. If I missed it was going to be another near miss story and if I hit it was going to be potentially the biggest kill to-date. I burnt at him full prop and had a thought. I turned off the web. The web disengaging moments before I hit was probably the difference maker and he soared off another 12km from the gate. I followed prop mod on and web and slammed him again. this sealed his doom and as structure chewed away he aligned to a celestial and accepted his fate.

The ship *popped* in what I swear was the most intense explosion I have seen in the game yet and the pod was gone the same moment. GF came up in local and I was shocked by the good nature of this pilot who had just lost skill points and ship to what many consider to be the scum of the EVEverse. I was 'working' for one of the most hated groups out and about and had jumped a clearly PvE fit ship and a GF was given. I returned it and he then went on to tell me 'that was an amazing bump, I tried to avoid it but the web held me fast as I tried to turn and I couldn't get enough velocity back up to avoid you. It felt like I was sitting still in the water.' We chatted for a bit and I looted the wreck and docked up. There in the wreck was one single Caldari navy ballistic control. This was my single greatest windfall form one item. I couldn't believe it. I sold it for the best price I could using a sell order and suddenly felt as if I had cash to burn. This was to me at this stage 2 days of solid farming made in a mere 2-3 mins of combat (and a good 30 mins of tracking).

I had found my High-Sec calling. I was hunting mission runners and I finally felt like it was a viable way to make isk. Also a special shout out to RvB for making this possible by their callousness towards running missions during wartime and also for giving the fights :)

Sunday 16 February 2014

The Little Orca That *almost* Could

So this is the story of the Orca that will never appear on killboards and never had a chance to have his embarrassing loss shown to the world. That's ok because you will get to read it and learn *hopefully* from his mistake.

So not a few hours before this incident I had just linked a certain wingman my orca kill form the day before and he commented he had never killed an orca before. I told him not to worry we would get 1 for him eventually. To my utter amazement an alt of mine crossed jumped a potential WT orca...

I checked if the war was still live and sure enough it was so with all possible speed the Enyo was dispatched and Wingman was ordered to get his butt down there as well as any alts he travels with so we could get this Whale of a ship. Well disaster struck as far as I was concerned I caught up on a constellation gate(a whopping big gate). I decloaked and burnt at the centre and the orca decloaked too only problem was it was 45km off me. I burnt overheated straight at it hoping to aquire point at 28km. sadly this was not to be at 30 it warped off. I was sure it would be to 1 of the stations in system but to my amazement it seemed to be the next gate on the leg...

This gate was a system gate and I warped to it and held waiting for the beast to land(65AU is a long way to go if your flying a Whale). Sure enough it did with all the other pilots en route just 2 jumps behind. after a brief staring contest it blinked and jumped. this was the best possible outcome. I followed while still bringing the alts. Decloaking instantly and burning at the gate i was in position... where was the orca... time stood still...

The alts in warp to gate and finally the beast decloaks and aligns TO THE NEXT GATE??? Point was acquired and called. The fleet jumped in and soon enough he was webbed and had more points on him then a pyramid. The burning down of the beast commenced. as it started to lose its armor the strangest thing happened it engaged self destruct and the POD ejected and instantly warped off. Well seeing the potential for isk to be made I asked my wingman if his Orca pilot was with the minions following him and sure enough it was so he ejected and entered the Orca. after stuffing around for a minute he ejected and had me lock it back up so no one could steal our prize he moved his other ship to dock and as he did a Brilliant explosion lit up my screen....

That's right he forgot to turn off the self destruct... well after a moment of bewilderment I burst out laughing. you have gotta laugh at something like that really.  a moment later he announces he has 220 mil in his wallet from the Orca's insurance. We contacted the former owner told him well played and proceeded to thank him for the 220 mil insurance payout. He was not impressed about not getting the insurance payout and congratulated us on our fine 'kill'

The Kill

This is by far my crowning acheivement of kills to date. Poor Lannac lost his ship but redeemed himself by causing the kill ;). Beat me by about 10 seconds and I was happy to let someone else risk their 100mil + scanner and implants

Lanna explains in his own unique way http://mobilepartyinc.com/archives/1394

A Warning to Ninjas


This is a little story that happened during the period of time when it was possible for drones to agress you when you lit up somebodies MTU(mobile tractor unit). As a result of this 'feature' the count of ninjas in my local area sky rocketed and you couldn't throw a Fedo and not hit one. So I set out on a campaign to rein in this menace to MY mission runners and remove any who were not 'friendly' towards us.

The first kills of this nature were smallish in comparison to the damage they were causing but slowly word spread through the communities that 'enforcers' out there killing off these would be ninjas jumping on the bandwagon of greifing just because it had become easy. Finally even Goons came to my area to have fun at the poor mission runners expense. Well not only were we at war with them but this over fishing of mission runners meant that targets were getting fewer. Something had to be done so Intel channels were formed and select people were invited to them to Inform of whereabouts, ships and even warp in's. The goons who had decided to take this up were passed onto me from my informant in the Intel channels (I don't make an appearance as it scares off WT's in the channels). Information was vague at best, they were killing MTU's and there was two of them. Finally a kill was linked and we set about locating the goons. as it turned out their 'safe spot' was about 2000k off the only station in system.

It was an Ishtar and a Legion... Could my Vigilant and Enyo Take this kind of potential? Was the Legion DD or RR. I called in backup and soon enough a hunting buddy of mine was ready to take a swing at them. we waited while the Ishtar destroyed yet another series of MTU's. Finally it came bakc on short scan form a cloaky alt and we jumped into system and warped in. The plan was simple. Vindoes in his Ishtar (my partner in enforcement this day) was going to point and hold onto the goon Ishtar while using dorne to hit the Legion. My job was simple I was going to burn the legion hard and fast with all I could muster then assist with the Ishtar. Points were called and shots were fired. To my utter amazement I was acquiring point on the pod after just 2 volleys. Pod was popped promptly as a fight was still occuring and we moved onto the tough nut to crack. It was all over in moments and GF was given in local by us. Only tears were had by the goon who didn't lose his pod calling us everything he could think of and come find him in Null-Sec before logging out. This had a fun side affect, the affected players in local asked ofr the kill mails and since there were no WT's in local we obliged linking 2 bil isk in losses http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=21470098.  The legion was boosting in High-Sec while at war...

Local were amazed and so were the Intel boys and girls feeding us the information we needed that led to the kills. The isk flowed in and soon enough we had over 100mil isk in donations form local for sorting out their problems on their behalf. This led to linking more and more ninja kills in local and more and more isk. It became more isk efficient then any other PvP activity I've done in High-Sec. Its now down to a fine art we have trained a few of the Intel guys to gather certain details and then to send them through. we may not get every ninja but we get enough that I like to think of 'my area' as the safest from ninjas of all the SOE hubs.

PLEX For Good

When the call went out I was skeptical at first about 'donating' PLEX and real money was going to be given to a country in need. It just didn't seem possible. So I checked it out did some research and it all seemed legit. Then it happened, Marmite Collective decided to do a drive for it to help raise funds. The Dec For Good drive. Everyone who was decced had to give a PLEX to end the dec and Marmite would forward that on to CCP. Well it also did an internal drive as well and having a lot of stuff lying around in hangers I complied it all at Hek and tried to sell it as best I could to donate the isk to help fund the purchases of PLEX for the drive. It was very successful and if something like this was to come up again I would once again be on board and reccomend you do too if possible.

All in all after this was done I was left with the ships in my hangers and the ammo in their cargo bays. I was space poor once more but I felt really good about it and went out on a rampage to earn some more isk so I had a little more to burn once more. There is no better feeling then turning make believe money into real money to help real people and anytime I ever get a chance to do so I will be all over it. The next time a PLEX For Good campaign is done why not consider getting in touch with 'BKM Industries' from Marmite Collective and talking to him about it he is always on board with such things

The Mission runner that almost got away

So this short story is all about a Tengu pilot that could have avoided his loss and walked away at any point. However two factors worked towards me in this fight. the first is he was pretty mad and the second was that he forgot where to put his warp scrambler. I'll start at the beginning...

It was every High-sec mission runner hunters dreams come true. every mission runner in eve had descended on one of three hubs to run SOE missions for the loyalty points were about to be worth up to 3X normal loyalty points. This clustering of mission runners meant for a high volume of potential targets and with the tools provided to me by the greatest hunter I have known yet I set out to carve through them one at a time.

I logged on this day and put my alt on the station to watch for targets. What unlocked wasn't quite what I hoped for but a kills a kill. After getting the details I needed to hunt I began to move into position. It was a Noctis and it went to a mission pocket. After following it in and acquiring point I alleviated this poor mission runner of his salvage ship and pointed the pod. I had been trialing ransom's at this point and decided to start a conversation with the poor victim of my aggression. It became apparent he was Russian from the communication barrier but I got across that for 500mil I'd let the pod go. To my absolute surprise not a moment later my wallet was blinking. 500 MIL WAS DEPOSITED.....

Well what do you do when someone pays this kind of ransom. Clearly his pod was worth billions however a deal is a deal even with a High-Sec mercenary of his word. So I let him go. I proceeded to move my hauler alt into position to pick up the goodies the Noctis left behind. As I was doing this he appeared back in local again and I began to mash short d-scan. what I saw scared and excited me. A TENGU...

This beast took the gate and came at me guns blazing. What else was there to do but shoot back and the battle commenced. I was a two combat ship operation  and pointed him with both and started the long process of breaking him. To my amazement he opened chat with me once more and demanded 'Give me my isk back.' Well not letting the chance slide by I replied with give me 500mil isk and i let your Tengu go and the battle began.

This Tengu was a beast and my brick tanked Deimos just couldn't match it blow for blow. I was forced off field and warped off as it appeared he didn't have a point on the ship. There were no stations to dock at. No way to repair the ship so I left the Enyo to hold him while I docked up a jump over and repaired. The undock timer took 5 minutes or so it seemed and the fight raged on Enyo VS Tengu. He was winning and re-genning shield faster then I could burn it off. Finally the Deimos came back on field and the Enyo warped off with only 1/3 structure remaining. This was still not the turning point as the Enyo self repaired at the sun to come back and yet again hold him for the poor Deimos reducing him to structure this time but also going deep structure before warping off. Again repaired up at station the Deimos came back for what was surely the final attempt as help was spotted on an alt just 3 jumps out. The Deimos came in guns overheated drones full tilt and Enyo did a quick bounce out and in instead of repairing up this time. Luck was with me and he didn't re-focus the Enyo and finally after what is the single longest fight I've had ended in a stunning display of fireworks. This time he got the pod out. The loot was worth it but to be honest the fight itself is what made this truly memorable. Help arrived 30 seconds too late in the form of a catalyst and a Merlin. I saw it on short scan and in local window. They however turned around and left as nothing could be done to help. Later that day the catalyst was up on contract in Hek form the would be hero of the story.

After losing his ship and vowing revenge in local as best he could he left and once again I looted and took the proceeds back home to horde as I didn't need the isk due to a sudden 500mil windfall.

PS if you ever go back to seek revenge in a PvE fit ship the scram in the cargo hold should take up one of your mid slots as its pretty had to activate form your cargo hold ;)
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20661036

The Overview


The idea is quite simple. I will spend three months(or as close to as possible without spoiling the fun) in each type of space EVE has to offer. The order will be High-Sec, Low-Sec, Null-Sec and finally W-Space although I may have to split Null into Sov-Null and NPC-Null.

This was my goal upon leaving the fine people at EVE-University and setting out on my own. I tried all these areas within the Uni but at the end of the day it was too safe. So I decided to start with the most fun I've had so far and move on from there, High-Sec wars...

I know I know you all hate the wardec corps and probably with just cause but at the end of the day I observed outnumbered out gunned High-Sec war corps whelp fleets from the bad boys in null sec and I wanted to learn this. Also they were great fun in the Uni and I wanted to see whether the grass on the other side of the fence was in fact greener for myself. As it turns out it was...

I will also try out all the other goodies eve has to offer in each space like station trading and manufacturing in these areas too but lets face it nobody wants to hear how I crashed the market on certain minerals in Rens to buy up big and keep a solid income for many many months to come or the epic amount of ships I manufactured to make 2% profit on...

But even these Alts who are 'Care bearing' are coming along on the journey with me. There will be very little crossing over into High-Sec and it wont be to buy/sell when I move on. The idea is to completely embrace the space I'm in. Of course though during W-Space time its going to be a little tricky and I may cheat on my own rules ;)