Serendipity...Or a Marked Improvement?

Thursday was pretty rough.  We got one kill and lost...lots of ships.  I lost the most, as I was too lazy to bother warping my pod out after getting curb-stomped.  Still a fun night, just a little one-sided for most fights.  We did discover that Nisuwa is a pretty happening place.

This happened.

I had to digest the events of Friday night for a couple of days.  Tesla and I planned to get out and explode, but things really worked out for us for some strange reason.  When I say things worked out, I mean that there were actually very few explosions on our side.

This is my Kestrel. There are many like it, but this one is mine

First, an Atron landed on us in a novice plex.  Fortunately for him, he managed to escape Tesla's double-web and put some pressure on me.  Unfortunately for him, I still managed to blow him up.

I kept asking Tesla how things were going on his end.  Things went find for him, and the Atron was blaster fit and trying to get close enough to ping at my shields.  That being said, Tesla lamented that his hull had no prop mod equipped, so he couldn't come and contribute to the explosion.  Sorry, dear readers, I forgot to grab and screen shot of this fight.

Elated with a win from our first fight of the evening, we headed into Nennamaila and met with a neuting Tristan.  Tesla managed to grab it with his webs, and for some strange reason didn't lose the ability to fire his blasters due to being within range of the Tristan's neutralizers.

Fights without overview are hard.

We managed to take it down, but the drones managed to put a good hurt on me.

Damn, we missed the pod.  And, blackup has arrived.

A Gallente piloted Slasher warped in just as we finished off the Tristan.  I had to warp out, as my shields were pretty much gone.  Tesla apparently held the Slasher and managed to survive while I was recharging.  As I warped back into the plex, the Slasher warped out.  We decided to press our luck in a different system.

Due to shitty FCing on my part, Tesla and I got split on a gate.  Tesla's Merlin, with it's very specific fit, was quickly shredded by an assortment of Gallente frigates.  Say what you will about Tesla's Merlins, it's tough to get upset about the loss.  Some day soon, he'll have enough confidence in his abilities to throw a bit of isk at the ships, and maybe mix it up a little.

After repairing my Kestrel and giving Tesla some time to jump into another Merlin, we were back at it for one last go (by this time I was exhausted, and slightly drunk).  Our final engagement took a little while to happen, as there seemed to be a few larger-sized gangs moving about.  Finally, a Punisher warped into us.  This time, Tesla's fit was perfectly suited to take it down.  With two webs on it, the Punisher couldn't kite Tesla effectively.  This was compounded by the fact that lasers don't seem to be able to track for shit on something that's orbiting at 500 m.  Another win for us.

At which point, the beers, and the overall exhaustion from playing a game of hockey that day, caught up to me.  We called it a night at 3 wins and 1 loss between the two of us.  This may not be much of an achievement for some, but for the two of us it's a drastic change.  After the bludgeoning we had received the night before, it felt good to come out ahead.

Breath of Fresh Air

I've got back into Eve after a brief hiatus.  Don't ask for the details of this hiatus.  Other games lured me away briefly, but they can't compare to the Siren song of New Eden.

Tonight was a good night for me.  I found three fights with relative ease, and all three were 1 versus 1.  No surprise back-up.  It was exhilirating.

I decided to get back into a Kestrel (fit slightly modified) and see what kind of trouble I could get into.  Not long after parking my ass in a small plex, a Slasher warped in on me...and waited there for a while.  The waiting had me a little worried, as I new there was a Tristan nearby that could complicate matters.

The waiting was unbearable.  I heated my highs, as well as my scram and web.  I kept modifying my position on the warp-in, double-guessing my best option.  The whole time, my pulse was pounding in my ears and my mouth was going dry.  Suddenly, the war target Slasher warped into the plex.  I unleashed all the things on my screen and watched in shock as my rockets tore through his shield, armor and hull in no time at all.  Sadly, I forgot to grab some shots of this fight.  Whatever, victory!

My opponent warped off and mentioned that he has a strict no-Kestrel rule.  He added that unfortunately for him he's bad at rules.  Props to him for tossing the rules aside, I appreciated the good fight to open up my brief evening jaunt.

After I had looted the wreck, the Tristan I had seen on long range scan showed up at short range.  Again, this opponent waited for what seemed a long time before warping in, giving me enough time to recharge all my shields.  The Tristan warped in and dropped drones, then pulled out to about 8 km from me, letting his Hobgoblin IIs turn me into mincemeat.

I remembered my Drone tab!  \o/

I did manage to remember to lock up his drones and try to eliminate his main source of DPS.  That being said, by the time I managed to clear one of the field, he had replaced it.  Not long after that, I was in low armour.  Then I didn't have a ship anymore.  It was a good fight anyways.

For my last tour, I jumped in a Slasher that I had been sitting on (surprisingly, it's almost exactly the same as my first kill of the night...weird) and headed back to Enaluri.  I ended up doing some plexing waiting for a fight to come in.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to clear the rat out of the plex, so when a Merlin warped in, I managed to forget to swap my DPS over to the more important target.  After losing, I explained to my opponent that I wasn't AFK, just forgetful.  

I had fit this Slasher with the intention that it would be a good fight against a Merlin and other blaster boats, as the TD would allow me to limit the incoming DPS and control the engagement.  After that fight, I'm not ready to rule it out.  I'm going to look at it more as my control case.  Must fly moar Slashers.

All in all, it was a good time getting back into Eve.  Cheers for the good fights and I hope I keep finding opponents like these.

Saturday Adventures in Black Rise - Now with More Print Screen

Mission accomplished.  I have managed to remember to hit the print screen key in two separate fights.  With this accomplished, I should now put priority back on trying to succeed in the fights I'm in, because wow, did we ever get trounced last night. 

We've also got some better comms set up, making our roams a little better coordinated, as well as more entertaining.  My mic, unfortunately, still sucks.

Tesla and I started out in a Merlin/Kestrel combo.  We actually went through a few systems making a bit of LP before we finally found a fight.  This let us practice setting up on the warp-in at our appropriate ranges, making sure the right modules were on and overheated, etc. 

We finally engaged a Merlin and a Burst in a  Plex in Renarelle, losing our ships.  Then we were treated to a surprise pod express home thanks to BBQ FTW with a smartbomb fitted Maller.  Nice play, that.  Tesla was a bit perturbed to have lost his learning implants, but all in all he got his money's worth out of them.  I didn't even notice the Burst on the overview prior to exploding.  At first all my attention was on the Merlin, then when the cruiser warped in I swapped my rockets onto it.  This was a mistake, but I'm confident that with the speed we went down after the Maller warped in, concentrating fire on the Merlin still wouldn't have given us a kill.

Last Hookbill on the menu for a while

 

After that, I took my last fitted Hookbill out, accompanied by Tesla in a double-web Merlin.  Between the two of us, we had four webs.  Man, it would've been nice to engage against a Firetail or something.  Instead we ended up facing what started as an Atron and a Tristan.  Then morphed into multiple Atrons.  We managed to take down one of the Atrons before losing the Hookbill, followed shortly by the Merlin.  

 

I've read somewhere about the attrition frigate tactic used in Faction Warfare.  I can now speak to it's effectiveness.  Throw enough cheap frigates at any target and you're bound to overwhelm them.  Please note: if you see an Atron sitting at the activation gate to the Plex you are in for an abnormal length of time, he is calling for more Atrons to take you down.  Somehow the Tristan ended up on our killboard, however I can attest to the fact that we did not kill it.  He obviously wandered into a gang more capable than Tesla and I after looting our wrecks.

At this point, we thought we might win the engagement

 

Somewhere around this point in the night, Tesla and I struck up a conversation with a Gallente in local, in french.  I enjoyed the opportunity to shake the rust out of my french without being embarrassed (writing in local affords a bit of time to remember the right words.  IRL, there's a lot of pausing and red-face when I'm speaking french ).  Tesla needs to speak french for his job, so enjoys any opportunity to practice.  I mention this part of the night just to highlight one of the best parts of this game: single-shard server = all sorts of foreign players you can interact with.  How cool is that?

Anyways, my pod got smartbombed again on the way back to re-shipping.  Curse you Sniggwaffe!

We went out again and lost a Slasher and yet another Merlin in Kedama.  Details are foggy on what happened in this engagement, as by this time my late night previous, and the beer consumed up to that point had rendered everything slightly hazy.  I have set out a notepad in front of my keyboard in order to provide more details on these fights going forward.

The militia chat had details of a POS getting bashed in a nearby lowsec system - supposedly with Dreadnoughts - so I proposed to Tesla that we go and see what's happening.  He agreed to accompany me for one last flight.  We found the POS referenced, however we did not make it in time to grab a shot of the alleged Dread.

Relatively innoculous

 

I did manage to snap a shot of a POS module exploding.  Once I brought my overview back onto the screen, I realized I was in a bit of trouble:

Slightly troubling

 

Seeing as how the ships on grid were large hulls, I figured this would be a good opportunity to practice my spiralling.  I managed to avoid fire from the Tornado and one of the Oracles by altering the angle of my approach on the Tornado at regular intervals.  I'm not sure what I thought I would do when I got close to him.  Drunk logic is essentially non-existent.  It took me three tries to explain to Tesla to spiral on approach.  "Rotate in on him.  No, circle him.  Change your flight path thingy.  Yeah, spiral, that's what I meant."

 

Tesla was smart enough to jump his ship out.  I was not, and I died to the Osprey Navy Issue.  At this point, some reptilian part of my mind decided that my fun was over.  I docked up and went to sleep, saving myself from further embarrassment.

I Never Remember the Print Screen Button, FFS

We have started the month of November off right.  Last night Tesla and I spent a good 5 hours roaming our home region in various fits looking for fights.  Good news is we got two kills.  Bad news is we lost 16.  How do you like that performance?

Tesla's goal last night was to explode with all his modules turned on (he's a little rusty, what with all the real life shenanigans).  My goal was to remember to take some screen grabs during a battle.  I'm happy to report that Tesla succeeded in his goal.  I, unfortunately, did not.  I think my solution to this problem will be a great big sticky note pasted to the underside of my main screen.  If that idea works, you will see better pictures accompanying these words.

On to the fights.  Due to Tesla's shaky confidence in his ability to press buttons, he's been flying old low meta-level Merlins until he is happy with his ability to pilot in a fight.  I can't blame his mindset, he doesn't want to waste isk on fights he knows he's going to lose.  I've been straying towards a 10-15 million ISK fit for everything I bring into the warzone.

First little frigates to die

 

So we brought a Merlin and a Tristan out first.  We set up in a small Plex and waited patiently for some action to come to us.  Unfortunately, about 20 seconds after setting up, Tesla had a distraction out of game that had him leave his Merlin orbiting the beacon unattended.  Not long after that, a Coercer landed inside the Plex and made short work of us.  I am confident that had Tesla actually been at his keyboard...we would still have lost the fight.  Still, it was a nice little warm-up for the evening.

 

Next we went out in a Breacher and a Merlin.  Tesla ended up getting caught on a gate by a QCats pilot.  I basically just chased the offending Hookbill around ineffectually while Tesla's Merlin melted.  I did manage to catch him briefly, but fuck, that Hookbill was fast.  Tesla's pod warped off after his Merlin died, and I just hovered over the gate, looking at that Hookbill.  Deciding that it was easier to take the fight on hand than to go looking for a more even one elsewhere, I burned at the Hookbill and started engaging.  Obviously that is exactly what he wanted.  I had trouble even getting him to about 75% shields.  Still an enjoyable fight, and we hadn't sated our thirst for destruction yet.

 

 Best kill/death ratio I've ever had with a destroyer

Next, I hopped into an Algos, after reading about their abilities in a few different blogs.  Great fun to fly, that Algos.  Tesla still flew a Merlin.  We warped into a medium Plex and jumped on a railgun Cormorant.  The Cormorant primaried Tesla's cheap Merlin, allowing my rails and drones to make quick work of our opponent.  I think I caught the Cormorant off-guard, I'm sure he wasn't expecting to see the other destroyer come at him so quickly.  Had we both been in frigates, I'm reasonably sure that this fight would have ended differently.

We regrouped in our staging system, where I repaired all my damaged modules, then headed out again with my Algos and another, differently fit Merlin.  This time, we ended up getting jumped on a plex gate by a Hawk.  Oh man, did that Hawk ever make short work of us.  It was nice to see the abilities of the Hawk - much like my personal favourite the Harpy, it has a strong T2 resists buff, but now with more rockets.  The Algos was a fun ship to fly.  My fit needs some modification, but I definitely plan to bring it into my stable of standard hulls.  Drones look awesome swarming an opponent too.  You'll have to trust me on it, due to the above mentioned issue with my print screen button.

Just like old times

 

Both of us jumped into Merlins for our next tour.  I went active-tank, Tesla went dual-web.  This ended up working in our favour, surprisingly.  We ran into our new acquaintance Kaiser Deus, this time in an Incursus.  Tesla's dual webs allowed us to take down Kaiser, however the three Polarized. Navitas, with a bonus Quafe Commandos pilot, took out our Merlins at pretty much the same time.  Suprise three-way fights are always fun.

We continued our losing of fights from then on.  I lost another Tristan and an Algos, and Tesla lost more Merlins.  Obviously by the time these fights took place it was getting really late, as neither a brick-tanked Vexor, nor an Ishkur are very survivable with our skills.  Still, we had fun and can't wait to go out again.  I think that Tesla has gotten over his fear of ineffectiveness in fights and may even start flying some better fits.

Here's to more fights in Black Rise.  Fuck Plex-farmers!

Pew and pictures

Well, it's been pretty easy to find fights this past week.  So many that's it's been a bit of a blur.  I've had some really great fights, and a few lame ones - lame as in I get excited because I'm winning the fight, then my target turns out to be a plex-farmer and warps off because ::stabs::

I've been trying to get in the habit of pushing the print screen button more often during fights.  Unfortunately my frigate fights are over in about 20 seconds, and I'm so focused on making my opponent's HP bars disappear through sheer mind-power that I have not yet grabbed any decent screenshots during one of those battles.  Sorry.  Will try harder.

Tesla has his life back under control and we managed to get some tandem flying done a few times.  It ended as expected.  After Tesla logged out, I warped over to Innia as the militia chat was buzzing about Capital ships being dropped in system, and I don't see those very often.  Managed to grab the following pic:

There's two SOMETHINGS there.  Doing stuff.

I then agressed a flashy yellow Cerberus in my Condor.  I then proceeded to die very quickly.

While messing about on the map for one reason or another, I checked out the kills related to RvB's massive frigate free-for-all and snapped this pic, which is pretty cool:

 Kill moar frigates!

The weekdays were pretty busy for me in real life, so I didn't manage to accomplish much in space.  I did, however, notice that the Nightmare in New Eden event was scheduled for today and logged in to participate.  For some reason, I thought it would be a great idea to fit a snipey Cormorant for the event. Unfortunately, my route took me through Kinakka while TEST's staging system nearby is under heavy assault.  Killed by goons ;-; (edit: as pointed out by redditor nonesuchplace, I was killed by Sniggwaffe of Pandemic Legion, not Goons.  My apologies to Sniggwaffe for my ignorance). 

Tesla and I threw a few kill-whoring frigates at Tama.  I never once saw the Nightmare, and the lag was pretty bad for me (in fact, one death my Condor popped before my grid even loaded).  I did however get into a sweet brawl with a Merlin and a Caracal.  Aaannnd a bunch of other things...and the Merlin was fit with smartbombs?

My Merlin under heavy fire

Guys!  I need more speed holes!

o7 you beautiful bastards.

After a many death animations, I fit up some ships and roamed around the rest of the warzone looking for some decent fights.  I ran into an Incursus in Reitsato and had a bit of a scuffle.  I pulled my guns off his hull to take out his drone.  By the time his drone popped I was in half-armour and the fight was basically done.

Slasher going off to die a fiery death

I then jumped in to a Republic Fleet Firetail and managed to take it about 10 jumps before anything engaged.  I've fought them, I guess I can understand why not too many people want to take them on 1 versus 1.  I finally found a fight in a plex in Pynekastoh.  An Atron and a Federation Navy Comet were waiting on the beacon for me.  I kept my fire on the Comet and got him down to roughly half-armour when I exploded.  Good way to end the night.

There's Kestrels Everywhere!

These past few days I've (still) been flying through the warzone solo, looking for fights.  Fortunately, as TEST has deployed in the Caldari Militia, it seems like the Gallente have really brought their game forward.  With such a large group finally deployed with Caldari, fights must be easy to find.  The Gallente definitely like fighting.

I have a large stack of Kestrels I've been trying to burn through for two reasons:
1. I'm starting to get the hang of flying them and like learning the hull's strengths and weaknesses.
2. Kestrels are fucking fun to fly.

As evidenced by this blog thus far, I am nowhere near an elite pilot.  However, I did have one Kestrel engagement where I managed to perform above my norm.  I warped into a novice plex in Enaluri and waited for an engagement (as an aside, I notice that engagements come much quicker when you're a war target.  Less fear of trickery maybe, or perhaps just less fear, in general, of the Caldari militia).  Soon two Kestrels showed up on my short range scan.  I overheated my mods and mentally prepared for a Kestrel threesome.

My opponents didn't land on grid simultaneously, giving me about five seconds to lock, scram and web the first Kestrel and set up an orbit at my optimal range.  The second war target moved out to about 15 km from me and started peppering me with light missiles.  I kept my focus on the target I had locked, and managed to bring him down.  Unfortunately I was in low armour by the time I achieved this, and couldn't get back into rocket range of the remaining Kestrel.  I might have been able to try to break free of his point, but I was kind of elated for taking down the first one.  I figured I'd try for the other and the wost that could happen would be that I would die in a fire.  Fuck killboard efficiency, I just want things to explode.  It was a fun fight and I've made note of the fit as something I would like to try out.  Maybe when TESLA STARTS PLAYING AGAIN.  Stupid GTA V.

I brought out a Hookbill again, not long after losing another Kestrel to a Breacher (nothing really really sticks out to me in that fight, sorry).  I set up in a novice plex again, this time in Pynekastoh, and soon saw two Firetails coming in to join me.  Unfortunately, I didn't manage to take anyone down with me this time.  The combined dps of the Firetails quickly overcame my passive tank, and I couldn't manage the engagement distance very well due to the insane speed of Firetails.  Hookbill down.  I'm going shopping for some Firetails.

Last night, while Black Legion's Supercap fleet was facing down just about all other nullsec alliances in New Eden, I took a long jaunt through Black Rise and found a few engagements.  A couple of times my targets slipped out of range of my scram (shitfuck), and I eventually died to an Incursus.  Then my pod got popped by a smartbombing battleship on the way to reship.  Saved me some jumps.

Being back in the Warzone again seems like a good move.  Fights are easy to find and the way that plexes are set up you can somewhat manage the engagments you draw.  Mind-bogglelingly, with TEST in the State Protectorate, there is actual intel in the SPROT chat window now.  Last time I was in the militia, the only people who used that chat were Gallente spies who tried to get people to join their fleets for rapid awoxing.  Fun times.

O_o I survived?

I made it back on today during a lull in the day for a tour through Black Rise again.  Amazingly, I made it back out of lowsec in the Kestrel I brought in.  I first engaged a Republic Fleet Firetail.  At first I thought I would be able to get into my optimal range and keep him there.  Next thing I knew, he was 20 kilometers from me.  I did my best to get him back in range, however I forgot to keep my transversal up to mitigate some of the damage he was applying.  It hurt.

 
I managed to escape the battle in hull.  There's a first time for everything, I suppose.  I complimented the pilot on his speed and then asked why he didn't point me to keep me on the field.  He responded that he was reading at the time I engaged him and never bothered to turn on the point.

Ouch.  My ego.  Lol.

Next I dropped in on a Merlin and managed to set up on him perfectly.  I set up an orbit outside of his optimal after a little maneuvering, webbed and scrammed him down and starting chewing through his shields.  I also remembered to monitor my overheating mods, and turned off the heat on my scram.  That turned out to be the end of that engagement, as the Merlin slipped outside of my point range and warped off.  Shit.

After bouncing around a few more systems, I ran across two Condors in a novice plex.  I warped in and tried to catch the Condor that I followed through the warp gate, but no big surprise, he evaded me.  I made use of my practice with slingshotting to escape his point and GTFO, as I couldn't really see that engagement ending in my favour.

Now here I am docked up and frankly quite surprised at myself.  I don't think I've ever made it back with my ship intact when I go out looking for PVP on my own.  Not sure if happy?

What I learned:

- Republic Fleet Firetails.  Get some.  Those bitches be fast.
- Modify your orbit before turning off the overheat on your scram.  Or better yet, if you think you can end the engagement before your scram burns out, don't turn the overheat off at all.
- Fuck Condors.

Good Weekend for Fighting

I got in late-ish from a wedding last night and my wife passed out, so I decided to log in for a quick PVP fix.  I decided to pull out another Kestrel as I always have a bunch of fun flying them.

I moved into Black Rise and eventually came across an Omen in a medium plex.  I had my tracking disruptor fit, so I figured I might be able to dictate range and where through the cruisers armour.  I warped into the plex with all my mods overheated and managed to land a tackle on the Omen.  He launched drones, which I slowly removed from the field, though my opponent did pull them in a couple of times.  Somewhere near the beginning of this battle, however, all my modules were destroyed from overheating.  Oops.

So without an afterburner, or a scram, or a web, the Omen was able to move in and out of my range as he pleased.  Luckily for me, my tracking disruptor still functioned, so Iwas able to mitigate the incoming dps slightly.  Unfortunately, the Omen also had a neut that would mess with the cycle on the disruptor.  My Kestrel did eventually go down, but I managed to get the Omen to half armour.  Talking to the pilot afterwards, he admitted that I had him worried for a bit during the fight.
I told him the fight was the best one I'd had all week.

What I learned:
- Don't be afraid to fight above your weight.  This fight wasn't actually close overall, but had I paid more attention to the condition of my modules, I might have been able to wear him down given more time.  If I was actually able to wear him down, a scram and a web would've been helpful.  Same goes for my prop mod.
- Don't switch to EM ammo against an armour-tanked ship.  That's just stupid.
- Eliminating the drones right off the bat severely cut down my opponents dps, allowing me to stay in the fight much longer than is normal.

After that, I threw a Merlin fit together as my last ship of the night.  I came across a Condor in a novice plex pretty quicly and attempted to engage.  He held range very well but couldn't break the tank on my Merlin.  The fight lasted about five minutes and basically was just a bunch of practice for me on the slingshot maneouvre.  We ended up calling it a draw.  Turns out he's relatively new in Eve and asked for advice on his fit, which I attempted to give with the disclaimer that I'm not much further advanced than he is.  I shared a few of my fits with him and wished him luck.  Or her, maybe?  Anyways, Aylee Donut's got a good attitude towards PVP in the Black Rise region.  10/10 would fight again in a ship with some range.

I then moved deeper into lowsec and lost my Merlin to an Incursus.  It was a pretty sweet brawl - reminiscient of two tigers dueling in the night, running straight at each other and pouncing with all points extended towards the opponent.  At least, that's what sprung to mind during the fight.  Shut up, it was late.  The Incursus' larger blasters were able to tear through My Merlin after I messed up and moved my ship back into range too early.  Also, it was active armour-tanked, so I'm not entirely sure how far I would have made it in that fight.

What I learned:
- Condor versus Merlin is not going to end well for the Merlin.  I got lucky on this one.

This morning I was woken up at stupid o'clock by my pager.  Came back home afterwards and decided to get out into Black Rise again.  I decided to try a Hookbill out, figuring it would be like a better Kestrel.  Jury is still out on that.  I flew around for a half hour chasing Plex-farmers, only to walk right in to a surprise buttsecks Enyo sitting on the beacon in a small plex.  Double-webbed, scrammed and popped within 30 seconds.

What I learned:
- Don't walk in on an assault frigate in a plex.  Chances are it's set up at optimal to provide you with your daily dose of ambush.

After looking at my Security status, I figured that I should probably rejoin Faction Warfare to avoid all this security status I'm losing, and maybe start making some isk again.  Space Corporations Go Boink Inc. is a member of the Caldari State again in 24 hours.  See you out there.

Unsuccessful Week

I managed to get online very little this week.  What little time I did spend online, I looked for some PVP in lowsec as my wingman has a pretty busy in real life right now.

First up, I roamed around lowsec in a Kestrel.  In Kuormonen, I scanned down a Griffin sitting on the sun and figured it would be worth a shot to fly in there and see what it was doing.  Turns out it was sitting still on the sun, so I locked it up and started shooting it.  That is, of course, when it locked me up and started to jam me out, followed shortly by three other ships coming into range.  I managed to escape the fight and gently ribbed the pilots who set up the ambush:

                                           Obviously, I should have known it was a trap
I wandered around in Lowsec looking for fights I might be able to take.  I eventually managed to find a Late Night Alliance destroyer sitting on a FW gate.  I engaged.  We were both rocket fit - guess who one.

What I learned:

- Griffin at the sun is always a trap.
- Trying to kite a kiting destroyer is a bad idea.

Side note:

During this time, Bombers Bar's chat channel was descending into a hilarity which I believe was started by Bill Davinci stating he had intel.  Soon everyone had ridiculous intel, and the head FC changed the MOTD to state that Bill was going to start a fleet but needed more intel.  This prompted many of us to spam him with eve mails containing "intel".  It was one of those things I suspect you had to be there for.  Rest assured, hilarity ensued, though it obviously didn't lead anywhere.

                                          Report all intel to our Head FC, Bill Davinci

If this post results in Bill getting more intel: maximum lolz.

End of side note.

I then took a Harpy out into another lowsec area.  I managed to get an engagement by acting like I was ratting.  Unfortunately said engagement was with a Pilgrim and a Thorax.  I felt pretty happy that I managed to get the Thorax into about 15% armor by the time I popped, which felt like an achievement as the Pilgrim had me neuted the fuck out.  Realistically, I think the Thorax pilot was probably just playing with me.  I didn't have the cap to run my blasters and my point, so he would've flown off if he was really at risk.

Harpy down

What I learned:
- Pretending to be ratting can be a good way to draw engagements in Lowsec.  Now I just need to get my wingman back online to give me some backup.
- Fuck Pilgrims!  Just kidding.  Good fight to the pilots of Catastrophic Uprising.

Small gang roam with The Valhalla Project

After my solo adventures in lowsec, a fellow Bombers Bar resident extended an open invitation for pilots to join an armour roam being led by The Valhalla Project.  I needed to ask who TVP when the invite went out, so for those who don't know, they are an incursion group.  From what I could gather from comms, they fly together on a regular basis running incursions and making insane amounts of isk.  Every few days they get together and roam in some pretty blinged out ships, looking to PVP.

After pod-jumping to Amarr, I struggled to figure out a decent armour fit that I could take out.  I settled on a Vexor fit that hadn't held up to well previously, only after I made the mistake of buying an Omen and realizing while I was trying to fit it out that I can't use lasers.  This is a serious gap in my education that needs to be rectified.

I think the fleet that formed was much larger than the TVP pilots were expecting (they underestimated the draw of a roam invite in a channel like Bomber's Bar).  All told it took about an hour to roll the fleet out and get the ball rolling.

What stood out to me in this fleet was how cautious the FC was.  I'm used to flying in public fleets where you basically expect to lose your ship, or if not that, then you're not too worried if you do as the fit you're flying isn't overly expensive.  The FC had multiple scouts ahead of us and didn't rush into any decision.  He also set out pretty clear expectations for fleet members up front.  All in all, I enjoyed the fleet, I just found the atmosphere slightly unnerving.  It makes sense when you consider that most of the TVP pilots would typically be flying some expensive ships that they probably don't want to lose.

I, on the other hand, couldn't give a fuck if I lost my Vexor (the fit needs work anyways).  We ended up running in to a Late Night Alliance fleet in Amamake.  I got pretty excited when I saw that Susan Black was in the fleet, whose blog I read quite regularly.  I told the FC to primary her under the assumption that she was FC, but he reneged in the hope that it would keep the good fight going.  I didn't last too long in the fight, but did manage to Leroy a thrown together Merlin back into the battle after losing my Vexor (I tried to take down an Ares or a Taranis; it of course did not end well, especially as I did not find a prop mod).

A photo of the Fleet set up on the gate where we all got whelped.  Due to the massive amount so things to think about during he 10 seconds I actually survived, I didn't manage to take any screenshots during the actual engagement.

Susan Black tweeted the battle report:

Battle Report courtesy of Late Night Alliance killboard

What I learned:

-  Mo Money, Mo Problems
- Cheap disposable ships make for quick, carefree PVP.  I guess cheap is relative though.
- I think I love lowsec again.
- As I fly with different FCs, I realize more and more what a daunting task it must be.  Your FC deserves a hug and a high five.

Explosive Saturday

Thanksgiving has come around for us Canadians, eh?  Unfortunately, my son is sick, so my wife ended up taking my daughter to her family dinner and I stayed home with el sicko.  Despite having a fever, the little guy ran around non-stop and passed out pretty early.

This allowed me to jump into Eve earlier than normal.  I decided to return to the area I used to haunt when the corp was in Faction Warfare and use some of the hulls I had stocked on the edge of the battlefield.

Man, I had fun.  I won a Republic Fleet Firetail from Somer Blink, so it got kitted out and I lost it facing a Caracal.  I landed right near the Caracal and set up a close orbit with my afterburner on.  Unfortunately my Firetail wasn't fast enough to outpace the missiles being launched at me.  I don't really know why I decided to engage the Caracal.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Anyways, I'm going to point out that I didn't actually kill the Caracal, I only exploded his drones and got a few rounds off on his shields.  Two other nearby pilots came in behind me and finished it off.

I brought an old Corax out and chased a Thrasher through lowsec for a while.  I caught up to him eventually.  Thrashers are fast.  The pilot was able to control the engagement using his speed, but I caught up to him through manual flying, scramming and webbing him long enough to hit him with my rockets.  I even managed to get him into structure just before I popped.  As I was flying my pod out to reship, I noticed the pilot yelling in local for someone to stop shooting him, he was friendly.  Apparently he was too friendly?  That type of stuff was typical in the warzone, from what I can recall.

Ninja-edit:

I also remember taking out a Kestrel and a Condor, getting some good fights and dying in a few balls of fire.  The Condor was me shaking the rust off, I warped in on a small crew on an acceleration gate and popped right quick.  The fight with the Kestrel was a blast, basically it was a close race though shields and armor.  The Tristan won.

What I Learned:

- Lowsec is a blast.
- It's good to go out every once in a while and plan to lose ships.  Fight anything you can catch.
- Speed is a major factor in all engagements.  I've seen it from both sides of the equation.
- I need to keep working on my damage application skills.  I feel some of those engagements would have turned out differently if I had some T2 weapon systems.

In this post, Mick attempts to balance his life

Be warned, what follows is introspective post that tends towards my life out of game.  Sorry to break character, but I thought it would be a good idea to share.  Also, I hope that putting it in writing will help me stick to my plan.

I have a week off leading up to Canadian turkey weekend.  I've been trying some new things to get back into shape and to attempt to balance my life so that each facet gets a fair share of my time.  The following is my plan going forward to try to improve my health, and give my family more of my free time.

Some basic numbers which I will be developing my plan from:
* Numbers are not my area of expertise.  In the interest of saving face, I'm going to claim that any errors in my math are intentional.  I screwed up my math to make you laugh.  So laugh and move on!  :D

- There are 168 hours in a week.
- On average, I work 45 hours a week.
- On average, I sleep 56 hours a week.
- I am left with 67 hours of free time per week.

Now let's look at what I would like achieve in these 67 hours available:

- Spend quality time with my wife.
- Spend quality time with my kids.
- Exercise.
- Accomplish the various chores and tasks typically associated with home ownership.
- Play videogames, primarily Eve.  Because Eve is awesome.

Assuming that those 5 items are in fact the only things that I will ever spend my free time on (who knows, I could be forgetting something), that leaves each item 13.4 hours.  I'm going to round up to 13.5 hours.  That's easier for me to remember.

So it is my aim to follow this time budget going forward.  I have started the exercise routine up again,  which is realistically going to end up being about 10 hours per week once I start playing hockey again as well.  I don't think I do anywhere near 13.5 hours of chores on a week to week basis, so going forward I'm going to get off my ass and do more housework.  This will actually lead into the quality time with my wife, as if I actually do more housework, she might actually want to spend more time with me.  I usually spend most of my waking hours on the weekends with the kids.  Going forward, the aim will be to spend more time with them actively, rather than passively.  I don't want my bad habits rubbing off on them.

The only thing that gets less time than it used to in this plan is videogames.  On average I typically spend about 16 hours gaming.  Apparently the key to establishing a new habit is to do it every day for three months (it must be true, I saw it on the internet once).  My plan is too look at videogame time as a personal reward for meeting my goals.

So, wish me luck in my endeavour.  I have some chores to do.

Trying out the new exploration system

Back in my early days, I spent some time exploring in lowsec, running magnetometric and radar sites.  I actually made some pretty decent isk at it too.  Since I'm no longer tied to any particular system, and with Tesla away from game due to some real life commitments, I decided to lead a nomadic life in nullsec.

On my first jaunt, I headed to the southwest of the universe.  I was doing pretty well.  I ended up finding 3 sites, two of which were relics and one was a data.  I have stated that I'm not a huge fan of the minigame before, however after doing it a few times, I will admit that it's pretty fun.  I got into this zen mindset where i would try to click as many continuous nodes I could while keeping one eye on local and Dscan.  I made it through about 10 systems that were mostly empty, then the systems started to get busier.  Then this happened:

Suprise! Dictor

I jumped through a gate when suddenly an interdiction bubble went up and a fleet of frigates and destroyers from Get Off My Lawn surrounded me.  What can I say, I panicked.  I did my best to align, mwd and cloak, but someone had a sensor booster, locked me up and scrammed me.  The Buzzard melts very easily.  Well-played sirs, well-played.

I had another Buzzard tucked safely away in a highsec staging system I frequent, so I headed off into the polar opposite area of New Eden that I had been killed in.  I completed a tour through the northeast and eastern area of the universe, running all the exploration sites I came across.  There was a lot of them.  I managed to not die this time.  I came out with a bunch of faction and T2 Blueprint Copies.

Some notes on the new exploration system: it's really rare to find a relic site.  Relic sites are the ones to go after, as the salvage that pops from the relic scatter cans has some decent value.  The rewards from data sites are a bit shit.  Scratch that, they are really shit.  I'm not an industrialist, so I'm not about to start trying to produce from these BPCs.   Realistically, from my quick math, it doesn't look like there's much of a profit margin to be had producing the items in any case.  I pulled in a bunch of faction drone BPCs, and some assorted Module BPCs.  I looked on contracts to see what these BPCs are typically selling at, and it's not much.

For now, I guess I'll look in to another way to make isk.  I might try exploration in lowsec again, however I get the feeling I might be better off trying to hunt other explorers and take their haul off them instead.  The minigame is kinda fun, and distracting enough I can see catching some explorers unaware.  It's too bad that the rewards for doing exploration in nullsec make all that work feel like wasted effort.

Oh yeah;
What I learned:

- Smart nullsec alliances actually use their intel networks to their advantage.
- It is, in fact, possible to say bubbles in anger.
- Being late to the exploration party isn't likely to pay off.

Duo Roams Part 2: Don't fly while tired...or drinking. Certainly not a combination of both those.

After losing our ships in Querious, Tesla reported that he was feeling pretty wiped and asked when I would be able to get on next to try again.  I'm just entering some vacation time, so my evenings for the next few days are pretty booked up, which I relayed to him.  This information made him change his mind about signing off for the night, so we refit and headed into lowsec.  Tesla was flying the same HAM-fit Caracal.  I was in a Vexor fit that I had thrown together a while ago and figured I should try out.

We found an engagement on a gate as soon as we entered Kamela.  Rather, Tesla spotted a Hawk off the gate, which I told him to engage.  Tesla then reported that he was popped after about 30 seconds.  I couldn't believe that a lone Assault Frigate was putting out that much DPS. 

Caracal

I moved in on the Hawk in an attempt to avenge Tesla's death.  I managed to remember to launch my drones and get in close enough to apply DPS from my blasters.  My tank was disappearing remarkably fast, however.

Vexor

And I requested the pod express home again.  We promptly called it a night.

Feeling slightly hungover, but at least more alert the next morning, I went over the killmails to try and scry what the Hawk had done to put out so much DPS...

Lessons learned:

- Gate guns are on gates in Lowsec.
- They definitely exist.
- They do, in fact, put a lot of DPS on anyone who agresses a target while within range of the gate.
- Smart capsuleers will hang out on gates in the hopes that they can kill inexperienced pilots on gates (this may not be the case, however if you ever see us in system late at night, it might be worth a shot).
- Fucking gate guns.

Yeah, so I fucked up calling the engagement on the gate.  I need to look in to how the agression mechanics work for gate guns.  Props to Jak'at for either being in the right place at the right time, or for pulling off a cunning ambush.

Duo Roams: What I learned

Tesla and I set some time aside last night to go out and look for some fights.  I was FC, as I have a little more PVP experience (ostensibly).  My plan on this roam was to take us through Querious and look for fights.  I flew a blaster-fit Harpy, and stayed one jump ahead of Tesla, who was flying a HAM-fit Caracal.

I had some issues with my comms system, so we ended up communicating via cell phone.  Boo to crappy internet connection.

I believe we made it about 10 jumps in to my planned 40 jump route when Tesla reported that he was tackled on the gate behind me in C-7SBM.  I asked him what had him tackled.  He had no idea.  I managed to jump back through to find him tackled by a Rupture.  Tesla yelled that the Rupture was chewing through his shields real quick.  Then he said "Oh, shit.  I guess I should turn on my adaptive invuln."

Tesla popped not long after that.  He did get his pod out, which is good news as he had about 160 million worth of implants in his clone.

Kablooie

I didn't even see Tesla blow up, but I had managed to get point and web on the Rupture and establish an orbit about 5000k off the Rupture.  He was steadily chewing away at my shields, but I kept my blasters on him and kept hoping that I could get through his tank.  I think I had the Rupture down to about 15% shields when I noticed I was in low armour (I had my sound turned off so I could here the phone, ok?!).  My Harpy popped not long after that.

Didn't want that Blarpy anyways

I warped my pod out, then remembered it was a clean clone.  I politely requested the pod express and the other capsuleer kindly obliged.  Thanks, Lothein!

Lessons learned:

- That set up was heavily dependant upon positioning.  We should have set up on a gate and tried to control the engagement, rather than roam through space - leaving the fragile Caracal open to being ganked from behind by a smart capsuleer.

- Caracals have a big EM hole in their tank.  Everyone else seems to realize this.  Result: quickly melted Caracal.

- I forgot to swap to my close range ammo when I locked up the Rupture.  As such, my DPS was rather lackluster.  I need to remember to swap ammo types when I get in range.

- Related to the above point, I probably could have mitigated some of the incoming damage from the Rupture due to a higher transversal velocity.

Feel free to add your .02 isk in the comments if you see a lesson I missed.  Please note that we know we suck at this.

Summary of the Summer

I went dark there for the summer.  Tesla and I moved in to a wormhole corp as detailed in a prior post.  After spending a little time in that corp and making some bank, we followed a corp member to another wormhole corp (this one based in a C5).

Great bunch of guys in that corp.  The problem we ran into was a training issue.  The corp pushed for armor doctrines - apparently this is pretty typical in high-class wormholes.  For the most part, we have trained shield skills.  Tesla flew in a sleeper fleet and lost his battleship, then tried to fit up an Omen Navy issue to bring to the party.  Apparently it didn't hold up very well either.

The entirety of the time I spent in the C5, I ran C2 anomalies in an assault frigate.  It's like riding a bicycle through a cornfield.  Definitely worth trying at least once.

What precipitated our departure from wormhole life was a real-life disruption.  I got called out of town for work and couldn't login beyond setting up my skill queue for close to two weeks.  During this span, Tesla logged maybe one time.

About halfway through my work trip, Tesla texted me that he had moved all of his assets out of the hole and dropped roles.  He was frustrated by his inability to contribute to the sleeper fleets and didn't feel productive in any way towards the corp.

I was torn for a little bit.  The guys in this corp had been great with us, doing their best to make us feel welcome.  The CEO was very friendly and kept open lines of communication with everyone.  The decision to leave the corp along with Tesla was simple in the end, however.  I joined up to play the game with the guy, and there's not much that's going to change that.

What we're going to do now is kind of up in the air.  We're back in Space Corporations Go Boink Inc.  I don't know whether this will be a placeholder position while we consider our options, or if we'll try to build the corp in some way. 

As of right now, we're pursuing doing what we love to do in Eve.  For me, that's going out and getting fights.  I've flown a lot with Bombers Bar (it's awesome, you should do it).  Also, I've trained into interceptors just in time for the price to skyrocket because of the Rubicon changes.  It looks like we're going to fool around getting fights for the time being.

I haven't quite figured out how to supplement my income here in k-space.  Man, I'll miss the sleeper loot and the awesome PI.  I guess we'll figure something out.

I'm back, baby

Hey all...one of you?  I have a sneaking suspicion that you are the blogspot maintenance bot.  Anyways, I think I'm back.  Sorry for the lack of posting, got kind of caught up in wormholes there for a bit.  You know how wormholers are - pretty secretive.  I didn't want to step on anyones toes by posting about our activities.

In any case, I thought I'd start off with an easy post.  It's easy cause I already wrote it!  Enjoy.

My first logi experience: Flying in the Bombers Bar Sunday Special

I decided to login as my son was napping and my daughter was out at a friends house.  Figured I could at least fit up some ships I want to fly in the near future.  I then remembered that the BB was having a Minmatar themed roam at 1900 and started wracking my brain to figure what I could fly that would suit.  After a couple of minutes I threw up my hands and picked out a Scythe fit I had saved.  I've never flown as a space priest, but fuck it.

Fleet formed up with about 80 capsuleers, 13 of whom were Logi.  Sweetness.  I could hide my inexperience among the numerous logi pilots.

The FC took us into Tribute.  After taking a few pics of our magnificent ball of rust and duct tape, we ran into some of the local residents.

Rusty Ball of Death photos:

http://imgur.com/v5jsWCp

http://imgur.com/nKqGPPN

http://imgur.com/ZK2ZrqK

Our first encounter one dude got popped pretty quickly (sorry man).  I find the hardest thing about logi is remembering to make sure your orbiting the anchor, locking up the FC, Anchor, Drone Bunny, some more Logibros, assigning drones to the drone bunny, and paying attention to the fleet history for shield requests.  So there's a lot to think about.

After a little bit of wrangling carried out by our FC, a real engagement started to take shape, enemy cruisers and assault frigates filling my overview.  Secondary FC managed to move through targets quite well as our FC was agressed on the other side of our gate.  I'm not sure about what happened after this, as I got primaried and cleared off the field in what seemed to be 20 seconds, but was more likely only five.  It was probably for the best as my son had woken up and was poking at my keyboard, my wife had come home and was giving me stink-eye (mumbling something about it being a great time to play "that game") and my daughter had returned home and was yelling loudly in my ear about her day.

Obligatory loss-mail: Everyone loves to shoot the logi

Don't Return to the Site Of a Close Call

Wormhole space appears to be more dangerous than any other area we've been in.  I've come to this conclusion because I'm an idiot and managed to get blown up in my salvager - and podded - by a Tengu pilot.

This took place about 9 hours after http://errantcapsuleers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/someone-is-hererun-away.html.  I logged in and finished up an anomaly that was left unfinished by the hole's previous invaders.  I returned in a destroyer to salvage the wrecks, and after a few cycles of my salvager a Tengu appeared about 30 kilometers away (I don't think he meant to uncloak so far beyond point range, and suspect he mistakenly uncloaked on a wreck).

I managed to escape to my POS and chatted with my neighbour and Tesla for a bit while I brought the buzzard out and launched combat probes to see if I could scan down the cloaky strategic cruiser (more evidence of my stupidity).

I saw no more evidence of the Tengu, and figured I'd return to the anomaly and finish up the salvage left on field.  I had about 20 million isk in my hold as I approached the last wreck.  Suddenly, Tengu! I was webbed and scrammed before I could even align out.  I happened to have a warp scrambler equipped, as my destroyer does double duty as a pvp fit when it can.  In the hopes of scaring the mighty Tengu with an unexpected move, I locked and scrammed the Tengu, hoping that he might fear back-up was on the way.

Yeah, that didn't work at all.  I did jettison all my salvage materials before blowing up, because someone should get it and my complete lack of skill demonstrated I certainly didn't deserve to keep it.

http://zkillboard.com/detail/30623135/

And pod

http://zkillboard.com/detail/30623146/

I'm not sure what happened with the pod.  I practiced podsaving an aweful lot in Faction Warfare and was pretty surprised that I got caught.  Oh well, it wasn't a huge loss.

And with that, I made fun of myself, and signed off for the night.  

Travelling to the Present...With Bullet Points!

I'm finding this diary a little tiresome at this point, mainly because I'm so far behind my current experience, which is what I actually want to share in this blog.  This has been the main reason behind the huge gap I've had in posting.  Sorry to all 5 of my regular readers!

So, to bring us closer to the present, here's what we did in the past few months:

- Left nullsec after realizing that we didn't have the skills to make any active isk.  Also, our corp alliance was pretty indy-oriented, which Tesla and I are not.  We did get into a few small fleet engagments, which were a blast, even if we performed terribly.  This led us to move into...

- Faction Warfare.  This is a blast.  Anyone looking to learn to PVP, seriously consider joining FW for a great way to learn the basics and earn some iskies at the same time.  Just don't join the Caldari faction, as they are largely disorganized.  I will give shout-outs to the Liandri Alliance, the only group I saw that led an open fleet, which went incredibly well: http://zkillboard.com/related/30045346/201304240200/

- Grew bored with Caldari FW.  Wandered aimlessly again for about a week.  I mainly did exploration.  I think Tesla did some mining.  We decided to see what daytripping in wormholes would be like.

- Tesla scanned down a Class-1 wormhole he thought was unoccupied.  We moved our omni-tanked battlecruisers in and made over 100 million isk in about 1.5 hours.   We put all that isk towards purchasing a small tower and tower modules, which we promptly installed in the hole.  We are now wormhole-dwellers.

- A bit of exploration of our hole brought upon the realization that the hole was not, in fact, unoccupied.  Research and discussion of what to look for in a wormhole to figure if there are active pilots took place.  I didn't say we are really good wormhole-dwellers.

- Diplomatic discussions with our hole's other occupant took place.  We reached a peaceful agreement to share the space.

- Our POS was reinforced and destroyed by a band of nomadic wormhole trolls. I couldn't get online at the time of destruction, but Tesla was present during the destruction of our first POS and regaled the trolls with a variation of a Chruchill speech from World War II.  Eventually the trolls responded.  Tesla has stated that all of them were Bros, except for one pilot (I have a log of this event and will share it in the near future).

-We joined the corp of our neighbour and moved into his POS.  He has been sharing his wisdom with us and we have been working together to build our wallets.  PI in wormholes makes a ludicrous amount of isk, by the way.  Also, melted nanoribbons.  Sweet, sweet melted nanoribbons.  Nom nom nom.

With that, I think we're pretty much caught up to the present.  I have a few stories that I'll jump back to soon.  The intention going forward is to blog as events occur (giving me a way to wind down after long sessions).

Right now I'm itching for some PVP again.  I think I'll purchase some frigates and wander into nullsec.

The source of the DDoS attack on Eve servers

Eve is under attack.  Today, CCP has announced they are mobilizing internal and external staff to sort through their shit and get Tranquility and the Dust server up and running again.  So far, no comment has been made about the source of the attacks.  I know who is behind this.

I have pondered the question of who stood to gain the most from the collapse of CCP's servers.  At first I was stuck on the idea that it was orchestrated by a competitor in the Space MMO industry.  But then I realized there is no competition for Eve.

Then the answer struck me like I was being bumped off a gate!  The people who stand the most to gain from the failure of CCP's severs are: our significant others!

That's right, your wives, husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends have been meeting clandestinely in a google+ hangout while you have been flying through New Eden.  Maybe these meetings started as an ersatz support group for those in a relationship with a capsuleer. Soon the evil side of our loved ones took over, and they have succesfully coordinated a Distributed Denial of Service against our mistress/second home/harmless passtime.

The time for revenge is upon us comrades!  Hide the keys to the spare car.  Boycott the list of chores. Refuse to spend any time with your significant other until the attack on Eve's servers cease.

:P

Delivery Men in Nullsec

There were a few false starts (curse you HED-GP), but Tesla and I were able to make it to nullsec and settle in.  I remember when I made the move out to our home system, I was pretty drunk.  In my supreme wisdom, I decided to buy a GTC and sell a PLEX to support my initial move.  I woke up the next morning and logged in to see if I had in fact done what I thought I had - activated a PLEX in nullsec.  Yes, I did do that.  I felt like I was recovering from being roofied.

After committing a massive facepalm, I sold the PLEX at a discounted rate and shipped out some hulls and command centers so I could set up some colonies to get a bit of an income stream.  The production possible in nullsec colonies is ridiculous when compared to highsec and lowsec.  If you are going to do Planetary Interaction, and you can set up in nullsec, don't hesitate.  Just do it.

It took a couple of weeks to settle in.  Tesla and I participated in a couple of mining ops (yawn).  The ops were almost always cut short by a wandering neut in local.  With our general lack of skills, Tesla and I teamed up with another corp member in an effort to scan down all the Alliance's systems and collect site data.  We used a browser-based spreadsheet set up by our corpie to track all the signatures in our systems.  While doing this, I indulged in my fascination with wormholes, diving into every wormhole I found and trying to navigate through to the end of the chain.

It was at this time that I discovered through our CEO that there was an opportunity for corp members to earn isk by transporting high value, low volume items from highsec through wormhole space.  I jumped all over the opportunity, and was incredibly lucky my first few runs - I made it through the chains without even seeing another capsuleer.  I even made a decent amount of supplemental isk from the endeavour (more than I had ever made in one shot in highsec, anyways).   I also managed to sell an unoccupied class 5 wormhole during my travels - this was a huge windfall for me and was made possible by the awesome http://www.wormholesales.com/.

I somehow managed to convince Tesla that running through w-space was a viable career in nullsec, at least until we were able to fly the hulls we needed to make some isk from the local anomalies.  Tesla's first attempt at traveling through w-space ended in disaster.  While transporting approximately 200 million isk of loot, his newly launched probes vanished from space (he only had the 7 that were in space).  He then had this conversation:

*******> o/
Tesla Uitra> WELL SHIT
Tesla Uitra> Didn't know that was a thing
Tesla Uitra> you learn something everyday
Tesla Uitra> Well I guess we are going to be getting to know one another
Tesla Uitra> So what do you guys do for fun round here?

* At this point he checks static mapper and sees lots of faction kills in the recent history of the system. *

Tesla Uitra> I see you rat quite a bit
Tesla Uitra> not so much today, but good job yesterday!
*******> where are you and what are you doing here?
Tesla Uitra> lol, I'm trying to find a way into nullsec
Tesla Uitra> I'm carrying skill books, my corp just moved because of the IRC collapse there
*******> There's only one wormhole
Tesla Uitra> I'm a noob.  See, my buddy says: Transport skill books into deep null via WH for 10% profits, its fun.  Now I've been lost for 5 hours!

* Tesla was conversing with me while this was happening, and was under the impression that somehow someone had stolen his probes. *

Tesla Uitra> And now someone nixed my probes, which I didn't even know could be done.

* Tesla receives a fleet invite from the talkative w-space resident. *

Tesla Uitra> I'm a little reluctant to join a fleet with you
Tesla Uitra> no offense
Tesla Uitra> you seem nice
*******> JOB-755 - single wormhole

* It is my opinion the wormhole resident just wanted Tesla out of the hole so he could have some peace and quiet. *

Tesla Uitra> So how do you steal deployed probes anyway?
Tesla Uitra> That was a neat trick
*******> Scan it
Tesla Uitra> I was stunned.  Combat probes?
*******> I do not quite understand, bad English :(
Tesla Uitra> I was surpised!
Tesla Uitra> Next time I will bring spare probes
*******> why?
Tesla Uitra> I am not sure what to do now lol
Tesla Uitra> I can't scan my way home
*******> I can give you probes
Tesla Uitra> How?
Tesla Uitra> I've only been on for 3 months, still a noob
*******> you can scan?
Tesla Uitra> I have no probes now
Tesla Uitra> I used to be able to scan lol

* Tesla receives another fleet invite. *

Tesla Uitra> I am afraid you will blow me up if I join your fleet.  Nothing personal
*******> join and warp at 100km
*******> I promise not to kill
Tesla Uitra> lol, that's the best I am going to get I suppose
*******> if you have no probes - you can not get out without help
Tesla Uitra> lol I know
Tesla Uitra> okay

* Tesla takes the plunge due to lack of other options.  Keep in mind that he had the entirety of his wallet tied up in product he was shipping to nullsec. *

Tesla Uitra> Seems you are already near me somehow
Tesla Uitra> I can't warp to you.

* A cargo container is dropped by the resident, containing 20 sisters core probes. *

*******> probes in cargo container
*******> if you see
Tesla Uitra> Yes I do
Tesla Uitra> Thank you.  Sorry to intrude
*******> take it and go in E175, perhaps there you will find the way out
Tesla Uitra> Thank you!!!!
*******> :)

The conversation carries on a bit further, mostly just Tesla expressing his unending gratitude.  In a game that is pitched as a haven for people to explore their darkest side and generally act like dicks, this story is a nice relief.  Needless to say, this was the only time that Tesla acted as a delivery man in w-space.

The end to my career came a little later, when I was caught on a hole by a Daredevil in my Buzzard with the majority of my isk invested into blueprints to be sold to my CEO:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16447874

After that loss, I took a couple of days off from Eve.  When I returned, Tesla and I re-evaluated our isk-making strategy.  The first rule was any idea that I came up with should be regarded with suspicion.

Wandering Aimlessly in the Sanbox and Moving to Nullsec

After getting expelled, Tesla and I started trying out different careers in Eve.  I quickly found an interest in exploration, as I could turn a decent profit (for me) in a short amount of time.  Tesla participated occassionally, and we both trained into covert ops - Buzzards for the win!

At the same time, we both set up colonies to exploit for production in lowsec systems.  Passive isk is awesome, and once you get past the initial confusion over how to set a colony to produce a decent product, you can gain a nice supplement to your income.  Tesla was more adventurous in his system selection and was able to produce product at a higher yield. I chosed based on traffic and a low kill record in system.

Had Tesla chosen an easier to access system for Planetary Interaction, he might have done much better with his lowsec systems.  As it stood, he lost two badgers while making PI runs.  Fortunately for him, he hadn't filled up his cargo hold yet.  Overall, I'm sure he made a bit more isk than I did, however I never lost a ship doing my runs.

After a couple of weeks in an NPC corp, Tesla put forward that it would be fun to move to an nullsec corp.  I had misgivings, but I didn't really care to be left behind in highsec while Tesla went out to get blown up in null.  I logged off not long after his proposition expecting that we would take a few days to research corps in null before taking the plunge.

The next day, I logged in and Tesla informed me he had been accepted into a corp in the Tenerifis region of nullsec.  I was caught by surprise.  He gave me the info on the corp and while scrolling through the recruitment ad, I noticed that they had a 10 million sp requirement.  Upon pointing this out, Tesla responded that he applied while the corp was moving from the north end of nullsec.  He relayed that the recruiter he was speaking with was happy with the fact that he could produce PI, as there was a large interest in industry and production from the CEO.

So, despite my misgivings, I sent an application into the corp, stating I wanted to move to null and set up some PI, and generally have random fun.  I was accepted into corp within an hour, despite only having about a quarter of the required skillpoints.

There are going to be a few posts on life in nullsec, so I'm going to segway into the issue that this lack of skillpoints caused Tesla and myself.  At this point, our toons were about 2 months old, maybe a bit older.  We were jumping into the deep-end of New Eden, and had no real idea of what to expect, how to make isk, or how much we would be blown up.

Had the recruiter for this corp done a little research, as he had access to our full API, he would have noticed that we were only competently skilled for flying tackle frigates, Planetary Interaction, and the necessary skills for exploration.  We joined the corp as it was moving to a renter alliance, after their old alliance, IRC, was in the process of collapsing.  Our systems were right on the edge of the systems held by S2N, and were heavily roamed by TROLL.  We were moving into a system that we would not be able to support ourselves in.

Himdsight being 20/20, both Tesla, myself, and the recruiter should have  taken a step back, looked at our skill points, and concluded that perhaps we should try to join when we were closer to the minimum requirement.  As a new player, things you take for granted in highsec - easy access to markets, rats that are designed to be easy for you to kill, et cetera - are gone.  Instead you have battleship rats, stations with unseeded markets' and roaming gangs of hostile forces looking to make your current hull explode, which is expensive and difficult to replace.

I would advise any new player who is looking to move into nullsec to research their prospective corp and the region they are in.  While researching, spend some time in the recruitment channel and have some real discussions with those present.  Ask how they make their isk, what hull and support skills you should have in order to be able to make a decent living, as well as what the expectations are during fleet engagements (trust me, there will be a lot of those, and if you can fly the required hull, they will be the most fun you have in nullsec).

If you don't do your research and proceed like we did, you will find yourself struggling to survive.  We met and flew with some excellent people in Tenerifis, and a lot of them were nice enough to help us out - both strategically and financially.  In time I started to feel unable to properly contribute and that I was a drain on the corp.  Not really a position I ever want to be in.

Expulsion for Attempted Piracy

We reached a lull at OUCH.  I had missed a course that was a prerequisite for participation in the nullsec gate camps put on by the faculty in order to give students a taste of small gang pvp.  The course wasn't to be offered again for another month, so I returned to highsec in an attempt to make more isk.  I was generally unsuccesful.

Tesla was able to take part in a gate camp.  He let me know that it was great getting in on some kills, but the attitude demonstrated by the particpants didn't sit well with him.  His description of events reminded me of a class trip with remedial students.  Within a half hour, the students are detriorating into a state of near-insanity, while the teacher's temper gets shorter and shorter.  After his initial camp, Tesla returned to mining to pass the time until we could at least sit on a gate together.

Time passed slowly, and as days went by my eagerness to get into a gate camp with OUCH lessened.  There was a roadblock between me and my goal of completing the curriculum.  Rather than attempt to break through the roadblock, I was starting to think about just choosing a different path.  It is a sandbox after all.  After some discussion with Tesla, we concluded that we had learned enough about pvp and nullsec survival to get on in New Eden.  It was time to leave OUCH.

I didn't even get a chance to push the quit button, however.  While running missions in highsec, I accepted a mission that brought me into lowsec (despite being urged not to by Tesla).  I was blown into bitty pieces by a capsuleer who preys on easy targets like this one:

http://zkillboard.com/detail/27307116

I was promptly expelled from OUCH for breaking one of their cardinal rules, namely don't participate in any combat not led by a faculty member.  Actually, I think they had a rule against lowsec too.  In any case, my time in OUCH was done.  With no chance of having me in a gate camp fleet, Tesla's interest in graduating evaporated.

Realisically, it would have been very simple for Tesla to toggle the leave corporation button and wait the 24 hours to get kicked into an NPC corporation.  That action didn't really suit our playstyle thus far, so Tesla decided a little self-sabotage was in order.  We fitted up two OUCH spec Merlins and flew into lowsec to attempt to gank someone less knowledgable than us.

We finally found a lone capsuleer on gate.  We forgot about gate guns.  Also, we had no idea what a Cynabal was.  In fact, the whole thing was a great big clusterfuck.  However, we couldn't stop laughing at ourselves.  We may suck at this game, but we have a great time being bad:

http://zkillboard.com/related/30005257/201301110100/