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.