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.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Thursday, 10 October 2013
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.
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.
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.
Friday, 4 October 2013
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, 3 October 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
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
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
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