Norses for courses

Bookmarking

2010-03-25T13:02:00.000Z

Its higly important in 0.0, it can easily become a garbled mess, its boring.
Get some tips on Bookmarking here from Lumenarious Rex.

Props to you Sir for the top guide.

Provi Update + I fail

2010-03-23T13:33:00.000Z

I'm sorry I've been fail in Eve recently and done nothing interesting, last night I chased a few frigs about and watched a 20 BS Gents gang sail through WD-VTV from the safety of a POS but thats about it. To be honest I need cash and making cash is dull so I end up mooching about in a Rifter instead. Unfortunately I'm also rubbish at finding targets so this would make painfully dull reading.

Proviwar.
A couple of things happened this weekend.
The P6N8-J constellation now belongs to Sodalitas XX (I don't know).
The XV7L-S constellation is now owned by Sodalitas XX & Daisho Syndicate with Ushra'Khan taking the last system, the gateway of KBP7-G.
This means there are now no Empire exit systems out of Providence that are friendly to CVA.

Things I've learnt
I need to roam more as I'm still very bad at it.
I need to stop buying ships off my ex-corpmate Titus Balls.
Sitting in an enemy ratting system cloaked up while they all cower in a POS shield is surprisingly fun.

Moar Proviwar

2010-03-17T13:21:00.000Z

Summers coming, that means I get to do loads of fun things like sort out the shitheap that is my garden and try to make room for the inevitable slew of new outdoor toys my kids will get (by throwing out last years).
WTF has this got to do with Eve? Nothing really I'm just making a weak excuse as to why I've not been on much recently *hides copy of Bad Company 2*.

"So what's been going on with that wacky Proviwar?" I hear you all ask... well I would if anyone cared any more.
The Anti Providence task force of U'K, AAA, Atlas and friends attacked the P6N8-J constellation. All 6 system of it. Currently owned by Cold Steel Alliance its a pretty nice constellation with 1 way in and out and some ripe bearing grounds with an (0.48) low sec entrance a mere 2 jumps away which is always nice for shipping out your hard earned rat loot.
In other provi news there's been a steady flow of freighters taking stuff out of various parts of provi as the..erm..less combat orientated corps. decided this isn't the place for them and get out with what they can and occasionally failing.
Its not all been going our way though with some good gangs being put together fast and messing about with our system lockdown plans while stuffs evacuated.

TL:DR MOAR FIGHTS!

What I've learnt
My shed smells bad.
Don't pick on an EWar frigate in a Rifter if he has friends nearby (I couldn't lock anything and only just escaped with 28% structure).
Medium Projectiles V - Woooooooo

Master & Commander

2010-03-11T13:33:00.000Z

At the tender Eve age of 5mil skillpoints yesterday I FC a gang.
WTF!

I never intended in a million years to lead the Op. I made a forum post for a Corp. Tech 1 frigate/cruiser roam to try and get some people out hunting with the naive believe someone else would step up to the mark and take charge rather than letting me (who still has not got a solo kill) run the show, and with the wall to wall CTA's Eve's been serious business pretty much since I joined MSCS way back in November so I've had very little social time with my Corp-mates and wanted to get out and have some fun together.

The appointed date came and no-one seemed to take charge...oh dear. I hastily prepared a rough roaming route and read everything I could about FC'ing gangs on our alliance forums (sorry no links) before shatting myself and setting up a fleet.
1 stabber and 4 Rifters (including my Rifter) with another roamer going to catch up soon, so I wasn't too worried about loosing everyone's ships as we set off up the pipe to CB4.
Then Dan Grommel caught up...in a Dramiel. Dry mouth time.
To be fair to Dan he had said on the forum could he take his Dram, but I thought he was joking and replied sure as long as he didn't mind loosing it. The prospect of him actually loosing it and it being my fault was not a happy thought.
The very next system our scout reported he'd got point on a Myrmadon so we all warped in guns blazing and he went down (Congratulations to the enemy guy in a Rifter who warped straight on by and jumped through the gate without helping him. Bravo to you Sir) .
My first kill as an FC, I was pretty chuffed at this point.
Then the inevitable happened. My 2 year old Son woke up and, me being the only parent in the house, I had to bail pronto. Really sorry to the guys in my corp.

In all honesty I did barely anything here and was really FC in name only. This kind of roam is the bread and butter of what U'K do and the same guys could do it with there eyes closed and probably do a better job too. But it was a big confidence booster to me to do it and know that they were willing to let me boss em around a bit and also that I had the security of knowing that they all knew what they were doing and would (and indeed did) offer up advice without ever undermining my 'position' as FC. Thanks a lot guys.

p.s The gang roamed a bit more taking down a Vaga before calling it a night.

Ratting, its a bears life.

2010-03-10T13:27:00.000Z

Not had much time for this with the recent Proviwar activities but at some point you need to make isk, its a fact of Eve life, and the "easiest" way I can do that in 0.0 is by ratting. Bounties + salvage+ loot = isk.

Anomly Vs belt
Initially all my ratting was in asteroid belts which is fast, easy to start (warp to a belt...oh look there's some rats) and simple enough. I'd clean up afterwards with a salvager (giving me some repair time) and move to the next belt. This had a few drawbacks for me.
Cargo space - I'd quickly run out of places to put loot.
DPS - I was leaving 1-2 highslots for Salvagers which was eating into potential DPS.
A bit boring - it was boring.
I don't have an alt so the often used technique of having a dedicated salvager 1 belt behind picking up all the goodies is not an option for me and I find clearing the belts then coming back in a salvage ship tends to lead to meeting new rat spawns in a ship with no guns and a terrible tank.

So recently I've bee trying anomalies instead. The bonus' are I can charge in all highslots blazing then once the smokes cleared I can dock up, swap to a dedicated salvage ship and do all the salvage in 1 swoop. The downside tends to be the bounties aren't as nice as the belt rats (for the level of anomaly I can solo).

My Ratting Boat
This is the current setup I use (its a Sansha rat area so Thermic and EMP tanked) and I tend to burn in close and do max dps on the biggest ships while either sending the drones after frigs or adding to my DPS. I can perma run 1 of the reps but the other is for emergency use (usually in tandem with the cap booster), and I cant run 2 Heavy launchers just yet, hence the mixing..
----------------------------
[Hurricane, current]
N-Type Reflective Membrane I
N-Type Thermic Membrane I
N-Type Thermic Membrane I
Damage Control I
Medium Armor Repairer I
'Meditation' Medium Armor Repairer I

Medium Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 400
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma M
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Widowmaker Heavy Missile
Standard Missile Launcher I, Flameburst Light Missile

Hobgoblin I x3
----------------------------

I can solo "Rally Point" anomalies fine and, with the odd warpout, I can do a 'named' Rally Point anomaly (Forsaken Rally Points seem to give good BS spawns but I can have difficulty tanking the damage).
One thing I have been thinking of trying Artillery instead of autocannons but I've not though up a fit yet, also I finish Medium Projectile Weapons V on Friday so I can upgrade to T2 guns after that (yay).
But as always more = better and any way people can suggest for me to rake in more ratting Isk quicker is always welcome.

I have also been thinking of trying out a few wormhole sites as and when they crop up locally so any suggestions for an omni-tank Hurricane also gratefully received.

Whats been going on in the Provi war?

2010-03-08T13:29:00.002Z

Seems like the initial excitement over the war in Providence has died down (now the interesting initial moves have finished) and there's no exciting and huge battles to talk about so I'll keep this brief.
Continuing after the AM sov fail handed UK 3D-CQU, as much as the servers tried to stop us-

Sylph disbanded - lol - this gifted N-8BZ6 to U'K
Combined -A- & U'K forces took the gateway systems of G-5EN2 and Y-MPWL with Sys-K following shortly taking R3-K7K . This leaves the Provi block 1 gateway out of the region at KBP7-G.

So currently our blues hold the majority of ways in and out of Provi which is a serious setback to the holders and numbers of reds to hunt are dwindling day by day .
I cant really comment on the operations to take the gateways as they generally happened while I was at work (damn you 'real life') but very few reports of battle have filtered through our forums and it seems Provi are opting for a "don't give em fights and they'll get bored" strategy. To be fair the CTA's I have been on recently were almost universally dull which has dampened my enthusiasm to log on till 3am for a good fight, so maybe its working.

Things I learnt
I like Target Painters and flying Ewar frigates.
I can run 2 medium armour reppers on my ratting Hurricane which is kinda cool.

Keeping the Vigil

2010-03-03T13:05:00.002Z

Being a newbie in 0.0 space can be a bit of an ego hit during fleet operation. You're always taking the last possible option in the suggested ship types and get to take part in the kamekazee role of light fast takle, made all the harder if you have lag, which interceptors will do faster and (T2 fit) cruisers will survive longer. This often leaves me wondering if there isnt something more effective I can do even with my noob skillset.

The other day I noticed a stash of Vigils in the corp hanger and I hatched an idea in my tiny mind. Its not heroic, its not butch and macho but I could sit back and targetpaint primaries and contribute by boosting DPS for everyone else so I took the road less travelled of the T1 E-war frigate.

[Vigil, Vigil Fleet Painter ]
Capacitor Power Relay I
Capacitor Power Relay I
Signal Amplifier I

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Target Painter I
Target Painter I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
Rocket Launcher I, Foxfire Rocket

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Warrior I x1

Its pretty straightforward really, 2 painters in the mids to do the main business of the ship with a 1MW mwd letting me cruise at 3,500 m/s. The capacitor power relays keep everthing nice and cap stable while the sensor ap means I can lock targets out to 70ish km (which is just short of my target painting range).
I should be staying out of trouble but just in case I have the awesome power of 2 125mm AC's, Rockets and one whole Warrior 1 to fend off any would be attackers (they might be able to help against any drones sent to attack me atleast).
I know its got no tackle but my thinking is to stay as near max range as possible so I don't really want to be venturing in that close and putting my paper thin ship in any more risk.

Only used it in 1 fleet fight so far and it was pretty (very) uneventful so I'll take any and all suggestions.

Am I an exception to the rule?

2010-02-24T14:20:00.004Z

When I first came to 0.0 space I was pretty much as green as they come (and am still only slightly less green now) with skillpoints hovering about the 2 million mark and a slight knowledge of PvP (thanks to RedVsBlue).
I knew I wanted to be PvP centric, I knew I wanted a reason to fight, basically I knew I wanted to play in 0.0 space.
Everything I read on forums said I should not be going to nullsec so soon but its what I wanted in Eve and I didn't want to spend ages doing stuff I didn't want to do to get there so I took a gamble and went for it. I'd either enjoy it and keep playing Eve or I'd have a very short subscription.

I'm still here so I guess I did something right but the overwhelming response to noobs moving into 0.0 is massively negative.
I started blogging in an attempt to document that fact that "if I can do it anyone can" but I'll be the first to say I couldn't have got anywhere without a Corp and this may be the first real hurdle, finding a 0.0 Corp/Alliance willing to take a risk with someone who quite probably is a spy. I'm pretty sure I just lucked my way into MSCS but once in the Corp life in 0.0 wasn't so tough.
The alliance recruitment forums amaze me now with posts from players with quotes like this-

"I dont know if my SP (11Mil) are enough to live in 0.0 space (guess not?)"

-a regular occurrence. I still don't have even half that and I've been in 0.0 full time for about 4 months now but this is the image that lawless space projects to the Eve community as a whole as a world were any jump could be your last and the uber skilled pilots lurk in every belt with the most well equipped ships imaginable ready to punish anyone who's not been skilling for the last 3 years+. Is this elitist e-peen waving or is my case a pure fluke?

Now before I get shot I'm not saying every noob with a trial account should go flooding into nullsec I'm not although I'm sure some pirates and 0.0 roamers would love it if they did, Images of baby penguins jumping en-mass into the sea full of waiting killer whales spring to mind, and infact does the image of 0.0 life serve a purpose of keeping away the people who aren't truly determined to live there against the odds as it were?

Edit- A follow up post from Manasi about the difference between being able to fly a ship and being able to use a ship.

TV AM

2010-02-22T10:49:00.001Z

The sovereignty final stuck so U'K hold the Z-R system and station. Hurrah!
Spurred on by this, and the prospect of 'the eternal strugle' coming to an end U'K have had a Territorial Claim Unit onlineing in 3D constantly all weekend and some form of presence in system to keep an eye on it. I joined a fleet locking down the system on Saturday night and did the usual gate guarding and sat reporting intel while the big guns took down the AM TCU which would otherwise online before ours did.
Not that it mattered as sov dropped once again.
3D is still a war zone but U'K have held a pretty sturdy system dominance so I'm hopeful we can take it when CCP sort out the bug that's causing the Sov drops.

I logged on Sunday at our POS in 3D (as I went to bed before the operation in system finished) and out TCU have 2hrs to go before it onlined. I was about to make a run for it back to more friendly space when reports of an enemy gang coming to 3D and another camping D-G were reported so I hung about in the POS for a bit before logging off.
Pretty uneventful weekend TBH. Still grinding T2 Cruiser skills (nearly at T2 medium guns now).

Thinkgs I learnt
I need to sort out my Rupture fit, I cant squeeze a MWD on there and I feel terribly slow with only an AB for a speed boost.
Minmatar Battleships 1 - yeah I learnt a BS skill (even if its just a token lvl1, was only a few hours).

Thinks to do
I WILL roam this week, it is my mission in life (for this week).

Broken Record

2010-02-19T09:40:00.001Z

After Aegis Militia decided to change their name they lost Sovereignty to the whole Q-6LG1 constellation on Tuesday the 16th Feb. Never ones to pass up a good opportunity U'K & AAA jumped at the change to gain another foothold in providence that's nicely in jumpbridge range of 9UY and the war began.AM reacted quickly and gained back 4 systems in the constellation leaving Z-RFE3 and the linking system of 3D-CQU unclaimed.

Almost 2 days solid fighting later and AM were holding ground well with TCU's being onlined round the clock by both sides and being destroyed with minutes to spare as the opposing fleets swapped system dominance before finally AM seemed to give up so Ushra'khan and AAA held the field long enough to get TCU's onlined in both systems and held both the stations. Tired hungry but happy the job was over the fleet set off jumping home.

"Funny story...and I'm not joking....Sov just dropped in both systems"
To say the shit hit the fan doesn't really do it justice. Fleet and Alliance chat exploded with expletives and people desperately serched for answers. WTF just happened?
AM picked up on it straight away and started onlineing more TCU's while the majoyity of our forces went back to GE or V2 to emorage about all the fighting now being for nothing. Details were checked, checked and tripple checked by alliance and we could only conclude it was a bug and petitions and bug reports were filed. Of course CAOD thought differently and lols commenced.

The 48 minute problem
An AM TCU onlined in Z-R the next day and I'm sure they had epic lols at our "failure" but their faces dropped a few minutes later as so did their Sovereignty. This continued right now with little reply form CCP about why we're now stuck in an eternal fight for 2 systems seemingly unable to hold a claimed state for more than about 30 minutes and with dwindling interest from both sides (who wants to fight for space you cant have?) but the fighting will continue with the hope that it'll get fixed at some point and someones Sov will stick.
Hopefully ours.
Until then its a bit like Red Vs.Blue with pewpew on demand for those who want to take part.
FOR THE TEAPOT!

The life of Light Support

2010-02-17T08:58:00.002Z

FC- everyone warp to [person] @ 10 now now now
Find him in fleet list, right click warp to...."hmm I'm aligning."
Screen goes red "oh crap"
spamwarp spamwarp spamwarp
WHAAAAH WHAAAAH WHAAAH
mail icon flashes
"back in V2 again".
I actually had some decent loot for once as well, I knew I'd die.

I did actually get to shoot stuff before this but not a lot then after the podding it was already midnight so I went to bed. Sounds like it was an epic night of fighting though and a lot of fun, thanks to Provi for bringing the fights.

Thing I Learnt
When on a gate in Light Support while the big ships blow stuff up be aligned to something.
Skynet has infiltrated Eve and lives in our POS.

21D13H12M

2010-02-16T13:34:00.001Z

Training long skills is a bitch (Minmatar Cruiser V if you want to know).

Not much has been going on in Eve for the last week. Well thats a total lie shit loads has happened with the Goon/BoB/SOLOblahblah business and U'K taking 9UY and some Sylph space which fell foul of another Sov bill ooops but most of the action helpfully took place while I was at work. Great.
I did play some small part in the taking of J6QB-P by cloaking up and relaying intel and scouting some ships to the fight which was kinda cool and scouting is something I want to do more of so it was good practice.

I need to roam more, I've not been out on a roam in ages. In between CTA's I've been getting ready for the next CTA and during the recent "lull" (a few days without a CTA) I managed to get a tiny amount of 'bear type activities to earn some much needed Isk. Now its looking like its back to the fight (thank you very much Aegis Militia) so when I get logged on it'll either be all hands to the fleet or a cheeky Stealth Bomber roam as the hornets nest should be well and truly stirred up.
The simple joys of a provi roam will be so much sweeter once I get the time. Assuming there's any Provi left to roam in... hahahaha of course I kid they are bringing some great fights at the minute and its all good fun.

To the Thrashers!!!! (I might even upgrade to a Rupture...oooo)

Things I Learnt
People get angry when you leave your mic open (sorry guys).
Scouts don't get on killmails.
When asking advice on what to train next you will get 10 different answers, just pick one and stick to it.

Bring it

2010-02-08T17:14:00.000Z

Tonight the final battle for sovereignty of 9UY begins, who will own it tomorrow?
Either way it should be an epic fight and a new chapter in the epic saga of U'K vs. CVA.
*crosses fingers and prays the node holds*

Breaking news!

2010-02-05T10:04:00.001Z

Alright there isnt any and this weeks had enough of it already I think
I've not blogged about what's going on in the South as everyone else and their cat has (and done it better than me) plus the most of the action has happened while I've been at work or with my family so I've kinda missed out and could only regurgitate what's been told to me.
So...what have I been up to.
The attack on 9UY happened (no really) and I got in system just as the action was finishing there, almost literally, hung about for a bit then went back to V2 and practised scanning some more. Yesterday when I logged in I went straight back to 9UY to try my luck, joined a fleet chasing a few reds up and down the pipe to empire where I got nothing, don't think I even saw a red, before camping gates in 9UV. This form of space denial is the most fun you can have.....
Drank some beer, ate sweets and watched time tick by, Then a red miniblob turned up DIRECTLY ON ME and... pwned. Well at lest I was back in V2.
Predicting an Eve heavy weekend I logged off to spend some time with my wife and stock up on good will.

What I learnt
Being at work during CTA's stinks.
-A- really don't like local chat.
I need to roam more (I'm in Ushra'Khan FFS) and this is the perfect time to do it. I'm not sure got the skills to really be of use in the gate camps we have running right now and I always see to get to a fight just as its finishing so I might try roaming about around the 9UY area and see what's going on, see if I can stir things up and even if I get no kills I might at least cause some disruption. My minds made up, contact the Rifter dealers.

The day the whole world went away

2010-02-03T10:32:00.002Z

Goonswarm is no more what the..... Given there recent failcascade in Delve I don't suppose it should be much of a shock really but that's one hella big power vacuum.
Although the alliance known as "Goonswarm" is gone, as of about 6:45am today, I'm pretty sure there will be a new alliance of corps with a rather similar members list later today or tomorrow. They do still 'own' the Band Of Brothers name don't they?

I've not blogged for a few days so I'll try and recap whats been going on.

Roam out of D-G yay.
.-A-. tackle a Carrier, we go to assist.
Carrier gets away before we arrive..boo.
I get on a few killmails.
I loose yet another ratting cane when I warp to an anomaly and 3 waves spawn at once and the frigates scram me...
I've been practising probing things down, wormholes, complexes etc. I'm getting better slowly.
Currently training Minmatar Cruiser V aiming for Recons.

Other Catch/Provi news is all about CVA. They took some space which was, from what I understand was agreed with .-A-. they wouldn't touch.
.-A-. got annoyed and we took it all back then took D-G (yay U'K fleet was over 200 ships BTW). After a lengthy post on CAOD .-A-. basically said they had no problem with CVA and no more aggression would follow if they got there shit together and stopped attacking Catch.
CVA did a (pretty good RP) post saying...no.
The deadline date .-A-. set for peace talks has just passed so what now?

Things I've learnt
Being 1 of 40 small ships in jump range of a gate in enemy space makes me feel anxious.
Impulse drive is your friend when the bombers do turn up.
40 frigs can really f**k things up!
I need to do more roaming.
Jetcans disappear after 2 hours duh, move your stuff out of it before AFK'ing to watch TV with the wife.

Another tale of idiocy

2010-01-27T14:52:00.000Z

A bit sooner than I would've liked I lost my first stealth bomber.
Was out for a pre-CTA roam with a few guys from UK and had taken the role of scout hunting for some hapless belt ratting BC's. Started out going up the pipe to W9 but we got wind of a 30 man gang so turned back and headed over towards SV5. When we got to 36N- there was another 120 man red gang floating about so we waited to see where it was going and I jumped into U-Q. 2 neutrals off gate so I checked there info and ship types, both in interceptors...hang on that ones locking me...oh crap.

Why I failed as a scout.
First I need to be faster on directional scans, we could've had a couple of easy kills around 2J- if I had been. I think my problem came from trying to pinpoint locations with D-scan rather than using it for an educated guess and warping on grid to confirm. If there arent many belts (like in 2J-) I would probably even be quicker just bouncing between em all, anyone at an enemy POS isn't a target anyway.
The whole 'death' thing. I'm not sure what happened here in all honesty but I ended up uncloaked so either an object uncloaked me, in which case I need to sort out my overview settings; a ship uncloaked me, in which case I need to pay more attention or I just didn't cloak up in which case I got what I fully deserved.
Whichever one it was I should have jumped through, warped to a safe and cloaked before doing anything else. People on gate = get away from it.

On a lighter note...
...the CTA in D-G was ace and I got a few killmails from it using an arty fit "sniper" thrasher. Yeah it lagged but I managed to get in a few fights anyway (I'm sure I should be on atleast another 3 KM) and it was good fun.

Still gutted about the bomber.

Project D-G-liverance

2010-01-25T15:39:00.000Z

War has come to Catch in the last few week with Dominion hitting and -A- abandoning some systems (most notably SV5) but not really wanting anyone else to have them, then with CVA's announcement of their expansion of 'Project Deliverance' into catch it was only going to get more interesting from there.
The best defence is a good offence as they say and they don't get much better than attacking 3 enemy systems at once including our nearest gateway into Providence D-GTMI.
I wasn't able to get with the fun Friday night but Saturday I braved the wife agro and joined in on the Op. Ended up a bit boring with me sitting guarding a gate and trying to get on killmails, failing spectacularly as all the reds warped in on the opposite site of the gate bubble than me.
Sunday I hit the Op again and Titan bridged in to D-G (I could get used to this) and set up in my gate guarding position which I'm getting used to in Ops now (curse my low skillpoints). An hour or so later and locals rising topping out at about 1300...the shocking thing being its not crashed.
Somewhere someone blows a big horn and battle starts with reds appearing on overview at an alarming rate and the lagfest begins. What actually happened I'm not sure but I clicked everything about 500 times seemingly to no effect before logging off and back on again. Still not great but better I manage to lock up a few ships and register a few damage notifications and as numbers thin the lag gets better before the inevitable happens and my poor Rifter meets its end. Such is the job of light support.
Spam "Warp To.." for the next 10 minutes and I eventually get out alive and take the usual route back to V2 to ship up.
Bonus' - I lived, CCP lost my lossmail.
Annoyances - Lag, I lost a ship, CCP lost my killmails.

The main thing is we won. Buts its not the end....

Bladerunner

2010-01-18T13:23:00.000Z

You might have heard of a little system called 49-U6U is a backwards system out in 0.0 that's a gateway from Catch to Querious and 2 jumps from Delve; and AAA and goons have been knocking the shit out of each other there (with a little help from U'K).

I don't think I've been in 0.0 2 months yet and already I've managed to be in some epic epic fights even if my involvement now even worth of a footnote I was there and that's all that matters to me.
It started a few weeks ago as a but of diversionary fun against the Goonfleet and escalated into a whole storm of CTA ops (Call To Arms, the more 'serious' alliance operations) as the same day wonderful Proviblob decided they wanted to claim some systems AAA had pruned off after Dominion including SV5-8N. Now technically they were unclaimed and available but like a spoilt child we (-A- and by extension U'K) didn't want them, but then we didn't want anyone else to have them either. Especially if that someone was CVA or their pets.
So I've been running from one end of catch to the other and back again being in 1 fleet op or another sitting in support channels and guarding gates in my trusty Rupture.
This all ended Saturday night/Sunday am when I was warping to the 49- gate in 4-07. We'd just swapped to the main operation Teamspeak and someone kicked off about noobs in bubblecamp just as I warped into a bubble. A lot of 'F' words got banded about and I MWD'd off bubble and warped back to our POS. Turns out they didnt mean me/us so I warped back to gate straight into the Goon camp and was promptly podded. Great. Waking up in V2 I got in a Rifter, thinking I could run the camp and give some fast tackle in fleet, and got back to 4-07. a fair few were still on POS and we sat waiting for someone to report no camp. About 30 minutes passed when I decided to take the initiative, HTFU up, and started making a fleet to try and bust the camp open instead. Someone in fleet said they FC'd regularly so I passed the Op to them and continued waiting as he sorted out warp-ins and intel and it was about then that Teamspeak kicked off again with everyone crashing. 1300 people in 49- local and the server had died a horrible death. It was 3am and I went to bed (I'm not that hardcore).

Goons have maintained a pretty hefty camp in 4-07 and the Provis have been camping HED on a daily basis so travel outside of Catch can be a bit risky but I had a few presents waiting in Agil so before downtime yesterday I made a run for it.
I can now fly a Stealth Bomber, I feel like a real Ushra'Khan now. I even dropped a bomb on the Provi gate camp in HED but killed nothing. I lived that's the main thing.

Things I learnt
0.0 warfare is a lot of waiting about then lag.
Fighting for Sovereignty means statying up late and being tired.
Goons like camping and so does Provi. I need more gate bookmarks.
Stealth Bombers weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The Waiting Game

2010-01-12T15:38:00.000Z

A shit heap of stuff is kicking on in Catch round about now so its fleets a plenty for me when I get online. However I will no longer ask what ship to take because I get me with comments from elitist shitheads as I cant fly anything tech2 yet. Should I bring a BC then? No I cant fit tech 2 howiez yet....I'll just dock up then. Yawn fest.

Anyway I finish cloaking 4 in about 2 days and should be bomber capable by the weekend with Cheetahs a few days behind. No I wont be able to fit tech 2 torpedo or have max probing skills....kicked from fleet again then.

In my quest to further induce lolz from the ~elite pvp~ crowd in alliance chat I will then start to train for interdictors in an attempt to be useful in fleets but will probably get mocked for not being able to tech2 pimp it out. See a trend?

Yes I'm feeling narky today.

Foolish man

2010-01-07T09:22:00.002Z

Lost my Hurricane "mk2" last night to general boneheadedness. Went after some rats (2BS 2frig spawn) but they were in the middle of the belt so I ping-pong'ed off about 6 roids before I could get under the guns of the first BS. took him down but was feeling the pain as I started to MWD to the second. Started hitting mid structure so I warped to a nearby safe. 20 seconds later I'd still not warped and pop.

Swearing ensued.

Back to V2 and I got a new 'cane "mk3" and fitted it (insured as well) and went back to the rat belt. Great the first BS has respawned and they're still in the belt. tried some manual manoeuvring around the roids but ping-pong again before taking down the first BS and getting in under the second. Hit structure (deja-vu!!) so warped to safe...nothing...nothing....nothing. Seriously WTF!!! I think the cane couldn't align to warp due to a nearby roid so I cancelled the warp and warped to gate instead. Got there with 3% structure.
Dropped into station and repaired before going back and killing the final BS and looting the 3BS wrecks and the remains of my poor Mk2 'cane.

I logged off not a happy man.
Eve giveth and eve taketh away.

Lesson learnt
Its really not worth it "let it go Indiana".

Holidays arent a time for gaming...

2010-01-06T13:38:00.002Z

..or blogging it seems. Pesky family.
Been a while since I did a post so I'll try and remember WTF happened.

I got a Hurricane! All my ratting money added up and with the help of generous corp-mates I got enough together to move into the marvellous world of BattleCruiser ownership. Making money is now way way easier.

I lost a Hurricane! Was ratting with about 20 people in system when 2 reds popped up in local. I called it on the intel channel and (here's the stupid part) continued ratting. "20 people in local, what's the chances they pick on me?" apparently quite high. I'd just ratted together enough cash to fit a new one though, and yes I had remembered to insure it. Phew.

I joined in on a frigate op, but due to sneaky sneaky spies he got well and truly camped in. I suicided through a gate to give intel to the fleet as my budget Rifter was a mega cheap fit (and I wanted to go to bed). First alliance op. Yay.

My corp mate and occasional mini-roam mate Tiny Scream left the corp. No idea why but I'm guessing RL reasons. Hope to see you again soon Tiny.

I ratted a lot. I've been training up to fly bombers so got some implants and, due to being skint, didn't want to have to replace them. PvE yawn.

I was given a Rupture, its been fit (as close to as I can get) in a fleet support role and is on standby for Alliance ops. Unfortunately I've not got a chance to try it out yet due to holiday/wife/work commitments. Booo RL.

I killed a True Sansha. Kerching!! I'm no longer (that) poor and my bomber skill queue is only a a week away from finishing. Also just noticed I only had Learning 3 so I immediately started training Learning 4.

Things I've learnt.
BattleCruisers make 0.0 life so much easier its unreal. I can go solo ratting and rack up a few million isk in no time, which will keep me in budget Rifter fits for a good while.
I quite like intel gathering, been thinking of training up for a Cheetah after I've finished the Hound queue (its only a couple of days for bits and bobs) then I might wander off and try being sneaky sneaky intel man.
Holidays mean wardecs, which makes trips to Empire paranoia fuelled panicfests for me.

Always look at the pricetag

2009-12-03T16:42:00.001Z

Went out for another quick 0.0 roam last night, just threw together a Rifter from salvage bits I had in station.
Got killed by another bubblecamp....no biggie its a 0.5mil rifter fully insured right.
Wrong. Checking killmail it turns out the named Damage Control I had got from a rat and fit was worth 10million ISK.

fail

The day of firsts pt 2.

2009-12-02T09:13:00.000Z

Had my first nullsec roam on Monday with the aid of Tiny Scream and needless to say I died. Had good fun though and I learnt a few things along the way, mainly that 0.0 isn't the huge festering pit of gankblobs noobs are led to believe it is.
So we set off into Sylph space to try and find a juicy target but locals were pretty empty so we kept jumping. Things started to get hotter round about EX0L-Q with us running a few gates but it all went wrong hitting A-VILQ were local hit about 16 reds and they quickly set up a camp. Tiny cloaked up while I jumped about a bit but it quickly became clear I was going to have to just run for it.
Warping to the N-8 gate I jumped though...right into a bubble. I tried not to panic and held cloak, looking about I was right on the edge of the bubble and had an asteroid belt in just the right direction so I was hopefull. I talked it through with Tiny and set off.
Click the belt. Approach. Activate MWD. Spam the "warp to.." button like a madman.
Podded. Well it was to be expected wasn't it?
The important things are:-
A- I've been in a 0.0 roam.
B- I've faced a bubble gatecamp.
C- I didn't panic.
D- I had a laugh doing it and got a major adrenaline buz.
It was a 500k Rifter so even I can loose that and fun was had. Its a win in my book.
More please.

Oh and Dominions out now, Fleet finder is ace.

More ratting in 0.0

2009-11-30T14:38:00.001Z

Not much has been going on so far TBH, I've been getting more used to ratting in 0.0 picking on the single Battlecruiser spawns where I can in my Thrasher O doom or cleaning up other people wrecks and cans if they don't want them (always ask in local first kids).
The Alliance has had a few ops going on but I've held off getting involved until I get more nullsec savy as far as general flying about is concerned.
One of the boring jobs I've been doing is flying about setting up safe spots. When I've been travelling into a new system I set up a 200km off gate SS, one warping to the next gate and a 200km gate SS before I warp off. Taking some advice from Corp chat I'm now renaming all the gate SS's as
[distance from gate]-[direction from gate]-[gate name]
. e.g.
200km below V2 gate.

I never knew I'd need so many safespots for everything TBH, I was only planning on 1 per gate but when I was talking in corp chat about it people were saying "what about when you have SS's at different ranges" Eh? I didn't know I was supposed to be doing more?
So in lieu of spending the next 6 weeks SS'ing one constellation I think I need to get on a roam with someone/some people who already have them set and go nuts with the People & places tab.

Oh and I can now fly a Battlecruiser. Wooooooo. I just cant afford one yet.

Lessons learnt in 0.0 this week:-

You can never have enough SafeSpots.
Keeping up with all the intel channels is Apache pilot levels of multitasking.
Getting under a rats guns with a Thrasher will work but takes time.
Ask and someone will let you have the loot.

Day 2

2009-11-27T14:43:00.000Z

I like forums forums are great and I read them, a lot of them.
Occasionally I post too.
Logging back into Eve I took the MSCS forum advice and asked if someone would go ratting with me and almost instantly got a few offers. I like this "being in a corp" thing already.
A couple of hours in my Thrasher later and I'd racked up a few bountys and put the salvage towards constructing a new ship. I'd decided I need something bigger so I can rat solo, having corp mates to help is great but PvP'ing costs money (RvB taught me that) and I don't want to be the guy always begging for favours in corp chat so my first aim is to get a measure of self sufficiency.
Along that note I was determined to kill something solo so once the Ratting trip was over I set off try and kill a rat spawn on my own.
First asteroid belt, battleship, no chance.
Second, 2 battleships...nope
Third, a battlecruiser and 3 frigates..maybe.
I sat and thought about it for a while, and decided to try and take the frigates on atleast. One of them had locked me and was MWD'ing my way so was already ahead of the BC by about 30km (it was now my standard practice to warp in at 100km to check what was there) so he seemed like a good start. I cycled my MWD and webbed the frig, hit my orbit button and let rip with everything I had. He didn't last too long so I was feeling more confident.
The other 2 frigs had dropped back a bit but the BC was getting close now. Eff it I'm going in I lock the BC at 30km and hammer the MWD. The shields start to drop on the way in and I start to wonder if it was a good idea. Too late now and its only a Thrasher. Getting close I drop the mwd and try to settle into a tight orbit sticking to advice I'd been given and trying to get "under the guns". It worked pretty well and I was dishing out damage to the BC, the other 2 frigates had locked me by now and were MWD'ing my way guns blazing so I was taking damage. I thought I'd stay until I was in structure.

The race against time began.
The shields didn't last long but I fired up the damage control and the damage I was taking slowed, his shields failed before mine did and I was feeling good. By now the frigs were sitting at 10k and the fire was a constant drain on my armour, me and the BC both hit structure at the same time and I though about gambling but chickened out warping back to station. Repairing my armour I went straight back out, I could do this. I dropped a gyro stabiliser for an armour repairer and warped back to the belt wasting no time and hitting the mwd straight for the Cruiser. My shields had gone completely by the time I got in orbit so I waited to take damage before I cycled the armour rep a few times to heal me back up the BC had full shields again so I had to get those down plus he'd armour rep'd as well so the war of attrition began again. With the npc frigates closer I was taking damage from all 3 ships a lot quicker this time but now I had an armour rep I was topping up whenever I had the capacitor to spare and the BC was going down. As he hit structure I edged forward on my seat my eyes fixed on the red bar that grew longer in short bursts. The "capacitor empty" message snapped my back to the state of my ship for a minute but I was pretty safe, I could do this. A few seconds later and the BC finally fell with a cheer from me and I hit the MWD for the nearest frigate before taking down the last one.
I had done it, I'd ratted solo and killed a whole spawn. For me its still a big step maybe I can survive in 0.0.
What a difference a day makes.

0.0 day 1 & 2

2009-11-27T14:35:00.010Z

Applications & Interviews
I've been thinking of moving into a 0.0 corp for a while, it was always my 'plan' to get stuck into the general to'ing and fro'ing of nullsec space and fuelled by stories from forums, blogs and podcasts I started hunting for a Corp that would accept a sub 2mil SP character like me.
This in itself is not an easy task.
Not only are you rubbish at...well everything but you're always going to look like a spy alt trying to get in just to ruin intel channels or pass back fleet info to your 'main'. Luckily I am deft at the art of multi-tab web browsing and soon enough I started compiling a list of possible candidates.
I knew from RvB I liked the small scale skirmish stuff, and for a while I toyed with the idea of Pirating (thanks in no small part to a few certain blogs) but I thought that might make it tricky if I ever wanted to leave so I'm dismissing the life of yaaar for now.
Small skirmish, hit and run, I like Rifters, cloaking's just cool. It was all pointing one way TBH so I joined a few Ushra'khan recruitment channels started chatting and waited to see what happened.
MSCS was the first to get in touch with me and I chatted to one of their recruitment guys for a good while about this n that. I was unsure how it was going for a while but i was well aware I probably looked pretty suspect so I tried to stay upbeat about it and kept answering any questions as truthfully as I could.
I didnt have much of a sales pitch TBH "I'm a noob, I've got naff all skills, I want to be part of a 0.0 corp and I'm not afraid to get podded" was pretty much all I could offer.
Eventually I got a provisional thumbs up and I went away cautiously happy.

Day 0
Today was the big day, moving from the RvB hunting ground of Tourier/Alentene to the system I'd been told to get to ready for my big move to 0.0.
It was a long way to go so I doubted I'd be back for a while so I spammed the local markets with sell orders (its surprising how much stuff you accumulate in such a short time) moving from one system to the next selling everything I couldn't carry. Loaded up my Thrasher with all the stuff that might be useful (small AC turrets,MWD's, AB's, warp scramblers etc.) waved one last goodbye to Tourier III and set the destination to Agil.
It took all night to sell up and move, about 5 bloody hours. I can add logistics to the list of Eve careers I don't like..

Day 1
There I am floating in space with a jump gate right infront of me and a warning box pops up. I let out a breath and inhale slowly before klicking okay.
"welcome to nullsec" pops up in fleet chat.
I've never been in 0.0 space before, infact I've only been in lowsec 3-4 times and at least 2 of them were short dashes to get somewhere, so its safe to say I am now kacking my pants and feel like I have a big noob target painted on the top of my ship.

One of the guys in my new corp, Rye Contini, guides me through space zipping off and cloaking while I just feel like a rabbit in the headlights just hoping I can get to where we're going with my cargo of odds and ends before a blob appears out of nowhere and vaporises my pod which is what I believe happens in nullsec all the time.

Its a day of first, I get to use a jump bridge and I see a POS as well (yes I know that's pretty weak but I'd not seen a POS before) but I kept my eyes glued on fleet chat as Rye walked me to my new home thankfully still in my ship. I docked and updated my clone location before relaxing.

But just a little.

"oh and read these guides" Yeah I saw that coming but I'll welcome anything that helps me not get podded (as much).

I wanted to do something before I logged off so I dumped the stuff I had into station and went ratting, it was always a pretty safe income before and I was skint so I picked a belt and warped off.
Holly kack the rats are big out here. First spawn was a couple of Battleships with support. Lucky I warped in at 100. As I started to get agro of the, now approaching, Battleships I warped back to station.

Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew with this whole 0.0 idea.

I've moved

2009-11-26T13:42:00.000Z

Quick post (because I'm busy today) just to say....I've moved to nullsec! Yup my character, and Eve career, is only about 30 days old but I've taken the plunge and moved to 0.0 space.
No I've not gone alone I've joined MSCS so am now part of the Ushra'khan alliance. I look forward to much cloaking fun and a big thanks for the Corp. for taking on such an utter utter noob.

Stuff I've found useful pt1

2009-11-24T13:33:00.001Z

Eve's a cold and scary place as a newbie and once the career tutorials have finished you're all alone. Youve got menu after menu of information at your fingertip that you know means something but you dont know what a UI staring back at you like it wants to pick a fight and when you finally pluck up the courage to ask for help (on the handy channel) its like everyone speaks a different language.
So now what?
I turned to the internet for help and found that the Eve community is a pretty helpful place to the new kid.

There's no point me reinventing the wheel here, there are people out there who have already written stuff and done it better than I could so I'll slap up a few links

10 posts for eve online newbie CrazyKinux blog has a shedload of useful stuff on there and this is just one so look about.
New Citizens Useful threads over at the EveWiki, again its rammed full of useful info and links to more useful info so even just those 2 should be able to give you a good start to Eve life.

Of course its not all hard work and toil so to keep you motivated its always good to find out about the stuff you'll be getting up to in the weeks/months/years to come.
Mynxee's Blog Life in Lowsec is always good for a read about the pirate life but also has a well rounded view of the Eve 'metagame' as well, and she shows a lot of passion for the Council of Stellar Management (Eves player elected council that can help shape the future of the game). You don't have to just limit yourself to text either and I've really enjoyed listening to the Podded podcast for all kinds of Eve info and general banter.

Lastly I've got to put up a link to Red Vs. Blue. PvP is perhaps the most scary thing I found when I started out about 4 weeks ago but I wanted to throw myself into it as soon as I could before it developed a stigma and the RvB guys not only welcomed me in but enabled me to get right into a fight with other players very very quickly. You'll loose ships, you'll probably loose a pod (its not that bad, no honestly its not) and you'll certainly loose ISK but you will learn and get to meet some top people along the way.

This is by no means all the info you'll want but I dont want to add to the overload so its a good start. Read, digest and learn. As a new guy its a pretty intimidating place to start off with but stick at it and pretty soon Eve becomes a fun place to loose yourself in.

In the beginning

2009-11-20T13:23:00.001Z

Hi. I'm a pretty new Eve player and felt it'd be better starting a blog instead of being an Evebore over Twitter & emails every day. I'm hoping this blog will be an account of what I learn (rightly or wrongly) as I start out my Eve career and so wont so much be a series of well structured and thought out articles as some of the other Eve blogs out there.

So I'll start off with a "story so far" style recap I suppose.
I first played eve a few years ago where I did a free trial as a Gallente pod pilot, went as quickly as possible to a Catylist and flew about admiring my ship. Unfortunately my pc chugged along and Walking In Stations was scant weeks away (or so they said) so I decided to cut my losses before my limited hardware made the game unplayable and never logged on again.
Dust 514. Controversial at times but it was the lure for me back to Eve. I'm mainly a console gamer and the idea of Dust is very appealing and reading up on the limited info for it let Eve get its hooks back into me.

Eve take 2
My character is called Norsechiild and he's Minmatar. I started off like all good newbies doing the initial tutorials then a few of the introductory occupation tutorials which gave me a selection of frigates and a couple of Wreaths to play about with. I went mining for a bit of ISK in the wreathe.
Sooooo slllloooooooowwwww.
This bored me so I read about a bit on forums and tried JetCan mining using a burst with 2 mining lasers and the money rolled in at a quicker rate until the inevitable happened. Someone flipped my can. I kept my cool and did not engage did a bit of light smack in local and left it at that.
So what have I learnt so far? Mining was not for me, so I loaded up a Wreathe with everything I could get on it and set off to Anon to try the Sisters of Eve Mission arc.

For the Teapot
So far I was still on the trial but I'd made my mind up to give Eve a shot and got a timecard. In my mind I had 2 months to see how much I actually played Eve and find out if Eve was the game for me. Up until this time I'd only really mined and run missions and I knew I was missing out on a big chunk of the Eve experience, I needed to get into a Corp.
I ran a few of the Sisters missions and browsed a lot of Forums, joined the Eve Uni public chat channel and looked up the recruitment details fully meaning to join. The idea that someone could take a total bleach white noob like myself under their wing and show them the ropes, plus the chance to join others in my situation, appealed to me and I had images of making a rookie Corp. and building from there with my new Eve Uni friends.
API...what the hells that? Turns out I couldn't get an API key yet as my character wasn't old enough so I went looking for a stop gap solution. I knew I wanted to try PvP and searching about time and time again up popped Red Vs. Blue. I had a couple of million ISK (hey I'm a noob thats still good money to me) a Rifter and though I'd give it a shot. Red Federation HQ was only half a dozen jumps away in Tourier so off I went.
I've been in RvB for a few weeks now with a whole 0 kills to my name. That's right Zero, none..nothing. I rock. But my fellow Reds and Blues have been very understanding and welcoming despite my noobness and happily offered advice, guidance and even ISK to help keep me fighting along at my sub-par skill level.

So that's where I am, charging about between Tourier and Alentene in 10-20 frig-cruiser fleets loosing Rifters at an alarming rate. But the main point is I'm enjoying it.