Me So Smart

Twenty two days left for Caldari Cruiser V last night. I sighed. I brought up Evemon (Greatest Tool EVAR!!!) and played around and noticed that if I upgraded from +3 implants to +4 implants I could shave 27 hours off. I checked my wallet; lots of cash and no big purchases in the near future. Excellent.

So I went off and bought a complete set of +4 implants for a cool 70 million, even the Charisma one because what the hell, it was cheap. I then jumped into my spare clone with no implants, flew him to HQ, and went to plug the new shiny +4s into my skull.

Error: You need Cybernetics trained to IV to use this item.

CRAP! I forgot about that. So I put the skill on and saw it would take a couple days to train up and I had another 23 hours before I could get back into my +3 clone. End result, I've ended up adding about a day and a few hours to my end date for Caldari Cruiser V. DOH!

At least I will benefit from the +4s going forward once they are plugged in. Sigh.

T2 Medium Rails and Blasters ONLINE!

Today I finished T2 Medium Rail Specialization IV capping off the long autumn training list. I now can use small and medium T2 blasters and rails effectively, giving me more damage and range. Sweet. I'm going to hold off on the T2 large rails for a while since the only ship I fly that can use them is the Rokh and I don't feel the need to fly it right now.

I'm picking up a couple skills this afternoon to level 1 for later training, and then beginning the long haul of Caldari Cruiser V (~22+ days). Once that is in place, about 7 days to get Recons, and another 3 days to get HACs.

Then I have several training options:
- Heavy Interdictors
- Heat
- T2 Missiles (ACK!)

Yeah, T2 missiles. If I'm going to go all the way to Black Ops battleships on the Caldari line, I'm going to need better missile skills, there is no way around it. Sigh.

Crossroads Again

Ah Eve, ever changing.

Once again Kirith is at a crossroads (for those invested in Razor, no crossroads there, its rocking forward with massive mineral purchases this week!). The crossroads is not what skill to train (definitely Caldari Cruiser V after I finish Med Rail Specialization IV) but what to do?

I thought IPORC was going to be home but my friends got lured away. You see, when we all went with Minessis into Omen, one friend decided to go a different direction and join a corp called Exile (actually e x i l e). While we were moving to Deklien, moving out of Deklien, joining Coreli in Fountain, then Exuro Mortis in Fountain, then leaving Omen for Coreli, then leaving Fountain, then leaving Coreli, he was happy and having a grand time in Exile. Bastard ;)

Well, as we regrouped in IPORC he told tales of what he was doing and how great his corp was and he lured the core group away and recruited them into Exile! I could have gone too but the fact of the matter is I'm so busy with Razor that I don't feel I have the time to be a useful and productive part of a 0.0 elite PvP corp in an alliance.

So I figure I have a few choices. First off I could stay in IPORC and continue my pirating ways, run a few missions, etc. I keep in touch with the others through a private channel we share so no big change there. However it means no gangs roaming through low sec like last weekend as they are all off in 0.0 now.

Second choice is to join Razor, which really has no advantages and only brings the wrath of anyone I attack down on the corp.

Third choice is to look for a new corp to join that won't mind my limited playing time. Probably something based in Empire.

Hmmmm.... decisions decisions.

Stuck In Syndicate

Poor Kirith. You'd never know he was my main the last couple days. He's still sitting in the station in Syndicate I left him in on the weekend. Or was it Monday? Hell, can't remember.

I've been busy getting my new character Barak into position with his freighter and transport ships in Gulfonodi and having Derranna making some Large Shield Extender IIs for selling. Next step is to start producing Scorpions so that means minerals, minerals, minerals. Yay for the freighter!

On the test server the skill requirements for building the new battleships went from racial Starship Engineering V and Mechanical Engineering V to IV for both. That will shave 20+ days off the training time if it holds.

I've blathered on about what to train Kirith to next: Cruiser V or Large Hybrid Turret V? Well, considering that neither of the new Caldari T2 ships appear to be rail based (or heack, have turret hardpoints!) I'm going to forgo the T2 large rails and blasters for the moment and get into HACs, Recons, and the new Heavy Interdictor. Only problem is out of those five ships, only one, the Eagle, is a rail ship. GAH! I HATE YOU CCP! Looks like I'm going to have to choose between training up Gallente ships or T2 missiles this winter.

Side note: All the new Heavy Interdictors use the Tier 3 cruiser as the model except the Caldari one that used the Tier 2 cruiser (Caracal) as the base instead of the Tier 3 (Moa). Why? There are three possibilities:

1. There was no model for the Moa and they didn't want to waste time making one in a graphics engine that is being made obsolete.

2. They didn't want to make it a rail ship as most Caldari are missile users. After all, of the T2 ships that are rail boats (Harpy, Eagle, Raptor, Vulture) they all have counterparts of the same class that are missile ships.

3. They can't stand the Moa like most of the rest of us and went for the more sexy Caracal design.

Overall I think 2 is the most likely but it still pisses me off. Why be a rail Caldari pilot if we get no love? :(

Dark Side Shennigans

A friend was leaving Eve and offered his character up to us for a measly sum of money. I jumped at it and bought it.

Was it for the Thanatos carrier? Was it for the tons of mods he owned? The faction ships?

Nope.

He can fly a freighter and owns one too. The rest I could give a fig about. Hell, I checked his skills out and even though he has 20 million skillpoints he really is not well trained in combat ships and mods beyond drones. And his carrier skills are just enough to sit in it and jump to a cyno.

But the freighter and T2 haulers are very attractive to Razor who will have a need to move tons of minerals in the future.

I put the carrier in cold storage and contract all the non-hauling ships and mods to Kirith to use or sell.

New Ships!

More information was released on the T2 combat ships coming in November.

I'm happy to report that the Black Ops battleships are going to be awesome even without the covert ops cloak. Instead they will be like huge stealth bombers with the ability to sneak past gate camps and choke points and take other coverty ships with them.

The marauders are looking pretty scary in terms of damage, but are easy to jam.

Heavy interdictors are going to be like HACs with a warp disruption sphere generator. More info required but so far sounding sexy.

And the EWAR frigs could be very useful and will probably be the first of the new ships I jump into as I probably have all but the new skill trained.

Exciting times!

Carrier Fun

On Sunday I got a free day from home duties and spent all day and evening playing Eve.

First off I spent a few hours hauling stuff for Razor and the T2 battleship production preparations. Slowly but surely the plan is coming together as I managed to clear off the Delivery tab. Then in the afternoon I went hunting with the guys in my Myrmidon and we got a couple negative security status guys near a station looking to play with us.

We had a Drake, Rupture, Ishtar, and Mrymidon (me) and they had a Rupture and Arbitrator. Outnumbered, they undocked and docked a couple times and we managed to get the Arbitrator. Then the Rupture undocked and the second pilot jumped into a Blackbird which we quickly made short work of, followed by the Rupture.

Then one of the pilots undocked in an Archon. Holy crap! Fortunately he only threw T1 heavy drones at us and we dueled with him for a few minutes, popping drones and warping out when he tried to target us (except the Drake pilot who laughed himself silly just tanking the damage). Things were getting crazy and in an effort to bump him off the station I let myself get targeted. Whoops! Scrammed and webbed I tried to tank but slowly went down and died.

That sucked, but it was lots of fun.

I went back and jumped in a Harpy and we all disengaged from the Archon realizing we would never have the firepower to take it down and he would just dock if we mustered it anyways. We cruised on and later found an Armageddon mining in a belt. Well, we killed him just on principle. Unfortunately he had friends in system and we found three carriers guarding the gate, two Thanatos and a Chimera. Lucky for us, someone else jumped into the system and distracted them as we warped to zero and jumped out. Good thing they weren't using smart bombs!

Later on that evening I was out alone for thirty minutes, scanning belts and looking for trouble in my trusty Thorax. I found a retriever mining (of all things) in a belt and promptly attacked it. Why are they never aligned and warping, I'll never know. I scrammed him and quickly dispatched him, looted the wreck, and warped to safe. Then something strange happened.

He writes in local, "Sorry about that, here is 2 million isk."

I'm like, what the hell? So I write, "thanks?"

He responds, "I came out for a little mining without asking and you are just defending your system. Maybe I'll come back later and we'll talk."

Ok, weird. I continue scanning while waiting for the criminal counter to pass. He shows back up in local and I notice some new ships on scanner. Drake. Thorax. Ishtar. Hmmmm..... I'm not in a ship outfitted for a fight against those ships if outfitted correctly so I quickly opt to leave once my counter is done.

All in all, a good day.

A lot of hauling

I've been busy in real life lately and combined with a lot of hauling I've been doing, nothing much exciting has really gone on this week. Such is the hazards of life I suppose.

Expanding Business

My industrial corp Razor Tech has been selling off more shares. Originally I sold 280 of 1000 shares to friends and close associates at 1 million each. That raised money back for the initial invention efforts, that is, the Caldari encryption skill and esoteric data interface.

Now I'm selling another 220 shares to raise funds for stockpiling materials to build the widows that I can hopefully invent a BPC for. Initial rough guesstimate suggests that each Widow will cost about 200 million to make and I'd like to get as much materials as possible so that we can build two or three right out of the gate. Normally I would work slowly at saving money but the time to strike the market will be as soon as possible after Rev III to maximize profits, so this is a calculated risk.

If successful, meeting the 50 million a month promised dividend will be easy.

Why Warhammer Is Suffering In My Life

I haven't been posting much about warhammer lately. Part of the problem is the usual lack of games: once every two weeks and sometimes that schedule gets thrown off if I want a game night with Andrew. Another part is I haven't been enthused to paint since doing the Chaos Lord a couple weeks ago.

But the big problem is that my interest has fallen way off. I still enjoy the game and the people, but I am so frustrated by the lack of ability to enjoy the games whereas something like Eve is so immediately accessible with the same level of depth (perhaps more!). With Eve I can pick up 20-30 minutes of entertainment in the morning to check on skills or lab jobs, chat with a friend, or just scan a couple belts. Almost every evening I can sit down for an hour or so and do something constructive. Although I can paint in the same time frame it is not my main focus of warhammer and more of a chore than a desire.

Is warhammer going to leave my life? No. I still enjoy playing immensely. But I may have to simplify.

I Wanted the Celestis

Yesterday morning I was flying with Klastrit but our two hours of hunting did not find any belters to kill. I got out the scan probes at one point and we had a Drake pinpointed in a mission, but by the time I got my Thorax he had left and turned in the mission. Drat!

Then last night I was out by myself again, cruising the belts. As I went from system to system, I noticed a Jaguar following me. At one gate I waited and it joined me, a red flashie! I debated whether or not to open fire: I knew the sentry guns would not shoot me, but would they shoot him if I engaged first? A question for the more experienced pilots. Regardless, he jumped into system after it became apparent I was not going to lock and a few moments later I did as well.

Aulbres was busy last night and I quickly warped to a planet to begin scanning. But the Jag pilot was somewhere nearby, so I warped to 100 km. Good choice. The Jag pilot was there but 156km away. That dropped to 140 pretty fast so I wasted no time hitting the warp button. After that I kept a close eye on the overview but never ran into him again.

I continued to scan the belts and located a Celestis. I warped in and he was smart, over 45 km away. I hit the MWD and started towards him but he hit his MWD and went the opposite direction. I never got closer than 35 km and figured the gig was up. I warped out without aggression and figured I would see if I could surprise him later.

Scanning again, picked up an Atron. Wait, what? An Atron? Oh yeah, Gallente T1 frigate. I warped in and hit the MWD again. Precious seconds ticked by as I got into range of the scram but he did not warp off when he had the chance and I snagged him. Seconds later he was popped. I checked the wreck and found... Golden Omber? Mining laser? I could only shake my head as I warped off.

I never ran into the Jag or Celestis again, and later on I tried to nail down an 07 pilot in a Thorax but he didn't want to come play.

Eve Random Thoughts

Why is Eve so much fun? I've been playing it solid for over a year now, and still want to log in almost every free moment. I think it follows several factors.

1) Steady Progression without serious grind. The skill training system is brilliant. I can avoid playing for a week and still sleep comfortably knowing my character is increasing his skill points. I don't need to go out and kill hundreds of NPC opponents to get the next ability or access to the next item. Yeah, things cost money and you need to do something to buy the fancy stuff, but you don't need to grind that either if your smart and patient. Look at Razor, my industrial corp; its pulling in hundreds of millions a week.

2) You're not locked into a profession. Any character can do anything with appropriate training of skills. You could spend a year doing nothing but combat activities and then decided one morning to become a researcher. Or Miner. Or whatever.

3) You're not locked into a faction. Same as two, you can stick to one race's ships or swap or train them all. Every character can fly any ship with the right training.

4) There is so much to do. There are so many different activities. Combat pilots alone have the choice of simple ratting, mission running, complex running, solo pirating, small gang pirating, gate camping, and fleet warfare. Then there are non-combat activities like salvaging, mining, manufacturing, researching, hauling, trading, inventing, moon mining, and forum whoring. Last one is a joke BTW.

5) Social aspect. This applies to all MMOGs of course, but is worth stating: you can play the game alone but its more fun with other people to share the stories, loot, planning, kills and profit with.

6) I love space ships. 'Nuff said.

The Life of a Pirate

This past week has been interesting for Kirith. Since taking down my first solo kill last week I've been out prowling and had some successes and some "learning experiences".

First I found an Osprey mining in a belt on Monday and took him down in short order. He was ticked and sent me hate-mail: "PK, Kiss me" which I'm choosing to translate as something like "Player killer! Kiss my ass!" as opposed to something more flirtatious.

On Tuesday I was searching and saw a Maller on scan and warped in on it. We started trading blows but it seemed like his tank was tough and then a buddy of his in a Megathron warped in. BOOM! I warped back to station, got in Thorax #2 and later that day when hunting again.

During my second hunt a found an Arbitrator and we tangled. It was close, I had him half into structure before I blew up. I chatted with him in locale as I warped off and he also had a T1 outfitted ship, but his drones were T2. Makes all the difference. I got into Thorax #3 and bought some T2 medium drones.

Wednesday night I was hunting with a couple corp mates and we engaged an Ishkur at a sun, but he snuck away with his MWD before I could get my webber on him. We got his T2 drones though. Later on my buddies left and I continued on and found a Covetor mining at a belt. I ripped into him like a hot knife into butter and the loot was nice: 2 strip miners and an Expanded Cargo Hold II. Cha-ching!

Last night I was out hunting again and saw a Flycatcher on scan and decided "what the hell" and warped in on it. I spooked him and he warped off pretty quick, but a few seconds later he says in local "Careful Kirith, I can kill you." I responded bravely, "probably, but nothing ventured nothing gained."

"Ok, I'm coming back" His confidence was unnerving and I decided that discretion was the better part of honour. "Well the element of surprise is gone now!" and I left the system.

So far the Four Thoraxes experiment has been good. My heart still speeds up as I warp in but at least it is controllable now and my hands don't get so jittery. Also, instinct is starting to take over as the practice of what mods to engage and what timing/order sinks in. Confidence is growing and as my armour tanking skills increase I think I might start throwing on more T2 mods on the ships to increase performance.

Training What Now?

I'm kinda in a training funk with Kirith right now.

I spent a lot of time training for T2 rails to the point where I am ready to start the 25+ day haul through Large Hybrid Turret V. Did I say haul? I meant mind-numbing slog. I got distracted by T2 blasters and got them trained up to Medium T2s, so that's extra incentive to train the Large Hybrid Turret V as that opens up T2 large blasters for my reborn Blasterokh someday in the future (of course, I'd need Motion Prediction V first sigh).

But even with the diversion into t2 blasters, I find myself boring of the gunnery training for a while. Since I'm loving the Thorax I decided to train up T2 armour tanking which required only a week and a bit to accomplish and right now I'm in the beginning of Hull Upgrades V and the four armour compensation skills are right after that. But what next?

My options:
1) Finish T2 large rails for my mission running rokh. Then get T2 large blasters.
2) Train up to Recons.
3) Train up to HACs.
4) Train up Gallante Cruiser IV and Gallente Battleship.
5) Throw on Caldari Battleship V.

Decisions, decisions, decisions! Right now I'm strongly leaning towards Recons or HACs as either will get me another ship class to play with, they are both gated by Caldari Cruiser V so training one opens up the other in a few extra days, and they both lead eventually to the new T2 battleships.

Return of the Black Storm

With new Chaos Codex in hand, I marched onto the field of battle at St Laurent last night.

First off was an impromptu game with good friend and foe Corey. 1250 pts of my chaos versus his Eldar, I threw a list together and went to war in a Secure and Control mission, one of my favourites.

Chaos:
Chaos Lord with terminator armour and lightning claws
4 Terminators
2 x 10 Marines with las/plas in Rhino
3 Obliterators
Defiler

Eldar:
Autarch
Farseer
5 Banshees
10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent
10 Guardians
5 Dark Reapers
Falcon

I deep struck the Obliterators in early but scattered too much and could only really hit the guardians. The next few turns were about movement and positioning with the defiler trading shots with the grav tanks, bombing some reapers in one shot while the daemonic possession frustrated Corey three times. In the last turn Corey made a mistake and doomed a tactical squad instead of the terminators being charged by the Farseer and Banshees. He rolled poorly to wound with the Exarch's executioner and the charging Chaos Lord took care of business with ease. This allowed the terminators to contest the third objective and with the other two split it was down to pure VPs which chaos eked out a victory.

In my second game, it was 2000 pt Take and Hold versus Lawrence and his space marines.

Chaos:
Chaos Lord with terminator armour and lightning claws
Daemon Prince
4 Terminators in Land Raider
2 x 10 Marines with las/plas in Rhino
10 Marines with missile launcher
10 Marines with flamer/plasma pistol in Rhino
3 Obliterators
Defiler


Space Marines
Chaplin with Jump Pack, lightning claws
Librarian with Jump Pack
2 Vindicators
4 x Tactical Squads
Dev Squad with 4 heavy bolters
Assault Squad

I started off early by charging the Land Raider full of terminators and the defiler down the flank where the Vindicators were, killing one with a lascannon and the other with chain fists and power fists. Lawrence retaliated with a meltagun to the side of the land raider, destroying it. Ticked at his ride being smashed the Chaos Lord and terminator guard smashed through the ruins and two tactical squads.

In the middle of the board both sides advanced on the objective with chaos rhinos blocking line of sight. The sides clashed but the Chaplin led assault squad and tactical squad and librarian easily crushed three chaos squads in close combat in exchange for the assault squad.

At the end of turn 5 almost all surviving models were within 12 inches of the centre: Chaos Lord and 3 terminators, Defiler, 2 obliterators, and one tactical squad facing 2 tactical squads, one dev squad, the Chaplin and Librarian. Unfortunately I got confused about what turn it was and insisted the game was over, only later in the ride home realizing my error.

Its hard to say what would have happened in a sixth turn. While the two space marine characters have massive potential to rip up the Obliterators and Tactical squad, the terminators and defiler have abilities not to be underestimated either.

Good game, and I owe Lawrence a rematch.

Thank You Minessis!

A friend and frequent corp mate is leaving Eve completely, selling his character off and everything. He decided to distribute his assets to the gang of his friends and Razor Technologies was the recipient of a whack of BPOs including a Myrmidon and Thorax. Oh, and he endowed a billion ISK.

That's right.

A BILLION.

Needless to say I'm overwhelmed with the windfall and I'm discussing with Lucius on the best way to make use of the money.

My First Real Solo Kill

When I was in Strife, I tried solo pirating in a blaster Moa and didn't have any success. I tangled with a Caracal once but couldn't do enough damage and I had to warp off, and I attacked another ship but he ran. Once in a gang I warped my Ferox in on a Catalyst ratting and had my gangmates coming in but I killed the pilot before they got there. Kind of solo... but more like wimpy solo. LOL

So last night I made the trip to Pelille determined to begin a new solo pirating career worth talking about. First I needed a ship, or more likely in my case, ships. I've come to love blasters for their damage and closeness so I knew it would be a blaster boat but upon reviewing the Caldari line the options were problematic: ships either had not enough turrets (Merlin, Moa, Ferox, Raptor) or were too expensive at this time for what I was going to be doing (Harpy, Rokh).

So I turned to Gallente which are supposed to be blaster specialists. I went right away to the Thorax as it had the quadfecta of good points: fast, cheap, lots of turrets, and 50m3 drone bay. A quick review of the forums found this little build:

High - 5x Ion Blaster I
Mids - Web/Scram/10mn MWD
Lows - MAR, EANM, DCU, Kinetic Armor Hardener, MFS
5x Hammerhead I

I bought and built four of them with just plain unnamed T1 mods. These are my trial by fire ships and cost just over 8 million each. I jumped in the first one (IPORC Pain) and flew to Pelille to submit my application to IPORC once again.

After that I undocked and began the hunt! I quickly scanned down a two year old character ratting in a belt in a Tristan, a gallente frig. I sped in, locked, and engaged. In seconds he was dead and I had my first kill! As I scooped the loot my heart was POUNDING in my chest and my hands were shaking from adrenaline. I warped to safe spot to wait out the timer and checked my loot: T2 blaster and afterburner, and some other miscellaneous stuff.

Kirith the pirate is born!

YAAARRRRRRR!!!!!

So after a weekend of much angst Coreli is not closing down, but half the membership is leaving and the rest are leaving Fountain, the Exuro Mortis alliance, and any carebear activities behind.

I decided to get out and go join IPORC. I got all my stuff out of Fountain on the weekend (well, Outbreak got the last hauler on Monday morning before downtime, the bastards, but at this point I don't give a crap) and I moved it all back to Gulfonodi where I regrouped. I put together a PvP Mrymidon and I'm flying out to Placid tonight where I will apply to IPORC and get one or two PvP Thoraxes put together for some solo piracy when everyone else is busy.