Highlighted the brown with a Bestial Brown-Sunburst Yellow mix that I really like the effect of, subtle without being pale. Then worked on the armour bits with the blood red and blazing orange.
Next I'm working on the small details, skin, and helmets.
I reviewed my skillset this morning and was very disappointed in my combat skills. Too many at level 2 or 3 are hurting my overall performance in all my ships so jumping into Rokh seems a bit premature. I need more mileage out of my Ferox if I'm going to use it as my level three mission runner and solo PvP platform.
Thus I went through Eve Mon and listed all the skills I currently have that I need to train up a level or two. Its about 3 weeks and change worth of training and I start as soon as Gunnery V completes this afternoon.
1. Controlled Bursts IV (1 day, 21 hours, 9 minutes, 27 seconds)
2. Rapid Firing IV (1 day, 21 hours, 9 minutes, 27 seconds)
3. Weapon Upgrades IV (1 day, 17 hours, 3 minutes, 8 seconds)
4. Long Range Targeting III (6 hours, 45 minutes, 53 seconds)
5. Long Range Targeting IV (1 day, 14 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds)
6. Signature Analysis IV (19 hours, 8 minutes, 4 seconds)
7. Targeting IV (19 hours, 8 minutes, 4 seconds)
8. Electronics Upgrades III (6 hours, 45 minutes, 53 seconds)
9. Electronics Upgrades IV (1 day, 14 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds)
10. Energy Grid Upgrades IV (1 day, 14 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds)
11. Shield Upgrades IV (1 day, 14 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds)
12. Tactical Shield Manipulation III (13 hours, 31 minutes, 48 seconds)
13. Drones IV (19 hours, 8 minutes, 4 seconds)
14. Scout Drone Operation IV (19 hours, 8 minutes, 4 seconds)
15. Combat Drone Operation III (6 hours, 45 minutes, 53 seconds)
16. Combat Drone Operation IV (1 day, 14 hours, 16 minutes, 8 seconds)
17. Acceleration Control III (14 hours, 30 minutes, 50 seconds)
18. High Speed Maneuvering III (18 hours, 8 minutes, 31 seconds)
19. Evasive Maneuvering IV (1 day, 17 hours, 3 minutes, 8 seconds)
20. Fuel Conservation IV (1 day, 17 hours, 3 minutes, 8 seconds)
21. Cybernetics III (10 hours, 8 minutes, 50 seconds)
22. Mechanic III (3 hours, 22 minutes, 55 seconds)
After that, I have a whole slew of new skills to start working on.
1. Caldari Battleship I
2. Large Hybrid Turret I
3. Sharpshooter I
4. Surgical Strike I
5. Energy Systems Operation I
6. Shield Management I
7. Energy Management I
8. Jury Rigging I
Exciting times!
I've got the weapons mostly done, so now I'm into highlighting the brown. I think I might try a black wash and then a couple of layers of brown -> light brown. We'll see.
James and I had a 1000 pts game last night playing the Secure and Control mission. It did not go well for the Tau.
It could have been a much closer game. James made a couple small tactical errors on one flank that allowed me to kill his commander and stealthsuits as well as immobilize his pirhanna, but I have no explanation as to why the other flank collapsed other than me just being lucky.
Piece of advice to James: always deploy your units as if you expect your enemy to go first. Your pirhanna was neutralized right away because I could target it easily right away. With it gone I could move my wave serpent and fire prism without serious concern of anything other than the hammerhead, allowing me to nail the stealsuits with shuriken goodness.
Other than that, you played decently but luck was not on your side: shuricannon from jetbike destroying a devilfish through the front armour? Two glances on the unupgraded fire prism and only shaking it both times? Jetbikes making most of their armour saves, failing only two out of ten? Somedays its just not your day, and others you can do no wrong.
Thanks for the game James, I look forward to our next match.
Lots going on:
- Derranna finishes Refining Efficiency V tonight.
- Kirith finishes Gunnery V tomorrow.
- Pickup of minerals in the base region has gone well and should finish tonight. Then Hakk and I can start production.
Last night while picking up minerals in Low Sec outside a station I had just undocked from a Typhoon locked me and started shooting while tanking the sentries. He also scrammed me but I had my warp stabs running and I successly warped away after losing half of my piddly shields. No sheild extenders on this Badger 2, I figured the lower sig radius was more useful on avoiding enemy entanglements.
I spent last night in high sec, setting up my "mineral procurement" base. This involved getting my Osprey miner to the base, buying some supplies, checking out the asteroid fields. As expected, mined pretty dry but there were some roids to ravage.
I also put out a buy order for a Rokh at 155 million and to my surprise it worked? That was a savings of 15 million off the Sell orders in the region. Nice. Now I have to put out some buy orders for other stuff like minerals, starbase supplies, and mods for my new ride. Gotta pimp it out.
We got war dec'd! Twice! What the hell?
The first war declaration seemed odd, coming from a corp that lives in Placid which we have basically abandoned anyway. The second came from a corp that as far as I know we have never even heard of before much less tangled with. Needless to say, I'm experiencing a certain amount of angst about the situation.
There has been no action as of yet, so until there is I'm not going to panic. But I'm not travelling in my hauler for fun right now, that's for sure.
Last night I ran into the disconnect problem again, but rebooting the router ISP connection seemed to solve it for last night.
Anyway, once I got on and playing I deciding to do a trade run in the new region. I have not done any since leaving Placid and made a couple runs as well as a couple courier missions to net a couple million when all was said and done. Not as good as Placid, but haven't explored all the possibilities yet. I also found a caracal for sale cheap that I bought and turned around hoping to make a few hundred thousand. While cruising I was checking out contracts and ran across a Caldari Navy Hookbill for 37.5 million and bought it on impulse. Its pretty cool, like a suped up Merlin with an extra low slow.
In the bright light of day, I'm kind of regretting it but I've heard rumours I can turn it around for forty mil in Lonetrek. I'm gonna AFK it up to Caldari space and but it up on contract, see if I can get some money for it.
Battle #1: Friday night I went out with a gang of corpmates and we hunted around the region. Didn't see any action in my Ferox, but did check out a destroyer wreck at a gate while waiting for the go ahead ot jump through and snagged a bunch of tech 2 laser crystals and beam lasers. Woot!
Battle #2: Since getting the wireless router it has been great playing Eve sometimes (like two hours Friday night) and complete suckage other times like Saturday. In the morning and evening I could not keep connected for longer than 5-15 minutes unless I was simply autopiloting. Trying to read the market or move mods around and BAM, disconnect. Frustrated I tried some things but no luck. Finally Sunday morning I decided to update the firmware on the router. This proceeded to blow away my settings and I could not find the backup on the hard drive. Thus I spent another hour trying to get the settings back to what they were and get back on the internet. At one point I was ready to scream. Finally I got it and Eve was back to disconnect free playing.
Battle #3: We've been moving furniture around (hence the new wireless router) and I wanted to fond a good place for the router and modem. It had to be near a phone jack and out of the way while still giving a good signal strength to the computer. I tried two different spots in the house involving moving furniture and getting tangled in wires and quite frustrated before going back to the original location anyways. I was trying to avoid using a long phone extension cord but had to in the end and it seems to not be causing any undue problems with connections.
Battle #4: Sunday evening I played for about two hours and ran some missions for the Republic Fleet. After I succeeded I opened up a batter quality agent at the same level and closer to home base which was a bonus. No disconnects either. Woo hoo!
Last night I had a good session where I was setting up the last of my stuff in place. Kirith has got his clones in IPORC base region, one in KODA HQ (well, three jumps out), and one in Placid looking over outstanding sales there. Deranna has her clones in the research base in Syndicate, KODA HQ, and one in IPORC HQ. All I need now is my stuff from Placid. Den, where's my can!?
In warhammer news, I painted for an hour last night getting the backpacks base brown on for the rangers, and started the base coat of bleached bone for the weapons.
Last night I was on and two corp mates were hunting so I jumped in my Ferox and flew 6-7 jumps to meet them. On my way, they engaged a couple assault frigates. I was moving as fast as I could but they were running into trouble as they could not break the armour tank on the first one.
I arrived and let loose with my drones and rails. The first assault frig started to lose its armour tank but one of my corp mates had to disengage and got blown up in the process. Ok, not good. The first enemy ship was almost destroyed, down to the last few bits of structure when my second corp mate went down. Scrambler destroyed, the target flew out of there as fast as possible leaving me facing one assault frigate alone. Figuring that without a webber I would be dead meat I warped out, leaving my little cheap drones behind.
So close! It was fun, but I had to call it quits as by the time the aggro counter wound down and my corp mates got new ships, it would be time for me to log. So I slunk the 6-7 jumps back to base and plotted my next trade.
I've got all my belongings either moved to the new region or in a freight can waiting to be moved. All except one jump clone and his Osprey mining ship and Badger2 hauler that is. Not sure what to do with him.
Tonight I have a game against Marty and his marines. He plays a tight game, so I expect another thumping. Sigh. Need to paint faster but Eve takes all my free time. Need to watch more TV so I can paint while watching... fortunately the shows are coming back on soon.
It was a 1500pt challenge game between Marty and I. Last time he came out the victor and this time I planned to change that outcome.... *snort* yeah right! With more of my models still unpainted and my troops limited to ten guardians and 6 jetbikes, every game is a wild ride lately. And going against the leader of the challenge board was making this game more than an uphill battle, it was like scaling a cliff!
Again I faced a marine heavy force like Lawrence's, only this time lacking the horde of Apothecaries and librarian. On the other hand, ten terminators. *Shudder*
I deployed wisely and felt no shooting come my way in the first marine turn, but the very first action on my turn was to Guide the falcon with my Farseer. Snake Eyes. Note that I didn't have Runes of Witnessing, it was all natural double ones. OK, Ghosthelm is 3+ save from Perils of the Warp, right? Another one. Uh oh. Roll to wound 2+... six. You know what a str 6 unsaveable wound does to a 170 pt toughness 3 multiwound general? It makes me cry.
From that inauspicious start I played one of my best games recently and drove for the throat with everything, flanking his marine strongpoint in a Cleanse mission while using building to block line of sight from the dev squad and its four missile launchers. Marty responded by deep striking his two squads of terminators with two assault cannons each right in my path and it turned into a question of this: could virtually the entire Eldar army overcome a tactical squad, chapter master, and 10 terminators in cover?
It took all 6 turns to find the answer and the battle swayed back and forth the whole time, never tipping enough in one person's favour to win it. In the bottom of turn 6 I killed the chapter master to overcome the flank with only my jetbikes, falcon, and one vyper alive. We tallied up the points and found that Cleanse objectives were equal and victory points he was 144 pts in the lead, 6 points shy of a win! Draw!
What an amazing game. Tactically we both played pretty good (which considering the last debacle I played against Lawrence is a vast improvement for me) and luck seemed to vary wildly between us. For example:
- My farseer dies in turn one to Perils of the Warp
- Niether terminator squad arrives in turn 2, land speeder only kills two Dark Reapers
- Over 1000 pts of Eldar fire into terminators and kill only three of them. Terminators shoot and kill 11 Striking Scorpions.
- Four missile launcher shots and a lascannon fail to penetrate the armour of a wave serpent, and while charging chapter master and terminators kill four striking scorpions, next turn guardians kill two terminators in close combat! And later wound the chapter master twice before going down.
- Wave Serpent survives another barrage of missile launchers, but second wave serpent dies to single plasma gun hit.
- Last turn, Falcon lines up chapter master in terminator armour with one wound. Brightlance misses and fails to wound, but twin shuriken catapult and scatter laser get two wounds, and he fails one of the armour saves! That was a game saver for me and put me into draw range.
Great game Marty, I look forward to the rematch.
... In a couple days.
On Friday a senior corp member comes in and says "let's build a POS in low sec!" And surprisingly, the corp jumped on board. Now we are talking move to a new area and becoming landlords! Sweet.
On top of that, the current Director of Manufacturing is changing characters and moving more into the operations and tactics side of things and I got the nomination to be the new Director of Manufacturing. I'm so pleased to have been put forward and all that is required to make it official is CEO approval. Another step up on the corporate ladder.
I'm rethinking my plan about moving towards Caldari freighter and Transport ships. I looked at skill book costs and they are quite significant. The freighter and skillbook would be over a billion which I knew about, but the transport Bustard and skillbook is almost 100 million combined which is more than I want to shell out at the moment.
Plus, I'm starting to make more money in the buy and resell market instead of the trade good transportation. My Trade skills allow me to buy and resell without visiting a station and that is handy as all get out.
So my current plan is being revised and I'm going to spend the next couple weeks finishing my trade skills and then move into an Interceptor. Raptor, here I come!
I've been making progress on the Eldar rangers last couple nights. Its been hard because they are so far out of my comfort zone.
You see, my normal Eldar models have three stages: Armour, weapons, details. Then the base I guess, but that hardly counts.
The rangers however have more: cloak, gloves and boots, armour, weapons, details. Not to mention the backpacks. Its quiet more effort than usual. Still, I'm making progress and finished the cloaks last night. Now on to the gloves and boots. Pictures following later on the weekend or Monday.
Well, maybe not in the traditional sense.
I found a posting in the Eve forum about how one can pirate the NPC convoys in high security. This interested me greatly because I often see these convoys but never knew how to take them out without getting CONCORDed or zapped by sentry guns. Last night I decided to give it a try as I ran into a convoy in Slays as I returned to base in my hauler.
I got in my current Caracal, the Echos of Itrin and undocked. I thought about using the Ferox but figured if things go badly, I'd rather lose a Caracal. I shadowed the two ships making up the convoy I spotted and saw they were heading away from the Duvolle Labs station so that meant they belonged to that corp. No other Duvolle Lab stations in system so no worries about getting attacked at the destination system.
Suddenly they blipped out of sight. I noted the stations in that general direction and warped to them. Weren't at the first one, but at the second station I found them. Afterburner on, heart beating, I tore out at them and locked and fired, tensing as I waited for sentry gun fire in case I made a mistake. None. Muhahahahahah!
My heavy and light missiles tore through the convoy ships with ease and in seconds I was facing two wrecks. Emboldened, and knowing I could not go near the Duvolle Labs station for 15 minutes while the agression countdown was up, I spotted a larger convoy heading out from the current station and I tailed it. Two larger convoy ships and two smaller ones. They blipped out of existance and I headed out to stations nearby to find them.
After two checks I had them on scanner and again I put on the afterburner. Since these convoy ships were larger, I launched the warrior drones too. Locked at 60 klicks, missiles away at 55. Bam! One down, then two. Yeeha! The last two did not stand a chance. Easy kills.
I let the agression countdown tick down and went to get the hauler to carry my loot. I got about 500K ISK worth of trade goods from the wrecks, nothing to write home about but I figure here in the lowest of High Security Space it is what can be expected. I plan to try out higher security systems and see what the convoys have there to offer in terms of resistance and rewards.
One way or another, I be a pirate laddie.
You may remember the drama of the new Hyperion battleship and Mrymidon Battlecruiser blueprints from when the latest Eve update went live in November.
The plan was to make and sell a bunch of those ships to make huge profits when they were selling high. However, we built about 8 of the BCs and 1 of the BSs and basically made about 100 million for the corp when all was said and done. The prices of the ships on the market plummeted to near mineral cost making getting the initial investment back in a short time frame almost impossible. In order to make the money, we are going to have to build and sell for many months to come and getting that mineral supply line has proven very difficult.
And then this past weekend the person that impetuously bought those BPOs without consulting the corp using his money got reimbursed for the BC BPO purchase. But still claims ownership of the blueprint. If you just did a "WTF?" then we are on the same page because that's right folks, we owns a 384 million ISK blueprint and got paid 384 million. He's up 384 million on that deal and the corp wallet is emptier than it was before all of this.
Yes, we still have access to the blueprint until he decides to leave the corp. But if he leaves tomorrow, the corp is out 384 million ISK minus the little profit we made so far.
Renting out a blueprint to your corp is a valid exercise to make money off , but I disagree with the timing and amount of payment in this case. I think the whole project was poorly conceived on a whim, executed without thought, and now is leaving the corp with thinner wallet and no guarantee of making that money back, much less profit. And in order to have any hope of making profit, we have to bust our asses off to get those minerals somehow, build the ships, and sell them. A lot of work for many people in the corp while the owner of the BPO has 100% profit secured. I think it is fortunate that the corp doesn't have the 1.8 billion ISK so he can make a case for the battleship BPO payoff.
In the end though, I've made my points to those in command and they have made the calls that is their right to make. I can only learn from this for the future of my own venture someday.
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