Fiction Friday - Chapter 3

Previously:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2


* * * * *


We entered the dark interior of the Vortex and let our eyes adjust to the dim indirect lighting. It wasn't very busy for an evening with only a handful of patrons enjoying the game machines at the back of the establishment, two men sitting at the bar on the left watching a sporting event on the out of focus vid screen (some sort of fighting thing if I recall correctly), and two men sitting at a small table near the far right wall.

I conferred with Korannon quickly and confirmed that our contacts would be at a table instead of the bar and then we made our way through the empty chairs and tables to the waiting duo. The place smelled of stale alcohol and cleaner but was not grimy and looked to be in decent repair (except for the vid screen which was driving me crazy... I remember I made sure to sit with my back to it). I figured it probably got busier later and a couple nights later I came back on the eve of a Restday and sure enough, the place was packed with university students and young adults looking for a good time. I barely recognized the place then.

"Rusack?" I queried the pair as we got to their table.

One of the men got up from his seat and smiled as he reached over the shake my hand. He had dirty blond wavey hair and bright white teeth that flashed as he smiled, but the eyes were dark and hard. "That's me! You are Kirith, right? And you must be Korannon," he said as he switched his handshake to my brother.

I reached out to the other man and said perfunctorily, "Nice to meet you."

He looked up for the first time and I realized he was Gallentean with fine features for his face and a slim wiry body. He looked about my age but his eyes were disinterested and he did not move his arms to shake my hand. I awkwardly pulled my hand back and sat myself down and he went back to staring at his drink. That was when I noticed one of the implant jacks on the side of his skull and I realized with a start he was a capsuleer.

"This is my associate Barak Vorn," Rusack introduced jovially, "but don't mind him, he doesn't talk much."

I sat down and made small talk with Rusack while Vorn sat silently and Kornannon went to the bar to get a drink for me and him. When he was back and seated he said, "Ok, let's get down to business." Ah, my brother: always direct and to the point.

"Jeez, don't waste any time, does he?" Rusack joked with me as he noticed my rolling eyes. We chuckled at my brother's expense and made a few jokes about how the ladies appreciate a slow hand. Of course my brother flushed with embarassment and tried to laugh it off but I could see he was really feeling uncomfortable so I steered the conversation back.

"My friend said you needed some help moving some stuff. Since you couldn't talk about it over the 'net I assume its not exactly legal."

"Bah," Rusack waved dismissively, "its not drugs or weapons or anything like that. Its some Desirree Inc hovercraft ATVs from Gallente that got hit with a huge import tax in that bill last year."

"The 'State Interests' act?"

"Yeah, that one."

Korannon nodded as he tried to join the conversation having recovered from his embarassment. "Right, there was a clause that imposed a 95% tax on any mechanical goods imported to the State for non-necessary purposes."

"That killed the pleasure vehicle market all over the place. But the demand is still there and if someone could get a few thousand of these for sale with only a 50% markup over pre-tax retail price..." Rusack's voice trailed off as he smirked and watched our faces do the math. Prior to the import levy these ATVs ranged from 5000 to 10000 credits each and the Desirree built the high end ones. We were looking at millions of credits profit and although Korannon and I came from a relatively rich family, it was still a lot of money.

I smiled. "Colour me interested. So what's the plan?"

"My friend Barak here has 2500 ATVs in the hold of his ship docked at station. We need someone with a clean background to act as brokers and set up a corporation. Then they act as if they are receiving a load of frozen food supplies and the import tax will be levied against your corporate accounts for which I'll provide the cost to cover."

"The levy on that much bulk frozen food will not be insignificant," Korannon pointed out.

"I know but I'm not without means," Rusack said confidently. "Once the ATVs have cleared the port authority and are in your corporate hangers we can arrange for shipment to several dealers on the surface and to nearby systems. The dealers, of course, will pay up front and we won't have to wait for our payout. The profit is split 25% each, after expenses." He indicated the four of us sitting at the table.

"It sounds very interesting, Rusack," I began to say but was interupted by my tackless and sometimes clueless brother. "Why does he get a full share?" He said nodding towards the silent pod pilot. "He takes no risk and does no work. Seems a little unfair."

Barak Vorn, who up to this point had been studying his ice melt in his drink, looked up across the table to my brother with those flat eyes. Then he began to speak in a flat even low voice in the distinctive accent of the Gallente.

"The reason is because my ship spent three days travelling 30 light years from Pelille system, dodging pirates, border guards, and overly enthusastic customs officers to get her. My ship that costs hundreds of thousands of ISK per day to maintain and pay crew and is actually losing me money every day that it sits in dock. And because without me, the rest of you have nothing to sell." He didn't raise his voice or get emtional but Korannon looked as if he had been punched in the gut.

"I... I... I am sorry... I didn't think..." he stuttered and I moved in to smooth things over.

"You'll have to forgive my brother. Its our first business dealing with a capsuleer and he often speaks his mind too quickly." But the pod pilot simply shrugged and went back to watching his drink approach room temperature.

I turned back to Rusack. "We'll need to talk about it but it sounds like a good plan."

"Great! Here is the number of my buddy in the Department of Commerce who can get you set up with a corporate office and a hanger in the station." He handed a card to me and we all stood up and Rusack shook our hands with pleasantries and big white smiles while Barak Vorn turned and walked over to the bar. Rusack took his leave of us and exited the bar and Korannon excused himself to the washroom so I sauntered over to the bar to check out what was on the vidscreen now. The previous occupants of the bar had left while we were talking and the screen was showing an old holoreel from a couple years ago I had already seen.

"Hey kid." I turned startled to the Gallentean voice and was surprised to see Vorn actually looking at me instead of through me. "Watch yourself with Rusack, ok?"

"Pardon me?" I asked stupidly, still taken aback that the pod pilot could actually show facial expressions.

"Rusack. He's got a rep for being... slippery."

Over my shock, I was mildly put off at being called a 'kid' by someone who was practically the same age I was (but really wasn't due to the cloning) and and some knee-jerk patriotism kicked in and I said some words I immediately regretted. "We Caldari don't treat each other the way you Gallanteans do, so don't worry about me."

His face went blank again, he muttered "whatever", flicked a credit chip to the barkeep, and walked out without a second look back. I half considered running after him to apologize for acting like a backwater-world hick but I didn't. Instead I waited for my brother and I spent the rest of the night mentally kicking myself once we agreed that we would go ahead with the plan after a few minutes of chatting.

Years later after I became a pod pilot I ended up in a corporation with Barak Vorn and I apologized to him face to face like I never got to properly. He said not to worry about it and that before he became a pilot and saw more of the cluster he thought the same way about Caldari. We are more alike than anyone in power will admit.

Rumble In Rens Postposed

The duel that was supposed to occur this Sunday with Nashh Kadvar has been postponed as he is suffering from serious hardware issues right now.

When he gets back to a functional platform we'll reschedule and I'll let you all know.

CVA Disbanded?!?

Yesterday afternoon the Eve Tweetfleet erupted with news that CVA has been disbanded. I ran to the forums and through several sources put together a picture of what apparently has happened. Read about it here from ISD.

The story ends on a happy note this time compared to the BoB fiasco: CCP is rumoured to have agreed it was a account hack and will reinstate CVA today at downtime. Some people will get their nose out of joint and claim that the director that got hacked was sloppy and irresponisble and it should not be up to CCP to clean up his mistakes. To which I respond: "bullshit".

First off, we don't know how he got hacked and I prefer to go with innocent until proven guilty.

Secondly, hacking someone's account is beyond the pale in terms of metagaming. It is an invasion of privacy, illegal in some countries, and definitely against the EULA for Eve. Its still illegal to steal an unlocked car with the keys in the ignition.

Thirdly, if you think its ok for an alliance you don't like to be taken out like this then maybe you are taking this game a little too seriously and should seek some other hobbies.

Finally, let's quote myself from back in February about what I said when BoB got nuked:

No matter how it turns out... this will be bad for the game.

Either:
1) it was a legitimate spy sabotage within proper metagaming mechanics and CCP will not step in; or
2) it was a bug/hack and CCP steps in to reverse it.

If its (1) then it highlights CCPs shitty design (vote to declare war versus a single director in the executor corp presses a button to kill the alliance?) and the corporation and game loses a lot of credibility with a major faction of influential longtime players.

If its (2) then there will be howls of rage from BoB-haters for months that CCP favours that alliance and the company and game are corrupt.

Regardless, a perfectly balanced situation (i.e. BoB versus Goons in POS wars) has been severely upset and CCP can't come out looking good either way.

The more things change...

Eureka!

I've been inventing like a mad man. After getting my 40 Covert Ops cloaks in the factory I've been taking Invulnerability Field BPCs from my stockpile of over 650 (thanks to other bloggers that donated them) and throwing them in the lab with a couple datacores. Currently I'm up to 65 invented BPCs for 650 Tech II modules to be built.

I was out of datacores so last night I did my research agent run, visiting Placid, Domain, Derelik regions before heading back to base. Then I continued the invention spree.

Once the cloaks are out of the factory tonight I'll start working on building the hardeners.

I am NOT Ashamed!

From We Fly Spitfires:

All of this is just another reason why you should be watching films like Oldboy and not Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And if you enjoyed the latter for any reason other than Megan Fox, you should be deeply, deeply ashamed.

No. I refuse to buy into your elitist attidude, you and all other looking-down-my-geek-cred-nose bloggers who panned the Transformers movies as being not true to the original material and being vapid shallow plot-hole-ridden pieces of crap.

I liked those movies. They were about giant alien robots disguised as cars and planes and tanks fighting each other and blowing shit up. It looked good, it looked real, and it was fun. I bought them on DVD. I'll watch them again in the future.

Don't get me wrong. They were not Science fiction movies by any stretch of the imagination. Science fantasy at best, but better thought of as all-ages action adventure. And the first movie was much better and less facepalm-inducing than the second with its "ghetto-bots" and cranky-old-man robot, but it was still a pretty cool ride.

Robots fighting robots. What more do you want in a Transformers movie?

Mission: Tangled Webs

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us fromZargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

I have ideas, oh yes! There are a lot of different mission ideas rattling around in my skull but let's pick out one I'd like to see in Eve.

Level 4 Mission: Tangled Webs

"Hello Kirith Kodachi, I'm glad to see you survived that last mission. How was I supposed to know the Angel Cartel would send an entire battle group after that lone transport? Good thing you were there.

"Now I have a more delicate mission for you, of great importance to the Republic. 

"Retired Admiral Cosorassa of the Imperial Fleet is well known in Matari space. He led several 'unauthorized' incursion fleets in the Molden Heath and while the Empire publically punished him we know for a fact that he was lavished with praise and rewards back on Amarr. 

"I have received intelligence that he is part of a delegation from the Empire trying to ease tensions between them and the Republic. We want him dead but we can't touch him, see? It would cause an incident and perhaps plunge us into a war we don't want... right now. So that's where you come in.

"We will provide you with a Rifter that's been specially modified to broadcast a false identity of Folas the pirate to police units and the Amarr fleet (other pod pilots will pick up on your pod's relay but we don't have the expertise to mess with that and besides, they won't care). You will travel from here to Hek through high sec allowing the false identity to be detected and for Republic police ships to attempt to engage and destroy you. Don't let them, but make it look good. Once in Hek you must warp to the station where the delegation is meeting and attack Admiral Cosorassa's yacht. We'll guarantee he'll be on it by activating an alarm on the station when you show up in system.

"The Republic fleet ships guarding the delegation will engage you as they will see you as the pirate Folas so don't waste any time. Destory the Admiral's ship and get out of there as quickly as possible. DO NOT destroy the guard ships! We are not hiring you to kill Minmatar citizens!

"You, or rather Folas, will be declared KOS across the Republic and Empire as a result but you and I will be innocent of anything. The logs will show that Minmatar forces attempted to stop Folas at several points but failed; it will make us look bad and we will have to pay some reparations but war will be avoided and we will celebrate that old codger's death behind closed doors.

"Good luck Kirith Kodachi, don't let me down."

* * * * * * 

Technical description: 

 

Pilot receives Specially Modified Rifter that must be equipped. This Rifter requires any faction's frigate skills to pilot. While in Specially Modified Rifter the pilot's security standing is set to -10.0.

The pilot can take the ship anywhere and use it for anything but it is no better than regular Rifter and has a self destruct timer of 1 day. 

In Hek, the pilot will have agent bookmark to an acceleration gate that only allows Specially Modified Rifters to use. Once in the deadspace, the pilot will see several Repubic Fleet frigates and several Amarr Delegation Yachts, one of which is labeled Admiral Cosorassa's Yacht. Soon after the pilot arrives in the pocket, the Republic Fleet ships will begin to target and engage the pilot but most of them will be at long range and thus give the player some room to engage the target.

If any Republic ships are destroyed, the mission fails. 

The Admiral's Yacht will begin to move after 60 seconds and align to warp out. At 120 seconds the Yacht will warp out and the mission fails.

The other Amarr delegation Yachts will begin to move after 90 seconds and warp out at 180 seconds. Killing them causes no ill effect to the mission but will be difficult as the rest of the Republic ships get in range.

Other Blog Banters:

TBD

That's Mr HICtor to you!

Looking over the past year at my killboard stats I see a smattering of various ships: 3 x in a Raptor, another 3 in a Myrmidon, the odd Ferox killmail, four in a Falcon, etc. But by far the most common ship that I appear on killmails in is an Onyx Heavy Interdictor.

There are several reasons for this:

1) Its almost always a handy addition to any fleet. 

Whether you are a small gang or a large blob, the HIC brings a decent radius warp disruption bubble on a solid platform that is not as slow as a Battlecruiser or battleship.

2) Its useful in 0.0 and Low sec.

The script that turns the ~20km bubble into ~30km infini-point is pure win. Warp stabbed haulers beware the sensor boosted HIC on the gate.

3) Massive passive tank.

Certain versions (Broadsword, Onyx) can tank the current Doomsday device. 'Nuff said.

4) Cruiser agility and speed (well almost).

It can keep up with HAC gangs pretty well, but a lot more durable than a Light Interdictor.

For those reasons, I'm more likely to choose an Onyx when joining an ad hoc fleet than anything else, although I've have some fun in the Interceptors lately.

Here is my current setup:

The reason for the two Warp Disruption Field Generators is that it allows me to pop a bubble and target a ship to hit with the focused infini-point scram. That way targets that slip out of my bubble range are still warp scrammed for another ten km, giving the fleet the chance to take it out.

Piss and Vinegar

I logged in Saturday evening full of piss and vinegar, looking to get into a fleet and help kill something. Fortunately for me the corp had a small fleet on the go on the other side of Providence, so I debated my ship options and figured a Onyx Heavy Interdictor would be a good fit to compliment the Taranis, Flycatcher, and pair of Hurricanes. Once I was settled in my pod I checked the jump bridge map and picked a route and was on my way.

Ten minutes later I hooked up with the fleet and we began the hunt for something to shoot. It was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night, we only a few small groups roaming around here or there, typically cloaked up waiting for an unsuspecting target. Eventually we tried to catch an Ushra'Khan pilot at one gate but he was in a stealth bomber and quickly evaded us, taunting us in local as he escaped.

"You don't catch UK pilots in stealth bombers. And if you do, they were noobs." Ah, the no true scotsman defense.

We carried on with life and heard of another red pilot a few jumps out. We set up in a likely system that he might jump into, and a few Slyph pilots nearby joined our fleet as we waited. It was hard to be patient as the hostile checked out each system looking for easy kills... my finger itched on the F1 key for the Warp Disruption Field bubble... and we waited...

Gate activation! Red in local! BUBBLE UP!

A Rapier appeared breifly in the overview and then cloaked, our interceptors and Flycatcher sped towards its last location dropping another bubble as they flew. No signal... no signal... THERE! He was decloaked and fleet homed in on him like a Trapdoor spider on an unsuspecting beetle.

With that hostile gone, we got word of our taunting Stealth Bomber friend haunting a dead end system two jumps away so we decided to try the patient game again on his outbound gate. We set up in the same formation, my HIC in the middle for the main bubble and everyone else ready to pounce. There was a neutral in a noob corp in local and we wondered if it was our prey's scouting alt.

While we waited for a chance to make our foe eat his words, another red jumped into system at another gate but we threw up our bubble anyways and had the fast ships burn out to the edge where a target warping to us would land in the hopes that we might get lucky.

There was nothing for a minute and then, sure enough, a Hound Stealth Bomber lands right on the spot and we jump on him with slavering jaws and howls of ferocity. (Ok, the fleet was not quite that beastial, just me.)

We waited for a while longer on the gate to see if our other target would jump into our waiting hands, but he appeared to be gone for a smoke and we moved on. Our Sylph buddies went back home and the M3 corp fleet did another tour of Providence before our numbers dwindled as pilots went to bed.

Once again the Onyx serves me well.

9 Days To Battleship Duel

A lot of people like frigates and cruisers and their tech II and III variants in Eve, and while I definitely appreicate a good Interceptor clipping along at 5 km/sec or a Onyx dropping a bubble on the enemy fleet, I live for the big ships. Battleships, Carriers, Orcas... I get tears in my eyes when I undock in them.


So I'm really really looking forward to my duel with Nashh in 9 days.

I've been spending some free time pouring over EFT and theorycrafting in my head all the permutations this Duel can take on. Unlike the Destroyer duel, I have a lot of options as I can fly Caldari, Amarr, and Gallente all acceptably well and I can use missiles, drones, hybrids, and lasers all decently too. That gives me 9 battleships to choose from; well 8 more accurately because the Scorpion would be useless without its ECM modules which are disallowed in the coming tilt.

Of the ships there are a lot of different options. Hybrids? Drones? Lasers? Missiles? Close up or at range? Active or passive tank? I've looked at multiple setups for all the 8 battleships and each one has something to reccomend it.

Next Sunday will reveal if my planning is all for nought or pays off.

Fiction Friday - Chapter 2

Previously:
Chapter 1

* * * * *

The City of Hollis on Perimeter was a bustling metropolis unlike anything we had on Vahunomi and my brother and I were like wide eyed childern on the ride into it from the spaceport. Tall shining skyscrapers, elevated rail links, and several levels of streets running all around them filled with every type of transportation imaginable.

Our hotel was in the heart of the city, and while not as glitzy and extravgent as entertainment districts in Gallente cities that I had seen in holos, it still oozed excess and possibility. I was only 20 years old and the place just revved my bloodstream with the careless fire that only the young have; even my brother, who normalled eschewed any type of boisterous activty, seemed filled with electricty and excitment.

We checked into our room and quickly headed back to the concourse that connected our hotel building with several other hotels and casinos. Bars, gambling floors, restaurants, sports dens, everything you could imagine was within walking distance and everywhere were beautiful people making sure the patrons had drinks. I craned my neck several times to allow my eyes follow a sexy hostess across the floor. Many years later I would visit the Hedonistic Avenues of Luminaire and realize how simple, small, and innocent the Hollis downtown was in comparison, but at the time I felt like I was in the centre of the universe.

As Kor and I walked around and checked out the sights and attractions, I noticed above the main concourse another one that looked down upon us and a few people at the edge sitting or leaning on the rails, talking to each other.

"That would be a good place to see around," I nudged my brother, pointing to the higher level.

He followed my gaze and snorted. "Good luck!"

"What do you mean?"

"That's a restricted level, for pod pilots and their guests only. I read about it on the flight here on the 'net. Its got specialty stores and restaurants and high end luxury service to lure the capsuleers down from the station. They get the five star treatment down here and separation from us mere mortals."

The knowledge I was not allowed up there made me want to go there all the more. It burned me that I was not good enough for that private level. One of the first things I did after I became a pilot and was discharged from the Navy was to spend a weekend here even though I had to go into debt to afford it.

We carried on and after a while we stopped to have dinner at a restaurant that served some excellent beef and a waitress whose bodice was stretched almost to the point of bursting to my brother's consternation. We brought up the directions we had been given and walked for thirty minutes to a quieter and darker part of the underground concourse. There, set in the wall like a cave entrance, was the door to the bar called "The Vortex".

"After you," I said to my brother.

BACK FOUL TEMPTRESS!!

Last night I was on for a few minutes and reading the forums and saw an alliance mate looking to sell his Phoenix Dreadnought at a discounted price to someone in the alliance.

Cue the wallet burning a hole in my pocket.

I made an offer of a billion in case he was in a hurry to unload it and carried on with activities. A little while later I checked contracts to get a feel for how much dreadnoughts are going for these days. The lowest I saw was a couple going at 1.15 billion and here is what went through my head.

"Hey, that's a good price! Average is around 1.4 bil."

"That's in this region too."

"I have 1.15 billion ISK. I'll just log into Derranna and transfer the cash I need..."

"But I haven't heard a yes or no from that alliance guy. I'd feel bad if I bought this one and he then contacted me in hopes of selling his."

"Plus its a lower price. I should wait."

"But what if he says no thanks and this cheap Phoenix is snatched up by someone else in the meantime?"

"Gah, patience, gotta have some."

And with great reluctance and no dreadnought I logged off. Its a good thing too; this morning when I woke up and thought about last night's episode I had almost-buyer's-regret, that feeling that you would have felt bad had you bought the thing you almost bought but didn't because of one little situational roadblock. The feeling you know you are weak and it wasn't willpower that saved you.

Anyways, if I get the cheap Phoenix I'll probably flip it for a hundred million or so profit because I never seem to have time or a need for a dreadnought, the corp has a spare for emergencies, and I need to buy some skillbooks and parts for my restarted tech II production line. For example, this morning I spent about 90 million to get parts to build 40 covert op cloaking devices.

Rumble In Rens

Nashh and I have agreed to the terms of our third and tie-breaking duel:

Here is what I'm proposing for the "Rumble In Rens":

1) Rens is the scene unless your sec status is too low by then. I'm thinking Nov 1st at around 23:59 eve time or 00:30 by the time the kids are in bed and kitchen tidied up. Sigh.

2) Tech 1 Battleships. I.e. no faction (Navy or Pirate) and no tech II (Golem *drool*)

3) No restrictions on mods/rigs, ammo, or drones with the exception of no ECM modules or drones.

4) No warping out. Duel goes to the Pod.

5) Range limitation of 50km.

6) Setup is same as last two duels: we meet and exchange a unit of ammo in a can to become red to each other, and then warp to second planet so we land 20 km apart. As soon as warp bubble collapses, fight is on.

Spectators welcome to join us!

Paranoia

I've been with m3 for over a year. Any time I'm online for more than 30 minutes I'm in corp chat looking for the current fleet or offering to help people with what they are doing. I chronicle my adventures here in pretty decent detail. So how much corp hanger access do you think corporate leadership has granted me?

The bare minimum.

And you know what? That's the right way to do it.

Corp theft in Eve is all too common but we really should recognize that there are two types: there is the sting operation where someone joins with the intention of malfeance some time in the future and works to ingratiate himself into the workings of the corporation; and there is the crime of opportunity, a falling out between individuals and one of the parties decides he is taking as much as he can with him as he leaves.

As a corporate CEO It's hard to protect yourself from either but the former is especailly difficult. In that case the person in question is actively trying to win your favour and can lie/hide his true opinions to do so. But even the latter scenario can catch you off guard as small disputes and minor personality conflicts can erupt into drama bombs at unexpected times.

In any case the best way to protect yourself and your corp assets is to be paranoid. Trust only those you have to with the bare minimum of roles and access they need to perform any tasks assigned to them or to reward them for service.

The reason this topic comes up is because I want to take something out of a hanger that I have access to normally, but not in Mobile Labs at a POS because you need the "Config Starbase Equipment" role to do so. However, that role would give me permission to anchor and unanchor things and that is not something I typically would do for the corporation. I imagine the scenario where the CEO logs in to find his POS and all its modules gone has run through his head a few times.

BTW CCP Devs, the above situation I just described in the previous paragraph? Unacceptable. New User Story: There should be a role to allow a pilot to take things from starbase modules without having the ability to anchor and unanchor them. Next Sprint please.

Wing Commander

Skills Update Time!

Kirith has been getting the leadership skills up to par and has completed the base skill of Seige Warfare to level V. I was going to start into Seige Specialist skill but the during fleet actions last week there was a call at one point for someone to take Wing Commander. I could not despite a willingness to do so so I put Wing Commander I - IV up on the list and I'll be finished that in 6 days.

After that I need a break from Leadership skills so I'm going to training Gallente Frigate V, an 8 days skill for me, and get access to the Ishkur Assault Ship and Taranis Interceptor to name a few. Then back to Seige Specialist I - IV and Cybernetics V.

Derranna has almost completed the basic Missile skills, with Guided Missile Precision needing to go to Level IV, and then I to IV of Bomb Deployment, Heavy Assault Missiles, and Cruise Missiles. Later on if need be I can go to the Tech II skills for any missile type.

Currently, though, she's working on Starbase Defense Management IV after completing the first three levels yesterday. I decided to take care of this in readiness for the certain turmoil that Dec 1st Dominion Day will bring.

In three weeks when she is done all of that, I'll spend a month getting access to the new Tech II exploration tools with Hacking V, Salvaging V, and Archeology V. Then on to projectile training.

Dark Side of the Sun

I've stopped my trading enterprises recently. I've got over a billion ISK in my wallets and no looming ship purchases. My hanger is full of combat ships ready to go of all sizes and classes. There are no expensive implants I feel the need to purchase, and no outrageous skills that can't be covered with an Eve Tribune article or a few hours of ratting/missions.

Essentially the part-time trading was profitable but I was reaching the point where I either had to spend more time doing it to the detriment of other activities, or I had to stop. I'm not a halfway guy in regard to my obsessions.

But I still need something to do with those 15-20 minute chunks that sprout up during the week. When we were in IRC I did a lot of logistics to Etherium Reach from Empire. There is not such a need in Providence. So I've decided to start up the invention game again, making some Tech II BPCs to build from and sell.

I've got a backlog of some Tech II BPCs including about 10 Invulnerability Field II BPCs, and I had 8 Prototype Cloaking BPCs that I invented up to get 4 Covert Cloak BPCs. I'll have to dig up my production spreadsheets so I remember what to buy to build them.

As for selling, I think I'm going to try and sell them in Providence instead of an Empire hub. A win-win scenario: allies get local access to goods at a reasonable price and I get a bit more profit than in Empire.

Stealth Bomber Camping

There are many different ways to camp in a Stealth Bomber.

You can find a busy system in null sec and wait for someone to sit on a gate that looks like a juicy target. It can be hit or miss if you get a good run but has the advantage of being easy to do once you have the bookmarks all set up. A version of this is to camp an enemy's jump bridge, launching a bomb when an unsuspecting hauler or frigate lands on it and thinks it is safe under the POS' sentry guns.

Another method is to find a quieter null sec system and setup some drag bubbles (i.e. Mobile Warp Interdiction spheres that pull people away from the gate they were warping to) and get into position to bomb the spot they will end up. This method exchanges longer setup time (finding the right spot to anchor the bubbles) and less traffic for the increased chances of getting targets as ships don't land on the gate and jump away.

Last night three of us spend a couple hours engaging in the latter method but came away empty handed except for a suite of bookmarks for next time. There was some excitement as we were shutting down our camp and a hostile fleet entered local and passed through. Fortunately no m3 pilots were spotted and we made it home safely a little while later.

* * * * *

Extra, extra!



This poor excuse for a PvP pilot made 9th spot on the top scorers list (for points, not actual kills) for the corp for last week. I think that's the first time I ever made it on there after a week was complete, mostly thanks to the fleet actions on Thursday evening.

If I can keep it up, I might even make it into the top 30 all time M3 pilots for number of kills, passing by some inactive / retired pilots! ;-)

Short Update

So tired, sleeping at hotel is not good. Bed is comfortable, but noises, god noises everywhere.  On the upside, the internet is solid and I got in some good Eve time in my evenings.

On Wednesday night I was in my Myrmidon Vexo's Special headed up to high sec to meet Max and roam with him when I jumped into a Defiant alliance gate camp in Yong system. I burned back to the gate and managed to jump out with 84% structure left. We rallied up a gang and I got in my Abaddon Callisto to act as bait, but by the team we came back they had moved on.

On Thursday I logged in to find a Liberatus Fidelitus alliance led fleet in motion so I hopped into the Onyx Sticky and joined in the fun. In several engagements we did very well and I got in on four different killmails, a record for me. At one point I switched to a Basilisk when it looked like we were going to need logistics against a serious enemy fleet but I ended up not being needed. Then I was in a Crow for a while as we chased a Scimitar and Broadsword remenants of that fleet, before ending the night in my Onyx once more.

Gone Fishing

I'm travelling for work for the next few days. Back to normal next week. Cheers!

Revenge Is A Dish...

Back in August I was challenged to a Celebrity Death Match by Nashh Kadar and we met in battlecruisers which ended up with me losing.

I'm one to hold a grudge, especially good natured competitive ones. In Warhammer 40K days, I was known for my Grudge Matches, where every once in a while I would challenge an old 40K friend to a match of epic proportions with a lot of pride on the line, a no holds barred tilt to the finish (as opposed to friendly games where less competitiveness was the call of the day for our core group). Since your hard earned isk is on the line in an Eve Duel, the competitiveness is implied, and when I lost last time, I knew that someday I'd come back for Revenge. Call me Khan, and this is the story of my wrath.

Lessons Learned

I made some cruical errors in the last duel.

For starters, I assumed I had a shill advantage that would be telling in terms of DPS and tank. Secondly, I figured it would be quick and brutal like a low sec gank so I took a ship designed to overpower him at close range in a short amount of time. Third, I calculated that my ECM drones would give me enough jams to severely disrupt his DPS.

Instead he proved to be more than capable of handling his Drake well, it was a long match where I tried to close with a too-heavily-armoured-rigged Myrmidon that was far too slow for a blaster boat and I ran out of cap, and despite having more ECM drones after I culled most of his, he still got crucial jams that allowed him to scoot out of range when I deactivated my MWD to save capacitor.

The Plan

We agreed to a Destroyer duel because he had not done one before and I didn't want to risk another 100 million ship just yet. In hindsight since there is no Tech 1 missile destroyers I might have an advantage so I offered to change but he kindly declined.

I decided I wanted to fight at range instead of up close. While 7+ blasters sounds like a good idea, Destroyers can't tank worth crap due to lack of slots. (P.S. CCP: give Destroyers more tanking slots, their low CPU/PG will prevent them from becoming too powerful.) So in order to get to my long range and stay there I planned a MWD at the very least. It also led me to look at a Catalyst over a Cormorant as I figured that the range bonus of the latter would not be as vital to me as the speed advantage of the former.

The plan was to get to my optimal range and maintain it, running away if he came towards me, and closing if he ran away. I hoped that my superior hybrid skills would allow me to out-damage him at my optimal, combined with the extra turret and drone over the Cormorant which I suspected he would use.

With rails and MWD, I knew cap was vital. No use having a tank if nothing else is working, right? So small cap booster with 200 sized charges would be more than enough to power everything, and the large cargo bay of the Destroyer class allowed me  stock enough charges to last over 11 minutes with everything running. I made sure I had enough ammo in cargo for over 20 minutes as well.

In the lows I opted for a Damage Control for a bit of cheap tanking, a tracking enhancer to bring my optimal up to my targeting range of 41 km and boost the tracking a bit, and finally an Overdrive Injector to ensure I had speed superiority barring a surprise setup by Nashh.



(Click to Embiggen)

That gave me an estimated DPS of around 100 with Spike Ammo at 41 KM, and a calculated speed of  around 1900 meters/second.

I really really wanted to win.

The Duel

Last night we logged in at the agreed time and met up at Amarr planet 1. We exchanged a charge of ammo in a jet can, warped to planet 2 at the agreed range of 20 km from each other, and the duel was on.

[ 2009.10.14 01:19:00 ] (notify) Warping to Amarr II (Mikeb)
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:45 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 197.3 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:47 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:48 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II hits Lau Wensink (Cormorant), doing 138.2 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:50 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:51 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 178.8 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:52 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:54 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 181.7 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:55 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:57 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II places an excellent hit on Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 241.6 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:19:58 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:00 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 143.0 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:01 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:03 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 172.4 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:03 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:06 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:06 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 186.5 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:09 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:09 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II hits Lau Wensink (Cormorant), doing 143.5 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:12 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:12 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 253.0 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:15 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:16 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 254.4 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:17 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:19 ] (combat) Your group of 125mm Railgun II is well aimed at Lau Wensink (Cormorant), inflicting 264.3 damage.
[ 2009.10.14 01:20:20 ] (combat) Lau Wensink (Cormorant) misses you completely.

BOOM! His ship flew into pieces and I high fived my wife who was on the couch beside me (me somewhat more enthusiastically than her judging by her sigh and rolling eyes).

It was a complete skunk unfortunately, with Nashh unable to land a single salvo on me. A quick look at the Caldari Antimatter charges loaded reveals why: he thought I would come in close like I tried last time with the Myrmidon so he decided on short ranged ammo and tracking disruptors to foil me. But at 41 km against a Destroyer class ship using rails he was not fast enough to escape my tracking despite being disrupted, and his ammo was inadequate for returning fire.

I felt a little bad for the spanking I delivered... then I remembered my poor Mrymidon and the emotion when away. Then I felt like this:


We agreed before the fight that a third duel was called for if I won and we settled on Tech 1 battleships, no ECM, range limit (how about 50 km?) in about a month's time. Now it time to start planning as I expect I won't catch him off guard again :)

Nashh Kadar's Report:

Public Notice

The blogger Kirith Darkblade is of no relation to me, blogger Kirith Kodachi, despite the similiarity in our names and the fact that he writes quite well. And that "kodachi" is a type of Japanese short sword.

Yeeha!

One of the big draws of living in a holder alliance in Providence is that there is always lots of hositles nearby and looking for a fight. That has allowed our corporation to vent a lot of PvP steam and get into some good fights. In my opinion, the move to Paxton Federation has been very good for us.

The alliance has been very welcoming and evidence of that was the special operation planned for last Friday night where a bunch of us new to the area were taken on a tour of all the Paxton and CVA jump bridges so we could bookmark them. It took about two hours and it was not very exciting but the strategic value of jump bridges cannot be understated.

On Saturday I had a few minutes to log in and check some stuff when I heard there was a fleet up and some reds trapped in a dead end pocket. I decided to join up until my wife came looking for me to send me to the store. Come on, bad guys! Attack us!

Well, the majority of the reds got engaged at another gate by a friendly fleet, but a lone Harbinger battlecruiser did warp to the gate our fleet was at and jumped through. A bunch of us followed in hopes of getting him on the other side.

I was in the Raptor again. I decided I need to hone my skills a bit and the cheap and relatively disposable interceptor seemed like a good place to start. This past week I practised target-approach via ctrl+double clicking in the overview (totally forgot that trick), priming weapon systems prior to enemy arrival on grid, and generally mentally fortifying myself.

On the other side of the gate I primed the MWD and got ready to fly. Two heavy interdictors put up the bubbles so it was hopeful he would not get to warp away quickly. His gate cloak dropped and I winced as he was 24 km away (I seem to have bad luck in this regard). I ctrl-double clicked and prayed that the distance would drop fast enough to get my scrambler (which I still had fitted from chasing frigs last week) and web on him to prevent him from getting back to the gate.

At 4 km per second, the range dropped fast and I hit 9 km soon enough and got him. He sic'd his drones on me and my shields dropped fast but the amount of firepower we had was enough to kill him before I had to warp away. I tried to get his pod but another Raptor pilot beat me to it.

With that aggro from the wife forced me to dock and I went to the store with a bounce in my step. Two kills in 5 days is not bad for this time-constrained pilot. Looking forward to some more.

Quick Note

Its Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday so no posting for me until Tuesday.

Two Pilot Exploration Team

I really enjoyed attempting the two complexes this past week in spite of the failure to secure much besides a few million ISK and a nice module. I don't intend to make exploration my full time job when online (PvP is where it's at!) I do intend to continue it in lieu of ratting or missions.

So if I intend to keep at it, I sure as hell better get better!

There are three approaches:

- I go in with a semi-hard ship like the Cerberus and have Derranna in a Scimitar providing remote reps, then having her swap out to a Salvager/Hacker/Analyzer ship as need be once the danger is over.

- I go in with a hard tanking vessel like a Nighthawk or battleship and have Derranna sneak in and do the can-busting when all aggro is on the tank.

- I go in with hard tanking vessel and have Derranna support in her Scimitar until baddies are gone.

I'm not convinced the first approach will be able to handle some high end complex DPS, so I think I'll start with the second method and upgrade to the third if need be.

So I need a hard tanking vessel. My first inclination is the Nighthawk because it can passive tank a shitload of DPS fairly easily. The downside is that to get the passive tank you basically have to have the DPS of a tech I cruiser. Sitting there shooting a battleship rat for 20 minutes is not exactly my idea of fun. The Nighthawk lacks powergrid for Heavy Assault missile launchers which would have helped, and I'm concerned that sacrificing passive tank for more DPS would defeat the purpose.

Still, any Nighthawk experts that have a setup that can tank high end complexes and still get over 350 DPS (without drones) let me know.

So, that means battleship (or a Tengu but I think I'll save that for when I'm filthy rich as opposed to just rich). A Rokh or a Raven can boast pretty powerful active tanks, but would depend on cap boosters in order to maintain it. I'd prefer a cap stable active tanking setup.

I decided to look at Dominix setups because the hulls are cheap and I happen to have three of them in my hanger in High sec, including one that is unrigged and unassembled. This is the setup I'm looking at:



The defence rating is based on a Sansha attack profile of EM 60%, Thermal 32%, and Kinetic 8%. I'm assuming I'm mostly going to run into Sansha rats but should I encounter something else I'll have to be ready to refit.

The setup is cap stable, does a decent amount of DPS, and has some flexibility with the multiple flights of drones. Obviously not PvP capable.

So, am I crazy? Should I bite the bullet and buy a Raven so I can go with approach 3 (battleship and Scimitar)? Or do you think the Domi will be up to the task?

Fiction Friday - Chapter 1

Perimeter system, The Forge

I was watching ships dock while waiting for my brother. The viewing platform was large and almost always busy with tourists gawking at the shuttles from the planet below and frieghters coming in from points unknown. I admit I was a tourist gawker too at the time.

It wasn't my first time in space but it was my first time away from Vahunomi, and the viewing deck on the State & Region Bank Vault station was always empty except for employees on breaks looking for solitude. There just wasn't much traffic in Vahunomi.

Just as a golden ship I didn't recognize came out of warp and starting to approach the station my older brother ran up, red in the face form exertion and puffing and wheezing.

"I'm here!" he gasped, sucking in gulps of air. "Let's go!"

I didn't move from my place leaning on the railing. "Relax, Kor. I sent you a message, didn't you get it? The shuttle to the planet was rescheduled until 1630." I pointed at the golden ship and asked, "Do you know what kind that one is? Its Amarrian, right?"

He dropped his travel bag and pulled out his comm. "Shit! I left it off again!"

I chuckled as he cursed to himself and checked his backlog of messages. It wouldn't take long; he didn't have as many friends as I did. He was three years older and taller than me at just over 185 centimetres while I topped out at a 176, but he was gangly with long arms and legs that seemed to go opposite directions all the time. His face was long and at only 25 he already had a receding hairline making it seem longer.

"That ship?" I prompted.

"What? Oh yeah," he drummed his fingers against his leg for a second. "Its an Amarrian Bestower, a transport ship. You really should know that by now, Kirith, if you want to be seen as a serious businessman."

I rolled my eyes with a smirk on my face. My brother was always telling me to be more professional, to know more, to study facts and figures and recall them instantly like he could. Back then I didn't care about studying anything except the female form. I could get by on my smile and a knack for making people like me. That's one of the reasons our father like me more than Korannon.

Don't get me wrong; Korannon was not a socially inept loser that spent all his time on the networks with weird hobbies and obsessions. He just lacked... a certain grace of movement and comfortability with others. He had the business sense and ability to wade through bureaucratic red tape better than anyone I knew (except Father perhaps, but he had decades of experience). Yet despite his strengths Father seemed to focus on his weaknesses and constantly held me up as an example of a budding entrepreneur. It bothered both of us; Kor because he wanted to make our father proud and yet he couldn't change who he was; and me because I felt bad for my brother and embarrassed by my father's praise.

And ultimately, that was why we were here in Perimeter, far from the backwater system we grew up in. I had a plan to show our father how we were a great team, Kor's brains and my charisma. And a make a small fortune in the process.

Too bad I ruined both of our lives in the process, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Missing Link

With over 50 million skillpoints, I can fly a lot of ships. In fact, in the Caldari lineup I can fly every combat ship with the exception of the Titan (skill book too expensive and a ship I'll probably never own), and Marauders (but I have all the prerequisites so I could fly one in less than an hour).

Oh, and one other combat ship eludes me. Tech II destroyers, the Interdictor class.

You see, when I was developing my skill plan and had achieved Tech II frigates like Assault ships and Interceptors it was the time that Heavy Interdictors were being announced and I was faced with a decision: train up the dead end skill of Destroyers V followed by Interdictors, or train up Cruisers V which opens up all the Tech II cruisers and go for Heavy Interdictors.

"I'll go back and get that skill later on," I told myself about Destroyers. Yet here is it years later and I'm still only at Destroyers III.

I feel a little guilty. Poor little Flycatcher gets no love from the hardcore Caldari pilot. But there is always something else to train first....

The other night when flying with the corp and seeing Greyhound in his Flycatcher ready to launch bubbles to snag the unawares, I paused a second to look at that ship and think to myself "I really should train that ship." I checked EVEMon and it would only take 15 days to get up to spec.

Sigh. Decisions decisions.

Exploration Vexes Me Again

Last night I logged once more on to the laptop while watching TV on the couch with the wife.

(Man, from reading this blog you might think this is all I do! The truth is, I could care less about 90% of the TV shows but my wife likes to relax after a long day of taking care of the Carebear Brigade and TV is her hobby of choice. And she likes to have me nearby rather than being alone. After 12 years of marriage, you learn where you can win a little and where you can lose big.)

Well, I have no access to voice comms on the laptop so X-ing up to a fleet is out of the question - I refuse to PvP in a Fleet without voice comms - and I didn't feel like running solo when my attention could be diverted at any moment by the pregnant wife. Case in point, halfway through last night she had a huge craving for a Wunderbar chocolate bar and asked me to go out to the Mac's Milk to get one. Last pregnancy she had a craving for something late at night and I didn't go to get it and I have not yet heard the end of it two years later. Needless to say, bitter as I was I went out in the cold Canadian fall night and got her TWO Wunderbars, one for now and one as backup for later in case this craving becomes a long term one.

I decided to do some probing again like I did Sunday evening. I like the new probing mechanics, and with Kirith's skills being excellent now there was no reason not to. So I jumped in the Buzzard and went to work.

I only detected one signature on my initial scan and it was a low one. Eager for the challenge I broke out the Sisters Core Scan Probe Tetrahedron and went to work. It was a tough one (a good sign, means other casual probers may not have been able to resolve it) and eventually I got the 100% signal. It turned out to be a profession site called "Pristine Sansha Graveyard" or something like that and the site description informed me I would need Salvaging skills to exploit it. Which is good because Derranna left her good Cheetah covert ops with the Hacking and Archeology modules back in High Sec. (Note to self, get some of those down here.)

The site had a bunch of cans that required salvaging to open floating in some Large Collidable Objects shaped like ship wrecks. No rats to be seen but I knew that as soon as I tried to open one, bad guys would show up. They always do. I got Derranna in a ship with salavagers to warp in and try the first can and sure enough Sanshas show up, three cruisers and 5 battleships.

I sent Derranna to safety while I checked out the rats with my Cerberus. The bounties on the battleships were in the 1.2 million range suggesting these were not the cannon fodder typically found in belts. Sure enough, my shields were strong but not strong enough and slowly they went down. I reshipped Derranna to her Scimitar and brought her in to boost my shields enough to finish off the rats.

It was slow going. The Cerb does fine for belt ratting but I need more DPS and tank for these high end complexes.

(Side note: there was a silent red in system this whole time and I kept watching intel channels and directional scanner for scan probes. I still realize I was taking a risk but I can afford it monetarily if not egotistically.)

Once the spawn was done, I got Derranna back to salvaging. Again the rats came back, this time in two spawns! I decided to dock up both characters at this point (the aforementioned convenience store run). When I came back, I went in with the Cerberus again, intending to follow up with the Scimitar to shield transfer and.... the rats, cans, scenery was gone! Nothing left but the wrecks from the first spawn.

Riiiiiight.... I remember now. Complexes will despawn if they are partially done and you leave it. I apparently had successfully cracked up one can with salvagers just as I had Derranna warp out and the trigger was set. Kirith warped out and the complex packed up and went somewhere else.

BUGGER!

Well, for the best I suppose. I was running out of time. I looted and salvaged the wrecks and was slightly molified to find a best named large Tachyon beam module in one of the wrecks, worth about 8 million plus.

Chimera Squadron GO!

Last night I decided to do a carrier run so I could get some ships for Derranna out to Providence, specifically her Scimitar and Rapier. The former is good for PvE and the latter gives me an option in PvP that Kirith does not offer. I also brought down a couple ships for my good buddy Lucius who was short of hulls.

I made my way up to low sec alone and safely. A spent a while getting the ships together into the Ninveah's hanger and got word that Director Max was going to do a run in his carrier that evening as well.

I popped another cyno, got him to base, and a short while later we took off back to our new home. I snapped a couple pictures along the way because its not often I see a squadron of Chimera carriers in fleet maneuvures.

Waiting for the all clear at a POS:


In warp:




In warp from the side:


(Max is a director of m3 corp and one of the inspirational leaders. When his motherboard fried last year the pilots gave donations to the tune of 400$ to get him back in game with us. I love this corporation. P.S. We're recruiting.)

Along with the ships for Lucius and Derranna, I brought myself a Rook to try out (and probably die horribly) and a Blaster Harpy which looks like a lot of fun to fly. Hopefully I will get some action next weekend with them.

Thinking about...

... that Sansha Military Complex I found on Sunday night and lacked the tank to deal with it.

My inital thought was to get a big shield boosting battleship or hard-as-nails Nighthawk to tank, but I'm now considering if having Derranna there in her Scimitar Logistics ship might be a good idea as well.

Well, let's break out EFT and find out!

I can take a Rokh and with an active shield tank I can absorb 782 pts of damage from a typical Sansha profile (60% EM, 32% Thermal, 8% Kinetic) for about four minutes or while cap charges last while my passive buffer Nighthawk can do 725 pts.

While impressive, I feel like I need more. Enter the Scimitar!

Derranna, with four Large Shield Transporter IIs and four Medium Shield Drone IIs and one Small Shield Drone II, can repair 420 pts of shields per second while remaining cap stable. Absolutely no tank mind you, but in PvE as long as the tanking pilot picks up all spawns it should not be an issue.

Right now I'm thinking the Scimitar / Nighthawk combination is the winner for me.

The Secret Art of the Vulture

Last week I talked initially about the leadership skills I needed to train to take advantage of the Vulture's role bonuses (and Nighthawk incidently). Today I'm going to look at various setups for the Vulture that I've been playing with as I experiment with the ship.

Vulture - Siege Warfare 

So here we have a Vulture with good solid tank sporting all three Siege Warfare Links. The weapons on the ship are secondary; its job is to stay alive and improve the performance of the rest of the fleet.

There's just one problem. Two of the three warfare links give bonuses to shield boosting and shield transporting (i.e. remote repping) and while the increase is very nice to a ship with a shield booster or a Logistic ship Basilisk with Shield Transporters, its not ideal for a typical 0.0 engagement where passive shield buffer tanks are the typical fare for shield tankers and everyone else using armour tanks.

So while this Vulture has some applications, especially in PvE scenarios where it can increase an active shield tank by almost 25%, we need to look at other options.

Vulture - Mixed Warfare

By getting rid of the two active shield warfare links and adding in the Armour Warfare Passive Defense link and Skirmish Warfare Evasive Maneuvures link the Vulture essentially becomes a damage control module that also reduces signature radius, increasing the survivability of the entire fleet by a significant margin.

Now the other types of warfare links requires more training including getting Armoured Warfare and Skirmish Warfare up to V and then the respective specialist skills, but that really is never a bad idea anyways.

Vulture - Sniper

It all feels kind of wrong to not be taking advantage of the Vulture's bonus to Hybrid damage and range, so this setup is intended to act as fleet support Sniper as well as providing resistance bonuses to the fleet. It has to sacrifice quite a bit of tank to accomplish this, and I had to use a 1% powergrid implant to make it work, but it can deliver a bit of punch out to 150 km which can ruin an interdictor's day.

This setup lacks a MWD, so I could switch the Large Shield Extender II for a MWD but it requires the 3% powergrid implant to fit.

* * * * *
That was not an extensive list covering all possibilities, just some I've looked at. If you have your own Vulture setups, please post them in the comments.

Beware Enemies of Providence!

Last night I logged in chomping at the bit and raring to go. My week had especially sucked and I didn't get much done at all, so I had to make up for it Sunday night.


As I got my alliance Teamspeak working I heard that the M3 triumvirate of command was leading a Fleet to go hunting a hostile frigate gang.

"What do you want me in?" I queried, ready to jump into a battleship, or Onyx. Or maybe my Falcon?

"We need a fast tackler," Max informed me, "do you have an inty?"

Me in an interceptor? Last time I was in a ship of that class I successfully tackled an afk Raven... at a gate... in low sec. You can't speed tank sentry guns my friends.

But my friends needed me so I jumped into Road Runner, a Raptor usually used as a shuttle instead of a combat ship, and switched out the Warp Disruptor for a Warp Scrambler. Undocking, I said a little prayer to the Eve Gods for a kill and warped to my fleet.

We spent the next 30-40 minutes chasing the hostile gang. We had my Raptor, and an Eagle, Onyx, Flycatcher, and were joined by a Rapier flown by an alliance mate. Our enemies had two Crows, a Malediction, Manitcore, and a Jaguar.

I was terrible. I mean, catching enemy frigates is not easy to begin with but I stunk, getting my commands crossed and approaching while forgetting to lock or locking without activating the MWD. I felt like I had a bad case of fat fingers, a combination of lack of practice in an Interceptor and PvP in general. I need to play more.

At one point I was trying to get ahead of the enemy gang and saw them at a gate I had just jumped through, hit warp to the next gate, and then saw they had engaged a blue. I tried to stop but was too slow and warped off to leave the friendly to their mercies. Sorry about that Clavius XIV.

After many minutes of futility we finally lost them up around the downtown systems of Providence and dejectedly we headed home, mapping some jump bridges along the way.

Then the intel channel spiked. Incoming Vagabond!

We rallied on a gate, the Onyx popped a bubble and I warped to the gate from the direction the vagabond was coming from, stopping on the edge of the bubble. If the hostile warped directly to us, he would land right on top of me.

The seconds ticked by. Where is he.... where is he....

Suddenly my overview changed and it appeared, slowing down to hit the bubble and bounce off me. This was it, my gift from the gods! Either I tackled this Vagabond or I go down as the worst interceptor pilot in history.

"POINT!" I called in voice comms, my scrambler and web hitting him simultaneously. I punched the orbit button... and watched in horror as I sailed out of range of my tackle gear. "NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!" I swore. I immediately realized my mistake; my MWD was so fast taking me to 9 km orbit that I flew past it before it could turn around and settle into the right range. The Vagabond was making a run through the bubble to the gate so he couldn't warp but he was picking up speed, the rest of the gang's webs not slowing it enough.

I hit the approach button, primed my weapons, and with spittle flying out of my mouth as I cursed the monitor, I watched the range count down. 12...11...10... GOT HIM! My heart pounded as I watched to see if he would still make the gate, but 5 kilometers from safety his ship exploded to my eternal relief. I quickly snagged the pod and made him a trophy on my wall.

 * * * * *

With that quick kill we hit our base and the rest of the fleet logged, tired from a long day of defending Providence. I still had half an hour so I jumped into the Buzzard and put my newly upgraded probing skills to work. I picked the weakest signature in the system and saw with satisfaction I could easily track it down, a Sansha Military Complex. About this time Rettic logged in and we chatted while trying to run the complex.

Unfortunately, I lacked a super tanking PvE ship and my Cerberus was not up to the task of the hordes of battleships that spawned. I need a Nighthawk or Nightmare for that one, and the former I need to buy and the latter is not coming to non-high security space.

I left the bookmark in Rettic's hands so that he could get some alliance mates to run it if he wanted, and I logged.

(Vulture setups coming tomorrow or Wednesday. Friday I lost a day due to work. Just FYI)

Lead(ershipp)ing The Way

So, back in my high sec hanger I have a little new ship sitting there waiting for action, a sexy Command Ship called a Vulture.

For the unintiated, every race has two Tech II Battlecruisers called Command Ships. The first and usually more popular is called the Field Command Ship, designed to get up close with the enemy and slug it out while boosting the friendly ships in the fight. The Nighthawk, Absolution, Astarte, and Sleipnir represent this class.

The second command ship of each faction is called a Fleet Command Ship, designed for less firepower but more support. While the Field Command Ships can use one Warfare Link, Fleet Command Ships can sport up to three, boosting a gang by a lot.

So back in my Hanger is a Vulture ready for action except I lack the skills to use warfare links.

Warfare links come in five types, Armoured, Siege (shield), Information (sensors and ewar), Skirmish (speed, web, jamming), and Mining. Obviously the four combat oriented ones are based on the factions' specialties (exception: Gallente and Information warfare links, very odd combination).

The Fleet Command ships are not restricted as to what warfare links that they can fit in their high slots but they get bonuses to one particular type, in the case of the Vulture, +3% per level of Command Ships to the effectiveness of Siege Warfare Links. So my first phase of leadership training will focus on those modules.

All the warfare links require Leadership V and the corresponding Specialist skill, in my case Siege Warfare Specialist. The specialist skill increases the effectiveness of the links by 100% after level two is trained, so getting it up to IV is pretty much mandatory. Warfare Link Specialist skill also increases effectivenss but I already got that skill to IV as its a prerequisite to Command Ships skill itself.

The Siege Warfare Specialist requires Siege Warfare skill (surprise surprise) so my training appears to be Siege Warfare to level V followed by Siege Warfare Specialist to level IV.

But wait!

There is an implant called Siege Warfare Mindlink which gives a straight up 50% boost to Siege warfare links' effectiveness AND ups the Siege Warfare skill's bonus from 10% shield hitpoints to 15%. Wow, get me one of those! Well, I have one of those in my hanger. It requires Siege Warfare Specialist V and Cybernetics V, a lot of training. But I'm in it for the long haul so add those to the list.

Ok, once those are done give me a fleet to boost!

Unfortunately, Mr Kodachi, you only can lead a squad of 10 guys right now. You need a few levels of Wing Commander to learn so you can boost wings of squadrons. Sigh. Ok, add those to the list.

The end result:
Skill plan for Kirith Kodachi

Siege Warfare III - V
Siege Warfare Specialist I - V
Cybernetics V
Wing Command I - IV
= 60 days of training.

Tomorrow I'll look at the actual Vulture setups themselves.

Fighting Spacecraft Series V - Hookbill

Over in the Eve Tribune we have my latest article, this time about the Caldari Hookbill.