Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Response to Eve Commune

On the latest Eve Commune podcast they were kind enough to plug the upcoming event and a few people were at the first and commented on how well the Noir Mercenaries fleet combined with the fleet from the Gallente Hero Channel (organized by Mike Azariah) decimated any attackers in short order.

When I organized the first event I had no idea how it was going to go down. The possibilities ran the gamut from a few people showing up to getting super hot-dropped by Pandemic Legion (who was near Providence at the time and within operational distance of Teshkat). I just didn't know.

So when Alekseyev Karrde contacted me to say that Noir was celebrating an anniversary and would show up to help defend, I thought that was great, more ships for the carnage. Then Mike Azariah announced that he was bringing the Gallente Hero Channel. And others chimed in. The support for my defense was heart warming to be sure and faced with the spectre of a capital hot drop I eagerly welcomed all defenders.

However when the event went down, the number of defenders outnumbered the attackers by about 10-20 pilots at least, and were far more organized. The Noir fleet had about 15 Drakes and ~5 supporting logi, and the Gallente Hero Channel was more eclectic but had a supporting Archon carrier, and combined that meant the attackers never stood a chance in their disparate fleet wings and smaller ships.

Eventually I asked my defenders to turn their guns on me as I needed to die to award the prizes. I suspect Noir was disappointed overall with the result despite getting lots of kills and I can understand that for them it was a bit anti-climatic as the challenge was just not there.

* * * * *

However, this time I'm hoping things will be better. I've sent an invite to Noir to return but asking them to come looking for my kill to start. The first event was considered a success and I think more people will show up looking to get in on the action. I also am making backup plans so that if the defense is looking too overpowering I can even the odds myself (don't worry defenders, I won't attack you). I can't guarantee a pitched fun battle for everyone as this is Eve and you never know what you are going to get, but I do know that the more people that show up the better the event will be.

So get some cheap ships, grab some friends, and come fight the carrier. But just watch out... I still plan to fight back.

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Prizes Announced

Here are the prizes for BMTHOKK 2 in August.

• Final Blow on Chimera: Blood Raiders Ashimmu cruiser
• Most Damage on Chimera: Sansha Succubus frigate
• Podmail: Imperial Navy Slicer

As usual, donations for the prizes are welcome.

EDIT: Moar prizes!

• Final blow on most valuable kill (besides the carrier) during the event - any T3 Strategic Cruiser with 5 Subsystems of you choice, donated by Lone Star Explorations
• Pilot on most killmails during the event - Navy Vexor donated by Planetary Genocide 
• Most damage on Carrier killmail done by a Tech 1 or Faction Frigate - Caldari Navy Hookbill with modules donated by Merchantus of Pheonix Rising Fleet, MODE Alliance

Technology Rocks

As the Carebear Brigade has gotten older, I find myself with a lot less free time than I used to have. Whereas last year I could fit in 15 minutes in the morning to take care of industrial tasks while eating my breakfast, or I could spend a weekend afternoon doing a mission as everyone napped, this year those opportunities have been squeezed out of the schedule. On top of that, the kids are more exhausting than ever leaving me with very little energy or patience to log on before bed after I have spent time reconnecting with Mrs Kodachi and ensuring the marriage contract is not terminated. Thus projects like trading and PI in the wormhole have been shelved.

But now, there is hope on the horizon thanks to technology.


The Android tablet I purchased, the ASUS Transformer, is a powerful little beast. And by installing some software on it and on my PC to allow remote access, last night I found I could run Eve on the computer while controlling the mouse and seeing the screen on the tablet. I was able to set a destination, undock, and activate autopilot. And then connect later to dock at a station (haven't figured out how to drag and drop yet though).

Then I typed into the Ninveah channel, "playing eve from the couch through the tablet. eat your heart out". :-)

While the graphics are cut down in number of colours and the responsiveness is not superb, it is workable for some simple tasks and might allow me to get some secondary projects running again. Time will tell.

Flying Solo

So last Sunday when I was flying in low sec solo I found the Myrmidon unwieldy, unable to chase Faction Warfare frigates in small site with size limited acceleration gates, and getting caught and destroyed in a gate camp. So I'm thinking about going for a smaller ship to cruise around low sec in. Naturally, this will pose some problems when thinking about gate guns but I will give smaller a try to see what happens.

I have a plethora of choices in terms of frigate to pick from, since I have all four races Frigate skill to level 5 and all small weapons (hybrids, lasers, projectiles, drones, and missiles) to tech II levels.

My first instinct was Caldari, maybe a rocket Hawk or blaster Harpy, but concerned about the need for tackle as well as defenses turned me off a little. So I turned to Gallente and saw I have a nice little Ishkur already to go.

Pew pew!

Or should I splurge and go faction with a Daredevil like the one Kane Rizzel uses successfully?

Courtesy of Kane Rizzel

Tempting to get a Dramiel but I hate following the Flavour of the Month crowd. Still, over 6 km/sec is tempting...

Or should I save my ISK and follow the Way of the Rifter?

Thoughts and comments would be appreciated...

Cruising The Placid - Part II

Last week I cruised lower Placid and had no luck. Would this week be better in upper Placid?

Well, I needed to do some logistics first. Half my stuff was still in Chardalane including the Wyvern and I wanted to move it to my base in Pelille. And I purchased a Chimera for BMTHOKK2 next month at a great price and wanted to get it to base as well. So I spent an hour loading up and moving stuff, getting cynos in place, and eventually everything was moved with only the loss of my cyno kestrel.

Then I clone jumped to a clone with less expensive implants and got in the Myrmidon for another roam, this time heading north from Ostingele instead of south. For those not familiar with Placid region, its contiguous low sec is in two major blocks - north and south - connected by a choke point through Vey and Frarie systems. Here is a map with the high sec systems removed.

Placid Low Sec

I started out heading towards Agoze and the systems behind it as I did not cruise there last week, and heading north from there. Again, I was looking for low sec ratters and again I did not find any. I wonder if the introduction of wormholes lured all the casual PvE pilots away in the intervening years since I last roamed Placid solo, offering space with greater reward and less chance of being preyed upon. I did run across a couple Dramiels on gates at different times but knew my slow battlecruiser lacked the speed to catch one.

With no luck in the Intaki region I crossed the choke point without issue and immediately thought I was going to have better luck. A Thrasher passed me at a gate in Eugales and did not warp to another gate and did not disappear from scan. As I was trying to track it down, a Rifter, Jaguar, and two Caldari Navy Hookbills joined it. I rubbed my hands in anticipation, ready to charge in and try to kill or scatter these frigates.

But... they were in a Faction warfare site that allowed cruisers and smaller through the acceleration gate. CURSES!

I jumped into Moclinamaud and found a Tengu on scan. As I got closer, a Manticore appeared. And an Ishkur! A tough fight to be sure, but if I could get the drop on them... They too were in a Faction Warfare site but one that allowed all ship types. I warped in and there was the Tengu and Manticore... over 70 km away and surrounded by NPCs.

Now I'm not sure if the FW NPCs in there would have shot at me or not, but I did not relish the thought of trying to close many kilometers with torpedoes and heavy missiles slamming into me only to have the NPCs take a turn. I left.

A bit frustrated now and running out of time, I decided to head home. In Frarie I saw a Stilleto on scan as I warped to the Vey gate. He spoke up in local, recognizing me from my blog and we exchanged Hi's. I landed on the gate and watched him jump through.

At this point, I'm 90% sure there is a camp on the other side because the Placid Low Sec Choke Point Tradition almost demands it. The smart thing to do would have been to safe up and log off. What did I do? Hell yeah, I jumped.

The camp on the other side was not massive, but at least 10 to 1 odds and lots of big heavy battleships. My hopes of living long enough to take something juicy down with me are dashed and I tried to crash the gate only to die in a fire still 2000 meters from jumping. I got my pod out and headed back to Pelille to lick my wounds and plan my revenge.

At least it was a step up from last week.

Next week I think I'll try something a bit smaller so I can crash some of those faction warfare sites if I find some frigs running them.

Fiction Friday Rollup

I've copied the first three Fiction Friday series and the interludes into an unedited compiliation in Google Docs called "Eve Online Fiction - Erratic Behaviour".

For those not aware, it was written as a weekly series of posts every Friday starting on Oct 9, 2009 and finished on March 25, 2011. Some posts were only a few paragraphs, others much longer. As such, reading straight through might seem like the flow of the story telling is very disjointed. I plan to go through and edit it all very heavily to make a real novel, but for now you have to put up with it.

At just over 49,000 words it is average novel length so don't expect to read it all in one sitting. And yes, I feel these three parts make up one cohesive story overall.

Enjoy!

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Fiction Friday - Series 4: part 3

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2


* * * * *

After our shenanigans in Slays, our corporation was not as welcome as it was before in Gallente space. A lot of open doors and friendly faces became closed and hostile. Apparently there was a line for what pod pilots could and could not get away with and a double execution on a public concourse was past it.

I expected to take the heat for the fallout but Nhi'Khuna stood up for me and the resulting bitter recriminations between her and CEO Jakk Blakk revealed deeper and longer divisions than I expected and soon thereafter Nhi'Khuna announced she was leaving IPORC to form a new corporation based in Minmatar space called Strife Mercenaries. Since she was often fleet commander and had more day to day contact with the pilots, most of them left with her as well including myself.

I knew that the Republic was still catching up in terms of developed space compared to the other empires and I knew there would be a bit of a culture shock after the luxurious and opulent Gallente Stations and their numerous amenities, but I was expecting something more along the Caldari functionality and utility. I could not have been more wrong.

On a Gallente station you sometimes forget you are not on a planet; there are frequent solariums, arboretums, and wide open airy concourses and pavilions. Bulkheads, life support, hangers, support staff, etc are all carefully and quietly hidden out of view and the illusion is never broken unless it is unavoidable.

In contrast a typical environment on a Caldari State station is very utilitarian and nothing is hidden or decorated unless there is a specific need. This is not to say that life on such a station is uncomfortable, just that comfort is not everywhere you go.

But in either case it is obvious to see that everything has its place and everything is planned out. Not so on a Republic station.

The first thing I noticed when I approached the Krusual Tribe Bureau station in Hek in Metropolis region where the corp was setting up its headquarters was that the station looked unfinished: exposed reactor vents, damaged or missing plating, parts of the station seemed simply bolted or welded on, the list goes on. The culture shock continued after I disembarked and decanted. Not only was the bulkheads and systems exposed as on a Caldari station, it looked as if everything had been haphazardly planned if at all. Cables, vents, power conduits were visible and sometimes spliced into as engineers needed. I swear I saw five safety violations in the first two minutes while getting dressed.

My temporary quarters were slightly better than the hanger; at least I did not run the risk of electrocution on an exposed wire. But the normal comforts of a Gallente or Caldari station were mostly missing. No house AI, manual light switches (and lights that were constantly dim, flickering, and humming just below human hearing threshold), a fridge and stove instead of auto-food-prep units, a 2D vid screen... I was mortified and wondered what I did to deserve living in this internment camp.

The public spaces were not much better. I was shocked to see so many children running around and playing on edges of concourses with railing that were rusty and creaking in some parts. Escalators were absent and stairs and ladders were everywhere. If you didn't have something heavy to move from deck to deck you were expected to not use the limited number of elevators. The food concourse was filled with old men and women selling unrefrigerated meat and fruit and vegetables while haggling over prices everywhere. I was assaulted by the sights and sounds of unbridled humanity, clothing and tattoos and faces and hairstyles all beyond strange to me, they were alien. I was more overwhelmed than the first time I stepped onto a Gallente station as at least there everything and everyone had a place and a purpose. This was chaos.

That first day I went back to my room and locked the door. Fortunately for me, I was not alone and the next day I went out with Kla'strit who had spent some time in Hek before being recruited by Nhi'Khuna to venture out to Placid and through his eyes I began to appreciate the life and vitality of the tribal people. The chaotic station engineers got things done faster and with less bureaucratic red tape and paperwork and they were always eager to help with smiles on their faces and excitement in their work. The food market was filled with delicious fresh foods cooked in savoury spices and exotic flavours. And beyond the hard faces and strange styles and tribal tattoos were a beautiful people filled with passion and liberty far beyond what the shallow Gallente night clubbers could ever hope to attain.

People didn't just exist here, people lived here. And that's about when I started falling in love with the Republic.

Skills - Best Bang For Your Long Term Buck

So later today the skill Minmatar Cruiser V completes and as it does I will lay claim to the Quadfecta of Tech II cruiser access. I still need tech II medium projectiles but that is next and followed by Minmatar battleships and large projectiles, but that is another post.


I was going to write a piece about the best/favourite ships in each class (and I still might someday) but that is too mundane for post #1988 so I had another thought, a question to ask and answer:

What's the skill that has given the best bang for the effort to train now that I have access to all four race's cruisers and frigates?

My answer has to be Battlecruisers V.

Why? Well, for a single race pilot the skill is nice to start with as it improves performance of your workhouse ships (Tech I battlecruisers) AND it opens up the way to the very useful and powerful Command Ships class. Its worth the ~25 days to train as is.

But once you start to crosstrain, this skill keeps giving immediate benefits. For example, all the tech I battlecruisers require their racial cruiser skill to III to fly, but derive all their bonuses from the Battlecruiser skill. This means you need a short couple days to train a new race's frigate skill to IV and cruiser skill to III and you get two fully bonused new battlecruisers opened to you.

Similarly, if you take the time to train another race's cruiser skill to V, you not only get access to their Tech II cruiser variants that you have trained for your primary race, you also get their Command Ships when you have Battlecruisers V. It feels like they require no extra training at all.

So in essence, in the long term, that 25 or so days to train Battlecruisers V is a huge win. Compared to trying to crosstrain other race's carriers, each one requiring racial Battleship to V. *groan*

Now, you could argue my assertion by pointing out that other skills have similar crosstrain benefits, such as Assault Ships, Recons, Heavy Assault Ships, etc in that they come for free in the new race as the basic frigate and cruiser skills are brought to V. However I counter that by pointing out that they do not benefit Tech I ships in any way unlike Battlecruiser V which is a staple skill of the newb and vet alike. Only Destroyers has similar properties but for much less powerful tech I and tech II hulls.

So readers, what skill do you think is the best reward for investment?

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Date Announced

Even decapitated I'm better looking than Roc Wieler...

First off, let me apologize to my European readers who were hoping that the sequel to the wildly fun and successful BMTHOKK live event would be on the weekend in a more accessible time zone. Unfortunately, the kids are at an age where getting two quite hours in the afternoon for me on a weekend is impossible. I tried to arrange it but I have a lot of family obligations and its not really fair to load my wife with more child care work after she's been at home with them for five solid days already.

That being said, I picked a date and announcing it today! The date will be...

Sunday, Aug 21 at 9:00 pm EST (which is Monday, Aug 22, at 0100 Eve Time).

For those not familiar with what happened last winter, you can catch up here in old posts. Essentially what I will be doing to taking a Caldari Chimera carrier to a celestial object (i.e. planet, asteroid belt, customs office) in a low sec system (to be announced closer to the date) and letting people shoot me until I am dead. I will be fighting back of course, and since my sec status is so low you will not take a sec status hit for shooting me this time.

The prizes for Most Damage, Final Blow, and Podmail final blow will be announced closer to the date as well.

Some people will come and defend me, I'm sure, like they did last time, and generally a lot of ships get blown up and fun is had.

If you are a fan of the event, I'd appreciate spreading the word on your podcasts and/or blogs and/or internal forums. :)

Feel free to use the above image or this one, done by the inestimable Rixx Javix:

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Take That CCP!

 One Monocle + One 6 Inch Brass telescope + shipping and handling = ....

I say old chap!

Actual Working Telescope.

... still cheaper than Eve's virtual monocle which in truth a player doesn't even really own, they just have the right to display on their avatar (until CCP takes said right away).

I mean I suspect I know what CCP is trying to do with the ludicrous NeX prices on the items, but there is still something terribly off on their prices.

I'm just saying...

Cruising The Placid

Last night I logged in and found myself alone in corp chat. Must all be off playing World of Tanks or something like that. Ah well, I planned to do some solo roaming anyways.

I wanted to cruise my old stomping grounds around Placid and I knew I would be dealing with gate guns more often than not, so I went with a trusty old Myrmidon while I shook off rust. The battlecruiser is equipped with dual armour reps and a cap booster so it can take a bit of abuse. So I went looking for trouble.

I realize that Sunday nights are not exactly prime time for people, too late in the weekend for the hardcore gamers and still part of the weekend for the casual players, but I was shocked at how few people in space I actually ran into, and super shocked at the sheer number of POS towers there are. Low sec is not a failed ecosystem, just a largely boring one (at least for me last night).

In one system I was trying to hunt down on other pilot and took a chance he was at a belt that was just out of directional scanner range. I didn't find any pilot but I did stumble across a Shadow Serpentis battlecruiser faction spawn. I quickly dispatched it and picked up some faction loot for my troubles including a Shadow Serp Warp Scrambler. \o/

In another system, there was actually a ratter in a Drake! I warped in on him but he was not new at this game and warped out before I could grab a lock. Damn. We chatted a bit back and forth in local about how I needed to get up pretty early in the morning to catch him, and I carried on. A couple systems later there was a Thanatos carrier in a safespot but since I had no scan probes and no backup, I was forced to move on. I might go back and check again next week though.

So all in all for two hours of roaming I got a fluke faction spawn and one alert Drake pilot to show for it. Now I realize southern Placid is not the idea roaming space but man, I was a little taken aback at how quiet it was. Perhaps northern Placid is a little busier.

Fiction Friday - Series 4: part 2

Previously:
Part 1

* * * * * *
"My name is Chrystina Elira Blodel," say stated.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the light. "Blodel...?"

"Yes. I'm here because of my brother."

... I felt the slug tug at my arm as it sliced through my bicep, fortunately for me only going through the outside centimeter of flesh. Although I really wanted to shoot Rusack as I closed in on the pair, my instincts told me I could not risk that Blodel would still miss again. At four meters away I pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger and even though I was on the move I didn't miss the stationary target. Blodel was struck square in the chest and flew backwards, his right hand flying out with the gun and it skittered away on the floor...

"Right," I said tiredly."Look, that was self defense..."

She silenced me with a wave. "I saw the vid recordings of the incident, and I agree, it was a kill or be killed moment for you. I don't care. That does not absolve you of the fact that you killed him and ancient rules of Amarrian honour demand  retribution. And while I care very little for honour and tradition, I do care very strongly for my family's wealth."

I was alert now. I surreptitiously checked my surroundings and tried to find something to use as a weapon. "So, you're here to kill me now?" I asked to stall her.

"Don't be ludicrous. These savages," she gestured to the walls, "are looking for any excuse to arrest me. I'm not as courageous as you - or stupid, I can't decide which - to flaunt the protections that the CONCORD agreements give us pod pilots. If I so much as accidently scratch a bulkhead I would find myself accompanied by two hulking Brutor thugs to a cell, which most likely would look suspiciously like an airlock."

"So what are you doing here then?" I was starting to get annoyed.

She leaned forward and locked my gaze to hers. "I'm here to ask you to come freely with me to face my family's tribunal."

I started to laugh but her face did not so much as flicker and my relief turned to nervousness once more. "Why in the world would I do that?"

"If you come willingly with me, the tribunal will find you guilty of my brother's death but they will understand the motivations of your actions in seeking retribution for your own brother's injuries and how my brother was simply caught in the crossfire. You will be imprisoned for the rest of your natural life but the light security detention centres on our planet can be reasonably comfortable.

"However, if you refuse to answer the call to account for your actions to my family, I will be forced to find some way to extract honourable re-compensation through whatever means necessary."

"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in some backwater Amarrian 'detention centre' to make your family feel better about your idiot brother," I replied angrily as I stood up, no longer caring about my nakedness. "And you'll have to do better than vague threats of 'extracting re-compensation' to scare me."

She leaned back in the chair and gave a resigned sigh. "I guess it was too much to hope that a Caldari would understand about familial honour." She stood up and walked out without another look. "Just remember," she said as she walked towards the quarter's door, "I gave you the option to come quietly."

ASUS Transformer - Inital Thoughts

So a couple weeks ago I took the plunge and ordered an ASUS Transformer tablet as well as getting a (slightly used) keyboard accessory designed for it.

What I wanted was something I could use at home for:
- couch browsing/gaming while watching TV
- games and movies and possible web browsing for traveling
- possibly try my hand at tablet software development
- some minor gaming for the carebears (3 year olds)

And at work for:
- taking notes during meetings
- giving presentations

The Transformer seemed to cover the bases and had decent reviews for its price point. I finally got it around mid last week and have been putting it through its paces. Here are my thoughts.

Good
- the construction is solid, it doesn't feel cheap
- performance is very nice
- I'm pleased with Android as an OS, decent control of the device and programs
- the Android Market has a decent selection of software so far, but I've gone 99% with free offerings so time will tell if the supply of good apps meets my demands
- the keyboard addition just simply works; plug it in and you have a notebook with USB slots and another SD slot
- Flash works fine in browser

Bad
- Google Browser seems to get hiccups every so often
- Android market searching is not ideal for easily finding apps optimized for a large tablet surface, and this is especially painful for apps designed for phone that don't adapt readily (i.e. force screen in portrait and use a quarter of it)
- Took a couple tries to find a video app that would play my movies and even then I still have sound issues with Clear Skies 3 for example (a WMV format). Still experimenting and researching
- The keyboard accessory didn't come with a separate power cable and the cable looks to be ASUS proprietary and hard to find online.
- default virtual keyboard is slow and has a poorly positioned space bar. I've seen other owners of a Transformer talk about apps they use to get around this so more investigation required

Ugly
- So far... no ugly

Overall I'm pleased and if I can get workarounds or fixes for my few problems, I'll be a very happy camper. One thing I keep thinking while owning this is "man, this would have been so handy for Warhammer 40K".

The Goggles, They Do Nothing!

So last night I bought some goggles from the noble exchange:

For flying fast to avoid space dust.

I bought two pair, I'm having a lottery for the second pair. 

This is a lottery for one set of GDN-9 'Nightstalker' Goggles purchased from the Noble Exchange store. They are located in Gallente high sec, Stacmon system in Placid Region. See my profile image for an example.

EDIT: Winner will receive contract of goggles and have two weeks to redeem.

There are 40 tickets and can be purchased for 10,000,000 ISK each.

To purchase a ticket send ISK to Kirith Kodachi with a reason of "NinveahLottery7" to be tracked properly through SOMER's Lottery service. Link to lottery site can be found here.

The winning number has been secured using Chribba's locked dice and a link to the roll can be found here and on the lottery page.

If you have any questions I can be evemailed or reached on twitter at kirithkodachi.

If you want to try and be cool like me, think about buying a ticket of two in the lottery. ;-)

Well hello there handsome!

This Close

This close.

I was this close to quitting Eve a few weeks ago. Frustation boiled and drama roiled and I had about enough of it. I seriously considered if it was worth the effort.


Motto #1 - People Are Stupid

Like everyone else, I was angry in the week after Incarna was released but my reasons were different. I was mad at how easily smart people could be manipulated into rage and protests with some timely leaked releases of internal newsletters and corporate emails taken completely out of context. I say manipulated but I mean herded like dumb sheep. "Oh look, dollars for gold ammo! They don't care what we think! They're going ahead with complete game breaking microtransactions no matter what we say! PROTEST!" Whipped into a frothing frenzy by demagogues and forum martyrs it was quite disheartening and a microcosm look into everything wrong with the 5 minute sound bite world we live in.

CCP of course didn't help themselves with super defensive and angry blog posts and absolutely no telegraphing of the logic behind the crazy prices in the Noble Exchange.

Motto #2 - Caring is the Path to Madness

So I hit that point where I didn't want to care anymore. I don't like drama in my life, least of all in my games. I did drama as a hobby when I ran the Warhammer 40K club in Ottawa years ago, I'm too old for that shit.

None of this was helped by the fact that my corp was suffering from the advanced stages of mass Bitter Vet Syndrome and actually was spending time playing Perpetuum Online instead of Eve. We left FCON alliance not because the alliance was not working but because we were not working: not logging in, not x'ing up, not pulling our weight. Pretty sad, and I could not do much to help reverse it with my one night a week schedule.

Motto #3 - Its Easier to beg Forgiveness than Permission


(This motto has nothing to do with the post, its just my third motto.)

Fortunately for you, my dear readers, I didn't quit. Things over the Fearless newsletter have calmed down, cooler heads have prevailed, and we're getting back to talking about internet spaceships, thankfully.

And I still have things I want to do and try in Eve, although that might require some changes in my game to accomplish. As for the corp, its trying to recapture its glory days once more in a less stressful PvP terrorist role and less about alliance politics and sov in null sec.

My week off from work and Eve helped too, give me some time to distance from the heated passion and get back to wondering how I was going to spend my next night rather than why I would bother. I'm looking forward my next night online again.

See you in space.

New EON #24 Mag Out

The latest EON magazine is out and here's the blurb:

CREW CONTROL
Ship crews have long been on the wish-list for players and developers
alike, yet it has taken CCP years just to release the numbers. We look
at how ideas for ship crews have been put forward, ask what the issues
have been that have stopped crews being a feature of EVE's combat
mechanic and ponder how, if ever, New Eden's silent NPC majority might
have a say as to how battles are played out in the future.

BACK THROUGH THE WORMHOLE
We go back to the dark days of bank bail-outs to see how impending
financial armageddon urged CCP to take a fearless attitude to EVE
expansions. The result was fan-favourite Apocrypha, the expansion that
opened EVE to wormholes, the persistent mystery and threat of the
Sleepers, and the future promise of Tech-III ships.

BEYOND THE BEYOND
Continuing the wormhole theme this issue, Lex Starwalker brings us a
guide to living in w-space, we have the second instalment of Pottsey's
exhaustive compendium of Sleeper theories and in our regular Tesflight
round-up, Kirith Kodachi gathers together some of New Eden's most
successful wormholers, who reveal the ships and fittings they wouldn't
leave home without.

THE WRITE STUFF
With a third EVE novel being readied for the autumn, we tackle
author Tony Gonzales to talk about his career as an EVE fan and a CCP
Developer. We ask how The Empyrean Age came about and how Templar One
will hopefully lead us into a universe where EVE capsuleer and DUST
mercenary must share the spoils of war.

PLUS
* All you need to know about the Guristas
* In Crowd with CCP Sreegs and CCP Explorer
* Profiles of Red vs Blue, Phoenix Propulsion Labs and Masuat'aa Matari
* The rise and fall of Dusk and Dawn
* How to get your mates playing and loving EVE
* CSM6 - the first weeks in office
* The 0.0 Report…and all the latest news and events

Emphasis mine, bitches ;)

Shameless Plug - Ramdar Chinken's Lottery

Ramdar Chinken asked me for a little help promoting his lottery for a prize pack of four Vagabonds. Tickets are ten million ISK each, check out the details on the forums here and the site here.