Time for a Shopping Spree

So Sunday night I lost my Ishkur when I tried to pop a Rifter lounging off a gate. Sentry guns still hurt, FYI. I asked on twitter for guides to low sec piracy (although I think of myself as more of an anarchist rather than a pirate) but most suggestions were to Wensley's excellent Rifter guide and the issue I have with that is that I want to be able to fight on gates as well as belts since low sec belt ratters are a dead breed for all intents and purposes.

That means, as I was brutally reminded Sunday, I need something able to tank sentry guns for a bit for when I'm feeling aggressive/opportunistic, yet mobile enough to get around.

So first the list of ships able to meet these criteria is the utilitarian Battlecruiser class. I've got a lot of options since I cross trained all four races and the tech II medium weapons, but the first ship that comes to mind is the popular Hurricane. (I considered going back to my old standby Myrmidon but I would like something a little less pokey.)

[Hurricane, low sec]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Invulnerability Field II
Warp Disruptor II
Large Shield Extender II
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive

425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I


Warrior II

I'm thinking of buying 5 of these and just going to town until they are all gone and I learn something for a change.

The other, more expensive option is to look at the tech II HACs and command ships, or event Tech III strategic cruisers. For HACs, the Vagabond and Ishtar appeal, and I even have an Ishtar down in Tash Murkon space I used a bit on Sunday, but the cost of such ships while I'm still trying to regain my low sec pvp legs would be high.

I could look at battleships, but the mobility issue raises its head as well as locking times and higher cost.

Opinions are welcome.

Still Tanking

I'm still jumping into World of Tanks when I get little chances and feel I'm getting better in the random battles to the point where I'm confident of getting a kill almost every match in my Tank Destroyer and Artillery tanks, but still struggling with the concept of the light tank scout.

My "main" tank, the one I play most often to get the most experience for, is my tier III Marder II tank destroyer. With upgraded gun and some binoculars for longer viewing range, I can act like a nice sniper. I typically find a spot forward from our base but not as front line as our battle tanks and support the engagement from afar. I might lost some punching power, but even at half a kilometer I can punch through tier III and IV tanks easily and threaten tier Vs. I like to pick a spot in a bush near some hard cover for ducking behind and with a view of two likely approach routes.

I'm getting to the point where I can get one kill at least with a couple damages on others every match, and getting 2 kills is more common every day. Sometimes I get on fire (I mean figuratively as you can literally get on fire in your tank) and get 3 or 4 kills and once I picked up 5 kills.

My secondary tank flips between the artillery and the light tank, but I have more fun with my artillery (aka self propelled gun or SPG), currently a tier III Sturmpanzer II. Its not a well liked version of SPG due to limitations but I enjoy the ability to have a bird's eye view and drop little packets of doom on targets heads. Unfortunately, artillery tends to get matched up against a wider tier range and I have to be careful not to target the big tier 7 tanks as I can barely hurt them.

The rest of the time I run around in my light tank, a tier III PzKpfw 38(t). I have not got a good handle on scouting as I tend to end up dead a lot with few kills, damages, or even spotting. I'm too weak for the first two and often too cautious for the last, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Just this morning I put eyes on a flank, spotted a rusher trying to flank to our artillery position and chased him until my damage and a friendly TD killed him. Then I did an end round run into their artillery and killed two before I was finally put down.

As you can see, I'm all tier III right now but I do have the tier IV tank destroyer unlocked, the popular Hetzer, but I'm short credits to afford it yet. Another gaming session will get me enough to buy one assuming I sell my sweet Marder II in the process.

End of an Era - Fly Safe m3

RIP

This weekend our CEO put into words on our forums what everyone kind of already knew.

As of today m3 and m3w are no longer effective corporations within Eve. We will close recruitment and I will be mothballing the corporations for the foreseeable future until CCP decide to make eve worth playing again. This might be 6 months this might be a year. What I would like is for the pilots of m3 to find homes they can enjoy and keep an eye on m3 public to see what’s happening with us. We will continue to maintain the forum so we can keep in touch and play other games together and prove that the community we have created can survive beyond the confines of New Eden.

Last night I left the corp for my own alt corp, Ninveah Enterprises, so I could partake in a little low sec (fail) piracy without besmirching the corp's name. (FYI: assault ships don't tank sentry guns so good... still.)

I've spent one month short of 3 years in this corp, and it hurt to watch it decline these past few months. Truth be told, we never really reached the heights of enjoyment and synergy we felt in the heady days of old Providence as part of Paxton Federation, before idiots in CVA allowed everything thousands of pilots worked towards be tore down in a month. But let's not rehash those old wounds again.

We tried several times to recapture the lightning in a bottle and we might have succeeded in FCON had the war with the Supercarriers of DRF not killed the Northern Coalition and the only recourse to the alliance, being vassals of the Goons, had not rubbed most of the leadership of m3 the wrong way.

Disillusioned by null sec warfare and CCPs constant null sec nerfs and missteps (anom nerf, jump bridges, bots and supercaps getting out of control, etc), the bitter old vet disease took control of the corp leadership and took the wind out of the sails, going into a spiral of not enough people logging in because no fleets were up because no one was leading them because no one was logging in. You know the drill.

Perhaps m3 Corp will rise again someday in New Eden. Only time will tell.

* * * * *
Personally, I will be continuing my weekly logging in and trying to get my PvP fix. Look for me in Placid region for the time being as I try to figure out where I am going to land after this period of transition.

Screenshots Appropos of Nothing

Seriously, Woody is watching Toy Story.

Dramiel Guns.

Medicine?! Low Prices?! I'll be right in...

The wreckage field about 30 minutes after BMTHOKK2 ended.

The reflection off the snow is particularly nice.

Yeah. I died, but held him in place to get blown up in the meantime :)

Fiction Friday - Series 4: part 6

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

* * * * *

Odonnelson negotiated with in her professional voice with station docking control and soon micro-tractors were guiding the Insisto Oblivum from her berth into the main access channel and through the station to the exit. Once past the bulk of the superstructure the station personnel gave us the all clear and our thrusters kicked in and I took control of the ship.

I set up a new fleet command package in the ship's main computer and opened a channel to the other pilots that were in their own pods and ships. Seven Six and Luccul went green on the interface first, followed by Minessis a moment later. I waited a few seconds and pinged Kla'strit. "What's the hold up, Kla?"

"I had to buy more ammo, just securing it in the ship now."

"Alright, we'll meet you at rally point one."

"Roger."

I checked my overview and saw Seven Six in his durable Dominix battleship, Minessis showing off his new Ishtar heavy assault cruiser, and Luccul sporting a Drake battlecruiser. "How's your shields on that thing, Luccul?" I asked the less experienced pilot.

"Pretty solid," he replied, "holds up to several cruisers and can even take on some of the Cartel's battlecruisers and older battleships."

"Good, good. Don't be afraid to warp out if you start taking fire, and aim for the small stuff first where your heavy missiles will work better than our big guns."

"Nah, don't worry about that," interjected Seven, "my drones can clean up all the frigs and cruisers."

I sighed. "Seven, your heavy drones work better on the battleships than his missiles will."

"My heavy drones can kill everything the Cartel throws at us!"

I sighed again.

"He's right, the five of us are going to be overkill against anything the Angel's have around here," Minessis piped up.

"Well, you and Seven can hit up an agent for another job and us three will take this one of Kla's if you want." Those two were always full of ideas and plans and sometimes you just had to let them run.

"Yeah! Come on Min, let's do that! You and me, drone power dude!" Seven cried enthusiastically.

"Alright," the other agreed, and to me he said, "We'll stay fleeted-up and just us another comm channel in case we need to hook up."

"Roger," I acknowledged and they switched channels just as Kla'strit's big Maelstrom warped into view. The Dominix and Ishtar aligned and warped off as Kla'strit's comm handshake finished. "Where are they going?" he asked with bewilderment.

I explained what Seven and Minessis were up to while his computer worked with my Rokh's AI and Luccul's Drake and directed up in coordinated warp. We went only a couple AU before dropping out and easing into range of an acceleration gate.

World of Tanks - Lessons To Be Learned

So we talked about how World of Tanks and Eve Online are very different and offer very different types of vehicular PvP. Now we're going talk about what each game can learn from the other.

World of Tanks

To be fair, this is a relatively young game (1 year) and I have not participated in the Clan Wars part of the game yet, so my advice is mostly centered on the Random Battles and platoons.

If you look at the wiki, you can see the developers at Wargaming.Net have a lot planned for the future (see left). That's good because while the variety of maps, tanks types, and tiers gives lots of options for players, I can see the monotony of random battles, even with friends, eventually setting in. Variety of game play is the spice of life in Eve and WoT would be well advised to offer more variety.

Another thing is the interface. If I have a module in Eve and I want to compare its stats to modules of the same type but different tier (i.e. metalevel), all I need to do is click a single button. World of Tanks makes it not real easy to quickly see if I want to upgrade to the next gun. Also, some windows are modal (like the tech tree or market) and if I want to quickly check something in my hanger I have to close the window I have open. Modal windows suck.

Finally, its cool that WoT allows modding. I have a mod installed that gives me more indication of what the tanks are with colour codes for the different classes and the tier number on it so there is no need to memorize every tank of every faction right away. But some mods have been developed that allow player to reskin tanks to make them look different and some skins are done such to highlight specific hit areas on each tank so players can aim more precisely for vulnerable spots on their opponents.

Now I'm in a quandry: my mod is designed to help me remember the tanks I'm facing and thus improves my gameplay (e.g aim for lower tier tank I can hurt instead of higher ones, etc) and the skinning mod is designed to help a player find and remember the vulnerable spots on enemy tanks to improve their gameplay. Why is the former OK if the latter gives me feelings of a line being crossed?

Perhaps Eve has the right of it: prohibit modding to make sure players have as much of an even playing field as possible in terms of the client.

Eve Online

Eve needs arena PvP. Full stop.

It boggles the mind that this simple game play mode has never been added to Eve's feature set. Even worse, it was considered and technically sound a few expansions ago but cut because some people at CCP felt it didn't work for the game. I think that is poppycock but let's play devil's advocate and ask ourselves why arenas would not work in Eve.

1) Safe Space - By their nature, in order for arenas to provide an even playing field for the teams then outside interference must be disallowed. However, in Eve no one can hide completely safely in space, that is to say, that everyone can go everywhere in theory. These two concepts cannot exist together.

2) Lower PvP Population in Low/Null sec - Arenas would provide easy access PvP and thus cause a number of pilots to not bother with frustrating roaming to find targets when willing targets are available. As fewer people choose to roam, fewer targets present themselves for those that do.

3) Gaming the system - Eve players are notorious min-maxers and any system put in place to try and find even matchups would quickly get disassembled and analyzed to find the perfect combination to give an advantage, making casual arena players quickly loose interest as they can't compete with the "hackers"

To which I respond, bullcrap. (I realize this is making a strawman and then beating up on him, but since no official explanation was offered to the general public as to why arenas don't work, I'm going to do this. People can correct me in the comments and I will re-evaluate my position then.)

Docked in stations players are completely safe. Sure they may not be doing anything in a space ship but they can market PvP from there, including in null sec causing great havoc to enemy logistics. The casual PvP population in low and null sec is already low and the players most interested in arena type combat (assuming moderate consequences and fast turnover) are players not interested in long-ass roams and big risks anyways. In other words, the players most likely to participate in arena combat are players that would otherwise be tempted to log out and do something else, like World of Tanks.

Now I could go on to how I would design and implement an arena combat system in Eve much like Seismic Stan did in his latest blog post, and I hope other bloggers take this topic and run with it in a Blog Banter type idea (hint hint), but suffice to say that I think something needs to exist to provide casual quick PvP in Eve to keep players with short time scales in the game, to provide a stepping stone between PvE combat training and PvP combat training, and actual full on PvP combat in low and null sec (and high sec wars).

Threat Level Orange!

Threat Level is Orange on a scale of 1 to Batman!!

Take That Space Coyote!

World of Tanks - Compared To Eve Online

Someone asked me once how threatening or disturbing I thought something was and I answered glibly that it was a "a threat level orange on a scale of 1 to Batman". (I so need a graphic for that.) My point being that the question being asked did not make any sense to me as it was perpendicular to the information in question. Like discussing a supercarrier nerf and asking me how it was going to affect the market for small antimatter charges.

So I thought of my little saying when I started thinking of how to write this post. The list of similarities is tiny compared to the list of differences such that comparing them is pointless. Yes, they are both a game played online with and against other players involving vehicles of some sort, but that's it. Eve is a space operatic sci-fi simulator sandbox with a single shard that all players can interact at all times with all others, and World of Tanks is a lobby based death match game where player interactions are extremely limited in scope and duration unless a player goes out of his way to do so.

That being said, we can compare and contrast the Player Versus Player aspects of each game to highlight the differences and which will lead into tomorrow's post.

To recap World of Tanks game play, the main mode is 15 minutes or less battles which pit 15 randomly selected and non-randomly balanced tanks against 15 others in which each side tries to destroy the other or capture their base. You earn credits and experience at the end of the battle, the amount relative to how well you and your team did in the battle.

In Eve, I'll pick a typical PvP encounter in which you and a group of friends/allies start off on a roam through many star systems looking for enemies (or neutrals) to shoot, sometimes catching and killing single pilots or smaller groups which may or may not themselves looking for combat, and occasionally running from a large gang of hostiles, and even more rarely engaging an enemy fleet of approximately the same size and composition. These roams can be short but typically last an hour or two and depending on your area and the other pilots, you may get a lot of kills or you may dock up empty handed. And even if you do catch some ships, there is usually no financial or material gain beyond a few modules on the wrecks, and if your side gets caught you could lose your own ship and modules.

At first glance, the WoT approach appears preferable: instant PvP, lots of targets to shoot, no serious consequence for losing, smaller time commitment, no need to make friends, and consistent rewards even if you lose.

In contrast Eve's PvP roam has slow burn PvP, sometimes no targets at all, you can lose your own ship, you need allies to count on for the most part, and rewards are typically small if any beyond a killmail.

"World of Tanks, sign me up!"

But wait. There is a downside to the easy access PvP World of Tanks offers.

Random battles includes team mates of questionable ability and mental fortitude with almost no compunction to work together beyond "oh, I'll follow those guys". There are exceptions, but you can't be sure how many idiots will be on your team versus the other guys. In Eve, you get to choose who you fly with and in chat and voice comms you can build a pretty serious friendship with these people who you can usually trust to do the right thing in PvP.

The instant battle equal battle and quick resolution means that there is nothing in the way of "Epicness", each battle quickly runs into the last one with only a few bright points coming to mind and statistics being more important than events. In Eve, I can still remember some roams point for point as the thrill of the hunt on a target builds up the anticipation and satisfaction of a kill.

But most importantly, the battles in WoT have no consequences for either side beyond a handful of credits and experience. Nothing is won or lost, no care bear tears, no joy in defeating a superior enemy and taking their loot. In the most intense situations in WoT battles my heart rate did not so much as jump a beat. You know that if you die that in three minutes you are back on the field in another battle and your tank will be returned to your hanger. In Eve there are times I swear my heart is going to jump out of my ribcage when we move to engage a target, and adrenaline shakes come down afterwards. The simplest kills in Eve can give endorphin rushes that last for hours for the casual PvPer like me.

In Eve, because the effort is so much harder and the loss for the loser so much more bitter, the PvP is much more rewarding. That's not to say its perfect, but it scratches a different itch than WoT does.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Eve is better than WoT and I love the latter because it is a less stressful and more immediate-gratification game. I am saying that comparing the PvP of the two must take into account that they are completely different styles of PvP in the context of the whole game.

In other words, Eve scores an orange and WoT scores an apple on the scale of 1 to Batman.

Tomorrow we'll talk about if and how Eve and WoT can learn from each other.

World of Tanks - Early Review

I've got three posts lined up for the next three days all linked together by my recent experience in trying out World of Tanks. First I'm going to talk about WoT and what I think of it, then tomorrow I'll compare the game with Eve Online, and then finally we'll take a hard look at whether or not Eve should have some sort of arena battle functionality and how it might be implemented.

Full Disclaimer - growing up I read a lot of books about World War II and loved games about the era. From my perspective as a amateur military history buff, WW2 was the perfect time where the technology had advanced to a point where it was recognizably modern without being so powerful as to remove the personal face to face aspect of combat. This is from a many times removed perspective of course and I in no way want to romanticize the suffering and horrible losses due to the war (or any war), I'm just saying from a game simulation point of view, WW2 is the perfect backdrop in my humble opinion.

Anyway, on with the post.

World of Tanks is an online free-to-play game in which players battle against other players in various game modes while taking the roles of various tanks from the World War II era. Currently there are three factions of tanks to choose from - Soviet Union, Germany, and United States (and more are planned) - and players are not restricted in owning tanks from all three factions at once. The tanks are divided into ten tiers and five types: the higher the tier the more powerful overall the tank is, with tier I being the rookie beginner tank and tier X (roman numerals, baby!).

The main game play mode, Random Battles, has a match matcher algorithm that pits 15 players and their chosen tanks against a team of 15 other players and their chosen tanks, using the tank tiers plus tank upgrades plus tank types to try and get two even teams. You can join up with up to three friends in a platoon to get matched in the same match on the same team as well. The goal of random battles is to destroy all of the enemy or to capture their base first.

Tanks 

German Tech Tree

The types are as follows:

Light Tanks - these are fast and agile tanks that act as main battle tanks in lower tier matches (i.e. random battles that are mostly tier I and II tanks with perhaps a couple tier III) and simply scouts in higher tier battles to "light up" the enemy for artillery or long range tanks. They tend to have light weapons that fire fast and are best used in mobile situations, threatening slower tanks.

Medium Tanks - bigger than light tanks but still being mobile and fast compared to larger vehicles, medium tanks act as main battle tanks in lower tier matches and scouts in highest tier battles. They tend to be the bane of light tanks due to being able to mostly keep up with them and having more armour and firepower.

Heavy Tanks - these are the main battle tanks and pretty much their job is to kill the enemy that have been spotted by the light and medium scouts. Lots of armour, lots of firepower, lots of range, but slow to get around.

Tank Destroyers - These are specialized tanks starting at tier II and go all the way up to tier IX or X, they essentially have more firepower then similar tiered tanks but even less mobility and, except for rare cases, lack a turret so that they can't fire to the sides or rear on the move, and are not great at tracking moving targets. They are great for meeting the enemy face on in a small front, but are very vulnerable to being flanked and attacked from the rear.

Artillery - "Death From Above." Artillery have the biggest guns for their tiers and can fire indirectly for amazing range (using a bird's eye view mode) but have terrible accuracy, slow reload times, depend on team mates to spot the enemy, and god help you if a light or medium tank gets in the rear where artillery is hanging out because they will mess you up. Not to mention that terrain and buildings can make blind spots where your ballistic arc just can't get behind. And artillery are slow to move for the most part. Against a slow moving or static target then artillery is fun and deadly, but in all other circumstances it can be an art form to get even splash damage.

There are other game play modes I have not tried out and I just got my first tier III tank last night and its still stock with no research for new modules done or purchased. Let's talk about the economy, shall we?

Economy

There are essentially three currencies in WoT:

Experience - while technically not a currency per say it might as well be. You earn experience in fighting battles, and you get more they better you do (hits, kills, damage, base capture points, scouting, if your team wins). Most of the experience you earn is tied to the tank you fought in the battle with, and a small fraction goes into a pool of Free Experience. You spend experience to unlock better weapons and equipment (gun, turret, suspension (higher speed), engine (better acceleration), radio (better team communications)) and to unlock higher tier tanks. By default you use only the experience earned by the tank, and if it is all used up you can throw in some Free Experience from its pool.

When a tank has all equipment and tanks unlocked on its research page, you can direct future experience earned to accelerate crew training (I'm not touching upon crew here as its still fuzzy to me, but essentially think of it as equipment that helps tank performance and gets better over time) or you can continue to accrue it with an eye to converting it to Free Experience later on (more on that in a bit).

Credits - the main currency of the game, this is what you use to buy and repair tanks, ammo, equipment, and train crew. With some exceptions but more on that in a bit. You get credits from battles and like experience, you get more the better you and your side does and the higher the tiers involved. You can sell tanks you own for credits but it is at a terrible rate and as far as I can tell, is all NPC market driven (i.e. no selling/buying between players). You might consider selling tanks as your skills improve to the next tier and you need to free up some hanger space as by default you only have 5 slots for tanks.

Gold - Here's where the game makes its money. You buy gold using real life money for various rates:

	25000 =		$ 99.95
	12000		$ 49.95
	6500		$ 29.95
	3000		$ 14.95
	1250		$ 6.95

So what do you use the gold for?

- buy additional hanger slots for more tanks (300 gold)

- convert experience tied to a specific tank to Free Experience (1 gold per 25 exp converted)

- get more credits (1 gold for 400 credits)

- premium tanks that cannot be purchased with credits that are slightly better than tanks of the same class at the same tier (but advantage is taken into account when determining teams), for example a tier II light tank is 700 gold IIRC, tier VIII heavy tank is 12500 gold, etc.

- "gold ammo" that is more powerful than regular ammo but fairly expensive to use often (1 gold per shell for low tier tanks)

- certain upgrade items on tanks cannot be removed unless you spend gold

- training crew to 100% requires gold (I forget how much)

- getting a Premium account:

Premium Account

The most important thing that Gold is used for is to buy subscription to the premium account. It gives 50% more credits and 50% more experience per battle, clean garage and the possibility of creating platoons. The best thing in that is getting 50% more credits. It is a better deal more than you'd think, as the profit after paying for repairs and ammo increases two- or threefold, depending on your performance in battle (amount of damage, destroyed tanks, base captured/defended, etc).

The table below shows that keeping an account always at premium status would cost $10 US per month if you purchased the 25,000 gold package.

Extending Premium
Cost	Length	Days
2,500 Gold	1 month	30 days
1,250 Gold	1 week	7 days
650 Gold	3 days	3 days
250 Gold	1 day	1 day

As you can see, the advantage of a premium account are considerable especially when we get to my next topic, progression.

Progression 

I have to give the designers of WoT some credit: they have designed the perfect game to work in a free-to-play model that will actually generate income.

Without paying any money, the initial progression is fast and furious. Battles last maximum 15 minutes but are often over in 5-10 minutes, the variety of maps even for lower tier matches keeps it fresh and interesting, and your research on your starter tanks and subsequent improvements on equipment is at a frequent pace such that you are getting something new to try out every couple battles or so. And while a tank is tied up in a battle until it is over, you can exit the battle and start a new one in another tank right away (and you start with all three tier I tanks) so that the downtime is minimal.

You get to tier II and its much the same: more experience required to unlock stuff but you are getting more experience and credits in battles. "I don't need no stinking gold!" you declare confidently, feeling like you are making off like a thief.

But the first flags that all is not well in the universe start to pop up.
- A new radio is 4040 experience when all previous modules were in the low hundreds range.
- A tier III tank destroyer is 78000 credits when your previous tier II tanks were only around 12000.
- You want to add a cameo net to make it harder to be spotted but are shocked when it costs 500,000 credits

It quickly became obvious to me that the game is designed to get you hooked early on and then put the pressure on to purchase gold to keep a flat progression line (or close to it) instead of facing a big grind to keep going. Even more diabolical, the low price of the smallest unit of gold (i.e. $7) is yet another entry drug to get you to move from "I'm not paying" to "I'll pay a little just this once so I can get X" which is the first step to paying often for those perks you don't want to grind and wait for.

Don't get me wrong, I love this design. The grind is still fun for me because I have three very different tanks I switch between (one light, one destroyer, one artillery) and the variety of maps, match tiers, and tanks I am using has kept the game fresh. Yet I can see me buying gold once in a while for a few of those convenience things yet I don't think its mandatory to compete in the matches.

It remains to be seen if the non-gold-fueled progression slows to such a crawl that my opinion changes, but 120 battles in and I'm still excited at the prospect of logging in for a 10-15 session for a couple battles whenever I can manage it. Right now, for me, the game works.

Tomorrow we compare and contrast with Eve Online and answer that very important question: "Does it blend?"

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Results

Take That Tama!

Boom!

So the event went off last night and the very first thing I want to do is thank the kind souls who came out in my defence, all 11-15 of you in my fleet. Over 230 people in local at the height of the event and almost all of them intent on my death.

Our little defence fleet was overwhelmed quickly at the spot I picked, 100 km below the Pelille III station with a nice view of the rings, and I didn't realize I screwed up my voice comms when I disabled it in one client and not the other. I was talking, guys, really!

As for the attackers, there seemed to be at least three main fleets - Noir (30), Rote Kapelle (21), and Rooks and Kings (25) - and a few smaller groups and lots of individuals judging by the killmail. From what I can tell on my screen and reports I got from eyes around the system, the three big fleets played cat and mouse with each other for about 10 minutes after I landed until Rooks and Kings made a move to land on top of me and at once shoot me and rep me if anyone else came by. Whether that was a tactic to try and ensure the most damage award or simply to see if anyone was going to up the ante with an all in assault or hot drop, I don't know.

A few times my shields were depleted and I went into low armour but the Guardians of RnK kept me going until finally, around 9:40 pm I hit structure and then it was quickly over. Final tally on my killmail was 162 involved parties. The pod was popped without much adieu as well.

I did have fraps running most of the time so I will have a video in a week or so up, and a couple screenshots are coming.

On to the Prizes!

• Final Blow on Chimera: Pirate Faction Battleship of winner's choice provided by Somer Lotteries - Supertintin57 of Rooks and Kings
• Most Damage on Chimera: Blood Raiders Ashimmu cruiser + Sansha Succubus frigate + Imperial Navy Slicer - Trooper H of Rooks and Kings
• Kirith Kodachi Podmail: 1 PLEX provided by Somer Lotteries - Rhamnousia of Rooks and Kings with 283161 points of damage (13.79% of total)

• 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 - Nidia Masters of Noir. Mercenary Group using an Ibis rookie ship
• Second most damage on Carrier killmail done by a Tech 1 or Faction Frigate - Minmatar Republic Fleet Firetail donated by Gallente Hero Channel- Zen'tau of Blue Republic in a Rifter
• Most damage on Carrier killmail done by a Tech 1 cruiser - Fleet Issue Stabber donated by Eve Stratics - Jediknarf of Insidious Logistics in a Caracal

I'll contract the prize I have in Stacmon out tonight when I get home from work and I'll contact Somer Lotteries for the two killmail prizes today.

For the final three categories below, I'll require pilots to submit themselves with killboard links as I don't have time to browse all 250+ killmails to see who the winner is. Evemail or email me if you think you qualify.

• 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 Noob Ships Lost during Event - Two Primae donated by Project Halibut channel

Thanks to everyone who came out, hope you had a good time or at least got some good screenshots (Angus).

Related: Interview at Eve Stratics with yours truly.

Fiction Friday - Series 4: part 5

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

* * * * *

The five of us took the elevators to the capsuleer hanger deck and then went our separate ways to our ships. I entered my hanger quarters - private temporary room with a cot, vid screen, and access to my pod equipment - and informed hanger control about my planned departure. As I took off my coat and shirt, I contacted my ship.

"Captain," my executive officer greeted me coolly.

"XO, we're going out. Are we ready?"

Capsuleer ships technically don't need crew as the pod pilot has access to all necessary controls for the smooth operation of the vessel, but larger ships often still have a skeleton crew as both backup to the pilot's control and caretakers for when the pod is disconnected. A non-pod-enabled battleship could require hundreds or even over thousands of crew but that is trimmed down to a fraction on capsuleer ships.

"Yes sir, I'll send the notification for crew on station leave to head back but we have an acceptable complement of crew ready to depart."

Typically a capsuleer had a separate crew for each active ship since there is not a lot of crossover between a crewman working Caldari cruiser shield flux coils and a crewman experienced with Gallente drone AI subroutines. For a ship that has been not used in a while the pilot might let the crew go and simply hire a new one from the station population when he next needed to fly it, and some capsuleers even used a core command crew that he had transfer from ship to ship with him, but it was not advisable to get to attached to crew members. Even though all precautions were taken with escape pods and emergency beacons, the crew did not have the benefit of cloning technology should something go horribly wrong very fast.

"Excellent, I'll be on board in 5."

My XO, an average looking blond haired woman named Macie Odonnelson, gave a curt nod as the connection closed. She didn't look like the military type; short and petite with a plain face and short cropped hair, but she ran a tight battleship from her training in the Caldari Navy and I had come to appreciate her hard work. Some new crew members might think that the unassuming woman in second in command on a capsuleer's ship would be a pushover but the last man to inappropriately proposition her spent three months on bilge duty during which he earned the unfortunate nickname 'Ensign Stinky'.

I shed the last of my clothes and went to the pod and sat in the grav couch in it. Automated tentacle cables attached themselves to my implants on my spine and neck and my world went black as the pod closed and started to fill with the nutrient cushion fluid. Moments later my senses flared back into being and I could see and hear so much more; the comm traffic of the station, the gravity waves of passing tugs and ships, the connections to the system's local channels. I disconnected the pod from the berth and set course across the station interior to my ship.

The battleship shone in the dim lighting of the Matari station. A Rokh class vessel of Caldari origin, it was equipped with 16 powerful custom designed 425mm hybrid railguns and a suite of shield matrix electronics that would make a State Navy Raven captain green with envy. During my stint in the Navy I had flown support of a squadron of these ships once and marveled at their ability to strike so accurately at a long distance. Now I had one even though it had taken me months of working for the Republic agents to earn enough ISK to buy one. It was my pride and joy and the crew aboard were like my children.

"Insisto Oblivion, this is the pod Kirith Kodachi. Permission to come aboard?" I asked with mischief in my voice as I played my part in the little inside joke ritual I had with my XO. The name was based on some old Terran language I had looked up after I bought it and my corp mates thought it sounded lame, but I liked it. Supposedly it meant something along the lines of "to make destroyed" but Kla'strit assured me it meant "pretentious git".

"Permission granted," she replied with all seriousness.

The pod moved under the hull and a hatch opened. I entered with the aid of micro-tractor beams and seconds later I was the battleship, body and soul. Using a speaker on the bridge I said to my officers, "Let's go."

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Location Announced

Yee haa!

Its less than one week to Bring Me the Head of Kirith Kodachi II. To recap:

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 [Pelille] 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.

This all happens in Pelille on Sunday, Aug 21 at 9:00 pm EST (which is Monday, Aug 22, at 0100 Eve Time). 

 And prizes, boy do we have prizes:

Here are the prizes for BMTHOKK 2 in August.

• Final Blow on Chimera: Pirate Faction Battleship of winner's choice provided by Somer Lotteries
• Most Damage on Chimera: Blood Raiders Ashimmu cruiser + Sansha Succubus frigate + Imperial Navy Slicer
• Kirith Kodachi Podmail: 1 PLEX provided by Somer Lotteries

And some other prizes donated by pilots:

• 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 
• Second most damage on Carrier killmail done by a Tech 1 or Faction Frigate - Minmatar Republic Fleet Firetail donated by Gallente Hero Channel
• Most damage on Carrier killmail done by a Tech 1 cruiser - Fleet Issue Stabber donated by Eve Stratics

And there is more in negotiation with other sponsors.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Noir Mercenaries has stated they are coming to attack the carrier and another well known PvP force has stated they are coming and "will be bringing around ~30 pilots with the intention of killing *everything*". I suspect I won't have to ask my defenders to turn they guns on me to award prizes this time around.

See you in Pelille next week!

Shameless Blog Plug

I found this in my evemail when I checked today:

Hi there,

I am going to be a bit shameless here. But as I really do like your blog, I read it on a regular basis.
And I have just started blogging about eve myself.

I was wondering if you could send some traffic my way: http://kaisi13.blogspot.com/

Thank you & Best Regards

Kaisi13

Well Kaisil3, flattery may not get you everywhere but it will certainly get a shout out on Ninveah.com. Keep blogging!

Fiction Friday - Series 4: part 4

Previously:
Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3


* * * * *

I strolled into the corporate lounge in our offices on the capsuleer deck around lunch time. Seven Six and Minessis were giving animated lessons on how to fight other capsuleers near stations to a new recruit off to one side, Lucius Severus was discussing starbase fuel requirements and transport with Barack Vorn for their next project  near the main screen, and Nhi'Khuna was eating a lunch of fried fish and vegetables with her friend and business associate Nhi'Sidaris. Seven once whispered to me that they were lovers and such tastes were frowned upon in the strict Amarr culture, hence why our CEO lived in Gallente and now Minmatar space, but I suspect that was more of his wishful-thinking-fueled fantasy rather than anything based in fact.

I approached my boss' table with a "May I interrupt?" and she replied "of course" with a wave. I pulled up a chair and declined the offer of the last bun from the basket on the table. I had ate on the common decks on my way here; it was out of the way but I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the public areas.

I quickly relayed what had happened to me in my room with Blodel's pod pilot sister, leaving out only the fact my hangover was caused by little blue pills instead of drinking too much. When I was finished Nhi'khuna told me, "I wouldn't worry about it. Any Amarrian on a Republican station is watched around the clock. Had she approached you in your sleep too closely your door would have probably been down and several station security personnel would have been all over her."

"What if she hires someone?"

"To kill you? Highly unlikely, Amarrian honour debts must be paid in person by a family member. And attempting to hire someone to abduct you and spirit you back to the Empire faces the same difficulties of being watched too closely. I'd wager that as long as you watch your step and keep your wits about you then you will be just fine."

I thanked the ladies for their time and excused myself, my concerns mostly mollified. I had no plans to leave Minmatar space any time soon and if I ever did make any, I was ready to take precautions. I headed back to the control room to see if anyone was running any active operations when Kla'strit came out of it.

"Kirith! You're up!" he boisterously called. "I've got a job from Sistran again, seems those Serpentis blokes are trying to sneak into Teon again. You up for making some ISK as my wingman? I could use your range."

I smiled back at the tall lanky Sebiestor. "Sounds like just the thing to shake off last night." I looked over my shoulder to the others in the room. "Anyone else?"

"Got to buy some POS mods from Rens and move them down to Teonusude," Lucius said for him and Barack. Nhi'khuna begged off with one glum word, "Paperwork." But Seven and Minessis jumped up and the former stated, "Sounds like a good chance to break the rookie in!"

I walked over to the new guy as the others grabbed their stuff to head down to the hangers. "Kirith Kodachi." He shook my hand and said, "Luccul."

"Good to meet ya, Luccul. Let's go kill some pirates."

Vacation Looms!

Point the First:

I am off work next week. Not only that, I'm going camping in the woods. No Eve, no internet, not even email or cell phone. Incommunicado unless you have messenger ravens or jungle drums.

As such, blog and podcast will be silent. When I get back, we'll talk about the system that BMTHOKK II will be held in (somewhere in Placid Region folks) and get ready for the event. I suggest for maximum funnage you get a slew of frigates setup in Stacmon and set your clone for that system before the event. I'm just saying *wink*.

Point the Second:

Last night via the magic tablet and remote software, I loaded up my alt's Orca with a selection of ships destined for Providence fleets with m3 Corp. I am taking:

- Arazu recon for scouting, tackling, and some solo hunting if need be (long range points rock)
- Ishtar for HAC roams until I get a vagabond up and running.
- Manticore for bombing fun.
- Crow for more intecepting
- Eris for bubbling
- Ishkur for when I want a frigate with a bit more bite and shell over an inty
- Dramiel - just because I want to try the flavour of the month before it gets nerfed

I plan to get one more Eve night to pvp before camping. *crosses fingers*

Point the Third:

Yes there will be a Fiction post today to hold you over. Last week's got bumped by a team lunch and a lot of work. My bad.

Point the Fourth:

For the curious, screenshots from my tablet while running Eve over the remote connection to my PC. Click to see full sized.

Zoomed out.

Zoomed in to 100%.

Navigating is pretty easy but laggy.

2000 Posts - Quality May Vary

Oh crap, I better make it count...

I went to write my morning "smoke-break" blog post and discovered this is is post number 2000 on this humble blog.  So some celebration is required:

Hurray!

I'm not going to do a retrospective since I already did that earlier this year when I celebrated 6 years, so this is just a post to say "Milestone Reached!".

Kind if anti-climatic I know, but we've got BMTHOKK2 in a few weeks to make up for it.

Bring Me The Head of Kirith Kodachi II - More Prizes!

Planetary Genocide has donated a Navy Vexor to the prize pool. Haven't decided what to award this one for... suggestions?

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - Sponsor

Nateryl of Lone Star Explorations approached me today to let me know that Lone Star Explorations leadership as agreed to sponsor a prize in the event on August 21st:

> Any t3 with 5 subsystems of your choice. I'll contract one to you or the
> winner once they know what they want. Can't wait for the event too, Ill have
> to pod myself out of the wormhole again :P

We discussed what the prize would be for and we came up with this:

Final blow on most valuable kill (besides the carrier) during the event - any T3 Strat Cruiser with 5 Subsystems pf you choice.

For the purposes of the event, the duration will be from when I log in the carrier until the action dies down in a couple hours. API verified killmails only.

Thank you LSE!

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II - I'll Need More Shields

From: Kirith KodachiTo: Alekseyev Karrde,

Hello sir,

I just wanted to extend an invite to you and your alliance to the second BMTHOKK live event on Aug 21, 2100 EST in Placid region.

I know the outcome of the first event was not ideal but I had no idea how it was going to go down and these things happen. If any NOIR choose to come participate, I hope they come with my destruction in their mind rather than my defense. :) We could use a professional PvP force to organize the attackers.

Either way, good hunting,
Kirith

* * * * *

From: Alekseyev Karrde
To: Kirith Kodachi

 

 My response, which you can put on your blog verbatum:

Sweetness

Sunday night started off shitty, but ended on a high note.

I logged in resolved to join my corp mates back down in Providence region. Although I was very hesitant to go back there for a third time, early reports from the corp suggested that being there without being directly tied to CVA through anything but blue standings was working for now. So I spent some time getting ships out of the Wyvern to pick from later for an Orca shuttling, and then bought a Dramiel to fly down to Provi so I could try out the flavour of the year with my new Minmatar skills.

The Dramiel was in Stacmon and I had it and a MWD in station. I was going to hop back out to low sec to fit it up, but a combination of carelessness, distraction, and "Oh SHIT" panic turned me into a killboard statistic outside of the station as I tried to warp off right away and got caught by a patient camping Cynabal pilot.

*facepalm* I really should know better. At least it was not fitted to the nines.

Embarrassed and humbled, I picked an interceptor from my collection, a nimble Malediction, and wound my way quickly to Providence just in time to join a corp gang. Our composition was four Vagabonds, an Eris interdictor, a Scimitar logistics, my inty, and a covops scout. We toured around Provi for a bit looking for a fight we could win, and ran into a Broadsward and a Harbinger guarding a gate into a constellation pocket.

We got the Broadsword aggressed since he was keeping his bubble up constantly and out covops snuck in and tried to warp in it, and we jumped in and rushed them. The Harbinger jumped through the gate and ran, but the Broadsword couldn't so he warped off. All signs pointed to rookie pilot though as he appeared to warp to a planet and the sharp eyes of our covops picked which one. He warped to the planet at 50 km, another pilot warped to the customs office, and I warped at zero.

BINGO!

I landed right on top of the tech II cruiser and laid my point on him. I held him until the rest of the gang arrived and as his drones started chewing on me I warped out. He exploded as enemy reinforcements arrived and we made an exit with no losses. I had to log but the fleet did go on to kill a Megathron a bit later.

Sadly, that Heavy Interdictor was my first kill in 2 and a half months. Its been a rough summer for me, let's hope there is more kills in the coming fall.