Tuesday 23 February 2010

Total horse crap!!

ok i just need to write this post after reading a post bt Tobold on non consetual PVP in MMO's...please find his original post it here tobolds blog

He is basicly saying non consentual PVP is unfair because people will only start a fight they thing they can win, and because of they way the toons develop skills over time it, its all mis-matched..

now I like tobolds blog mostly , but i have to disagree here..

If I were on a low sec roam, I see a nice ship to kill, say a rifter..I think I can take that. depends on fittings for a start, I have lost battle cruisers to figates with the wrong fittings..
next I look how long he has been playing..only 2 months but he is in a corp I have heard of..

ALARM BELL there is 12 people in local but only 5 on scanner...i would guess he is a bait ship and if and when i attack several shoips will decloak and do unspeakable things to me..

The fact is in eve the hunter can very quickly become the hunted, you may see what looks like an easy target but attacking ANYONE is a huge risk!! (even 1 day old pilots in a starter boat can have corp mates close)
further to that due to the harsh nature of the death system in eve and there actually being consequenses when you go pop, what some people will see as the more expirenced player picking on a new or less well eqiped player is infact a calculated risk that has paid off..that time.

What im trying to say isnt that the skill of PVP isnt hitting the right buttons in the right order, mr tobold as it is in WoW, the skill is in reading the situations and picking your targets and being aware of what is happening around you...and that is a level playing field, time and expirience come in to it but only to a degree. Eve is a thinking mans game.


On a totally unrelated topic.. I paid for my covet ops ship last night..13 mill for those wondering.. a saving of 5 mill over the best current market price. thanks go to my corp mate Astral fox for building the beast for me...not long till i have the skills to fly it. and as a result of paying for it..I am again skint.

Monday 22 February 2010

tyranis and stuff...

I guess you have all heard by now about the new update due this summer for eve..after reading the description i have to say it doesnt stun me...the corrections to lag they should be doing anyway..thats not an expansion. as for the building citys on worlds..i have a gut feeling this is going to be costly..the rewards will be great but i think it will wind up being more of a "as a corp" thing than for each pilot, but hay i may be wrong.
The bit i am looking forward to is accessing my Eve mail through a browser and alike the calender ect.. im really hoping this is going to be jumped on by Roc and the developers of capsuleer to make the iphone app even better than it is now, as they have said they will be opening up access through the API.
But even with this nice little feature it doesnt seem much of an expansion, perhaps in the lead up they will anounce some extra features like new epic arcs or T3 frigate's.

In local news..im finding myself faced with an odd problem..with my some what limited playtime do i focus on money or standings?? at the moment i can get average lvl 2 missions with federal navy, but my standings are rising quickly, however i seem to spend two thirds of my time waining about to run a level 4 in fleet, while the rewards are bigger normally i seem to spend so long waiting for everyone else to arrive or get the right ship with the right fit that i only get 1 or 2 missions done befor ui have to log of and play with the wife.. if i were to ignore the fleets and solo lvl 2's i can run through them like butter and would probably be soloing lvl 3's within a week making about the same amount..am i cutting my own throat being social?

On another subject i made a down payment on the covert ops ship the corps building me last night, have paid 10 mill will pay the rest when the final build cost is worked out. cant wait to take that beast for a tour of low sec..
I also purchased the long over due armor rigging skill (im training lvl 3 as i write this) and should be able to fit t2 armor rigs in 4 days. im hoping to purchace another harby before then and fit it with a passive tank of..

T2 kenetic rig
T2 thermal rig
T2 EM rig

Then in the low all 4 T2 hardners a T2 repper and a 800mm plate ?

Im hoping this will be enough to tank lvl 4 missions if i need to take the aggro but would welcome any advice from anyone that has expirence with armor tanks, specificly with harbingers?

Lastly id like to ask a favour..if yyou read this blog from time to time, add your self to the follow >>>> on the side bar, it helps me see who if anyone reads my rants and makes me feel loved!

Thursday 18 February 2010

too much time on my hands

i was looking at my google reader stats..From your 58 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 922 items, starred 8 items, shared 27 items, and emailed 0 items.
if only i could actually play Eve at work instead of just reading about it id be so rich lol

Wednesday 17 February 2010

A change of plan..

I said in my last post how i was suffering from the " i wanna bigger ship" syndrome, and i had intended to skill for the next month or two to ensure i could fit a battleship so that I could take part in fleet battles should the need arise..however as ith most plans this has been altered before it begins..

Due to a restucture and some changes in the corp, it will become nessasery for me to do some running about picking things up in low sec, I am also gonna need a ship capable of getting me to null very soon with out getting ganked as soon as I jump out of empire!
As a result I have had to start skilling for covert op's ships, normally im not into all the cloak and dagger stuff..im more a brute force and ignorance kinda guy..but having read up on it a little bit, im really looking forward to it, I am only 28 days from being able to fly one seriously, 13 to get frig to V, 7 for electronic to V and 8 for cloak to IV, so wont be long and too of them i was planning on getting soon anyway so i can venture into assault ships..

I find the Idea of being able to evade gate ganks (if im fast enough) and scout systems very cool. im a little confused by all the different probes and crap that goes with it for scouting but i dont need that straight away..i need a ship that will keep me safe, and i find with most aspects of the game, they fall into place once you play with it a bit.

bring on the cloaky goodness...

Monday 15 February 2010

I wanna bigger ship syndrome..

As i write this post i am almost fully proficiant at flying a ammar battle cruiser..in the sense i have almost all the skills used to pilot and tank one to level V, there are a few skills that need to come up another levl before im done, but i can now field a fully tech 2 fit battle cruiser :D

But as is tradition before i really enjoyed the fruits of my labor or done all the wonderful things i was going to do in my awsome (in my eyes) battle cruiser, i want a bigger toy..a Apoc battle ship to be exact.

the trouble im finding with the battle criser is with an armor tank as opposed to sheild I am still having to warp out and warp back running lvl 4 missions if i get a few battleships target me..me caldari corp mates dont seem to have this problem. even using mission specific hardners and a T2 repper i cant tank the same DPS as a drake... if anyone one out there has expirence in ammar ships and knows where im going wrong please do set me on the right path.

so im now thinking i need to get a battle ship ant the apocolypse looks my sort of beast.. but sticking to my own rules i wont fly it before i can fit it properly, i can already fit a proper T2 tank and have the req battleship skill but have only large lasers to lvl 1, so thats gonna be the long train, over a month just to get the T1 varient to lvl 5 then same again to T2!!
Will be worth it in the long run tho, As if i decide to get into fleet PVP in the future a T2 fit battleship is as i understand ship of the line, it will also allow me i hope to solo lvl 4s when i have the standings for them with relative ease, also and this is my big point ...they look cool!!

On aside note two of our more expirenced corp members decided to start their own corp last night and go it alone.. both have taught me a lot about the game and i hope to remain great freinds with both in the future, so Noah and Sam, good luck guys i hope your new corp does as well as you hope, you will be missed!

Thursday 11 February 2010

Really!

Ok so i was re reading some of the items in google reader today and i couldnt help reading a recent post by tobold (tobolds blog) about eve players making on average $2 an hour real money if you convert the average isk gain per hour by a mature pilot, got me thinking..i want a pay rise. but then i supose i have already given myself one in a way, as most of the exploits i get up to on Eve i write about here, and one of the nice side effects of running a blog is they can generate money, not much at the moment to be honest but its still a payrise and may grow as the blog becomes more popular.
I also found the chart he links to -
Chart of relative ship cost blog
very interesting , i agree with the cost relation to most of the ships on this chart, what i think it neglects is the time and effort to reach some of them, its not just the cost of the hull and the mod's you need to take into account, to be honest you could in my opinion never go above a battle cruiser size ship in eve and still never do all there was to do , support fleets PVP, and PVE wise, so it think all ships above that need to have the time and money facored in to their value to even fly the ship. if for example i wanted to pilot a carrier, its not just the cost of the hull and the mods i need to scrape together, its the weeks or months of training time, and the cost of the skill books before i can get behind the controls.

just my opinion but i think some of these ships represent a much bigger investment, and am still in shock about the RL cost of a titan..over $7000..and you willing have this in an enviroment where it will be shot at!!
some pilots in eve have ...
BIG BRASS BALLS!!

Wednesday 10 February 2010

That be a pirate it do...

Ok so i had a very fun night last night...although not good for my finances.
i have been saying for a while i wanted to start learning to pvp and last night the chance came my way.
I logged on about 7ish to find none of my corp online, after deciding id stick about i thought id continue with the federal navy misssions i have been running, as i set off, my newb mate logged on, told me since since i introduced him to eve the day before he had been playing solid...he had now been awke over 30 hours...
I asked where he was and he was about 12 jumps out,but was coming to join me in fleet, as i give him all the loot (I like the bounties more). anyway while he was on his way I decided to run a mission solo, it was in system, so i warped to destination and started killing rats..

Now before i continue, so this makes more sense i was flying a:
Harbinger
6x T2 medium beams with navy multi ammo
AB, Tracking computer and 2x Cap rechargers in the mids
and a 1600 plate, DCII, best named reppper, and best named thermic kenetic and explosive hardners in the low slots...

I dont know if thats considered a good or fail fit, but it worked well for PvE. Anyway..im killing rats, i have about 5 frigs and a cruiser left...in warps a pirate..he was called wrexx i think, in a punisher. and he starts going for the loot hoping id open fire..

i thought about it for about 10 seconds..im in a bigger ship..I have spare ships...im insured...I could afford to replace the mods...im in a bigger ship...

As he hit my optimal range I opened up with the meduim lasers and and sent my drones at him, his sheild's vaporised and his armor was peeling off at a nice rate, I began to get excited...

In my excitement i didnt spot, he want shooting me he was killing my drones, first point learned, if your gonna use drones in pvp, dont send them in and ignore them, all of my warrior drones were gone in about 45 seconds.
During this time he had used his speed to get to about 3-4 k, his optimal, and well under my 13k, he didnt have my sheilds to contend with as they had gone fighting the rat's.. my armor slowly started to peel, and with no drones harassing him and being under my guns, his repper quickly undid all my hard work.. the big problem i faced was i could either use AB to try to get the range back OR my repper, using both with all guns firing my cap would be gone in a matter of mins.. learning point two, make sure you are cap stable defensively..
I went with the option of using the repper and trying to fight him at his own range..it took quite a while but he did gain the upper hand, my damge at that range couldnt out do his repper and i was losing cap and armor slowly. At 1/4 armor he decided to chat and tried to ransom me for 20 mill, I had to decline as i didnt quite have that to pay , and to be honest i dont trus ransoms. as the ship popped i was already aligned and locked on to a nearby station and entered warp, a minor victory but i saved the implants...

Was i angry about the incident ..Hell no!, it was fun. i learned a lot, , got chating to the guy via eve mail afterwards and thanked him for a good fight. I entered into combat of my own free will hoping id win but knowing there was a good chance id lose my ship, but i did it for 3 reasons.. 1 fun, 2 to learn and 3 i could aford to if the insurance paid out. i didnt begrude wrex his win, he was a skilled pvp pireate and it was fun learning from him. i would actually say we became quite freindly after the event. he told me he was using a autocanon set up which was recomended to me by another good pirate ( mail lite-THE BEGININGS OF PIRACY go read his blog its good.)

After collecting a Replacement ship and fitting it i returned to the mission site once again with my newb freind, and finished the mission, as i was finishing i got another email from Wrexx, jokingly saying he had scanned me down again but as I was a nice bloke he was gonna leave me be lol (i would have agressed again anyway but)..and continued with my missions.

The rest of the night was fairly routine other than my newb freind getting his ship blown up by concord, as i was teaching him about drones and manouvering and guarding i locked on to him, he thought he was being attacked by a pirate and opened fire on me...my sheilds almost got scratched..concord arrived and blew him away in seconds...tough leason for him but he is learning, i then gave him 1.3 mill to replcace his destroyer and the mods to take the sting outta losing his new baby.

Have fun!

Monday 8 February 2010

The results and a result :)

Well the final marks are in for Crazy kinux's why we love eve, im sad to say i didnt win a prize , but its ok because some really good articles did win. if youd like to see the winners and read them if you havent already please follow this link: http://www.crazykinux.com/2010/02/lovers-of-eve-online-blog-banter.html
congrats to the bloggers that did win, they did write some very entertaining articles.

On to the next subject.. I spent the bulk of sunday messing about on eve (much to the annoyance of the wife) for the most part just grinding federal navy standings and blowing the money on mods and ammo but about 7 ish i had a treat, i had been talking to a friend of mine that plays the football MMO, managerzone (www.managerzone.com), which i used to play fairly regularly, he was trying to convince me to start playing it again, and i started explaining i was more into eve at the moment and convinced him to give it a go, so after the lengthy download, last night he came on for a few hours and was i think blown away at how massive eve really is.

After half hour playing the tutorials on his own I thought id roll over and do some of the missions with him to see how he was getting on, and needless to say, he found them extremly easy with a T2 fit battle cruiser in fleet. we started chatting and I have introduced him to Bright star corp as an option to join if he wants, i also gave him a little start up capital to get the ball rolling, only 1.5 mill but to a new pilot thats a lot.

What really ammazed me was his questions, it took me back to when i started a few months ago at the bottom of that huge learning curve and made me realize just how much i have learned so fast, and i have tried to eqip him with the knowlage he needs to become a good pilot in time.

On a side note, while sitting out side one of the starting stations i noticed a can stationed right outside the entrance, the can had been named "you" and a sad little pirate floating about 20k away in BC waiting to pounce on any newb stupid enough to open the can. any new plaayers reading this, watch out for these types of tricks they are really dumb and will get you killed quick. and to any pirate reading this, thats a bloody cheap kill, at least go to low sec to try this with people that might give you a decent fight.
I did talk to the pirate quickly in local to see if anyone fell for it, no one had. He then asked if i was up for some 1v1, I would have obliged if I hadnt been running missions with a freind, I asked him to try me another night and id give him a fight in frig's, i will only fight in frigs as if he suddenly has a few freinds decloak or wins it doesnt really matter if I lose a frigate, and to be honest if it was a straight fight would be good expirence for me win or lose.

Friday 5 February 2010

just a quickie..

just a quickie to say thanks to our CEO, Relt for lending me a hand shifting some cargo for a mission, i owe you...again.

also thought id post a pretty picture of me tooling round Gicodel in my mission harby...notice the t2 guns on there...

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a slow but productive night

yippe T2 Guns!!!!

This week i have been a little tied up with RL wich has stopped me logging any serious time on eve, i managed to get on and change skills and play about a bit but nothing like as much as id like to be doing. last night i finally got to take out my harby with shiny new T2 mediums fitted, and boy did they make a difference, the medium beams were hitting much harder than the heavy T1 beams i had fitted and i was taking down serp battleships in just a few vollys, which was a big improvement for me!! also i mangaed to squeeze anonther drone skill in so i now have 4 scout drones out , which can pack a fair punch, or at least counter any repping.
im starting to feel like my battle cruiser skills are getting near to where they should be, i still have to warp out when im running level 4s if to many start lighting me up but i can take a fair beating before it gets urgent.
I have decided for the next month or so to get my core skills to where they should have been if i wasnt so eager to jump in to a bigger better ship and get all the learning skills to V most of it is needed for the command ships anyway but they always seemed to take to long instead of an instant boost before now.
i think i am starting to grow as a eve player, im not looking at skills to get me in to the next ship imidiatly im looking at what will cut training time and serve me well in the future, from now on, if i buy a new ship im gonna make sure i can T2 fit it before i consider taking it out the hanger.

also i logged in to crazy kinux blogg this morning on the off chance the results would be up for his contest, because of the volume of entrys he has delayed anouncing the winners till after the weekend, not that im assuming id be among them, but if your in it you got a chance,and with 10 prizes and 56 entries my odds are slightly better than 6-1.
decided during one of my more compationate moments if i were to win id buy 2 time codes and give the rest to the relif effort in Hati, but thats getting all ahead of myself, the only reasomn i mention it is so id be obliged to follow through in the unlikely event.

oh well back to work i guess, have fun!

Tuesday 2 February 2010

woah!! moment

Thought id put this in just from sheer amazement, this is quite a new and small blog at the moment but im suprised at the amount of people reading it...im getting anywhere between 40-200 hits a day (depoending on posts) and my auidience is quite diverse..thought is post this to show you who else is reading

A Map of my recent visitors

Photobucket
Its nothing compared to some blogs but i was pretty impressed.

the evil of wireless...

I havent been online to much this week, a combination of RL stuff to do and frustration waiting for skills to finish, i did log on for a few hours on sunday and had a headache due to my wirless router playing up, on logging on i wanted to do 2 things , grind some standings for fed navy and build myself a shiny T2 punisher to use for ratting/tackling when we move to null sec...

the first hour or so flying about picking up bits for the punisher went quite well, at the end i had a reasonably good fit (IMO) T2 punisher that could swap between tackling for a fleet or ratting small plex's, thats when the fun started i went over to lirsutton where i normaly grab some lvl 2 missions for fed and took of on the mordus head hunters mission, not a big deal really but it had sodding ship restrictions so instead of taking the harby or prophecy i decided to dust off my omen and take it for a spin...
i got in to the ded space without any trouble and started to take a lot of fire form a few BC  6 cruisers  and a handful of frigates, i poped the frigs and all but one cruiser and a BC by the time i was at 50% armor and  was just aligning to jump out at 25%  thinking " i'll just warp back and mop up"..wrong  as im aligning  i see i have been logged out of voice..as normal this is followed by the screen freezing...no big deal i think i'll just go into emergency warp and be fine...wrong.... after 10 mis of logging out and rebooting the router  i log back in to a 5 mill payout and a pod :( . all i have to say is POXY INTERNET!! i dont mind losing ships because i suck, i dont mind losing them because im drunk or because others were better..but losing them because of a shite connection one night at the exchange is just damn annoying!! good thing it was only a cheap cruiser..

On a side note i have noticed a lot of traffic coming in form a few other blogs that are posting links to mine :) for anyone that ever posts a link to this blog , thank you, i really appriciate it. on the flip side if you would like your blog to appear on my "blogs i read" list post your URL and i will happily add you, i dont play favorites on there the new posts are displayed so links are always current. If you would like any additional reading here are links to the eve blog pack and the blog list..the blogpack are suposed to be the best blogs (and normally are) the bloglist  is all the rest of the blogs that are know about, both links are from CK's site
http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/06/eve-online-blog-pack.html
http://www.crazykinux.com/2008/04/eve-online-blogroll-lovefest.html

have fun!