A collection of thoughts.

This post may jump around a little I have a few things on my mind , so I appologise if this jumps about a bit..

Firstly , stay frosty has been running a "summer smackdown" frigate tourney, the prizes at this point look pretty awesome, I'm hoping to win a avatar sketch done by mynxee, I donated a worm to the prize pool myself. So far I have done well in the first two rounds , I was matched against McSister Fister in the first round and won fairly soundly (although he is a much lower skilled toon so was at quite a disadvantage).

Second fight was much harder, up against draiv sorigraid, an awesome pilot who like myself often flys amarr, I had a close fight against his kite fit punisher but eventually won when his MWD burnt out and he popped. I'm very much looking forward to the next round.

Also I tried to do some exploration again lately, and after a year of thinking about it, I like the hacking mini game now the loot spew is gone but I do not like the lack of rats!

I get this was done to lower the entry level into exploration but in this bloggers humble opinion they lowered it to far, it's to cheap and easy now, bring back enough rats to make you bring at least a cruiser hull and the profits on the sites will go up as well, maybe keep the rat free sites in high sec starter areas , add a few frigs in outer high sec, some cruisers in low and some battleships in null, make it a progression not free isk.

In related news as I haven't given wormholes a go for some time and now I have the skills isk and ships to try them out fully, I will be vacationing in our alliance WH, should be fun, last time I tried a WH I was trying to live in a class 3 with a mission fit apocalypse and a amanthea, which didn't work all that well and I got bored. This thine I have the right ships skills and fits. Will be playing until I get blowed up or miss seeing other people get blowed up. The best part is I don't even need to switch corps. /Astral

The state of lowsec.

I have been reasonably active since the patch, and feel confident saying now, lowsec has changed, the meta has shifted.

Since patch day I have lost a lot of expensive ships, I undocked on patch day and took a comet out to the belts in Isho (our home system), only to be jumped by 4 ships 20 seconds later..every one and their brother are either in the belts looking for the elusive mordu rats or trying to kill the people that are.

Activity in General is way up in lowsec, and I'm not sure it's in a good way, gate camps are very prevalent at the moment with most entry points camped to hell, there seems to be a lot more roaming cruiser   gangs, normally 5-10 ships, and the meek FW farming population is in hiding while the number of pvp pilots flying faction linked boosted ships has gone up.

This isn't a bad thing at all, and it may settle in a few weeks but at the moment lowsec is deadly. And anyone even thinking of ratting in low, bring your A game.

The bad news is for my play style, solo unlinked fighting, it is very hard to find a fight at the moment that your not going to get blobbed or lose to some linked asshole.

Think I may concentrate on Vespa for a few days until the dust settles and then see how to adapt to the new more popular lowsec.

/astral

Clone hunting prep.

I'm pretty pumped about the new mordu legion ships coming in a few days, and while I know there will be a gold rush to grab the ships , getting my hands on them could be as easy as killing a rat in a belt.. Or is it? 

I figured while thinking about this a few days ago that the closest thing would be hunting the clone soldier rats that drop tags for sec status tags.. Not rare but not that common and I imagined about the same difficulty level, so I took a comet out to the belts and found a clone recruiter, while I did kill him (very slowly) I couldn't believe how hard this rat hit and how we'll he tanked.. He was a bitch, no way I could work like this on launch day where everyone and his brother is looking to kill pve ships in the belts.

So back to the drawing board...the moa is a nice cruiser or might be once she gets a face lift, let's try that.

Epic fail is all I will say.

At this point I looked up a YouTube vid of mr pew soloing a clone soldier in a bomber.. Problem solved, a cloak and just sit at 55 I and kill at leisure. 

That idea lasted until I saw the patch notes for Kronos...

Missions & NPCs:

• The Clone Soldier Trainer, Recruiter, Transporter and Negotiator NPCs found in low security asteroid belts have received significant upgrades to their engagement range. 

No more kiting in a bomber they will likely one shot you, and unless CCP have thir head up their ass same will go for the legion spawns.

So this leaves only a few options:

Kill very slowly in a AF

Kill a bit faster in a Cruiser and draw more attention

Kill very fast in a BC and die to the first real pirate that see's you

Or take a covert T3 that can refit for tank on the fly and hope you got some good situational awareness or your gonna lose some expensive kit...

I know which I'm gonna try, how about you?

ok, stupid but i had to try

You know when you do something really dumb but you have to try because if it works it will be awesome...

some thing stoopid.

So there you have it. Would have been awesome if I had managed it. Astral.

meme

I have noticed a lot of people do a "whats in my hanger " post, i have never done one before but thought this may be fun... please keep in mind this is what i have in Isho (our home base), I have loads of other crap spread over the place in little cashes's but this is the main bulk of my fighting fleet. click to enbiggen

Thoughts on plexers

As

HThere are two types of player in lowsec, hunters and pray, the key to sucsess is understanding which you are, which is a very fluid concept most of the time.

Plexers may feel safe, they have their cloaks, they have their stabs, and they have safety in numbers which makes them feel like this

However we have cloaks too.. And we fit lots of scrams and no mater how often you get to run, sooner or later...

/astral

A new style

I have lost some interest in blogging lately, but have been recording fights a whole bunch more so this blog will be part blog part video diary from now on. I will still blog about the stuff that interests me however.

I have over the last few days racked up some good kills for only two losses and one of those was a slicer that I lost at a safe while editing some of these vid's. But below I'll link some kills I enjoyed and a few YouTube vid's of me popping peeps, nothing epic as all the good fights I had so much adrenaline pumping I forgot to hit record.

I hate venture's and theirpods too!.

This was a astral and rixx special on a corax and this one against a cormerent, rixx in that Tristan was tanking like a bitch!!

This was a good duel fight against a hookbill and a harpy. And finally, some vids of random fights... I will get better at these and remember to turn on the record button more often (honest)...

moved and moving

So I have moved house, and been out of the game for almost a month, lots has changed while I have been away.

While I was gone I got the urge to start exploring again and maybe run some ded sites so I will be moving a portion of my fleet off to start that little side project, this time tho I won't be all alone as I have no intention of leaving stay frosty, one of the cool things about this corp is the freedom to enjoy all of lowsec's wonderous pursuits, and this project conversely does not mean I won't be engaging in piracy, just that my time will be split a little.

Lots also seems to be going on behind the sceanes, but for now, all I will say is I will be very busy in and out of game for the forseeable future. /Astral

a collection of thoughts.

The last 4 months have been interesting for me in real life, I have moved home, changed my working hours, had a death in the family and am now on the verge of moving again. This has resulted in a rather irratic time in eve.

PvP wise I have had some great fights lately, but due to a lack of dilligence and practice my kill board isn't looking great, have won some great fights against tough pilots that I have known and respected for some time, however I have had some silly losses, including a curse on a roam (I should have flown something cheaper) and tonight a vengeance and my pod to a tusker in a daredevil (was a good fight tho). I am trying out flying a few different ships nowdays, normaly I just fly amarr or tristans but am having some fun with kestrals breachers and condors lately.

in pve , vespa is plodding along in lucifers hammer, normaly station trading in dodixe or running a few level 4s in her navy raven, I am also one of the directors in lucifers hammer, but as the corp is just getting started there is lots and little to do all at the same time. I'm not sure I'm really the best candidate for a director as I have less time than some others and less interest in the politics than almost all...also vespa is an alt...if I have the time to be on and focued it is with astral. Still I have known rixx a long time and he trusts me (as much as you can trust anyone in eve) I think.

Now as I said at the start of this post I will be moving shortly again so I don't see my play time stabilizing for a month or 3, but I would like to do a series of posts on the frigs I'm flying and how they perform (maybe with vids to accompany) , I'd also like to invest a little more time in lucifers hammer to make it a worthy sister corp of stay frosty.

Astral.

worst Talos ever.

So I logged astral in for a bit last night to keep my eye in, after a few mins sea4elder tells us a talons just docked at our station, I check the toon and it's a 2013 toon.

So I figure let's see if he is really new and undock in a harby, he undocks and after the invuln period I lock him up apply web scream nuet and guns, at this point he could just redock, but no he melts in seconds, I start taking gate guns but can tank them easy in the harby, so I scoop the loot and warp off while angor mau snaggs the pod.

Now some people feel bad about popping new players, personally I don't discriminate, but this fit just makes no sense. Hope learns he from it.

Astral

Lucifers Hammer

So anyone that reads Evoganda may be aware Rixx has made his of corp of lucifers hammer into the sister corp of Stay Frosty, What was originally thought of as a home for alts and an easy way to be set blue will now become a legitimate indy corp in its own right.

The trouble with this is rixx has neither the time nor the energy to run two corps..so he has set a "council of directors" in place to run in his stead..and for some reson beyond my understanding he trusts me enough to make vespa a Director.

I have been considering this for the last couple of days and I have some pretty big ideas of stuff vespa is doing..for a start, she needs to earn me more than astral spends, ATM I tend to fund my playtime with Isk from selling plex which allows me to focus on PVP rather than grinding in the precious time i have, however while I will continue to do this I want vespa to amass a small fortune in the background.

I also want to begin (well already have sort of) seeding Stay frosty's systems with ships and mods to buy..mainly AF's cruisers and the odd BC, which can turn a small profit, but i dont own a jump freighter yet and importing these in a transport ship is cutting into my time again, so will probably be using black frog unless a corpie happens to want the isk instead.

with this in mind i will be reducing activity in the short term with astral (REDUCE not stop) and use vespa to help get lucifers hammer going and build astral a financial empire with which to dominate lowsec. /Astral

In The End It's All Fun

I have seen a lot of people fall by the wayside in eve because they stop doing what is fun, hell it even happened to me a few times..yup I quit...then came back..then quit...then came back. That's why battleclinic thinks astral has 70 mill sp but in reality has 35 ( although vespa also has 12 mill) still ..

So with that in mind I decided to put down in ink (sort of) what it is that after almost 5 years of eve still gets my juices going and tickles my pickle!

Firstly- solo frigate combat: This is what eve is all about, the thrill of finding a ship you think you can take, assessing the odds, then going for it anyway :) NOTHING gets the adrenaline going quite like this, and it doesn't matter if its a 5 mill tristan or a 200 mill daredevil you just need to find that thrill again and again, the fact that loss in eve is real make you body react like a high stakes poker game EVERY time, you learn to function with it, but it doesn't go away.

Secondly - Small gangs : Same premise as above except the adrenaline hit is MUCH lower, still there but now you got something you didn't before.. a team! the social aspect of having fun in a group kicks in and win or lose you share those little WTF moments and have a great laugh as you go ..hunting baiting...killing...its awsome.

Thirdly : undocking with a shit load of goods : this may sound dull.. but when you have been on the reciving end of a gank you will realize just how easy people can take your stuff away, and when you undock in a transport ship with half a bill of mods and ships in the hold, in a known gank system...oo there is that sweet adrenaline again

Lastly- Selling my shit: this is what entertains me while I work buy low sell high...or my way buy in high (sec) sell in low (sec), not mega bucks but I often have 500 mill to 1 bill in orders up at any time, and watching the money trickle in makes my day just that lil bit sweeter