Babe, im back again...

 It's been a long long, time since I've posted. Shit I doubt anyone even reads these anymore but have decided to put up a post or two again as my own creative outlet.

Since I've been gone I've moved home 3 or 4 time split from my ex wife and now live a very happy life with my new partner. I came back to Eve a month or two ago and found so much had changed.. but some things really hadn't. Its taken nearly a month to feel comfortable and like I know pretty much what I'm doing again, although some aspects like thera? What the hell? I can't shoot it so it can't be that important, I'll sus it out in time.

I've mainly been back to my piracy ways in lowsec, I'm back in stay frosty, which I think will always be home for me, Rixx is still the guy I knew years ago and so is the corp.

I've had some epic good fights since being back, and one or two teething problems, like losing a legion to rats in a DED 5/10 due entirely to not paying attention.. dumbass. 

We had a great fight with Red Blue the other night frosty in assault frigs  RvB in mainly thorax. We took the field but in terms of isk lost was a fairly even fight and one of the best I've had for ages, respect RvB 👏

Rixx has decided to Run for CSM this year, a great choice for a lowsec candidate btw, but although some people say low low is dead, it seems in much the same shape as 6 or 7 years ago, same issues with FW, same targets and small fleets roaming. I think if I were to push for anything it would be a reason for people to come to lowsec and have a reason to take the added risks here, maybe increase the amount of faction spawns in belts and complexes to give people a good chance at faction mods...after all this is supposed to be low sec pirate space, and the increase in NPCs that can and do drop decent loot might tempt a few more PvE players in which will in turn feed into the PvP players, as some will be caught and killed.

I also like to top up my income with a little bit of exploration, and data and relic sites are in a sad way nowadays, these desperately need some love to make them worth running again, maybe some better loot drops that will increase the reward as at the moment your kinda mad if your risking a ship in low or null to pull 2-3 mill out of a site that's taken 10 mins to scan and 5 to run.

Anyway... I'll post some more as more thoughts occur to me, if you read this, happy to see you back, maybe I'll see you in lowsec, maybe we can kill each other <3

War.

Keep reading about the next great war in eve... I was intrigued.....so I have enlisted.

That is all

First Steps

I have been a little active this week..I have had 2 irritating and moderately expensive losses but more importantly I have started taking astral out hunting and doing what he does really well, 1v1 frigate fights.

So at the start of the week I decided to do some work with my hisec alt Vespa dominix, which was dull mining mainly but allowed me to make some is while watching TV and spending some time with my wife, as you'd expect that was very dull. I also brought some goodies to transfer to ishomilkin for astral and took a little run up with just shy of half a bill in ships and mods in my mastadon... I probably should mention we had just been war decked by some high sec grieffing crew ( normal for ABA)..The trip there was very quiet and uneventful even the unwise unscouted jump into the highly camped lower system of ishomilkin was fine, the trip back was not so straight forward. I had been told this war Dec crew mainly hung out in amaar and jita, Vespa shops mainly in dodixie so that was my destination, as I landed in dodixie..you guessed it...war targets! My slow as fuck mastadon took a good few mins to melt but it was unavoidable 😕

After rebuying my loss and sticking up some buy orders I decided to take one of astrals  new toys out, a curse.

Now I've flown and lost curses before but while I've been away they have been buffed and given the novel ability to not be seen on D scan, I originally thought this would make it a excellent ship for hunting clone soldier Tags, but as normal I thought screw it I'll see if I can cause some trouble.
Rixx and some Corp mates were having some fun shooting at dessies a system or two over so I jumped in my curse and flew out to join them.

I did scare the crap out of several people on the way when a recon lands next to them and starts locking g them up...people ran.
However I did land as my two corpies in frigates began to take on two dessies. The result one ran the other died.

I messed about for 10 mins trying to grab other targets but decided once people realised I was there I would quickly become the hunted., so I headed back to ishomilkin,  and got caught on the gate..

Skip forward to today and I had a couple of hours free to have a quick play, I decided to take a couple of figs out and annoy the FW sheep. I ran about for around 20 mins in a comet and wasn't having much luck, so I swapped out to a duel prop RFF, a fit I have only ever flown a couple of times and never really had any success with, but thought I'd look like less of a threat and maybe get a fight...within 5 mins I land in a site with a lone kestrel, and to his credit he doesn't run. This was actually a good fight he had me in armour but couldn't break my reps and with only a buffer tank fitted he melted under my guns ...his pod too.

Feeling emboldened with that kill I quickly found another customer in a another small complex, this time an Executioner. I though this may be a problem fighting a speedy ship if it was set up to kite but I managed to land Web and scam and ate him alive, sadly missed the pod but was feeling quite pleased with myself.

I then noticed the first guy I popped, with the kestrel was back.. and now had a bantam in tow. I wasn't sure if they were both well fit I Could take them alone but no one else was near to buddy up with so,  with my normal disregard for traps I warped into give it a go...the kestrel ran ,I thought having learned his lesson, as I preceeded to kill the bantam.  As he quickly melted I realised he wasn't shooting back (some people don't if they panic, it happens) and he was melting to fast...I then realised kestrel guy brought along a sacrificial decoy.
Made sure I got the pod too show my disappointment.  Then headed home..my first solo roam in a year being a fair sucsess.

Time loop

I'm back in eve for the first time in almost a year..the changes to the UI  are a little hard for a old timer like me to wrap my head around after so long away.. all seems alan but familiar.

So much has changed for me IRL, new home in a new area and a change in career that has mentioned some intensive hours and studying has distracted me from eve long enough, I now have the time to start playing again and the welcome back I have had so far from ABA has been very warm.

It feels good to be back in space again although all I've done is some basic station trading mining and a little exploration  of some data sites, and dint they used to be profitable..I made like 2 mill in 2 hours!?! Nerfed much?

Much to relearn I have

I'm back

So after another small unplanned break I'm back and it seems I have come back at an interesting time as we are at war with the bastards, dunno why all these pirates wanna kill us first the tusk era now the bastards, oh well... Still I do like the idea when my wife asks how is the game going I can honestly answer "the bastards are trying to kill me" Should be fun..

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.