Obvious Celestial is Obivous

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #21

There are times when you fuck up. These are not the times you should worry about. There's always some little room to correct mistakes. But there are those moments when you fuck up while others are fucking with you.

Pardon the explicit language. So let's stop a little and analyze what led to this moment.

I log on, load grid in space. I warp to my gate watch safe (It's home system afterall), see a small gang camping the gate. Corp mates are planning on hauling stuff in. The industrial carrying the first round of fittings and ammo jumps in from the high sec gate, just as pinpoint and I report the camp.

Docked, I have to leave the computer for a few secs. By the time I return, the gatecamp is busted, and a lowsec roam is being planned. It's one of those nano roams, so I hop into the shield-fit Hurricane and x up. I have a hunch and take some redundant faction ammunition out of the 'cane. It hits hard, but the stuff's expensive if you never get to use it...

Recon ships and a black ops BS is added to the mix, we decide on the tactics and prepare to undock. The other corporation is amassing in our home system, bent on revenge. The nano-fit is the better idea, yeah.

So we undock and crash the gate, barely slipping their fleet. They're close behind, time is of essence. Discussion goes on about how to deal with the whole situation. This is where we as a group fuck up. People get a bit disoriented and they catch up on the next gate. Order is issued to scatter.

And this is where I fuck up while others are fucking with me. I warp off the gate by warping to a planet, making a bookmark in the process. All good, I gave them the slip. Or not? Landing, I see two of our merry enemies, one at 0, one at 50. Crap. Trap. I'm not going to give up, start aligning, burning out of range, and open fire. Then the whole gang jumps on in. Time to spam the warp button.

So, my ship turned into something like an egg, did I level up? Sure I did. New things I learned:

1. Don't warp off to obvious celestials if you're about to flee. First, last planet, sun, station are all bad choices.
2. Don't warp at zero. Don't warp at 50 either. Everyone warps at 50.
3. Align the moment you land. Don't look at people on overview thinking what are those about. They're out to get you.
4. This is not my first ship loss, and won't be the last. Also, looking at my previous losses, I didn't lost a ship when I did everything right. That feels comforting.
5. I still feel honored that people must assemble fleets of 10-20 people to have the balls to fight a 6-man battlecruiser gang from Fla5hy. If that's not blobbing, I don't know what is.

Sessym out.

Holy Shit, That Guy's 5.0!

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #20

Note to self #1: pirate corps that look at your sec status as a primary objective are being unprofessional at recruiting.
Note to self #2: when a 5.0 guy joins a pirate corp, he's up to something :P

I tought I'd give a little background about me. Not that I think I'm interesting, but there are some people who might get something out of it.

So, I was born a capsuleer a fewmonths more than a year before, and ever since then I was striving to do something to make a difference. Not as in big 'make a difference in a world', but do something I can look back at, and say, 'yeah, god, was that cool.' I've been hunting those moments all the time, and had quite a few. I'm not going to go through them, because it's realy hard to ecplain why would I remember some things this way. Rather, I'd go through the history of what I thought when I was doing things.

I joined EVE because a bunch of long-time gaming friends did and we saw the way we could make our game pay for itself. That was a cruicial point as we had to organize our carrers around it. This wasn't really much fun, but learning the roper was certainly an experience I look back and smile. We did try to make up a pirate corp, but things kind of fell apart as our mentor and the CEO of the corporation decided he had enough of EVE for a time. So we were sitting there, missioning for our PLEX. It wasn't fun, a side from the occasional challenging mission or getting into a new ship, devising new fits. Then we decidd we want to take a look at 0.0.

Joining a renter corp in Tenerifis was a kinda-good idea. In hindsight, it taught me one thing: grinfing for ISK and flying carriers is not what I want. Some of us stayed, some of us drifted on, now to a corp that was then part of a pet alliance. They had their own space in Period Basis, and the months passed by slowly as the alliance fell apart. The corp was forced back to high sec, but in about a month, it could return to its previous hunting grounds. Really good bunch of people. Had gun talking to them, but unfortunately we've slipped inot inactivity due to our alliance being in the learning stages, leaving many people unsatisfied. Back to high sec, and summer hit.

So I was sitting around, looking for lowsec systems to scout for weeks, and then saw a recruitment post somewhere. The thing is, most pirate corps have an attitude in their recruitment posts that deters inexperienced people. FLA5HY RED doesn't. They let me in, afterall. I'm not sure where this is going. There are times in your life when you feel you just have to do something. If nothing else for, jsut to see if this is what you really want. So I'll stop worrying about the 400 millions a month, and lurk in the forlorn wasteland of EVE, low sec.

The lessons I learned?

1. Tough I can and do enjoy PVE activities, I'd rather have the opportunity to cease shooting crosses and start warp scrambling people.  I have too much repressed aggression to be a carebear.
2. 0.0 blob warfare isn't particularly a place where I feel I'm useful.
3. I now have a life to atted to, and that's not an excuse, it's a fact that drives my playstyle.
4. I don't like half-assed attempts and disoriented leadership. I'm not going to comlpain, just go my way (and probably die in a fire).
5. Don't look at my sec status. I'm still a pirate (wannabe).

Sessym out.

The Yarr Gene

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #12

I usually rant and rave about the greater goings-on inside the EVE universe and everything else connected. Now I feel it's time I share a few thoughts that are related to my own dealings.

First of all, no longer being a part of the 0.0 business, I enjoy, like most of the people flying warships in high sec space, the new world of missioning. It became a lot easier to access agents and I like it. There are some unexpected (or rather, well expected) effects of this improved quality of life. Namely, the quiet backwater system I live in with the former Q20 agent now is home to a lot more people. The population exploded into three or four times its size since then.

There is another interesting trend here. I'm not sure if they are new, or just growing rich, buy fancy new ships, but I see more and more expensive, pimped ships each day. Such is human nature, you might say. Where people had only flown Dominixes, Apocs, Ravens and even Drakes, now is quite a few Machariels, Golems, navy issue ships. Watching them, something happened to me.

I remembered. The roots of my EVE playtime came back to me. The things I have been taught, and the thing that I was originally interested in. Piracy. I grew jealous of their shiny ships and began to thirst their loot. I already know the thesis of getting it. Just need a few more millions to begin tricking them into giving me their stuff or their money. So yeah, the Yarr Gene surfaced. There's hoping I won't screw up, because if I don't do, there may be some more interesting stories here.

Sessym out.

The pests

Bold Pilot Log, Entry #8

This is my high-sec home. We're missioning, and salvaging and blowing up NPC's. The only problems are the pests. While other places have rats or roids, we have...

NINJAS.

That's right. They come into a mission and grab its loot. Floating junk all over the place, might as well use it, right? Well, you'd have thought that it was all they do. But when you look at their employment history and see a two year old pilot you realize they're usually up to something more. There's a reason why I don't really bother with them. First, let's see what they do and want you to do.

1. Scan down missioning ship. It's easy most of the time, because most missioning ships are battleships or no unscannable objects anyways.
2. Warp to mission area. Usually by the time you get a warpin, the owner had completed or tanked the first room.
3. Start salvaging wrecks. Since salvage won't flag you, the danger of CONCORD being spawned protects the salvager from the mission owner. Not that he could catch a frigate anyways.
4. Steal loot from mission runner. Criminal flag obtained, the ninja practically invites the mission owner to shoot him / her. And, ladies, gentlemen, and capsuleers, that's where the magic happens.
5. Kill mission runner.
6. Drink tears.

Now you may wonder how the fuck can part 5 happen. Easy. When you shoot at someone in low and high security space, they got 15 minutes to take revenge. That's more than enough for a witty capsuleer to jump your slow, undertanked battleship and beat the shit out of it. Not jsut that, but the whole corporation the ninja is in can attack you too, and they probably will if they're nearby. Also, by shooting at the precious loot you tried to protect, they can extend the timer further, so if you get the idea to dock up and wait for things to clear up, don't forget the timer.

So, what can be done to throw the sand of the sandbox back into the face of the 'bully'. Let's go through the list again:
1. Unscannable ship. Like a Tengu. Tradeoff is, it's expensive and gimped. You might just get ganked the other way by suiciders.
2 and 3. Use marauders. Skill-intensive, expensive, but fast in completing missions and also is able to get the loot from 40k away. Until then, you can shave off the frustation by letting go of wrecks. Some missions can be blitzed easily. Some might have bounties worth gunning for. But in overall, you can optimize your cheap insurable T1 battleship to do the job until you train up.
4. Dun shoot at no ninjaz. It's almost certain that they have something up their sleeve. If they realize you don't give a damn, they probably will go away. Or, take the loot. Watch for the mission objective though. Some objective items cannot be stolen, some can (those that can be bought over the market). Always obtain that first or leave the ship it is in alive if possible. Transporters are especially nice in this way because they even save you the trouble of approaching their wrecks.
5. You can build hybrid setups that can live with neuting and tank the other PVP ship (for example,a  hurricane). Fit war distruptor or warp scrambler. Omni-tank and carry various ammunition. Run if there are more than 1 BC's.  Usually can't tank them AND the mission. They will probably bring passive tanks and cheap stuff because of CONCORD. Be aware though that they are living off this, and generally have a better understanding of aggro mechanics. They can, for example bring logistics ships into the fight. High sec consensual, non-war PVP is more like, for example Lineage II than EVE. You have flags you have to watch. We've covered that few lines up.
6. If you got your ass kicked, don't get angry. They'll often convo you and try to piss you off. Disregard, answer with cool head, analyse. If you don't behave like a child whose toy was taken, there's a good chance they'll begin to respect you. It's a rare thing.

I keep telling myself I'm not some carebear. Truth is, I am. I just like to shoot at both red crosses and internet spaceships of pixel people. And yeah, I'm also trigger-happy. Sometimes I find myself cursing like
"Why the hell has highsec to be like this.. I want to shoot people out of the blue if I don't like them."
Then I realize that's jsut not EVE. In EVE, you either take the full risk, or let everything go as it goes.

Sessym out.