Monday, June 27, 2011

Deep Space Madness

What an odd, odd week.

To begin this weirdness let me tell you about a small roam that turned into a once in a life time opportunity. A corp mate and myself decided to take the static C3 WH and follow it 'down' the pipe as far as we could go. Now I am normally not a big fan of roaming, and I am even less of a fan when it comes to roaming worm hole space. Now if you may or may not no- worm hole space can at times be pretty dead. According to all of the stats that CCP has ever released in regards to worm hole space, only 4% of players call worm hole space home, or frequently pass through. Basically what this means is that on your average day of 47,000 active players only 1,880 of them are inside worm hole. Whats worse is- there are 2500 worm holes in eve. Basically what this means is that there is a measly .75 people in each worm hole system.

As you can see- the numbers do not look good :( Indeed searching through worm hole space is akin to finding a needle in a haystack at times. That is why when you are roaming, you need to use as many metal detectors as you can to try and expedite the process. In our case our metal detectors started to beep when we jumped into a worm hole that had 8 jumps within the last half hour.... and this worm hole did not have a high sec exit.

This was our clue- or hint to that some one was obviously moving material up and down a worm hole pipe. We seem to have stumbled into the middle of the route, so we decided to find one of the end destinations and wait for our prey to arrive. As we slowly scanned down the K162 worm holes, we would check them against our worm hole mapping tools. Eventually we found a worm hole that was dead ended- and conveniently we found a POS on the far planet as well, that seemed to have been recently on lined and created. So we decided to settle in on the worm hole and see what would come through the pipe.

We did not have long to wait- as soon enough the hole began to shimmer. Amazingly enough he waiting out his session timer, and after 30 seconds- out popped a pod. Me and my guys held our guns.... and waited. Not a seconds later the worm hole shimmered again and out popped a mammoth! Sadly this indy pilot was smart... and while he didn't wait out his session time for the full 30 seconds- he did wait long enough. Me and my corp mate were both 20K off the hole at this time, and we opened up the tubes. As per usual I was being a cocky retard- and didn't overheat my torps. The mammoth was going down very quickly anyway- and I thought that for sure it would pop. To my dismay he jumped back through the hole in about 17% armor.

Now here comes incompetence part two.... I was 20K away from the hole, and immediately recognizing my mistake slammed my MWD on to try and jump through and catch the mammoth on the other side. (See this part just pisses me off because normally I orbit the hole at 7K. I do so becuase if we attack some one and they jump through the worm hole to the other side- I can simply 'chase' them by jumping in right behind them.) Why I was not doing that right now... I will never know. As i jumped through the other side of the worm hole, I was crossing my fingers that I would have a chance engage on the other side. Sadly I was again wrong- and by the time I jumped through I just caught the mammoth warping off, and caught the tail end of his escape on my over view. Damn.

So that sucked- I was going to call it a night when- the mammoth pilot decides to convo me. Now I was expecting him to gloat about his escape or something to that effect.... But i was more surprised when he was like- DUDE! NO WAY! i was seriously alt tabbed out, reading YOUR LATEST BLOG POST. You have got to be kidding me... of the .75 people that are in every worm hole system- I find the one that reads my blog? How crazy- and even more crazy that he was reading my blog while I decided to take a few shots at him. It's a small world after all. We exchanged pleasantries, and he went on to tell me that him and a number of corp members were inspired by me. (I felt honored) He went on to tell me that his worm hole corp and himself had just went out and bought a ton of bombers in the hops of emulating my good work. In a fatherly way I was proud, so very very proud. I wish them all the best of luck, and I hope that the eve gods smile upon them with many many bears to shoot.

So you would think that the weirdness of this week would end with the mammoth. But no, ohh no. Now normally me and my corp are far far away from all of the craziness that is empire and known space. As of known all of the madness that Incarna has brought has not spilled into worm hole space. All of the holies and myself have been quietly watching the riots and the forum madness from afar. While I am not going to waste time talking about incarna or CCP as this subject has been beat to death. Instead I will simply say that EvE is going in a very sad direction, and CCP has lost most if not all of my respect with the ways the are handling this situation. I have lost a few corp members over this P2W and vanity stuff, and I will say that if EvE ever becomes like maple story (Korean based MMO where you basically need to spend 1000$ of dollars to be competitive) I will not hesitate in leaving. But as along as I can still have my nomadic worm hole lifestyle and pew pew- CCP will keep my business for now.

The reason why I bring this up is becuase of a situation that I ran into inside worm hole space. I was rather deep inside of a C5 worm hole chain, and I was far far away from Known space. I had not seen a living soul for quite some time- so I was a bit surprised when I noticed some sister core probes on my D scan. I decided to stick around in this C5 and wait out our scanner, and hope that he would begin running a site. After some time the probes disappears- and suddenly I was someone speaking in local. Now i am not sure if you are all aware- but speaking in local inside of worm hole space is considered a grave sin. (Well it is to me at least). You NEVER want people to know who or what you are.

The message was very simple: Hey anyone, I am lost- and I need to find an exit to high sec. Is anyone willing to help me?

Now this just screamed trap to me- who the heck has 5 sisters core probes, and cannot find a worm hole? I was extremely confused, but decided to reveal myself- so I convoed the pilot and told him for 100mil I could get him the exit to known space. You can imagine my surprise when the pilot agreed, and I was quickly 100mil richer than before (monocle here I come). So i dropped a jetcan with all of my book marks at a random moon, and after moving a short distance away- told the pilot where it was, and what to warp to. I didn't have long to wait because shortly after I had given the word- a helios appeared on my overview.

Now I am sorry but what the fuck? How can you be in a scanning covops ship with sister probes and not get out of worm hole space? Why in the world  would you pay some random guy in worm hole space 100mil and then warp uncloak and pick up a jet can filled with book marks? I was so curious that I just had to ask- are you new? To which the pilot replied that no- he was not new. He simply started his account back up after the Incarna release, as he wanted to check out how awesome this expansion was.

I thought that this would be the end of my lovely experience with this man, until a short while later he convos me and is pretty pissed off. I ask why, and apparently on his way out of the worm holes, he randomly decided to warp to the sun.... at zero. Here he said that he was still waiting for his cloak to come on ?????? when a ship came and killed him. I asked him for the kill mail, and sure enough some rapier pilot decided to eat his poor scanning frig for lunch. I could barely stop from laughing- EvE can be a real ball kicker at times. So I ended the conversation with: Sorry to hear that, welcome and I hope you enjoy your say in the new and improved EvE.

Well I cannot leave my readers with out leaving at least one kill mail- so here I am squeezing it in on the end. It was your normal day withing the worm hole. Sadly it had been a pretty slow day, and I was more than exited to watch a buzzard come through the hole and start scanning down some sites. Now I could have killed the buzzard- but the hallmark of a good bomber pilot is patience. So instead of blowing the covops frig to a P2W future- I waited. After a half hour my patient was rewarded! He finally drew back his scanning probes, and jumped back through the hole. I didn't have long to wait before my guest returned- as shortly afterwards a tengu and proteus jumped through, and began running sites.

I watched them blitz down two missions, and then they split up. The tengu moved onto a third site, and the proteus headed back to the worm hole. As I kept on eye on the tengu's progress, the hole shimmered again- and out popped a salvaging catalyst. He warped to the first site, and began the hard work of cleaning up after the tengu. I positioned myself by the last wreck, farthest away from the destroyer, and waited- again. The destroyer cleaned all of the sites up, and slowly moved to within 15K of me, and salvaged the last wreck. Again- I waited, and didn't shoot the destroyer. I knew that there was another site, ad the third one the Tengu was working on. Patience is a virtue.

I did the same for the second site- and I positioned myself on the last wreck, and simply let the destroyer come to me. While I was waiting I had to debate if I should strike now, instead of waiting for that tengu to finish the third site. I was weighing the options in my mind. If i strike now I have almost a 100% chance of killing and looting the wreck before help arrives. While if I let the catalyst finish here and move on, I run the risk of having to deal with the tengu on the third site.

I decided to play it safe, and once the catalyst began to slow boat at me- I decided to engage. Now i had done my planning well, as the destroyer was moving right at me- and through my path. All I had to do was wait until he moved within 22K and I pounced. I quickly uncloaked, targeted, overheated my torps and let fly with torps. The first volley struck him and wiped his shields, and the second took armor- the third was the last thing he ever saw. This pilot was clearly not ready, and was totally comfortable. During this quick fight I had made sure to set my D scan to 3 AU and was expectantly waiting for his tengu friend to come burning onto the field the second I opened up. But i guess he ran- after the kill I no longer found the tengu on scan, and he never returned to finish up his site.

Who knew that a single frig could be so scary, and even T3 ships run in fear?

Anyway That's it for me this week, I hope that you enjoyed! Remember fly dangerously!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I Want to do Bad Things to You

What a week.... I enjoy target rich environments as much as the next guy- but sometimes I just end up scratching my head. Something must possess worm hole players to do things that no other EvE player would think about. For example: If you are walking out of a building and the person if front of you is killed by a sniper- would you

A. Keep walking Forward and forget about it
B. Run back into the building and hide
C. Stop and don't move

Well I am sure that some of you smart people are thinking obviously B. Sadly you would be wrong. Because as me and my corpies found out earlier this week- it seems that A is the preferred method of the worm hole bears. I should stop myself now and fill you in on the insanity.

The day started like any other: I was chilling out in my frig cloaked up in a safe, running a D scan ever so often- and shooting the shit with some of my corp members. We were just joking about your typical 'mom jokes' when I noticed a sleiph on scan. This spiked my interest- so I ran a quick ship scan and narrowed him down to a near by combat site. The sleiph was making short work of the sleepers, and finished the site quite quickly. He moved on to another, and another! For a total of three sites. He never touched the wrecks and seemed to be content just to blitz through the mindless sleeper drones. After the third site he took off to a K162 that had opened in my C2.

I waited for him to come back in the hole, and sure enough the hole shimmered and out popped a noctis. I followed him to the first site- which he quickly cleaned up, and then to the second, and finally the third. I must admit that this player was very quick and had a MWD fit noctis to expedite the process. Sadly for him, MWD's give that large indy a big sig boost. Couple that with my overheated faction torps, and you have a recipe for success :) What a nice paycheck. Sadly I was .0000000000000000001 seconds away from grabbing and ransoming his pod- and he escaped. This incident has finally been the push for me to max out my targeting skills >.> don't tell anyone. (No i have no idea why it was still at 4 either)

So i thought that would be the end of my activity from that K162 for the day. Thankfully for me- I was wrong. Dead wrong. Badgers are fun- but undefended badgers in a fleet are even funner :) Logging back online later that night, some of my corpies were telling me that they had witnessed 2 badgers, and a bestower move from the K162 worm hole (the same where the sleiph / noctis had come from.) So I took up the watch on the high sec hole with the rest of my corpies and waited for some fireworks.

We had barely enough to time to discuss the finer points on quantum mechanics when these rude indy pilots crashed our nice conversation by jumping through the hole. Like usual the hole shimmered, and out popped a badger... Again I have no idea why no one every waits out their session timer. I think that i have explained this again and again.... but waiting those precious 30 seconds is just too long of a time for our busy industrial pilots. So we gave him an instructional lesson. The loot that was dropped was quite nice :) My bomber corp loves getting free manticores :)

We figured that after this little attack, both the badger and bestower would call it a day and cut their losses. Sadly that would make too much sense. Just 15 min later another badger FROM THE SAME CORP came through the hole. Again the badger didn't wait of the session timer, so we blew it up. Along with his pod. To make things even better- we got the bestower and pod as well <3 What a day- my thirst for indy blood was quenched. 1 noctis, 2 badgers, and 1 bestower down- along with 2 pods. I call that a good day :)

Just a few days ago I made a kill that made a me have a small twinge of regret after all of the space debris had settled. I noticed a caracal on my dscan, with a few sleeper wrecks as well. It seemed that his daring cruiser was actually running a combat C2 WH site in a T1 cruiser.... it made matters worse when warping in on his site- I noticed that the pilot was actually quite young. It seems that he was warping in and out of the site when his tank was breaking. I watched him leave the first time, and by the second time I had ascertained his whereabouts. So the next time that he warped, I simply followed him.Now this is why bombers and bomber pilots are just ass holes.... Here he is at his safe away from a combat site that he had been working on for the past 45min. He was sitting here boosting his shield, thinking that he was in relative safety.

Sadly for him this was not the case. I uncloaked about 22K off him once i dropped out of warp, and proceeded to torp him to death. By the time I engaged he was in 50% shield, and only had 75% armor left. I was surprised to see him almost instantly lock me, and begin firing back. (At lest this new pilot was on the ball) Sadly for him it was far to little, and far to late. I killed him before he had my frig down to 25% shield. What happens next makes me feel even worse- I podded him. While I was shooting him- I actually felt a twang of guilt strike my cold black stone that is what's left of my heart. Even though he and his pretty T1 cruiser was dead- I showed him a very valuable lesson: DON'T GO INTO WORM HOLE IF YOUR NEW.

To wrap up this weeks blog I have a more embarrassing story to share with you all. So I saw two hurricanes on my dscan. Narrowing them down I found them to be at the high sec static of my worm hole. So i though hey- no prob I have a warp in point I can get on them and see what I am going to be dealing with. So I warped to the hole. The had just deployed a large bubble- and i was caught obviously. The funny thing is- I landed 800m away from the hole. Obviously I was decloaked- so i started to try and jump. When EvE tells me: Your book mark is still being placed or something- and it would not let me jump through the hole. Well the 2 BC's made short work of me with their auto cannons.... and then I was in my pod. I tried to jump through the hole again to no avail, and was put in my pod :(

I felt kind of betrayed about this, but hey what are you going to do? I sent a petition to CCP- but I doubt that they will end up doing anything over a little frig. Off well- murphys law I guess. You can't have everything go your way all of the time- I just feel bad for the hurricanes that killed me. I didn't drop any look of any significant value :(


The last thing that I would like to do is answer some of the Comments that some readers have been shooting towards me for the past couple of weeks.

The first is by Aktonn who asks:
     What about light drones? Don't they eat you alive?

The answer is very simple- Yes and no. The only real light drones that I worry about are T2 warriors. Everything else I can outrun, or does very terrible damage to me in my bomber. Because you bomber is a very agile and very mobile frigate- drones should just be able to drive you off, and never should kill you. If you are getting caught and actually hit hard by drones, then you need to get your navigation skills up- because out running them should be no problem.

So in conclusion-

Fly dangerously, and if you want to become an honorary P.I.R.A.T.E operative, send me a mail, and we will induct you. Also- Peek a Boo is now in the top ranked!!!! Yay! (Hope my spelling is not as atrocious in this blog post)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Glamour

Sorry about the long hiatus between this post and the last. As usual RL comes first for me, and I have not yet had the time to write. However I now find myself with a little bit of spare time, so I hope you enjoy my new tale.

As usual I hanging out in your average C2 worm hole. Me and my new corp had been camping this hole for some time, and we had started to make a dent into their PI. I was sitting about 20K of a custom station, and was simply waiting for our esteemed gust. He was flying a Bestower. Me and the rest of the corp saw him get into his trust hauler, and in order to try and catch him- each of us took of too a different planet, to lie in wait. The eve gods must have been smiling at me- because he came to my planet first. Once he loaded the grid- I gave the word, uncloaked and let my mjolnir torps fly. with all of my fleet members in warp I thought that this would be a normal run of the mill indy kill. But damn I was wrong.

My first round of torps struck his hull as I began my 20k orbit. His shield dropped instantly, and by my second volley- I was already into armor. Thats when things got weird. My torps suddenly hit a brick wall- it seems that this bestower was a legendary battle bestower and was armor tanked to the gills. Thankfully a few of my corpies landed on grid and began to help out with popping this care bear tank. We were about 50% through very quickly. I thought that things would finally go smoothly- but I was wrong. On my long range Dscan I noticed that a sabre (the SB greatest enemy) was suddenly warping to us. Not wanting to lose a bomber over a battle bestower I called for everyone to warp off, and then warp back in at range.

Just as we were leaving the field the sabre showed up, and sit out a bubble. I quickly warped to my safe, and turned around as fast as I could. I knew that the other guys were also coming back in at range. My hope was to hopefully try and finish off the bestower- as it was in dangerously low armor. Once I finally loaded the grid I was surprised to see the bestower slow boating back over to the customs office.... inside the dictor bubble. Now I don't really understand that logic, but becuase our target had decided to point himself for us- we orbited at 55K and well away from the sabre. Our next alpha took down the bestower.

The sabre took off, and to my suprise one of our corp members suddenly decloaked a rook! It seems that he had gotten to close, so I called the rook primary- and opened up on him. Sadly only one of us was withing point range, and the rook quickly jammed the one bomber in point range and took off in about 50% armor. As we were trying to loot the bestower wreck, the corp living in the hole suddenly decided to take an interest, and showed up in a rifter and drake. Sadly trying to kill of the drake was out of the question, but that was not the same of the rifter. The rifter was a new pilot- and it seemed that he was MWD fit :) How perfect.

I warped out and back into the field on range. I positioned myself about 90K away from the drake (and out of targeting range) and then i decloaked. I 'looked' at the rifter and aligned at him. The second I decloaked the rifter immediately turned, and burned at me. With his mwd going strong he was closing the 90K distance quite quickly. Once he got withing 60K i released my electron bomb- and bye bye rifter. Looking back on this fight- it's almost like I had written the script before even engaging. The rifter being a new character was almost 100% garunteed to fall for my trap- and as you know I love killing T1 frigs :) The best part about killing his rifter was that I took his ITTY 5 down a few hours later <3

So in the end it was a pretty fun day. I like working with bombs when I can get them- and killing cocky frigates is something that i take great joy in :) I can just never understand how people think that a bomber cannot be a threat to a frig- but hey no big deal to me. This just means that I have more targets.

Speaking of targets- there is one last thing that I would like to cover- and that would be holies, and the POS. Why is it that so many people spend so much time sitting in their POS doing NOTHING? Why do you log on just to afk, or just or orbit your tower? What is the point? I have seen so many holies do so many weird things..... Like take out all of the ships in their corp hangers, move them around the FF and then put them back. What is the point? Why? Me and many of my corpies have seen many weird occurrences. I am not sure if it is a form of deep space madness.... but if it is- remind me to never become a bear in worm hole space. It just does things to you man!

The other thing that I don't understand is why bears mouth off so much- but whenever I attack their mining barges, no one comes to try and help their poor old friends. Here is a list of ships that me and my corp have sunk all withing the same worm hole, and always when these roid munchers have not been the only ones online.

All of the kills below can be summed up like this: Me and my corps have the grav sites of this worm hole BM'd. So when we see something warp there- we warp to our warp in spot, slow boat within range then decloak, turn on point, fire torps and orbit. All the while we are slamming d scan waiting for reinforcements, that never come :( Listen bears if you see one of your own getting mauled by space wolves- don't go running tail between legs back to your pos. It looks embarrassing :(

Pod 1
Pod 2
Retriever
Sigil - LOL battle sigil
Hulk

I don't understand why the mining arm of a corp kept coming out to mine after the first kill. We gave them our service license, so they knew that we were around.... And the sigil was just icing on the cake. Why in the hell would you put half of those mods on a sigil? And ship can out run that fat indy ship... Good try bears.... good try.

Anyway that about covers our latest exploits. I hope that you enjoyed this blog- fly dangerously!

Friday, June 3, 2011

In the Trenches: Camping a Worm Hole

Well I left you last week with a rather exciting tale of the creation of Peek a Boo. I am quickly writing to let you know that we are still doing well. recently I have come into the possession of 41 1mn gistii B-type micro warp drives. If you are interested in purchasing one- msg me in game. Now moving on with the meat of today's blog post, and delicious war stories~

So again I find myself surrounded in hostile worm hole space. There are about 4 pos set up in system, and there is a fairly active group of holies that are logging on each day. The C2 worm hole has a high sec static, along with a C3. I was sitting and watching their most active POS, when I noticed that one of their hoarders was finally on the move. It warped to the high sec hole, and I decided to follow. When I dropped out of my warp and was surprised when I noticed that the hoarder was about 17k off the hole, and was slow boating in. I was about 30 off him at the time, so i uncloaked and popped his hauler. My overheated mjolnir torps made short work of him.

I grabbed his pod as well. Once the fireworks were over- I began to look at the hoarder wreck. Interestingly enough the hoarder was carrying 3 giant secure containers (GSC). I looted the wreck and left the containers alone. I decided to sit on the hole and watch and wait to see what would show up. (It is at this point that I curse my lack of understanding of GSC mechanics. Could I have gone out and changed the passwords these now jettisoned containers? To that I am not sure....) Anyway after a minuet or two an incursus.showed up at the hole. I quickly looked at it- and noticed that it did not have a single gun.... I thought this was strange considering that he was of the same corp of the hauler I just popped- so he must know that I was around. Now i knew that the incursus has a mean flight of drones, but being so close to the hole- I know that all I had to do was jump back to the high sec side- if the drones became too much.

With the incursus about 17k off the hole, I opened up on him. My torps were doing lulzy damage, but I was killing him all the same. He immediately came after me, and dropped two nos on me along with a SINGLE hobbie 1 (lol). His single drone didn't do anything to me and he too was quickly space dust. God what an awful fit. Listen carebears- if you are going to be in worm hole space, please realize that it is not your own personal eve server. Once and awhile you might have someone like me that comes and takes a dump on your isk machine. At this point i thought that after I had killed that fail fit t1 frig things might quiet down- and I could figure out what to do with those 3 GSC still sitting 10K off me.

I didn't have much time to ponder- as another member of their corp showed up in a cane, accompanied again by the same guy flying an incursus. Now normally I would not have a problem with engaging an auto fit cane. The simple reason is- an auto fit cane with all max skills cannot really reach out to 22/23K where I orbit. The only thing that was currently stopping me was the incursus. I still wanted to let them know I was around. So I warped out, and warped back in at 70. Once I dropped out of warp I took note of the cane (40k away so no threat) and the incursus which was 44K) I uncloaked and pointed my ship away from the incursus. He saw me immediately and started to burn at me. It was clear that he was MWD fit- and as my first torps collided with him he lost all of his shields. By the second torp impact he was close to 50% armor.

I was trying to kite him, and was overheating my MWD to stay well ahead of the T1 frig. He realized at this point that there really was no way for him to catch me, and he warped off. So with only the cane left- I started to slowboat back twards him, and possibly drop some torps on him as well- to see if there was any way I could also drive him off. Sadly I only had one torp leaev the tubes when a drake shows up. Again- he was from the same corp- and sadly he was heavy missile fit (damn pve drakes). I was driven off the field- and had to simply watched from a cloaked position- as they had another bestower come and pick up the GSC.

Now I ask you my reader community- could I have anchored / reset the passwords? I didn't know so i really didn't try not like I had much time lol t1 frigs, canes, and drakes everywhere!) Anyway we are jumping forward a bit in time here- but last night I almost fell out of my chair from laughter. again i was watching their most active pos- and noticed a drake outside the force field, along with a punisher and a hawk. The punisher was shooting the drake / testing something.... honestly I have no idea. The hawk was just there lol. (I really wish that i had a bomb becuase one corp mate and I could have dropped two bombs- and had some nice kills.

Here is where it gets interesting- the drake pilot is a member of the alliance of the POS corp- but not a member of the corp. So when he shot 1 volley of missiles at the punisher- all of the pos guns suddenly opened up on him. He tried to run- but was scrammed. So by by drake! Now as soon as the drake popped- a hoarder started to slow boat out of the pos (to clean the wreck i suppose). again I wished that me and my corpmate had a bomb- as the hawk and punisher along with the slow boating hoarder were all sitting withing 15k of the wreck. So i made due- once the hauler was close- I uncloaked and shot the wreck- blowing it up right in front of the haulers eyes :)

that was the perfect end of the night for me :) again and again these carebears struggling to figure out how to defend their worm hole have given me great joy. Their bumbling around is a constant form of entertainment for me and my pack of frigates. I enjoy how outgunned, and out manned- we are still here kicking ass, and pissing them off at every turn. I hope you enjoyed this blog.

Fly Dangerously!