Nobody Expects THAT Kestrel & Incarna, Missing the Point

A double topic today. Firstly....


Nobody Expects the Armour Kestrel!

I generally fly with armour and gun implants in my head. That makes my implants pretty useless when flying a normal fit Kestrel. But I am a fan of mixing it a bit to surprise the enemy. I've previously shown armour Thrasher fits, but taking that a step further we have the armour Kestrel.

Now this can be either light missile kite or close range rocket. The trick is to squeeze a 400mm armour plate in there. Generally you can do this with a 400mm Rolled Tungsten Plate and a Micro Auxillary Power Core in your two lows. Mids I go for long point, MWD, target painter and sebo for the light missile fit. For rockets I go scram and web. Now any normal person who see's a Kestrel will assume its shield tanked. In fact if you come across me in one, it probably is. I love the medium shield extender+rocket fit Kestrel. However sometimes I will undock the 400mm plate version. Any normal player who see's a Kessy in low shield and immediately assume its going down. Then they get sloppy. Suddenly they find they have a extra 1050hp++ to crew through. Oh and most players will have loaded EMP ammo to fight a Kessy, right?

Mixing up your fits is a great way of killing. I don't know if this Firetail pilot looked at my killboard like I do. When I find a lone war target in a system and he's in a plex I'll look up his loss history whilst in warp to the plex. I'll compare his last few losses of that ship type and load the appropriate ammo. If its near to home I might even reship/refit. Some players use the same fit with the same ammo all the time. I'll just bring the ship/fit to counter what they are probably using. If the guy did that to me he'd have seen my last few Kessy losses were MSE and probably assumed that the ship I was in was the same fit. Bad mistake to assume in this game!

So whilst an armour tanked Kestrel might make people go WTF? Don't be too quick to judge. If its taken you by surprise, it may take your opponent by surprise!

-o0o-

Incarna, Missing the Point

This has been a draft post for over two weeks but not had oppertunity to post it, as we're a month past Fanfest and it refers to that I need to post it. Also since we appear to be in the pre-expansion lul and the Caldari Militia is over-run by farmers who get REALLY annoyed if you chase them from system to system, might as well use it whilst its quiet..............

I do feel the summer of rage post Incarna has had it's message diluted. A post-Fanfest post on the Eve-O LinkedIn group, referencing comments made at Fanfest, again suggests that CCP feel that we need 'meaningful avatar gameplay'. People are forgetting what we were mad at, and tend to think the rage was directed at the idea of Incarna. It wasn't.

Generally most people wanted Incarna. Remember the 2009 ambulation video? It got us all worked up in a good way. Then Incarna was released. The problems were not the idea of 'walking in stations' but:-

1. Forcing us to use the CQ with its slow loading times and poor and cumbersome UI. This was especially bad for quick re-shipping. In short, loss of the hanger view (and ship spinning ofc!).
2. Just the Matari quarters. One small box room with bad lighting and rust does not an expansion make!
3. Melted graphics cards. I canny doooo eeeet Captain. I don't have the poooower!
4. Neglecting FiS for 18 months for THAT!
5. AUR being potentially used for pay-to-win.
6. The leaked 'Greed is Good' internal newsletter. Who can CCP be greedy with? Us!
7. Hilmar's leaked HTFU email.

All these combined to cause the riots and unsubbing. Then, as is human nature, the masses started saying "Well I never wanted Incarna in the first place!".

The majority of players wanted Incarna before the expansion itself. It is just after the mess that was the "expansion" has tainted the original idea.

So CCP, let's not neglect FiS but lets get a decent Incarna deployed!

It does not need to be 'meaningful'. Where have you got that idea from? Did we want anything meaningful before Incarna?

Have you already forgot the issues with Incarna? Take ship spinning. Did you reinstate 'meaningful' ship spinning?

Like ship spinning, something does not have to be meaningful for us to enjoy it.

How to Remove Your Bounty in Eve Online

A reoccurring search phrase that brings many people to this blog is this question....

"How do I remove my bounty in Eve Online?" or "How do I get rid of my bounty in Eve Online?"

Whilst different people Google slightly different phrases, they are all looking for the same thing. Someone has put a bounty on them and they want it removed.

Whilst many will tell you "You cannot remove a bounty", that is not 100% true. There is a way to remove that bounty and thus remove that horrible 'Wanted' tag from your in-game portrait if you want to.

How do I do this you ask? Well its rather simple and totally legit. It is not an exploit and won't get you banned for EULA violations. Its a simple use of the bounty mechanics that allows you to get rid of the bounty that someone has put on your head.

You will need a decent ship, a full cargo bay and a course plotted to the system of Nisuwa in the region of Black Rise. This system is inside low-sec so you will need to be careful getting there.

The ship you need for bounty removal depends on the size of the bounty on your head and what you can fly. A Strategic Cruiser is usually a good choice although anything expensive will do. You need to ensure that the cost of the ship is many times more than the bounty that is on your head. This can be easily achieved by using faction, deadspace or even officer modules in your fitting. If you are still not there, as a second option, you can fill your cargo bay with expensive mods and implants. Blueprints are a good choice as these can be expensive and take up little room in the cargo hold if you are struggling for space.

As a rough guide, you need the value of the ship, modules and cargo to be at the very minimum five times the value of your bounty. So if someone has put 100m ISK on your head, your fitted and filled ship needs to be valued at 500m ISK and over.

Sorted that? Good. Now you need to get to Nisuwa. I would recommend avoiding OMS, Heydieles and either side of the Rakapas/Pyne gate which are all pirate gate camp hotspots. Nourukaikan-Tama-Kedama-Nisuwa is a direct route that takes you from the 0.7 of Nourukaikan through two low-sec systems into Nisuwa.

Once there you need to warp to the sun at zero. After you have landed type the following in local:-

"I have a bounty on my head and Drackarn said if I wait at the sun in Nisuwa at 0 in an expensive ship, someone would help me remove it."

Then all you need to do is wait. You can use this time to go make a sandwich or take a long bio break. Hopefully one of the expert 'Bounty Removal Team' that live in Nisuwa, such as myself or one of the other QCats, will attend to your needs whilst you are off doing other stuff. If you have the sound on your computer turned up and can hear low shield, low armour and then low structure alarms going off, don't worry. This is all part of the bounty removal process so no need to panic. Just sit back and enjoy your sandwich.

When you finally get back to your computer you should find yourself automatically back in your home station (no need for a return journey, that's included in the service) and that pesky bounty has gone!

I hope you find this quick guide to getting rid of your bounty in Eve Online useful and please, tell all your friends.


P.S. Now update your clone!


P.P.S....

The Outpost - Part 1 (Horror Fiction)

This story is inspired by a horror novel I'm currently reading. Like many of my past pieces, this came from one of those - "How could this story, set in modern day Southern USA, be set in the Eve Universe?" moments. I had an idea! Unfortunately I was in bed at the time so had to get up to make some quick notes. The wife asked me what I was doing and I said I've had a great idea and need to write it down before I fall asleep and forget it! She simply replied "It's about Eve isn't it?".

Eve, my mistress of pleasure!

This was going to be a 'three parter', but it was suggested to make it into six parts. 10-15 minute reads are 'coffee break sized' apparently! It is certainly more of a horror story than I've done before. PEGI-12 it is not (although nothing 'bad' happens in this first part)! If you've ever read Richard Laymon, Edward Lee or Brian Smith (the new author I am reading who gave me the idea for this story) you'll have an idea of what is to come.


The Outpost - Part 1

Five of the crew stood around the chart table in silence. The dull glow from the projector mixing with the dull glow from the emergency lighting gave the room an eerie feel. The silence was deafening. On most starships it was almost impossible to achieve total silence like this. Reactors, ventilation and even idling engines created an ever-present drone. But not on this ship, not now.

"So that's the situation. The 'too long, didn't read' is that the primary coupling on the reactor blew. The reactor is dead and we cannot restart it. Also the explosion sent shrapnel flying and has pierced the outer hull. We're leaking O2. With no reactor, all we have is our capacitor which is slowly draining. This is mainly because I thought given that we need to breath I'd better keep the life support switched on for a bit. The capacitor we have is good for one 45AU warp. Which is a bit of a shit as the nearest gate is 52AU. We're deep in null-sec in a dead-end system that has no settlement and pretty much never has any visitors. So, options? And please, none that involve drinking whisky until we all pass out. I've already got the rights to that plan."

The crew just stood their in silence gazing at the system chart. Each knew the captain was right. They'd gambled everything on the big pay-off and failed. They had pushed their beaten-up frigate too far in search of the big mother-load and had paid dearly for it. 'The Hope' was a salvaging frigate. Designed to work in deep-space scanning down wrecks and taking anything valuable. They had, as a crew, decided to head into nullsec. They were tired over fighting the competition over every bit of scrap metal in Empire space. Here there was the opportunity to hit the big time. But a couple of hours ago there had been an explosion. The reactor was maintained as well as it could be by the ships engineer, but with no money for replacement parts there was only so many times the repairs could be bodged. Their luck had finally run out.

"So what do we need to fix the reactor?" asked Riku the pilot.

Hiroto the engineer looked at him and shook his head.

"Technically it is fixed. I suited up and went back there for a look. Thankfully when the coupling blew it didn't do much damage to the reactor itself. I've jerry-rigged the coupling so it should be OK now. That's not the problem. The problem is to online the reactor we need a capacitor level of 95%. That's why you never offline a reactor unless you are docked at a station or doing it in a very controlled way such as next to a carrier. Our capacitor is 72% and dropping a percent every 50 minutes as life support drains it. In 60 hours, we're out of power."

Again the room fell silent. Each of the five crew members lost in their own thoughts. The captain craned his neck over to the far corner where a lone crewman was say cross legged on the floor using a datapad.

"Hey Chan. You going to contribute here or are you writing your own obituary on that thing?"

The Caldari man looked up and smiled.

"Well captain. I thought you lot had enough negative vibes for all of us. I thought I'd just sit here and come up with a way of saving all of our asses."

Chan sprang to his feet and walked over to the chart table. With a wave of his datapad he transferred what he was working on to the main chart table.

"OK" said the captain "What are we looking at?"

"Asteroid belt 4-1. You see that glowing dot there? It's a power source. Its faint, but its there."

"How the hell do you know that?" asked Hiroto.

"We still have our scan probes out. I was able to scan down that energy reading."

"Are you fracking insane!" roared Hiroto "We're running out of juice and your busy playing with the sensor array!"

The Captain shot Hiroto a look that instantly silenced him. He turned to Chan.

"So what is it?"

"I don't know" admitted Chan "But whilst it looks weak, I'm not sure thats right. I think its a large reactor of some kind."

"Go on" said the captain.

"Well the reading is faint, but the signal itself is distorted. I think there is a reactor is deep inside something. At a guess its inside one of them 'roids and the amount of rock surrounding it is causing the signal degradation we ses here."

"An outpost? Out here?" Natsumi the salvaging boom operator asked surprised. Like the rest of the crew she was Caldari. She was a tomboy and her slender body was hidden by baggy overalls. Her short hair was styled unisex. She could have looked stunning, but always looked boy-ish.

"Possibly." replied Chan. "Could be a hidden mining facility or lab. It could be a pirate base. Hell it could be an idling rogue drone battleship, you get them out here. I cannot tell you what it is exactly. Only that its the only thing in range that might save our asses."

"Or end them." replied the captain.

"Yes sir. But to be honest, we're all dead in about 62 hours. Do we sit here and get drunk or investigate the power source which might save us, or kill us?"

The room fell silent again. It was a few minutes before the captain spoke again.

"Well, this isn't a democracy, you all know that. But I ain't a man to decide your fates in these circumstances. In that asteroid belt there may be something that will allow us to restart the reactor and save us all. On the other hand we could be ripped apart by rouge drones, blown apart by pirates or mega corp security or find nothing, and have wasted 55 hours worth of energy on a wild goose chase. So two options. We warp head-first into the unknown and gamble everything, like we always do, or we sit here, get drunk and wait for death to come to us. Who is up for warping into the unknown for what might be the last time?"

All the crew members slowly raised their hands.

-o0o-

The Hope was in warp to the asteroid belt. The pilot and the captain were sat in the cockpit as the ship hurtled down the warp tunnel.

"Found anything in there?" the pilot asked.

The captain put his datapad down.

"Nothing. I've been through every database and chart I've got. Nothing references anything in this system that could be an outpost or base. They all say the same thing. Its an empty system containing lifeless planets and absolutely nothing of interest. The roids are poor quality, the moons have no worthwhile minerals. There is no reason for anyone to be here. Its a dead system. That's why we came, may be we could find something here that everyone else had missed."

The pilot made some minor course corrections. The two men sat in silence.

Throughout the ship the other crew members waited. Each imagined what they were flying into. Some held the hope that it was a small outpost with a welcoming crew who who would save them. Others imagined the worst case and a fleet of rogue drones descending on the ship and slowly tearing it apart.

The captains voice broke the silence through the comm system .

"We'll be dropping out of warp in less than 2 minutes. If any of you want to see first hand what kind of choice we made, you're welcome up here."

One by one the other four crew made their way through the ship. The Hope was an old frigate, much older than most of the ships operating these days. She had been a small cargo runner but had been stripped and refitted when Captain Takuma bought her. Tractor beams and salvaging modules had been fitted that could cut open derelict ships and remove valuable alloys, components and, when they got really lucky, cargo. A probe launcher had also been fitted so that the ship could scan down wrecks in deep space away from the normal space-lanes. That's where the real money was. Ships travelling off-grid tended to do so because they didn't want to be seen by the authorities due to their suspect cargo's They were also the ships most likely to be attacked by pirates and other criminals.

Slowly the crew assembled in the cockpit, standing behind the seated captain and pilot. The warp tunnel started to break apart as the ship slowed. The massive asteroid field suddenly came into view. Directly ahead they saw it. An outpost built into the biggest asteroid.

"Give me a wide tactical scan now." the captain ordered.

The pilot activated the scanner. Readings came up on the view screen.

"Nothing out there captain. No sentries, no defence fleet, no drones, no defence towers, nothing."

The pilot continued to work the scanner.

"No signs of life at the outpost either, although our scanners cannot penetrate far into the structure. Too much rock. No internal power showing either, the place looks dead."

"OK, take us in, nice and slowly. Keep broadcasting a hail on the comms, let them know we're friendly in case someone is watching."

The Hope slowly started approaching the station, manoeuvring around smaller asteroids and rock fragments. The station soon took up the entire cockpit window as they approached the hanger bay doors. The whispers between the crew stopped as the massive doors came into view. Three huge holes were visible, big enough to fly a cruiser through. It looked like they had punched in from the outside. The force of the impacts had buckled the outer doors.

"Riku can you get us in through one of them?" the captain asked.

"Sure thing captain. I don't know what made those holes, but I could get a Moa through them."

The captain spun his chair around.

"Chan. This place is looking less than promising. Its dead, and looks like its been that way for a long time. You sure about this?"

Chan stepped forward with his datapad and handed it to the captain.

"As you can see captain. Now we're closer we're getting better readings. There is a power-source active in there. Its buried deep, but its there and its active."

The small frigate slowly manoeuvred towards one of the massive holes in the hanger doors, passing through with room to spare. Suddenly there were gasps from the assembled crew. Inside the hanger the powerful salvaging lights from the frigate lit up the wrecks of a dozen destroyed starships. There was no evidence of weapons fire, it looked like they had been torn apart.

"Riku you seeing what I'm seeing?" asked the captain.

"I'm seein' but I ain't believing it. They look like old Albatross class transports. They ain't been in service in a hundred and fifty years!"

The crew craned their necks as the searchlights illuminated the massive hanger. The wrecked spaceships hung in the zero gravity, their backs broken and huge chunks of metal torn out of them. High above the hanger, the control room's windows had been blow out and the shards of glass hung menacingly in space, the light dancing off them as they slowly spun.

Riku slowly manoeuvred The Hope alongside a docking gantry. The powerful salvage claws grabbed the protruding deck and clamped on bringing the ship to a halt alongside the dock. He shut the engines down and the ship reverted to its emergency power state.

"12% on the capacitor captain. That's 10 hours before life support fails."

The captain nodded.

"OK everyone suit up. We're going for a walk!.

-o0o-

The six suited figures walked along the docking berth. Magnetic soles in their boots and small thrusters in their backpacks allowed them to walk normally in the zero gravity. The construction of the outpost was like none of them had every seen. It looked vaguely Caldari, but not like any of the outposts or stations any of them had been on. It was also lacking any of the State emblems that usually were always in view on Caldari installations.

"So...." the captains voices crackled through the comms system "Anyone like to make any guess where we are?"

"Well Captain. Given the Albatross Transports and the architecture of this place. I'd guess this is a Caldari outpost, constructed whilst they were still part of the Federation. It more than likely pre-dates the first Caldari-Gallente Great War." replied Sakuri.

She was the science officer on the Hope. Caldari by birth she had worked for a State Mega Corp before sleeping with the wrong Executive. She looked around the creepy hanger full of death and destruction. "Aren't you going to join us?" she whispered quietly to herself.

The six continued in silence until they reached the door at the end of the hanger. With the power down Chan had to use a portable power-pack to open it. The crew stood back in case there was any pressure behind the door. There wasn't, and the door slid back revealing an airless corridor that had a thick layer of dust coating all the surfaces.

"Emergency lighting has kicked on due to our movement, but its running on battery. No main power here." observed Chan.

The comms unit in the captains helmet bleeped as they continued up the corridor. His heads-up-display indicated Sakuri wanted to open a secure channel.

"Yes Sakuri, we're isolated from general comms, what is it?"

"Captain, I didn't want to alarm the others, but this corridor is hot. Some kind of radiation."

"How bad?" asked the Captain worriedly.

"It's OK. We'd need to be here a week to get any serious ill effects. A few hours of this won't even need meds, but I'd like to use them anyway when we get going, just in case."

"Understood." acknowledged the captain. The Hope always had a full stock of anti-radiation meds. Salvaging derelict spaceships often brought the crew into contact with radioactive environments so their medical bay was well stocked to cope.

Finally they reached a bank of lifts. The Captain looked at the list of floors.

"Well its Caldari all right, look at the text. We're on Deck 30, Command Centre is Deck 3. Engineering is Deck 50. Chan, Hiroto and Natsumi you head to 50 and see what the reactor is like. Sakuri and Riku you're with me, we'll check out the command centre. Stairwell is here people, hope you're all feeling fit!"

-o0o-

The three walked into the Command Centre after forcing the door open. Sakuri gasped at the sight. Mummified bodies were slumped at stations and on the floor.

"There is a bit of gravity here" the captain stated "We must be high enough that the natural spin of the 'roid is giving us a some."

The three walked around the large room inspecting the various stations wiping thick layers of dust from the computers. The Captain going straight for what must be the command chair.

"Chan, what have you guys got? Its long dead up here, and that applies equally to the computers and the crew we found." he radioed down to the other team as he removed an access panel from the side of the chair and started poking around in the circuits.

"Captain. You need to see this to believe it. Whatever punched through the hanger doors made it's way down here!"

"What do you mean made its way down there? It was the size of a cruiser! It hardly took the fracking lift!"

"No sir, it, well it burrowed down here. I'm shining a torch up a massive tunnel ripped through the decks. I'm pretty sure it goes all the way up to hanger. Reactor has been torn apart. Its totalled But that's been the case for a long time sir. This is not the energy signature we've been reading!"

There was a long pause.

"OK. All crew back to the Hope. I've salvaged the memory core from the command bridge. Lets find out what happened here and where that damn energy reading is coming from!"

-o0o-

Chan, Riku and Natsumi were the last ones back. They got into the galley on board The Hope to find wires snaking about the room with a vivid pink box in the middle. '3Dimensional Pleasure' was marked on the side.

"Oi! That's my personal stuff!" protested Riku "You can't go in my quarters and take my private stuff!"

"You can have it back once we're done. The captains memory core we salvaged is a holo-recorder. We need something to play it, and your mucky holo projector is the only thing we have that will work with this old legacy tech. So sit down and shaddap!" growled the Captain.

The crew assembled quietly in around the projector. Sakuri was hooking up the memory core via a small computer module to the holo box.

"OK Captain, I think we got it."

"Good. Play the last log entry."

The room went dark and the holo-projector lit up. Two 3D women appeared in a semi-naked embrace. The men in the room whooped and hollered. Riku held his head in is hands.

"Change the input" he groaned, embarrassed. Natsumi smiled at him and raised an eyebrow. He avoided her gaze.

The image of the two women vanished and was replaced by a Caldari man. His uniform was familiar to any Caldari who had studied history in school. He spoke in clear refined Caldari.

"Commanders log. Entry 1656. The station is lost. All crew are dead, or will be in a matter of hours. Our communications are down so my last hope is someone finds this recording and heeds my warning. Beware of the wormholes! At 09:05 hours this morning the science team visited the stable wormhole again and fired the test package through. A 10 gigaton fission warhead. Detonation was recorded and readings from our side of the wormhole collected to analyse later. They returned without incident. At 14:55 station time our long-range sensors identified three unknown objects. They simply appeared from nowhere. As they originated from the area where the wormhole is located, we assume that is where they came from. They immediately set on an intercept course to the outpost. There was no response to our hails. They dropped out of warp and advanced to the station. No life signs. We think they were some form of robot. A construct or craft controlled by an artificial intelligence They breached the hanger doors as if they were made of wood. Two began tearing through the ships in the hangers, they ripped the reactor out of a ship and moved to the next within a minute. The third ripped through our super-structure towards the main outpost reactor. It just tore through the decks like they weren't there. We lost hundreds in the de-pressurisation of the hanger and then the subsequent breaches as that..... thing..... burst through each deck in turn. By the time we realised where it was going it was too late. I ordered the reactor to be shut down but the sequence hadn't finalised as the intruder ruptured the containment field. Thankfully the reactor shut-down sequence had run sufficiently so it didn't go critical. But a massive pulse of hard-radiation was released. Everyone in decks 50 to 35 were killed instantly. Their flesh simply dissolved 35 to 10 received a massively fatal dose and were dead within minutes. Those of us in the top 10 decks, we've got hours, may be a day. We'll live the longest, but it won't be pleasant The doctor has made pills available to anyone who doesn't want to go through that. It is of little recompense but it appears the radiation pulse was as fatal to the intruders as it was.... will be... to us. The one in the reactor room was vaporised. The two in the hanger simply stopped functioning and dropped to the floor. Listen to me carefully. They came from the wormholes. We must not encroach into their realm again. If you find us, please let the record show my crew acted with bravery and honour Please ensure our remains are returned to our families. As well as the main station, there were several hundred working in the 'old' station when the radiation hit. The original mining colony that was based deep inside the asteroid. Our diagnostics that are still operational show the old reactor is still active and their life-support is functioning. However, the doctor informs me that even with the rock protecting them, the radiation dose will have been fatal, although it might take them longer to die from the effects. On the other hand they may be already dead, we just don't know. There is no way to reach them with the majority of the outpost now a vacuum. To be truthful, I don't know which of us has it better. What is a few extra days when there will be only pain and suffering?"

The room went silent. Sakuri went back to the console and entered new commands. There were murmurs as the now frozen image of the commander was replaced by a three dimensional schematic of the station layout. There was indeed a warren of tunnels and caverns deep inside the asteroid.

"Well ladies and gentlemen. We move out in 30 minutes. We're going to pay that old reactor a visit."


....to be continued.....

IT'S A TARP!

Tuesday night was terrible for Caldari Militia (Squids) targets. It was getting rather frustrating seeing system after system of blues. In the end I had to resort to laying a trap for a farmer just to be able to kill one. It wasn't a Wile E Coyote quality trap, but it was a trap none the less.

I found a farmer in Notoras and I was in a Cockbag Thrasher. I left system and set up on the out-gate (btw this isn't the trap, that would be too simple) and then asked if any corpie was free to flush him out. CPT CID said he'd do it, and took a destroyer to the medium complex. The Incursus flying squid warped away to the iHub. He went to another plex and CID chased him out of that one. He warped to the iHub again before opening a Novice Compound that destroyers cannot get in. He was spouting in local that CID is "wasting his time" and he'll not catch him and he should leave him alone etc. Hang on guys, I've got an idea!

I jumped Drackarn into the system and parked him somewhere. I then logged on my old militia alt on another account. This guy was my 'speed tanking alt'. Back in the day when I was a Goody-Two-Shoes +5.0, I used to take part in speed-tanking incursions into squid hi-sec. We'd get together 10 alts that were in the militia with us in ships that could do 4300m/s cap stable. We'd jump them into system and then set them off at full speed. The Faction Navy NPC would spawn and chase, but couldn't catch them. So once that had been done the 11th and subsequent pilots to jump in were free of NPC agro and could roam about freely to kill unsuspecting wartargets. We used to have some good fun especially in Amarr!

Anyway this alt is still in an Alpha clone (less than 900k skill points) and the only skills he has are navigation and for capacitor and propulsion fitting mods/rigs. I stick him in an unfitted Rifter and jump him into Notoras. Then I warp him to the plex. This could go brilliantly..... or fail.

The alt enters the plex in his unfit Rifter and there is the Incursus. He's 20km off so I lock him up and burn towards him. I say burn.... the Rifter has no prop mod... so really I sort of amble towards him.

This is the time the target should smell something fishy!

"AH! A war target Rifter. He's locked me! Mmmmm he hasn't pointed me though. Must be scram fit. But look at his speed! It's almost as if he hasn't got a prop mod fitted! Why would a ship with a scram not have a prop mod? Should I look carefully at his ship? Ooooo look. He's got no guns on that. It's a bluff! I can kill this Rifter and laugh at them!"

But it didn't happen like that. He simply ran away.

Now dear readers, the hundred million ISK question is this. Where did he warp to? Are you thinking of a location? Is it the iHub? Congratulations, +1 interwebz to you. Yes, he had decided why break with tradition? Warping to the iHub EVERY SINGLE TIME has worked so well in the past. Why not do it again.

And the second bonus question for you. What range did he warp at? We have such a nice selection in that dropdown menu. You can go to 0. You can go to 30, Hell, you can go to the ever popular 100! You know, mix it up a bit, keep people guessing. Have you guessed which distance he chose? That's right. He warped to 0.

Now, you may remember before I unleashed my 900k skill point alt of terror that I said I had parked Drackarn in the system. Last question for you. Where do you think I parked my Cockbag Thrasher? Yes, that's right..... at the iHUB.

The Incursus died in a hail of Republic Fleet Fusion and as the ship assploded, so did the "You're wasting your time" comments.

OK, not the most epic trap ever in the history of Eve, but I enjoyed it!

A Weekend of Killin'

Saturday I was on and off Eve most of the day. In-between other things I was solo roaming trying to find someone to shoot, which was harder than usual. The Caldari Militia (squids) were in short supply. I suppose this gives more credibility to the rumours that some in the Caldari Militia are paying 8bn ISK to a Merc corp to attack at least one Gallente Militia alliance. Anyway, here are the fights I had on Saturday.

Thrasher vs Corax
I was sat in a small plex trying to tempted some squids to come in and kick me out. I was set up at optimal on the warp in with my guns pre-overheated. After a while a Corax thought he'd give it a go. As I was in an artillery Thrasher and he was rocket fit I was able to deal some pain as he tried to close range. His MWD lighting him up like a Christmas tree.

Thrasher vs Incursus
Again I was in a plex when I got an Incursus on short scan. A Tuskers pilot entered the plex but I'd already swapped to RF Fusion as soon as I got him on scan. KM shows another guy on the mail, but if you look at what was in the Incursus' cargo hold you can guess what happened to Mr Tracking Disrupter!

Thrasher vs Bantam
I was bouncing around Kedama when I landed on a acceleration gate to find a squid Bantam just landing. Kaboom! Alpha'd him in one shot. He was completely unfit which begs the question what was he going to do inside the plex against the rat?

Incursus vs Incursus
Initially I went after this guy in my Thrasher but he ran. TBH who would blame him? Luckily it was in a system where I keep a small hanger of ships. I happened to have an Incursus there myself. So I jumped into that and went back. Nice 1v1.

Kestrel Vs Caldari Navy Hookbill
This was a big gamble. Could my little Kestrel take a Hookbill who was already set up in a plex? LEEROY JENKINS! I dropped from warp, pre-overheated by launchers and went to work. The Hookbill didn't fire back, 3 volleys later he woke up. I had a head start. But he was faster and was able to get out of point range and warp off in structure. So close to a great kill!

Thrasher vs Merlin
I reshipped back into my Thrasher and headed down the pipe where I ran into a Merlin. Pop!

Thrasher/Hurricane + Maller/Ferox vs Thrasher + Thorax + Vengence + Retribution
I was in the home station when I saw a few squids spike local. I undocked in the Thrasher expecting to find some frigates plexing. As I was D-scanning each plex trying to find them, they landed off station. A destroyer, cruiser and two assault ships. They immediately engaged and I docked up. I asked in Corp if anyone was active whilst browsing my hanger to see what I could use. Davlos undocked a Maller as I undocked a Hurricane. Unfortunately the squids were kitey and moved far too fast for my fat ass Cane. A quick U-turn caught the Thrasher, but I was not going to catch the others who had burnt off. They were plinking me from range so I deagressed and redocked in very low armour. I repaired, swapped my EC drones for DPS and undocked. In that time Davlos had swapped to a Ferox and got the Thorax into structure but it had got out of range. It's armour repper saving its green ass. With them pre-occupied with the Ferox, the Vengeance hadn't noticed I'd got close enough to double-web him. He went down leaving the flaming Thorax and the Retribution. They decided to 'call it a draw' and left system.

So seven kills and one draw for no losses. The number of war targets about was disappointing for a Saturday. On Sunday it didn't get much better pickings.


Some Ships vs Some Ships
I found a few squids in a plex. As I was solo and in a Kestrel I called in back up. We had two Kestrels and a Condor verses a Bantam, Tristan and Venture with a Rote Kapelle Taranis whoring on everything. As I went in first I got primaried and died, but I got on the Venture kill. The Bantam also went down as did our Condor. Draw

Thrasher vs Slasher
Next up I found a Slasher who died... horribly.

Thrasher vs Merlin + Corax..... which became QCats Thrasher Whores vs Corax
I was in a plex when a Merlin and a Corax started poking about. I got the Merlin, Bang!  But his mate in a Corax ran. I chased the Corax about a bit, whilst getting some more of the QCats in system. I caught him and got him kited. I shut off the guns to share the love as some corpies turned up.

Thrasher vs Punisher
Two squid Punishers had the gall to plex in Nisuwa! We chased them about but they kept bouncing. I warped to the iHub and sat there. After a minute one landed. Dat fit????

Thrasher vs Imperial Navy Slicer
I warped to a small plex where I had a IN Slicer and an Incursus on scan. As I landed on gate a neutral Rifter landed and entered the plex. I stopped. Three on one might be a tad too far. I kept spanning scan to see if one left. The Rifter suddenly turned into a capsule so I activated gate hoping to get the two frigates whilst they were still recovering. I landed to find a corpie in the Incursus and a very fast squid IN Slicer. The squid was too fast so I left them to it. After bouncing around the system for a few minutes I came back to the small plex to find an IN Slicer and Incursus still on short scan. I entered only to find it wasn't my Corpie in the Incursus but a squid! I was shocked, he was shocked and was able to warp leaving me alone with the Slicer who engaged. His kiting was too much for me and my shields were dropping fast. I stopped the guns and spent 10 seconds swapping from RF Fusion to RF Titanium Sabot. Now my armour was dropping fast. However the 20% increased tracking from the new ammo and the increased 20km optimal meant I was not plinking away at the Slicer but hitting him properly. By overheating the AB I forced him to approach by breaking his orbit distance. He popped as I was in 35% structure!

Thrasher vs Harpy
I was heading back in my smoking ship to duct-tape it back together when I saw in Corp Chat that there was a Harpy plexing next door to our home system. I docked, repaired and undocked before warping to the gate. The guy who had reported the Harpy went after him in a cruiser so I sat on the gate to provide backup if needed. The Harpy warped to a small plex which the cruiser couldn't enter. So I jumped in and went for him. He was off the warp in when I arrived inside the plex and he warped back to the medium. I gave chase and pretty much landed on top of him. This time he engaged. However I was able to make range and hold him at 12km where his blasters couldn't do any harm.

Thrasher Vs Thrasher
I saw a Thrasher plexing in our home systems. A quick look up on the KB showed they liked shield/AC fit. So I went for armour/AC and went to the plex. They engaged and fired RF EMP repeatedly at my armour tank. Pop!

Caracal vs Slasher
I was actually after a Hawk but he got away. The Slasher engaged.... and died.

So over the weekend I had fights whilst I was flying a Kestrel, an Incursus, the different Thrasher fits, a Hurricane and a Caracal.

In total 16 kills for one loss. Happy with that!

A Quick Look at Odyssey on SiSi

This is post two of two for todays special "double header". My usual Fan Fiction Friday entry is posted below this one!

On Wednesday night CCP uploaded a raft of Odyssey changes onto the test server. These are listed below from the Eve-O forum thread. Those tagged with ** are ones I looked at and have blogged about below.

Team Five 0 - Sensor Overlay**, Tags for Security status**, Resource re-balance, POS improvements.

Team Game of Drones - Pirate Rookie Frigates**, Skill Changes to every ship in the game**, If you could fly it before you can fly it now**, Destroyers and Battlecruiser skills were split into 4 racial variants. Users can expect to be in ships for which they do not have all prerequisite skills**, Skill reimbursement will apply in certain specific scenarios**, New Navy Battlecruisers**, Tier 3 Battlecruisers rebalanced (now Attack Battlecruisers), Cruise Missile Changes**, Large Energy Turret Changes, Tier 1 Battleship rebalance

Team Pony Express - System Transitions**, Radial Menu**

Team Superfriends - Seven probes launched at once, Scan Probe Formations, Probe Scanner window changes, Deep Space Probe removal, Survey Probes in their own group & have their own launcher, Salvaging mini profession sites have all been removed, Astrometrics skill changes, Exploration site signature changes, NPC spawns are removed from mini profession sites, New Decryptors in hacking sites, New Capital Rig BPCs in Archaeology sites, Personal Hangar Array

So below is what I sampled in my first go:-

Sensor Overlay
Awesome! Just awesome! As you undock or jump the sensor sweep is conducted in a visual form. Think of it like a 3D radar sweep that visually sweeps around a bubble several hundred kilometres from your ship. Ah feck it, too difficult to describe, here are 4 screenshots in rapid succession to show it!

Warpable objects like faction war plex show up green crosses and scannable objects as yellow. You can still click the scanner button, but now you have a choice of four options on a radial menu.

Top options turns the in-space visuals on or off. The other three buttons are simply the old direction scanner, system scanner and moon survey which used to be one window with tabs. Nice and easy now.

You can mouse-over signatures in space and it gives you further options as well as scan strength if its not warpable

Tags for Sec
Obviously you'll need to collect several of these to be useful. I fitted a Navy Hurricane, more on them in a bit, and undocked and warped to the top belt in my home system. Guess what I found!

Yup first belt and we have one of the new rats in a Gila-ish ship. My Hurricane kerbstomped him as expected and I got the tag.

I then did all connecting systems and found only plain rats. Next day I searched seven low-sec systems and couldn't find any. They are fairly rare currently. I guess I got lucky in my first undock! That means these tags are going to be very expensive unless CCP up the spawn rate.

Edit - However, whilst testing the Navy BC's below I found another one..... in my home system..... in the top belt again! May be CCP set them to only spawn in the top belt. How awesome would that be? Want tags? You need to sit in top belt lol!

Pirate Rookie Ships
Yes they are here. Yes they are rookie ships. No I'm not really interested in them! They look OK though.

Skill Changes and New Skills
Gone are the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills. The new racial varients are added and I'm jumped a few million skill points and have the new skills! MOAR LVL V L33TN355!

I could fly all destroyers and battlecruisers before, I still can. CCP did what they said on the tin here! But wait, what about the skill changes to other ships like Command Ships.

The Nighthawk now needs level 5 on the link skills which I don't have. My link skills are all 4's! But I could fly a Nighthawk pre-Odyssey.....

.... and I still can even though I don't meet the revised prerequisites!

New Navy BC's
Lovely! We have the old Hurricane back with a new camouflage paint job. But seriously, why have jungle camo in space? Anyway, I'm just happy to have the old pre-nerf Cane back.

Quick play with them (I didn't spend long thinking on fits, I just threw together simple PvP fits) and I found...

Navy Brutix. 1000dps blaster fit (void) with Hamnmerhead T2's. MWD. 64k EHP which jumps to 82k with active explosive hardener.

Navy Drake. 550dps out to 30km. MWD. Found CPU a bit tight. 77k EHP?

Navy Cane. 600dps with artillery and Hobs giving optimal at 17km. AB. 72k EHP.

Navy Harbinger. 720dps with IN Multi Frequency Hammerheads with 8km optimal. Scorch 24km optimal. 88k EHP.

Cruise Missiles
Cruise missiles have always been a PvE weapon with no place in PvP. Slow and easy to avoid very few serious PvP players ever used them. But now? Fast with a massive range and tweaked stats. May be we'll see a new breed of sniper BS? Who knows? 800DPS for a sniper?

System Transitions
For Sci-Fi geeks, this is p0rn! You're ship vanishes into the wormhole as before. Now the screen swings to look down the stargate (V3'd with distortion effects now) as it powers up. Lightning jumps from the gate and it fires you into a warp tunnel with more lighning effects before spitting you out at your destination system. AWESOME! NERD BONER!!!!

Those moaning about motion sickness. HTFU! Capsuleers don't have that problem, ordinary humans do! ;P


Radial Menu's
The radial menus have been improved a lot. A single click in space or on the overview highlights the object. Click and hold brings up the radial menu.

I also notice that the targeted object display flashes as the target is destroyed. Is that new?

So there are the bits I sampled. Like the pics? See the comedy one in there? Well when you try the new stargate transitions I challenge you not to hum the theme tune!

Na-na-na! Naaaaa-naaaaaa! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na 

Two on One

This is post one of two today in a special SC&S double-header. The next post, looking at the new content CCP uploaded to the test server two days ago, will be along in an hour if I can find another one of these special rats!

It's Fiction Friday! Your initial escape pod is here to how the QCats achieve something a little bit special on Eve's 10th birthday!

Still here? Well this story is basically told from the perspective of the crew of one of the two ships that tried to take me down Wednesday evening.


Two on One

The two starships glided through the warp tunnel at speed. Whilst they were both frigate class hulls, they couldn't have looked much different. The first was Caldari. Blue-grey steel in hard lines gave the ship a 'boxy look'. That was the Caldari way, functional. With never having to content with atmospheric flight and therefore air resistance, there was no need for a sleek and aerodynamic look. Some even considered the Hookbill ugly.

Beside it was its exact opposite. Sleek lines on a rusty red hull with wings that curved to the front and ended in wicked points. The Guardian Angels pirate faction had engineered the Daredevil to look menacing, and had succeeded.

The two ships dropped out of warp by the massive stargate. After only a few seconds both vanished into artificial wormholes and reappeared light-years away in a different star system.

"Systems 100% XO. Jump successful!" replied a bridge officer on the bridge of the Hookbill.

The Executive Officer sat in the captains chair on the bridge for the simple fact the captain of this ship would never sit there, ever. The captain was a capsuleer and was suspended in his pod deep within the belly of the ship. With this brain and central nervous system hardwired into the ship he could perform faster and more accurate Capsuleer ships needed less crew and performed better thanks to the Jovian technology of the hydrostatic capsule.

"Noted. I see we have another capsuleer in system. A wanted pirate. I think our captain is scanning for him now."

The Hookbill and the Daredevil sat by the inbound stargate as the ship sensors swept the system narrowing down the position of the pirate.

-o0o-

"There! The egger got a hit on a 30 degree scan. I'll be the pirate is in that Federation complex."

Deep in the engineering bay an older man was pointing to a view-screen A younger technician stared as the old timer explained the subtlies of deep space scanning.

The noise in engineering grew as the warp core came on-line The two ships gently aligned to the beacon and slipped into warp.

"Of course this ain't going to be easy. We've got two frigates, but that pirate, he's in a Thrasher. A Matari destroyer, tough ship designed for taking down frigates."

The young technician continued to listen quietly and watch the view-screen They had switched to the camera drones and could see the two frigates drop out of warp by a massive acceleration gate. The huge structure dwarfed the frigates, arcs of blue electricity ran down the length of the gate.

"Now this is the tricky bit. The Empires tend to set up their military stations in low-sec in deadspace pockets. Bits of space where warp drive doesn't work. Something to do with the subspace field. Whatever, it stops you forming a warp bubble if the destination is anywhere inside the field. You can warp out, you just cannot warp in. This makes defence of the area easier. When we activate that old gate there, it'll grab us and accelerate us to near warp speeds and throw us into the deadspace pocket real deep. Problem is it aims all ships at a beacon and we'll stop two to three 'K' from that beacon. If the egger wants a fight, he'll be set up at optimal range."

The young tech nodded, not taking his eyes off the screen as he saw their Hookbill align towards the heart of the deadspace pocket. A loud hum resonated through the ship as the acceleration gate grabbed the small ship and flung it deep into space.

"Steady lad, now we find out whether our pod jockey had made the right choice going in first."

The Hookbill decelerated fast and the two engineers looked at the overview. The Gallente military outpost was there, protected by a lone destroyer. The pirate stood out on the overview, highlighted bright red due to his security status with CONCORD.

"Great news! He's 50km off and making range. He obviously got us both on scan and decided to move away. Now we have the advantage."

The Daredevil appeared moments behind the Hookbill and immediately took off in pursuit of the Thrasher.

"Now this is the dangerous part lad. See the tactical readout here and the speed readings. That Thrasher has a microwarpdrive fitted. He's going fast, but not as fast as that there Daredevil. He'll close the distance and get a warp scrambler on it and a stasis webifier. That'll slow him down, then we catch up for the kill!"

The young tech took it all in.

"But won't that Thrasher be able to take down the Daredevil before we get there?" he asked.

"Nah, this will be a piece of cake. You see that Thrasher will be armed with autocannons. Our Daredevil will orbit at max scram range and therefore outside the effective range of his AC's." replied the old man.

"How do you know he's fitted with autocannons?" replied the boy.

The old man smiled.

"Experience lad. Look at his speed, we know he's got a micro warp drive fitted. Generally MWD's are used on boats with close range weapons like AC's that need to get in at point-blank range. Secondly, MWD's need a lot of power as do artillary cannons. If he was packing both MWD and top-of-the-line arties he's struggle with powergrid. Look, our Daredevil nearly has him!"

The two watched the tactical read out and saw the Daredevil was only 20km from the Thrasher. They looked on as fire spat from the Thrasher and directly hit the Daredevil. The tactical outputs showed the volley had scratched the Daredevils shields. However it also showed the Thrasher also had engaged him with a warp disruptor.

"Well I'd be! He is artillery and long point fit, what a strange set up with that speed! I would...."

The old man was cut off as the Thrasher fired a second volley. This time the Daredevil was closer and in optimal range of the 250mm guns. The tactical readout on the Hookbill showed the volley took down all of the Daredevils shields and the armour was down to 50%.

"Well sheeeeet." the old man said rubbing his chin.

"What is it?"

"No need to worry lad. That Thrasher has hit the 'devil hard but look here" he pointed to the screen "The Daredevil is now 2 clicks from the Thrasher and has shut his own microwarpdrive off. See those mircowarpdrives give you a great speed boost but the electromagnetic output lights you up like a supernova. The enemy tracking systems can hit you much more accurately when you have your MWD runnin'. Now he's in close and has shut off the Thrashers own MWD with a scrambler and also webbed him so he'll be going under 100 metres per second. Our Daredevil can then orbit tight at speed, where those big-ass arties cannot track and wait for us to catch up."

The young tech nodded as if he agreed but had a strange confused look on his face as the Thrasher fired again. This time it missed the small frigate.

"What is it lad?"

"Well. I understand what you just said, but looking at the tac readings here, that Thrasher hasn't slowed that much."

The old timer looked back at the view-screen in disbelief. He kid was right. The Thrasher had slowed but was still going very fast. In fact it was going faster than the Daredevil. It didn't make sense. The Daredevil had him webbed and scrammed. That Thrasher should have been almost sat still with all that ewar on him.

"Oversized AB?" the kid asked.

"Hur?" the senior was confused.

"I've heard about some eggers fitting cruiser sized afterburners to their destroyers. Particularly the Coercer, but the rumours are the Thrasher works too. They need ancillary current routers to get it to work, but they do fit apparently."

The old timer nodded slowly. It never failed to amaze him how even after all these years the capsuleers could come up with something new like this.

"So what will the plan be?" the kid asked eagerly, enthused as he had contributed technically to the conversation. The old man looked solum.

"Well our friend in the Daredevil now has two choices. He can activate his MWD and try and burn out of range. Other option is to sit there whilst the Thrasher makes range."

"What would you do?" ask the kid.

"If he activates his MWD the signature increase will mean those guns will be able to track him. One more volley and that Daredevil is dead. On the other-hand the Thrasher is now pulling away from the Daredevil. In a few seconds the increased distance will put the Daredevil in optimal range of those guns. One more volley and that Daredevil is dead."

The young tech looked at his senior.

"You mean....?"

Both men sat in silence and watched the tactical readout as the distance between the two ships increased. The Thrashers 250mm 'scout' artilleries roared again and the Daredevil vanished in a bright explosion. The speed of the destroyer fluctuated suddenly. With the destruction of the Daredevil the stasis webifier that was slowing it down stopped and its speed started to increase. Then it dropped suddenly. The Thrasher had been moving away from the Hookbill during the engagement with the Daredevil, now it had turned to face them. It's speed started to increase again.

"Now what?" the young tech asked.

"Well there is 50km between us. Our capsuleer has a number of tactical options in this situation and needs to choose one quick before that Thrasher gets within 24 clicks and points us."

Engineering vibrated as the warpcore spun up.

"And thankfully our captain has chosen the same one as I would have done. Now, we run!"