Bashed - Fan Fiction

At the weekend we bashed a POS and it's defending fleet (OK, so this was 3rd time and they'd spanked us twice before). Anyway this time it went better. We were not really interested in the POS, we just wanted the fight - http://sotf.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=12486389

I assume, like capsuleer ships, POS's have a limited crew in there to keep things ticking over. I wonder what it was like for them....

-o0o-

"What's the Stront levels now?"

"17.5 units remaining"

Chief Engineer Karlee quickly did the calculations in her head. Just over two and a half minutes before the fuel ran out and the shield reinforcement would be down. That would leaving just what was left of the standard shielding, which was already well hammered, and the control towers armour between them and whatever was coming.

"May be they won't come. They've been beaten back last two times they tried" one of the technicians suggested.

"Oh they'll come. And each time they try they end up knowing our tactics better than before."

A large crack sounded from above above followed by a shower of sparks.

"Re-route that conduit" shouted over the noise pointing at the now swinging cable.

As with any Minmatar construct, the large control tower had frequent maintenance problems. However currently they were having more than usual. 14 hours earlier an enemy fleet had turned up and attacked the control tower. It had taken a real pounding and the engineers were having to work hard to keep the systems running. That attack had stopped as the shields started to fail and the strontium clathrates reactor kicked in. This provided a massive boost to the shields and made them pretty much invulnerable. However, the reactor burnt fuel at a massive rate and once started it couldn't be stopped or refueled. You could only let it run it's course. The real problem was re-harmonising the reactor with the towers shields after refueling it. The shields needed to be above 50% to get the  strontium clathrates reinforcement reactor back online. Their shields were not even 20%.

"Spike in local."

"Friendly?"

"No."

Karlee rushed over to a console.

"They are here. 30 mixed battleships. Mostly Abaddons, few Dominix and the odd Megathron. No logistics though. They are in warp."

The engineering crew went over to the viewports in the wall. Through the shimmer of the shield they could see the fleet of huge battleships dropping out of warp.

"Yes! No logistics. Our defense fleet is going to rip them apart Chief Engineer, right?"

Karlee looked at the fleet. It didn't make sense to bring that sort of fleet without logisitcs.

"Well it...." Karlee suddenly stopped "Cyno!"

A bright red energy field was being projected from one of the ships. A cynosural field that allowed capital ships to lock onto the co-ordinates and use their jump drives to travel instantaneously to the location through artificial wormholes. Suddenly two Archon class carriers appeared in flashes of light. The engineering bay went quiet. The silence was interrupted by an alarm sounding.

"They are shooting one of the defense guns."

The engineering crew watched the battleship fleet engage the static defenses around the tower one at a time. The light show was rather spectacular. Laser fire lit up the space around the huge shimmering shield bubble. Some of the Minmatar battleships were launching torpedoes. The huge missiles slowly lumbering towards their target alongside the bright laser beams.

After 10 minutes the number of active guns achoured around the shields was dwindling. Karlee was checking the shield levels. Without a carrier or logistics of their own to repair the shield, it would take far too long for the shields to passively recharge back to 50%. The Stront reactor was not an option. The attacking fleet would need to be beaten back.

Suddenly the tower rocked. Sparks flew in engineering and one of the technicians who was working high on the conduit fell from the walkway. Karlee watched him fall as if it was slow motion, turning her head at the last moment. She still heard the sickening crunch as he hit the floor.

"Cheif, the good guys are here!"

Karlee looked out the viewport. The defense fleet had arrived. Whilst mostly consisting of smaller battlecruisers with some battleships, they had logistics which would repair the shields of any friendly ship under attack. The aggressors stopped firing on the the towers shields and turned their guns on the defense fleet. A massive fire fight started between the two fleets.

"Wow look at their Dominix's pop. This is going to be over quick" one technician shouted happily. He was right, whilst the defense fleet had smaller ships, the combined firepower was taking down the Dominix class battleships in the attacking fleet quickly.

"2nd Cyno!"

Karlee had expected this wasn't everything that the attackers were going to field and she hated being right. Two more Archon class carriers appeared on field, followed by another two dozen battleships.

"What in Divinities Edge are they!"

Karlee cupped her hands to the viewport to block out the glare.

"They are faction issue ships. Macharial and Navy Issue Apocalypse, they are battleships, but battleships with huge fire power."

As always, Karlee started to run the numbers. It didn't look good. The attacking fleet had too much firepower, and four carriers could issue significant repairs from range. Their defense fleet could not hope to target and destroy a heavily armoured battleship before the carriers had the remote repair modules activated.

The first engagement was short.

"The defence fleet is pulling back! They are abandoning us!"

Karlee knew she had to act fast, this could cause panic and crew could start abandoning the tower. Although the tower was mostly mechanised, the small crew was still essential to the running of the systems. Life on a control tower was cramped, there was less space than on a normal starship and the entertainment facilities were limited. But the pay was good and most only signed on for a 6-month rotation.

"They are not abandoning us! They will be going to reship. They need more firepower! There is no rush, our shields are still OK and we've got a full compliment of armour. There is plenty of time. We've got home-field advantage remember."

That appeared to calm the panicky engineering crew.

The crew watched the defense fleet return with Tornado class battlecruisers and some battleships. The fight went the same way. The enemy carriers kept their fleet alive whilst the awesome firepower of the 50 or so hostile battleships tore through the defense fleet one at a time.

For a second time the defense fleet fell back.

"Now they are retreating! NOW we're in trouble" Senior Tech Smyth sounded aggressive. Karlee knew this would be trouble.

"No. They will be re-shipping again and trying a different tactic. If I was the FC 'd be back at close range. Obvious their ranged fire-power is too great"

"Oh the grease monkey in charge of half a control tower is now an egger fleet commander!" Technician 2nd Class Smyth was a hulk of a man. Having worked in heavy engineering all of his life. He was also a known trouble maker.

"Exactly why are we still here waiting to die in the cold vacuum of space. Miss FC Sir? Why haven't we abandoned this doomed tower like the defense fleet has.... twice? You might want to die. We don't!"

Karlee didn't need this. Smyth was slowly approaching her, his chest puffed out. He was looking for an excuse. He carried a large wrench swinging loosely in his right hand. If he overpowered her the crew would run to the escape pods, the tower would certainly be lost. Karlee simply drew her sidearm at lighting fast speed and shot Smyth in the chest. He fell to his knees with a look of shock on his face before falling face first onto the floor.

"Anyone else?" nobody dared breathe "Good! Now come on people, we've been here before, lets hold it together! Nobody is going anywhere until the last possible second. We will keep this tower running!"

Karlee went back to the viewport just in time to see the defense fleet arrive for the third time. She was right, this time they had come in at close range, probably after refitting their weapons to something appropriate for such an engagement. After two minutes it was clear that the tactic wasn't working either. Even at that close range, the attacking fleet was still able to deal massive damage and the defense fleet couldn't break the carrier reps. For the third time the defense fleet pulled back.

The engineering bay went silent. All eyes were on Kaylee. She now didn't have anything for them. It was unlikely the defense fleet would try a fourth time. There was no point. The attacking fleet had superior numbers, superior firepower and superior logistics. The defense fleet had lost too many ships, the financial loss of the tower would pale into insignificance against the loss of ships they had already suffered.

The tower shook as the attacking fleet opened up against their shields. Another power conduit broke free. It swung down hitting Technician Marary in the back. Bright blue sparks flew as their body convulsed. The sparks ignited a gas, probably oxygen leaking from a nearby pipe.

The other crew froze in horror as a fireball engulfed the poor technician. Karlee rushed over to another console and rerouted the power and isolated the nearby oxygen pipes. The sparks stopped and the charred, blacked body of Marary finally fell to the floor smoking. Of the 12 crew in engineering, Karlee had lost two and killed one herself.

"Back to your stations! NOW!"

The Engineering crew paused.

"NOW!" she reached for her gun again.

Reluctantly they returned to their stations. Karlee knew what they were thinking. If the capsuleers had effectively abandoned this small outpost, they shouldn't they. The control tower had sufficient escape pods for all of them. But Karlee couldn't order the evacuation whilst the control tower still had some shields and a full compliment of armour, it wasn't in her nature just to quit.

She was trying to divert axillary power to the shields when she noticed movement in the corner of her eye. High above on one of the gangways a young technician was edging to an escape pod. She drew her sidearm for the second time.

"DON'T DO IT" she yelled. The other crew all stopped and looked.

The technician paused, he looked terrified, he suddenly bolted for the hatch. Karlee fired once and the shot caught him in the upper leg. He fell from the gangway.

Karlee never saw the large wrench swung against the back of her head.

40 minutes later she started to come around. She was laying on the floor of engineering face down. Her head was throbbing. She struggled to her feet. Engineering had been abandoned. Smoke and fires were everywhere. She looked at the console. Shields and armour had gone, and structural integrity was down to 34%. The tower groaned under the sustained firepower of the attacking fleet. She looked at the scanner logs, they showed nothing of any defense fleet returning whilst she had been unconscious.

See scanned the tower for life signs. There were none and this is not surprising. Whole sections of the tower had been depressurised and fires were raging in those that still had atmosphere. She checked the inventory, most of the escape pods had gone. She started to get worried. Karlee started to plot possible routes from engineering to the escape pods still remaining. Each way was blocked by fire, hazards or the cold vacuum of space. She saw there was only one she could physically get to, the escape pod in the engineering cargo room. However the radiation levels in the room were far too high. The uranium fuel stored there had been split open by an explosion. It would take her 20 seconds to cross the bay to the hatch. The radiation levels would give a fatal dose in 5.

There was another series of explosions as the enemy fleet continued to pound the tower. The structural integrity alarm went off. The tower was dying. Karlee considered her options. She could get to that escape pod, but she'd be glowing by the time she was recovered, a slow painful death by radiation poisoning didn't sound fun. She could just sit down. It would all be over in a minute. However death in the cold vacuum of space was supposed to be horrific. Lungs bursting, your outer flesh flash freezing whilst your blood boils.

"Option 3 I suppose" she said out loud with resignation.

She went to draw her side-arm but it was missing. The crew must have taken it in case she came around before they had got away.

Karlee looked up as she heard metal groaning and hissing. Far above her she could see the metal wall starting to deform and blister. Suddenly a huge shard of light broke through and disappeared. A hiss of escaping atmosphere was cut short as a containment forcefield automatically sealed the breach.

Karlee slumped down by the console facing the wall. Suddenly there were dozens of areas where the wall was blistering from laser fire striking the other side. She pulled out a cigarette, lit it and look a long drag.

Several sections of the hull gave way at the same time. Engineering was lit up in an array of bright light as laser beams criss-crossed each other. If Karlee could have seen it in all it's splendour she might have thought it was a beautiful ending.

-o0o-

Blog Banter 33: The Capsuleer Experience

Like mana from Valhalla (yes I know I'm mixing my religious metaphors), the latest Dev Blog by CCP Legion asks questions which make for perfect Blog Bantering. To quote him "...we want to make the first days, weeks and months in EVE enjoyable and not just something ‘you have to plough through in order to get to the good stuff’" and the newly formed Player Experience team will focus on "...where and why people lose interest in EVE...".

"We invite you to pour your heart (or guts) out and tell us what you think is good or bad with the current new player experience and what you think could be done about the problems."

Wow. It's been nearly 4-years since I did the tutorials! Lets have a loot at them now.... WTF!?!?! Where did all these come from?

Had a quick look at number 13 for the Caldari. Doesn't mention ANYTHING about cloaking devices and warp core stabilisers on Drake class battlecrusiers so pretty misses the point on how the Caldari fit their ships!

Anyway I had a quick look through and the NPE of 2012 is much different when I went through it last and climbed the infamous learning cliff.

So how do we make the NPE even better.

PvP

Eve is a unique game. Whilst you can catch up to my skills in a frigate class ship, it's going to take you probably best part of a year. Getting all your fitting skills (Electronics and Engineering) and the relevant ship and weapons skills to level five will take a while. You cannot grind XP you cannot power level. You just have to wait. Therefore the NPE is something ‘you have to plough through in order to get to the good stuff’. I very much doubt there is a way to get new players into the "good stuff" right away.

But it acceptable to tell new players this?

"Hi guys, welcome to the game. Oh by the way the PvP in this game is truly epic, but you'll be crap at it for the next year or so but please stick with it."

So what can we do? Probably nothing. It's the way the game works, you need patience. No quick wins here. You go into low-sec as a newb, you will die horribly. I found this and tried PvP many times and went back to carebearing before I had the skills to enjoy PvP.

Griefing

We cannot hide it, we all know it, Eve is full of nasty bar-stewards. Can flippers, scammers, fraudsters and general nasty people. There are "norms" in there and nice helpful people, but generally we have a lot of griefers.

I once used the analogy of a a first date to explain griefers....

Woman - So what do you do for fun?

Man - You know those sand sculptures people do on the beach...

Woman - Oh wow! You make them?

Man - No. I wait until someone has just finished one then I run in and kick it down.

Woman - WHAT? Why would you do that?

Man - Their tears are fantastic. They get really upset and they almost cry. It's epic.

Woman - Erm.... I just remembered I left the iron on. Be right back! /flee

In real life people would be appalled by this behaviour. In Eve, it's common place. But we don't mention it to new players. We don't want to put them off. How do we warn people about these issues and how not to get caught by the can flippers?

Lol Fits

The new tutorials appear to show you how to physically fit your ship, but not how to really fit your ship. Back in my first days I'd take a ship and fit some big guns for big enemies, small guns from small enemies and make your classic newb lol fit.

We need to show new players how to properly fit a ship rather than the normal way of people sticking random things on a hull because it "sounded a good idea".

I did a quick search for fitting a ship on YouTube and looked at the first one from the results. Player made guides like this are what new players need...

EDIT - Literally within the hour after posting this blog..... 9 day toon in Caldari Militia with THIS fit - http://sotf.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12483182

The Solutions

There are a few things we could do to improve the NPE.

• The whole game needs better explanation. ISK: The Ultimate Guide to Eve Online should be required reading for all new players. It's a great resource but under used.
• Explain to new players that they need to wait for PvP and rushing in will result in death, despondency and a loss of ISK. Promote the role of "tackler", perhaps the fastest PvP role to train for.
• Show how to fit a ship. Proper weapons layout, proper tank. Doesn't need to be detailed. Chose the right sized module for the ship, armour tank an armour ship, shield tank a shield ship and never, ever hull tank (even if you are a real man).
• Explain the popular griefing tactics (can flipping) and scams in game and how the mechanics work.
• Do more to get newbs to join a corporation, get on voice comms and learn from the vets. I would guess those players getting into a player corp early last longer than those who stay in a NPC corp simply because in a player corp you can learn from people.

The Conclusion

We have a big problem here. Eve Online is not about instant gratification. With Eve Online you need to invest time and patience to get anywhere. Of all the MMOG I've played Eve appears to have the oldest player base I've seen. Most in my corp are 30-something with wives and kids. Why? Because there isn't the instant gratification that comes with many games and therefore younger players tend not to stick with it.

We need new blood in the game. We need to make the NPE better. But we must not change the fundamentals of Eve to get there.

Turn it up to 11! Overheating in Eve Online.

Living in the desert and being a PvP player in Eve Online means I know a little bit about overheating.

First one is easy. Turn on the air-conditioner when it gets too hot and don't go outside for long in the summer.

The second is a little more complicated but can give you a real boost in PvP. In a previous blog here I listed several ways to give a major boost to your PVP abilities using neural implants, faction modules, combat boosters (drugs) and alts with warfare links. Overheating might be a minor and very short term boost, but it's a very important one.

Certain modules in Eve Online can be "overheated". Basically in a spaceship engineering sense you pump extra power into them to overload them. This does not affect your ships power-grid or your capacitor. Basically you "work" them a bit harder. Get them running at over 100% if you will. This causes three things, firstly the bad things - they heat up and as they overheat they take damage. The damage is to the module itself and does not effect your ships shield/armour/structure HP's. However, they do their job much better than when running normally.

To see what happens when you over heat a module simply have a look at it's info. Guns and missile launchers tend to fire faster, propulsion jamming mods reach longer, reppers rep faster, propulsion mods give you more speed and hardeners... well they harden a bit more.

In order to overheat a module you need the Thermodynamics skill. Each level you train reduces the overheat damage the modules take by 5%. Also T3's are good for overheating in as they have a bonus to overheat damage.

To overheat a module you can click the tiny little green bar at the top of the module icon, or now you can shift-click the button.

You can also overheat an entire rack (entire line of low, mid or high slots) with these buttons

As you overheat a module, the heat spreads to nearby modules. If they are overheating too, then the rate of damage they take is increased. Overloading one module will mean damage is taken much slower than doing an entire rack.

You can keep an eye on the temperature here....

And module damage is shown graphically on the module icon and also by hovering over the icon

It is possible, and is actually easy, to "burn out" a module by overheating it too much. In that case it'll go offline until you fix it at a station. Providing it's not totally buggered you can use nanite paste in space for a temporary fix between battles. To use nanite paste simply open your cargo bay and use the right click menu.

You can also "pre-overheat" modules by turning the overheat on but not activating the module. This way the module takes no damage as it's not running, but as soon as you do activate it it'll run with the overheated stats. Very useful for points when gate camping.

Overheating can win you a fight, it can also help you escape from a fight that is going south! It can help you catch a target you'd have missed otherwise but it can also bugger up your ship and doom you!

A nice example of overheating working well occurred to me earlier this week.

I was solo roaming in my autocannon Hurricane. I noticed a squid (Caldari Militia player) in local as I jumped into a system. He looked to be in a Ferox from the D-scanner. I bounced about a bit looking for him and we both landed on a gate at 0 together. What luck! He locked me up, I locked him back. Mexican stand off. I didn't know what his intention was.

Did he want me to agress so he could jump through the gate and run away with me unable to follow him due to aggression? (A typical Caldari response to a 1v1)

Was he thinking that's what I wanted to do and was waiting to see if I ran.

I didn't know, was he wanting a fight or me to make a move so he could flee?

Another squid entered system, I was outnumbered. The other squid landed on gate in a Manticore and jumped. Then he jumped back. I was still tempted, a stealth bomber wasn't a major issue. Then yet another squid entered system. A war-target Tengu landed on us, that was me out of there. I warped to a pounce off another gate and the Tengu jumped out, I wasn't about to get sandwiched on a gate. I went to the other gate at 0 and the Ferox had obviously followed me and was already there. Again we locked each other up.

Now, do I open up and hope that the Manticore and Tengu were simply mission-whores passing through and wouldn't be back. Or should I just say engaging in this situation is a bad idea with a Tengu and a Manticore possibly joining in?

Oh bugger it! FIRE!!!

I open up on the Ferox and he returns fire. We're both close range fit, my autocannons and heavy assault missiles verses his apparent full rack of blasters. As the fight starts it's obvious that my shields are dropping faster than his. Time to heat things up a bit.

I overheat my AC's and HAM launchers plus my invulnerability field. Suddenly I'm firing faster and therefore doing more damage (+15% extra DPS) and my shields have higher resists (+20% bonus). Almost immediately I notice a difference. My shields are dropping slower than before and his are dropping much faster. I keep an eye on the heat and module damage, toggling the overheat when needed. I start to get the upper hand and soon his shield is lower than mine. He pops as I'm in around 2% shield. A very close 1v1 between two fairly equal battlecruisers - and I won due to overheating. Without overheating he'd have won, no doubt.

Mutual gf's in local and I return the two jumps to station to repair the heat damage to my modules.

Overheating works and goes to prove that not all MMOG PvP encounters are shin kicking contests that are won by the guy who started with the biggest boots!

Bounty Hunting - Will It Ever Be Worthwhile in Eve?

There was a bit of a discussion on the #tweetfleet this week about bounty hunting in Eve Online along with a blog post from @Rotosequence here.

I think we all agree the bounty system in Eve Online is not fit for purpose currently. If someone places a big enough bounty on your head, what happens?

Do lots of elite PvP bounty hunter types come hunting for your head?

Or do you just jump in a blank clone with no implants, ensure your medical clone is up to date and then have an alt or a corp mate pod you and collect the bounty for yourself.

I think it was somewhere in the region of 3bn ISK that someone once put on the head of someone I know. Did some l33t bounty hunter collect that? No, because as soon as it was noticed he did as described above and arranged to be podded by a corp mate. Even if he had a lot of skill points, the medical clone wouldn't have cost more than 30m ISK probably. Yet 3bn ISK was received in bounty payments. A profit of 2,970,000,000 for the guy the bounty was supposed to "punish". If only Han Solo could have done this!

So how do we make bounty hunting worthwhile. How do we make it into an activity in Eve Online that players can choose as a profitable "career".

This is not easy. How do you make it so that a decent bounty is not "claimable" by the person you want to punish?

Percentage Payouts on Clone Value
One suggestion is to make the bounty a pool of money and each time you pod the person you get a sum from the pool equal to the value of the destroyed clone and implants. This immediately stops people from podding themselves for the reward as it would lose them money if the payout was just under the value of the destroyed pod. However, a "good" payout on just the clone of 30,000,000 ISK (if your target was 100-120m ish SP) is not going to entice anyone to put a lot of effort into hunting your target down. The only way to make cost of clone based bounties viable would be to also base the payout on destroyed implant value. Still, that's never going to be a great amount unless they have a high-grade set in. Then there is the issue of you never know what clone the target might be in at the time. You might waste a lot of time and get minimal reward as they were in their 0.0 clone at the time. In the end it would come down to luck. I personally have four clones, if you pod me the chances are it'll be a 120m implant clone (+4's and a PG4).... that's if you can catch my pod in low-sec. In bounty terms I'm never going to be really worth coming after.

Just looking at our own Kill Board, the values in ISK of our last ten capsule kills are 0, 0, 0, 109m, 0, 0, 72m, 0, 19m and 36m. So the average value of a pod in Black Rise (low-sec) on that somewhat overly simple calculation is 23,600,000 ISK. With a clone grade of Tau (120 million SP kept) which costs 30m ISK you'll on average get around 55m for killing bitter vets with a bounty on their head in Black Rise. With all the hassle of hunting your target, laying in wait, etc etc is the career choice of Bounty Hunter worthwhile? No.

Percentage of Payouts on Ship Insurance
One idea I had was to make bounties a percentage of the insurance payout of the hull you destroyed. Therefore if you pop your target and he's in an Abaddon you'll get 130,000,000 ISK from the bounty pot (at current ish rates). However thinking about that, along with his own insurance he could get corp mates to pop unfitted ships to make money (His insurance payout plus bounty = mucho ISK compared to loss). So that idea doesn't work at all as it would be just the same as now with people getting alts and corp mates to pop them to claim the "reward". So my idea is utterly crap.

In fact, almost any payout that is of a sufficient value for people to care about is open to abuse. Once you have rewards that are worth claiming and thus making Bounty Hunting a viable Eve "career", the value will be more than that of the ship or the blank clone of the target and therefore makes it worthwhile for the target to get a corp mate to pop him.

I don't have an answer to this. In fact I'm not sure there is an answer. Can the bounty system be changed so that it is worthwhile yet doesn't hand free ISK to the person you wanted to "punish"?

Do we accept that "Bounty Hunter" will never be a worthwhile career in Eve Online and the best we can hope for from the bounty system is to give someone a minor reward for killing someone (who they would have killed anyway) that you don't like.

Anyone else got any ideas? How do we "sex up" bounty hunting. Oh.... wait......

P.S. Who put a 10m ISK bounty on Drackarn's head? Seriously, who is going to come after me for that!

P.P.S. For those who are wondering if the previous blogs planned Valentine's dinner went OK. Yes, yes it did! Was quite proud of myself, especially the lobster!

Valentines Eve...... Online

Well, February 14th is nearly on us! Time to reward the Eve Widow for letting me lock myself in a dark room and play Eve Online far too often for the previous 364 days!

So in the first ever, only-partly-Eve-related SC&S blog (don't worry I'm not planning any more of these), here's the dinner I will cook for the "Trouble and Strife" in order to get another 364 days of Eve Online without too many complaints.

I'm a civil engineer, not a cook and certainly not a chef. Most of the below is inspired from Jamie Oliver and his latest book or Masterchef on the TV! However, cooking a great meal isn't rocket science nor is it Amarr Titan level 5. It's fairly easy to cook a meal that your wife will go "Wow!" and let you play important internet spaceships in peace over the next year!

Also I don't really tend to measure or weigh things a lot.... I just bung it in until it looks/tastes right. As I keep telling the wife... experiment!

Starter - Smoked Salmon Blini's
I plan to go quick and easy on the starter. Don't want to do too much work! This is quick and easy to make, takes no time at all and tastes great.

- Smoked Salmon
- Packet of cocktail blini's (thin toast will do) or make your own here.
- Sour cream and chive dip.

All the above should be available from your local supermarket. If you are in the UK, Sainsbury's used to do it all. Simply heat the bleni's in the oven whilst cutting the smoked salmon into strips. Take a bleni, put a dollop of sour cream and chive sauce on it, a few strips of salmon on top of that and sorted! A squeeze of fresh lemon gives it a bit of extra zing! Very quick and easy to make, but looks like you spent a lot more time than you did!

Main - Posh Surf and Turf.

The Turf
- Half a beef fillet (400-500g ish)
- Oil and butter

Pre-heat your oven to max. In a large frying pan, heat some oil and butter and sear the outside of your fillet. Then lob it in a roasting tray stick it into the oven for 20 minutes. Once it's done take it out, cover with tin foil and leave to rest for 20 minutes. Easy!

The Surf
- Whole lobster
- Fresh dill
- Red chili
- Tablespoon of peppercorns
- 2 lemons

Butter for the lobster
- Melted butter
- Juice of 1 lemon

I get ready dead lobsters here, less messy. Take all the ingredients and put them in a big pan of hard boiling salt water. Halve the lemons first, squeeze the juice into the pot and place the lemon halves in too. Lower your lobster in whole (careful, boiling water is boiling) and cover the pot. After 5 minutes turn off the heat and leave for 15 minutes.

Take Mr Lobster out (be careful, obviously he's ****ing hot) and get a BIG knife. Place the knife in the centre of the head and stab the bugger down. Bring the knife down and cut it in half. Finish off the other way so you slice him in two length-ways (be careful that is all you slice in two!). There may be a vein running along the middle, just remove this with your fingers. Then remove the stomach sac from behind the eyes. Jamie Oliver's video here shows you how to cut 'em up and what to remove. To be honest, you're best off watching that!

Brush the exposed flesh (giggity) with the melted butter mixed with lemon juice and the jobs a good un.

The Sauce for the Beef and Chips
- Egg yoke
- Butter
- Tarragon
- Shallot or small onion
- 3 peppercorns
- White wine vinegar
- Water

Melt the butter a sauce pan whilst you fry off the finely chopped shallot/onion. When the onion is cooked, place it in a blender with the egg yoke, the tarragon and peppercorns. Blend! Take the hot butter and little by little add it whilst blending. Don't do it too fast or too much at once as it'll separate. See the BBC link to do it properly :)

Chunky Chips
- Potatoes
- Deep fat frier

Peel the spuds, and cut into chunky chips. Place in a large saucepan of boiling salted water and boil for a few minutes until the outsides start to go soft. Take out and leave to cool. Set the frier to low (170oC) and cook for a few minutes and take them out of the oil. When you are nearly ready to serve, whack the frier up to max (190oC) and crisp them up.

Veg - Who cares
With the amazing food above, who cares what veg you do. I'll be chopping some carrots up, boiling them, drain, lob in a knob of butter, shake it around, sprinkle some parsley on top and hey presto! Token veg!

Desert - Summer Fruit Jellies
- A bag of frozen summer fruits
- Leaf Gelatin
- Caster sugar
- Elderflower Cordial
- Prosecco (or other sparkling wine)

Just see Jamie Oliver do it from the link :)

Serve with a nice wine of your preference. With red meat and lobster you could go red or white. To be honest, ignore the wine snobs and go with what you want. For extra brownie points I'm going for her favorite, a nice bottle of Chianti. And as it's Valentines day I won't even do my bad Hannibal Lecture impression.

You cook the above and send her red roses to work ("oh it was so embarrassing.... but all the girls at the office were so jealous!") plus go to sleep with a tired out tongue..... then you should have hassle free Eve Online for the next year.
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..... well at least a week or until I get back from Fanfest!

Give us a Boost! Getting an Edge in PvP

Tama has always been quite a PVP hotspot. As a low sec entry system from Caldari space it is popular with pirates and faction war players alike.

However recently it would appear it has also become popular with a third type..... booster alts.

There are many ways to give you the edge in combat in Eve Online. As well as upgrading to faction, deadspace and officer (rarely used) modules for your ship, there are a few other things that can make a huge difference.

Implant Sets
What have you got in your head (warning - never ask me that question, you DON'T want to know!). Actually I mean in implant slots one to five? I'm guessing a set of +4's if you tend to carebear, may be some +3's if you're low-sec based and may be nothing if you're down in null-sec running bubble camps? How about slot six? A PG-4 perhaps as that is a popular choice? A little boost to your ships power plant always help.

Well if you feel like slurging the ISK, those 6 slots could make a massive difference to certain ships. Faction modified implants are availible that not only give you the learning skills boost, but can also significantly increase ship attributes. The implant for slot 6 muliplies the effectiveness of those in slots one to five. There are many sets but I'll just list the most popular three here.

Crystal - Increases the amount of shield boosters.

Slave - Increases your armour hitpoints.

Snake - Increases your ships speed.

Each set comes in high-grade and low-grade. The high-grade sets can easily set you back 2.5bn for the set of six. But it can be worth it. A full high-grade crystal set plus the Omega (the one that goes in slot 6) will give you +3 to all attributes, but can, more importantly, give you about a 55% boost to the amount of shield your booster reps each cycle.

Boosters
Of course there are the short term effect consumable drugs that boost your abilities in a specific area. This post here describes them in more detail.

Keeping on the shield boosting, an Improved Blue Pill can increase your shield boost by 25%. Now what if you are popping blue pills AND have a high-grade crystal set in?

Boosting Alt
Now we're onto the issue at hand. A well trained alt in a commandship or T3 with correct subsystem can turn the tide of a battle. Warfare links can increase shield resistances, speed up shield booster speed or increase your point range. They also don't have to be on grid with you. They can be merrily sat at a deep safe with the links running.

As well as these ship fitted warfare links, complete with ship bonus, the alt may have the appropriate mindlink stuck in slot 10 giving a further boost to all links of a certain type.

And all you need for this is a trained alt sat in the squad commander with your PvP main in a squad postion. Providing your alt is set as the booster, you're sorted!

The Numbers
Now just imagine someone using all three types. I'm going to use an active shield tank to see what difference is made with a high-grade Crystal set giving you a huge boost to your repping amount, a blue pill increasing that even more and a boosting alt reducing the cycle time of your repper whilst buffing your shield resistances. That can really boost your performance. If that person is in the right ship, may be even with a faction shield booster, it'll tank like a boss!

So you might think you have a fair fight. A 1v1 with similar ships. The guy absolutely wtfpwns you whilst you slightly scratch his shields. Was he so much a better player than you, or was it a combination of the above three?

Take my main in a Sleipnir. Lets do some EFT Warrioring (numbers might be a bit out but they give you an idea) to see actually what difference these make.....

• With a standard T2 active tank set up it reps 825 every 5 seconds (165 dps)
• With a Dread Guristas booster instead of a T2 it reps 825 every 4 seconds (206 dps)
• Now if I was to splurge on a High-grade Crystal set it would rep 1267 (316 dps)
• If I was to pop an improved blue pill too it then reps 1584 (396 dps)
• Finally give me a boosting alt at a safe spot running the shield harmonizing link and my booster cycle reduces from 4 seconds to 3.4 seconds (465 dps)

With a T2 set up, I'm repping 165 dps.
With the fully boosted setup, I'm repping 465 dps.

Also that booster alt could have other links running so if you think the reps are good, remember that my sheild resistances could also gone up an extra 5% each, so you are doing less damage whilst I'm repping the 465 dps. Oh and of course being with the alt has also increased my base shield HP's by around 10%.

Fair fights in Eve Online? Bah, who needs 'em! :p

P.S. Hans Jagerblitzen is past 100 likes for his CSM 7 campaign (actually he's well past 300 likes!) 

For CSM7, This Blog is Supporting....

Low sec is fight club. Leave all the empire-building, resource management, brutally blobtastic warfare, and bullshit political drama to those that seek it in 0.0

- Hans Jagerblitzen

As announced on Sovereignty Wars here yesterday, or was it day before yesterday in my timezone, Hans Jagerblitzen (Here are his blog and Twitter links) is running for CSM7 on a High-Sec/Low-Sec/Faction War/Piracy manifesto. I recommend that you head over to Sovereignty Wars and read the open letters from both Hans and Shalee.

After those open letters you can read his post and get his platform document here at his Jita Park Speakers Corner post. Below I've done a quick summary of the platform document which explains why I'm backing Hans.

Overall, Hans said he is to concentrate on high sec and low sec and he has little to add to 0.0 as he is not a resident or expert in those areas. The CSM will be mostly 0.0 power-bloc delegates so they are well represented anyway.

High Sec

CONCORD
Hans proposes that high-sec has a proportional CONCORD responce according to security status. In a 0.5, with the right ship, someone may be able to tank the security responce (whether that be CONCORD or faction police) for a while before being kersplatted. In a 1.0 you'll DIAF if you stare at someone too hard.

As well as security status he suggests some improvements to mining to stop it being mind-numbingly boring and to reduce botting. However, I'm not interested in that!

Bounty Hunting
To counter high-sec ganking, he has some nice suggested changes to the bounty system. What if the bounty is paid as a percentage of cost of multiple ship losses from the target not just a pod which he'll probably do himself with his alt when it gets financially worth it.

War Decs
One of Hans areas I personally don't agree with is increasing wardec costs against hi-sec corps. Not sure this will work. Shadows of the Federation do not war dec 100% carebear corps for shits and giggles, but we DO war dec hi-sec corps (and low-sec and null sec corps and alliances) that bully our friends. How is this going to work? Won't this system to prevent "bullying" also protect the "bullies" and penalize the people who like to "bully" "bullies"?

PvE Fitting verses PvP
Back to something I agree to. PvE combat discourage players from learning PvP fits. If the better AI seen in sleepers and incursions was added to mission and belt rats (obviously would need balancing too) then it might encourage new PvP style fittings rather than just a massive buffer tank and sitting still.

Low-Sec

Low-sec should have rewards to entice hi-sec players in, but not so rewarding that it entices null-sec players. It's a battle zone, and should be developed as such.

GCC
The Global Criminal Countdown should be reduced to 10 minutes. Oh yes! I'd personally go for 5 but Hans said 10.
Rats in low-sec should be the only ones that give you a security status increase. If CONCORD don't change your security status in null sec when killing a neutral, why should they do it when you kill a rat? This will attract more solo and small gang to low-sec. The reward for the risk! What a fantastic idea to get some fighting in low-sec.

Scalable Sec Status
Not sure about some of the idea's here about you cannot drop below -2.0 from going GCC in low-sec. My personal preference was someone's idea based on Jack Dants original that CONCORD are only looking where there are gate/station guns in low-sec. If you are travelling through, or visiting a station, then the gate guns and the GCC mechanic will offer some protection to you. If you are sat in the top belt then there is no GCC and no sec status penalty as you are obviously looking for PvP.

Station Games
Session Change and Re-dock timer should be the same. If you can dock after 20 seconds but are invulnerable for 30 seconds, where is the risk in undocking?
Also in Faction War, if your militia captures the system, the gate guns should fire on the enemy militia as if they were GCC. Plus station services should be compromised if you don't own the system.

Faction War
LP's for plexing. Plexing encourages fighting, LP's would encourage plexing. I think we need to clarify this as offensive plexing only. Defensive plexing would be another LP farm.
Fix the risk-reward balance of faction war missions. Prevent farming of them in cloaky ships. FW missions were supposed to encourage PvP, not for alts to use cloaky ships and hiding whenever a member of the opposing militia shows up!
When doing ANY faction war improvements ask "Will this cause more PvP". That's all we care about.

Pirate Factions
Add the pirate factions to faction war. Could be interesting for the pirate corps to align themselves with one of the factions and fight on their behalf?


So there you have it. I've paraphrased and broken down his 22-page manifesto down to this relatively short post. If he sounds like he's your man, read the full thing here.

Do I agree with everything in there? No I don't. However, as far as I've seen he's the only person concentrating on what matters to me. He freely admits he doesn't know what needs fixing, or how to fix it, in null sec as he doesn't live there. That's what I've been saying on this blog for months. The CSM needs a diverse range of players who spend their Eve time in different areas of the Eve universe doing different things, not just the 0.0 power blocs.

Oh and finally he has some great gaming taste - "X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, Privateer, Freespace, and Homeworld were the staple games of my youth."

This is a massive task. The 0.0 power-blocs are going to be tough to beat. Lets face it, the Mitani will be chairman without even any campaigning needed. So.....

Come on you hi-sec industrialists, miners, missioners and traders,
Come on you brave low-sec industrialists and POS owners,
Come on you low-sec militia pilots,
Come on you pirates of low sec who yarrrrrrr daily,
Come on all of you who play, live, fight and die in a fire in Empire space.

Vote Hans Jagerblitzen and lets have a voice on the CSM.

P.S. On a personal note, thanks to all the people who suggested I should run for CSM (I think there were three or so). But lets be serious, who wants Glen Quagmire on the committee. The NEX store would be full of stockings, high-heels, lingerie and stripper poles by the summer...... Giggity!

Minmatar Aren't the Only Slaves (Fan Fiction)

My carrier alt is almost read to jump into an Archon. But how does my main character know my alt.....? I think there is a story there!

This is a proper short story so might be tl;dr if you were just looking for a short blog post to read. This post here by Marc Scaurus asks some of the CSM7 candidates about their views on low sec. However I would encourage you to try my attempt at fiction. As usual, there are plenty of legs in there! :p



Minmatar Aren't the Only Slaves 

The small industrial vessel carefully maneuvered around the hulk of the station. It slowed in position just behind a massive pylon. The ship hung there for a few seconds before suddenly a red energy field appeared above the ship, pulsating and glowing against the stark grey of the Caldari station. A bright flash and a Archon class carrier appeared through an artificially generated wormhole. The huge golden ship hung there. Unable to dock as the hull was dangerously energised after travelling through the wormhole. After half a minute the energy build up had dissipated carrier was towed inside the station.

-o0o-

"Have you seen this?" Madbuster slid over a datapad to Drackarn.
"A jump freighter.... in high sec!" Drackarn smiled and shook his head "I do wonder how that guy does it. Sometimes I think Loren Gallen must have contacts in the Caldari Navy who allow him to get away with kills like this"

The table laughed. Half a dozen members of Shadows of the Federation were in the capsuleer bar having a drink.

The bar door slid open and they looked over to see who the new customer was. Nisuwa VII was not a busy station and the capsuleer bar was even quieter. New faces were rare. In the doorway stood a female Amarrian. She was beautiful. Long flowing back hair and highly expensive, but revealing clothes. This was not your typical Amarrian. She started walking over to them.

"This could be trouble, Amarrian."
"Don't be daft, not every Amarrian is in the Militia and at war with us."
"And very few of the Amarr militia dress like that!"
"Cracking legs. Oh shit she's wearing stockings someone hold Drack down quick!"
"Oh very funny! I bet ten million ISK that she takes me to bed at the end of the night."
"You're on! She'll be put off in the first 10 seconds when you start dribbling over her legs!"
"Shhhh. She's coming over!"

She reached the table and grabbed Drackarns jacket at the lapels and pulled him to his feet. The other Shadows starting to rise from their seats when she kissed him deeply before lowering him back into his seat. Devotion placed his head in his hands knowing he'd just lost ten million ISK.

"Erm... me next?" Lexx slowly raised a hand.

The Amarrian woman looked quizzically at her.

"Don't mind her Cat" said Drackarn "She just desperate and ginger". The table erupted in laughter again "So it all worked out for you them?"

"Yes" smile Cat "Thanks to you. You know I'll never be able to repay you"

"Don't worry about it" Drackarn waved a hand to dismiss it "The help you said you'd provide here is more than enough"

"So obviously you two know each other" Galus asked.

The woman called Cat took a seat at the table.

"Yes, funny story really. All started a few years ago, before I became a capsuleer and really kicked off 6 months after I qualified" started Drackarn.

-o0o-

Drackarn took aim carefully. His finger was resting on the trigger. From this range he could even make out the hair growing from his targets ear. He held his breath and gently squeezed the trigger.

"Ohhhhhhhh you fuuuuuu....."

His co-worker took the plastic sucker-dart in the side of his head and was desperately looking for something to throw at Drackarn when the control room door opened. There stood a PA for one of the executives, a weaselly little man. He looked at the two technicians and cleared his throat.

"Drackarn, you presence is required at the Directors residence this evening"

"Erm... what? Why?"

"The Director is hosting the Amarrian trade ambassador to the State at a reception tonight. He wants to show his full range of...... staff."

Drackarn noted the pause.

"Call in a requisitions before you leave the factory tonight. They have appropriate attire for you"

-o0o-

Drackarn walked up the driveway towards the huge mansion. He pulled on the collar of his dinner jacket which was tight against his throat. He was unaccustomed to wearing such formal attire, which had been ready for him to collect at the rec office. He showed his invite to the door staff and entered the ballroom. It was packed with mostly managers from the factory. He saw very few low-level workers and none that he knew well enough to talk to. A beeping noise made him spin around. A small service drone had been draped with fine cloths and had been fitted with a drinks tray. Drackarn scooped a glass of champagne as it hovered passed. No doubt the drones were being used to demonstrate the products of the factory to the trade ambassador. Drack wondered where the drone control pads were. He could have some real fun with these stuck up snobs if he could get his hands on one. He looked around and noticed that some of the waiters had the pads strapped to their belts.

".... yes, we have a couple of drones serving in every room for the party. You'll never go thirsty here."

Drackarn knew the voice. It was the factory director. Every morning over the factory comms he'd give a "motivational" speech to the workers. They generally just gave unflattering hand gestures back to the holorecording.

"And here we have one of our reactor control technicians, Drickin"

Drackarn turned and came face to face with the Director and his fake beaming smile. Drackarn wondered how he knew his name... well, at least how he got fairly close to his name. He noticed a small light flash in the directors eye, an occular implant. Someone was feeding him intel so it appeared like he knew everyone.

"Drickin, this is His Excellency the Amarrian trade ambassador"

Drackarn held out his hand and the snobbish Amarrian just looked at it in distain.

"We find Minmatars much more suited to these tasks" the Ambassador wasn't talking to Drack "They work longer hours too" he finished as he moved on.

There was quite a procession of staff following him as Drackarn backed out of the way to let them pass. A mane of long flowing jet-black hair caught Drackarns eye. An Amarrian staffer, she was beautiful, wearing a long flowing strappy dress. She turned her head to Drackarn as she passed and smiled at him.

-o0o-

It was getting late. Drackarn wanted to get out, but the factory workers all had set times they were allowed to leave. The people in power were able to slip out early, but they made sure the workers were kept back to ensure the party looked busy until the Amarrian ambassador left. Drackarn still had an hour to "work".

He backed into a dark corner of the ballroom and retrieved the drone control pad from his jacket pocket. He'd swiped it from one of the waiters that he'd purposely bumped into earlier. He was bored so started flicking through the various drones camera views. Mostly they were empty rooms, or views some boring exec's sat down smoking cigars and probably discussing some boring business topic. He flicked through some more views, his finger deftly swiping over the screen, he suddenly stopped. He went back to the previous drone's view. He could see the Ambasador.  He was alone in a small room with the dark haired girl, he was shouting at her. She was clearly afraid but the drone didn't provide sound. He slapped her hard across the face. Drackarns anger started to rise. She just stood there and took it. The next slap knocked her from her feet. Drack started to desperately try and find a location on the drone. There was no clues to it's location. The girl was on the floor now, sat upright on the side of her leg crying. The Ambassador stood over her and used one hand to grab her by the hair. With the other he was trying to hitch up his robes. He was clearly exceedingly drunk and having great difficulty.

Suddenly an idea came to Drackarn. He disabled the level control of the drone and increased it's elevation to 1.8 meters. The drone silently rose in the air as the drunken Ambassador struggled with his robes. He aimed the drone at the Ambassadors head and powered the anti-gravity motor to max. The drone shot silently forward and collided with the back of the ambassadors head. Drackarn head a muffled bump as the drone impacted against the wall. He couldn't believe it, it was in the room next door to where he was stood. He opened the door and slid through.

Inside we saw the girl still sat on the floor crying and holding her cheek. The drone was in the corner, it's exposed electronics sparking. The Ambassador was face down on the floor, out cold.

"Are you OK?" Drackarn asked the girl.

She looked at him with big wet eyes. "Yes. But that drone went mad! Be careful!"

"No, I was mad, the drone just did what I told it." He waved the control pad at her and then and placed it in the unconscious Amarrian's hand.

"When he wakes up he'll hopefully think he was messing about with the drone and did this to himself. I cannot think he'll remember much being that drunk and getting such a bump on the head. When he's found, that's what the staff will assume too. Etiquette means nobody will talk about this, now come on."

Drackarn pulled the girl to her feet and led her to an adjoining room. He went to the droid there and retrieved two shots of Minmatar fire whisky.

"Drink this first, it'll help, and then you can tell me what in Divinities Edge was happening in there."

The girl drank. She looked sad.

"Although I am Amarrian, I have no more rights than one of the Ambassadors Minmatar slaves. My father was a large and powerful landowner in the Empire. He raised me, my mother had died several years before. He was caught with a slave in his bed by one of the church's clergy, a grave sin in its own right. He made the mistake of saying he loved her. If he had said he was just screwing her, he'd have got off. But he didn't deny it as they were in a relationship. He was sentenced to death, our house was disgraced and broken up. The Ambassador who was the nearest holder took most of our lands and property, and he also took me. Stripped of my house, I am now nothing more than a slave to him and the Empire. No rights, no voice, nothing. He could kill me on a whim if he wanted, and no one would care". She started sobbing.

"I can get you out of here. Get you somewhere safe...." Drackarn started.

"No. The Ambassador is a vindictive man. He will track me down. I thank you for what you have done here tonight and I hope I get to see you again when we return for our annual visit next year. My name is Catrina, and I am forever in your debt. With that the girl rose from her chair and gently kissed Drackarn on the lips before returning to the room with the Ambassador.

-o0o-

One year later....

"Sir, we are approaching the destination system. What are you orders?"

The Amarrian Ambassador stretched out on his lounger in his quarters. The two naked Minmatar females were expertly working his body with their tongues. He reached over to the comm panel and clicked the talk button whilst he used the other hand to guide the head of one of the girls.

"Circle this system for another 20 minutes... no, make it half an hour. Then jump in and dock up. Get the shuttle prepped to take me down to the surface when that is done"

"Yes sir!"

The Amarrian closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure. Whilst he enjoyed his Minmatar slaves, he really did want to take advantage of Catrina. A proper young Amarrian woman, not some sub-human Minmatar slave. However he could never chance anyone of his staff catching him. Slaves were one thing, his staff turned a blind eye, and unless their were any clergy around, he was safe. But a traitors daughter was another. This would be trip he'd finally have her. He was planning it a year ago on the last visit here but had too much to drink and had had an accident with a drone.

"This time..." he thought "... I'm going to slap her silly and make sure she knows her life, her soul and her body are mine to do with what I please."

-o0o-

The modified industrial neared the gate. Whilst it's inside had been stripped out and replaced with luxurious accommodation, the outside just looked like a normal Bestower. No one would bother such an old ship in hi-security space. The impressive ship-to-surface shuttle in the modified hanger was the only thing people receiving the Ambassador ever saw. It was a small sized shuttle craft based on the design of the Golden Magnet, just significantly smaller than the real capsuleer frigate. So whilst he traveled around in what looked like an old industrial, he always arrived planet-side in style.

On the bridge the command crew where preparing to activate the stargate.

"Sound the jump alarm" announced the captain.

The alarm signaled throughout the ship warning the crew to brace for the unpleasant experience of gate travel. A few seconds later the industrial disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing in it's destination solar system. The stargates cloaking field hid the vessel for a few seconds.

"Sir, we've got a green light on all systems" one of the Ensigns announced.

"Align to station and get the ship-to-surface shuttle prepped."

"Sir! We're being targeted by that Thrasher!"

"Don't worry ensign. No destroyer will engage in a criminal act on a gate in high security space. He's probably just a capsuleer, cargo scanning us to see if we've got any expensive cargo. He's probably got a gang on the out gate...."

The ship rocked and the power went out as a massive explosion jolted the ship. The captain picked himself off the floor as the emergency power kicked in.

"Status!"

"The Thrasher fired on us. CONCORD are on the scene, the Thrasher is destroyed. We've taken serious damage. Some sort of high-energy fusion ammunition and a precision hit to engineering. Reactor controls are failing. Sir.... the ship is too badly damaged to survive. It's lost."

"Acknowledged. Send an SOS to the Sisters. Get the ambassador and his staff to the shuttle and launch it. Sound the abandon ship alarm as soon as the Ambassador's shuttle is clear." The Captain knew delaying the evac would cost lives of his crew but he had to make sure the ambassador got clear."

-o0o-

The ornate shuttle slipped out from the fatally wounded industrial. The Ambassador was still screaming, he'd been screaming non-stop since the ship had been hit. How dare anyone attack him, especially as a guest of the Caldari State? He'd take this up with Tibus Heth himself and make someone pay for this outrage.

"When can we expect rescue?" one of the aides asked the pilots.

"A few hours. The Sisters of Eve will be here with rescue vessels, but they have prep them before launch and travel here. This ship-to-surface shuttle does not have a warp drive so nothing we can do but wait for them."

The ship jolted.

"What NOW!" the Ambassador barged his way to the cockpit of the shuttle and lent over the shoulders of the two pilots.

"Sir, that Raven class battleship is pulling us in with a tractor beam!"

"Why are CONCORD not stopping him?"

"He's a capsuleer sir. He's not committing a criminal act. They won't do anything"

"Put me on comms with those CONCORD ships now!"

"Yes sir..... Sir....... comms are down...... communications are jammed"

-o0o-

The Ambassador, his staff and the pilots peered out the tiny side viewports. The cargo bay of the Raven was  mostly empty. By one small door stood an armed man, a large drone hovered beside him.

"What is that!"

"Sir, it's an active Ogre II. A heavy assault drone. It would rip us apart in one volley. Nobody would survive."

"What does he want?"

"We don't..... hang on sir. We're getting a message sir. Text only. It reads - Send out ALL Minmatar you have on board. We have biological scanners so we know who is in there. We also want ONE Amarrian to come out to negotiate the hand over"

The shuttle went silent.

-o0o-

The Ambassador had his nose pressed up against the viewport. He could see the line of his Minmatar slaves with Catrina at the far end of the line, stood in front of the capsuleer. That was a stroke of genius on his part. If the capsuleer took her hostage, so what! He'd say he needed to return to Amarr to negotiate the terms and arrange payments. He'd be safe and the capsuleer could do whatever he wanted to that traitors daughter.

The slaves were being injected one by one with something. A nurse was passing up the line giving them a shot in the upper arm. Probably that damn Vitoc antidote. He could see the capsuleer shouting at Catrina in a rage. The Ambassador chuckled. This plan might work out perfectly. The capsuleer threw his arms in the air in what looked like frustration and turned with his back to Catrina. Suddenly he span round, his blaster was in his hand. He shot her at point blank range, she fell to the floor and lay still. Everyone in the shuttle jumped back. There were gasps of horror and cries of "No!" from his staff. Several of his female aides started crying. The Ambassador was suddenly worried, his plan wasn't playing out. The capsuleer nudged her body with the tip of his foot, as if to check she was dead. She didn't move.

The capsuleer held a hand in the air and twirled it around. The sign for "lets wrap this up". The shuttle lurched and knocked the Ambassador to his feet.

"Whats happening!"

"We're being tractor beamed somewhere" one of the pilots shouted "We're heading for the jettison tube! Seal the outer doors NOW! They are going to flush us into space!"

The pilots scrambled to the shuttle controls and sealed the shuttle as it was jettisoned out into space. The shuttle span out of control as they brought the systems back on line. It stabilised just in time to see the Raven warp off.

The Ambassador slumped into a seat. He was relieved he was OK and no real harm done. A few slaves lost and a traitors daughter killed. A small price to pay for his own well being.

-o0o-

She was cold and lying on a metal floor. Her whole body ached and a sharp pain in her upper arm was making it throb. She felt a hand gently stroke her hair. She opened her eye's and saw Drackarn kneeling over her.

"Take it easy. We've just given you a shot to deal with the pain. You've been shot by a blaster set on stun. "

"Yes. As I recall it was you who shot me!"

Drackarn laughed. "Yes sorry about that. Was needed to keep up the pretence"

"What pretence?" Catrina sat up.

"What do you think the people in that shuttle think just happened here?"

Cat thought for a few seconds.

"Well with the Minmatar slaves and you shouting and being aggressive to me....." she suddenly smiled "They'll think your a Minmatar sympathizer"

Drack nodded "May be I am. Go on"

"They'll think you attacked them to free the slaves. They'll think you believed I was the Amarrian in charge of them and you shot me. They'll think I'm dead!"

Drackarn smiled. "But you're not dead.... you are free."

"But what if one of them recognised you."

Drackarn shook his head. "He never really looked at me a year ago. I was nothing back then, not worthy of his attention. Plus he met me in my former life, I'm now a Capsuleer. Even if I looked familiar he'd never make a connection between a factory worker and a capsuleer. Now come on, lets get you some quarters."

With that Drackarn helped her to her feet and supported her around the shoulders as they walked back to the door.

-o0o-

Sirah laughed. "Fantastic! Did they fall for it?"

"Totally. It was all over the news networks. Minmatar sympathisers attack Amarrian delegate in Caldari space. One of the Amarrian delegation dead, no actually.... 'executed' I think was the word they used. Numerous slaves freed. Raven hunted but not found. Even Heth mentioned it on a State broadcast about working with our allies and not against them. Cat stayed with me for a few weeks. Whist they assumed she was dead, there was no point taking risks. When the heat had died down I made some arrangements and packed her off to Capsuleer training with a new identify. The only thing she has kept of her old life is the first three letters of her name. And now, here we are! All capsuleers together."

Cat smiled and stood up and took Drackarn's hand, pulling him out of his seat.

"If you ladies and gentlemen will excuse us, Drack and I have some catching up to do."

Drack looked back to the table as he was led out of the bar.

"Tak, will you tell Tekitha I might be late for her fleet" he smirked as he left.

The barman came over with another round of drinks.

"Who was that with Drack?" he asked.

"An old 'friend' apparently" said Devotion

"Exactly how friendly and how long is she staying?"

The Shadow's all looked at the barman suspiciously.

"What's it to you?" asked Un'cas

"Are you kidding? The amount Drack spends in here on drink and girls. If he's got a serious squeeze I'm in trouble of the financial kind!"

The table erupted in laughter again, but the barman was far from happy. He placed the drinks down heavily on the table and went back to the bar with a face like thunder.

"Actually, he's got a point. Drackarn... in a serious relationship?"

"Steady on. We don't know they are an item. She might just be a friend and he'd asked her to do that entry for our benifit."

"True! Drack as a one woman man? I think there is more chance of Tibus Heth marrying President Roden."

The table errupted in laughter again which was cut short as a series of beeps sounded around the table. Each member of the corporation got a message on their datapad. Simultaneously they retrieved their pads from pockets and opened the message which appeared to be a single image.

The word "Bastard!" resounded around the table in unison.

-o0o-

CCP Diagoras is Depressing Me!

Who is CCP Diagoras? He is the resident CCP "stato" on Twitter.

If you like Eve Online related statistics and interesting facts then follow him at @CCP_Diagoras.  If you haven't got a Twitter account you should make one! Come and join the #tweetfleet. There is an Eve Wiki page detailing all about the Tweetfleet here.

On the Tweetfleet we have approximately 94.84% less trolling and flaming than other Eve Online related social media sites and forums. We are generally a much nicer bunch of people, have some great Eve related banter and conversations and best of all, there are some proper killer legs on there too ;)

Contrary to popular belief, @SindelPellion did not model for this "artwork".

Anyway, if killer legs aren't your thing, but Eve factoids/statistics float your boat, then CCP Diagoras is your man. He gives us amazing insights into the world of Eve Online such as the following taken from three random screenshots of his tweets....

Anyway, why is he depressing me? Two reasons.

Firstly I asked him for stats of ship kills by hull types. He duly supplied them and I went to work calculating a rough figure of how many crew die in a year on-board our ships. There is a reason for wanting to know this morbid figure. I'm writing a news article for Tech4News and needed it. However, the figure I got of 1.4 BILLION makes the story unbelievable. Damn. He ruined my story and made me feel guilty about the number of people dying on my ships.

Secondly, he depressed me by giving these two factiods today:-

What!?!?

Seriously????

Out of the 23,000+ characters in faction war, only 1,401 were actively PvP'ing in January 2012? No wonder I'm struggling to find fights.

That seriously points to a major problem with faction war that needs resolving.

CCP are working on "war" now for the spring expansion. I just hope I get some good news at Fanfest next month.

If you are already a #tweetfleet'er or this blog entry turns you into one and you are also going to Fanfest:-

Get your order for a Tweetfleet T-Shirt for the Tweetfleet meet (the Wednesday night in Iceland before Fanfest kicks off) at @mandrill, his blog is here.

Smeg! It's only seven weeks to the start of Fanfest!

P.S. ofc the blog title is tongue in cheek!

s170