Monday, June 4, 2012

Hot-Boxing, The Next Ship and Suddenly.... Squids!

Well that was a PITA!

I logged on and I'm far away from home in a Faction Battleship and my carrier is 10 jumps away. Thanks to jumping and bridging I'm all over the place. I have a look at my assets list and notice I have an old Command Ship nearby that I had to abandon after leaving a roam early and podding back (there was a high-sec area between where I logged and home). So.....

1. Exit BS pod 9 jumps to CS.
2. Jump in CS run 4 jumps to carrier, hoping CS doesn't get caught.
3. Stick CS in carrier
4. Log off, log on alt and move cyno ship to station with the Navy BS.
5. Get two big fans and point at PC and hope I can dual-box in 45 degree's Celsius long enough to jump main and dock up.
6. Check laptop by holding hand by exhaust vent. Nearly burn hand. Light cyno, jump, get carrier into station, stick BS in carrier, log off main.
7. Cyno down, move alt to mid-point.
8. Log on main, light cyno, hold hand under exhaust from laptop, nearly burn hand again, jump main, dock, log off.
9. Get fed up of this crap and ask in corp for someone to light me last cyno home.
10. Nobody can, go play on XBox for an hour!

All this because my current carrier is simply one for moving ships into position. What I need is a better carrier.....


I'm currently remapped to maximise skill training for Starship Command. There has been a few skills in that tree I've been meaning to "cross off" for ages and I have decided to actually get down and get them done. I'm pushing 70m skill points now so I'm not doing bad (unless you compare me to my 130m SP CEO).

Last weekend I crossed off the first one off the list, Amarr Cruiser V. This skill was pretty much only for one ship - The Devoter. I could fly Onyx and Broadswords already with the bubble generator, but in the armour fleets we run, neither hull is ideal. The Broadsword you can "sort of" armour tank. But you don't want to rely on a ship "sort of" tanked when it's holding down a super capital do you?


Currently I'm onto Amarr Battleship V. This again is a long skill just for a single target ship - The Archon. However, as we fly Amarr BS gangs, the level 5 does help there too I suppose with my Abbadon and Armageddon.

After three weeks that will be done and I'll skill up Amarr Carrier for a week to get it to level IV before moving onto Gallente Crusier 5. This one has two target ships. The Lachesis and the Proteus. Whilst I can fly the Tengu and Loki, it's the Proteus that I want for blaster DPS IN THE FACE!


Of course then I'll need to skill up the Gallente Sub-Systems skills. That will be a couple of weeks to get those all to level 5.

So that little lot should take me to into August. At that point I'll be able to fly almost all T2 sub-cap combat ships in the game. I'll be missing Amarr frigate 5 and also Minmatar Battleship 5. But other than T2 Amarr frigate hulls, the Panther (the Minmatar black-ops battleship) and the Vargur (Matari Marauder), I'll have a mahoosive choice of ships. This will be good, because....

Inferno has really turned the warzone around!

The week before, the Caldari were a beaten race. We were able to attack their low-sec staging system with impunity and they were unable to do much to stop us owning what system we wanted.

Now Inferno has been released, the little buggers are ****ing everywhere.


Unfortunately this is not working as intended. The people doing the plexing are mostly farmers. They are there to collect LP's and kill NPC's, not to engage in PvP.

They are also rarely solo'ing. They are doing it in small groups, or have neutral friends/alt to act as back up. This is a PITA for those of us who like a good solo roam.

Lets hope this soon turns into some nice fleet battles rather than just 23.5/24 farming of LP's.

6 comments:

  1. Oh, there's a bunch of new PvP corps and alliances on our side. Plexing is done for both control and the potential to get fights. You can't force either when they depends on the activity of others.

    Also, yeah, the mysterious horde of mission alts who never engage in PvP have been plexing the back systems. Just wait until a lot of them flip on accident, they'll go back to missions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah there are still plenty of fights to be had, but it is annoying to have so many potential targets around and play Benny Hill 80% of the time.

      May be we need to arrange some gf's. I miss the old style 30+ each side we had in the Caldari Gavin Goodrich era.

      I agree regarding the farmers. Once the LP is harder to come by they'll return to missioning.

      Delete
    2. three ways to kill farmers;

      Go camp a popular pipe or backwater system and;

      a) grab an inty with long point along with a damage dealer to kill them
      b)Smartbombing battleship with warp core stabs
      c) Tier 3 sniper with sensor boosters and anti frig cruiser for support and eyes.

      We've started doing this and gotten some serious rage in local.

      Delete
  2. In my opinion the Abaddon needs Amarr BS V and all armor comps to V to really shine AND AWU V to fit that laser fit Shadows has (it fits with .1 CPU left and around the same PG).

    Now I don't mean to disappoint you but I tried the Proteus and tbqh I am puzzled. I've experienced the boat at both ends of its blasters and still have mixed feelings about it. Basically in a Tengu VS Loki + Proteus I almost got popped and only the XLSB + overheating the crap out of it got me out in one piece, those two things put out MASSIVE DPS... but.

    Tried to fly the Proteus and it deals crap DPS unless you're glued to the target and the target ain't moving at all. My 0.02 ISK, it needs to be at least dual magstabbed, web + scram and cap injected as a solo boat and it is far harder that it sounds, just play around in EFT and then try to fly it on SiSi and you'll see what I mean.

    What I find as interesting ships really enabled by Amarr BS V (a) and Gallente Cruiser V (b) are the Talisman Bhaalgorn and the Vigilant which are imho some of the a)best anti-cap ship and b)best solo boat ever. Until Soundwave decides to fk them up somehow (hint - boosters needed for the Talisman Bhaalgorn don't have any side-effects you would be concerned about when flying it).

    I prefer the brawler 100mn HAM Legion for in-the-face stuff, it can be T2 fitted npnp.

    Saying that, I am looking forward to getting back in SOTF, 0.0 is such a yawnfest that I can't take it anymore. Just need to finish my carrier skills to get my stuff out and some days off :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Depends how good your logi is ;) Anyway in 17 days I'll see what difference Amarr BS V makes.

      And yes, 0.0 is boring. Low-sec is where the PvP party is at.

      Delete
    2. Difference is not tremendous but you do feel it.

      I'll be bringing some wine along o7

      Delete