Now I'm settled....

Piracy....Piracy....Piracy


So Amamake is my home system, most of my ships are there and due to the way traffic flows and the militia pilots in the area, it seems to be a flashpoint for a lot of fights.  This does mean its difficult to leave the system sometimes because sods law something tasty will be found as soon as I leave the system.  Not leaving does breed complacency(actually spelt that right first time) though, partially due to 'Sods Law' and partially due to being in fleet and getting the bonuses that derives.
Now as a solo player I don't use gang boosters, the idea of moving a gang boosting ship along roams with my frigate does not appeal to me but when the opportunity to have boosters in system arises you go for it, I mean who wouldn't.  Especially with my Hawk, having dual 18km webs is very nice.  However as said this does make it difficult to leave and can make you more risk averse when the boosts are no longer there so to stop this I still try my best to roam away from Amamake.

Now on to the interesting parts of my week.

I was gently warping around the many belts of Amamake, making short work of the local belt rats in my Hawk, when suddenly I was set upon by a ruffian in a Rifter.  No sooner had this hooligan began his assault that he was joined by another.  Bravely my Hawks systems sprang into life locking down the first rifter and heating up my thrust systems I settled into my orbit hoping to prolong my death.  Almost as soon as it started though the first Rifter hull started to spurt fire and exploded in a glorious blue flash.  Turning my attention to the now solo friend I went for the same tactics, once again fire flew out of my opponents ship and it became dust.  That will teach them for shooting people in belts.....I mean who does that :P.

A couple of nights later, whilst roaming in my shiny new Vengeance, I happened upon a stabber at my home station.  Watching him warp to a belt, I decided to follow to 'help' him.  Landing in the belt I landed on him predictably and locked him up, applying the webs and the scram.  It was at this point I noticed the Thrasher sitting 50km off the Stabber....potentially this could get messy.  The Thrasher warped off to the nearby planet and warped back at 10km, I now had the attention of two ship on my small hull.  With my extremely low dps trying to eat into the active/buffer that the Stabber had both ships started to take small chunks off my shields. I decided to swap to the likely squishier target in the Thrasher, as my guns started to land their blows, his armor and shield burnt away.  As the Thrasher exploded and the Stabber had just entered hull when a third ship entered the fray, a Merlin I had a run in with earlier.  He got there just in time to whore the Stabber kill. Locking this invader up and going to work on his buffer, he did the same but I can perma tank him and it just prolonged the inevitable as he was soon wrenched from his hull.  Obviously all of these ships other than the Merlin were fail fit, but it was a nice fight as my vengeance really proved itself tank wise.

Video of the Week - Humour or Music

First Week Yarring Part 2.

Armor Hawks are awesome

So the other staple ship of my new piracy career has been the Hawk, the Caldari assault frigate.
If you have read any of my other blog posts, it will start to become obvious that I like missiles.  The advantages they have appeal to me, as long as you can dictate range you generally out dps most things.  To this end I decided to try the Armor Hawk, thanks to the dual webs it has it can dictate range on most frigates inside scram range whilst still having a decent level of ehp to give you the time to get to this range depending on your starting position.

So whilst roaming around in the Hawk, I happened upon a flashy in a Claw on a gate.  He warped of to the top belt in Siseide, landing on top of him we locked each other up and I clicked keep at range for 8km. Fucked up a little at the start though, left my keep at range button on the wrong distance and ending up running at him, this meant I took alot more damage than I needed to. Doesn't matter though as I recovered from the fail and he popped before I hit armor.
Moving on my next jump found the gate camped by 3 Thrashers, predictably as soon as I decloaked they locked me and attempted to alpha me....they failed and I moved to point one.  Grabbed one, one warped and the other got popped by the guns.  Obviously the one I had pointed went down and I got his pod, I had a few giggles in local.

Last night I was engaging in the past time enjoyed by all Heretics sitting in Amamake top belt, on my own :(. Doesn't matter though as a Rifter landed at 0 on the belt.  Fancying my chances (well duh) I warped onto him and locked him up getting into my orbit he popped.  Not sure but I have a feeling he may have been fail bait for another frigate because as soon as he popped his mate landed in a Malediction. Unfortunately for this violent gentlemen he landed close enough that I could point and web him.  I locked him up and got my webs on him, for some reason he didn't fire back, not my problem, pop.

So I Pirate

I have gone pirate, I am surprised how fast my sec has dropped though, already below the -5 mark.  It may be my bad memory but I was sure it took me ages to get my sec to drop last time I went pirate even with the pod kills.  I don't know if anything has changed in the sec drop sense since then though, don't really follow changes like that so meh.
I will say I am enjoying being back in lowsec, getting the chance to fight frigates without them decloaking falcons (ffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu falcon) on me or being bait for a large gang that comes to buttrape me a second after I agro.

Although this trip to the dark side hasn't been all rosey.  I have found getting used to being on the wrong side of gate guns again has taken some getting used to...my poor cheetah.

Still it has mostly been about flying frigates although next week I may give my nano Omens a run out (expect stupid losses) or my XL Celestis (expect stupid losses).  Still I am having alot of fun in my frigates and it has given me some of the hand shaking pvp I have missed.

Korg

Thought people would start getting sick of me posting Pony vids on here so went with some good music instead.

First Week Yarring Part 1.

Yarrr and Stuff

As mentioned last week I have joined Heretic Academy, now being new to the Amamake/Minmatar low sec area I have spent most of my week in frigates trying to get 1v1s in belts etc. whilst setting up bookmarks.
Its actually been a fairly good idea doing this as I have been able to see who are the guys who generally have back up, when the busy periods are and how some of the more well known pilots fit their frigates.

I have already said I have been flying frigates mainly, but in particular the battle Buzzard has been my frigate of choice.  It allows me to set up the bookmarks in safety and means I can still take on most frigates/destroyers.
If you are unfamiliar with the battle buzzard here is the fit:


[Buzzard, Battle]
Damage Control II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

1MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Tracking Disruptor II

Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
Small Bay Loading Accelerator I

It flies like a frigate recon, now I mean by this that it has relatively pants ehp/dps but thanks to those mid slots it can take its time against other frigates.  Then it just cloaks up and disappears :).

Just roaming around I found to be fairly inefficient in this ship however.  Mostly due to trying to sneak up on other frigates in a belt and them warping before I can get them in a decent range to decloak on them.
However I have gotten a couple of 1v1 request when people see me in it, obviously they think it will be easy.
First of these was a Rifter in Egglehende, I had decloaked to bait him off of the gate but he warped to the control bunker and asked for a 1v1 in local.  I went straight in, we locked each other up and started fighting.  With the Buzzards e-war you can settle into an 8km orbit/keep at range and not be touched by autocannon damage, once there the Rifter stood no chance against me and my rockets did their work.
Almost as soon as he popped though his friend decloaked 28km off in a stealth bomber, I'm fairly sure I could have taken him had he been closer but if he was MWD fit he would be able to keep me at range and pointed so instead I cloaked and tried to slowboat to him.....he warped when I was 13km from him.

The next kills I got in this weren't great but they were recon type kills.  Decloak...point....pop.  So I will just link the mails and say that they were very funny to see it actually work. Thrasher. Rifter. Pod.
Unfortunately that is the end of my Battle Cov Ops kills, not for want of trying, but I seem to have developed a nasty habit of burning out my point whilst in them and due to this have lost out on a Jaguar kill and Ranis kill.

So in summation the Battle Buzzard is a great ship for for making you piss yourself laughing when you get something nice in it, but delivers a lot of bum clenching moment when you fuck up and burn out your mid slots.

Korg

Transition and Moving Stuff

Moving Stuff

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I am returning to piracy and because of this I have spent the last week or so, slowly moving my ships from Hagekan to Rens so that I can join a corp in Minnie Space.  This unfortunately has meant there has been a lack of PvP in my life recently, as you can imagine moving 40 or so rigged ships does take up some time.

However I have found a pirate corp now and as of 20:45? tonight I will be a member of the Heretics Academy.  The Heretics Academy aren't so much an academy as a testing ground for the Heretic Army, where pilots that haven't flown with, or been recommended to the Army, have to join first.  So naturally as I haven't I am joining them.  I don't mind this though as I relish the fact that not only will I be pirating again but I will have to prove myself competent enough to move into the Army. 

Unfortunately this requires moving the ships again for the obvious reason that once I start losing sec status trying to access a 0.9 system will become very difficult....I think this time though I will just use Red Frog to move it closer.

What PVP I have gotten

Having said all that I have still gotten some decent....well ok pvp whilst moving.

Whilst setting up some off gate bookmarks in my Cheetah, I had to log off for a bit.  Logging back in I found a Stabber and Catalyst on directional scan, narrowing it down it looked like they were ratting in a belt warping my Cheetah in I landed 50km off of the Stabber and decided against burning for them.  The age of the pilots meant that if they were remotely well fit I wouldn't be able to cover the 50km before popping.  So bookmarking a wreck near them I warped out and warped back to that.  

This time landing 18km of the Stabber with the Catalyst 30km away.  I got into a tight orbit on the stabber and pointed and webbed him, I put the tracking disruptor on the Catalyst.  Thinking behind this is it would force him to cover most of the 30km before he could help his friend.  Luckily the Stabber was at half armor when I pointed him and he succumbed to my mighty weapons.  I then burnt for the Catalyst and settled into an 8km orbit, with the tracking disruptor as well as the web and scram he had no hope of covering the distance to be able to hit me and popped as well...talk about mixed guns.

Last night, as I was meant to be doing some work for Uni, I decided to can flip instead in my buzzard. Only got one bite of my hook.  Another canflipper in a Rifter, as I had flipped him I had to wait for him to open fire first.  He soon obliged, although I nearly lost my ship because of that stupid 'Are you sure you want to do this' message that popped up.  I didn't, once the webs were on him and the tracking disruptor he went down fighting.

Back in Curse for a roam

I jumped down to Curse on my alt, mainly because I couldn't be arsed to make the 20 jumps on Tronix, and quickly jumped into my dual prop Taranis to go join a small gang we had roaming in Providence/Catch area.

Warping to the Litom gate, some of my corp mates had dropped a bubble and I cross jumped a Myrmidon so I burnt back to the gate and jumped through just in time to whore the mail on the myrm and his pod...lol.

So moving on I caught up with the others, Eddierio and Atwa in a Myrm each and Parfait M in a Cynabal.  I started scouting the route back, making a quick detour into KDF however and I found an Abaddon on scan towards the out gate, he jumped and I followed.  Eventually catching up with him in F4R2, getting tackle on him, he started to reapproach the gate.  He then agro'd and turned out to be a Tachyon fit Abaddon, slowly I worked through his light drones, whilst this was going on the rest of my gang had caught up.  By the time I had popped all his drones I was entering structure and the Abaddon popped, he didnt warp his pod out and lost that too.

We headed back toward Hq and I hopped in my Helios with Atwa in his.  One of our corp mates had just been blown up by a Thrasher camping a gate in Hemin so we jumped in and Atwa got agro'd.  Doing what the Helios does best, this Thrasher found himself quadruple webbed and double tracking disrupted and quickly in his pod.

Now at this point, for some reason, I was getting a little cocky and found a Ferox warping around.  He left system and was heading towards Catch.  We caught up with him and got tackle in 1P but he turned out to be bait for a gang that went through earlier, we had no way of knowing.  Needless to say it didnt end well for my poor Helios.  I managed to get my pod out and I warped off to get back to HQ but jumping into the next system I was greeted by one of the gangs sabres and my Pod died heroically.
This was all made worse and served to remind me why alts can sometimes be bad if neglected, by the fact that I didn't realise I had gone over my clone limit and I have now got to train Minmatar Battleship 5 again....fail.

Korg

P.S. Due to the sad nature of the end of this blog, I will be posting a sad video

Ok it wasn't actually sad, just amusing.

Drake Roams are fun

Drake Roams

I have been telling the guys I fly with recently how brilliant the nano drake is, meaning the dual web nano drake.  So recently we decided to go on a little 3 person roam in them, two of us in the standard Nano dual web fits and another in the same sort of fit but with a gang link for web range as well.

The theory behind the gang link nano drake is with the booster running we have more survivability in the fact that we have 16.5km webs and a 37km point, meaning also that we are able to take more advantage of our range.

I joined this roam slightly late due to rl activities and found the other two in Sendaya area.  Hopping into my Drake I joined them and we set of towards Kamela by way of Gomati and Rahadalon.  

Our scout reported a Deimos a couple of jumps ahead so we followed him, eventually catching up to him and getting tackle on him.  Warping in at our point range we opened fire just as his corp mates started to land in a Vagabond and Proteus.

Quickly switching primaries to the Vagabond, our long range webs became useful as it turned out he was scram fitted.  However as soon as he was 16km away from us he found himself webbed 4 times and having missiles lobbed at him he eventually exploded. 

Switching primaries back to the Deimos, who was 'quickly' bearing down upon us, he became quadruple webbed as well and although he has a high natural kinetic resist he exploded also.

This left the Proteus on his own tackled by our scout in a rifter and having missiles chucked at him from outside his point range.  Unfortunately our squad leader and booster Drake got cocky, ended up to close and was pointed and webbed by the Proteus.  With the poor tanks these Drakes have and the high tank the Proteus has, there wasn't much chance of him escaping and he exploded. 

Still not to be discouraged as we still had two of us who were able to keep the Proteus at bay, well, until I burnt out my launchers and Eddierio burnt out his point.  Cursing our stupidity we had to leave.

Regrouping in Irshah, with our squad leader back in a new Drake, we set out again.  This time heading around to the infamous Amamake, where we are almost guaranteed some sort of fight whether we like to or not.  Eddierio jumped in first and warped to the top belt.  Over comms he informed us he had a Dramiel tackled.....or the Dramiel had him tackled and a Rupture and Cane had shown up.  Jumping in we warped to Eddie and esploded the Dramiel.  We went for the Rupture next as the Cane was quite far away still, he quickly succumbed.  By this point the belts population had grown, so we decided it was time to leave, unfortunately somehow Alphawolves was again the primary and had been locked down at a different point in the belt, well he exploded.

Again we started, this time taking the longest route known to man to get back to Kamela, and avoiding a Bastards BS gang on the way, we ended up in Sosala.  A flashy Proteus had been following us and we liked our chances so we waited till he jumped into us, although as with most things in EvE, it was too good to be true and soon a larger gang containing two guardians, a loki, a cynabal and some other stuff I cant remember jumped in.  We had managed to keep range on the Proteus, but when these guys jumped in they decloaked next to Alpha and, for the third time that night, he ended up in a Pod.  Some people are so unlucky.

Bad Luck in Curse

Last night I logged in on my alt for a bit of fun in Curse, wandering about in my Nano Cane I noticed a gang consisting of a Thorax, two Drakes and a Kitsune.  I fancied my chances and soon followed them for a couple of jumps, after finally catching up with them, I engaged locking up the frigates....turned out they had a Hookbill as well and I locked the wrong frigate first.  Before I had a chance to rectify this though I was jammed, and so I remained until my ship exploded.

Still fancying my chances, I go grab my dual rep Myrm (there damage hadn't been great so reppers should be fine, plus no neuts), I warp back towards Hemin and jump through.  This time however I didn't go anywhere afterwards.  Turns out jumping into an 85 man BS gang with fast tackle and T3s in a Myrm does not end well.

However after having a peek on battleclinic that Hookbill died later and I, posthumously, whored the mail.

Possible New Corp and Change of Direction

The Drake roam and the getting blobbed in 0.0 has reminded me about what I love in lowsec pvp and I have decided I am going to go back to pirating.  As much as I have enjoyed Curse far I have started to feel bored of 0.0 life.  I will, of course, still leave some ships out there for when I want a change of pace from lowsec but I am going to go flashy.

Korg

P.S.  I realise I haven't included any videos or pictures this time, must make it a boring read without them so I will put them here at the end.

Yeah I'm sorry about that one, a corp mate made me watch it but as they say ''Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it''

First wardec, and other things

I have been looking for some decent corps to dec for a bit of fun, you know break up the sometimes monotonous(Glad that was spelt right) existence of 0.0.  Maybe make myself some money whilst I'm at it.

I had found one target for the money part, a mining corp that for some reason thought it was a great idea to put their full APIs on their website.  Now this was the main reason I decced as I knew exactly what ships they had, what they could fly, how much isk they had....hell thanks to the mail feature in Eve-Mon I could read their eve mails. 

Finally Shooting Drams

Apart from that insanely stupid corp, I unfortunately haven't found anyone else, so on Friday I clone jumped back to Curse and went for a miniature five minute roam.  As you can imagine it didn't yield much in the way of kills although a SoT Dramiel followed me to a belt. 

I was in my Nano Drake ala. PODLA, AKA Dual Webs.  I have never had a proper chance to test this against a Dram, the only time one has ever aggressed me I only had meta 3 webs (57%??) which gave him just enough time to escape.  This time however I was determined to kill him, especially since the last time I agressed one a large gang followed. 

Warping to a belt I started ratting (baiting) and burnt away from the belts warp in point.  The Dramiel landed soon after and, unsurprisingly, covered the 50km to me quickly.  I had overheated everything and approached as soon as I pointed him, I opened fire and once he was webbed he was at half shield. He popped.

Although it was a frigate kill in a BC, I was still happy as I had not managed to get a Dramiel in my nano drake before.

Can Flipping and Virgin Rage

Logging in last night, I was a little drunk (had been away all weekend doing drinking type activites) and decided to go can flipping in a combat buzzard.  

After purchasing and fitting everything in Jita, I "undocked", but I didn't as my stupid internet went tits up.  So after resetting the router and my computer, I tried again.  

Making it out of the station I went towards Insanamo and started flipping cans.  After a couple of belts I found a reasonably old character jetcan mining in a hulk, I flipped his can and waited as he warped off.  He returned about 2 minutes later in a Moa (Yippee!!), we locked each other, he opened fire, I settled into an orbit.....and I dc'd again (FFFUUUUUU Virgin).  

Not surprisingly I logged back in, in a pod but with 11 minutes of agro left I went to get my Kestrel from the system next door, only to dc again. Bloody Internet.

Korg