Last night good night

After the slow night I had Monday night I was struggling to even bother logging in, I was out in Doril and would have to do 11 jumps through highsec to get to the rest of my ships.  I did log in the end and drag myself back to Amamake with a bit of the loot that I have had for a while in Curse (Couple of faction MWD/Reppers).

Once I arrived back in Ama, I went out on the usual route in my Hookbill.  Essentially trying to get Militia peeps to kill me.  After a couple of kills not really worth mentioning I came across the reason I fly dual prop Hookbills in the first place.....Slicers, it also served to demonstrate the difference between a good slicer pilot and a bad slicer pilot.

I have always maintained that player skill trumps SP in pretty much all PvP situations, and that statement is even more relevant in the case of the Slicer.  A great slicer pilot is able to kill basically all frigates, regardless of fit, with its brilliant ranged dps even the ones that can catch it have generally taken so much damage that, by the time they do they still can't win the dps race.  However, the margin of error when flying one is very slim, if you make a mistake and get scrammed and webbed early you wont survive long.
Last night I engaged 3 different slicers all fit roughly the same way but all piloted differently.  I will call these pilots the good, the bad and the lucky.

The Lucky

This was the first Slicer of the evening, landing in the belt where him and his mate in a Harpy were shooting an alliance mates Thrasher.  I quickly webbed and scrammed the Harpy to slow him down and allow the Thrasher to catch up with him, whilst I went after the Slicer.  Getting to 13km of him I landed the web then I smacked into an asteroid, a tiny little one but apparently I hit where it was when full and bumped off of air, this allowed the Slicer pilot to escape :(.

The Bad

Warping to an outpost in Vard, I had a Slicer on scan.  Once inside I started slowboating towards him, trying to bait him into burning towards me to point me.  The reason for this is if he hasn't done this properly an O/H burst of my MWD generally lands me within scram range where the Slicer dies very quickly.
That didn't happen this time, instead the Slicer started burning towards me with his prop mod off, so I did the same thinking he would warp once I get to a certain distance.  We eventually reach 25km of each other with me at just under half shields, this however was close enough that I could burn towards him with the mwd on before he has a chance to react and move away.  Credit to the pilot I suppose at least he noticed my sudden increase of speed but unfortunately it was far too late and despite my loss of shield so far he went down fast.

The Good

There is always one isn't there.  Again as before I was warping to a faction plex and according to d-scan this Slicer seemed to be in the plex, just like before.  What followed was a catalogue of errors on my behalf and some absolutely nifty piloting by Nortel of Imperial Fedyakin.

I landed on the gate to find the Slicer pilot 11km from me, queue error #1, I didn't have my tackle overheated, had I realised he hadn't entered the plex yet I could have overheated the web prior to landing and this story would be different.  Hastily switching on my MWD to burn for him I made error #2 I bumped the gate, this stopped me getting within scram range and again changing the end of this story.

After this try as I might I just couldn't coax him into making a mistake, and was resolved to trying to burn myself out of point range.  With my ship spewing flames and my hull resting at 66% structure, I managed to break orbit range just long enough to warp out.

This was the closest I have come to losing this ship to a Slicer and also served to show why I fly dual prop.  The increased speed I get over the AB fits, means I can escape from situations like 'The Good'.  It also gives me the tank that means I can bait people into doing stuff like 'The Bad'.

In Other News

Looking around the blogosphere yesterday I came across this post by Keyanu about how he has recently broken the top 2k mark on Battleclinic.  It made me wonder how I have been doing on the BC ranking system.  Before I joined Heretics, my main at the time Korg Leaf was ranked somewhere near 11k and Korg Tronix was ranked roughly 2k below him.  Since I have joined Heretics and Tronix has become my main I am close to breaking the 3k mark, which means I have gone up roughly 10k places in the last 4 months and I am still going up at a pace of 200-400 places a week (According to the ranking tracker).  I have to say despite the problems I have with the points system on BC in general I am quite pleased by this and shows if you want to rise quickly on BC solo in frigates.

Also I am closing in on the 1k kill mark on Tronix and I think I will replace the ship of whoever my last solo kill is, before breaking that barrier.

Korg

First Two Weeks of January

I am fairly pleased with how December went with my highest kill total of any month and the majority of those kills coming whilst flying solo.  Its just a pity I didn't have fraps running for a lot of it as I have missed filming some great fights (Hookbill vs. Ishkur, finished with 12% armour).
January has started just as well, with 37 kills last week and 25 this week, still no where near as prolific as last month but still on course to top 100 kills in a month again so that makes me happy.
My losses on the other hand have been mostly of the stupid nature, either coming through late night derpage or due to a large quantity of alcohol that I consumed during the day.  Even then taking away the three expensive losses and the others seem very cheap.

I be a director now

The major piece of change occurring in my EvE life this month was becoming a director for the EU Tz in Heretic University.  I am quite pleased the higher ups have trusted me with this and I have quite a few plans that I think I will start trying to role out in the coming weeks.

University is a proving/testing ground for prospective pilots in Heretic Army, it allows them to make some mistakes independent of Army whilst still being part of the Amamake culture.  If after a month the pilot has proven his skill in both solo and small gang PvP, he/she will be invited to join Army.  Not everyone will get invited but some will.

Only issue is now that I am director I will have to start taking gangs out more often and I really despise FC work, mostly because I am bad at it but also due to having people rely on my orders to help them survive.  Basically I don't like the responsibility, at least I will get some practice and no longer be bad I suppose.

They seem to be doing well so far, with Az Tek our 4m SP, super find leading the way in kills in his Thrasher with 99 kills for the month so far.  He is a prime example of pilot skill trumping SP in fights.
Heretic University Killboard

They also have a great banner for their board designed by Kri Matar.

The other big news in corp is we are now in an alliance......no we haven't joined some random 0.0 alliance....we petitioned CCP and got the Heretic Nation alliance back. 

Good Fights

I have had a good few fights to start the year out but my favourite easily goes to the first flight of my MSE Harpy.  I undocked from Amamake and headed out on one of my usual roaming routes, jumping into Siseide I found a Jaguar on scan and proceeded to play a round of belt bingo. 

Eventually I landed in the same belt as him but 60km off, I loaded up null as I thought he would kite me (everyone would try) but it turned out he wanted a tank/gank race. The problem was I had started with Null loaded and up close I was suffering the tracking issues associated with that ammo.  I started to pull range slowly but I was taking a pounding, my shield gave out before him and I started to bail.  His shield gave out as I was about to enter structure, spamming warp to get my pod out, he entered structure.  Suddenly a flash and I thought shit I haven't entered warp yet.  It was at this point I noticed my pod had guns and a shield extender fitted.  Even my sleep deprived brain thought this odd.  Needless to say the picture below probably expresses my shock at surviving that fight.

Drackarn: @Korgtronix Whatever you do...... don't....... sneeze......:)

Something has to be said for t1 frigate fights, although anyone can get in them and they don't take long to skill up to a decent level there just always seems to be something pure about killing things in them.  Something that warms the cockles of my little black heart.

So undocking in my hull tanked Incursus (Sounds stupid but its great) I warped to a belt that had another Incursus and a Rifter in.  They seemed to be itching for a fight but as I had landed 45km off them (this was intentional) they had to burn to me first.  

The reason I say it was intentional is because my ship has the grand total of 2.7k ehp and there was no way I would be able to brawl them both down in my current fit at 0, landing this far off allowed me to split them up a bit which means I can essentially 1v1 them or at least put enough damage on one that I can win the damage race once they both get into range.

Luckily for me the Incursus was MWD fit like me and the Rifter was AB fit, burning away from them to split them up some more, I eventually engaged once there was a gap of roughly 50km, overheating everything and sticking my scram web on him, me and the Incursus started brawling.  He was going down but my shield vanished and a good chunk of my armour but he popped with me around 45% armour.

Now I had the choice of bailing with my ship and a kill, or risking the ship to get what is at best a difficult fight when I am at full health.  To be honest there was only really one choice, sticking my drone on the Rifter whilst I was at 30km seemed to have him distracted as he didnt target me till I was nearly through his armor buffer and, inevitably he popped.

All in all a good start to the new year

Korg

Life in Lowsec

I am finally fully set up in my low sec home, I mean its only taken 3 months of hauling when I can be bothered and jumping my pod through high sec so that I can set up a JC somewhere other than Heimatar space.  Still that part is over, thankfully.

So on to what I have been doing with myself I suppose, I recently decided to organise a frigate tournament details of which can be found here.  Just going to be a standard 1v1 style tournament until only one man is left.....cue Highlander quote 'There can be only one!'.  Now this all sounds great but as it stands I may just run it as a massive FFA and see who comes out on top atm as I still dont have enough participants to make the round robin worthwhile.  Either way the prizes will still be the same so its no skin off my teeth, will just change how I will do the video afterwards I suppose.

I have also finally settled on a standard ship for my pvp use, the Hookbill, specifically the dual prop fit shown below.

[Caldari Navy Hookbill, Dual Prop]

Damage Control II

Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core

Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters

Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket

Small Core Defence Field Extender I

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I

The above version is the high isk spend version, generally I have a slightly different version with a t2 web and ab and the meta 3 scram.  It is a great frigate and thanks to its MWD/web/scram combo can catch a lot of tackle frigates and ranged frigates off guard when they try to dictate range on you.  

Thanks to the Hookbills range bonus and its relatively high speed, I can dictate range on the majority of frigates meaning I can run if I need to, although I don't always remember too.  This relatively high survival rate does however lead to me making some poor decisions concerning ECM and Sabres.

It has been a very successful ship for me however with nearly 80 kills in the last month and 7 losses (2 from gate camps) giving it a very high return, for the foreseeable future I don't think I will be flying much else...well except maybe my Raptor once in a while.

Fights

Hookbill vs. Slicer........+Slicer

This was one of those amazingly unfortunate moments when everything goes right and then spectacularly craps on your lap.

I was out on a roam in my Hookbill, doing my usual circuit around to Auga/Kourmonen when jumping through a gate there was a Minnie Militia Slicer on the gate.  I held my cloak whilst I considered my options
Slicers are generally fit for kiting other frigates taking advantage of there impressive range and are generally considered one of the best at it (at least at a frigate level) due to the high dps they still produce when at range.

As he was 15km off me I knew I could catch him with surprise, I decloaked and fired up the MWD burning towards him with O/H Web and Scram, he locked and started firing with me returning the favour.
As it happens he turned out to be a brawling fit which meant I could get in close and use my relative speed to play havoc with his tracking, using my afterburner and speed advantage I got in close and started to orbit. Even with all of this the fight was going to go down to the wire, as my shield was slowly stripped away his armor began to slowly drop as well, which shocked me as Slicers are not known to have a decent buffer.  We both hit structure about the same time, but thanks to Rockets nice volley and the timing of it he popped as I hit 20% hull, as I looted though Mystical Might (A well known pilot in the militia area) decloaked in another slicer and essentially alpha'd what was left of my ship before I could jump/warp....sucks.

Music

Kriss Kross - Jump

On a bit of an old school hip hop kick atm

Funnies

Chewbacca PC World Ad

Korg

RIP Korg Leaf

I have ISK!!!!!!

I sold my main(?) alt last night, basically he was my old main combat character but since moving to Tronix as my main he has been a little surplus to requirements and other than missions there wasn't much I could use him for.  He was mainly being used as a hauler which seemed a shame for the character I first went pirate in.  So I sold him and got a tidy sum for him (9b) which was more than I thought I would get.

Now I just have to decide what I am going to use the isk for, and my other account as well.  I wouldn't mind some suggestions on the other account front as I already have a hauler and my main earns me isk through manufacturing.

PVP

Vengeance + Comet Vs. Vexor

I haven't really been undocking a lot recently but when I do I seem to be able to find a fight quickly.  This was one of them.

After setting up my next set of inventions I undocked in my Vengeance and found a Vexor on scan almost instantly, after a quick check on d-scan I found him near the Dammalin gate.  Warping in at 0 I locked him up but was wary not to get too close, this was going to be a close fight as it is and I didn't want to give him or any possible friends he may have had an advantage.

Rather than fight on the gate though, he warped off to the nearest planet.  I followed and landed within scram range of him I locked and started to orbit as close as possible.  He was a sort off semi anti frigate fit, light neutrons being his gun highs but luckily for me there was no neut so with my nos running and the Vengeances high cap recharge I was tanking him fairly well.

At this point he dropped his high dps set of drones (2 Ogres, 2 Hammers and a hob) in the hope that it would force me off, this usually wouldn't bother me in my Vengeance but with my lowest resist being thermal and me being in a plated AC Vengeance for a change they were hitting me for some largish volleys.  So I began webbing and popping the drones.  This was going well but did highlight to me the vast difference between rocket launchers and ACs for killing drones as it took quite a bit longer to kill his drones than it usually takes me.  Eventually after working my way through his numerous drones, a friend came into system in his Comet and warped in to help finish him fast, after this it wasn't long till he popped.

We snagged his pod and this is usually where the pirate life starts to get interesting, I opened his info and saw he wasn't particularly old so offered him a 5mil ransom (He was old enough to possibly have some decent implants but not really worth asking for too much), he said he didn't have that.  Now usually this would have resulted in me sending him to the clone vat but I thought I would give him a second chance at ransom so offered him his pod for a joke or limerick.  Unfortunately after nearly a minute of waiting (I wasn't doing much else) he gave me a quote from Marcus Aurelius so I podded him too.

T1 Frigates are fun

Despite my new found wealth, I have rediscovered the fun of t1 frigates.  I suppose this means that money is going to last a loooooooooooooong time (barring faction fitting my t1 frigates).  I have already had some fun fights in them, but I don't think they will make a fun written story so luckily I have fraps'd them and I am sure I will get round to rendering them into a almost watchable youtube video at some point.

New alt

Due to no longer having an alt (other than the shitty sub-1m sp hauler alt I have already) I am looking for some suggestions of what to do with my other account, although I cant really be bothered to train for a mission runner (its too dull) or miner (its too dull) I would love some suggestions.

Korg

Music