Delving Deeper

Ah. It’s amazing how much more relaxed I feel, even in planetary life knowing my wallet has been filled with some isk. The exploration has been good to me lately. I decided to take a few more interesting risks than I had been in the past. Most notably, diving into class 3 wormholes on my own to harvest their blue loot. It’s amazing actually how often empty wormholes seem to crop up. I managed to dive 3 in a week, inflating my wallet but about 300 million isk with just a few hours of work. Honestly it was nostalgic to be back in the C3’s. Constantly hitting the directional scanner and cursing the sleepers for their infernal neut and weapon’s ranges.

All in all it’s been a good month, topped off by a rather successful roam lately that landed me on the top damage for a killmail against a Legion. That felt pretty good. The corp I’m currently with is fun to fly with, but they seem to lack a degree of vision. Sure roaming around killing everything we come across is fun, but at the end of the day, I just don’t care that much about my killboard. I’d rather be fighting for something, a cause, territory, anything! So I’ve decided to do something I’ve thought about doing for a very long time.

Go back to Amarr faction warfare. I put an application in for a light roleplaying Amarr FW corp today that seems promising. No telling yet how it will turn out but hopefully I’ll have something new and exciting to look forward to this year!

Profitability in Question

I like to think that after a long day of mining my ship is towed into station and given whatever the space equivalent of a car wash but college girls in bikini’s would be. Mining while my on-world counterpart is at work seems like it might be a worthwhile investment in time. 5.5 minutes per haul, with about 1.7 million coming in every haul for 8 hours is roughly a metric shit ton. Okay not really but it’s like an extra 150 million isk that wouldn’t have been in my wallet if I hadn’t done it. So yay! I’m making some money.

Now if I can just stop loosing ships…

One of the things that fascinates me outside of the pod is the ancient art of marksmanship. More specifically snipers. At first it was a fascination of just mastering the physics involved with launching a lethal projectile insane distances and hitting something the size of a small plate. But it’s become more than that. The stealth. The hunt. Observing a target hour after hour. Learning everything you can about them before making the kill. It’s fascinating. Whether you’re interested in the application of lethal force or not, it just speaks to me on some fundamental level I can’t define.

One of the things I’ve read about snipers is how they watch their targets and key in on routines. Whether we want to admit it or not, and seemingly no matter how vigilant we are; everyone falls into familiar routines. And it pains me to admit this, but I am no exception. Last night I had headed back out to my hunting area to see if I could scrounge up some pirate kills. The local authorities don’t pay all that handsomely for their deaths, but it helps get in with the local magistrates which in turn just makes everything easier.

My ishtar had parked itself 70km off a pirate hideout and was content to incinerate their ships from that distance with a mere click of a button. Unfortunately for me, the pirate hideout’s location was not as secret as I, or they I suspect, would have liked. I had noticed some new pilots on the local comms channel, but at this point the bounty killing was habit. It had become routine. A deadly word. As such my inner alarms went off, but were ignored by a bored brain that was content to just shoot the pirates, like I had done a thousand times without incident.

Instinct: “Dude, there’s a Stratios out there. We’ll never know if he’s sneaking up on us or not.”
Brain: “Aw come on, he’s passed through here 6 times already, he’s busy with his own shit. There’s only 2 more ships to go just wait a few.”
Instinct: “This ship far outweighs the bounty or influence improvement we’ll gain from killing 2 more ships.”
Brain: “But…we’re so close. You worry too much.”

It was about this time the Stratios uncloaked right next to me.

I sucked the sentry drones in and the Beserker II’s spilled from my bay in an attempt to destroy the intruder before who I’m sure were his friends could show up. The battle was bitterly fought. My drones tore through his shields and armor and were well through his structure before my Ishtar gave in. A costly lesson, but hopefully one that I will not forget anytime soon.

Empty Wallets

I’ve been on the front for weeks now. It’s time to take a small break and head back to safer regions and resupply. My industrial infrastructure is still in tatters from the move out here and I’m really hurting to get that income source back up and running. I grab my blockade runner and head back to hi-sec.

It’s easy to find a space to setup shop. Only 2 jumps from my lo-sec entrance, with plenty of industry facilities around. Not to mention a plethora of active miners that don’t mind striking up a conversation in local. It’s always a nice way to pass the time. I’ve been dabbling with the idea of making some higher tech drones, considering how much I seem to rely on them day to day. The lower tech version are incredibly easy to make, and if I take the time to setup some planetary harvesting teams I should be able to make what I need without busting the bank. Maybe I can even turn a profit if I haul them out to lo-sec hubs for sale.

But first, I need some mineral stockpiles. I dust off the ole mining Hulk. I’m always amazed I can fly one of these considering how much of my time is spent training weapon skills. I warp to a few belts looking for some promising looking rocks and setup shop. I’ll never get over how strangely soothing this sight gets…

Like a Phoenix From the Ashes…

The ship decelerated from warp with a soft whump sound. Urd Voiddaughter had just arrived at an ancient Angel mining facility. He glanced over the instruments in his cockpit nervously. The system was becoming active but it didn’t seem that anyone knew his little gem was here. He was convinced to make the most of his discovery. Scanning probes were blanketing the system, but there were over a dozen signatures in they system. It would take a significant amount of time for anyone to scan this particular one down. Still, he would have to work quickly to analyze the relics hidden within the complex before him. He targeted the nearest object that looked to be of value and moved in for a closer look. 

*Whump*

I looked up from my comms at that all too alluring sound. The sound of a carefully laid trap springing. The frigate-class ship that had just entered the area sat approximately 25 km away from my cloaked Nemesis stealth bomber. I double checked my cloaking device to ensure it was still functioning properly keeping me off of anyone’s scanners. I have a nasty habit of bumping into stray debris fields at the most inopportune times. The Probe began moving towards something that had caught its eye. He had no idea I was there. No idea that he was quickly closing on my exact position. I moved my hand over my console, and hovered the slightly shaking appendage over the target lock button.  It’s been too long, I thought too myself. Too long to be this worked up over a single Probe.

Urd locked onto a storage facility’s computer console and began decrypting the security systems contained within. One last check of the scanner. Still blank. He had run into another explorer about an hour ago. An experience that left him frazzled but not deterred. Most exploration ships in these parts were of little to no real threat. Their ships were calibrated to scan and hack valuable computer banks and focused little on offensive modules. Still, even a single turret, missile launcher, or drone would be a problem for his ship’s weak defenses. Speed was of the essence, time to break this mainframe’s…

My ship decloaked in a shimmering of light. The computer locked onto the Probe’s hull almost instantly. An array of rocket launchers were unsheathed from my hull as the warp disruptors immobilized the Probe’s engines. I hesitated a moment. My finger over the trigger button. I paused in a second of regret for the poor helpless ship caught in my cross-hairs. A quick smirk stitches its way across my face and I hammer the trigger button. “He should know better” I say to myself. “Too many people looking for easy money these days.”

I had just cleaned up the mess from the careless Probe’s demise when a second ship exits warp a few clicks from my position. “This is a popular stop tonight!” In an instant of intense deja vu the Helios rockets towards my position. “God, it’s like these guys have never flown in lo-sec before!” I chuckle to myself as rockets spill from my ship’s hull and obliterate the enemy’s frigate. “25 million isk in 15 minutes. I’ll take that.”

I re-engage my ship’s cloaking device. The ship phases out of existence as I point the bow towards home.

Hey all! So I’ve been on jury duty for the past month which has given me a good deal of downtime from work. And since the girlfriend was away for the holidays and all, well…I honestly didn’t have any excuses not to play. It’s been fun getting back into things in Eve. I haven’t played in a long time and a lot has changed. A LOT. But it seems to all be for the better. See y’all in the sandbox!

Vultirnus Looks For a New Home

Man, I almost don’t even recognize this game! So much as changed since I stopped playing a few months ago. Everything looks even better than when I left it. One thing I’ve always admired about CCP is how they continue to update and enhance the experience. The autopilot is better, overview is better, scanner is better. I totally have that old man “you young whipper-snappers will never know what it was like” feeling about me!

Just how rusty I am slapped me right across the face the first two times I signed into the game. I almost immediately lost a scanning ship and my DED space running Ishtar. The latter was a gate camp that podded me as well for a grand total loss of a lot more than I’m willing to admit. Indeed, New Eden is a harsh environment and its denizens are harsher still. As discouraging as it was to lose so much so quickly after my return, it also reminded me of what always draws me back to this game. 

Also apparently you can’t wordwrap around an image anymore…

But yes the sandbox! In all of it’s glory! How I have missed you! But as I assess my place in the universe it became clear to me that some changes needed to be made. For one, fuck Gallente space. I mean serious, it is amazing to me just how much one can come to hate a piece of virtual cosmos. I hate their rats, their players, everything about the area rubs me the wrong way. So it looks like it’s time for another move…UGH. I’m not 100% positive, but moving in Eve may be just as much of a pain in the ass as moving in real life. That’s why I’m going to take my time and really look around. For now I’m focusing on two regions, Derelik and Heimatar. If anyone has some experience in either as a single pilot doing PvE for money and PvP for fun, I’d love to hear about it!

Ah it’s good to be back.

Emerging From the Depths

I have a feeling a lot of readers have been wondering the same thing lately:

Where the fuck have you been?

Fair question considering my last post wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving! The answer is slightly involved but I feel like I am somehow obligated to share it with you regardless. If you don’t really care where I’ve been or what I’ve been up to then by all means please leave me a “glad to have you back!” comment and be on your way. If you do care, or sadly nothing better to do with your life read on…

 

In short I took a small vacation from Eve. It happens about once a year as Azx will no doubt tell you. The fact of the matter is the blog was really successful this past year! So successful that I played a lot more than I usually do so I would be able to write more posts. This sort of led me to a dark thought that I’ve had multiple times during my years in New Eden. There comes a point that I bet most pilots have experienced where the game starts to take on the feeling of a second job. A job that doesn’t pay, give you health insurance, or vacation time. Basically I got home after my real job and sat down at my computer to log in hours for blog material. At first I did so eagerly since there was a new patch out and my readership really seemed to be taking off. But after a while I just got a little burned out from the whole thing.

Another part of it has to do with the corp. While I LOVE being a co-leader of my own corp that specializes in lo-sec guerrilla style combat, only having a couple members makes running events or doing anything particularly meaningful difficult.

On top of all of that I’m running a marathon in March and the training has been eating up a shit ton of time. Like seriously, all of my time. Running. Not to worry, this will be a one and only kind of thing!

So anyway after some serious nagging from Azx I’m starting to dust off the ole’ capsule and hopefully will be seeing you all soon!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eve-Blocked!

Civ V is totally cock-blocking my gaming time right now. I’ll get back in the capsule soon!

Faux.Pas Joins an Alliance!

Some very exciting news! A few days ago our young corp was approached by a fairly small but expanding industrial corporation. They were looking for some new pvp corps to join their ranks and help them during war decs and with some of their lo-sec mining operations. It sounds like an ideal setup, they offer us some free ships as compensation for security services and they help us get to some targets! It sounds like the perfect setup and I for one am super excited to see how it goes!

Battlecruisers of Doom!

Last weekend Azx had an idea. Azx had a wonderful…awful, idea.

I have it on good authority that this is exactly what Azx looks like

“Let’s do a battlecruiser roam, I’ve had this Ferox around for way too long.” I foolhardily agreed. Actually I was pretty psyched about the idea. I hadn’t flown a Prophecy since the changes to the ship’s bonuses. It had gone from a primarily laser boat to a drone boat and I was interested to see what kind of fit I could get on it with all my new maxed drone skills. I was pretty pleased with the fit. It wasn’t ground breaking but had about 700 dps and an effective tank of something like 80,000 hit points. Not great, but not easily ignored either. And I was planning on losing the ship so what the fuck do I care?

We fit out and headed to lo-sec. Our first encounter was…odd.

Basically Azx got caught on a gate. But, the Vexors we were fighting started killing an Omen that we thought was with them. Then, basically, they all left. We had no idea what was happening. We were just trying to get dps on the closest ships before Azx died. And boy was he going to die if they had just kept at it. We were confused but it seemed like the tank on his fit was legit. Vexors can spit out some serious dps and seemed to handle quite a bit of it. And we managed to get on the Omen killmail so yay!

Our next fight went a little better. We caught a few guys, we think from the previous group, on another gate. We primary a Cerberus and manage to break through his tank and take him down. The fight went really well, right until Azx parked his Ferox in a stargate and got stuck! Getting stuck on an inanimate object is always embarrassing, but can be downright lethal when you have enemy ships landing on you. For some reason though they didn’t engage us and we headed to a station to lick our wounds.

The final battle went about how I expected the night to go. We warped into a hornet’s nest and were obliterated. I’ll say I thought we put up a pretty good fight all things considered. We made a few mistakes, but that’s what pvp is all about. A lost ship is only painful if you don’t learn something from it. Every fight you’re in is a lesson, and the more you analyze you’re performance afterwards the better you get.

I for one need to learn to OVERHEAT MY DAMN MODULES. I don’t know what it is, I just can’t seem to remember that it’s available to me. I even have thermodynamics trained to V! Anyway we had a blast and I managed to get some decent videos of the fights. All in all a great way to spend some time on a rainy weekend!