Last week Azx, Jakob, and myself set out to lo-sec in a fairly odd fleet. We were looking for something a little more interesting than our standard Tech 1 cruisers and frigates, so we decided to roll out some heavy hitters. Jakob and I both piloted Pilgrims, and Azx brought out his uber-cloak Proteus. It was a sneaky fleet and it caught a poor Omen and Coercer unaware. Well the Coercer was actually just afk on a gate, so I guess anyone could have snuck up on him! o\
The Omen we found ratting in our lo-sec area. He never had a chance. In fact we didn’t even manage to get all our ships there before Azx exploded his ship.
The fleet did seem to work pretty well though. We were able to move from system to system without spooking too many people and we could pick our targets at will. I think we’ll definitely see this fleet roll out again sometime soon. Although I have to be honest, it was terrifying flying an expensive ship like that into combat again! I’ve gotten so used to losing a few million at a time!
A few days after that encounter I caught a thrasher ratting in lo-sec with the Pilgrim. It was a really clever catch and I wish the video had worked. I’m still having trouble getting the mic and game audio to work right with YouTube. I use the AVImux part of Dxtory, but the program doesn’t have a load bar, it just hangs when I run it. If I let it run for like a whole day, then force close it, the file usually works. But it’s super annoying that it doesn’t have a progress bar that works and I have to guess how long to let it run before knowing if it’s going to work. Does anyone know of a program that does what the AVImux program does as a standalone software?!
Some more time in lo-sec today. Azx is around while most of the corp is out of town. We spend a fair bit of time looking around for something to do. The belts seem empty, nothing is very interesting from the probes. Looks like it’s going to be a slow day. On top of all that we’re too far from the trade hubs to blow some money on new shiny ships!
Unsuspecting Imicus
After a while we manage to find a lonely Imicus trying to hack a data site. I quickly probe her down, but she cloaks after seeing my probes I guess. Drat! I head to the data site anyway to hack it myself. Lo and behold our Imicus uncloaks in the site with me! She is racing towards the last loot box but with some quick math I give Azx a distance from myself to warp to. He lands about 10 km away. Needless to say he makes quick work of her.
After that things get really quiet. We both decide to log for a while and I head out for a long overdue jog. I grab some dinner and log back in many hours later. The less than exciting static connection is still up to my disappointment but I head into lo-sec again to see if I can find a fight.
My Pilgrim enters warp and before long I find a Moa ratting. A Moa is an awfully juicy target for a Pilgrim. I d-scan him down to one belt and decloak in warp to him ready to blast him out of his ship. I’m a hair too late though and he warps to the next belt. I give chase but can’t quite get him there either. He heads to a gate and jumps through with me in hot pursuit.
We uncloak on the other side and I see that he’s aligning to another gate. I warp there ahead of him hoping to get the jump on him on the other side, but he doesn’t follow. I warp back to 30 km from where I came from to find him at full velocity just flying aligned to the next gate. Smells like a trap, but if I can get him to attack me first, I would have the gate guns on my side and might get a kill before his friends arrive. You can even see in the video how long I hesitate before engaging, but engage I do! Sure enough local starts to spike and I start aligning towards the sun.
My drones are almost through the last of his armor but I am out of range of his point, and he is out of range of mine. Oddly we both manage to get out with our ships intact. It was a fun engagement and I’m happy to have made it out alive. Although a faction disruptor purchase may be in my very near future…
In the spring of 2006, I downloaded a computer game called Eve Online. I watched the introduction trailer from beginning to end with the excitement of a 5-year old waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning. I digested volumes of text from the web about the New Eden universe and its inhabitants. I literally spent weeks thinking of my character and how they would interact with this immerse galaxy. The first thing my character did, was give himself over to God.
I love good role playing (not the bedroom kind of stuff, although that can be fun to). The Amarr race of Eve is intoxicating to me. An ancient powerful empire who is now struggling to keep itself together after wars and rebellions have raged for decades. The fluff to draw on for role playing was so good, I just couldn’t pass it up. I’ve loved every minute of playing as an Amarrian. I’ve spent time in the militia battling the rebellious scum of the MinMatar and the freedom loving anarchists of the Gallente Federation. It’s been an absolute blast, and long ago I vowed to never betray the Amarr empire or lose my faith in its leadership.
But I stand before you today a conflicted man.
I live in wormhole space. Probing and space exploration are how I fund all of my Eve based adventures. But as I browsed through the Amarrian arsenal last night I came to a realization that had been lingering just on the fringe of my conciseness for a long time now. Amarr has no ship worthy of wormhole space operations. It kills me to admit it publicly, and I hope that you the public can prove me wrong, but as I see it we just do not possess a ship that can perform to a sufficient degree in worm space.
Rebellious scrap heap
Well how about some justification for such a statement. Living in w-space requires one thing above all else. The ability to probe cosmic signatures. Sure there are plenty of Amarr ships that can do this, but none that can do so, cloak, and still possess some kind of military strength. The answer for other races is simple. Their respective strategic cruisers can be configured to deal respectable amounts of damage, have a modest tank, cloak, and still probe a system down. The Legion cannot. A covert fit Legion is made of paper thin armor and has no offensive potential to brag about.
Up until now I’ve used my Pilgrim to do the combat in w-space for me. I generally scan our w-space constellation and find a target worth killing. Then I’ll head back to HQ, swap into the Pilgrim and return to the target’s system to engage it. But this all takes a long time and the prey never stays still for long. No one in w-space does. It’s a matter of survival, I don’t sit still for very long either. But what is an Amarrian loyalist to do?
Gallente vomit barge
I’ve started looking at training for another race’s ship. I really really don’t want to but I’m not sure if there is any other way. The Proteus and the Loki are such potent killers and can cloak and probe as well. It’s hard to pass them up for the sake of staying true to my role playing roots. I am still resistant, if for no other reason than it would take a long time to train the skills to sit in either ship, and I don’t feel like doing it. So I am here to beg the citizens of New Eden to bless me with their wisdom. What is an old war horse to do? Train for a Loki? Commit the ultimate sin and fly a Gallente ship (it’s bad enough I use their drones now)? Or does someone know of a ship that can fill this role within the Amarr arsenal?
You ever hear that expression my eyes were bigger than my mouth? It refers to a moment when you think you’re a lot more hungry than you are and order a lot more food than you can actually consume in a sitting. It was a saying that ran through my head more than once a few nights ago…
The corp was on hand for some good ole’ site bashing. We had a couple of profitable sites in the home system and we hand nothing better to do with our time than make some money. Spirits were high and we were feeling pretty safe. Nothing but us and our static to a FW lo-sec chain. We probably wouldn’t be receiving any visitors anytime soon. Of course as soon as I think that, Azx calls out that he saw a probes on scan for a split second. SON OF A BITCH! I swear every time we start to make some decent money, some asshat with a probe launcher needs to show up. The command goes out to get back to the POS and our scout gets out his own set of probes.
Everything goes strangely quiet. The probes haven’t shown back up on scan and no ship has made an appearance yet. Azx scans down a new wormhole and we immediately head out to setup the blockade. Oz has a Devoter parked on the hole ready to trap anything that comes through. Myself and H5 are in sniper Oracles ready to pop any frigate that thinks his speed will save his life, and Snow has her Pilgrim waiting a few kilometers from the hole as a nice surprise addition if we do get engaged by an enemy fleet.
I feel pretty good about our setup. We are operating under the assumption that we have a single cloaked scout in our system with the potential for a fleet to come through the hole. We decide we want eyes on the other side of the hole right about the same time the wormhole flashes. My weapons immediately go hot and I lock the Devoter that appears on my overview. His shields are gone before he has time to finish locking his first ship, but I know the armor will take a lot longer to get through.
A covert ops uncloaks on top of me and starts to scramble my warp drive. That’s annoying, but he doesn’t seem to have any guns fitted so I’m content to let me keep me pinned down. I have no intention of leaving yet anyway. The wormhole starts flashing away. It’s not surprising considering they have a HIC with them, but what comes through that hole is the stuff of nightmares. A Guardian appears next and H5 and myself immediately switch targets to the logi. Poor Oz is on the front line taking the brunt of the fighting, but our Oracles are spitting out a pretty impressive amount of damage. I’m still happy to fight it out. H5 pops my little harasser which boosts my confidence even more.
Well that was short lived as the following start appearing on the overview:
Proteus
Proteus
Legion
Machariel
Scorpion
Legion
“OK I get the point!” I yelled at my computer as I align back to our POS. We do our best to flee, but Oz and Snow are caught in the Devoter’s bubble and are both going to lose their ships and pods. H5 and myself make it out unscathed but for our pride. It was a good fight, there was nothing we could have done. It does make the day hard though. Life in w-space can get you down. You never feel like the odds are even, though I guess that’s true for life anywhere in Eve. We spend so much of our time training skills and buying ships and modules to defend our system, but it seems like every time we encounter a hostile group they are light years beyond us. Oh well. Gfs are exchanged in local. I ask for a screenshot but it doesn’t sound like anyone was in a picture taking mood that battle. I decide to log off for a while to let the system cool down and grab some dinner. Hopefully exploration will go a little smoother once that C4 connection is closed.
It’s been a few days since posting, but I have been logging into Eve pretty regularly. Unfortunately our connections have been slow recently. Not really a lot of action. It has been good for our corporation bank account though. With little disturbance in the past 72 hours, anomalies have been pillaged, gas has been guzzled (thanks for the pic Oz!), and rocks have been busted. The corp has definitely taken on a much more industrious tone in the last few weeks. I for one am glad to see it. It shows a robust membership and future for us all.
Oz is going to need an intervention though. I swear he cannot hear about how to build or make something in this game and not try it. His latest craze has been producing illegal drugs for the black market, or I’m guessing personal consumption is closer to the mark. Not only that but just yesterday Snow got him into the SOMERblink gambling website. I swear Oz’s soul is lost and in need of reclaiming. Although tripling his money the first time on the site will make it challenging to talk him out of squandering all the corp isk on bids. As much crap as I give him for it, the website is a lot of fun, and a great idea for an in-game corporation.
Anyway I had logged in the other day and immediately get invited to fleet and skype. That is never a good omen. I find that a Proteus has been seen in the HQ system. The blasphemer that he was, interrupted an intense mining operation in the area. I of course hop into a Purifier and head to our new C4 connection to see what he’s all about and what his friends are doing. That’s when Snow made a rather interesting remark. She mentioned that at the first site of the intruding ship on the directional scanner, everyone’s first instinct was to dock up and hide.
Mine was to go poke him with a stick.
What’s the fun of being in a spaceship with lasers if you aren’t going to use them?! The hunt proved fruitless however. After discovering the only operational POS in the system the enemy pilot logged off. Not very threatening at all if you ask me. I made sure to enter the POS location and list of ships into my new w-space log I keep online. I figure knowledge is power and documenting what I find in w-space systems is probably going to pay off at some point. Hopefully. Either way it was a slow weekend, and I’m more than happy to devote some gaming time to my upcoming Starcraft II addiction.
Capsule in the Void 