Eve online - nnnnoooooooooooooooo!!

Eve online - nnnnoooooooooooooooo!!

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Discussion

Mannginger

9,074 posts

258 months

Sunday 23rd March 2014
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What was the reddit thread? I'm not really on it so missed it. Be good to see some banter as it was a good fight.


Mannginger

9,074 posts

258 months

Sunday 23rd March 2014
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Ta muchly

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Saturday 29th March 2014
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Recently managed a solo kill in nul sec after joining a corp that lives and operates on the edge, and thought I'd tell the story.

First, a short back story to set the scene. I'm still quite new to Eve, having started playing in October of last year. There is still a lot within the game that goes completely over my head, particularly with regard to flying in nul sec; I have no idea how cynos work or when you would use them, POSs and their setting up and operation are a black art, and mining planets to provide income whilst roaming nul sec space is a complete mystery. My skill set whilst flying in high sec and learning the ropes had been split between all sorts of disciplines, including mining and a bit of manufacturing, so nothing specific that would help me in a PvP situation.

Most of my experience of PvP to this point was being on the receiving end when exploring WH space whilst not having a clue what I was doing, or falling foul of some trap whilst flying through low sec space. The rest of the time was split between flying lvl 3 security missions, or a bit of ice mining when the belts were available. Reading Mandown's descriptions in this thread of his adventures with Senex corp in nul sec had me thinking that something like that seemed infinitely more exciting than what I was doing, so I made enquiries about joining the corp, and made the transition to my new home in nul sec space.

Initially I was limited to flying T1 frigates for a couple of reasons. My skills didn't allow me to fit anything bigger with anything resembling a half decent fit for surviving or contributing to battles in such a volatile region. Secondly, I was under no illusion that I was likely to lose a few ships in the first days of taking my tentative steps and trying to learn the tricks that would help my longevity when undocked from the haven of a station, and T1 frigates are cheap to replace.

I have now been a member of Senex for two weeks, and in that time I prioritised my skill training to put me in a T2 interceptor frigate, which I managed to do a couple of days ago. The following story is what happened on my very first outing flying the ship out of my home station in nul sec.

My in game user name is DeLlave Verdun.




DeLlave was looking proudly at her new acquisition. Having just completed another Captain upgrade course (God, she hated going back to school) the Ares class frigate was a very welcome sight in her hangar. Based on the trusty Atron hull, a ship she had quite an affinity for, the Ares was quite a step up, and should make life for her and her crew just a little bit easier in the lawlessness of the Wildlands. She had no elusions that the Ares was still a fragile ship when compared to a lot of the ships usually found in these parts, but the ability to warp out of gate bubbles and the like was enough to ease the tension levels down a notch or two when out there flying solo.

And so it was to be this evening. Popping her head in to the ops room, she saw that not too many of the other Senex captains were on roster, and there were no ops currently up and running. Deciding that she was too impatient to wait before taking her new toy out for a spin, she rousted her crew from the rest room, and headed down to the hangar where she now stood feeling like a loved-up teenager, waiting to go on her first date.

Climbing aboard she was struck at once by how familiar everything felt but, at the same time, how different. The layout was entirely familiar, as was the view of the back of the head of her tactical officer, sitting slightly below her and to her left. What was different was the addition of a few extra control panels and monitors, but mostly the feeling of purpose that was somehow lacking in the Atron.

With no specific goal in mind as they slipped the dock , she instructed the helm to set a course for the Thukker station in EO2. When speccing her new ship, she had asked the fitters to arm the Ares with Light Electron Blaster II guns and, not wishing to skimp on her new ship's abilities, decided that it would only be right to feed these tech II guns with tech II ammo. Having spent an hour that afternoon doing a bit of online shopping, she had managed to purchase a few rounds of Null S which were now sitting in a crate in EO2 awaiting collection.

A quick check of the scanner confirmed that there were only friendlies in the vicinity, so she ordered to go straight to jump, whilst reflecting that in the same situation in the Atron she would still have gone to a perch first before approaching the gate if all was clear. Those first few minutes confirmed what she already knew; she was going to love flying this ship.

Jumping the gate, another quick scan showed up nothing to ring the alarm bells, so again she dispensed with the formality of going to a station perch, and went straight to dock. Leaving the ship to track down her shopping, she instructed the crew to have a quick check round to make sure nothing had come loose during their first flight. Yes, it had only lasted a few minutes, and yes she had faith in the ship builders (honest), but just the same she felt that you could never be too careful. Getting the nod from her engineer when she returned that all was well with the ship, and with the new ammo safely installed in the ammo racks, she gave the order to head back out in to space.

BLOODY HELL! Where did that lot come from!? A quick check of local was displaying 76 pilots, and from what she could see out the window, they were all outside the station. Fortunately they appeared to be more interested in each other than they were in her, so she ordered an immediate jump to a local moon, where she ordered the helm to do a quick U-ey back to a perch 256km from the station so she could check what was going on. Arriving back on perch, she instantly cloaked the ship and then sat back to enjoy the show.

She hadn't been flying in this region for long, a scant 2 weeks now, so she wasn't overly familiar with all of the various corps that frequented the region, but she was familiar with a few of these guys. It appeared to be a mix of Powergrid, Ink and Ebola having a bit of a ding-dong, with the battle ebbing and flowing around the station. She was too far away to make out individual shots or who was taking the most damage, but the fact that at one point there were four warp bubbles up, she figured it was a pretty serious scrap.

And just as suddenly as it had sprung up, it appeared to dissipate. She reckoned the battle lasted around 5-10 minutes, before noting that one minute the sky was full of ships, and the next they had all warped off. There were still one or two stragglers on station, but it wasn't long before they too disappeared.

Listening to chatter on comms, she ascertained that the combatants had migrated to M-M, though she wasn't sure if they were still on the gate or whether they had actually jumped. With nothing left to see at the station, she decided to follow the fleet to M-M to see what happened next. With intel as to their exact whereabouts still a bit sketchy, she thought it prudent this time to warp to the M-M gate perch, just in case.

Arriving at the gate, she was pleased to see that they had indeed jumped, with the exception of a lone ship. Oh crumbs, what was she to do now? Only being used to flying in a fleet herself, and therefore used to someone else making the decisions and giving the orders when in a combat situation, this was all a bit new.

Ok, step by step. What is it? Scan indicates a Condor. Condor! What the feck is a Condor?

Pulling up her Jane's guide to Starship Recognition, she quickly reads that the Condor is a Caldari frigate. Fast and agile it is best used as an assault vessel in a hit-and-run type of operations.

Right, so it's not going to insta-pop us, so we should be able to have a go at this.

Tactics. Well he either hasn't noticed us yet, or he doesn't feel threatened. Crap, he's not the meat in some sort of trap is he?

Comms chatter would indicate that the rest of the bad guys are still mooning about in M-M, so it doesn't appear to be a trap.

No idea what he's fitted with, but if it's anything other than short range weapons, he's going to be taking pot shots at us before we get in range to do anything with our blasters, which might give him the advantage.

Come on DeLlave, think. You need to get in close and quick to make best use of those shiney new blasters and that expensive new ammo you've decided to feed them with.

Light bulb moment. Distance to target 238km. Distance to gate 250km.

"Helm, warp to the gate, and then set orbit on target for 500m. Use the MWD to close to orbiting distance as quick as you can. Tactical, as soon as we land, that thing should be in scramming range and when we get close enough, I want it webbed too, just for good measure. Go."

Even with a plan in place, things can and do go wrong. A new and untested ship, an inexperienced crew, the possibility of the hordes from hell re-appearing through the gate glittering menacingly off our port bow. This lifestyle definitely knows how to get your heart rate pumping and the adrenalin flowing.

"Target scrammed, webbed, guns coming on line. We're in the fight captain."

"Kill the MWD, I want us to be able to stay in close and reduce our signature. Don't give anything away that might help him."

"Keep that orbit going, and try and keep us within optimal. This is going to be him or us, and I don't need to take votes to figure out preferences."

"His shields are failing captain, web and scram holding, guns still at optimal."

Comms chatter; "Go get him Del."

The sudden unexpected encouragement from Valiek who is obviously sitting close somewhere nearby, watching this spectacle unfold, is very reassuring.

"He's in to structure. He's going down captain."

"Okay lads, let's not get complacent. Keep an eye on the scan, just in case. Tactical, let's see if we can't make this a double whammy, and pod him too. Stand by to reassign scram and web priority as soon as that ship goes pop."

"Got him captain, he's not going anywhere. Guns coming on now."

"CAPTAIN, I'VE GOT INCOMING MISSILES! Oh, hold on, they're friendly. They're not aimed at us. My bad. Sorry if I nearly gave you a heart attack there."

Can't begrudge Valiek getting on the scoreboard on this one. His encouragement and just knowing that he was there was a massive boost to my belief that I could make this happen.

"He's down captain."

"Phew, that was fun, now that it's all over! Helm, take us back to M-M Thukker station. Time for some champagne I think. Good job lads."




Apologies to Senex members on this forum who will probably already have been subjected to this in our own forum

Edited by DIW35 on Saturday 29th March 22:18


Edited by DIW35 on Sunday 30th March 16:15

Asterix

24,438 posts

229 months

Sunday 30th March 2014
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Good work mate thumbup

Bet your heart was going like the clappers smile

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Sunday 30th March 2014
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It was. I headed straight back to the station to park up and have a rest and calm down. Only then did I realise I hadn't looted the wreck, so had to undock and go back.

shouldbworking

4,769 posts

213 months

Monday 31st March 2014
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Good stuff! I'm not sure how much the sig radius would really make in a frigate vs frigate fight. Fortunately there is this handy calculation to work it out (for turrets anyway)

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Turret_Damage#The_To...

It also sums up nicely why people struggle with eves learning curve smile

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Monday 31st March 2014
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Having a quiet time at work today, I've been re-reading the posts on this thread since I started playing Eve, which took me back back nearly 30 pages. All I can say is that reading the posts from people thinking about joining a corp that operates in nul sec space but being worried about not having the skills to survive, go for it.

Mandown has already written about how he joined his corp with only enough skills to fly a T1 frigate, and I recently did the same. I had a few more skill points than he did when he made the jump, but a lot of mine are in mining and manufacture, and I too only had T1 frigate abilities that were of any use.

I can fully reiterate what he said in that flying PvP in nul sec with a corp that is populated with guys who are more than happy to help with training, hints and tips on how to survive and even fight has been a real joy, and on a completely different level that I now realise is the drudgery of mining or mission flying in high sec.

Xandski

377 posts

141 months

Friday 4th April 2014
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DIW35 said:
Having a quiet time at work today, I've been re-reading the posts on this thread since I started playing Eve, which took me back back nearly 30 pages. All I can say is that reading the posts from people thinking about joining a corp that operates in nul sec space but being worried about not having the skills to survive, go for it.

Mandown has already written about how he joined his corp with only enough skills to fly a T1 frigate, and I recently did the same. I had a few more skill points than he did when he made the jump, but a lot of mine are in mining and manufacture, and I too only had T1 frigate abilities that were of any use.

I can fully reiterate what he said in that flying PvP in nul sec with a corp that is populated with guys who are more than happy to help with training, hints and tips on how to survive and even fight has been a real joy, and on a completely different level that I now realise is the drudgery of mining or mission flying in high sec.
TL:DR... Join a good corp and...



wink

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Tuesday 8th April 2014
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Got involved in a half decent skirmish with the corp last night. Was actually playing a different game, but listening on comms as a couple of our guys dropped on a carrier doing some ratting of all things about 4 jumps from our home system. The carrier went down but then a call went out for a sub-capital fleet to loot the field and defend it from Mr. carrier's mates.

Quickly paused the game I was playing, logged in to Eve, and undocked in my frigate just in time to join the sub-cap fleet that had assembled. Acting as scout we quickly arrived on scene to start mixing it with an Abaddon battleship and a Rapier recon ship that had turned up, and which were soon dispensed with.

Felt really good getting on a battleship kill in my little frigate.

https://zkillboard.com/detail/38050074/


Xandski

377 posts

141 months

Sunday 13th April 2014
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Mandown46 said:
Black Ops drops are amazing fun.

Some poor guy reshipped out of a Loki, into a Macharial, in order to try and save his friend in his Mackinaw from a single bomber and a Arazu.

Oh how he must have laughed when the second cyno went up, and the rest of us jumped in.....

In addition, we dropped and killed a ratting carrier, his friends then losing around 700mil in ships trying to kill the wreck, managing eventually to kill the wreck, along with 150 mil of loot we didnt get out,
we also dropped in on a pair of ratting Tengu's, then got back home just in time for a fight with a Loki and a Proteus, only the Loki got caught that time.

Brilliant couple of days.
I miss my days of flying scout/cyno for them, once you get a Goon-Cannon everyone wants you to be bridge monkey frown Mind you, bridging/jumping a Huginn, Lachesis and two Blops with all of the bombers can be just as fun.

Oh, you're trying to burn out of Scram range? Have some Huginn webs and Panther arty to add to all of those torpedoes wink

In other news; I've been flying a structure tanked cyno Typhoon around Syndicate recently looking for fights... No-one seems to want to have a go at killing it. Its almost as if they know that the nub corp alt I'm using is a Goon cyno bh. Funny that :P

Rotary Madness

2,285 posts

187 months

Sunday 13th April 2014
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Ive been thinking about coming back for a while, but FW just looks like the same button game as it was before.

Edit-Undo

122 posts

182 months

Sunday 13th April 2014
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FW hasn't really changed tbh. It's a bit "swings and roundabouts" as to who is "winning" but nothing really new. I'm finding a lot of fun in "Spectre Fleet", public fleets at the moment.

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Friday 18th April 2014
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Been trying to get my head round Planetary Interaction for the last few days. It's not exactly user friendly is it! Scan the planet for the good deposits, trying to suss out how the scanner sliders work to your advantage. Not understanding about the ratio of basic factories to advanced factories to maintain a status quo. Not having a clue about output from the ECU and how much is needed per hour to keep the basic facilities running. And that was all after I had finally got my head around actually building everything in the first place and working out the difference between a link and a route.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all is now as it should be, and that my installations can be left to their own devices other than the odd visit to keep the programs running, and to relieve them of their precious goodies.

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Friday 18th April 2014
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I've been doing a bit of cyno popping recently in a Velator. I don't think they expected that when I start shooting. lol

Xandski

377 posts

141 months

Saturday 19th April 2014
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DIW35 said:
I've been doing a bit of cyno popping recently in a Velator. I don't think they expected that when I start shooting. lol
Its a real pain when you alt+tab back to your cyno alt only to see it floating happily in a station in an Alpha clone... Its why all of my cyno alts are now learning Cloaking.

roachcoach

3,975 posts

156 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Are you fellas still running a corp, or you have been taken into CFC (not being a member of SA, I can't see my getting in there)?

I'm returning after a short break and now have a lot more time on my hands than I used to so am in the market for a decent corp.

roachcoach

3,975 posts

156 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Right now, not much. Farming SOE to get a cash base going again. Previously I've not done much exciting, life has been rather full on and hectic so it was hard to commit time. Ended up caught in a mission grinding trap for too long. However what I want to do is get some more time and enjoyment in the PvP area, I've largely kept clear due to being alone for the most part but really enjoyed the odd forays down (though found fights hard to come by, no-one trusts a solo unknown pilot out there smile ) Some of the most fun were wars a few years back, but these days I've been quiet, trying a little exploration, null anoms, just a little of this and a little of that really.

Since I've more time on my hands I've been looking for a while and it hit me that PH might have a corp and from skimming the thread, it sounds good. Assuming that is, you'd consider me. Quite happy (actually desperate) to learn more and I should be useful, can fly a decent array of sub caps and have pretty solid skills for the most part. Notable gaps would be intys, logi and dictors other than that it's not too shabby a layout.

You folks here, from reading the thread, sound like my kind of people - old(er) and cognisant of real life.

Short version I guess is I want to be part of something bigger and get some PvP/laughs/friends whilst I'm there.

Edited by roachcoach on Monday 21st April 22:57

Asterix

24,438 posts

229 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Had a full Blops fleet drop on my little Stabber last night. Must have cost them more in ozone than the kill mail value...

DIW35

4,145 posts

201 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Asterix said:
Had a full Blops fleet drop on my little Stabber last night. Must have cost them more in ozone than the kill mail value...
Had a quiet chuckle at that, especially with all the crap they were posting in local chat after the event. Anyone would think they had just won the World Cup the way they were going on.

Asterix

24,438 posts

229 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Have you seen the Killboard?

Seems Rick managed to get his Proteus killed while ratting and his Logi got the final blow with its drones hehe