Saturday, December 6, 2014

And I'm back!

After a short hiatus from writing I've returned! The past few weeks have been incredibly busy for me including, but not limited to, studying for finals (I'm so fucked), my car got hit, my dog died (not related to the car accident),a case of the flu (one day before I was going to to get the vaccine no less), and several school projects were piled on me all at once. However, EVE waits for no man so lets get to that shall we.

CORP

We moved! If you're feeling lonely come down to sunny Gultratren. Located one jump from both highsec and Minmatar/Amarr faction warfare space Gultra is the perfect pvp retreat for the seasoned vet.

All jokes aside I love our new location. I never had more fun than I did when I was with Thingy Corp. doing FW for Amarr. The FW space is chock full of small gang and solo frigate and destroyer pvp and is the natural space for a corp that has done nothing but solo and small gang since it's creation. On top of that it's so much better to have a worthy opponent to fight instead of some 2 day old noob in a venture. I won't ever say that Adirain was a bad home system but even before the SC invasion came the space was largely empty of fighters and those who were around I had fought more times than I could count. The migration of SC to Aeschee right next door simply deepened the void when they started dropping blops fleets on anything bigger than a t1 frig.

The noobs are becoming far less noobier. Small gangs are now a daily occurrence within R1FTA something that did not happen when I was a recruit. I can't help but think that this is a good direction for the corp despite some of the members seemingly ignoring solo action. This is nicely leading to some group kills including a very dumb and very unfortunate Brutix Navy Issue.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/42772181/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42834426/

There are some downsides to moving away from Adirain however. Our recruitment lately has gone down to nearly zero. Where as before we used to get lots of new players in Adirain ,often from the beginner epic arc just next door in Arnon, Gultra is far different. Being so close to FW space there are no noobs besides the farmers who sit stabbed in plexs all day and we really don't want them.

FIGHTS

After getting my life sorted out I went back to roaming for the first time in nearly two months and had the most FRUSTRATING time of my life.

I stole a rail Comet fit from a friend and have been playing around with it for the several days. I can reasonably say that it is the best ship I have ever had the pleasure to fly. I have never ever used a kiting fit successfully before this and am now in love. The Comet has such versatility that it can take down just about anything in the same class as it. The combination of drones and long range rails make it deadly to things that can kite further than me like Tristans or Slicers

https://zkillboard.com/kill/42838228/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42857358/ This was a 2v1 but the other slicer left after I got this guy.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42857164/

while it's great speed and kiting ability due to scram/web/afterburner completely wrecks close range ships.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/42838638/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42857433/ Funny story I killed this guy before his gang landed.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42839163/

Unfortunately this ship also frustrates me more than any ship that I have ever flown before. Having flown a blaster fit before this I am intimately knowledgeable about the sort of things you can do to catch a kiting ship and how to avoid them while I am kiting, but, I KEEP FUCKING UP!

Perhaps it's just that I'm rusty but I keep making mistakes and as they are so varied I will address them one at a time. I've chosen the three that stick out most in my mind.

The first loss: https://zkillboard.com/kill/42838271/

This was a 2v1. The tristan landed first and was not so easily dispatched (fuck drones) as the comet landed and burned toward me. At this point I was hurting pretty bad and only had a couple nanite paste still loaded. I looked at the comet saw blasters and said fuck it I'll stay and take my chances. Drones only put out 40 to 50 dps and I think I can put my warriors on his hobgobs and pick them off while I kite, right? Turns out this was a great plan until he figured it out. He pulled his drones (goal #1 completed) and decided that I could probably kite him until he died and tried to get out. At this point he was running out of paste and in about half armor and I was completely out of paste but taking zero damage while I was repping my armor back up with a dry ancil. Are you ready because this is the part I fuck up. Realizing that he was  A) dying and B) trying to leave. I turn around to try and keep him in scram range at the same time he turns around to get me in blaster range. Shit. I overload my afterburner to try and get out but the damage has been done. As I leave the optimal of his blasters a single round of null grazes my fuel tank and my beautiful Comet explodes into a million pieces.

The second loss: https://zkillboard.com/kill/42839538/

This loss infuriates me far less than the others because I doubt I could have killed him if I had done everything right. The incident plays out as such.

"Oh look a Breacher at a novice. What an easy kill!"
*warping*
"Oh look he's on the outside"
*Launch drones, apply all dps and webs/scram/afterburner*
*Wait for the explosion to happen*
"Huh, that's funny. He hasn't died yet and I'm out of nanite paste to rep myself"
*Exit Slade (in pod)*

Reviewing the footage I don't think I did anything wrong and have come to the conclusion that he was implanted, linked, and using blue pills to tank the 250 OH dps of my comet. Still, it confused the hell out of me for some time.

The third loss: https://zkillboard.com/kill/42868432/

This is the one I'm really angry about. Looking back I did everything wrong and I can't get over it.

I warped to a novice at 30 just because and as soon as I land a Garmur lands 30 away from me. I decided to stay because A( I have pretty longe range on my railguns and B( I have warriors to kill him over time. Great! I lock up the Garmur and load spike as he starts his long orbit. Then his buddy in the Cruor lands at the same distance. The Cruor worries me deeply but I ignore it because I NEED to kill this Garmur to get out of the fight and I'm already halfway through his shields. This is the part I fuck up. The Cruor rushes me at 3km/s and gets neuts on me hard before I get it through my thick skull that A) I'm not leaving the fight any time soon B) The Cruor is the real threat here and C) STAY AWAY FROM THE CRUOR. Realizing these three things all at once and too late I get web and scram on the Cruor and pull distance from him but again the damage is done. My cap ravaged I try turning everything but afterburner off to get some reps out of my ancil but it just won't go. I die to the Garmur's minuscule dps with 6 nanite paste left in my ancil and more angry than I've ever been in EVE.

That sums up this past week for me. I just ordered 15 more rail comets (Holy shit they are expensive) so expect more of that and probably some other kiting stuff now that I've had my eyes opened to the fun.

Fly lethal, Slade.