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.

Welcome to Phoebe!

CORP

This week has been pretty slow for R1FTA but that's usual. I'm getting used to being a high and mighty director of R1FTA (lol) and most of my "directing" time this week has been spent trying to get the new recruits to not lose shiny things to SC blobs and blops. While I'm sure most of SC couldn't give a rats ass about R1FTA there seem to be a small minority that have a vendetta against us and they don't mind using excessive force.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/42152831/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/42209235/

These deaths lead to a nice corp mail composed by myself explaining that you should probably do some research on your target before you go in guns blazing and that maybe if you asked for help you would have lost a rifter instead of a stratios. I don't actually mind the deaths even if they are at the hands of SC. If the new recruits have enough isk to buy legion after legion more power to them. R1FTA has always been a casual corp and I'm not going to be the one to demand that they don't fly expensive ships until the SC threat cools down. However, I do hope they will use each death as a learning experience else corp mails may be coming far more frequently.  I've always believed it's better to train up to expensive ships instead of starting off flying them but then again I'm a broke bastard that never has stepped foot in a ship worth more than 100m so what do I know.

The only other thing going on in corp currently is the recruits are asking for a corp hangar of their own that is stocked with some fit rifters and other ships. I'm not opposed to the idea of them having access to a hangar like that so they can grab a ship in a hurry for a fleet but I need to find some way to prevent corp theft if someone decides to do the daring heist of 10 or so fitted rifters.

Also there have been murmurings in the back alleys of R1FTA about a black op to take down a ████████. So keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.

FIGHTS

Honestly no good fights this week :( I've been so busy with school lately that I get home and fall asleep immediately. I'm hoping for a good roam or another chance at a carrier this weekend.

ART

Wait... what? A member of the Black Rebel Rifter Club talking about art? Yeah that's me but I'm not talking about your regular old oil painting on canvas here. I dabble in graphic design as well as 3D art and animation and since this is my blog I'm damn well going to talk about it. Don't worry all of it is EVE related.

For quite awhile I've dabbled in 3D art but I'v never seriously tried 2D. Out of the blue I was asked by some pretty weird fellows to do some art for their Communist campaign. I thought they were pretty funny and they were causing all sorts of racket in Aeschee so I helped them out and did a few pieces for them. What's the worst that could happen?

I also gave them a template for new members which spawned a whole handful of new pictures and caused great distress to members of the Aeschee area.

I've been kicking around an idea to make a cinematic EVE video for nearly as long as I've been playing EVE and this weekend I've decided to start working on it. The opening sequence is ingrained in my mind I've been thing about it for so long. 

A camera starts off blurry and slowly focuses in. Cue ominous music. As it focuses first you see a asteroid field in the distance and then when it fully focuses the closest item to you is revealed in crystal clear clarity. (Check out that alliteration) Casings, 50 polished chrome cylinders reflecting the universe like shards of glass hovering in space. Each ever so slowly rotating their own way. The camera watches these casings do their celestial dance for a moment before a black and red rifter speedily cuts through the frame. Some of the casings collide with the ship bouncing off the metal and scattering while all the others spin or are flung behind by boost of the thrusters. The camera pans following the orange glow of minmatar thrusters. Cue radio static/murmurings. Revealed is an orca fire leaking out of its vents and holes in it's hull. Around it swarm a group of rifters. 

That's as far as I've thought ahead so far. While it may sound like a fairly short scene it is far from simple. The main problems for me in the production are going to be getting the things I'm unfamiliar with done. Music may not be a problem due to EVE having a pretty wonderful public soundtrack but sound effects and after effects like the tails on ship thrusters and lasers are completely foreign to me. Eve is wonderful because CCP has allowed most of the assets in game to be exported and edited out of game to make videos, cool sigs, etc. However they don't let you take everything as far as I know. Some essential things such as the space environment are unobtainable to me so far. It seems like tools are out there that may do some of this stuff but EVE exporting has extraordinarily little documentation and what there is is often from 2006. I had to learn myself how to take assets out of EVE and it was no easy task. I really don't know if the high quality out of game video making community is so niche that it's just a handful of people or if the old wise ones are just keeping secrets to themselves.

Because I expect people to ask the environment in EVE is that background image that is always there. While you can get stills of it like this I need the full 360 image that the game uses because like in EVE the camera will be panning, moving, and rotating. Ignore that I misspelled environment in this picture. I blame paint.

One of my previous works. This took a long time to figure out how to do because the documentation on it was outdated by several years. Chicago was my nickname at the time hence the text.

That's all for this week. If you actually read through that wall of technical jargon that is above I applaud you. See you next week, Slade.

P.S. I didn't talk about Phoebe because it doesn't effect me

Hey, I'm Slade! Since everyone else in the universe of New Eden seems to have a blog I thought I'd make one for myself.

This blog will be going over my ongoing adventures in New Eden as well as whatever happens to interest me at the time including (but not limited to) electro music, combat stories, rants, as well as just general shenanigans. I'm planning to try and do this at least weekly but it's liable to change due to school, work, tornadoes, tsunamis, nuclear warfare, and last but not least freak monster attacks (I'm looking at you Godzilla).

CORP

First thing on the plate this week is that i'm now a director of R1FTA! \o/ Great success. How someone decided I was to the one to fill that position is beyond me. No matter I shall do my best and let Darth and Dom take care of everything until I am forced to start talking to recruits and reviewing applications. In reality though I have plans for R1FTA that would really benefit all the members. The first thing that comes to mind is roams. Roams were essential to my training as a young rifter and the absence of Peri and his weekly Tuesday roams leaves a hole that I desperately want to fill not only for the recruits sake but because I thoroughly enjoy a good roam with friends.

The ongoing aggression between SC, OE, and R1FTA has been the main focus of both myself and the elder members of R1FTA and despite leaving the new recruits to themselves I feel as if they haven't actually been missing anything they should be getting. The "Black Corsets" as the new members have been named by Darth seem to get along well with each other. Some of them have even gone as far as fleeting up and doing roams without inside instruction from older members. I happened to catch one of these roams during a bout of insomnia at 3AM (holy shit do you people ever sleep?) and had a blast until I realized our new recruit that had been so excited to tackle didn't actually have a warp scrambler or disruptor on his tormentor (you know who you are). I had a good long talk with him on the importance of making your target stay still until you kill them and passed along a wonderful dual rep incursus fit that I still believe is the best tackle fit currently in existence.

FIGHTS

Last night I had the opportunity to fleet up with OE to try and take down some SC carriers that are still missioning in the Aeschee area. Despite not actually dropping on anything it was the most fun I've had in EVE in a very long time. I live for the big battles. The anticipation just before you go into a fight. All worthy EVE players have felt it. The thrill of watching your D-scan fill up with enemy ships landing on the gate as you wait inside a plex. The frantic beating of your heart as they come in 10 by 10; your overview filling with flashing yellow and red tickers until your entire screen is covered with so many squares they no longer are the individuals they once were. They become the fleet. Once the thrill of a 1v1 frig battle held the same sweet spot in my heart. I still remember my first pvp death. A rail incursus without even hobgoblin II's to fly with. Every battle was something new and different; each engagement a renewed struggle for life. A David vs Goliath moment. But soon enough I became Goliath and the victories became routine and boring. This is why I cherish the opportunity to fight something new. I've learned in EVE that, despite being the most open sandbox game in the world, for a game spanning years even a hundred thousand options isn't enough to satisfy a player.

MUSIC

I've been listening to some more chilled out music than most would think of electronic music. I found these pieces just browsing Youtube awhile back. Enjoy.

This pretty much wraps up everything I can think of at the moment. Hope you enjoyed a little insight to my world and will stick around for more. Peace, Slade.