Monday, December 7, 2015

Wormhole/scanning/intel gathering Basics 101 Video Series 1 - 3

Hello readers.

I'm sorry its been so long since my last post, I've been busy with a real life move and just haven't felt inspired to blog much lately. Doing my best to un-funk myself.


I did want to make a video series that can be linked to people who don't know anything about wormholes or wormhole intel gathering.

Here is that link.

Video 1 is the very basics of scanning using the new probe overview

Video 2 is the wormhole basics

Video 3 is intel gathering for the paranoid :)

Short update, but watch the videos if you're bored and feel you can learn something.

There will more 


Friday, November 6, 2015

Review of EVE Vegas 2015

My somewhat harsh review of the EVE Vegas 2015 Experience.


Personal History:

This is my 2nd EVE Vegas. I attended 2013 at the Rio Resort. Side note: I attend 5 to 6 conventions each year, on one nerdy topic or another. Its kind of my thing.

I go to so many, they seem to blend together. I think I'm semi qualified to provide a quality review, just because of how many I attend. Using the other conventions as a baseline, here's my review.

High points

 Swag for sale:  I like that they had T-shirts, mugs, models, pins, stickers, you name it for sale. The prices were fairly reasonable too. I bought a couple shirts, one of them a really nice polo for $20. During EVE Vegas 2013, there wasn't hardly anything for sale, maybe some keyboards/head sets but that was about it. Great to be able to pick up some swag and not get raked across coals doing it.

The hotel to convention layout: I go to many conventions that have the venue across the street from the hotel, or in the case of the EVE Vegas 2013  Rio, a fucking mile walk through the casino from your room to the convention site. This year, you walk 40 feet from your room, get on the elevator hang a left and you're there. You don't have a bunch of bull shit walking if you want drop off your jacket in your room or something.

The hotel shopping: Lets be real, its Vegas, and stuff just costs more because of it. $10 for 4 cookies just comes with the town. The good thing about this particular hotel was how easy it was to get to a verity of different food outlets, stores, both fast food and fine dining. This worked for me because my wife wanted a nice night out with me, away from all the nerd-gasiuming. We  had all you can eat sushi on Friday and a nice $100 meal at a semi fine dinning restaurant.

The exclusive party: Meeting everyone in a relaxed party-ish venue was fucking awesome. Watching Mittens make the same D-bag duck face, from selfie to selfie is something that you can truly appreciate and has a way of being magical. Top shelf booze; that if the bartender is properly motivated, (slipped him a 5) will give you a double no ice bourbon.  Cheers!.

The EVE sing along with Guard was great, he is by far my most favorite Dev. Guard doesn't know shit about advanced EVE game play, but god damn it if he isn't friendlier than a wet dog.  o7 Love you Guard!

Low points:


The hotel: The Planet Hollywood simply doesn't give a shit. This imo is the best way to describe my logging experience.

My wife and I stayed in our room from Friday to Monday. The bathtub was never cleaned by housekeeping. Now we aren't filthy people, but when you notice on Monday the long black hairs in the tub and neither of you have long black hair, either the maids been bathing in there, or the shit just didn't get clean.  My wife commented on the contact lens she found floating in the tub, and the shave ring around, when she was about to shave her legs. :P

The bed was fucking hard! I've had softer beds in Mexico that were essentially a cement block build into the floor with foam on top. I made the unfortunate mistake of diving onto the bed right after my flight. RIP my shoulder. I woke up about 4 times each night with pain. Nothing like wanting to not sleep in during a vacation.

Then we went to the pool.

How much work is it to pick up beer cans from around the pool? Wet towels, beer cans, trash and just grossness all around the pool. I'm not sure why there were wet towels, but the pool wasn't close to heated, its mid October!  Thats common for some places in Nevada, they assume that every day will be warm because its the desert. I get it. This doesn't excuse the 'warm tub' I should call it a "hot tub" but I think you can't call it that anymore if its colder than your body temperature. Since the pool was ice cold, the warm tub wasn't close to hot, all the pool goers who wanted to get wet in some way simply crowed into a single 500 gallon pool. The hot tub was forming bubbles on the top from all the people grease, piss and whatever else may have oozed off of the several hundred people who used it.

If a hotel can't bother picking up 10 beer cans from around the pool, you sure as shit could assume that the hot tub water NEVER gets changed. They can't be bothered to even check if the heat is on, I honestly think I was just sitting for 30 minutes in bubbling piss.

The surprise 100 dollar logging charge AFTER the trip. So Vegas and I mean most of Vegas thinks its such a privilege to go there, each hotel charges you an additional charge after the fact of 30 dollars a night. Because? Well because they can. We thought, that must be illegal, but turns out that its simply added to each visit in the fine print.


The EVE Vegas Convention as a whole: 


Now, when I go to a convention, I want content. This is why I flew there after all. I want guest speakers, I want "How to's", I want signings, I want a jam packed 12 hour schedule of content.  People paid a lot of money to fly and stay at your convention. Give them content!

This is what I got.

On Sat and Sunday, the speakers/whatever didn't start till 11am. Now I get that I might be hung over, sleeping in, whatever. But seriously, you have the presentation rooms for the entire weekend, how hard would it have been to simply start stuff off at 8am, or hell 9 am.

They also did this super retarded thing with schedule and overlapped content. Like at one point on Sunday, I had to make a choice between 3 different things going on in 3 different rooms. Would it have been so hard to simply open the doors early and spread those things out from 9am, instead of starting all 3 at 11am?  

 Giving a person like myself who wanted to see all 3 things a chance?

This wasn't just for one time slot, there was double, triple booking of time slots through out the 11 to 4 presentation windows. Seriously? How hard would it have been to start at 8 and end at 8. Triple the player presentations, throw massive amounts of content at me. Player presentations are essentially free, give me more!

Not only that, but 25 minutes to talk about something that I have done for 5 years is a bit hard. I could have talked about wormhole hunting for a week straight, let me come in super early like 7AM and give a serious chat about wormhole hunting, with Q & A. I mean, its not like they paid for the rooms by the hour, who cares if no body shows up, at least if someone wanted to see it or be a part of it, it could have happened. Instead the room stayed empty and people twittled their thumbs in the hallway for 2 hours before 11am.   Here's my presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8

I paid thousands of dollars to fly across the country and stay in a hotel, for 5 hours of me wishing I could dopplegang myself across 3 different rooms. I spend the remainder of the time wondering what to do, other than the reasons I actually came there. Who made the call that the each day should only be 5 hours long? That is god damn retarded.

The Devs: 

The dev Q & A's were lame too, if you wanted to ask a question, you had to hold your hand up for 10 minutes, for a dev to play "Do I like that guys face enough to call on him". Not only that but most weren't mic'ed up, so it was just us trying our hardest to listen to them say "Sorry I don't do that" or "your question is NDA".

The over all attitude of the Devs I talked to, seemed like they were just "tasked" to be there. Jet lag or whatever, aside from Falcon and Guard, they looked like they didn't want to be there, like it was just J.O.B. I've had the pleasure of meeting the devs in San Francisco and EVE Vegas 2013, this was a different vibe, way more defensive, less approachable, more snarky... Its had to describe, but the spirit just wasn't there.

The absence of live streaming this year, what the actual fuck?

Sure the hotel charges an arm and a leg for streaming, but who negotiated that contract for the venue to not include it in the price? Did you simply not think of it? It doesn't need to be a whole production, The Mittani dot com proved that with their live steam. You shouldn't have needed to rely on fan sites to pick up the slack for poor planing.

Will I go again?: 

Nope. Overall the cost for me and my wife was about $3,000 after all was said and done. A quick google search and I could have bought her and I a all expense paid trip to Mexico for a week.

Come next Oct, lets get some EVE dudes to chill on a beach in Cancun for 4 more days, for half the cost.

 See you all in EVE Cancun 2016 boys!



Friday, October 9, 2015

My C5 PVE RR Rattlesnake Setup

Based on my blog hits, the majority of my hits are focused on my PVE content. Which I think is strange, but meh, whatever. I guess bears read more.

I wanted to make a quick post on my C5 RR Rattlesnake set up. I've had a few questions about it in corp so if I could simply link this blog to them, it would give them all the info they needed.

The goal of this setup and I'm not going to say its the "Best Setup" is to do C5 sites and clear C5/C6 gas sites. I'm keeping it cheap and effective because I triple box this set up from time to time. I can't have a lot of random things happening while it do I, because that makes it harder. If you have a "Better Setup" please post a link to your blog in the comments and we can measure ePeen. :p

Why rattlesnakes?

The price of Rattlesnakes has dropped recently to 325m each, which IMHO is crazy for a faction battleship. I'm going to break the fit down to total price.

 [Rattlesnake, Rattlesnake] -- 325m

Lows:
Capacitor Power Relay II - 400k
Capacitor Power Relay II - 400k
Capacitor Power Relay II - 400k
Co-Processor II - 816k
Drone Damage Amplifier II - 950k
Drone Damage Amplifier II - 950k



Mids:
 Gistum C-Type Explosive Deflection Amplifier - 1.3m
Cap Recharger II - 396k
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II - 1.71m
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II - 1.71m
Pithum C-Type Thermic Dissipation Amplifier - 1.49m
Pithum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier - 2m
Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier - 16.8m

Highs:
Drone Link Augmentor II - 950k
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II - 891k
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II - 891k
Large Remote Shield Booster II - 2.1m
Large Remote Shield Booster II - 2.1m
Large Remote Shield Booster II - 2.1m

Large Egress Port Maximizer II - 43.7m
Large Egress Port Maximizer II - 43.7m
Large Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I - 471k


Berserker I x3 - 135k
Warden I x2 - 324k
Gecko x1 - 94.7m

Total Cost: 544m.x3 with a total 3 character/ship investment of: 1.632 billion

 Now that may look like a lot out the door, but if you compare it to some of the solo marauders out there that are doing C5 sites, this is less. I know there are even cheaper ways of doing them, but this is the cheapest setup I have personally discovered.

 
Break down of how it works:

 I run 3 of these ships on a triple box set up. Its a combination of passive tanked and active tanked. Remember the nuet pressure is very intense on some C5 sites and specifically at Instrumental/Vital Core gas sites.

The three rattles warp into a site and instantly target each other. Each rattle sends its Large Remote Cap transmitter to the other 2 Rattle snakes. The Large Egress Port Maximizer II is the key to making this work. It effectively reduces the cost of transferring cap, creating a surplus transfer amount to the other rattles. So much of a surplus that, both targeted rattles can run all their Invulns and 2 Large Remote Shield Boosters, under sleeper nuet pressure.

You can run 3 Remote Shield boosters with good skills for about 5 minutes, but not under direct nuet pressure.

The DPS comes from the single Gecko. You could do this entire setup with 2 Berserker IIs if you want, its about the same DPS as a single gecko, but the gecko moves faster, has better tracking and overall does more dps in the log run.

What I like about this set up is its very "hands free" if that makes sense, all you really need to do while triple boxing this set up is move a few remote reps from the sleeper primaried rattles and make sure your geckos are targeting the same thing. If they aren't, you could screw up the triggers, and the site will take longer because of sleeper remote repairing.


ISK per Hour: 

This question always gets asked by people over and over again. I'm guessing because in Kspace its all about the ticks. Well in Wspace, our payouts are some what random, and sometimes you can't simply just grind out some anoms, when ever you wish. There are threats all around you, and the time to bust out the rattles just isn't perfect.

Instead of giving you an ISK per hour, I'll give you an estimated pay out based on the activity. I hope that's sufficient.

Instrumental Core Gas site - 4 Sleeper battleships: The direct sleeper pay out is between 70m and 80m in blue loot and sleeper salvage. It takes about 5 minutes to clear. Total Gas value if you huffed it all and lived.  400m in C320 - 38m in C540 Gas. -

Total: 510m

Vital Core Gas Site - 4 Sleeper battleships, 4 sleeper frigs: Believe it or not this is one of the harder sites to do, the DPS and nuet pressure right off, is VERY high. You have been warned. The direct sleeper pay out is 90m to 110m in blue loot and sleeper salvage. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to clear with this fleet. Total gas value if you huffed it all and lived. 450m in C540 - 33m in C320 Gas -

Total: 580m

C5 Core Garrison -  This site takes between 45 to 50 minutes to complete. This is multiple waves of sleepers and its recommended you scout the anom first to bookmark a sleeper structure. You don't want to warp to this site at 0, because of the Sleeper sentry drones. They are really far from you, and why make it harder? Just book mark a sleeper structure near the Sleeper sentry guns and warp in at 10k. -- Total pay out in blue loot is 235m. + Sleeper salvage, normally around 60m.

Total: 295m

C5 Core Stronghold -  This site takes around 45 to 50 minutes to complete. This is my favorite anom. Main reason, the triggers don't scram you after the 1st set. So you can kill every single scam ship, without triggering the reinforcement wave. Why is this important? Well because of pilots like me! If your scrammed by sleepers, I can bring my bring my scout/murder fleet to you and there isn't much you can do about it without losing a single rattle. When doing the site, again, get a warp in first so you aren't sending your geckos far and wide to kill sentry guns. Total pay out in blue loot is about 240m with about 60m in sleeper salvage.

Total: 300m 


I'm not going to go through ALL the sites, but you get a fairly good understanding of how many sites you need to do, in order to recover your investment. About 3 gas sites, and about 5 anoms. After that, its pure profit, (minus your time of course).

Tips to keep you alive: 

There are people like me in the universe and I love me some player ship explosions. This is how you avoid me killing you.

1. Always scan out every single connection to your bear hole. At least know what you're connected to, the less connections the better. Peek your head into each one and see who lives there. Do a quick "Info" from the POCOs. Find out who the owners are, and search their kill boards for PVP activity. Use www.evewho.com for a quick reference. Lots of PVP activity, don't bear. They could be simply logged off, off Dscan, or will eventually log in at the worst possible time and murder you.

2. Once you have peeked your head in and checked out your neighbors, remove all sigs from your scanning overview. Leave that overview up while you are doing a site. The second you see a new sig in system, scoop your drones and get the fuck off grid. A new sig in system should scare the piss out of you. Someone like me, might have just rolled into you, and I can find you and your fleet quicker than you can say, "Damn that was fast".

3. Each ship you have should have on it a mobile Depot, Core probe launcher, Core probes, cloak, Target spectrum breaker, ECM x4 multi and a Large Micro Jump Drive.  Now each of these items will be used at different times for different situations, but for the most part, the most important thing to remember if you are jumped is to keep a level head.  Be calm, be direct and keep your cool.

When you warp to a site, you should drop for at lest 1 of the ships, your mobile tractor unit and mobile depot. The ship that dropped the depot will be refitting for ECM  and maybe your MJD the second you see a new sig appear. Depending on how much sleeper dps you have coming in, you may need to adjust how much of your tank you remove. Once you're done, again depending on how much sleeper scram you have going on, the other ship drops a mobile Depot and does the same. This should get you out of the site before someone like me comes and bubbles you.

Now if you just stick to Core Strongholds, you should be able to handle all scram stuff long before you need to GTFO. You could also clear all but 1 trigger scram ship, to increase the chance you will get a lucky ECM off on the single sleeper if you need to GTFO.

Now if they came through an older sig and you simply saw them land on grid with no warning. You're not toally fucked but you're not out of options. You're only hope at this point is to refit your main ship for a target spectrum breaker and Micro Jump Drive. Scoop your mobile depot, and the other ships drop theirs. If the gank ships are on the ball they will kill the depot before it onlines, but its a chance. Then its just a matter of seeing if you can time your MJD  with your target spectrum breaker. Fire up the MJD... wait for it to be almost done, and then hit the spectrum breaker. Insert praying along the way.

There are more things you can do if you live in the hole, like close all connections, don't crit them, because T3Ds will just come in and kill you just the same. But if you keep in mind that everything is an investment, and with most things in EVE with the danger of the activity, comes the 'fun'.

I hope you learned something from this, what to do, what not to do.. how to do it better.. Don't care.

The point is your in Wspace and Wspace is the place, Kspace is for chumps.


EDIT:

Some guys on Reddit gave me some tips to improve the set up.

Here are their suggestions

C5 Tinker Set up : https://o.smium.org/loadout/private/47574/524026893905690624



Monday, September 28, 2015

From ganker, to savior, to target, to hunter, to ally, to enemy..



Tonight I was reminded yet again why Wspace is the place.

We roll the hole and I drop my scout in first. A quick info look up on the POCO tells me that its Red Fires' hole. There are only a couple ships on D, nothing larger than an Omen Navy and we figure its POSed up. I drop probes, and begin the chain.

It goes quickly because I'm not alone. I find the first hole, call out in coms a scout in waiting jumps the hole. He calls out the next hole and another scout jumps that hole. We leap frog over each other each person finishing up the scan in one hole and a new person jumping into connection after connection.

Less than 15 minutes pass and our chain is more than 8 holes deep. This is fairly standard for us, we cover a lot of ground very quickly. Anything out of the ordinary we call out and plot its demise.

Tard (great name after I just said we were all adults... o well) calls out that he has a Sigil baiting sitting on a hole. We know its baiting because why else would a Sigil just sit there. Tard is a special pilot, he favors aggressiveness over calculated caution. In most cases it works for him, but in the case of a baiting target, not the best of choices.

The Sigil jumps into a C2 from the C4 and he follows it.

He springs the trap and the nearest ship to support him is my Gila 5 jumps away down the chain. 

Two bombers uncloak on the other side. Tard assumes the bombers are hunting the Sigil also, so he says on coms. "O look, bombers, I'm going to Save the hauler!!".  The same ship he himself was about to gank.  He locks up one of the bombers and kills it.

Nemesis:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/49321593/ 

The sigil locks up Tard. "Hows that for gratitude?" 

The people baiting, were obviously looking for more than just Tard to kill because I was able to make it 5 jumps before I landed on grid with a phobos, curse, domi and svipel. After some quick scambling tard and I manage to get out of the trap.

The remaining support coming to help us find that some of the R3d Fire guys are in the chain between the trap group and their home hole, so we have 2 fights going on at the same time.

Tard is calling out ships in the C4 with the trap group, another person is calling out targets in the Static C5 through the chain. We end up getting out fleet made up of mostly random shield kitchen sink spread out 5 jumps worth of wspace.

Tard on his one man mission, finds were the baiters live and starts calling about rattlesnake, raven, raven, nightmare.... more and more.. We all want to get there, but we have R3d Fire fighting us with 3 Navy Omens and some god damn Oracle in the chain to support him.

He manages to extract out of their hole, but not before we lose a strat.  (sad face) I guess the baiters, seeing that we were coming in force, decided to try and roll their hole connected to the C4. They trapped out a raven and rattlesnake doing it. lolz

We caught the rattle and his pod.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/49321892/  

 During all the confusion of killing the rattle snake, we still have Red Fire running around in the chain. They some how ended up killing a falcon I loaned to someone. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49321933/


We go back to shooting at Red fire and essentially have ships across 5 wormholes. Then, out of no where a random raven that was trapped out jumps into our fleet....https://zkillboard.com/kill/49322041/ and his pod

Then we are back to fighting with R3d Fire again and nail one of their Omen Navy Issues down https://zkillboard.com/kill/49322147/

Its back and forth through the chain, they are warping off, kiting, we have pilots all through chain, so do they.. its bananas. Good fights.

More kills

Omen Navy.  https://zkillboard.com/kill/49322349/

Maulus https://zkillboard.com/kill/49322304/

Oracle : https://zkillboard.com/kill/49322510/


We lost a few ourselves, it was back and forth non stop for at least an hour.  Till....

Someone said on coms that another group was camping one of the high secs entrances to the chain. Turns out R3d Fire had been fighting with them on the high sec trying to get their pilots back in we podded out. 

The people camping the high sec are using a devoter to prevent R3d Fire from getting back into their home, to get more ships and fight us.

Well, we simply can't have that.

I started a convo:

 [ 2015.09.29 00:40:54 ] Longinius Spear > Your pods want free passage back to your home?
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:07 ] lycoses22 > no our ships do but i know you wont let that happen
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:10 ] lycoses22 > right?
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:11 ] lycoses22 > orrrrr
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:24 ] lycoses22 > and are you guys gonna frag these retards on the high sec?
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:33 ] lycoses22 > caracle vexor devoter
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:34 ] Longinius Spear > we tried, they jumped out.. we baited with a drake
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:37 ] lycoses22 > cloaked lachesis
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:43 ] lycoses22 > ah
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:45 ] lycoses22 > rgr
[ 2015.09.29 00:41:57 ] Longinius Spear > we've left the c2.. we are headed back to our home
[ 2015.09.29 00:42:39 ] Longinius Spear > our fleet is chasing after your Dare Devil. Thanx for fighting btw.. its been a blast
[ 2015.09.29 00:42:59 ] lycoses22 > haha no worries we are always down to fight no matter what
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:05 ] lycoses22 > unless its t3's and guardian
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:11 ] lycoses22 > thats just unbreakable
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:15 ] Longinius Spear > Yea, we aren't shipping up, because we are having fun
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:16 ] lycoses22 > not fun
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:25 ] lycoses22 > good glad to hear :)
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:37 ] lycoses22 > so if we come back in ships.... will we be ok?
[ 2015.09.29 00:43:41 ] lycoses22 > or just pods?
[ 2015.09.29 00:44:07 ] Longinius Spear > well i can't guarantee your ships, but pods are free to pass. We don't have bubbles along the way, but we have random pilots all over the place so, i don't want to be responsible
[ 2015.09.29 00:44:16 ] lycoses22 > ok
[ 2015.09.29 00:45:39 ] lycoses22 > thank you btw
[ 2015.09.29 00:45:47 ] lycoses22 > hopefully we can provide some more content



[ 2015.09.29 00:45:48 ] Longinius Spear > Np, our fleet is totally back in our home
[ 2015.09.29 00:45:50 ] lycoses22 > if you want
[ 2015.09.29 00:47:21 ] Longinius Spear > we are just screwing around. Good fun.
[ 2015.09.29 00:48:12 ] lycoses22 > theyre back to camping lol
[ 2015.09.29 00:48:17 ] Longinius Spear > fkers..
[ 2015.09.29 00:48:19 ] lycoses22 > we'll try and fight em off :p
[ 2015.09.29 00:48:19 ] Longinius Spear > lol

We set Red Fire to blue, so we wouldn't accidentally kill them. :P


They must have headed back down the chain with more pilots to get the campers off the high sec. We headed down in like 10 confessors or some crazy shit. RAWR!

[ 2015.09.29 00:51:10 ] Longinius Spear > we got some guys to help clear that high sec for you
[ 2015.09.29 00:51:17 ] lycoses22 > ok
[ 2015.09.29 00:51:33 ] lycoses22 > thanks
[ 2015.09.29 00:53:16 ] lycoses22 > vni just jumped in
[ 2015.09.29 00:53:24 ] Longinius Spear > yea, we are on our way
[ 2015.09.29 00:57:02 ] lycoses22 > you have eyes on the hole?
[ 2015.09.29 00:57:10 ] Longinius Spear > The high sec? yep
[ 2015.09.29 00:57:15 ] lycoses22 > kk
[ 2015.09.29 00:58:39 ] lycoses22 > you guys are going to the wolf rayet c2 right?
[ 2015.09.29 00:58:45 ] Longinius Spear > yep.
[ 2015.09.29 00:58:54 ] lycoses22 > rgr
 [ 2015.09.29 00:59:19 ] Longinius Spear > we are trying to apha some stuff :)(
[ 2015.09.29 00:59:29 ] lycoses22 > i see that :p
[ 2015.09.29 01:00:59 ] Longinius Spear > got oen :)
[ 2015.09.29 01:01:50 ] lycoses22 > Kill: Voland Oramara (Vexor Navy Issue)
[ 2015.09.29 01:02:37 ] lycoses22 > gj :)
[ 2015.09.29 01:02:44 ] lycoses22 > the t3d's reck
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:14 ] lycoses22 > thanks for that :)
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:19 ] Longinius Spear > kk you straight?
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:24 ] lycoses22 > yea man
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:36 ] Longinius Spear > GL.. fight us if you like, if you dont no biggy
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:39 ] Longinius Spear > we aren't holding you to it
[ 2015.09.29 01:05:48 ] lycoses22 > rgr we will if we can :)

Killed a Hacate too https://zkillboard.com/kill/49323548/

We then removed R3d Fires blue status and went back to shooting at them.  Lol.

We went from ganking a hauler, to saving a hauler, to losing a fight, to winning a fight. We blued up the people we were fighting, for the soul reason to shoot at them more after they had a chance to reship/return and fight more.

Props to Red Fire because as I write up the crazy story, we are still at it. Shooting at them and them shooting at us... 


 I fucking love wspace people.





Thursday, September 10, 2015

Strange days



EVE is the fantasy land of reinvention. One moment you could be doing one thing, the next something totally different. The only real constant in the mix of never ending scenarios is you, but if you are like me and treat the EVE fantasy land like my own little chemistry set, shit gets weird.

Having lived in Wspace for as long as I have, you get see a lot of really weird stuff. Crazy fits, crazy people and even crazier situations.

Quick Pilot update:

1st off, I'm no longer with Nova Haven. I wasn't just one thing that made me leave, I would be ashamed of myself if it was. To put it lightly and to the point. I raged. Just walked off, threw my hands in the air and said fuck it. I will say though, be a part of that corp wasn't time wasted. I met a good chunk of people who put EVE into some perspective for me. For that, thank you.

In Nova Haven, there are some of the most positive people I have ever met, in game or in real life. The corp oozes goodness and a great outlook. If you are feeling burnt out, want a reboot of attitude of sorts, jump in there with a noob and take a ride. That's how I'll describe them from this moment forward. "A ride". Read into that how ever you want.

2nd. I'm back in Isogen5. To be perfectly honest, I was lonely and missed the same thing that drove me away in the first place. Ugg I'm so co-dependent. I'll stop there.

On with the story.

The single most crazy day I have had in EVE.

Date: Sept  6th. 1am PST.

Foedus is being Foedus and he is doing one of his favorite past times, guessing POS passwords. As long as I have known him, he's done this. He's almost never successful, but he tries it anyway. This time, he struck pay dirt.

The resulting actions, netted him a 7 billion isk profit and 10+ billion in kills. You can read more about it here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/3jvwn7/the_password_was_1234_on_both_their_towers/

Good way to start the day off.

The previous day we had stumbled across a "Wrong Hole." eviction. Which we were able to bait their scout watching the hole with a scan ship. https://zkillboard.com/kill/48883334/

Not bad, but that wasn't really our goal. We wanted the fleet that had set the timers on the POS. Sunday, was going to be that day. ETA  for timer about 4 hours. We planted an alt and continued to look for pew.

So we decided to screw around in null sec.

Some of our guys on coms came across some bubbles installed by god only knows who in the null, so we did what anyone would, and shot at them. Some skirmish's happened, which is expected. Till we encountered a hurricane that was bouncing back and forth from one side of the Null gate to the next. Just repeat gate crashing over and over again. We had tackle on both sides, so it was just a matter of time.

Then he lights a cyno. Cause fuck it... cyno right? He brings in an archon, which we instantly start fighting. I think the second that guy realized that we weren't going to run, he knew he was fucked. Some of the other people in his fleet were able to get him free and the archon warped.

That didn't stop us! Some bad ass combat probing and we got the kill. https://zkillboard.com/kill/48892413/

We also got some other stuff in the process, rapier, confessor, some pods.. it was a good little exchange of fire. Props to that guy for hot dropping a fleet with a single archon on a gate. Balls that clank on that guy.

The day was just getting started !

For the POS coming out of reinforcement. We called in our friends in Sky Fighters for the 3rd party ambush of the fleet that was invading the C5... (Wrong Hole.) Our scout provided us a way in and after getting all the way to the target hole with our huge fleet... The scout said the hole was crit.

SHIT!. They had Two dreads on field both in siege.... grr. Well good on them for being smart. If that hole wasn't crit, we would have done terrible things to them.

The fleet should have gone home at that point, but Iso5 never wanting to give up, called the logi and dictors to jump into the crit hole. It closed, trapping 1 saber and 3 guardians in a hole with an enemy fleet. The logi got safe and I was the scout that needed to provide the remainder of the fleet a way in.

Sadly, no direct Kspaces and the static that just rolled was a C5.O well, looks like I need to scan my logi a way home.

So picture this, 3 guardians with minimal dps drones, 1 saber and 2 scouts. One of the scouts headed down the chain one way, and I headed the other. Bronya Boga was flying one of them and me in the other. Bonya somehow managed to get himself blown up while scanning out the C5 static. So then it was just me, trying to save his pod, the guardians and a saber. I came face to face with the C5 highway.

C5 after C5... the chain went on, no low class holes or high/low secs. We did find some 0.0 exits, which we tried to use to find more holes than just C5s. No luck.

What we did find in our epic journey, was some abandoned ships at a moon. A newbie ship and a stiletto. Bronya couldn't fly the stiletto, but a newbie ship is better than a pod. I figured, why leave it in space. We mustered all the DPS we could get from the logi/dictor and blew it up. https://zkillboard.com/kill/48917694/

Op success!

We continued to scan our way back to Kspace, until our elite pvp logi gang found an offline POS. I took our roaming guardian gang for another epic kill. https://zkillboard.com/kill/48917760/

This guardian roaming gang was doing great! Finding ships, blowing up POS mods. Good times!. Finally, we did find the end of the C5 highway, which ended in a Null direct to catch about 10 jumps from HED-GP. Yea, we aren't taking our elite guardian task force through HED.

In my escape from C5 space, I must have scanned 20+ nulls in both directions of the chain, until I found a direct to c3, which had two C2's connected to it but we eventually did find a direct to high sec.

I know this seems minor but taking some near defenseless ships through 10+ wormholes, 20 some nulls, without any kind of bookmarks or cloaks (other than the scout) is a hell of a thing. It took me almost 2 hours and we lived... and GOT KILLS!

Bronya offhandedly mentioned "how much weirder could this day get?".

Welp.. Bronya, later that night a guy named Hazard said the words that every wormholer loves to hear on coms. "I have an offline tower on scan, multiple SMA's".

The single largest kill mail I have ever been a part of.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/48920394/

29.6 billion isk... HOLY SHIT!

Multiple capitals in the wreck, multiple T2 ships... billions in assets, all because someone forgot to put fuel in the tower.

Since all loot from scouting goes to the scout, Mike Hazard just cashed in with an estimated 20+ billion in ships and assets, gratz bro!


Since I had been in the corp only 2 days at this point and wormholers being the superstitious lot that they are, I was given the title "Good Luck Charm".

4 days after this insane day, with multiple engagements and kills under my belt. I have gone to 4th on the Zkill board in a 7 day measurement. Bob has shown me that, this is where he rewards me for my actions. I guess I do belong here in Iso after all.


Thank you Bob for your holy gifts.




Thursday, August 27, 2015

Ransom Received: Op Success



The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.  -- Bruce Feirstein

I have been in a newbie teaching corp for the past few months with my main Spear. I love sharing experiences and knowledge with new players. Lately living vicariously through their discovery, has brought a level of joy I have been missing for a long time. That thrill of discovering something new by only trial and error is hard to replicate outside of the EVE newbie experience.

Well tonight was one of those moments that I simply could never have imagined but I couldn't have been happier that I was a part it.

I log on to voice coms to hear that 3 of our members are shooting an offline gun, attached to an offline tower.

Everything about that sentence is crazy. Let me describe why.

1. The tower is offline. Its essentially a large blob of useless hit points, taking up space.

2. Its not even our wormhole. Its just some random wormhole that these our guys happen to have entered. Then they happen, to have warped to a moon and landed on grid with an offline tower.

3. Killing the mod won't give you ANYTHING, other than a kill mail. The kill mail will be for about 3 million isk. You could get into a free newbie ship, mine beginning high sec asteroids, buy a ship costing MORE, eject that ship, then blow up that ship and get a larger kill mail.

4.  You are doing it with 3 people. You are attempting to chew through a blob of 1,000,000 some EHP with 3 ships. Its going to take you many hours.

 Well these pilots couldn't be swayed by anything as trivial as facts. They had a thirst for POS mod blood, that could only be sated by a semi massive explosion.

We started to joke on coms about if they would get jumped by a roaming wormhole gang before the module was exploded. In this case a Sensor Dampening Battery.

After 4 hours, our brave pilots managed to destroy the offending module without dying.

There was much happiness.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/48727696/

3.5 million ISK in damages!

This is where the story should end, but I wanted to find out more about the people who we terribly wounded in our devastating attack

The victim corp was "Extreme Dimensions" http://evewho.com/corp/Extreme+Dimensions

A 3 member corp, with 3 members who haven't been active for about 2 years. The corp has closed its doors.

I did some more digging...

About 2 years ago this corp had a few unfortunate losses by most of its members.

 https://zkillboard.com/corporation/98141639 Extreme Dimensions kill board.(see dates)

I figure these guys might still be active, so I started searching for previous members who might be online right now.

Sure enough, 5 members deep, I find someone online and I open a convo with them.

Time for a totally random conversation.
 
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:17 ] Longinius Spear > Hi, we blew up one of your pos mods
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:32 ] Longinius Spear > Kill: Sensor Dampening Battery
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:36 ] Odin Aurilen > good
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:39 ] Longinius Spear > It took us 4 hours
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:50 ] Longinius Spear > pay us 2 million or we will blow up another one in 4 hours
[ 2015.08.28 02:25:52 ] Odin Aurilen > thats closed corp i think
[ 2015.08.28 02:26:21 ] Longinius Spear > Does this mean you won't pay?
[ 2015.08.28 02:26:31 ] Odin Aurilen > im not in that corp
[ 2015.08.28 02:26:39 ] Odin Aurilen > it was 2 years ago
[ 2015.08.28 02:27:00 ] Longinius Spear > Yes but you are the only one we can find, so are you going to pay?
[ 2015.08.28 02:27:14 ] Odin Aurilen > zechs260 is the ceo
[ 2015.08.28 02:27:27 ] Longinius Spear > He's not around, we need money.
[ 2015.08.28 02:28:03 ] Longinius Spear > listen, we overheated some of our mods.. blood has been spilled
[ 2015.08.28 02:28:29 ] Odin Aurilen > well thats means you dont get money
[ 2015.08.28 02:28:46 ] Longinius Spear > :(
[ 2015.08.28 02:28:53 ] Odin Aurilen > that corp isnt active anymore
[ 2015.08.28 02:29:13 ] Longinius Spear > But, we blew it up..
[ 2015.08.28 02:29:35 ] Longinius Spear > we really want 2 million isk or we will blow up another one..
[ 2015.08.28 02:30:05 ] Odin Aurilen > ok ok i'll give you 2 mil
[ 2015.08.28 02:30:30 ] Odin Aurilen > happy
[ 2015.08.28 02:30:39 ] Longinius Spear > Yes, we are splitting it 4 ways
[ 2015.08.28 02:30:49 ] Longinius Spear > Thank you, pleasure doing business
[ 2015.08.28 02:30:55 ] Odin Aurilen > ok
[ 2015.08.28 02:31:20 ] Odin Aurilen > if its not online then just unanchor it and sell it
[ 2015.08.28 02:31:26 ] Odin Aurilen > cost lot more

He leaves convo. 




Ransom received....We halted our attack...  Op success.




Friday, August 7, 2015

Sansha Hole Day 3ish: Not a camera

So I've been living in this Sansha hole for a couple of days now. Almost all the traffic I see, is scanning ships and probes. Today was the first time I've seen a true combat vessel.

I was just logging in and didn't have the statics scanned down. The statics had long since rolled. Before dropping probes, I hit D-scan and discover a wild Gila on D.  (pronounced "HEE-La", you animals)


I always like to learn about other cultures outside of my own, so I did a quick google search to the name of his ship. A quick copy/paste from D-scan (this is why ship tags are stupid) to Google translate.

[sen]メラではない    Gila    - Translated to "Not a camera"


 I guess if you need to name something that is in fact not a camera, "Not a camera", might as well be a space ship in EVE? Aren't other cultures fun!?

 Then he started on one of the Sansha combat sites



I knew the moment I dropped combat probes or normal probes, I was sure to spook him and spoil the hunt, so I figured I would do it in a spectacular way. 

I dropped probes and extended the traditional wormhole greeting in local chat. In his own language.


I never really noticed how creepy my alt looked, till I used google translate to threaten people.


It took him at least 5 minutes to realize someone was talking in local or that there was probes on scan. In that time, I found the high sec static and just as he warped back to it.

I really wanted to have a conversation with him further about his camera or not camera status, he wasn't having it and left.

O well.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Day 2: I'm not alone

This is my 2nd day in J010556.(not a big update, just a quick one)

This many sigs spawned in 24 hours. In the below screen shot I removed sigs that disapeared on the right and compared it to what appeared on the left.

So you can see the two wspace connections rolled, but the remaining 3 are new sigs. 



All of the respawns were 2 relic sites and 1 combat DED site.

I found the high sec, got my alt logged in and came in with my Helios.

 Whats the best thing about a pulsar? Bringing an armor ship into one! (no, don't do that only dumb people do that)

This was the ship I used, not the greatest thing, but it works.

 [Helios, ◄鸭► Gen smells weird]
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Expanded Cargohold II

Cargo Scanner II
Relic Analyzer II
Data Analyzer II
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
5MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher

Small Emission Scope Sharpener I
Small Emission Scope Sharpener I


Warrior II x1

Core Scanner Probe I x8



In the time that I went out, logged in my helios, fit the helios and returned.. someone had warped to all the relic sites and cherry picked the best cans.

Why you little sneaks! Clearly I'm not alone. I guess someone else had the same idea.

This is what was left for me from the remaining cans.  O well, I have plans within plans.. muahah muahaha .. (evil laugh off into the distance)






Monday, July 27, 2015

J010556 - Shattered C4 Pulsar - Static High sec, Static C1, Static C2 - Sansha Hole

 The title says it all.  This hole breaks all the rules and in my professional opinion, is in fact, bananas.

 I've been looking for one of these Sansha holes for a while now to do some adventuring in and I finally found one.

So a little bit about this particular hole....I'm going to break it down to different points because this wormhole has a lot going on in it. I'm not sure if you can tell how excited I am to be in it, but having been in Wspace for years, finding something 'newish', can be exhilarating. If you already know everything there is to know about this wormhole.. well good for you, don't wreck it for me.

1. C4 Pulsar:

After intense observation and research (sat in here for like 3 days) I came to the conclusion that this was a C4 pulsar (also said that info on siggy).  For those of you who might not know what a pulsar is, its a wormhole special effect, with the following bonuses and hindrances;

Shield Hit point bonus of : + 74%

Armor Resist reduction: - 36%

Capacitor recharge time: - 36% ** correction** People tell me this is a good thing.

Signature Size: + 72%

Energy Neut/NOS bonus of:  +72%
  
These effects occur to player ships only, not to NPCs. 

The C4 class means that anoms will have C4 level sleepers spawning in them. Those anoms that aren't Sansha of course.


2. This is a "Shattered Hole":

 This means its signature refresh rate is way higher than other non-shattered holes. The anoms respawn faster, the sigs respawn faster and there are more wandering wormholes connected to it and from it. 


Shattered wormholes also have no moons, so no player owned structures. This makes for an very interesting environment of people who are only in their ships or working from anchored cans/Mobile Depots. 

It can also have C5 gas sites spawn in it. It can also have ice belts. 

3. Its a Sansha hole:

Pirate anoms! Just like in Sansha controlled null sec. Also it can spawn every level of Sansha DED combat sites. 10/10's 8/10s 5/10s.. All of them. The relic and data sites that spawn in this wormhole are null sec quality and are only Sansha data/relic sites. Combine that with the shattered anom/sig bonus and you can have lots of relic/data/DED sites appearing within minutes of each other. (perhaps not that fast, but much faster than anywhere else, that's for sure)

Crazy right!?

4: It has 3 static exits!

There are many players that believe that shattered wormholes don't have "static" exits. That every shattered hole only has wandering wormholes that exit from or to it. Nope!


This mofo has 3 statics. I know because when one of its outbound holes close, another sig of the the exact same class connection appears instantly, just like a static. I didn't believe it at first either, till I literally watched it happen with this holes, 3 static connections, for 3 days straight.

1st is a C2 static, 2nd is a C1 static and last...... High sec static classified as a D845, which isn't in siggy for some reason.


Its static high sec totally changes this wormhole's appeal for me. I was totally going to move in here with a whole force of alts and shit. Planning on living out of a C4 and doing crazy things. NOPE, I just need to scan down the high sec from within, move in my combat ships, do my thing, then fly right out again.

The only ship that needs to be in here is my scanning alt.  I have some serious adventuring ahead of me.

My story line going forward. 

I'm going to 'try' to break the following posts into "days" but I don't get the chance to always play every day, so if it says "ish" at the end of the day, cut me some slack it might not be totally consecutive.


Day 1 - Sansha hole - J010556




When I scanned down all the sigs, and saw the combat site which was a 4/10 (forget the name) sansha I knew I had to try it.

I hurried and looked for something that could do the site. I found some Sleipnir I had used for some thing at some point and modified it to run Sansha PVE.

Please keep in mind I'm not very good at this game and PVE really isn't my thing. I just know guns are needed, shields are needed and... ammo?

O well, Off I go! I fit this bitch like a boss.. (no not really please don't make fun of me).

Fun fact, Sansha rats tracking disrupt. I didn't know that... Do you know what else? You shouldn't bring the least tracking disrupt resistant weapon system into that situation. ... /sigh...Fuck it.. its only money AMIR!te?!

[Sleipnir, Fluffer]
Damage Control II
Capacitor Power Relay II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Capacitor Power Relay II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Pith B-Type Large Shield Booster
Shield Boost Amplifier II
10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Gistum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier

425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
Medium Diminishing Power System Drain I
Prototype 'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I
Prototype 'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I

Medium Anti-Explosive Screen Reinforcer II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II


Acolyte II x5

Phased Plasma M x4520
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M x2000
Barrage M x3140
Republic Fleet Fusion M x2000
Mjolnir Heavy Assault Missile x1880
Caldari Navy Mjolnir Heavy Assault Missile x486
Nanite Repair Paste x23







I completed the 4/10 thinking I was going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Nope. 

Sad times. I took my loot and headed out the high sec.



This was just day one, this hole is going to be fun I know it.

Friday, June 19, 2015

And now for something completely different.




After my previous blog post on tips to bring your wspace group up to snuff. I caused quite the hub bub (not really) in my alliance. People asked the alliance leader if the member corps would be ‘required’ to implement my suggested changes. 

The alliance leader, said very clearly, NO. All changes would be viewed as optional and it would be business as usual. … sigh…

This new information came on the heels of me listening to a podcast that had Kira Tsukimoto on it. She was talking about how she was creating a new corp with the very specific goal to training newbies in a class like structure.

I thought to myself, why am I attempting to force people to learn ways to improve, if they don’t actually want to learn? My time could be better used  teaching newbies useful things before they get to this stage. So I said my goodbyes and thanks for all the fish.

I started up a convo with Kira and asked if she was looking for a new W-space PVP teacher with a high patience threshold. She agreed. So here I am.

This is the great thing about EVE, you can reinvent yourself at a drop of a hat. What’s important is you are playing and not complaining. No one wants bitter around them, so pick up stakes and do something different.


Nova Haven!

First I want to say, I really like the attitude of all the people involved so far. They have this really great vision of what they are going to do. The enthusiasm displayed so far is slightly intimidating . Like some guy asked a question in our help channel  and I would say that everyone in our corp instantly answered it and then attacked him with helpful tips.

Right now I’m spending my days in voice coms talking to new people on how to scan, best practices for wormhole travel and seeking out more newbies.(that's harder to do than you might guess)

I’m going to build a class like structure, where I’ll take a small group of newbies and do some high sec diving. Have them all in a fleet spreading across low sec and high sec looking for holes. When they find a target, we will all ship up and bring the newbie heat.

When we find a juicy hole to grind some sigs/anoms we will do it as a fleet from high sec.

Instead of just doing the job for them, I’ll be teaching them how to do it themselves as a purely consulting role. Possibly handing out ships to these guys and walking them through how to do sites and kill people.

You may see more guide type posts coming up because I’m this teaching kick as of late, no idea why.

Recruitment offering.

If you are a newbie/returning player or just want to learn something new, not sure on how to do wormhole thing, check us out. If you know someone who might want to try EVE and you just don’t got time to train them the basics, send them our way.


You can find us in "Nova Haven Help" channel.