Friday, April 24, 2015

So I had a chat with a newbie.





Three nights ago I was high sec diving. Those not familiar with this practice, let me explain. You get into a scanning ship and head a direction through high sec looking for only wormholes. Each one you see, you jump in and look around for people running sites. Then kill them.

I jumped into a C1 and saw on scan a tower, FF and a lone venture. The venture was named the characters name’s named venture. It was never changed, this is rarely intentionally done and is the default name of the person who assembled the ship. Classic very new person mistake.

Without being on grid with him, I could pull up his kill board, corp history and with that figure out his associations with other corps. Is he bait or not? Has he lost any large ships to overwhelming forces, where did he lose them? How were the ships fit? T2? Faction Items? Does he fly with implants?

All of these things can be assumed with fairly good accuracy by just leaving your name on your ship.

I figured out really quick this guy was VERY new, also when I found the tower, he was a visitor not the owner of the tower. This meant if he was going to run, he wouldn’t be running to the tower.

He kept moving around the system which I felt was weird, usually ventures sit in one place, mine/huff..

When I finally narrowed him down with Dscan I saw he was at an Ore Anom(one of 4).   Since I was feeling slightly lonely and less bloodthirsty, I decided to start a conversation vs just killing him.

It went a little like this. 

I asked him about his user name and what its meaning was. He explained it was his Xbox username from long ago. The thing that struck me as interesting, here I was out of the blue talking to him in a wormhole where he was solo mining ABC ore. In every other situation the simple act of starting a convo while you are secretly mining rocks in the dangers of local less wspace is enough to spook the average pilot.  This guy wasn’t even phased, just mining away talking to a fellow traveler like it was nothing. No idea or care how I got his name or knew what he was doing.

He asked me straight up, “Do you pvp?” I responded, “Do you know how to check?” I then walked him through how to check my kill board. 

Shortly after, he responded. “O damn”. I said “I kind of hunt and kill people in Wspace, and I’m watching you right now”. I then uncloaked my proteus 10k from him.  

See, I love that naiveté’, that pure innocence of a new person, just moments away from understanding each and every person in this heartless game is out to explode you, exploit you and murder your pod for no other reason than; they simply can.

I didn’t agress, he didn’t bother running either. He asked why I havn't killed him, I said, “because you were nice and spoke to me like an adult”

Since he was forth coming with huge amounts of intel on his operation, I figured I would ask him how he cleared the rats. I was going down the line of thought that he might have a sponsor, a wealthy friend that is flying a cloaked ship somewhere or even a cruiser/battle cruiser that cleaned up the rats before calling in his newbie buddy to mine the defenseless rocks.

His response slightly shocked me. He said “I warp off when the NPC’s show up”. 

I said “wait, you don’t kill the sleepers?” he said “Nope, I just go to the next Ore belt” 

That’s crazy, “What happens when you don’t have any ore belts without sleepers?” he said, very matter of fact “I just find another wormhole, and mine there”.

This blew me away! This guy’s life right now is scanning out wormhole connections near his high sec base of operations, jumping into a wormhole, occupied or no and getting whatever he could get before someone came to destroy him or he ran out of belts. He wasn’t resigned about it, he wasn’t sad or complaining, he just did it because that’s what he wanted to do and simply didn’t know any better.

I asked, “Well have you tried to get the gas in this hole?” he said “O god no.. that skill book is very expensive, 23million, but I’m working toward it”.

Well my heart just dropped. This poor son of a bitch expects nothing from anyone, saves for everything and is making the best he can from Bob’s great bounty, in a shitty little venture. 

I explained that he might want to get into a Vexor or something to clear the Ore rats, so he doesn’t need to warp around or fine new holes. I told him that he is going to lose his Vexor eventually to someone exactly like me, who will shoot first and say thank you later. Don’t let the loses dissuade him, they are part of doing business.

I gave him enough money to lose more than a couple Vexors. He has one instruction when he loses his Vexors to hunters, “Say thank you and then ask the hunter where he screwed up”. Most hunters will be very nice and forth coming with information after a gank, they will tell you exactly where you screwed up and how to avoid it in the future. Sometimes you can’t but other times, there were mistakes a hunter made that were over looked. I went to great lengths to tell him that this type of player respect only really happens in Wspace. I told him, don’t think of this as an isk donation, think of it as a learning tool to further your wspace life.

We parted ways and told him to look me up if he had any more questions about Wspace, please don't hesitate. 

This whole exchange may seem minor for most, but these types of player interactions keep me going as an EVE player. The inspiration this guy imparted on me was well worth the isk that I gave him. The perspective balance that new players bring  may be the only thing that can melt the heart of the bitter vet. Bob bless that little mining venture.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

On to new adventures! Goodbye Isogen 5



It’s with a heavy heart but I must move on from Isogen 5.  

Reasons; .

Isogen 5 might be one of the best pvp only wormhole corps I have ever been a part of. They could be the best EVER. Their laser focus on what they are doing, along with the professionalism to respect everyone they encounter, is the dream of any pure pvper. They are so good it’s scary. My kill board is 93%, that's fucking MENTAL for me.. I wish I could say it was because I was all pro, its not, I'm not, they just foster great fleets, positive isk engagement outcomes..

Why would want to leave such a solid group of pilots? 

Because I’m not good at this game and I feel it most when I’m with them. I know this might sound crazy, but losing brings me perspective and for a person like myself, I need that perspective.

I’m an amateur story teller, I’m a joker, I’m a shit starter and my goals differ just slightly with theirs. Not a lot, but just enough to make it uncomfortable in my day to day. I'm mature enough know what gets me going.

I know this looks like just another “It’s not you, it’s me” line of bull shit, but without giving away too much Op sec and betraying people I still call friends, their direction differs from where I see myself in the future. I'll leave it at that. 

I have been in the life style they are seeking and I found it lacking. Its like when you look at a doomed teenage love… You just know that it will never work and end in disaster, but the people who haven’t experienced it, just need to experience it for themselves. What is life, love and loss without the chance to experience it yourself?

I wish them luck on future endeavors and I will proudly shoot them in the face the next time I see them.


Where am I going?

Well after the most recent interview with C4 residents and the stories they told on Down the pipe 47, I think I’ll head there. I have lived in a C4 multiple times and each time I have never regretted it.

If you know of a smallish C4 group that needs a pilot, doesn’t mind a huge ego and enjoys throwing ships around in reckless ways, hit me up, I’m looking.

o7

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

From Ronin to Samurai



EVE is a truly strange and wonderful game. When I encounter a person in real life and they ask me what games I play, quickly EVE becomes the topic of discussion. This is how I describe it to the EVE laymen. 

TLDR: Useless story about wormhole space Bushido, nothing substantial, just felt like sharing.

“Imagine a video game where the premise is built around you controlling different space ships from solar system to solar system seeking riches and fame.”” A virtual world with its own player run market system, a market totally devoid of moral objectiveness and fair trade conduct. ”The second you leave the safety of your beginning system, which is but 1 of thousands, anything goes, nothing preventing you from attacking anyone and anything. The only true response to this unbridled chaos is how quickly punishment is dealt by players or in rare situations, the space police.”

The response is usually very awe inspiring, they usually ask “Well what do you do?”

Me? Well I live in Wspace. If EVE is only played by the nerdiest of nerds, only 5% of the nerds who play EVE ever live in Wspace. Its EVE hard mode.

One of the interesting phenomenon’s in Wspace is the rise of an attitude, I hesitate to call it a code because nothing official has ever been written about it. Even if it was officially written down, its population would quickly try and modify it to their own gain.  A kind of mix between the chaos of Mad Max combat aggression and the ancient Japanese Bushido code. 



Honor your word. Always fight.. These two things are really the only consistent factors in this phenomenon. Sure there are instances where this phenomenon is broken, but it seems to continue to be endorsed and practiced by the largest forces in Wspace.

In feudal Japan a master-less samurai was referred to as a Ronin. Because they were former samurai, they couldn’t legally take up a new trade, it wouldn’t matter because most only knew how to make a living with their swords anyway. They usually wandered, working as mercenaries, criminals and killers. Master-less and never to become samurai again.

Well Isogen 5 has taken its collection of Wspace Ronin and made them samurai again, granted them lands, honor and a destiny. Remember with violence comes respect, and in the twisted realm of Wspace, respect brings honor.

Last night we effectively punched a giant in the nose, and lived to tell the tale. SSC known as Sleeper Social Club is one of the largest, one of the most feared and respected groups in Wspace. To attack them in their home is one step short of direct suicide, to do this is a bold move indeed.

Lotor our CEO found we were directly connected to the SSC home wormhole. We also found they were running sites. Interestingly they left their entrances without mass on them. Just a simple large warp bubble protecting the door. We pinged and formed one of the largest fleets I have seen.

To give perspective; we were about to run into a police station with a whiffle ball bat, crack one of the police sitting at his desk over the head, then run away.

We had 0 hope of killing their fleet, but we follow the code previously mentioned. Always Fight. Some people may confuse the “always fight” with “Fight and Die with honor”, again back to the Mad Max Bushido thing, it’s complicated.

With one of their 5 dreadnoughts in siege we charged our T3 Fleet into their home. Lotor provided a hero warp in at the cost of his ship.

We weren’t able to kill the dreadnought, before our Dscans started to detect the response fleet. Our fleet commander told us to align out and warp back the way we came. Because of how warp bubbles work, we ended up trapping some of their own ships in the their defensive bubble. One of the defenders Tengu paid the price.

A small scuffle broke out as we removed ourselves from their home.

Our own loss was Lotors scout ship https://zkillboard.com/kill/45807632/ ,

But our Hit and run technique landed us this kill.




We could have simply rolled our hole and not attempted to raid them, but we chose the glory of taking on a mighty sleeping foe…. And then quickly running away when it woke up.

The interesting thing is, in every other situation the giant would be mad and seek pay back, but in the twisted Bushido, mad max fight everything, for no other reason than to fight.. we minor Ronin may have just gained honor by simply trying to punch the biggest thing we could find.