The first few days of my first week in Hard Knocks were very eventful. The next few didn't have quite the same breakneck pace (for me anyways - the corp as a whole stayed extremely busy).
NOTE: The dates may be borked, as I am nocturnal and therefore look at days and nights a bit differently than normal people.
on Sunday, June 29, 2014
on Saturday, June 28, 2014
Since closing down my last wormhole, I've been looking for a larger w-space corp to fly with. I've mostly been with very small, inactive corps over the last few years, and I wanted something with more content available. I spent a few weeks in highsec (I know), absentmindedly carebearing in between public fleets like Spectre, RvB Ganked, and the Tuskers.
My acceptance into Hard Knocks Inc. (HRDKX) happened to coincide perfectly with a 4-day weekend, so I finally had some time to actually play EVE instead of just logging in to skill between work marathons. And play I did. The content train that is HRDKX was chugging at full speed all weekend, and I logged on as much as I could to take advantage of the action.
NOTE: The dates may be borked, as I am nocturnal and therefore look at days and nights a bit differently than normal people.
My acceptance into Hard Knocks Inc. (HRDKX) happened to coincide perfectly with a 4-day weekend, so I finally had some time to actually play EVE instead of just logging in to skill between work marathons. And play I did. The content train that is HRDKX was chugging at full speed all weekend, and I logged on as much as I could to take advantage of the action.
NOTE: The dates may be borked, as I am nocturnal and therefore look at days and nights a bit differently than normal people.
on Thursday, June 26, 2014
A few hours after we went up against SSC, I was exploring the WH chain with my new corpies in Hard Knocks. There were a lot of wormholes and not a huge amount of explorers, so we were just slowly kind of making our way down the pipe, looking for whatever content we could find that was tucked away in the nooks and crannies of w-space. All was quiet until someone said, excitedly, "Orca is yoloing a C3!"
on Tuesday, June 17, 2014
It's been two and a half weeks since Haras, but who cares. Better late than never. RvB Ganked 118 was described, innocently enough, as the rare two-part public roam: the first segment would be the fleet's entry into the Battle of Haras, and the second segment would be an arranged fight with militia forces at a plex.
on Sunday, June 15, 2014
on Saturday, June 14, 2014
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| EWAR |
on Thursday, June 12, 2014
I generally don't pvp in lowsec because I love my sec status. Well, I mean I'm not in love with it, but I also don't like being blasted like a criminal whenever I enter highsec. I know, such carebear snobbery. I am ashamed of myself.
BUT I found a link to the Tuskers' public roam forums somewhere and, being very pubfleety lately, decided to give it a go. I had only heard of the Tuskers in passing, but they are apparently a rather successful lowsec pirating group with a taste for solo and small-gang pvp, led by super pirate captain Suleiman Shouaa. The particular roam that I signed up for was a Sacrilege gang. I guess sacs (and guardian logi) are the ship du jour of lowsec? My sac skills aren't bad, but I decided to go with a Celestis instead because who doesn't like to be dick ewar.
BUT I found a link to the Tuskers' public roam forums somewhere and, being very pubfleety lately, decided to give it a go. I had only heard of the Tuskers in passing, but they are apparently a rather successful lowsec pirating group with a taste for solo and small-gang pvp, led by super pirate captain Suleiman Shouaa. The particular roam that I signed up for was a Sacrilege gang. I guess sacs (and guardian logi) are the ship du jour of lowsec? My sac skills aren't bad, but I decided to go with a Celestis instead because who doesn't like to be dick ewar.
The fires have died down enough now that I can relate the rather boring tale of how myself and most of the brokers of CAPLF WH Sales parted ways with the Taggart bunch. I suppose I'll start with how I began the whole business years ago and we'll go from there.
In 2011 I was leading Taggart Transdimensional (TTI). Taggart is an ancient corp that had began in null years ago, been kicked out, and then settled into C5 wormhole space where it would slowly become a small group of inactive carebears. When Kushan passed the torch to me, I started lighting fires under asses and going crazy with recruitment and generally rocking the boat. For the first time in years, Taggart had a CEO who played EVE, for better or worse. This upset the status quo and the delicate egos of many old Taggart personalities. This wasn't much of an obstacle because most of those bittervets didn't actually play EVE. Redslay, an odd carebear hermit, in particular was miffed, especially because he had been passed over for CEO by a complete n00b. When Kush had offered me the position, and I asked why Redslay had been passed, he answered that Redslay becoming CEO was the worst thing that could happen to the corp and he wasn't ready to doom it quite yet. You know things are depressing when the n00b takes over. Redslay and myself had begun our strained relationship a few months before, when I'd moved into his wormhole and then exited after one week because his leadership was just so fail. Micromanaging, flip-flopping, browbeating, and the other hallmarks of people who do not know how to lead people.
I was CEO for a year or so and Taggart began to rebuild. We were still carebears, but at least we were active carebears. In zooming around w-space we noticed a lot of empty wormholes, and like many optimistic entrepreneurs we posted many of them on the EVE-O sell orders forum, hoping to sell them for a quick buck. We sold quite a few and noticed a glaring hole in the process. There were no brokers. To quote the wonderful film Lord of War: "Selling a [wormhole] for the first time is a lot like having sex for the first time. You're excited but you don't really know what the hell you're doing. And some way, one way or another, it's over too fast." And so I whipped up a quick mailing list and started a forum post to advertise it. Customers trickled in at first, but after a few commendatory posts, they started to flock in. Business was brisk. So that I would not get overwhelmed with evemails and convo requests, I decided to open up the brokerage to the corp at large, and it was called "Taggart WH Sales". Even after hiring and training a half-dozen brokers, we still couldn't meet demand, a problem which persists to this day.
I would eventually resign from my position as CEO due to RL issues, and active management of the corporation and brokerage fell upon Stealthgogi, an excellent Taggart and close friend of mine. In my absence he upgraded the business from the mailing list to a website, webmastered by Jbmidnite. While the site is not perfect (notably it is more vulnerable to scamming than the mailing list, and therefore has to be policed more closely), it works very well for our purposes.
Last year I returned to EVE, started a new corp and a new wormhole, and resumed management of the brokerage business. This was not a problem, because as usual most of Taggart was inactive. Redslay had finally been promoted to CEO while I was away, and this time only because Gogi literally had no one else he could hand it over to when he needed to step down. Redslay had attempted to subsume the brokerage business into Taggart as a whole, even going so far as to stack his board of directors (all inactive) as directors of the brokerage. Most of these people had no idea how the business operated.
None of this was really a problem until I made a business decision that Redslay disagreed with. A rival broker (yes, a few of those pop up from time to time) was using our site to advertise his own services. I shut that down and admonished him via email, and he wrote back a rather angry, spergy response about this and that. I informed him that the business was mine to run as I saw fit, and he whined about it to the other brokers. Redslay then informed me that he disagreed with my decision because said rival broker was an officer in a large, scary wormhole corp and he feared eviction. Holy carebear - were we really going to make business decisions based on an ephemeral, non-existent threat of violence?
Then the real drama began. I booted all of the Taggart brokers out of the in-game sales channel, and Gogi responded by booting me back (I had forgotten that he had created the channel lol) and declaring that the brokerage was in fact owned by Taggart, even though I had created the business and had owned it since its inception. Smelling a scammy scam, I then took the nuclear option and walked away with the webmaster, my forum post (now filled with many pages of recommendations), and the majority of the active brokers. Taggart sent me a weakly apologetic evemail in an attempt to reconcile, but the damage was done. They had tried to steal my business, old-fashioned EVE style. And that was that. All I had to do was get a new channel (CAPLF WH Sales in-game), rewrite our FAQ, and we continued business as usual. Customers were confused at first but they got the hang of it. Taggart helped by being completely inactive as usual.
So now we continue on, selling wormholes. Of course, now that CAPLF is disbanding and I'm moving on, it is no longer a requirement that all of my brokers be in my corp. I must either know them personally or they agree to go through a training program. This will hopefully allow us to solve our chronic staffing issues. I believe Taggart wrote up a forum post advertising their new brokerage, but I cannot seem to find the post, and their brokers are even harder to find than mine. Their forum and website also seem to have lapsed as well. I strongly recommend you do not do business with them - they are not above a good scam.
In 2011 I was leading Taggart Transdimensional (TTI). Taggart is an ancient corp that had began in null years ago, been kicked out, and then settled into C5 wormhole space where it would slowly become a small group of inactive carebears. When Kushan passed the torch to me, I started lighting fires under asses and going crazy with recruitment and generally rocking the boat. For the first time in years, Taggart had a CEO who played EVE, for better or worse. This upset the status quo and the delicate egos of many old Taggart personalities. This wasn't much of an obstacle because most of those bittervets didn't actually play EVE. Redslay, an odd carebear hermit, in particular was miffed, especially because he had been passed over for CEO by a complete n00b. When Kush had offered me the position, and I asked why Redslay had been passed, he answered that Redslay becoming CEO was the worst thing that could happen to the corp and he wasn't ready to doom it quite yet. You know things are depressing when the n00b takes over. Redslay and myself had begun our strained relationship a few months before, when I'd moved into his wormhole and then exited after one week because his leadership was just so fail. Micromanaging, flip-flopping, browbeating, and the other hallmarks of people who do not know how to lead people.
I was CEO for a year or so and Taggart began to rebuild. We were still carebears, but at least we were active carebears. In zooming around w-space we noticed a lot of empty wormholes, and like many optimistic entrepreneurs we posted many of them on the EVE-O sell orders forum, hoping to sell them for a quick buck. We sold quite a few and noticed a glaring hole in the process. There were no brokers. To quote the wonderful film Lord of War: "Selling a [wormhole] for the first time is a lot like having sex for the first time. You're excited but you don't really know what the hell you're doing. And some way, one way or another, it's over too fast." And so I whipped up a quick mailing list and started a forum post to advertise it. Customers trickled in at first, but after a few commendatory posts, they started to flock in. Business was brisk. So that I would not get overwhelmed with evemails and convo requests, I decided to open up the brokerage to the corp at large, and it was called "Taggart WH Sales". Even after hiring and training a half-dozen brokers, we still couldn't meet demand, a problem which persists to this day.
I would eventually resign from my position as CEO due to RL issues, and active management of the corporation and brokerage fell upon Stealthgogi, an excellent Taggart and close friend of mine. In my absence he upgraded the business from the mailing list to a website, webmastered by Jbmidnite. While the site is not perfect (notably it is more vulnerable to scamming than the mailing list, and therefore has to be policed more closely), it works very well for our purposes.
Last year I returned to EVE, started a new corp and a new wormhole, and resumed management of the brokerage business. This was not a problem, because as usual most of Taggart was inactive. Redslay had finally been promoted to CEO while I was away, and this time only because Gogi literally had no one else he could hand it over to when he needed to step down. Redslay had attempted to subsume the brokerage business into Taggart as a whole, even going so far as to stack his board of directors (all inactive) as directors of the brokerage. Most of these people had no idea how the business operated.
None of this was really a problem until I made a business decision that Redslay disagreed with. A rival broker (yes, a few of those pop up from time to time) was using our site to advertise his own services. I shut that down and admonished him via email, and he wrote back a rather angry, spergy response about this and that. I informed him that the business was mine to run as I saw fit, and he whined about it to the other brokers. Redslay then informed me that he disagreed with my decision because said rival broker was an officer in a large, scary wormhole corp and he feared eviction. Holy carebear - were we really going to make business decisions based on an ephemeral, non-existent threat of violence?
So now we continue on, selling wormholes. Of course, now that CAPLF is disbanding and I'm moving on, it is no longer a requirement that all of my brokers be in my corp. I must either know them personally or they agree to go through a training program. This will hopefully allow us to solve our chronic staffing issues. I believe Taggart wrote up a forum post advertising their new brokerage, but I cannot seem to find the post, and their brokers are even harder to find than mine. Their forum and website also seem to have lapsed as well. I strongly recommend you do not do business with them - they are not above a good scam.
on Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Lately I've been jumping into an unhealthy number of public fleets, often Spectre but also RvB Ganked, Aussie roams like MATE, Redemption Road, and more recently the Tuskers. I am a pubfleet whore in addition to being an unrepentant killmail whore. A few days ago I was near Amarr and decided to x up for a Spectre gnosis fleet led by Apex Aubaris. Having never actually flown a gnosis, I was intrigued. I'd only killed one before, and it was a fail exploration setup (also a provi pilot lol). Who explores in a battlecruiser? In that pilot's defense, the Gnosis does align almost like a cruiser. The fleet was headed to Providence as usual, where my crew had attempted to make friends recently, but had since abandoned that idea in favor of the elusive gudfight.
The Spectre gnoses were the brainchild of Apex and fitted with the brand new medium microjump drives, which work identically to large MJDs. When the shit hits the fan, you asplode anyone scramming you, then spool up the MJD and moonwalk away from bubbles and warp disruptors. We had 25 of those and no logi, so we could apply super dps, moonwalk individual pilots out when they got redboxed, and not have to worry about our logis getting primaried. Well, that's the idea. If you're terribad, you still die.
As one of the few HAM pilots, and also having little self-preservation instinct, I volunteered to be one of two bait gnoses to entice enemies to aggress me in front of our main fleet. I jumped into Y-M and straight into a small gatecamp. Sure enough the campers took the bait, and a coercer, caracal, and gila were quickly toasted. Interesting drone sniper fit on the gila.
The rest of the camp scattered and we started moving through provi, with me at 59% armor and no reps cuz yolo. We didn't see much on our little safari until a half hour later when a +1 inty reported a cyno on a station, being lit by a vexor. "What the hell," the FC said. "Bait, go in and rattle the hornet's nest." As soon as the other bait and I jumped in, the scout reported a new ship on the undock - a Thanatos. "GO GO GO," the FC shouted. I landed and scrammed the thanny and plugged my magic missiles into the vexor. Because there were only two of us gnoses (and two inties with loldps), plus provi intel channel fail, the thanny inexplicably decided to put his CAPITAL SHIP on the line to get aggress by repping a CRUISER. Then the rest of the fleet came in and they were totally fucked. The vexor went down first of course, followed by his pod (wtf vexor fit btw - you'll drop isk on faction tank and drones, but no rigs?). A heroically misguided Thorax undocked to gallantly defend his bros and was callously rewarded with an asplosion and pod express.
With the potatoes out of the way, we could focus on the meat. Apex called the thanny primary and the lazarz and guns and missiles piled on. The shields evaporated and we expected a mega tank to kick in and make us wait while the thanny dropped aggress and docked. What really happened is that the armor started dropping nearly as quickly as the shields. Shocked FC started shouting "OVERHEAT BATCHEZ!!" and the carrier went down, scarcely a minute after his friends. All quite puzzled, we started inspecting the wreck and absentmindedly volleyed a naked vexor that undocked (yep, that's the cyno pilot - his intentions with the second vexor are unclear). Not only did the thanny have no tank, it was carrying a full complement of drones, not to mention its exploration setup in the fleet hangars. 2.5b gone, to save a Vexor.
Giddy after our cap dunk, we started looking for trouble again and soon caught a TEST legion derping around at a gate. We can only speculate on his activities because of that fit (he was solo, with zero points). Now in HERO space, we began to attract attention from nearby gangs, including a decent Ishtar fleet with logi. We decided to remove ourselves from the area before we welped our slow BCs. We lost a few of them on the way out but managed to pick up some stragglers, including a navy vexor and one of the Ishtars. Our final kill in null was a n00by lil slasher, and we felt so bad after melting a 3-day old pilot that we sent him like 30m.
It was there that I dropped fleet to move towards another fleet, which in retrospect was a foolishly impatient move. The bulk of the fleet stayed together to make it back to Amarr safely, and along the way they somehow caught a wonderful redeemer kill. So jelly.
Keep up the good work Spectrebros; +1 would fleet again. Also much love to Sherpard2 for bringing reps and being a lifesaving field medic.
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| The proper way to fly with an MJD |
As one of the few HAM pilots, and also having little self-preservation instinct, I volunteered to be one of two bait gnoses to entice enemies to aggress me in front of our main fleet. I jumped into Y-M and straight into a small gatecamp. Sure enough the campers took the bait, and a coercer, caracal, and gila were quickly toasted. Interesting drone sniper fit on the gila.
 |
| What my gnosis looked like after the first fight |
 |
| This is approximately how the FC responded |
Giddy after our cap dunk, we started looking for trouble again and soon caught a TEST legion derping around at a gate. We can only speculate on his activities because of that fit (he was solo, with zero points). Now in HERO space, we began to attract attention from nearby gangs, including a decent Ishtar fleet with logi. We decided to remove ourselves from the area before we welped our slow BCs. We lost a few of them on the way out but managed to pick up some stragglers, including a navy vexor and one of the Ishtars. Our final kill in null was a n00by lil slasher, and we felt so bad after melting a 3-day old pilot that we sent him like 30m.
It was there that I dropped fleet to move towards another fleet, which in retrospect was a foolishly impatient move. The bulk of the fleet stayed together to make it back to Amarr safely, and along the way they somehow caught a wonderful redeemer kill. So jelly.
Keep up the good work Spectrebros; +1 would fleet again. Also much love to Sherpard2 for bringing reps and being a lifesaving field medic.
on Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Since early 2011 I have led a half-dozen or so wormhole crews, all within the Virtue of Selfishness (VoS). My first one was Anthem, a 5/3 red giant, and from there I "graduated" into 5/5 and eventually 6/5 space. All of these crews were mostly carebearish, as that is the kind of pilot that Taggart attracts. After leaving Taggart in late 2012, I headed up the People's Capitalist Liberation Front (CAPLF), with the express purpose of creating alliance content while leaving Taggart HR intact.
After returning to EVE in January 2014 after a long and refreshing hiatus, my most recent expedition with CAPLF was a class 2 with class 5 and null statics. After carebearing it up in my last few wormholes, I decided to get a bit more pewpewy with this one. Naraka (J221337, so leet) was its name, the Hindu concept of hell (this is w-space come on, we need a spergy faux-edgy name right??). Recruiting was surprisingly not horribly horrible at first, and I collected quite a few n00bs and old friends alike. Sadly, the momentum could not continue, and a few weeks ago I closed the doors on Naraka.
It has been my most successfully killingest wormhole to date, although that's hardly notable considering the pitiful state of my killboard before moving in. We had a lot of fun in there, including a carrier theft, a horribly executed awox, leading an impromptu Provifleet, poppin n00bs, and more. Several of the pilots are friends now and may join me wherever I end up next.
What's next? I haven't decided yet.
_in_Burmese_art.jpg) |
| Our plan in a nutshell |
It has been my most successfully killingest wormhole to date, although that's hardly notable considering the pitiful state of my killboard before moving in. We had a lot of fun in there, including a carrier theft, a horribly executed awox, leading an impromptu Provifleet, poppin n00bs, and more. Several of the pilots are friends now and may join me wherever I end up next.
What's next? I haven't decided yet.
on Wednesday, June 4, 2014
This post is quite late, but I have been very busy with vacationing/working lately.
Despite having religiously avoided the two previous Burn Jitas, mostly due to my aversion to time dilation, I decided to join a public fleet for this year's burnination. Spectre ran a permafleet throughout the weekend, and I joined late Friday night. Most of the CFC activity was during the day, but there was still quite a bit of activity in Jita for the night owls. For those of you unfamiliar with Burn Jita (are there really people who still don't know?), it's typically a weekend event where the Goons try to alpha as many freighters as they can in and around Jita.
I grabbed a dessie and positioned myself around the Perimeter gate, which is probably Jita's most active gate under most circumstances. Some determined freighter pilots attempted to shortcut into Jita through other gates, but they were usually thwarted by the Goons' omnipresent bumpermach squad. This is how it usually works: Clueless freighter pilot enters Jita, sees a huge blob at the gate, realizes something is horribly wrong (or possibly remains clueless/autopilots) and begins to align to 4-4. The the machs bump until a CFC FC can herd enough cats into catalysts and thrashers, then they undock (cue time dilation), warp to their bumpers at close range, and shotgun the freighter, hoping to destroy it before they are concordokken'd.
95% of the time, this strategy worked like a charm, and was rather boring for our fleet as we targeted the reds and whored on as many mails as we could before they disappeared. Well, the whoring was fully my intent - the fleet as a whole may have been attempting to white knight or something. The other 5% was the fun part, and mostly involved rouge CFC pilots or random r-tards doing something to flag them as a suspect/criminal and getting blapped off the field in short order. Take for instance this interestingly fit Drake, who I assume wanted to whore on a jump freighter killmail and was quickly counter-whored. Notice the distinct lack of Concord on the killmail - whore fail.
There were also quite a few opportunistic smartbombers, hoping to score quick podmails. Such sterling pilots include this cheap Maller, an unrigged, six-plated phoon (five plates are just not enough), an abbadon (only four plates, what a pleb), a magnificent seven-plated phoon, a wild nano phoon, and an actual not-horribly-fit phoon, among others. I sadly missed an opportunity to whore on a freighter myself, as a Providence pilot scooped up some loot and went suspect while I was creeping around another gate. The same pilot managed to lose another Providence the very next night.
All told I whored on 100+ kills and had some giggles, and will probably show up for next year's BJ.
Despite having religiously avoided the two previous Burn Jitas, mostly due to my aversion to time dilation, I decided to join a public fleet for this year's burnination. Spectre ran a permafleet throughout the weekend, and I joined late Friday night. Most of the CFC activity was during the day, but there was still quite a bit of activity in Jita for the night owls. For those of you unfamiliar with Burn Jita (are there really people who still don't know?), it's typically a weekend event where the Goons try to alpha as many freighters as they can in and around Jita.
I grabbed a dessie and positioned myself around the Perimeter gate, which is probably Jita's most active gate under most circumstances. Some determined freighter pilots attempted to shortcut into Jita through other gates, but they were usually thwarted by the Goons' omnipresent bumpermach squad. This is how it usually works: Clueless freighter pilot enters Jita, sees a huge blob at the gate, realizes something is horribly wrong (or possibly remains clueless/autopilots) and begins to align to 4-4. The the machs bump until a CFC FC can herd enough cats into catalysts and thrashers, then they undock (cue time dilation), warp to their bumpers at close range, and shotgun the freighter, hoping to destroy it before they are concordokken'd.
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| The epic tragedy of the internet white knight |
There were also quite a few opportunistic smartbombers, hoping to score quick podmails. Such sterling pilots include this cheap Maller, an unrigged, six-plated phoon (five plates are just not enough), an abbadon (only four plates, what a pleb), a magnificent seven-plated phoon, a wild nano phoon, and an actual not-horribly-fit phoon, among others. I sadly missed an opportunity to whore on a freighter myself, as a Providence pilot scooped up some loot and went suspect while I was creeping around another gate. The same pilot managed to lose another Providence the very next night.
All told I whored on 100+ kills and had some giggles, and will probably show up for next year's BJ.
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