String of pearls

Some days in EVE you just have one of those days. In a good way. You log on, find a bunch of cool shit, asplode some people, and maybe not even die. On this particular day I found a pinata, killed two carriers, some BSs, and a marauder, and I survived everything. Maybe for you that's not a big deal, but I was quite tickled about it.

Ukraine vs Russia Spaceship Fights

I spent my first few days in Thera just observing and trying not to die, with mixed results. Pizza, Goons, UHURT, Camel, and many others have been flitting around from station to station, killing with reckless abandon, bless their hearts. Despite the carnage and the camps, a respectable market has flourished in the system, although docking and undocking to trade in these goods can be perilous. A few Theran-focused corps and communities have begun to spring up, and I decided to jump into some pubfleets to see what they were up to. The first one was a bomber gang with a terribad FC whose name I can't remember, and I ditched them quickly. The second one was led by a much more knowledgeable and less risk-averse Ukrainian named Shtuka, who happens to be the CEO of Revenge of the Liquidators, which until very recently was part of the Marmite highsec merc outfit. (On an unrelated note, the CEO of Marmite, Tora Bushido, is running for CSM 10 on a "safer highsec" platform. Please do not vote for him. Highsec is plenty safe enough as it is.)

Rhea Review

This is Rhea

Rhea has been out for over a week now and therefore I feel expertly qualified to wax poetic on its merits and flaws. I'm a blogger right? That's what we do. We're experts on everything. Rhea added a bunch of shit to EVE, and I'll discuss each one in turn.

Sacrificial Muninn

Look at this piece of crap

Today's Spectre was a collection of Ruptures and Muninns. Having trained t2 medium projectiles recently for something else that I have since forgotten, I put together a Muninn. I have precious little experience with gunnery in general, having flown mostly EWAR, missile, or tackle ships for much of my pvp career. Missiles are easy - for each class of missile, there is one ammo type that corresponds to each of the four damage types. T2 missiles add only a small wrinkle in that there is a long- and short-range option for each damage type. Missiles always hit when the target is in range, although damage application might be poor if there is a size mismatch between the missile and the target. Gunnery on the other hand is hard. There are so many ammo types, each with slight permutations in damage, tracking, optimal range, etc. Hybrids and lasers use cap (sometimes a great deal of it), which can provide fitting challenges that missile boats don't deal with, and of course a missile ship that is neuted out can still hurt ships until destroyed. Gun damage is applied instantly, while missiles take time to hit their target. And so on and so forth.

RvB Ganked 146: Oh My Gods

Work has been naggy this week, but I managed to sneak out of Thera for a few hours to run with RvB. This week's roam was Gods of War, a collection of hurricanes, faction canes, and sleipnirs. I hadn't flown in a GoW before (or sat in a sleipnir for that matter), but it works best when the high alpha and long range of projectile BCs combine to volley targets off the field before their logi can land reps. The cycle time of the guns is rather slow, so the GoWs have only one, maybe two volleys before the reps land and the target needs to be changed. Because of this, the battlecruisers have no prop mods and in this regard the composition is not completely unlike line infantry of the 18th century. Opposing forces would stand up tall and just shoot each other until one side couldn't shoot anymore - no moving around, no flanking, no special tricks. The fleet was led by Apex Aubaris, after organizer Rebecca Neresh apparently flaked at the last minute.

First day in Thera

After Rhea landed yesterday morning, the search began for Thera in earnest. As advertised, it was chock full of w- and k-space connections, and was discovered barely a half hour after the servers came up. A few CCP devs sat in station in the system, taunting us in the Thera intel channels. The first few scanners to find it kept their mouths shut for another half hour, after which Peter Moonlight released his siggy map and the floodgates opened. There was a mad dash for all of the highsec entrances, so I slipped in quietly through a low and began to creep around.

RvB Ganked 145: Enyo Face

It's been months since I've flown with RvB Ganked, and they're one of my favorite pubfleets. This weekend's roam was called The Last Joust, as the enyo assault frig is supposed to lose its jousty thing with Rhea this week (even though in this video preview, the new enyo still has an antenna thing on it).

In defense of the Freeport

Today I jumped into the largest Spectre fleet I've ever seen - at least 230 pilots. We headed towards CT8K-0 to help the Phoebe Freeport Republic defend their station against the Russians. The Freeport is a collection of pilots who banded together after the Phoebe update in November and started taking sov. One of the most significant changes to EVE with Phoebe was the nerfing of jump distances. This was done by reducing base range and adding a new mechanic called fatigue that hinders cap ships that want to make successive jumps. After these changes, the nascent Freeport community wagered that some systems on the edge of space would be easy to conquer and occupy, as their owners wouldn't be interested in the hassle of defending them.

Down to the wire

I haven't been too active in EVE lately, as it's the fall and I have a lot of RL shit during the fall. But I do log in every now and then and putz around a bit. Last night I was creeping around, scanning and not talking on TS like usual, when a call went out for a tackled carrier in null (where else would it be tackled I guess). I hustled back to grab an interceptor, then changed my mind enroute and switched to an ishtar. We had enough tackle, but not enough dps. So we all zip out to some shithole in the Drone Regions, with about an hour on the clock before downtime.