My Piratical Apprenticeship

or “How I became a Pwndawan Learner...”

Continuing the theme of how Tura sux at PvP, and his plans to unsuck hisself…

(still sounds really bad…)

In my quest to improve my PvP skills I have requested, and been accepted, as an apprentice to one of EVE’s Full Time Professional Pirates. I shall henceforth call him… Darth Nefarious.

You see Darth Nefarious (AKA Oz) was the first pirate to War Dec us early on (see this War Story) and has been a close friend of ours ever since. When we joined the Alliance we intro’ed Oz to our many new friends there. Oz has, as he said he would, joined up w/ us for several of the War Decs we have been in and when he wasn’t incorp, he assisted us in many ways. He is still happiest as a one man pirate corp so I asked him if he would be my PvP Sensei… and he said yes.  =]

Last night I was in Amarr which was the closest hub to our then lowsec hole for the C2. Oz was pirating around w/ an Ally and he advised me to put together a T1 Cruiser for my new life of piracy… I checked and found that I was able to fly far more ships than I had previously been able to. You see I have great skills up to L3 in many areas… but I had not been pushing up to L4 and 5 simply due to the extreme amount of time involved. Most L4 and L5 skills can take from two weeks up to a month of real time to complete.

Additionally I have never really looked into implants due to how much I kept hearing about the cost and how I saw some pilots I knew avoiding PvP because they did not want to lose the very expensive implants they had. This made no sense to me… you have a set of implants that give you almost godlike shield or armor resists or something… but you won’t USE them because you can’t “afford” to lose them…  I mean one of the most basic tenants of EVE is “Don’t Fly what you can’t afford to lose.” then why buy them in the first place?? I have used a few implants I had picked up as loot, but so what if I lost them, I dint pay for them to begin with.

I was finally talked into looking seriously at implants because they can cut WAYYYY down on training times. A basic +3 set goes for approx 40M I$K and can cut from 1 to 5 days off of a L4 or L5 skill… now THAT is very worth the cost. And yea, if you get podded you lose em and gotta replace em… but 40M is a far cry from say 1 or 1.5 Billion I$K a full Slave set can go for. I still will prolly never use a full set that runs more than say, 100M I$K, but I do now feel that they can be worth the cost and worth replacing if lost.

Anyhoo… so I got a full set of Basic +3 ‘plants in my head and a full set of Shield Hardwiring ‘plants also (Hardwiring ‘plants give you very specific boosts to mods such as shield, armor, missiles, etc., etc. ). Then I took a look at some of those L4 and L5 skills I have been putting off…  and started cramming the books into my head. It is starting to pay off… I can now run Hvy Drones, Sentry Drones, my CAP, CPU and Prop use is about as good as it can get. My base ranges for guns and missiles is significantly better than a few weeks ago… etc., etc.

So I bought me a Vexor, Gallente T1 Crusier Drone Boat, found me a fit I liked via EVEMon’s Battleclinic Loadout browser, and fitted her up nice. Made the run from Amarr to Arghnon (Arnon for them as are non-pirates out there) late last night… Now I am waiting with baited breath… for tonight’s lesson in the Fine Art of EVE Piracy.  =]   Wish me luck!

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=