Ch, ch, ch, Changes…

 or, “The Thing We’re Doing That We’ve Decided We Can’t Do.”

and, “What Else Is Tur Up To?”

Part the First:

“Nullsec here we co…”  “Wha? We’re not going?” “…Oh crap.”  It’s a mess..

 Our old Alliance, DemSal, imploded with massive loss of ISK (on its part) and respect (on my part).  OK, shit happens, it’s EVE, let’s move on… and most did, some to other Alliances some to other corps. A few stayed together and formed a new Alliance out of the ashes of the old and HBHI has joined this new Alliance. And we are goin thru some changes man… but, not really.

Now, as we live in a wormhole we are not as connected to Empire space (hi, lo & null sec) goings on as the majority of EVE denizens.

Case in point:

I knew nothing of the “MT Riots” in Jita, Amarr and other locations until I flew to Jita on a store run one fine EVEning… imagine my surprise when I discovered a real for-god riot under way that had Empire space stirred up like a grenade dropped inna fish bowl. Until I jumped the Perimeter gate I, and my corp, had no idea there was ANYTHING unusual going on.

‘nother Case in point:

One of our guys popped outta the hole a few days ago, docked up and exclaimed “Heyyy! They brought back ship spinning!” We collectively groaned and have gotten some real good LOLs outta that one as ervybody knows ship spinnin came back weeks ago.

But these, and many other instances highlight (1) how little the dramas of Empire space affects those of as really ‘live’ in holes and (2) how little my corp keeps up with events in Empire in the B-logs, D-logs and newsfeeds on the Neocom…. Sad, sad, sad.

At this point I must to digress briefly and make a side note... We who live in POSes never lost ship spinnin. In a POS, you are either logged off or you are in a ship inside the forcefield, or OYW sumwhar else... From the release of Incarna right through all the insanity and hoopla that followed, right up to today, when POS dwellers are on but just hangin out, we could and can still be found happily spinnin our ships in the POS... and with a far, FAR better view than any old CQ or stoopid 'door', lemme tell you!

 

We now return to our regularly scheduled post…

So, we are back in an Alliance. This one is a bit moar reserved but also bit moar… ‘involved’ is how I guess I would put it. All in all it comes across as a moar mature and stable Alliance on the whole. One of the exciting things going on… the negotiations for a move to null…   (yipes!)

Yup, I said it…. The dreaded NULLSEC. You see, I may live in a wormhole, which by definition IS nullsec as its security rating is -1.0, yet  I myself have never done any business or work below 0.2… oh, I did once run through a 0.1 system, but I dint stop off and have a beer, so I dunt count that (anyway I had my eyes closed the whole time…). So you see, I can honestly state that I have never been in null even though I live there. LOL   A conundrum I have always greatly enjoyed…  =]

While I do live in the aforesaid -1.0 W-space, I am moar skittish of going to or being IN null than WHs for the main reason that (1) in WHs you have 'no-local', and (b) W-space is off-the-beaten-path, not-on-the-map. Not a part of Empire. No public use gates, no “Spike in local!”, no jump bridges, no NPC stations, IE: SECLUDED = NO PEOPLE. Just a few of us, and the occasional target or three. Nice, quiet, private.

I HATE Jita… that many people I dunt know, all flyin heavily armed ships, all in one place… just makes my skin crawl.

Anyhoo…. The people heading up the Alliance are a group who’s last corp was a null sec corp which had come up to Empire to take an R&R break. They broke up after DemSal imploded and a core of them plus a few from other corps that were in DemSal formed a new corp and they established the new Alliance. And our new Alliance is now in negotiations to rent us a place in null. It’s still early in the negotiations so no details yet. There have been a few bumps in the road as is normal in these situations, hence the first subtitle of this post…   =]

If they ever do get ervybody happy with the details then my corp will, for the first time, have an opportunity to ‘safely’ venture into nullsec. Safely you say huh? Well we’ll not be “neutral”, which as I understand in it is null equivalent to being Flashy RED to EFFIN ERVYBODY. We’ll be Blue to the Alliance overlords and the other tenants etc. As I understand it that means we will be as safe there as, if not actually safer than, in Hisec… this is what I have heard from some. If the negotiations pan out then we shall see what we shall see.


Part the Second:

“What Else Is Tur Up To?”

As for me personally, while all the above is playing out I have been working on getting into Incursioning.

You see a number of months back a few frens and I were sittin outside Dodi station watchin the Fools Parade and shooting the shit as there was nothing else worth shootin ATM… and the convo swayed into the Dream Ships Category of Standard EVE Chat Subjects. I opined as I dint really have any dream ships, I was still just workin my way up the std power ladder at the time and had recently gotten into a Phoon and was happy with that… then a Macharial undocked and passed by us… “Now, if I had a dream ship that would be it.” Said I, “But no… Look at it, it is an Amarrian ship and you know me, I dunt fly Amarrgh.”

The not flyin Amarrgh thing is partially a small bit of RP I do, as a Minmatar (a race the God cursed Amarr have enslaved for generations) I dunt fly Amarr on principle… and partially as a Minnie, I feel we have the best ships overall in EVE anyway so uther than the Drake (for WHs), the Noctis (ORE salvager) and a few uther frigs I am concentrating my skills on Minmatar ships exclusively…

Anyhoo, one of the guys pointed out it was not an Amarrian design, but an Angel Cartel creation based on a Jovian design and built with Minmatar and Gallente tech… “Huh!?!” “Really?...” I looked it up and said how “Well then, it seems I do have a dream ship, go figger…” One of my frens, not a corpmate (at the time) or Ally who is (was then) a bit of a Hisec richbich… bought me one. Right then and there. As a gift…  uh  wha?.

I was floored as you might imagine. ISK 800+M hull… as an impulse buy gift. Nice to have frens.  Anyhoo… I couldn’t fly it at the time, so it sat in the dock for a while, and when I did skill up to fly it, I T2 fitted it for PvE and flew it to the hole. Where it has gone out on exactly one run in a sleeper site, which proved I could not fit a Mach as well as I thought I could… so it went back into the POS where it has sat.

It has come out only once since and that was to commemorate and swap DPS with our Carrier, a Nidhoggur, the day it was commissioned and sea trialed. Other than that, she’s been an ornament and a m3 hog in the Ship Maint Array. If yer wonderin why… I dint wanna lose it to a gankin or stoopidity, It was a GIFT from a fren fer crists sake…

So, our shiney new Alliance gets involved in running Incursions… the Mach is a defacto staple ‘cursion boat….and I have a Mach I am letting go to waste…   Hmmm.  I spend my usual excessive amount of time reading up on ervything I can find on Machs, Incursions and how the two go together like Quafe and Ruum. I finally go to my Alliance FCs and request their advice on fits and shit…. I get some MOAR links to moar very good info on the above topic… mmmK.

I refit my Mach specifically for Incursions (for now, T2 w/ best ‘named’ 800mm guns and one Meta 4 named mod I dunt have T2 skills for) and get aholt of one of our FCs…. Post my fit feelin I confident I am in the money and…. I get pretty much fatally trolled. I have 7x800mm Autocannons and I had 2x Ballistic Control Systems in my lows… “BCSs are for MISSILES you NOOB!!!” was about the nicest thing I hard for a while there…  Anyhoo… swapped out the BCSs for the Gryostabilizer IIs I was supposed to have and the trolling slacked off… dint stop, just got less aggressive. And I got the sign off on my boat & fit from 3 of our FCs… I was in.

Now all I had to do was (1) get the Mach out of the hole and actually buy and fit the rigs/mods as spec’ed…  and yea the fit I sent em was a PYFA fit transmitted to SARA (the Semi-Autonomous Rational Array that is the Master Admin Program over all of my computing needs both in POS and onboard all my ships) and sent to chat from there…  (b) find a way to pull the free time on one of the set ‘cursioning dates the Alliance has on the calendar… and lemme tell you, the first was far easier than the second.

Oh and one I fergot… (1A) fix my Standings re the Amarrgh Empire so I can actually GO ‘acursioning… HUH? Yes, you see a very high percentage of Hisec ‘cursions happen to break out in Amarrgh space…  and I was at a -6.29 standing. You see, at -5.0 as it says here, "NPC factions will begin shooting you on sight in their space. (-5.0 Modified Personal Standing)". I couldn’t fly in Amarr space. Well, I could, but I’d get shot at… a lot… by ALL of the gate and station guns AND the Imperial Amarr Navy would chase my ass around to boot… remember the Whoredur loss of many mil of ISK? Yea, that crap… crap.

So the OTHER thing I have been doin is fixing my standing re Amarrgh… and that dunt make Tur a happy boy, at all. You see, that means Ima hafta run mishins FOR the god cursed Amarr!!  Crap. I hate mishin runnin in general and running them FOR the Amarrgh Empire… well, as a Minmatar that is as distasteful to me as… as… as… well, mining.   lol

So began my desperate search to find out how to raise my standings to the Amarrgh without selling out on my principles… and without boring me to the point of seppuku. One of the things I found was the Social skill, “Diplomacy”. Now back when I was still runnin mishins for a livin, we all trained up all the Social skills cause they affect the agent you can access and the mish payout amounts… I assumed I had skilled up all of them including Diplomacy. Ahhhh… wrong Batman, I dint. So I find out that the Diplomacy skill directly affects your Faction Standings and I hadn’t learned it as it does not ‘directly’ affect mishin agent accessability or reward, bounty, bonus & LP amounts unless your standings are for shit, which my weren’t at the time.

Cool, I bought the book, stopped all training on the Loki (my new dream boat) and kicked off Diplomacy to L5. Ah HA!! Quickly skilled up to L3 and BAM! Im ‘in like Flint’ (google it) Amarrgh standings up to -4.99, WOOHOO!!! I can fly in Amarrgh space and not get all killed by the stooped NPCs!!  Yea!  LOL  So to bump em up a bit moar to be on the safe side, I decide to run some of the Data Center mishes which give a direct Faction Standings bump.

They’re L1 mishes and on the whole wayyy too easy as I went out to run em in my L4 Mish fit Phoon and I actually hadda really good time cause I was epically waffle stompin ERVYTHING in sight!!  LOL  Warp in to 7 frigs w/ rookie pilots @ 50km, no agro, send in the drones, 2 Hvy Webbers and 3 Warrior 2s… they tackle the frigs and, of course, do enough damage to kill em, but I like to wait for their transversal to drop under 50km/s and one shot em with the 1200’s for the lulz…    =]

Anyhoo… I work just one of the Data Centers mish inna mish and up my Amarrgh Standings to -3.44… yea me! So I can now safely go ‘acursioning in Amarrgh.  The Imperial Amarrgh Navy will allow me to pass unmolested, I have a Machurson boat & fit which have been given the stamp of approval by my Alliance FCs… now all I need is a few wifeaggro free hours one afternoon or evening…   uh huh…

Well…. With a pre-req like that, and wifeaggro like I get... looks like I will never go ‘acursioning.  =\

PS
For them as might be curious, when I finished skilling Diplomacy to L5 and with several Data Center mishes under my belt my Amarrgh standings raised to a comfortable -2.49. Gotta watch that from now on…   =]

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