What Would YOU Undock For?

~or “Kronos Lives up to the Hype.”

Well, Kronos has dropped and I am pleased as punch. The download and installation went smoother than ANY patch/expansion I have experienced in my 3.5 years ingame.

The morning of the 3rd I kicked off the d-load and went to go do some household chores. When I came back, roughly an hour or so later, the d-load and installation were done and the client was ready to run. Login went as smoothly as hoped, the client loaded and in gameplay since I have seen nothing amiss.

So… Kronos, the first of CCPs new patchspansions dropped and what did we do? We went RATTIN! We live inna C3 with a static Lowsec and this is ideal for several reasons. (1) A stat low means fewer random tourists as the lower population in lowsec means fewer player scanning holes, (2) C3s are not always on the ‘pipe’ to Empire from C4 thru 6s and, now (3) Mordu’s Legion rats are spawning all over lowsec and dropping very ‘spensive BPCs for the 3 new Mordu’s Legion ships.

And what is happening, as far as we have seen is pure awesomesauce. Players know there are potential billions in ISK in those BPCs and they are foraying into lowsec from all over New Eden and undocking in numbers we have not seen before. I mean, with the very real possibility of pocketing several billion ISK with one rat kill, risking ships and PODs are worth it. This means the potential for PvP has also grown in pace with the players seeking those ML rats.

That very first night we bagged one of those new Barghests and its sweet BPC drop… 2 bil ISK for Sov, who very kindly cut me a percentage as I landed on grid and helped him finish off the flat weird thing. Whattaway to kick off Kronos!

The next night, the 4th, we had an incursion from a higher class WH corp through our system… and ended up with a really fun fight on the static. I was not on comms, so initially I was responding to the chat about what I thought was a fight ‘outside’ of the stat, I jumped inna ‘Cane and landed right in the fight! The incursion gang was a Pilgrim, Proteus and x2 Loki, they jumped and destroyed our Vexor, and we responded with an Ares, the Vex pilot now inna Ishtar, Blackbird, Geddon and my Cane.

We killed the Pilgrim and one Loki then I believe the other Loki and the Proteus jumped the hole to lowsec, at least I don’t remember them warping off and we did have points spread so… What I find really interesting is what I remember and what the logs show is always different in little interesting ways…

For instance in this fight the logs say I initially attacked the Proteus… I remember the Lokis and Pilgrim, but the logs are clear I spent 40 seconds, a fair piece of time in combat, applying all DPS on the Proteus before switching to the Pilgrim… yet I don’t remember the Proteus at all but I do remember switching DPS to the Pilgrim… weird huh?

Anyway, after the initial fight I reshipped to a Broadsword (HIC), warped back and bubbled up. The Loki pilot we killed had got his POD out and back to their hole into our system. He had reshipped and returned inna a Drake, to assist his corpmates to return, he landed in the bubble and, things get weird here again for me… the logs show the Proteus jumped back in, and again, for a just few seconds this time, I fought the Proteus… but don’t remember it. I wonder now if it’s just Protieii I can’t see?

Add to that the fact that the logs show that the Pilgrim pilot had reshipped to a Geddon and I fought him too… yet don’t remember targeting a Geddon… but I DO remember getting neuted out, calling out that I was neuted out and I remember when my CAP bounced back, getting back into the fight. Now we had I think 2 Geddons of our own on the field  by then so I can see some potential confusion on my part there, ‘cept of course, I fired on the damned thing… =\

Anyway, the Drake died and due to my HIC we got his POD too. The Proteus and Geddon, I believe, were able to warp out to their hole though I swear I don’t remember it. Well, we kept watch on the static but after a while we assumed they decided to err of the side of caution until things calmed down in our hole.

Later that night we went ratting in the lowsec and, besides some nice bounties we got into a few good fights too. Leathal in an Ares got into a fight with a Tristan on which I joined in and got point, perfect whoring… lol, before it assloded. Then Leath, now inna Enyo gets point on a Gnosis and I warped to assist… the Gnosis was able to destroy Leath’s Enyo but not before I got point and started in on him. I was still in my Cane and this turned into one of the closest fights I have ever had.

As a matter of fact, if Sov had not at one point said something about overheating, I would have lost… We both had point, we were burning and turning, drones orbiting and we were both stripping shields and armor off of each other at nearly the same rate finally both going into hull… but I was going down a bit faster than him. Now all I remember clearly was Sov saying “…something something…overheat… something something…”

I quickly overheated ALL racks and suddenly my shields jumped back up to approx 20 to 25%... and that made the difference. From then on the Gnosis had shields to burn back through while I was still chewing through his hull, now noticeably faster, until he blew up.

[EDIT: In talking over the fight w/ Sov we realized that my shields bouncing up to 25% from 0% was due to Sov jumping the gate into the system. He was on his way to assist but dint land on grid in time... However, he was our fleet booster, so when he jumped gate, I got fleet boosts, and as he is L5, I got... ta da, a 25% shield boost.... so hurrah for fleet! 'nough said.]

I was ecstatic!! I was also on FIRE!!!  LOL… I had about 70% hull left, close to incap heat damage on several mods and fire and smoke pouring out my ass as I warped back to the hole…. But I was grinning like an idiot for the rest of the night…  =]  I repaired all damage and headed back out in the same Cane to continue ratting.

The night of the 5th we went ratting the lows again and Sov, inna Ishtar, gets into a fight with the same guy from the Gnosis fight on the 4th, and he's back in another Gnosis… 20 seconds after we engaged him a Moa landed in support and we took them both down then we went right back to ratting.

So far we haven’t gotten another Modu’s Legion ship… but I expect we will continue to take full advantage of Traveling Without Moving from lowsec to lowsec.  =]

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