The Pewage goes on and on…

Have you ever noticed that when things are going well, you find you have very little to say, yet when things are not going your way, you can’t say enough… well, I aint had a lot to say lately. =]

While things have not gone, in detail, as I would have planned... if one was able to “plan out” the exact interactions between the vast and disparate members of this thing we call EVE... all in all, it has gone sorta as I hoped it would.

I am getting a shot at shooting at, and getting shot at by, moar people and in moar situations than ever before. I have no idea if I am ‘learning’ anything, other than to plan ahead to the moment when I WILL be warpin out in my POD back to the BHQ to reship and prayin I get back in time to get blow up again afore the fight is over!

I have learned to buy 10 of each mod for my Rifter fleet, ‘cause I’m gonna NEED em in the next day or 2…

I have learned how to hotdrop a fit on a ship ASAP… and,

I have learned how to share the sky w/ FLASHIN RED DETH…, and not go all FUKBEANS & BANANNASLIPPERS in da head.

“So, am I all ‘James T’ with my bad self yet?” you ask… uh, no. But after a rocky start… losing in ervy fight and losing quickly... and badly… after runnin my cash reserves to under 100K I$K and wonderin if I made a serious error in judgement by even joinin RvB… after getting my vurra new Drake asploded in a 15-v-me RED BLOBFEST and concurrently (and purportedly accidentally) POD killed (losing full set of +3 “Basic” ‘plants & a full set of +3 Shield Hardwiring ‘plants, 65M I$K current Jita prices) which is STRICTLY against the rules and Verboten, accident or no, after which I did give serious thought to tuckin my tail ‘tween my legs and going back to the hole and HB…

…but I just couldn’t.

I could not just walk away from this. That would be, as I saw it, strike 2… meaning one moar failure to get to at least ‘competent’ at PvP… If I walked away again I would start naming my ships: “Welcome to my Salvage”, “Shields Down for Your Convenience” and “NanoRibbons in a Bare Hull”… I was broke, I was almost out of hulls AND I was out of mods to fit the few ships I had left…  I was depressed.

Now for the Drama…

On top of all of this the RED what podded me had been contacted by the leadership of RvB… they made it very clear they did not care if he meant to pod me or not, it is the one completely inflexible rule of RvB… NO PODDING RvB members, period. He had to apologize and pay compensation. He never contacted me directly. What I heard from RvB leadership was he told them he was sorry and would send me 200 million I$K, then said he had to logoff and get on an alt to access the I$K… we did not see him again that night… go figure huh.

When I finally did hear from him directly the next night it was to offer apologies for the accidental podding and to negotiate what he needed to pay. Hmm…

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no issue w/ negotiating a settlement… but he had already set a price at 200M... and actually the I$K was, for me, not the point… those of you who know me know I do not like charity… but it was now a principal of honor. I told him, “If I ever made such a mistake, the pilot in question will hear from ME, personally AND immediately. Not after loggin off with some story about having to get on an alt to get the ISK.” I said 250M would fix it now… I was mad, not about the podding or lost ‘plants… I wanted to spank the puppy a bit.

Later he wrote, “250 million in the head of a character that is 9 months old, flying in a PVP corp with 3 active war decs? Sorry, that's fishy to me and I'm not going to bite.” plus, “I've dropped corp as that seems to be the outcome that will result in the least drama.”

OK, NP and TY… for those not ingame: “okay, no problem and thank you”)… I felt I was not gonna hear from him again. Uh huh… well, leadership was (1) surprised, said they felt he was an honest and decent player and this did not jibe with his history in RvB and (2) he stood to get permabanned from ever rejoining RvB. That seems to have done it… 1 hour later he transferred 200M to my account. He did take one last shot…

“All this stuff about honor and keeping your word is silly, this is not real life, it's an internet spaceship game that was designed to reward amorality, lying and cheating.” “I did not fail to contact you because I have no game 'honor' - that concept has no weight in a game world, particularly this one.”  and the most telling of all… “Add a load of abusive mails and convos from other Blues and I didn't much feel like making nice.”

I had to respond,

“If, "All this stuff about honor and keeping your word is silly..." then it can't but help make one wonder what in the world prompted the, "...load of abusive mails and convos from other Blues..." I would expect everyone to be LOL'ing w/ you and virtually clappin you on the back...


Guess they just don't get it either....”

End of Drama…

So, here I was still depressed…. but now I was depressed with 200M ISKies in da wallet… strange how that can change a fellows outlook on things.  =]

Plus, add to that the 10 Rifter hulls a friend of mine contracted me after the podding (and no I still dunt like charity… but hulls is hulls and I was broke ATM ok?) So now that I could afford to fit up those hulls I found my depression seemed to be more based on not bein able to “keep up with the Joneses” as it were… I still wanted to get out there and lose ships… just depressed I couldn’t AFFORD to…  LOL

Anyhoo… So, I decided to stay and at least go through the 200M and all the hulls I had already. If that wasn’t enough, then I would accept my fate and go back to the hole and kill NPCs until I was rich enough to come back and try again.

As it turns out, while I do suk atrociously at PvP, I am sukkin a little less each day… mebbe... I finally got a “Laid the Last Blow” killmail of my very own… (I so proud!!) My current stats are (RvB only), 17 kills / 17 losses. Basically 50/50… and I am the “Top Damage Dealer” on 2 of those kills… not too shabby for a pew pew noob.

The funnest thing I have been involved in so far are the FFAs… Free For Alls! Basically, a BC or BS, the Ref, sits at a SS. The rules are, both Red and Blue can join in (Purple Fleet Rules are in force), T1 frigs only, 30KM radius from the Ref. Each man for himself, last man standing wins. Oh, and if you go outside of the 30KM radius… the Ref KEELS YOU, period.  LOL  So we get 10 to 15 frigs together… countdown to 3… and GO! MAN what FUN!!! Winnings are usually 100M to 1^st, 50M to 2^nd. The last one we did we dint have a Director as ref so we each ponied up for the chance to fight, ended up w/ a pot similar to the std pot.

So, I am going to stay a while longer. I even went so far as to get serious about one of my alts at last. I have brought Hiri out to Hakegen (R-Fed Home system) to do some spai and scout work (hmm.. a spai with her name and intent published on the web...?). After I set Tur back up w/ a full set of replacement +3 'plants I stopped all training on 'im and had Hiri spend roughly 30Mil on skill books… and I am cramming em down her throat as fast as I can. Run ALL the L1s then the L2s then L3s etc., etc. … Focused skilling. I want her in a CovOps, an Indy and a BC just as soon as possible.

Other than that… Tur has a nice Rifter fleet… a Stabber and a Drake… now, if you’ll forgive me… I have to go lose them to the Red Menace.  "For The TEAPOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

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

On a side note… (and with all due respect to the friend whom I am tellin on here) I recently saw where a good friend had HIMSELF as one of his own kills… huh? say wha?? Yup… he had “Laid the Final Blow” on hisself… I know not the details, but I do know it had to do with a Bombing run and prolly a bit of the 'ol FUKBEANS & BANANNASLIPPERS...

So far in my time here that has to be the most apropos comment on this whole thing we do than anything else I have read or seen…  =]

uh.... WOW

Post updated: 12:30 9/22 [14:30 09.22GMT]
Corrected win / loss stats and added 2 killmail lnks.

This is not a full blown post, just a quick update... you see I don't have time to write... I'm too BUSY PEWIN!!!!!!   LOL

Yesterday, 2011.09.20 (my birthday BTW) was my 1st day in B-REP.

I was welcomed into the corp...

[ 2011.09.20 19:21:37 ] Prometheus Sun > Josiah Shepard, TurAmarth ElRandir, paulo fr, LifeForce7 welcome all you new members who may be on.
[ 2011.09.20 19:29:20 ] TurAmarth ElRandir > Ty and o7 to all...

then...

[ 2011.09.20 19:36:33 ] tuggers > Blue Fleet
then...

[ 2011.09.20 19:37:33 ] TurAmarth ElRandir > where to?
[ 2011.09.20 19:37:50 ] tuggers > hag gate in akon

I joined in the gate camp until...

[ 2011.09.20 20:00:54 ] TurAmarth ElRandir > anyhoo, I gotta log, RL calls.... (crapa!)
[ 2011.09.20 20:00:57 ] TurAmarth ElRandir > o7 all

I was welcomed at 19:21, I was in fleet by 19:36, I was on a gate camp by approx 19:40...  Sweet! Now while we did not get any action in the 20 mins I was in fleet, I hadda log due to RL, this was very portentous...

I logged back on at 02:17 and was back in a fleet 3 mins later…

[ 2011.09.21 02:20:49 ] Prometheus Sun > um not sure yet just made fleet seeing who joins and going from there

Over the next 9 hours, I was involved in 8 combat actions… I lost 2 Rifters and 1 Vexor… with no kills or assists… but I got into fights and I am learning… and having a BALL!!!!!! WOW…. LOL! This is THE SHIT!!

CORRECTION: 2 assists:
http://bluerep.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10679052 - Webbed this Inquisitor.
http://bluerep.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10678804 - top damage dealer against this Punisher.

So, 2 kills / 3 losses.... YEA!

I don’t sweat the losses, I am Here for the Pewage, I will never get better at PvP without DOING it, and if you pew, you WILL lose ships.

Something to ponder, for those of you who read this… I was involved in 8 combat actions yesterday… Up to now I have had 20 losses and 5 kills to my record. In one day, I have had almost a 1/3^rd as much PvP as I have in 10 months ingame…

Yea, if yer lookin for pewage, dis is da place! I feel I will get enough experience here to find out if I ‘can’ get better.. if I ‘can’ Pew with the best of em… or if I need to go back to the hole and pull it in after me… =]



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

Once again, unto the breach dear friends…

OK, Ima give it one more try… Once again I will jump corp and go in search of Hi Sec Pewage.

Over the last week or so I have been very satisfied wakin up in our POS, the Red Giant starlight diffused and casting its weird illumination through AI’s Great Wall of Bubbles (you gotta see it to believe it)… I have a cuppa coffee while deciding whether to;

Rid our system of the local Legions of Lethargy… (make some I$K)

or, scan down the daily Stat C2 and see if a raid is in order… (make moar I$K w/ possible pewage!)

or, scan down the Stat LowSec and see if it leads anywhere interesting… (meh)

or, mebbe make an effort to finish the Deth Rings (our POS defensive mods array)… (yuch)

or, putter around the POS, do some laundry, the dishes, tidy up the Storage Bays (dubble yuch),

or, as I so often end up… have another cup and just sit lost in the view from our Control Tower enjoying the deep, abiding sense of peace and safety I have (for some weird indefinable reason) when I am in our POS in the Class 2 Wormhole we call home.

After coffee I usually end up doing some quick POS Maintenance, check fuels, etc., then I most often take the Easy I$K route, DScan the local Sedated Stormtroopers and keel them. Simple, easy peasy. I board my Drake and I can semi-AFK solo any site in here… granted it takes a while solo… but the split is 100%... pure profit.  =]

Anyhoo… after a week or so of this I was starting to get the itch to take a stab at learnin PvP again. You see we don’t get raided very often at all in the C2 and I tend to do most or all of my Empire runs in a cloaky.. with my skill level and experience, this is ‘almost’ an assured safe passage even right through gate camps if you know what yer doin.

As for raids in our C2, the Stat LowSec entry greatly reduces the likelihood of our WH getting randomly scanned down… it seems most of the random scanning done in EVE is in HiSec as lowsec is (1) supposedly much moar dangerous and (2) has far fewer pilots per square AU to do any such scanning… The greatest number of raids and trespassers we have encountered are WHers like us who have had our C2 spawn in their WH… then they pop over to see if we are worth raiding… LOL.

So while I live in what is often considered, and for many reasons can be, the most deadly space in EVE, I have actually had far fewer opportunities for PvP here than I have ever had in Empire space, and I aint had all that much there neither... so you do the math. Hence the state of calm peacefulness I experience when in the hole... On the rare occasions when we do get raided, it is often a welcome patch of excitement in an otherwise humdrum (read SAFE) day…

Thus while whiling away the time thusly I have been pondering on how best to scratch my ‘pewage itch’. I, of course, have also been keepin up with the goings on of my corpmates, various friends and associates and one of the guys I was corped up with in HiSec has joined the Red vs. Blue permawar...

Two separate corps that have permanently and mutually war dec’ed each other but work and act together as one corp for the mutual benefit of all members… an interesting concept. RvB was setup specifically with the idea of using War Dec mechanics and some basic, simple rules to give its members as much PvP action as possible… say what?

It amazes me that in a game purported to be as incredibly violent and dangerous as EVE… a game so violent it drives a sizable percentage of newbie players off grid and out of the game back to WOW cause they skeered. And here we have a group of players who have gone to some lengths to create, run and maintain two separate corps as one corp for the express reason to give its members as much pewage as possible… interesting.

But, from what Fer was sayin and the killmails he posted he was getting into a lot of good fights and a little research said his gloating had some basis in… virtuality (lol). Now this has me interested but not by any means hooked. I mean I had just spent several weeks ‘desperately seeking pewage’ and I left Empire with a bad taste in my mouth, now I’m back in the C2 and life is easy… gonna take more than a few killmails to get me to go back out thar, well, for anything other than a store run, however…

Fer made an offhand reference to the effect that Tis should consider staging a couplea salvage ships out his way… said the salvaging was amazing due to the sheer number of battles and fights… huh? Whazzat? You see the very 1^st skill I took to L5 was salvaging. The 1^st really expensive (to me at the time) ship I bought and fitted was a Noctis, which I proudly named ChopShop. I, for reasons I cannot for the life of me describe or understand, LOVE running the Noctis.

I loved being the salvager for my mates when we’d run L3 and L4 missions (still do when we do raids in the WH)… my absolute favorite thing was to get them to give me an OK to warp in and start salvaging before each room was cleared, but after the NPCs were at a safe range from the warpin. My challenge was to clear all the wrecks before the rest of the NPCs were killed off… to the point where I was pulling wrecks AS they were killed by the fleet… what fun!

So the thought that I could at least get some large scale productive, and hopefully profitable, salvaging work in with the hopefully real possibility of decent pewage... uh, KK, I’m in.   =]

So, I run a few last sites, make a few hisec store runs to sell off the L&S and buy some fuels we are getting short on, fuel up the POS, do the last of the laundry, fill and start the dishwasher, undock and head back to Dodi. I decide to fit out a Sebo/Salvage Thrasher. I will wait till I see how things go afore I risk a Noctis on this venture. Then I set course and head out to Autaris.

On arriving in Autaris I get settled in at the B-REP HQ. I exit the station and immediately see a wreck, a R-FED frigate that had been looted, I warped to 0, insta locked the wreck and put 2 Salver IIs on it… pop! I hadn’t been insystem more than 5 minutes… shiney! I docked back up, bought and fitted out 2 Tackle/Speed Rifters. Took a look at local and set B-REP corp as blue to me and R-FED as red to me. Then I popped back outside and started making my std BMs. Several at approx 160KM out from the station and the same off of each gate, a few longer range ones horizontal and vertical, plus a few deep ones just off grid from station.

All of this time I am seeing evidence that this might just be da place... There are ‘GFs’ in local, wrecks appearin and dissapearin on scan, and not the usual HiSec butt ton of NPC wrecks either, plus I watched 2 good fights. Yup,looks like dis be da place! I dock up, write to the guys in my corp to let em know I am jumpin corps again, put in my application to B-REP, and so begins my second great pewage adventure...   =]

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

I quit… You hear me, I dunt wanna be a Pwndawon no mo...

I have reached the end of my patience. I am no longer interested in bein a Pirate. I’ve had it, I quit…

So what happened you ask? What happened that pushed Tur to walk out on the training that could ultimately lead to the glory and honor that is the right of every Je-die Knight?

Uh…. Nothing is what happened. Nuthin at all. IE I spent, what, 3 weeks in Empire actively looking to kill or get killed. I was actively at War the WHOLE EFFIN TIME. I actively pursued my war targets. I was not a bit shy about engaging. We even ended up with a 4500 man Alliance declaring War on little ol us… and in all that time I got into exactly 3 fights… 0 kills, 0 losses. Bah humbug.

Either I am doing something severely wrong, or PvP in hi-sec is a lot like bar-hoppin in order to get laid. And by that I mean that the ONLY time you even have a chance at pickin up a hot chick in a bar is if yer married… or not lookin at all. If you are there to “get laid” ALL OF the women in range of you immediately know it and treat you exactly as you deserve to be treated… like you dunt exist.

If you (read “I”) go to Empire space in order to get into some PvP… good luck. I know I was well enough versed in the arts and ways of the can and wreck flip that I myself… (before I gave up missioning for GOOD and moved to the Wormhole to do battle against the Nefarious Forces of Naptime, AND make some REAL ISK…) I myself used to love it when a Pirate landed on grid when I was in a mission and flipped a wreck or 2 to try and provoke some Pew Pew…

First I’d simply ignore ‘im… then, if he started looting and or salvaging my wrecks in earnest, I’d start targeting my wrecks, wait till he was close, fire on MY WRECKS and asplode ‘em right in his face. This, of course lost me the loot & salvage, but I would rather lose it all than allow some assrat pirate to benefit from my labor… plus, I had the great joy, in a few cases, of extracting pirate tears. Got a few of em quite pissed off… smackin in local, callin ME names after THEY tried to steal MY L&S… LOL.

So here I found myself one night not long ago… all worked up and wanting to go and gank a guy who simply dint wanna play my “game”. And what was that game? I flipped his wrecks and waited to see if I could get some pew pew… I am become one of the assholes I had lol’ed at so often…

Add this to the simple fact that the whole time I was in hi-sec, I made not one red ISKie from PvP. The ONLY ISK I made the WHOLE time was from rattin in Decon and Balle while looking for pew pew. And that was a paltry embarassin small amount of pocket change. I had to break off twice and go back to the C2 to make ISK so I could try out new ships etc.

I, of course, asked my ‘teachers’ if this was the way of it… and basically was told, “Yup…”.

“IF” you can get the WTs to pay up a ransom you can make some ISK.

“IF” you can get them to come out and fight (and if you win), you can L&S their wrecks and make come ISK.

“IF” you are willing to wait and play the gate and station games then you “can”, sometimes, get some PvP… but it (pirating in hi-sec) is not as easy, at least for me, as I have understood it to be… so I quit.

I was bored and so I applied to HB, my home corp., and asked the guys to let me back in!! They did. I went home a few days ago. I immediately started runnin sites and making some ISK… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. Home!

Last night Spiro (member of the corp. we share the C2 with) and I ran a total of 10 combat sites in a random C2 that had popped in our WH. We garnered a total of 29 Melted Nano Ribbons… 29 MNRs are worth approx 190M ISK (at current Jita quick buy prices) all by demsleves… and they are not all of the L&S one gets from Sleepers… a nice tidy haul ifn I do say so myself.

Then came the fun part… you see this particular C2 was unoccupado… Oh there is a Control Tower in dere… a Medium Amarr spike… a Medium Amarr spike that is OFFLINE… and one, count it ONE Small Lazer battery that was incapped… ZOMG!! I wrote to AI, who was offline, and told him ‘bout this C2, said I was gonna holesit and see if he wanted to sell it.

He came on a bit later while I was scanning down the WH’s inside the empty C2… he did some research and said it would be a hard sell as the PI was worthless. Crap… oh well, I decided to explore the 2 WHs I had scanned down before headin back to our C2… and, well, those of you who know WHs, know what happened next… I popped through one of the WHs and it popped closed behind me. Crap… LOL

And so my second Great Wormhole Adventure begins! I was tired and it was late so I made a SS and logged off for the night. I am in my Cov Ops ship, a Cheetah… no weapons, no tank to speak of but she is my scan frig with a Sisters Probe Launcher and a full load of Sisters Core Probes on board… and I am a scanning GOD!!!  I will find my way out and home again, or I’ll lose my ship, get podded and wake up in Dodie laughing all the way.

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