My blog has moved to http://singularmultiplicity.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow afternoon I will FINALLY have Amarr Frigate to level V. Instead of the shiny Retribution, I will be opting for a Vengeance to be used in tandem with a friend’s Retribution. Duo of Death? I think so. After that is the long haul for Electronics Upgrades V and getting my missile skills up to par for stealth bombers. My missile skills were decent when I left the Drake, and I haven’t touched them since going Amarr. I must say, a lot of things to look forward to.

We had a little issue a while ago where we had a pair (Redeemer + Falcon) of guys plaguing our space with their presence. The biggest issue was the fact the Falcon would roam around through gates cloaked and what not, and the Redeemer would sit by idly inside of black ops jump bridge range to strike on targets. The Falcon, when a target is sighted, would decloak, pop a covert-ops cyno and jump the Redeemer in for the strike. This was particularly effective yet in-effective at the same time. As far as I’m aware, most pilots generally stop ratting/mining if a neut or red pilot enters their system and warp out to a safe somewhere.

So the idea of the gang is innovative, it utilized stealth to the extent of being able to show up on your doorstep when you aren’t ready and take a kill quickly, then fade away into the stars somewhere. Its ingenious and is a fantastic idea, however as all good tactics does have some drawbacks.

• Firepower is limited
• Not truly Stealth but as good as stealth gets in Eve

So how do you combat such a situation. Well it is very difficult. So to ensure we get an engagement, we had to employ a ratting ECCM strategy. We ensured a fleet of ships was in system ready to go and staged a Cerberus in one of the belts. The Cerberus was ratting away quietly when suddenly the Falcon appeared, the Falcon struggled to get a jam cycle off on the Cerberus as it was fitted for ECCM due to the local rats being Guristas Pirates. Worked a charm, the fleet warped in on the Falcon and he was quickly dispatched. Unfortunately we did loose our bait and the Redeemer got away :’(. Sad panda.

Sufficed to say the Falcon pilot retrieved a new Falcon and quickly cyno’d his buddyback home to empire space as fast as he royally could.

So, getting a new corp off the ground is quite the feat I’ve discovered.  Three days plugging away at the recruitment forum, channel, and in game ads has yielded something more precious than an r64 moon, my first real member!  After flying a few missions together and talking for quite some time I really think this guy’s willing to stick around for a while as the corp comes together.  He’s a four year vet of the care bear side of eve and now he’s ready to sink his teeth into pvp.  What better way to learn than a fresh FW corp?

There was a fellow the day before who made it all the way to joining and running a few missions with me before he flaked out the next day, but I have a much better feeling about this one.  Quality members for a quality pvp corp!

Matari’s watch out, here we come.

And so, with this page, I submit my first entry to the Eve Online blogosphere.  Reluctantly?  Willingly?  I’m not really sure.  I felt the urge to publicly annotate my journey of becoming a CEO.

Today I founded Extrarius Legio, a corp that in one day will join the Amarr militia.  Lots of you may think, why would you want to do faction warfare?

I made the decision based on a few facts.  Firstly, the patch that hits eve on the 20th will add new incentives to FW making it a bit more worth the time.  Second, it is a great way to build a PvP corp within the safety of empire space, encouraging pilots who may be new to PvP.  And last but not least, there is always someone to fight, and it’s never hard to find them.

After founding -XLO- I set about getting a few things done.  I needed a home base, and I needed to recruit.  I found a lovely office in a 24th Imperial Crusade station in Bleak Lands that had a very affordable rent.  However, the station didn’t have any offices available for rent.  Rhadmaerl, CEO of Shovel Bros, very willingly offered to move his office so that I might have the slot.  In the time that it would have taken him to get over to the station to do so, someone else vacated thier office.  What luck!  I was able to pick up the office slot and retracted Rhadmaerl’s most gracious offer.  I also set up a recruitment post on the eve forums.  Hopefully that will get some hits.

Now that I have the office, it’s due time to start actively recruiting for some pvp pilots!  If anyone is interested, feel free to contact me, Cosah, in game.

Yesterday, I participated in a small fleet roaming Old Man Star. We struggled to recruit other members of the militia, but none seemed ineterested.

When all of a sudden ten-twelve enemy ships appeared in the solar system, we decided to abort the operation and return to Villore.

I was eager to shoot something, and so was one of the fleet’s members, whom for security reasons I am not mentioning by name.

About 10 minutes later, I decided to jump through to Old Man Star, and lo and behold; a Jaguar, some 200 kilometers away from the gate.

He is nearing in as I am cloaked, and as I decloak, he suddenly warp to the gate, locks onto me and starts firing.

Of course I return fire, and send forth my drones. It’s a tough fight. His shield is very resistant, but I tear it through.

About halfway there, two other enemy militia ships appear, and so does my comrade.

He starts firing at one of the newly arrived ships while I still battle the Jaguar. His armor is tearing down, while he just begun on mine.

As his armor is gone, a mercenary all of a sudden appears and begins firing. Clearly, this was no coincidence, and by looking at the resemblance of their corporation names, they must have worked together.

I managed to tear through the Jaguar’s hull, but I could not withstand more fire, and blew up. Unfortunately, my pod wasn’t quick enough to activate the jump gate, and all of a sudden I woke up at the Senate Bureau.

But while I thought the Gallente Navy was suffering, are the Amarr really so desperate they must hire guns to do their fighting? And clearly, they are just as pious as they’d like us to think. Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along?

For the full report, visit either one of these:

My kill.

Their kill.

New Wallpaper, fresh made this weekend in some c4 plex
(yeah: we went off the grid, we life now 23/7 in a WH system ;))

And: Now with Anti Aliasing :P

One of the things I’ve always loved about EVE Online is how beautiful it is. Especially after Trinity and subsequent updates, I have spent hours just sitting in my ship, marvelling at just how gorgeous this game can be.

Especially the ships. The way the starlight gleams off metal and the fire and fury of weapons. Yeah. Damned beautiful game.

Which leads me to today’s subject.

I present to you, High Beams!, an Amarr Navy Slicer.

High Beams! in space

High Beams! docked

Yes, it looks like an Executioner-class frigate that got bent the wrong way, but it has headlights!

And this is why you don’t surf the contracts before going to bed, kids :)

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

“Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith “WebMandrill” Neilson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why?

——-

I was approached one day at a hole in the wall at CBD Corporation Storage in TEW by homely wench that offered to buy me a Gallente Brew of some sort.  Her interest in me was puzzling as I still wore my post-pod jumpsuit and really wasn’t in the mood for company.  I accepted the drink with a nod and mumbled a thanks.  I was still pissed at a near miss engagement I had with a Merlin a few systems away.

She was insistent on speaking with me.  She asked me my name.  We always had to watch for spies and being in an Amarr system made it even more important to do so.  I was gruff with her, but polite.  We may be freedom fighters to some, but in these systems we are terrorists to many and conversation is usually done in a dark corner away from prying ears.

I looked at her again.  She was Minmatar and attractive and I was in a station far from home.  Ahh, what the hell….

Following a few hours of conversation and more than a few drinks she got up the nerve to ask me what I was so pissed off about.

Aggression timer on gates!  I slammed my fist down on the table nearly spilling our drinks.

This has got to be the most insanely stupid thing in all of EVE (yes I know others will argue differently). There you are, in space by a gate, a War Target comes to the gate and yellow boxes you. You return the favour and as you’re alliance/corp has been decced by his or you decced them (distinction inconsequential) the need/want to keeeeel each other is mutual…. Or so you would think.

Reality is that your WT just baited you to agress so that that he (and/or his buddies) can jump through and not be followed by you for a short while giving them ample time to go run and hide in stations or jump to another gate. Sure he took some hits and you may have had him halfway through armor but he used you and you feel cheap. Yes, I’m stupid. I should have know he was going to do this, but I thought “this time” would be different … DOH!

We are at war with several entities at the moment and try as we might, they won’t engage in small numbers. They prefer safety in numbers despite the fact that some of them actually have skills to take us on. The Sir Robin affliction is so ingrained in to them by their alliance/corp that fleeing is just another tactic in war.  WTs should be treated differently when it comes to aggression in Empire space!

This Agression Timer just needs to go away and let us go about the business of war. We’ve paid CONCORD their bribe money and we should be allowed to go about the business of killing slavers without getting penalized by gate wardens that feel the need to protect the cowardly.

Turns out, she understood what I was talking about.   She was a transport pilot for a large corp moving equipment to and from the larger market hubs.  She’s used this little trick herself but can see where it would be detrimental to the war effort in my situation.

My outburst had attracted a little attention but as most people in the bar were scum I chose to ignore them.  She suggested we retire to some place more private where our conversations wouldn’t be listened to.

Life as a pod pilot’s not so bad at all.

——-

List of Participants:

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!”
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
10. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
11. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
12. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
13. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
14. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
15. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
16. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
17. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
18. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
19. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
20. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
21. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
22. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
23. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
24. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
25. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
29. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
34. Ecaf Ersa (EVE Mag), Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
35. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, EVE Blog Banter #9 – Aggression timers, WTs and Stargates
36. Mike Azariah, I don’t put much stock in it…
37. Rettic’s Log, Blog Banter: Overview Overload
38. A Sebiestor Scholar, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
39. Diary of a pod pilot, [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
40. Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #9 – Taking Things Slow

The perpetual aurora sizzled overhead, casting an eerie glow on the site. Horatius found it familiar, and quite soothing. It was part of the ambience that made him feel at home.

As a few rays of Chaven penetrated the clouds, his ocular filter started printing data on local temperature and the scheduled weather patterns for the rest of the day. Things were looking good.

Seduner appeared before him and gave a sharp bow. Horatius glanced over an ethereal news feed and waved for the commoner to speak. “We are ready, sir. Everything is in place and the crews have vacated the building,” Patrecal Seduner said. Horatius nodded gratefully. It had taken several generations and countless credits to realize this project, but as he looked up at the building, Horatius started to realize that this was only a canvas – a seed for great growth, a foundation to last for centuries.

Tao and two of his Kameiras flanked him as he stepped through the opening archway, where four twelve-feet statues stood guard holding banners of the Empire. The House of Arches had served as meeting ground for regional elders in a remote region of Athra, a place of worship as much as law and administration, but until now it had stood in ruins for 5000 years. Horatius’ grandfather – Geronus Caul – had been issued a command by the Lord of Chaven and the Theology Council to oversee the relocation and restoration of the building, moving it from its resting place on Amarr Prime to stand complete in the Ahad plains of Chaven V. Today, 235 years later, the building stood complete.

“We have scheduled the grand opening for the end of next month, sir,” Seduner said. Horatius waved dismissively, and Seduner soon left to attend to other duties.

Light filtered in through the gold and blue windows, painting vivid sheets of light throughout the atrium. From here, archways opened up to a dozen other great chambers, chapels and shrines. Throughout Chaven, this place would be known for its ancient grace, but Horatius hoped that with time it might return to its original use – to serve as a focal point for the wills of the people.

Tao looked at his timepiece. “It is almost time for midday prayer, sir. The workers have a chapel on the hill where -”

“This is our chapel, Tao. The grand opening is now.”