A Memoir from Space

Due to real life issues and my ever approaching ship date for basic training, this blog will be dormant for the next 4 months.

Fly fun!

She’s a fickle girl, I’ll tell you that.

So today was an interesting day in EVE. After being podded yesterday in the perma bubble camp in the R3 system in Providence, I jump cloned to hi sec to grab some implants and some T2 hardeners. After sitting on the Empire side of the pipe waiting for clearance, a Corp mate informed me that there was a C3 wormhole adjoining a hi sec system to our pocket.

As the wormhole was being checked, a few targets were found by the corp, so getting me back home was put on hold! >:| After missing out on some kills, the wormhole I intended to use closed, so they found me a new one, 17 jumps away *sigh*.

Safe and sound at home, I logged. Logged back on, did some ratting, and heard report of a Hurricane flying around the pocket, eventually ending up in the system 7Y. Myself and a few corp mates got on both gates leading out and waited. Not long after, guess who paid me a visit? For immediate backup, I had a friend in a stealth bomber 20ish KM above me.

I was sitting in my Harbinger waiting for the ‘Cane waiting for him to decloak, and next thing I know I am being yellow boxed, and I see his drones deployed. Two can play at that game!

Lock, point, ECM drones, overheat laz0rz, approach. To my advantage, the ‘Cane comes in close to 8km, so I turn on my Scrambler and nos and laugh as he is now going nowhere. With Scorch and all it’s EM fury and a stealth bomber lobbing torps (and a bomb, wtf dude….) His shields go down equally with mine, then into armor, where he starts dropping a bit faster than I am. In desperation, he sets his drones on my gang mate, but fails to kill him. After realizing that he was likely disengaging and my ECM drones were being useless, I deployed the Hobgoblins and bit my nails as I watched his final slivers of structure peel away, well before he could jump through! Though, after checking the battle field afterwards, he was too far from the gate to jump back anyway. I would have burned towards the gate, but I guess it was too late and things happened to fast for him to make the right decision.

After looking at the Killmail, I’ve concluded that I would have been able to win that fight without the stealth bomber. He was fit for a small gang setting, with LSE’s in the mids, 3 Damage mods+TE, and a MWD. The shield fit explains why I ate through his main buffer so quickly, but his armor took a bit longer. I did the vast majority of the damage, with the friend doing 5K damage. Once the fight was over, I had 5K armor left, and then my structure+Damage Control II. Assuming the ‘Cane and I had roughly the same DPS, had I not had the help of torps, I would have come out on top with 0 armor.

Anyway, after that was done, I set about to plex’ing, breaking my own rules.

Normally, I ALWAYS have ECM drones on my ships in low/null, and I ALWAYS have my ships insured, and ALWAYS have myself aligned to the station when reds/neutrals are in system…. Except for today.

I was stupid, and in the middle of a Sansha’s Hub, I was ganked by an Ashimmu and an Arazu. I was quickly dispatched but able to get my pod out. Being the great sport I am about losing ships, I warped out with a “good job guys” and a chuckle at myself.

After failing with some Corp mate to get our hands on them, I was lucky enough to get my loot back from my wreck thanks to a friend, saving me about 50 million ISK in lasers because I use the meta 4 Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beams. I put those on the market as I will not be needing them soon due to being able to use T2 large pulse lasers in a little over a week.

+Hurricane Kill
-Abaddon

I am just having a blast!

Since moving out to null sec and joining SI Radio, I have had a completely reversal of my situation. The past few months, I have been so bored and inactive that I have not had anything to blog about. Now, I am having too much fun in game to blog about it!

I was worried that when changing corps, I wouldn’t have the same friendly relations with the corp mates like I had with VNC, but I am pleasantly surprised! Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in SI Radio corp is more than friendly, fun to talk to, more than willing to help corp mates out, and a hell of a lot of fun to fly with. Even Zand and his grumpy, easily agitated self is fun to be around!

If you don’t get the joke from the title, I have gotten a new nick name from one of the funnier corp mates.

I’ve gone on 3 ops with Noir. in the past week. Two of them were boring POS bashes (Bye CVA!) that mostly involved reloading torps, checking local, checking intel channel, and chatting in fleet chat. Fellow fleet members bashing said POS were Mynxee and Prometheus. More EVE celebrities than I am used to seeing in one place!

One thing that is puzzling me is the constant implying that Noir. is a bunch of “cloaky fags”. I’ve flown with them a bit the past week and I have only seen 1 guy cloak, and he was a scout in a Stealth Bomber.

I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with cloaking in the first place, but I really dont get where the Screapheap Challenge posters are getting this opinion. *shrugs*

The rats are juicy, the corp mates are great, the sov holders are friendly and cool, and the future wormhole ops look to be exciting. As much as I miss my old corp mates, this move for me was definitely a good choice!

He was well liked by most. Certainly not the most popular in the town, but he was fine with that. He was confident, talented, charming to some, arrogant to others, and had a terrible intolerance for stupidity. Some would say a side effect of his ego.

But even under his layer of thick skin, he was at least somewhat sensitive to the thoughts of a few people, and was always looking for approval of his actions from his peers. Wether that was for his pride of to sate some hidden insecurities, that depended on who you asked.

He was happy with himself and his life, at least for the most part. He tried his best to make the people he cared about happy as well, and for all his flaws, he considered himself a decent person.

Even in this galaxy and all its trillions of inhabitants, as much as he was like so many others, he was still a unique human being.

He died 3 months ago.

There are no flowers on his grave, not today, not 3 months ago. He doesn’t even have a grave, nor do any of the people that would have come to visit his grave if he had one, most of them are dead as well.

When news arrived just under a year ago on the planet of stable employment for everyone, the whole continent was interested and was employed by the capsuleer. The people were promised decent pay, but none of that mattered after the accident. A massive explosion occured in one of the massive command centers where Michael worked as an accoutant, destroying the entire complex and incinerating everyone. No one knows what caused it, but that doesn’t really matter much now.

To the capsuleer who ran the operation, it was deemed too costly to rebuild and keep the operation running. Shortly afterward, everyone was laid off and the planet fell into a depression. After becoming dependent on the income from the capsuleer, the people prefered to work their jobs in the new factories and importing what food they needed with thier new found ISK than to grow anything themselves.

So the capsuleer left, along with the ISK sustaining the planet, much like the case on many other planets where capsuleers became disinterested in further planetary industry. The profit wasn’t what they had hoped.The massive refineries, extractors, and other buildings became vacant and in a week and nearly every citizen was unemployed.

Upwards of two thousand dead in the accident, billions dead from starvation in the following months. Every one of those lives were precious to someone, Ketzi’s especially to me. But not to that capsuleer.

I was lucky enough to make a life for myself after smuggling myself on to a station just months prior to the cold hearted capsuleer’s intrusion. Or unlucky that I was unable to be with my dearest friend before he died, if you care to look at it that way. I wish I could go back and visit him. To see my homeland the way I remember it, not the empty shell it is now.

News of my friends and family came to me only a month after I had become a capsuleer myself. For a time, I hated myself, unable to accept being in the same category of such monsters. But after a time, there was a change in my outlook. I wasn’t a monster like that man who so carelessly made my people depend on his support and take it all away when it didn’t suit him.

I was better than him. I was different from the rest. I cared about the consequences. At least, that is what I told myself until I found the only way to give my life purpose without him.

Ketzi would be avenged.

Welcome to the sixteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: “Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?”

I honestly have to say I lucked out in this regard more than anyone else in EVE. During my first two weeks in EVE I was, of course, a masive newbie. But what set me apart from most other newbies was that I was so ennthralled in EVE that I did my homework. A lot of it. To give you an idea of how in depth I was getting into EVE even in my early days, I was already reading EVE blogs, spending hours on Battleclinic.com learning how to properly fit ships, learning game mechanics for combat, reading every guide I could find in Google, EVERYTHING. I’m a huge EVE geek, understand?

But I was still a newbie, and all the knowledge in the world didn’t serve any purpose to me other than entertainment and fascination until much later. So I spent my time running missions, taking in everything I saw, and trying my damned hardest to get ahead as quickly as possible.

Anyone who has read my posts around new years knows the story already, but for those that don’t, I was contacted out of the blue by a JohnPaulJones, a veteran pilot and CEO of Valhalla Naval Corp. He said that he had observed me doing my business in the Lonetrek/Forge area, and was impressed by my progress and noted that I seemed to be doing my homework (Thank you for noticing). He then offered for me to join VNC and I quickly accepted after a few questions about Corp goals, time zones, and occupations of the Corp members.

It turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made. Since joining, I have constantly been flying by the side of the most trustworthy people I know that have taught me more than any guide can teach, and helped me with problems nobody else would bother with, thus negating many instances of me possibly looking like an idiot, causing a big bright blue flash, and causing someone else far away to giggle with glee.

But I’m far from perfect or all knowing, so these are the little funny moments I’ve had due to lack of experience, hopefully this will benefit whoever is reading it.

1. A single Assault Frigate can take down two cruisers, especially when one of the cruisers is me with 2 million SP. EASILY.

2. When a ninja salvager comes and loots one of your wrecks and flies around you just to piss you off, don’t shoot. He knows what he is doing, and will play with you by warping in and out until you come back to the gate with a scrambler thrown on your PvE ship so he can blow you up in a PvP ship.

3. Pay attention to those EVE mail notifications, some of them are about your ship insurance expiring. Renew the insurance… Or lose a lot of ISK *tear*

I know, I’m late as hell, but I was out of town while the majority of this was going on.

My Eve Space. Decent computer, a Gateway DX4200-09, nice sized wide screen HD monitor, and pretty good speakers with an unseen sub under the desk.

And for the funnies, my face when I log in to EVE

When someone else goes *boom*

When said person smack talks me in local

When said person calls in backup as I am laughing and I go *boom*

It was peaceful for once. I think we never truly understand the value of peace until it is lost. I can’t even imagine the limitless number of wasted hours spent not truly appreciating peace. At least I will truly enjoy it… while I can.

——————-

It looked like our friends are back for another round. I quickly notified our alliance channel of their presence and requested any form of back up available. Two minutes of useless chatter of “I’m 20 jumps out” and the more frustrating lack or responses later, our small defense force was formed. A Maelstrom, Raven, and my Armageddon. I was hoping this wouldn’t be the second I sacrificed to them.

—————————-

The station was quiet, which was odd. I could hear the echoes of my footsteps everywhere I went, with the occasional duet formed from the footsteps of a few others. I liked it that way, there were fewer people to worry about bumping into, no obnoxious people shouting at each other for whatever reason. Just tranquility and time to reflect. Peace, I loved it.

————————–

What an eerie silence. Our visitors were floating idle in an Apocalypse and an Abaddon, their golden hulls reflecting their majestic shapes upon each other. How fitting that I should bring an Armageddon. All of the Amarrian Empire’s might was on display today. To anyone else, this scene would be a lovely picture. The target locks being acquired told a different story. Aura, pinpoint my camera drones on the enemy Apocalypse immediately. As my view focused on its gleaming hull, something was odd…. “Everyone, the Apocalypse is primary. He only has 4 weapons fitted, so he most likely has logistics fitted, he must go down first!”. Moments later, our golden hulls were met with a new kind of beauty, Sibilisia  and her Maelstrom class Battleship were here. Adrenaline was surging through me, I loved it.

—————————–

I spent majority of an hour walking to the biodome. I could have taken the public transportation there, but that would defeat the purpose of my day. All manner of plants were present, and they were the only measure of the season here in the cold depths of space. I could tell from the lack of crushed leaves that I was the only visitor in some time.

—————————-

“The Armageddon is engaging me!”, Sib shouted across our comms. “Engaging Apocalypse”, I replied. “What the hell! The sentries are shooting at me!”. “Yeah, thats because I’m a criminal, they can attack me freely, you CAN’T just attack them and expect the sentry guns to approve!… Oh SHIT! The Apocalypse is nueting me, I’m gonna go down!”. Oh shit, this was spiraling out of control.

—————————

I sat down on one of the park benches and let my mind drift. What am I doing here? Is it really worth it to play this never ending game? Wouldn’t we all be better off if everyone simply retired to a park bench, and enjoyed the peace? How can I even say this, when I am guilty of the intense pleasure of combat?

————————–

My allies were shot down. Salvo’s from sentry guns tore into my armor. We screwed up, and let them use the sentry guns to their advantage again. My mind was cloudy, the situation in their hands. I notified the crew to enter emergency evacuation as I mentally ordered my ship to disengage safety protocols and threw my full might towards the enemy Apocalypse as the Abaddon turned towards my ship and trained its lasers towards me. A moment of satisfaction! the Apocalypse couldn’t take my fury for much longer, his amor was torn to pieces and my lasers made direct contact with the inner workings of the ship. Perhaps I might have vengeance, something to call a victory, even if I had to sacrifice myself to do it. And then a sinking feeling. I wasn’t enough to overcome him by myself, not in time for him to run to the safety of the station, only to leave me to lose my ship. There was no backup, the fight was lost. my thoughts were drowned by the audio warnings of my ship taking structural damage. I closed my eyes and waited for the enevitable. My escape pod shot into the vacuum of space, leaving the remains of my ship behind.

Good by, Peace II

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have really been lacking in motivation to take the time to post in character. Partly due to lack of time, mostly due to having so much action going on in game that picking what to write about and taking the time to recall the entire event in perfect order is a tall order.

I experiences my first solo frig kill with my Navy Slicer against a Rifter. Yes, my backup did 40 damage, I told them to stop so I could see if I could handle it myself. I did. I’ve particpated in a number of kills, many of them shutting up trash talking visitors. Funny how people make fun of you until they run into your waiting hands and blopw up, isnt it?

There were even a few POs bashes in worm holes that we scanned down. Whoever owned the large tower with nothing but autocannons had a bad day repairing all 7 or so of his guns. Those fuckers where nasty too, made us constantly have to warp out.

Last night we had a cyno frig visit. We killed him first, turned down his monetary offer for safe passage of jump freighters, and podded him. He then came back, lit his cyno, and had a Chimera jump in. Two of our dreadnoughts came out along with myself in a battle ship with a few others to welcome him. After he trash talked about us being noobs and not using siege mode, our dred’s then gave showed him what siege mode is and he quickly docked up and logged. Normally I don’t trash talk, especially in local, but that level of faggotry gets me going. So I gave him a good verbal lashing with all the big words I could muster.

Also, I’m afraid my plans on trading will be put on hold. Combat has kept me extremely occupied in low sec and I am having way too much fun obliging the call to arms.

Now, with all those things I’ve been wanting to post about done, I’ll be better about posting my future endeavors. Fly fun!

It felt like home, which is surprising. After spending so much time under the radar in high security space and then staking a claim in the dark corners of the universe with the mysterious sleepers, I never thought I would feel so comfortable in low security space, with constant neighboors. For all the fear surrounding this place, I felt safe. Then again, such are the benefits of being in friendly standings with all the local corps. Our little unoffical alliance with our friends even came with the added comfort of having constant intel on all intruders and knowing thirt pilots withint 2 jumps away were there to protect you.

I drifted lazily in my pod. We hadn’t had visitors to “welcome” in a while now. Logistics for the next few weeks were covered. I was bored out of my friggin mind, amd I coudn’t help but pop the question. “Hey Jones, Sib, you up for a little roam?”. I smiled at the response, exactly what I wanted to hear; “You know it”. And so our mishmash group of myself in a Harbinger along with a Legion and other cruisers was born.

I had no idea that jumping from system to system with no targets is even more boring than sitting peacfully in my own system with no targets. I had gone into a mental autopilot for the hour. Nothing was happening, just the typical align and warp between systems. But something seemed off… When did local jump to 30 pilots? It was then that I witnessed for the first time something incredible, comforting, and shocking all at the same time. A massive fleet of mighty battleships warping to our position…. Thank god they were friends. “Hey boys, want to join up with them?” my CEO asked. There was only one answer. “HELL YEAH!”

That wasn’t what I was thinking an hour later. Jump after jump after jump, seeing bodoy in local that wanted to play. Only the persistant Heron following us at range. I don’t think I had ever been so bored in my li- “HOLD ON GATE. I may have some guys for you to play with!”, our fleet commander eagerly shouted across the fleet comms. Now we are talking!

“Wait on the gate… They are following us from behind. DO NO ENGAGE”

My heart leapt to my throat. My overview filled with reds, sound escaped me, for a few moments nothing existed to me other than the beautiful and fearsome sight laid before me. Immediately bits of armor cluttered the battle field. Slowly sound returned, a salvo of missiles glancing off my shields brining me back to reality. 1 by one primaries were called and enemies melted, but not without the first loss being on our side. My own CEO’s Legion going down within seconds of initial contact.

“Everybody disengage. Jump through in 30 seconds, immediately get back on the gate!”, our FC  calmy ordered, thankfully the heat of the battle had not affected his judgement. An enemy had lit a Cyno and with the help of carriers, we did not stand a chance in this skirmish.

Two minutes later, aside from a few pilots downed, we rendevouzed on planet V. I only thought I had made it out of the woods. “Align back to the gate, do not engage, let them jump through to us with split forces”. The fleet quickly did so, and my adrenaline went down and the cold fear finally set it, causing me to nervously bite my lip as I saw battle cruisers and battle ships drop their cloak all around us.

Why did I have to be the next primary?

After seeing a few other blogs do this, I thought I might as well take part.

I have been playing MMO’s for years now, but until I met EVE, I limited myself to free2play MMO’s, thus I never really got to enjoy the best that gaming had to offer and found myself jumping from game to game. Everything from GunBound, to DriftCity, Silk Road Online, Mu Online, Rakion, and countless others. I knew about EVE and was interested in it, but being a pay 2play game, I never tried it out until early summer of last year. I had heard numerous good thigns about it, and I finally had a good enough computer to give it a go, so I took the plunge

I loved it. I REALLY loved it.

I really cannot explain the feelings I experienced flying around the first week, running missions in my trusty Merlin, hearing tales of mythical scale to me at the time about the dangers of low security space, the cut throat scams, deciet, the back stabbing nature of EVE. I took it all in with an unquenchable appetite. But for all this excitement, it really made me sad that I would not be able to continue playing. Since I had no means to pay for the game and I knew my grandparents wouldn’t, my three week Steam trial would be the end. Or so I thought for the first week.

While I was flying around doing what newbies do, I recieved a conversation invite from some pilot I had never met before. Apparently he had seen my around the system progressing through ships rather wuickly in so little time and was interested in recruiting me. Knowing all the benefits of joining a player Corp, I gladly accepted and joined JohnPaulJones in Valhalla Naval Corp, who I still fly with today.

That decision was easily the best I have ever made in a game. Jones, along with his fellow director Sibilisia, put me on the fast track out of noob land and into the fray of EVE. I don’t think I will ever forget the second month or so that I was playing when they invited me to follow them in a pod to a level 4 mission so I could see what it was like. Seeing a Kronos, Dominix, and Tempest taking on what seemed like an army of ships for the first time isn’t a memory that goes away quickly for me, and that experience further excited me into staying with EVE.

Jones had bigger plans than carebearing it up in high sec, as did Sib, both of them being veteran pilots that have fought in null sec before, so the corp headed to wormhole space, where we ran into another corp similiar to ours that we formed an alliance with. After making some nice ISK in the wormhole, Jones decided it was time to head to null sec after Dominion hit.

Currently, we are still in the planning stages working out diplomatic ties, getting more man power, and other logistics.

I have thought about joining the Open University of Celestial Hardship to get on the fast track to living in null, or leaving the problems plaguing Valhalla Naval Corp, such as lack of pilots getting online and tension between members, but every time I have decided to stick with Jones. I owe this corp so much after all these months of being taught how to survive, fight, being supplied with ships (including my first Battleship), ISK when I needed it, and most importantly, fun. If for some reason something happens that forces me to leave, then it won’t be without regret, and I will undoubtably pack my bags and head to a null sec alliance.

2009 was a terrible year for the world, but a great year for me in EVE. And I cannot wait to see what 2010 has to offer!