Go go good countrymen

Everybody must read this http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23eveshakespeare

Beating My Chest Like King Kong

"We're gangstas and thugs, we embrace with love

And beat the hell outta anybody that £$%^ with us"
Eminem/Trick Trick

It's been a nice couple of weeks since my last update.

LOWSEC CONCORD

First, I made a glorious contribution to Hulkageddon IV without leaving lowsec (after screwing up on my first attempt and killing a retriever ONE MINUTE before the start of the campaign). One of my associates was minding his own business in Tannakan when he spotted a Mackinaw in an ice field. A Drake was also present on scan but not on grid. I quickly undocked my Cynabal and made my way to the warp-in spot kindly provided by a cloaked fleetmate.

Just as I finished off that abomination of a ship, the Drake warped in. I loaded EMP and settled into a 20 kilometre orbit while he sat still, tanking my DPS quite well. Bored and willing to kill him quicker, I closed distance and that was when the Drake ignited his own engine and sarted burning in my direction at full speed. This allowed him to shut down my MWD with a scram and start pounding my shields really hard. To make matters even worse, a Huginn warped in and put a web (or probably a couple) on me.

Tackled!

After repeating "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT" in my head at least a dozen times I tried the only trick that could save me and put my medium neut on the Drake, which, according to my overview, was neuting me as well, most likely with a small device. That was his mistake which cancelled out my mistake: as I got into armor, his point dropped and I was free to warp to a celestial to which I had already aligned. The Huginn never came closer than 30 kilometres and his webs only helped me get into warp faster. Phew, humiliating loss avoided.

I did manage to screw up even worse a bit later, losing a Drake and then a Dramiel to a well-piloted arty cane. The Dramiel loss was especially stupid since I undocked with a neut instead of a nos and simply got neuted. That's what happens when you get mad and want to retaliate immediately. I should really make other people behave like that instead of doing it myself. Props to my opponent for flying solo and doing it well.

I healed my ego a little bit by stealing a Zealot kill from an unlucky Pen Island pilot shortly afterwards.

COMET ME BRO

On the following day, my associate VJ was more lucky when a gang of three Navy Comets, one Rifter and a Heron engaged his Cyclone in the nearby system of Sosan. The Cyclone, its fit shamelessly stolen from the Genos killboard, tanked the frigs easily and neuted and killed them one by one.

His success must have caued me to underestimate Comets and later engage one in a Rifter, which resulted in a tense fight but a convincing victory for the faction frigate. I guess the MSE gank fit was not the right one there but at the moment I thought: if it works against a Taranis, it should work against a Comet. Most importantly, he had a nos which allowed him to keep shooting and repping despite my neuting.

GANGING UP

Later on the same day, I joined a Shadow Cartel-led roam, taking part in my biggest fleet to date. This was a very interesting experience, being part of a 30-strong gang of battlecruisers, battleships, recons and logistics ships. Doing dozens of jumps nonstop is stressing though or maybe it's just something I haven't got used to. Unfortunately, I joined the fleet late and only got on one kill, although it was quite juicy: a Heretic faction-fit smartbombing Typhoon Fleet Issue.

Finally, yesterday, I was finally able to join my first Wensley's Wednesday roam. I acted like a bit of a scumbag, being mute on voice comms, arriving in Egbinger in my pod and asking Wensley for a ship. Our gang was to be made up mostly of battlecruisers and logistics but Wensley wanted to have some light tackle and I gladly hopped into an Ares. Nevermind that I could not use it's Tech 2 railguns or anchor the bubble Wensley had put into its cargohold (at least I bought blasters somewhere along the way).

Just like the previous roam, this was something completely new to me - roaming nullsec in the company of celebrities like Laedy. Of course, I screwed up a few times, for example by failing to notice that the gang went in a different direction than the one suggested by our autopilots.

I will not go into the details of the roam as Wensley will surely explain this much better from an FC perspective but it was quite productive in terms of kills and I think most of the gang (me not included) made it out in their ships as well. We snatched a few DEMON HUNTERS by camping their station, got into a few other small engagements and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to bite something off a BC/recon/T3 R.A.G.E. gang.

Being a mute interceptor pilot, I was only good for tackling and challenged myself to try and point stuff faster than fellow gang member Dian Lung who was flying a Stiletto. Unfortunately, I was on par with her at best and probably even slower taking into account the natural "lag" between the pointing and its announcement on voice comms. So much for my PVP veteran image. Also, dying to the R.A.G.E. gang was completely unnecessary.

I think I should get some ships of my own ready in Egbinger by next Wednesday as I'm definitely looking forward to flying with Wensley again.

I had only done really small gangs before

Farming PWNAGE

Grab your glocks when you see 2pac
Call the cops when you see 2pac

In late January, we moved from Placid to Bleak Lands to try taking on some locals.
We set up shop in Kurniainen, a nice pipe system and home to our ally bozoKaido and his mates.
Kurn is just eight jumps away from my old home of Amamake and is part of the Amarr-Minmatar war zone. It is also connected with Gallente lowsec so there's always somewhere to go when one is looking for fights.

Very often though all you need to get a kill is undock and check your overview: FW mission runners never stop visiting and we have already killed eight stealth bombers here.

Then there are regular mission runners and ratters who of course are forced to pay for polluting our system with wrecks. Sometimes they reply with juicy tears and hatemail.

And, finally, there are naughty neighbours who are seeking fights themselves.

Zen, who has only recently joined Pyrotechnics, scored a nice kill a couple of weeks ago when his Thrasher faced an Incursus and a Dramiel. It was funny because just before that I was telling him how only an incompetent Dramiel pilot would die to his Thrasher. Here's how Zen himself described the engagement:

I encountered these 2 at a gate, they immediatly warped to a nearby planet. So i followed, i immediatly landed on top of the incurses which fell in 4-5 volleys. but the dramiel liked to orbit at about 13km just outside my range. Even though he was faster i ran from him. at about 20km he started catching up so i swung around and bumped him at full speed. turning on my scrambler which shut off his speed and he began to melt. idk how he did it but he managed to launch himself back out to 9km but it didnt matter he suddenly popped :)

ended the fight with 70% structure.

they aggressed me, no kill rights, no sec status loss as bonus :)

Sormani > was damn fun
good guy the dramiel pilot was.

but what they did wrong... neither one of them deployed their drones. :)

A few days later, we were chilling in Kurn when our scout reported that a Rapier was in the system, piloted by an experienced pirate. One of our mates was out "ratting" in a Myrmidon while I switched to a Rupture to provide another soft target for the recon ship.

Before long, our Myrm pilot reported being tackled by the Rapier. Bozo and me warped to him and quickly dispatched the Tech 2 cruiser. His mate warped in twice in a Thorax only to warp out immediately. I needed to abandon my ship after that and thus paid little attention to the killmail.

It was hours later when I had a good look at the report and realised the Rapier had sported very expensive faction modules. Then I remembered the Thorax warping in twice and realised he was trying to salvage the loot. Frantically, I started asking my partners if they had been able to get to the wreck first. A flash of my wallet was the reply.

Then it was Zen's turn again to introduce us to the neighbours by killing an Amarrian Retribution Firetail and, together with our partner St3r1on, a Drake piloted by a member of SOAPY alliance (mostly notable for their frequent camping of the Ala-Gratesier stargate).

Later on the same day, I was (battle-?) cruising in my nano Drake when I noticed a Broadsword in a belt, an obvious bait most likely set up by another neighbour, the Dragoon Federation alliance. Having just been heard about how terrible they are, I decided to spring the trap by tackling the heavy dictor and orbitin it at 20 kilometres.

Sure enough, a Harbinger soon warped in. I quickly sent my ship flying upwards, a direction where enemy reinforcement were unlikely to come from, and switched point and fire to the Harb. It gave chase, despite being considerably slower than me and I had to slow down to keep him in the disruptor range. Soon, a Pilgrim also showed up but both the recon and the Broadsword appeared to be slower than the Harbinger. I don't know why but the Harb pilot never stopped chasing me even as he went into structure. By the time he exploded, both of his mates had abandoned him.

Fast forward a few days, and we spot a Sleipnir running a mission in Kurn. Now this requires a serious approach. A lot of mission runner ganks fail at the probing stage, especially since probes have been added to overview filters. In order to minimise the chances of this happening, our prober moved out of d-scan range before deploying a set of combats. He scooped them up and redeployed them immediately after getting the initial hit. This technique requires the target to refresh his scanner less than every 10 seconds (or get lucky with its scanning cycle) to spot the probes - something that I think would drive most people out of their minds.

With the target located, the goal was get it tackled. This is another part of the gank that often fails due to people being aligned or just moving out of point range. Come Arazu, a ship that can disrupt the target's warp drives from over 57 kilometres with just a Tech 2 point. Together with an armor Tempest, the recon warped towards the Sleipnir's last known location.

The choice of tackler proved to be right since the mighty (and expensive) command ship was about 40 kilometres away. Both pirate ships engaged their microwarp drives and the Tempest soon had the Sleipnir (which was slower due to using an afterburner) pointed and webbed, allowing the fragile Arazu to leave the battlefield.

The Sleip was not going down without a fight and got our battleship into structure before its tank failed under heavy fire and neuting. A well-planned and perfectly executed gank - such a rare occasion in the life of Pyrotechnics!

Finally, last night me and Bozo were checking out the 'hood in our Cynabals when I spotted a fresh FW mission beacon in Kurn and immediately warped to it, alerting Bozo. My directional scanner registered three stealth bombers: a Hound, a Nemesis and a Purifier. However, just after I passed an acceleration gate, a Rapier uncloaked next to me and quickly put a point and two webs on my Cynabal.

Stealth bombers, which initially cloaked, started decloaking and pounding me with torpedoes. They were each between 30 and 50 kilometres away from me but what is 50 kilometres to a Cynabal? Click-click-boom! Click-click-boom! Click-click-boom! Six rounds, three dead bombers.

By this time I was down to about 25 percent shields but the Rapier started disengaging once I turned my guns to it. Fortunately, Bozo had already arrived and together we finished off the recon which, I think, was sitting there to gank incoming pirates or pilots of the opposing faction. Gank report is here (warning: a lot of PWNAGE).

I Put Him Into Structure

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Joseph Goebbels

What do you do when you lose a ship but don't want to look like a loser?
What do you tell your mates when you engage someone but dock up after realising his gang has more firepower than you?
What do you say when you lose point on an opponent?
What's the best excuse for many other failures?
"I put [insert player/ship name] into structure."
It's not like someone will be able to check, right?
Bonus points if you say that about a Taranis.

Some Day

"A Wolf on scan," reported my scout, "Close to Iges V."
Looking at the local chat, it appeared most likely the ship belonged to someone from The Bastards pirate corporation or its associates. With potential escalation in mind, I chose to undock a trusty Hurricane battlecruiser and warped straight to planet V's only belt, which turned out to be empty.
"Probe it down, must be safespotted."
Less than a minute later, the scout sent me into warp towards the target's location. It was indeed a member of The Bastards' feeder corp who appeared to be aligned but did not warp off for some reason and quickly melted under my guns' fire.
Soon after I had looted the wreck and docked, though, another Hurricane appeared on scan. A quick check revealed it to be the same pilot, at the same location!
A battlecruiser with likely support - time for some Hyperion action. The scout set up a warp-in while my battleship was leaving the station, allowing it to land about 15 km from the Cane which was already joined by a Drake.
I burned towards them and the Cane closed distance as well, apparently planning to brawl. Scram, web, guns, neut, drones on the Cane. Reinforcements arrive in the form of a Brutix and a Dramiel while the Drake moves out to 20 km away.
My ships starts to take a pounding but two large reppers are patching it up quickly enough.
Shield tanked (bad idea for a brawl) Cane goes down and I switch to the Brutix which, naturally, got very close to me. The Brutix, having no tank at all, explodes much faster and the Drake leaves.
I try to hit the Dramiel but even with neuts, scram and web on him neigher my large blasters nor my Ogres can hit the damn frig so I just leave and do the victory dance:


A second fight for my new battleship and a very satisfying one, especially compared with a terrible loss we suffered in a fight against Jack Coutu and his mates the night before.
"Some day we will get this Nursultan," says one of The Bastards in local.
That applies to you as well, Jack!

New Yarrrrrrrrrrr

Happy New Year and Merry Xmas everyone!
There's nothing like taking someone new to piracy on a killing roam, is there?
LoC11 took his missioning Rattlesnake loss quite well last week and soon after the fight asked me if he could join our pirate operations, to which I agreed.
So, on Sunday night, EVE's prime time, we began scouting our corner of Placid in search for targets.
There was a small mining operation going on in Grispire but the barges warped off before we arrived and I only got to kill their hauler.
At the same time, though, another pilot in a Dominix decided to run a Serpentis plex and quicly got probed out by our accomplices. He left the plex some time after seeing the probes but quickly returned and died to my Hurricane even before LoC had arrived.
Fortunately, he finally got on the next kill, a ratting Arbitrator in Pelille, by cleverly warping to a belt where the cruiser was expected next.
After that, LoC went afk for a bit in Dastryns while my scout moved on to Uphallant where a battleship fleet had been spotted by fellow pirates from Muppet Ninjas, probably intent on taking down a POS. Except it turned out they were not bashing a POS, they were running a mission!
My scout probed down the fleet while ninja warlord Gaiden rallied his troops. Me and LoC joined their fleet and soon landed on top of the mission runners. We killed everything but two Domies which managed to warp off. Sometimes I just coudn't switch fire to the primary fast enough before it died. Needless to say, LoC appeared very excited.
I haven't spoken to him since that evening but I really hope this experience sends him on the path of piracy.


P.S. Everybody subscribe to the awesome Pirate Pack!

P.P.S. What's wrong with all those people in shiny battleships who refuse to pay ransom?

Just a Little Bit

After putting my criminal activities on hold for some time due to factors that include major female Achura aggro I was able to roam the New Eden once again for a bit.
First, I spotted a missioning Drake in Iges which my wingmate quicly tackled in his Arazu. I warped in a Drake of my own but soon realised I was not going to break his multi-SPR tank. So I docked and got an Ishtar instead which worked much better. As the Drake hit armour, the pilot offered a ransom of 50 million in local chat which I was going to accept -- but it was too late as the Caldari battlecruiser popped. I explained the situation to the pilot as I was checking out his wreck and quickly realised why he was being so generous. There were two low-grade Crystal implants in his cargo hold worth about 90 million in total, both of which dropped.
Later on the same day I spotted a missioning Deimos in Uphallant. Unfortunately, he had finished his mission by the time I got to the site so I killed his salvaging Exequror instead. The pilot, who was very polite and understanding, opened up a private chat and offered a frig duel saying he'd bring a Rifter. Sure enough, soon (but not only after I killed a mining/baiting Blood Money Scythe together with my corpmate xerses0) I was back there in my own Rifter, of the Medium Shield Extender variety. The duel was quick and predictable due to my opponent being inexperienced and having Tech I guns.
I docked in the same system afterwards and soon spotted a Wolf in an asteroid belt. Now that would be a good chance to test my Rifter's power! Warp, load Barrage, change my mind, load RF Fusion, approach, overload, orbit at 500m, outtrack the poor assault frigate, pop him while staying at about 30 percent armour, exchange gf's. FUCK YEAH!
Turns out the pilot was from the same Fendahlian Collective alliance I mentioned in my last log, and belonged to the properly named theL337 Corp.
That's EVE the way I like it!
By the way, to improve your Rifter-fu make sure you read Wensley's awesome Rifter guide.