Revenge on an Astero

In a recent blog entry Sugar Kyle explained that she often feels the need to defend her non-PvP activities. This made me take stock of what I actually do in EVE. There is, obviously, PvP which mostly occurs in lowsec. This is great, although the thought occurs that I am not really in much of a position to comment on large-scale fights since I have never participated in them. True, I have recently dropped an alt into Brave to see what all the noise it about but I never seem to have the time to get into it. We'll see.

If I feel like a sojourn in wormhole space Zappity has a jump clone in Thera along with some nice Stratios and Proteus hulls. Innocent Scout is still in ABA’s wormhole corp (Supreme Mathematics) so I have an easy entry to more traditional wormhole systems if I so desire. However, being casual, this doesn’t usually occur. I dabble in nullsec exploration (also with Innocent) and Zappity also has a clone plus Ishtar installed in Venal (and which is OP by the way - please nerf) in case I happen to fancy shooting some red crosses.

On the industry front, I dabble with invention occasionally although I find this too much of a second job to really suit me. I also have an industry toon in Thera for hull manufacture and sales, although this has been disappointingly slow.

I have never done mining. I do not feel deprived.

So on that note, having successfully made a fool of myself by having my safety set inexplicably to green whilst trying to kill a Vexor I decided it was time for some relaxing PvE. Honestly, I have no idea why it was green. I have usually had it set yellow lately since Zappity still has enough ill-gotten sec status to fly around highsec without trouble. I tried the usual F2 and F3 on the Vexor for scram and web - nothing - and then manually clicked them - nothing - before seeing that nasty green button. Luckily he wanted the fight and just sat there patiently, waiting to be killed.

I was very worried about the gang in system, having tested them earlier at the Medium plex and quickly getting a rise from them. I doubted very much that I would kill him before they showed up and wiped both of us out but thankfully they must have been busy at the time. I didn’t even give my drones enough time to return before warping away after the fight! We chatted a bit afterward and, although not a noob he certainly was not experienced at PvP. The fit indicated such:

Vexor: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24458308

Video: http://youtu.be/yOta6ewoY98

I shared a few of my own fits before heading off to Ishomilken. Anyway, as I was saying, I thought it was time for some PvE. Here follows the riveting tale of Zappity vs the Gurista Provincial HQ!

Just kidding :) I wouldn’t do that to you. Actually, I was distracted by the appearance of one of my nemeses. Sumarx had viciously killed poor Innocent Scout while she was doing a Relic site. Innocent, true to her name, could not bring herself to believe that Venal could possibly be home to such evil and, um, innocently had a chat channel other than local open by mistake. Oops.

But that is beside the point. I was going to teach him a lesson, I decided. To make it look more plausible, I logged Innocent off, logged another alt on and swapped him into a Cheetah. I added a DC2, an armour plate and a couple of armour rigs, not to mention a scram and two webs. Oh yes, I thought, I'll fix him.

Zappity was already in the next system so I warped her to the connecting gate and waited, cloaked in her Ishtar, 3 km from the gate. Never not cloak in nullsec, at least in a PvE ship. The Cheetah sat in the Relic site on the first can. Surprisingly, I didn't see probes on d-scan before the Astero warped in and burned, uncloaked, toward the Cheetah. The villain clearly had the sites pre-bookmarked.

I was already in the process of moving to the next can, wanting to make it look good to a cloaked and suspicious observer, so I decided to just play the part of an oblivious explorer and carry it through. He bit!

He scrammed me so I scrammed him back with webs to boot. Zappity jumped and warped to the Cheetah at 50 km range. The 7 AU trip was interminably long, especially since the Cheetah wasn't exactly built for this sort of punishment. Armour was dropping fast!

Zappity dropped out of warp with the Cheetah already in hull and instantly dropped Gardes sentries, two Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers already cycling. Oh my goodness, how long can it possibly take to lock a bloody frigate! Stupid cloak penalty! Finally the drones are locked on and ready to whomp him good!

I almost alpha'd him - just a fraction of hull remained on the tasty Astero. The ‘almost’ very nearly cost me the Cheetah who survived with only 103 HP remaining. The Astero died well and truly on the second volley.

The Cheetah scooped the loot while Zappity was busy collecting her drones and aligning out. It wasn't until Sumarx complimented me in local on the scoop that I checked the haul - 145m iskies worth. That is probably not as much as the Gurista Provincial HQ would have paid out but it was infinitely more satisfying!

What is the moral of the story? I believe that a well-rounded set of activities are important for an enduring EVE experience. Especially since I never would have wreaked my revenge had I not been taken by a mad desire to run some Gurista sites!

Astero: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24459354

Video: http://youtu.be/mUf0ZmhWpTI You can hear Zappity’s audio although this is taken from the Cheetah’s perspective.

Escape!

Thera local comment of the day: “Pubie McPuberton > wow there is a retriever on the market, I'm going to do some mining”. Totally not bait.

Ha! Zappity’s first Thera kill! It wasn’t particularly exciting to be honest. I noticed a new exit to Heydiddles pop up on www.eve-scout.com so I jumped into my Stratios and sat 5 km off the hole, waiting for something to kill. I was busy on Innocent Scout’s screen when I was startled to hear myself being locked up. Someone must have decloaked me. Yes - a Nemesis stealth bomber! How rude. He launched a volley which wiped out most of my shield but wasn’t quick enough with his MWD top escape my scram and webs:

Manticore: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24332694

My work in Thera done, I decided to take a little holiday in Catch via a convenient wormhole. I had heard there were hordes of pilots swarming around Catch (some of them new, others not so new) and figured it would be a nice playground for my Stratios. It certainly was - after about 30 seconds I had found what was obviously a baiting Slicer sitting 200 off a gate. Zappity knows no fear! Which means she was shortly relieved of her Stratios at the unacceptably low price of the enemy Slicer plus a Sabre:

Slicer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24416723
Sabre: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24416724

Stratios, the aptly-named Skir’s Folly: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24416725

Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24416769

Sigh. I really need to start thinking about which ships to engage. Oh well, plenty more where that came from. And I DID promise to lose that particular hull stupidly. Mission accomplished.

I woke up in the Cal/Gal zone. The Thorax was next on the to-do list so I hitched up a dual-rep electron (the fit is in the vid link below) and set off for a circuit of the map. In Hevrice, I noticed a Tusker in a Moa. While in warp to the medium plex I isolated him to a belt on d-scan, but before I could warp to him I spotted him on short scan. These guys are good!

Overheat all the things, scram, web, guns, forget to launch drones (it's been a while between drinks so I'm back to my usual tricks), repper on, drones (what a noob). I’m tanking him alright but then my dps suddenly drops. What? Oh, I’ve burnt out my guns. Bugger. I'm out of practice!

Can I escape? I should have a reasonable chance, him being in a fat Moa and me being in a nimble afterburner Thorax.

I align to a plex and rapidly pull away. He is clearly microwarp drive fit because I pull range easily. But when I hit 10km his scram icon only disappears for a second and my warp attempt fails. That sneaky Tusker activated his MWD as soon as I out-ranged my own scram. So I try again, this time getting the site up on my overview and ready to spam the warp hotkey.

Same result! So this time I overheat my scram and web to buy an extra bit of range and finally pull away safely, much to the relief of my ominously red modules. I even saw one of them smoking. Well, almost.

I should have won that. But what a great fight, and that escape was nearly as satisfying as a kill.

Video: http://youtu.be/1DHJknaCnmE

"WTS Office Slot". And ore.

It took a few short hours for all the offices in Thera to be snapped up by corps, some of whom even wanted to use them. The others evidently wished only to profit from the demand. "WTS Office Slot" was being spammed in local. Very enterprising! Unlike all those wormhole miners who, I have decided, are lazy bums because none of my market orders for ore have been filled and it has been AT LEAST twelve hours.

I decided to take the advice of a helpful forumite who mailed me (thank you) with a suggestion about shipping in compressed ore rather than relying on local production. This was useful because I really don't have much clue about this sort of thing. But once on the right track, Zappity is a relentless bloodhound!

Here follows Zappity's noob manufacturing primer. After all, I need something to do while flying my Stratios back to the lowsec Thera entry from Jita. I half knew all of this stuff but the last couple of days have been useful in putting it all together:

1. Ore is what miners get from asteroids with their shovels (or whatever they use). The base ore types (Gneiss, Arkonor, Veldspar etc) also have two enriched variants (Bright Spodumain, Dense Whatsit etc) which have 5% and 10% more minerals in them.

2. Hmm. Rancer is in the route. Oh well - what’s the worst that could happen?

3. Ores can be compressed at a POS with a Compression Array. There are probably other ways to do it as well but this can easily be done a single jump out of Jita. Plenty of moons. I packed a small POS, some Caldari charters and a bit of fuel into a freighter along with a Compression Array and about a million cubic meters of ore. It compressed down to just under 8,000 cubic meters which fit comfortably into a Viator. That means you could fit, um, HEAPS into a DST!

4. Deimos, Hurricane x 2, Hyperion. Bugger. Still gate cloaked, though, and they are about 15km off. Align away, cloak, burn, disappear! Ha! And safely in warp.

5. Ores contain minerals of different types (tritanium, pyrite etc) which are what you actually build things with. The minerals can be refined or reprocessed (or something like that) from the ore.

6. You can improve the amount of minerals you get from  refining (or is it reprocessing?) by getting better standings with the corp that owns the station you are refining at. In this case, it means The Sanctuary missions in Pure Blind.

That’s about it. Except for that Heretic's bubble plus gang on the top station. That would have been troublesome if I'd been foolish enough to warp straight to the station. Really, these guys just aren't trying.

Don't worry everyone. The magnificent Gank Stratios is now firmly installed in the system, which seems somehow fitting given the lore. I promise I'll try to kill something next time. I don't want that Stratios anyway.

Thera

Thera. According to the forums I was going to be in for a treat. Apparently the null blocs were going to shut it down instantly and forever more. Or perhaps it was wormhole corps. Regardless, the one thing that was clear is that my attempts to get in and leave some clones scattered about were doomed to fail.

But I am an eternal optimist and, because I am also lazy, I pointed my browser toward eve-scout. There was a nice entry a mere half dozen jumps from Amarr. Surely if any entry was going to be camped it would be this one! Innocent Scout, in a Cheetah, was the first through. A lone Vexor Navy Issue perched on the hole didn't quite live up to the aforementioned prognostications of campfire doom and was easily ignored.

Cloaked at 57 km from the hole, Innocent scouted in Zappity and then her cousin from procurement (not to be confused with her cousin from marketing). A looooooong warp across system then rewarded Innocent Scout with her first ever view of a wormhole station. Brilliant.

Wrecks, corpses and Ishtars (please nerf) were strewn about the undock like wrapping from a present messily torn open. Great stuff!

Not to be fooled into prematurely docking and then needing to run the gauntlet of droney death, Innocent first warped to a celestial roughly in front of the undock before heading back to the station at 100. A boring but safely cloaked slow burn then resulted in the creation of an insta-undock bookmark, followed by the safe arrival of Zappity and the procurement expert at the station.

Why procurement? Well, as mentioned previously I have a cunning plan! And now I also have a few dozen market orders for ore. Will the natives flock to my banner and sell me their rocks? We'll see. Frankly, it hardly matters. After today I'm not overly troubled by the prospect of bringing materials into the system manually. And bringing in quite a few nice, shiny blueprints wasn't challenging either.

I plan on enjoying Thera. I have always liked wormholes but the logistical effort and (especially) lack of jump clones has been prohibitive with my casual play style. This is great.

Killing Comets

My dual-prop Firetail died to a rail Comet.

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073674

On my way back to Ishomilken I remembered that I had originally started flying Firetails because one of them had killed my own rail Comet. So there must be a way to do it. And then I remembered that I had already theorycrafted all this.

So I reshipped into a dual-web Firetail. I think, on balance, that I prefer this version. I have no doubt that the dual-prop version is the 'better' fit but I tend to be too impatient, wanting to fight everything and not being cautious enough about target selection. The dual-web gives more control over disengagement, as well as being useful for slowing down multiple ships or drones.

Anyway, that's the idea. Let's try it out.

I flew straight back to Asakai and found my killer sitting smugly in the plex, gloating over my wreck. I know he was gloating. I heard him. So I warped in with overheated everything and hit approach as soon as possible. The afterburner and dual webs did their jobs and allowed me to get under his 150mm rails, despite taking huge chunks of damage on the way in.

And then the damage just stopped! I was expecting to have to deal with the drone dps that is not insubstantial on a Comet. Huh, EC-300s. How disappointing. The unfortunate Comet pilot then said that he disliked people who reshipped into hard counters. I gave an internet shrug and abused him about his drones.

Comet: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073729

I then went and found another two Comets who were dispatched in similar manner:

Comet #2: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073728

Comet #3: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073784

Good stuff. Reasonably conclusive, I think. If a rail Comet is foolish enough to be caught by one of these, they die. I think that is great because the rail Comet is pretty close to OP. Of course, the Firetail doesn't work so well against ships that it had no business fighting. Like the Harpy (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073747) or the Algos (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24073804). What can I say? I was bored!

What else have I been doing lately? Oh, the market! My market activities typically focus on arbitrage and speculation rather than market stocking. But when I looked at the Ishomilken market and decided it was rubbish, I further decided to do something about it. I don't need more iskies but I know how hard it can be for younger characters to get stuff into lowsec. And since my wallet was swollen from a recent speculation, I bought up some of Jita and (carefully) freightered it in.

I wrote up a little script to keep track of the 300 odd item types on my lowsec shortlist. It let's me know when the sell orders are nearly empty or sold out which is a noticeable deficiency of the in-game market screen. The Ish market now has another ~15b worth of stock listed at roughly 15% above Jita.

Since this is more in the nature of a public service rather than for profit (seriously, there are much more lucrative opportunities just now) I started the orders at about +5% of Jita but I found that the orders were clearing out too fast as people took advantage of Ishomilken's relatively close proximity to Jita as the hub prices fluctuated. It was similar at +10% with large buy orders routinely clearing out certain items. 15% seems about right, resulting in lots of smaller orders which are probably the product of PvP rather than traders. I might drop it back to 12% and see what happens. If someone wants to outcompete me, please feel free!

A successful ransom

Asakai. Lots of history! And still lots of fights! The chain had a good exit to the Cal/Gal zone. I wandered back and hopped into a Firetail which I promptly lost to a Thorax and his alt.

Entirely my fault. I strayed too close and the Merlin webbed me down good.

Of course, I had to go back in my own Thorax. He countered with a Caracal alt this time. Sigh. It's going to be one of those days. I killed his Merlin in my next ship, a Firetail again, but was caught by a gang of Comets.

Merlin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24033266

I am out of practice. The Thorax loss was just depressing - I had 400s loaded in the booster and couldn't figure out what was wrong when the 800s in my hold didn't load automatically. I assumed I had forgotten to bring them along.

Oh well. Things picked up when I found a Moa who badly wanted a fight before bed. My kiting Thorax was up to the task and I exploded him:

Moa: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24034171

I decided to skip a silly Condor pilot flying around with a stupid Griffin (honestly) and instead found a Procurer mining innocently in a belt. Hmm. Bait? No, a young character. Let's go!

I got into a nice tight orbit, called his drones and chewed away until he had only a sliver of hull between his pod and the merciless vacuum of space. Muahahaha! And then I ransomed him.

He offered 5m and I accepted and let him go, not because I wanted the money but because I didn't really want to kill him. But I did want someone to post in this thread that I had honoured my ransom. Which he kindly did above (thanks Miracle). I then sent him 10m back with a good dollop of advice about how dangerous FW regions were and how to use dotlan to find nice, quiet systems to mine in.

My next encounter was with a Garmur. He was sitting in a plex and clearly itching for a chance to kill my Firetail. I obliged thinking that I might be able to slingshot him with my dual-prop ship. I was surprised to find him sitting on the beacon - a brawling Garmur!

It was a good fight but the Firetail came out in the lead and he died in a nice, expensive explosion.

Garmur: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=24037856

I offered him the loot but he declined, saying I had earned it. So, what to do with a Dark Blood Warp Scrambler that I don't particularly want or need to sell? I know! The next kill in Alliance chat gets it!

Happily, the next kill was from a relatively new Stay Frostian who just couldn't fly past a cyno ship without popping it (entirely the correct procedure) but was oblivious to the alliance chat challenge. He posted his kill and subsequent loss in fleet and when I told him to link it and he thought he had done something wrong.

But the contract was up and now he had a new problem: how to get a nice, shiny module from Asakai to Jita! I hope he figured it out.

Anomalies, For-whatsited Hubs, and Mazes

I am a bit burnt out with PvP. Not quite charred but definitely crispy. I haven't really felt much desire to go out and explode people for the last few weeks. And I have been travelling an awful lot lately. I feel bad because I just joined my new wormhole corp (they are great btw) and here's me who can't really be bothered with the effort of J-space.

It will pass. It has happened before and will, no doubt, happen again. Things will quiet down at work and my travel will slow down and then I will once again be Zappity the Fearless! But until then, I decided to examine my list of ‘things wot I havent done yet’ and found PvE to be distinctly at the top of the chart. And so follow some of Zappity’s recent PvE adventures. Don’t worry, there are still some killmails. Or, to be more accurate, lossmails.

It’s very quiet. It is the middle of the night and I had just sat down to a long Skype call for work in the middle of the night. Ugh. I decided to try some lowsec PvE. (Even my phone is trying to correct that to PvP!) I have always seen these strangely-named sites and anomalies while roaming about. And I know how to scan signatures down. So I sat my +5 learning clone in an Ishtar and sent it away from Jita to the depths of Gurista lowsec. I scanned down a signature and found it to be a 7/10 DED site, whatever that is. I warped in at 100 and started killing everything. I started yawning (not only because it was getting late). But then the call I was on suddenly became interesting and I began to pay attention to it.

In hindsight, this is the moment I should have warped to my safe.

A couple of players entered the system. When I saw core probes on dscan I didn't pay much attention, hazily thinking that a PvPer would be using combats. I was clearly badly distracted because I DO know better than that! I thought that right up until the mean Ishtar landed and tackled me.

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23905425

Sigh. Why can't they all just bugger off and leave me alone? Can't they tell I don't want to fight just now? Can't they go and... I do beg your pardon. I don't know what came over me. Must be infectious.

I gave him a quick gf in local and made my escape in my pod, heading back to Jita where I examined dotlan. Lowsec is very busy these days, isn't it? And null is vast and basically empty. I pondered whole pockets in Gurista space with zero jumps over the last hour. Hmm.

I was soon in a slightly modified Ishtar and hopping along a route to Venal through Pure Blind and Tribute along with Innocent Scout.

[Ishtar, Guristas v3]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Co-Processor I

10MN Afterburner II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Gistum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier

Improved Cloaking Device II
Drone Link Augmentor I
Salvager I
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II

Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II

Caldari Navy Warden x5
Acolyte II x5
Federation Navy Garde x5

580 dps with the Wardens out to lock range of 100km and a 92% kinetic resist. The RR is for the occasional targeted drone and there's a 10mn MWD in the boot for a travel fit.

We arrived without much fuss and I quickly found a "Forsaken Hub" anomaly. Or is it Forlorn? I get confused. Now I didn't plan on running anomalies because they are too easy for interceptors to warp to but I had heard of this one (or was it the other one?) so decided to give it a go to test the Ishtar. I warped in at 100, killed all the things and got thoroughly bored. I think my shield dropped to 85% at one point. That was, um, exciting.

I understand why people are still calling for a nerf to the Ishtar. Honestly, sentries on cruisers are so overpowered it isn't funny. I don't even have HAC 5 or Sentries 5 and the battleships just melted without even scratching my tank. I then switched one of the shield extenders for another tracking link and did a Forlorn Hub. Or was it a Forsaken Hub? I had no problem there either, though I did get down to about half shields when I somehow triggered a spawn early.

A couple of days later I scanned down The Maze. There was a convenient lowsec wormhole which exited near Amarr so I brought in a Tengu alt. I cleared out the first room and then started working through the dozen acceleration gates to find the right one. After the third empty gate I got fed up and googled for a site description. I warped out in disgust when I read that there were similar sets of random gates in the subsequent rooms.

Honestly, what a stupid design. I understand that you should have to earn your X-type whatsit but seriously, this design is tedious and repetitive. Why can't there be a can that we have to hack to get the right gate or something? I pity the people who need to run these things for isk. It seems as though the key design goal of the game designers was frustration rather than satisfaction.

People keep trying to kill me but they don’t seem to be particularly good at it out here. The closest I have come to dying was to a wormhole corp who popped in for a visit! They were bloody fast at scanning me down.

I think I might bring a few cruiser hulls down to play with against the locals. What is the Vigilant hull bonus again? Ah yes, webs...

A first look at the solo Myrmidon

First, a shout-out to dokin-chan who said hello to me in local yesterday and probably thought me very rude when I didn't reply. I was AFK, of course.

I wanted to fly the Myrmidon. The slot layout looks like a monstrous brawling Thorax with a MJD. What more could I want? This fit was inspired by the Crossing Zebras EFT video with JEFFRAIDER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvGV8F-0FvQ&list=UU27ryw5JinHFpd8qdjSa4uA). In my defence against lack of imagination, I didn't like the first two fits he presented, thinking that a plate + MAAR arrangement would be stronger. And then he fit it! I made some minor tweaks to arrive at the fit below but the principle is the same:

[Myrmidon, lowsec solo v1]

Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

Medium Micro Jump Drive
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I

Warrior II x5
Ogre II x4
Praetor II x3

665 DPS (215 guns, 450 drones), 65k EHP, cap stable at 53%, reps 19k over 61 seconds.

(By the way, if you are interested in doing ENT or PYFA but don't know how go back and watch his first one on the Rattlesnake. It has a good intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwksoYR8aGs&list=UU27ryw5JinHFpd8qdjSa4uA)

So how did I want to fly this? My idea was that small gangs would throw themselves at me, breaking apart under my withering fire, unable to flee due to my double webs. Muahaha!

Kite-scrub frigates wouldn't be able to hold me because the MJD ignores long point. Anything within scram range would be punished by the heavies and electrons with double-web tracking.

Enter lowsec Amarr-Min FW zone. I found a fight after about 15 minutes. I actually found one earlier than that but since the system was infested by PL pilots I decided to skip it. I always liked the name Phoebe.

On scan was a Daredevil, Enyo and Punisher. I thought that would be a reasonable test since a) they would all be set up to hurt my drones and, b) they would all want to get under my guns which is pretty much where I wanted them. Anyway, they were ganging up on me so I had no sympathy. And I really wanted to kill the Daredevil.

I opened a new Large plex, landed at 10km and aligned back to my safe. They landed just after me so I locked them all up. They all went straight into a tight orbit so I scrammed and double-webbed the Daredevil.

He went down fast! http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23889581

Next, the Enyo. My damage slowed right down when he reached half armour. I  wondered what was wrong because I saw that he was still in range of my guns. Then I remembered that I was mostly a drone boat and realised that they had murdered most of my little buddies! I hadn't been watching while they had quite rightly been focusing on the part of my DPS that they could destroy. How rude.

I launched some more and started watching more carefully, trying to recall the more damaged specimens before they popped. And then the Enyo died while trying to pull range for an escape! Ha!

Enyo: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23889582

By the time he went down I had lost almost all my heavies and was deep into my Warrior stash. Honestly, I need to work on drone control. Do hot keys work on individual drones? Must check. And the drone bay in the Myrmidon is rubbish!

Anyway, by this time all I was worried about was more opponents warping in. I approached the Punisher to keep him in range of my guns. He was out-tracking my electrons quite nicely despite two webs but he exploded as soon as he tried to pull range to escape.

Punisher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23889583

Before warping out I bookmarked the Daredevil wreck just in case there was some tasty loot. Unfortunately, the kill mail disappointed with a distinct lack of shiny modules.

Still, 3-0 and in warp to the safe! What a great ship!

Video: http://youtu.be/j40mY3GEvdA

Tinkering with the Thorax

I have been having some more fun with the Thorax. I spied another Thorax in system and managed to lure him to my plex. Joining him against my lone cruiser was a second Thorax, and Exequror and a Cormorant. Not one to complain, I aligned away from the plex and locked the first guy. The rest were waiting outside the plex, presumably thinking that I didn’t know what dscan was.

When he was in armour the others landed and the Thorax started getting reps. I was watching the other ships, wary of a brawler trying to scram me. Sure enough, the second Thorax started moving in my direction. I was about to warp away when I noticed that the reps to my enemy had stopped. I wondered if this was a multiboxer who was too distracted to operate his logi boat properly. He was just outside of point range so I turned around. I was carefully watching the second Thorax who was rapidly approaching from 50km.

Before long my target was in hull and dropping fast, still not getting reps. I now needed to decide whether to run from the second Thorax or finish the first guy off. You will be shocked to learn that I decided to finish him off. Definitely multiboxing - he wasn’t even pointed when he popped thanks to the nasty scram on the second ship.

Thorax: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23805807

I died soon after of course, webbed and scrammed. But never mind - let that be a lesson to him. In retrospect, I reckon I should have done better in this fight. If I was better at kiting (and more patient) I probably would have been able to pull them apart a bit.

But the main thing is that I didn’t want that Thorax anyway because I have a new fit to try :)

[Thorax, 200mm kite]

Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Large Shield Extender II
Warp Disruptor II

200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Hybrid Locus Coordinator I
Medium Hybrid Locus Coordinator I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Warrior II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5

This is similar to the 250mm fit but instead uses the T2 shield extender (cheaper and more EHP), 200mm railguns and two locus coordinator rigs to extend their range. This sacrifices the agility rig compared to the 250mm fit but gains a lot of tracking with the smaller 200mm rails and almost the same range. The DPS is slightly lower but I reckon this will be accounted for in better hits when the targets are closer. We’ll see.

We could have had a good fight

“We could have had a good fight!”, he complained.

“We did - you died!”, I responded. http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23791495

Well, it was good for me anyway. Apparently I was a pussy for not letting him get under my guns and murder me.

I decided to try out the 250mm rail Thorax again. This particular frigate pilot behaved beautifully by flying straight at me and not having enough time to align out when he realised he was going to die. I had warped to the large plex at range and the Tristan countered by trying to drop on me from a celestial behind my ship. But it was too obvious and by the time he returned I was at optimal for my ammo. Good stuff.

My next fight was more balanced in the form of a Vexor sitting in a medium plex. Not being suicidal (not all the time anyway) I decided to warp to the adjacent large plex at about 30km range. He soon came to visit, also warping in at range though on the other side of the beacon. This should have given me a clue about his fit but for some reason I didn’t think about it. I was totally focused on getting into point, but not scram, range.

His shields started going down fast (those 250s are great) but then his medium drones arrived and started hitting me hard. My low shield alarm went off and with a shock I remembered that I was shield, rather than armour, tanked. I wasn't pointed so I turned away from him and hit the MWD, leaving his recalled drones in my wake.

He didn't take the opportunity to run so I soon turned back and swung around the plex so that a celestial was more or less behind him. I then aligned and locked him on the way in. The plutonium charges finished off his shield at about 40km and by the time I was in overheated long point range I was biting good chunks out of his armour. He exploded!

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23792300

That was satisfying. But he should have won that by sling-shotting and getting under my guns in the first round. I wish I’d remembered FRAPS for that one.

A few Thrashers decided to have a go at me as I loitered outside the gate of another plex. I killed the bravest (or most stupid) one who started heading my way and the rest wisely disappeared before I could reach them. An Algos was a little more intelligent, deciding to warp out in an attempt to drop on me from a convenient celestial. Unfortunately for him, this is exactly what I would have done so by the time he arrived I had moved.

Thrasher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23794476

Algos: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23800290

And then I lost my ship to a bunch of frigates plus Caracal who took me apart far too easily. They warped into my plex and immediately went of the attack, burning out to meet me. I derped badly. I misjudged how long it would take the fast frigates to reach me, and instead of burning away from them I aligned across their incoming path. This let them get into range much more quickly whilst also lowering my transversal far too much.

Thorax loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23792801

But I was determined to have a good experience with a frigate gang. I know it can be done because I've seen it on the telly. So I persevered and found myself another nice little group: a Maulus troublemaker, Condor and Slicer fast tackle, Breacher and Kestrel for some DPS.

Things went better this time. First, I just aligned out to my safe and concentrated on the fight. This freed me up so I could make new and different mistakes.

I prioritized my targets, putting the fast tackle at the top of the list. The Maulus started damping me as soon as he landed which was tremendously annoying because I had to wait for them to get close before I could lock. I switched to CNAM as soon as I realised that my effective range was now about 25km. Unfortunately, I did this while killing the Slicer and, since I stupidly didn't have him pointed, he just warped away. I was more concerned about escaping than catching!

I consoled myself over this missed opportunity by killing the Condor. He went down fast. The next few moments were frustrated by the Maulus damps. I kept locking ships only to find them unlocked when they swung out of range. By this time only the Breacher and Maulus remained in the vicinity, and I adjusted my course to jump on the Breacher. I pointed him and killed him, too.

By now I was thoroughly fed up with that Maulus who was still buzzing about me, especially since he had been trying to distract me with chat requests. I tried to catch him but he saw what was happening and scarpered. I guess there wasn't much point hanging around when the rest of his gang had disappeared.

Condor: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23804454

Breacher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23804455

Mistakes? I completely forgot about cap management and found myself with everything powered down at one point. A quick cap injection sorted that but the consequences could have been much worse. Also, I was rubbish with my drones. I should have kept ships pointed more during the fight. I could have started safely changing range much earlier, too. I was hundreds of kilometers from the warp-in when we finished.

That was exactly the sort of fight I wanted. I definitely need to do better next time but that was great fun.

My 250mm Thorax adventure finished with a Maller in a large plex. I kept him at the end of point range but was deeply suspicious of the bait-like ship in such a busy system. I kept a close eye on dscan. Sure enough, an Ishtar and Auguror appeared on short scan when I had chewed halfway through his armour. I aligned to my safe and warped after the Ishtar's first volley which hurt a lot. Ishtar is OP.

Still, I didn't fall for the bait and managed to escape. And that's a win in my book.

Video: http://youtu.be/V7IdjG5qIQQ

Blog Banter #59 - Terrain

This month's version comes from commenter Zappity who asks:

Probably been done before... What about local force projection (as opposed to the longer distance force projection that is often talked about)? I think of 'terrain' in EVE to be how systems are mapped together by gates. Strong tactics which exploit terrain have historically been extremely important in deciding battle outcomes. How does this apply in EVE in the presence of cynos?

Related to this, you have the option to explore the topic of wormhole systems with effects (Black Holes, Cataclymismic variablestar, etc) and if similar environmental effects on certain grids/deadspace or system wide should be explored for known space?

Ooh, that's me! I suppose I'd better write something. I'd forgotten all about this question and can't remember if I had a point in mind when I asked it.

So, local terrain in EVE. Well, it doesn't exist, does it? Except for FW plexes I suppose. (And maybe bubbles but I don't like them so I'm going to ignore them.) The warp mechanics and ship exclusions of FW plexes do create some interesting scenarios.

I remember one particular Astero who killed my poor Comet. We were in a poorly organised gang (of course) and he was in a medium plex. When he saw us coming he took the simple expedient of warping to the novice. Then he burned away from the beacon before we could catch him, stringing us out nicely because we couldn't warp to each other, and killed us methodically.

He knew how the terrain worked. He knew that the Sentinel and Stabber couldn't fit into the plex. He knew we would have to slowboat out. He knew he had an off grid booster to increase his reps. Bastard. But let's not get distracted.

It's usually a cyno and away you go. I honestly don't understand why teleportation was introduced as a game mechanic. It seems that the chief purpose is to avoid gates, the natural defensive choke points in the terrain.

But rather than go off on a rant about power projection, let me paint a picture of a few ways in which terrain could be introduced to the game.

Zappity, as usual, is trouble looking for a place to happen. I hop into Asakai, noting the Stabber on scan at a belt. I think I'll pass - my Vexor won't catch him. But then I notice that there are Hemorphite rocks in the belt! Don't they increase Gallente hull agility when on grid? Aha!

Having dispatched the feeble Stabber (of course - what could have gone wrong?) I hop into Prism. Last night this system had a Wolf Rayet effect. I notice it has faded now but it was great while it lasted! My Enyo tore apart a Thorax and Moa who were foolish enough to come into my plex. They're probably still wondering how it happened. Noobs. Never mind, there will be something interesting again soon. The effect generator that the local pirates installed won't sit idle for long.

I get a shock when I jump back into Asakai. Someone has dropped a mass bubble on the gate! I always find these fun but usually die to the lurking recon. Max speed is inversely proportional to distance from the bubble core, with enormously increased speed at the centre (which always makes me want to burn out of the thing) but virtually zero at the periphery. Think of a playful event horizon.

Of course, I could just warp straight out but that will take ages since my warp speed will be freighter-like if I depart from within the bubble. Maybe I should just go back to Prism and hope some bugger hasn't dropped a singularity on the out gate...

You get the point. Local terrain in EVE is mostly dull, or non-existent due to teleportation. I think this is a shame. There could be so many interesting local environmental effects that you could chain together to form true local terrains. Warp speed modification to split a fleet up over here, mess with a kite-scrubber's agility over there. Combine that with the OGB-reversal effect we happen to be experiencing today and things could really get interesting!

Learning to lose the Stratios

I logged in again a few days later and was again disappointed by a lack of activity in our connections. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough and need to dive further down the chains. But it is difficult when there are so many juicy k-space exits.

I found another Stratios doing a lowsec anomaly and bookmarked a nearby wreck. When I warped back in I dropped cloak just before landing, mistakenly thinking that he would still be in the same place. Unfortunately, he was 15km away and by the time I started burning over he warped away. That was very annoying but entirely my fault. I should have either had a MWD or held cloak. Still, you live and learn.

Next, I found a belt-ratting Apocalypse with one of those funny skins. I crept up on him, decloaked and started to destroy him. And then his mates landed in a Gila and two Orthruseses. I got the Prophecy to about half armour but, alas, I died. I should have been watching local and d-scan. And I shouldn’t have been falling for obvious bait. Oh well, I gave them a gf and hopped to Amarr for a refit.

The new Stratios didn’t last long. I was loitering innocently in a neighbouring wormhole whose occupant had just awoken. One of my corpies was scanning the system out and the occupant must have noticed the probes. Before long a Blackbird appeared about 30 km from the POS force field.

Now I know this is probably the most obvious bait there could be but what can I say? Before long I was creeping up on him under cloak. I expected that a) he would jam me, and b) the POS would attack me. But I wanted to have a go anyway, thinking that my aggressive drones might be able to kill him despite my having no lock. So I decloaked and started killing him. Sure enough, the ECM landed almost immediately.

I am embarrassed to say that I was badly flustered by this fight. First, I couldn’t figure out why my drones weren’t buzzing around him like flies and killing him. Then I finally figured out that they actually were but, being heavy drones, this was difficult to see because they were already in range of the target and were moving slowly. Second, I wasn’t able to see the Blackbird’s stats because of the ECM. I am not at all used to this. I was looking at my modules when he exploded and was then hugely confused about what I was trying to target! Then I noticed that it was his pod and finally figured out that his ship must have popped.

This would have been the right time for me to calmly warp away, perhaps dropping a taunting comment in local. Instead, I had totally lost the plot and on instinct tried to open his wreck. Not being close enough, my Stratios then had to turn around and lumber over in the opposite direction. By the time I realised that I was still taking quite a lot of damage from the tower it was too late. Honestly, I deserved to die after that pathetic performance.

Blackbird: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23766203
My poor Stratios: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23766204

Video: http://youtu.be/crLVe5QMb3o

Lessons? 1) I should have aligned out as soon as I decloaked and relied on my drones rather than my guns. 2) I should have warped off as soon as he exploded. 3) Knowing that ECM was highly likely I should have been much less focused on locking him and more focused on the broader situation. 4) I probably just shouldn't have tried in the first place. But we all know that #4 won’t stick :)

Anyway, onwards and upwards! An alliance mate, Skir Skor, very kindly donated me a Stratios BPC. I strongly suspect that this is so he can keep laughing at my mistakes. I shall name the ship “Skir’s Folly” and have promised to explode it in some hilariously noobish manner. After those losses I doubt I could accomplish much different anyway!

Spiders in their own webs

I finally moved into my new corp’s wormhole. The static C2 is great since there is always a nice K-space exit nearby. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anyone in J-space to shoot at yet. Maybe there was a mass exodus from wormhole space after Hyperion as the threads all say.

Some of my corpies are interested in running sites. I looked at my skills and they are woeful for PvE, probably as a result of concentrating on solo PvP up until now. So I bought the Gallente Battleship skillbook and started training it up alongside some sentry drone and remote transfer skills. At least the Dominix is quite cheap - I like that in a PvE ship that will absolutely certainly be killed some time soon.

I put all of the bits onto the Dominix and set off for the chain entry system. I’ve never sat in a battleship before. I don’t like them. They are slow to align, slow to warp and just generally slooooooow! After a few uncomfortably exposed (but scouted) jumps I made it to the home system and dropped the ship off in the tower. A few seconds later I had swapped into my stealthy Stratios and was heading for the nearest lowsec exit.

Things were pretty quiet around here, too. But I persevered and found an Eagle loitering with intent on a gate. He scarpered when I blipped on the overview and soon disappeared from scan. When he reappeared and suggested a planet for 1v1 I was instantly suspicious.

I was suspicious of a gang warping in. I was suspicious of a kiting fit (to which he must have hastily switched in station). I was suspicious of a hot drop. But I also wanted a fight! So I warped in and saw that he was over 100km away from the warp in. My suspicions about a kiting fit were renewed and I hastily reactivated my cloak.

I warped out to a celestial behind my victim and dropped a bookmark just as I entered warp. It was a good one - on returning I landed about 10km from my opponent. I had deactivated cloak on the way in and quickly scrammed and webbed him.

I expected that his damage would drop off once I got into a close orbit but was surprised to see a good amount still coming in. Not a kiting fit! Treachery! How dare he try to trick me like that! But the Stratios showed its might and before I was too far into armour his shields evaporated and I was targeting his pod. Sigh. The cruiser’s lock time is so slow.

Eagle: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23708044

Video, Stratios vs Eagle: http://youtu.be/nnQtggilGYs

Another wormhole took my into Northern Associates null space. Despite my being there solely for the sightseeing in my heavily armed cruiser a nasty local decided to set up a gate camp with his Sabre. He got all excited when Innocent Scout’s Cheetah hopped through into his rapidly inflating bubble but didn’t quite manage to destroy it before she escaped. Zappity followed immediately after and he was onto her like a flash!

Maybe he was expecting an exploration Stratios. Maybe he was just trying his luck. Either way, he melted very quickly to my great satisfaction. Sitting in the middle of his own bubble, he could hardly warp his pod away, either! Happy times! Especially since the pod was worth more than the ship.

Sabre: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23765463
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23765464

Video, Stratios vs Sabre: http://youtu.be/gjQLdBX-MU0

I came across him again on the way home. He left me alone this time.

Scrambled Moa

My next highsec adventure happened after spending a long time warping from target to target, most of whom heeded my sage advice and fled as soon as I landed. An exception was found in a particular Moa, probably because she was too busy being killed by the NPCs. I locked her out of idle curiosity and saw that she was in half hull and dropping fast. Probably preparing to warp out, I thought. And then I had another thought. This thought was about my warp scrambler.

Before I knew it, I had scrammed her. I can’t remember if I even shot her (probably) but she certainly popped:

Moa: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23661561

I looked her character sheet up and then I felt very bad. Ultra-noob. I felt even worse when I looked at the fit. No wonder she was in structure - no tank at all! I sent 15m which more than covered the loss as well as a reasonable PvE Moa fit with an explanation of the principles she should be trying to achieve with the mid slots and rigs. I also gave her a stern Lecture since the only thing that saved her pod was CONCORD jamming me. I received a brief reply thanking me. Under the circumstances I can understand her lack of verbosity.

The age of the character made me take a more careful look at the system I was haunting. I had made the mistake of thinking that ‘starter system’ and ‘rookie system’ were synonymous. They are not, and although Arnon is not a starter system (which I knew) it IS a rookie system (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Rookie_Systems) because of the Sisters of EVE epic arc (which I did not know).

So if you want some mission runner baiting fun go and do it somewhere else.

Zappity the Mostly Fearless!

“Hello, I am Zappity the Mostly Fearless. I am here to inspect your wrecks for juicy loot and to destroy any who dare oppose me! No ship can stand against the mighty Incursus!”

As you can see I am making a nuisance of myself in highsec. I have been accepted into my new wormhole corp but have only just learned about the fun that can be had with mission runners so I decide to postpone the move for a day or two.

Local is VERY quiet here in highsec, despite there being well over a hundred people in system. It is spooky. So once in a while I drop a comment like this to liven things up a bit. I also warn my potential victims about their impending pod-loss-doom if they do not read The Lecture (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3757908#post3757908). I figure it is a public service.

I am instantly blocked by two or three locals who also feel the need to tell everyone of their action, despite subsequent local communications clearly proving them to be liars. Some others strike up a conversation, asking about lowsec. And a verdict is given on this very thread: “12 PAGES OF FORUM DRIVEL”. A reasonably accurate assessment but he didn’t need to shout it.

[Incursus, Incursus dual rep v3]

Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 150
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Acolyte II x1

This has a bit more DPS in exchange for slightly lower reps than the earlier version which couldn't break through the Gnosis’ shield regen in my last encounter. Now all I need is a victim to test it on. After an hour or so of scanning down ships in sites and warping into them I discovered a few things:

1. Not being able to destroy people's wrecks is intensely annoying. I only want to destroy a few of them, just to get their attention but CONCORD keeps threatening to explode me.
2. You need to find a target with the right balance: not so young that they are terrified of another ship on grid and not so old that they know an Incursus can kill their much bigger ship.
3. Warping in as a flashy yellow will mostly result in the mission runner warping away so you only want to go suspect when you think the target might be willing to have a crack at you.
4. Leave 5 cubic metres of space free in your hold so you can loot something from a wreck. This is obvious but it is annoying when you are overflowing with cap charges and haven't thought it through.

I eventually find a willing participant. I warp into the site to see a year-old Gnosis pilot mopping up after shooting the last of the little red crosses. I casually wander over to a nearby wreck. Hmm, he hasn't warped away yet - that's a good sign.

I move to the next wreck, trying to make it look as though I am searching for tasty loot. I choose a wreck which I judge takes me in his direction without being overtly threatening. I am a mere 15km away from him when he yellow-boxes me. Then I receive a duel request! Aha!

I cannot accept quickly enough and immediately dive into a tight afterburner orbit. He was ready for me, however, and immediately slaps on a web and starts biting into my armour with his drones. His main weapons get a solid hit too.

Hobgoblin I and Hammerhead I. Good. I start working on the Hammerheads first. I am worried that the web - oh, actually plural which isn't good news - will slow me down enough for medium drones to hit solidly despite my mid-grade Halo set. It takes a few minutes of micro-management while I chomp through his drones before I am finally able to switch to his ship.

The increased DPS on this fit is helpful but I am still in a normal T1 frigate trying to chew through a battlecruiser! His shield disappears pretty quickly even though I am using cold guns and before long I chipping away at his armour. He immediately, and I think very rudely, starts repairing.

Six minutes later… Ugh, this is going on forever! I notice that he has linked the system name in local and I guess that he is trying to summon help in another channel and dropped it into local by accident. I overheat my guns in an effort to hasten the procedure, carefully watching to make sure they don't fry.

Hull! Finally! And yet he is still repping away, trying to cheat me of my victory. I guess he doesn't quite see it that way, though. When he eventually explodes I am ready for the pod but unfortunately he warps away.

35k damage from the magnificent Incursus! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40938754/

Video: http://youtu.be/KApaT-kBGAs

Props to Marieeth Cardogno who wanted a rematch in a frigate. I would have been happy to oblige but was already running out of time and had nothing suitable to hand. I certainly wasn’t going to take that abomination of an Incursus fit up against another frigate. I think I will move a small selection of proper frigate fits across for this eventuality.

What could he have done differently? Not engaging a frigate at 15km when fitted with medium beams would be a good start. There was no way he could track me in orbit, even with the double webs. He probably would have done alright with pulse lasers. Also, a couple of times he managed to get a decent hit on me. He could have increased the chance of this by trying to slingshot me into zero transversal ‘catch up’ mode. Hard to do but actually possible since I was double webbed and he wasn’t.

I always liked the Firetail

I quite like the Firetail. I’m sure I ALWAYS liked it. Who wouldn’t like the speed, selectable damage type and all those mid slots? Only a fool!

I have been getting a bit uppity lately and chasing entirely unsuitable targets. Today’s Unsuitable Target #1 was a Thorax. When I landed in a Medium and saw him at 30 km I thought he would be rail fit and already pressing F1 to pop me. Instead, he warped out before I could get into scram range. I followed him to the gate. He loitered indecisively. A good sign.

I locked him, aligned back to a plex and aggressed before warping to shed gate guns. By the time I got back to the gate he had jumped through. Disappointing. But I followed him through when my timer expired and quickly scanned him down at a cluster of gates. I guessed which one was most likely and gave chase. I guessed right!

I shadowed him for five jumps, hoping to see him at a plex until I finally caught up to him on a gate. He loitered again. This time I gave him a bit of time to aggress me. He targeted me and launched his drones but did not aggress so I eventually did the gate gun warp again. He jumped. By the time I could hop through I had pretty much given up.

Frustrating!

But there he was, 30 km off the gate. He instantly locked me when I decloaked. I locked back and approached at an angle with afterburner. He aggressed! I moved into orbit before he could blap me and immediately set to work on his drones. I orbited at 5 km to keep my speed up and webbed the little buggers before swatting them with my guns. I kept getting mixed up with my webs, accidentally turning off the one on the Thorax.

After I had worked through a few of them he de-aggressed and starting moving back toward the gate. Uh oh. I blasted through his shield with EMP and switched to Fusion for the armor. Things were going quickly now, although the gate was getting closer. Hull! Half hull! And then he jumped out. I had forgotten to keep him webbed to delay re-approach!

Bugger.

I again waited for the infernal weapons timer, hoping against hope that he would be foolish enough to hang around. When I hopped through I immediately saw his pod on dscan, located with an Incursus. He typed in local, "Zappity, this ****** stole your kill!"

"Noooo!!!", I yelled. I was not happy. But then I got a chuckle when he typed, "Kill him for me, will you?"

So I did and then sent him the mail. Incursus: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477449

Here is the Thorax kill even though it is screwed up: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477438

I was annoyed to lose the mail but interested to see the fit. He was rail fit after all! He missed his best opportunities, probably through lack of confidence.

Video of the first bit: http://youtu.be/Ysmpg5jY-ik

Doing justice to the Stabbed Vexor of Shame

I quite like the Vexor. I fly it like the Stratios without a cloak and a bit less DPS. And a lot less ISK. I was wandering about looking for someone to kill.

[Vexor, Vexor brawl v1]

Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

10MN Afterburner II
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II

Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I

Gecko x1
Valkyrie II x2
Acolyte II x1

612 DPS, 36k EHP

Three Caracals were loitering in the system, behaving oddly. They were sitting at perches off gates then splitting up and warping off to celestials before regrouping at the next gate. I woke up Innocent Scout, probed them down, and warped Zappity (who was sitting at the gate nearby) onto them.

Admittedly, not a great survival strategy! But it didn't matter since they scarpered instead of fighting. I thought I had caught one - very close - but I was left sitting in his exhaust, disappointed.

Next up I found a Caracal and a Vexor sitting in a Medium plex. Suspiciously similar names directed me to the killboard where I saw things which still give me nightmares. Especially the stabs on both cruisers. But I know a cure for stabs!

I docked, switched a web for the spare anti-farmer scram that I carry, and warped in. I expected both ships to be at the edge of the plex sphere, ready to flee at a moment's notice. But they were sitting right on the beacon!

Now, whenever I fit a stab (e.g. a travel fit) the last thing I want is to get into combat. Of any sort. Stabs gimp your fit too badly to be useful so I strongly suspected that the killboards had led me astray and that I was confronted with two combat-ready cruisers.

Oh well. What can you do? Keep calm and carry on, that's what. So I slapped everything on the Vexor (who was closer) and started laying into him. He melted in a most satisfactory manner! Unfortunately I couldn't kill the Caracal because he ran away too fast.

Vexor: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23470925

Video: http://youtu.be/wod8iJJAc-U

And then he told me off. Apparently:
1. I must have a pathetic life and he feels sorry for me.
2. PvPers are just wasting their time because it is only internet pixels.
3. He can make that loss back in five minutes of plexing anyway. (I translated this to “I didn’t want that Vexor anyway. Sniff.”)
4. And anyway, why do I bother? It is just for a scrap of ego boost.

In return for this valuable feedback I told him that he was wasting a slot with the omni for medium drones. He didn't respond. To be honest I haven’t really mastered smack talk. I then asked him what his primary game activity was if not PvP. I didn't get a response to that either. Instead, I was told that I had padded my killboard enough and should go away. I think he was sulking.

Unfortunately, my next move did not really cover me with glory. No, really, you'll see. The next cruiser I found was an Ishtar. I figured that I would probably die since my guns were shooting into his resists (and because Ishtar) but decided to have a go anyway. I scanned him down and sent the Vexor into warp.

I noticed that he was next to a customs office (or something) as I landed but I was more interested in tackling my target than watching the scenery. I landed the scram and webs while my intended victim just sat there, entirely unperturbed. He locked me back and started killing me.

And so did the sentry guns. Yes, the "customs office" was actually a station. Oh my goodness, I was so embarrassed. Thankfully, a gaggle of his corpies instantly undocked and started laying into me too. So I can clearly chalk this one down to being mercilessly blobbed rather than noobishly aggressing on a station.

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23471230

Revised view of the Firetail

Firetail! I caught I Hurricane at a large plex. First I killed his drones, then I repaired myself, and then he escaped because I wasn’t watching my cap carefully enough. It was a very frustrating loss, mostly because it was entirely my fault.

Video: http://youtu.be/OvvLo0d9sZo

I consoled myself by killing a dual-MASB Breacher (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456187). Next, Ciba Lexlulu spotted a Thrasher and an Algos in a plex together so we warped in together and murdered the Thrasher while the Algos ran. I think he was multiboxing, panicked and lost his pod for good measure:

Thrasher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456185
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456186

He convoed me afterward and promised to get his revenge. Another entry for the nemesis list!

But I’m getting distracted. Firetail! I next stumbled across a Comet but since his idea of a good fight was actually plus another Comet and a Daredevil I decided not to play. Next, I came across a Procurer in a belt. Naturally, I thought it was bait. And naturally, I bit. His drones immediately sprang into action but I saw they were T1. Hmm, maybe this isn't bait after all. I quickly chewed through them using my webs to slow them down enough to land solid hits.

Then a Merlin appeared. The pilot had previously been sitting in a Venture at the same belt and I guessed that this was a multiboxer. I stuffed up my range control and lost point on the Procurer. Still, the Merlin died quickly enough and I reapplied the scram as soon as possible.

Merlin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458023

A flight of Hornets was dispatched just as fast as the earlier bunch and I settled down to a nice quiet meal of armour and hull. It took my little 150mm guns a while to cheese through. Just as I was getting close to a yummy pod dessert (yes, I am optimistic) another Merlin appeared! He had reshipped and come back for seconds.

I reasoned that he was probably blaster fit like the last one, and that I was considerably faster due to the lack of web on the Procurer. So I slapped one web on the Merlin and increased my orbit on the still-webbed Procurer. The Merlin followed me around, left ineffectually in my wake, while I finished off the miner.

Procurer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458024

And then I caught the Merlin and killed that, too.

Merlin #2: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458025

Hehe, good stuff. I traded the loot back to my noobish victim, sent a few appropriate fits through, and dropped a little isk to encourage him to keep exploding. I gave him The Lecture (of course) and advised him to try some quieter systems if he really wanted to mine in lowsec.

Video: http://youtu.be/DSUAyk4XBR4

So, revised thoughts on the Firetail? I really like its speed. I really like double webs for multiple target control. I really like the selectable damage type. I just need to find some more worthy adversaries to test it against. And I should probably play with a dual prop fit some time.

Hunting a nullbear that wasn't

I was determined to find more Firetail fights. Absolutely determined. Until the aptly-named Innocent Scout found a wormhole leading to nullsec. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to poke my head in there?

I have been getting a little bored with my routine lately. It is so easy to get solo small ship fights in lowsec that I have lost my hunting edge. I rarely need to go more than a few quick jumps to find a fight. Sure, I manipulate fights around plexes but those are with (at least somewhat) willing participants.

Actually, come to think of it I'm not sure I ever had a hunting edge to start with. I used to be adept at probing sites down but never really used those skills to hunt people. And the last time I found myself behind some combat probes it took FAR too long to get a result.

Innocent Scout hopped through the hole and found herself surrounded by drone sites in Outer Passage (a most unfortunate name). Brothers of Tangra - aren't they renters? Whatever. Zappity followed shortly after in her Stratios.

Oops! Once away from the colourful overview bustle of Ishomilken I noticed that Zappity was flashing a most conspicuous yellow icon in local. Hmm. I guess they wouldn’t be very used to that around here. And sure enough, the couple of Caracals I had spotted on dscan had already tucked their tails between their legs and run back to their station. I decided to cloak in their system until the timer had worn off.

I used the time to check Dotlan for a nice ratting system. The region looked pretty rubbish to my admittedly uneducated eye but at least there was a system a couple of jumps away with a few hundred recent NPC kills.

With Innocent Cheetah scouting the route Zappity's slower cruiser evaded most of the nasty bubbles. The destination system was fully bubbled on entry with half a dozen pilots in local. Maybe I should put Innocent in an inty to help with this sort of thing. Or perhaps put Zappity in a nullified Proteus.

Anyway, I slowboated both ships out of the bubble under cloak and took my time checking out the system. Of course I forgot to do all the sensible things like check for wrecks and suitable sites. Instead, I watched a mining fleet on dscan warp away from their site.

Oh well. I wandered to the other side of the system. Where I saw a Gila. Surely he would be safe at a moon. But I needed the practice so I warped the Cheetah out of dscan range, dropped some probes, and scanned him down. I got him on the second scan and the Cheetah, already aligned in the general direction, soon landed at 20km range.

Oh. Not at a moon and a 2008 character. I closed to 5km range and launched Zappity. The Cheetah was safely at a safe long before Zappity landed. I deactivated cloak a few seconds before landing to shed the lock delay. An overheated scram snared the Gila before he could scarper.

Now I will admit to not being too sure about my chance of success. I have checked the Gila out in PYFA and it is a nice ship. But what is the point of having a Stratios if you aren't going to explode it in some stupid way!

The Geckos started hammering him pretty hard. But his Hammerheads weren't doing too badly at all and my shield disappeared almost immediately. I was surprised to see that I wasn’t very effectively controlling range and wondered about his fit. I finally broke through his shield when I was already bleeding through into hull. Not a moment too soon!

Gila: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23459022

Ha! And as you can see, that is a PvP fit, not a ratting fit. I'll be honest now and say that I probably wouldn't have taken him on if I had realised that. Is his fit bad? I am going to go ahead and say that it must be. This is because I read that the Stratios is bad and anyone who flies one is bad and should feel bad about being bad especially because of the cloak which is useless for PvP. But apparently the Gila is OP. So I'm confused because he died and I didn't.

Anyway, I was quite proud of that kill until I remembered all the things that I should have done differently. What damage do people usually apply to those drone rats? What do people fighting them tank against? And where was my mobile depot for repping up after the fight? Why was I in my mid-grade snake clone? It should have been clean, or at least the slave set for an extra 10k EHP! Oh dear, what a noob.

Still, all's well that ends well. So back to Ishomilken for some well deserved TLC on the old armour. And hull. I am glad that I kept the double webs on my Stratios fit. The drone tracking whatsit only improved the Gecko damage by about 5% on SiSi so I chose to keep them plus a cap booster.

Video: http://youtu.be/86kffEony5U

Baiting a highsec bear

The astute reader (that’s you) would have noticed that my stories tend to be a few weeks out of date. This is because my playing time is irregular and I try to do my best to keep you entertained with at least a modicum of regularity. But you will also have noticed that Zappity is currently a shameful NPC poster. This deserves some immediate explanation.

Things had become a bit stale for me in lowsec (entirely my fault - I am lazy) and I had a growing desire to visit RvB in highsec. You might remember that I started this character in RvB before diving into lowsec. It was great fun and a good way to get used to the initial PvP shakes. I found myself wondering how accurate my recollections from that time were now that I have a little more experience.

I left a note on the Stay Frosty forums (because I was sure I will be back before too long - it is a truly magnificent corp for, amongst other types, the casual solo and small gang player) and clicked Apply on Blue Republic, which had fewer members than Red Federation.

At this point I have to give serious props to CCP for the tags for sec feature. A few short jumps from Jita and 250m isk (or thereabouts - I wasn't paying much attention) later, I had jumped from -9.0 to 0.5. I wanted that extra bit of buffer above -2.0 because you never know when the urge to commit a crime will become overwhelming.

I’ll post more about my short RvB adventures later but in brief, I got bored again and decided to give wormhole life a try. Thinking that my clones all looked far too shiny for space with bubbles I trained up Advanced Infomorph Whatsit a few points and hopped into EACS to drop a few new clones around the map.

And here I am, kicked from EACS after the allotted time and awaiting acceptance to Stay Frosty’s sibling wormhole corp. It is taking a while. Maybe I am a security risk.

But before we return to scheduled programming, here is a highsec story. I decided to take advantage of Zappity’s newly acquired security status by baiting some mission runners. Sounds like a job for the Incursus! I figured that the T1 frigate was not going to be threatening for your average highsec bear and the reps are very impressive.

[Incursus, Zappity’s dual rep v1]

Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 150
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Acolyte II x1

Now, before we go any further please note that this fit didn’t actually work so please watch for revisions.

Zappity and Innocent Scout made their way to the nearest NPC kill-rich system. Gnosis on dscan - good enough. I renamed by Incursus to the not-so-subtle “Loot Sweet Loot” and was soon in warp.

The Gnosis character was from 2007 and showed his confidence by yellow boxing me as soon as I landed in his mission. Two seconds after I looted the nearest wreck he red-boxed me! We’re on! I angled in under afterburner and was soon in a tight orbit. His drones and the nasty NPCs were both hitting me pretty hard and by the time I reached him a decent chunk was missing from my armour. I activated the reps which I really should have just started immediately and spent the next five minutes managing cap, reps and drone targets.

I was at a slight disadvantage because I had lost my overviews with the recent Hyperion patch and had forgotten to set up a Drones tab. But that was not the fault of my opponent. The Gnosis and the NPCs managed to get into my hull at one point, so most of the fight was spent with the Incursus wrapping a smoky trail around the Gnosis.

Things finally settled down after all his drones were dead. So I settled down for the long haul, plinking away at his passive shield tank. Unfortunately, my opponent was wise to the ways of the highsec mission baiter and continued killing the NPCs to reduce the incoming damage.

It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to break his tank, especially since my guns were already crispy from earlier overheating. I stopped firing and tried to repair them only to realise that I didn’t have any nanite paste in the hold. What a noob. I toyed with the idea of getting Innocent Scout to drop some off but thought better of it and, instead, started up a ransom convo!

I felt a bit bad about that because there was no way I could have actually killed him and my threats about being satisfied with the killmail if my demands were not met were quite empty. Regardless, he bit on the offer and we negotiated the princely sum of 40m. He paid and I immediately warped away. We chatted for a while longer and I confessed that I might not have been able to break through his regen. He agreed but said that I had done so well to manage his drones (with a smoking hull, what’s more) that I deserved a reward. I agree!

That was a lot of fun but I suspect it was a case of beginner’s luck with how easy it was to get a rise out of my target. And I clearly need more DPS. Props to Quathette for taking the fight - good stuff.

Killed by a Firetail

Another day, another Stratios gank:

Caracal: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432601

Hardly worth mentioning to be honest. He wasn't even a PvPer by the look of things. I even caught his pod despite the enormous cruiser lock time.

Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432602

I spent a while looking for fights in the 250mm rail Thorax but nothing doing. Eventually I jumped back in the Comet and murdered a kiting Slicer by keeping him interested long enough to slingshot him. I have found that by delaying use of the armour repper until I am nearly in hull sets the hook deep in a kiter. And then they die if I manage to land a scram:

Slicer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448297

Then I got my comeuppance in the form of a Firetail. Yes, a Firetail killed my Comet:

Loss, Police Pursuit Comet: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448481

Well, I didn't think that was possible with the Comet reps. I can't remember the last time a Firetail killed my Comet and, to be honest, I didn't take it seriously.

Needless to say I am now interested in the Firetail again, despite the scorn I poured upon it a few posts ago. Unfortunately, I didn't record the fight but he used 150mm autos and a vamp. Also, I couldn't pull range even with overheated afterburner and an attempt to sling away. It was almost certainly a double web fit and this meant that my tracking was rubbish. Finally, I noticed that it was active armour. So that pretty much limits things to something like this:

[Republic Fleet Firetail, 150mm dps]

Gyrostabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II

150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small Nosferatu II

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

Rigs are more or less to flavour but I figured I would want a bit of extra reach (ambit) for when I was scram kiting and a bit more tracking (metastasis) for close orbits and drones. I am going to lose a few fits like this before deciding on the Firetail (again). Anyway, Jita prices just crashed through my long term low buy order so I now have hundreds of them! The Minmatar farmers are still driving prices down so I'll probably have them for a while, too.

Zappity's first miner gank

I had just finished posting in a thread entitled “Random Kindness in EVE”, saying that I was usually kind to noobs in lowsec because I didn’t want to scare them away, when a call went out for people to go and gank a Hulk in our 0.5 highsec border system, Usi. I was only three jumps out so I hastily changed the route back to Ish. I had a few Catalysts fitted in station (not specifically fitted for ganking but close enough) so I put them up on corp contract and joined the correct fleet.

Now, I have never ganked anyone before (not unless you count farmers) but have always wanted to at least once to get a bit of perspective. It was with excited anticipation that I formed up on the gate and waited for the order to jump into highsec. Ugh…highsec. I don’t like the nasty “You are a criminal so bugger off” message that pops up when I jump in. And I REALLY don’t like the fact that I can’t just shoot whoever I feel like.

Except just now, of course :)

We held cloak and were fleet warped onto the target. Really, four Catalysts was overkill for this Hulk but they are cheap at just over a million each so who cares? I tackled him and started firing! He exploded long before the rozzers showed up. Unfortunately I missed his pod but easily got my own capsule away.

Hulk: https://zkillboard.com/kill/39845875/

Whew, that was a rush! But I can’t imagine it holding my attention too long - it wasn't even as challenging as killing a farmer. Anyway, I did manage to capture my first gank for posterity:

Video: http://youtu.be/qqKugHn4h5Q

A cloaky gank

I'm back in the Thorax, looking for someone to kill. There are a surprising number of cruisers about but the only solo ones I see are navy or faction. I'm starting to see a trend here. Finally, I get sick of hunting and foolishly engage a Vexor Navy Issue. I died in about 10 seconds, despite having both reppers overheated.

It was a useful fight. I reviewed the logs and figured out what went wrong: his heavy drones broke straight through my reps. Insane DPS. I want some! So I fired up PYFA (I converted from EFT a while ago) and played around.

Well, for a start my Heavy Drones skill is rubbish. But that, evidently, is what Geckos are for! +600 DPS is quite achievable. But it still doesn't overcome the problem of the nasty suspicious and deceitful minds that my fellow lowsec denizens tend to have. They won't want to engage a Vexor Navy Issue because a) they will lose, and b) they will suspect reinforcements.

So I bought a few Stratios hulls. And promptly lost the first one to a gate camp when my stupid Function key wasn't enabled on the keyboard. I was still uselessly jamming F6 to try and cloak when they broke me. Actually, I often do that with F1 at the start of a fight and then notice that my guns aren't doing anything. Maybe I should get a different keyboard. Or just remember to press the button. Or use a scout when flying an expensive ship.

Anyway, the fit:

[Stratios, Zappity’s cloaky gank v1]

1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
10MN Afterburner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Gecko x2
Nanite Repair Paste x50

DPS is about 170 from guns and 500 from drones with my skills. 42k EHP.

The next time I took one out I remembered to turn the Function keys on. I made it a few jumps out of Ish when I spotted a Caracal, Arbitrator and Firetail on scan. Even better, a corpie, Spocria Charante, was in system  his rail Comet (a marvelous ship, by the way).

They were loitering at the Large plex. I must admit to being a bit nervous! But this is exactly what I had bought the bloody thing for so what the hell. Anyway, Spocria is apparently an avid reader of the thread and was evidently waiting for me to do something. Then he said that the thread was part of the reason he moved to lowsec (op success) and before I knew it I was in cloaked warp, range 50km.

I landed about 15km from the Arbitrator with the Firetail about 40 away, close to the beacon. The Caracal had disappeared which suited me just fine since I was a bit worried about multiple webs forcing me out of electron range.

I approached the Arbitrator. At about 12km I decloaked, hit the MWD for a single cycle and locked him up. I then switched to afterburner and went into a close orbit.

I immediately saw that he was fit with double reps. Oh well, let's see how it goes. The scram and double web combination held him tightly enough that my Geckos were able to hit hard. Sure enough, I was able to chew his hull away between rep cycles and after what felt like hours but in reality was just under one minute, he popped.

Arbitrator: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402967

By this time the Firetail had closed and was doing something nasty to me (to be honest I had been pretty much ignoring him up to now apart from locking him). So I switched everything to him. He died really fast.

Firetail: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402968
And then Spocria podded him! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40149608/

I warped out just after the Caracal landed. Stealth gank! I wonder if I could have killed him, too? But let's not get greedy on the first outing. Also, shouldn’t that Arbitrator have had a tracking disruptor? Was it a rubbish fit? I checked in EFT and was comforted to see that, despite the anti-frigate high slots, it had a decent active tank - it repped hard at nearly 500 dps with the nanite charges in the AAR.

And now I am left to ponder my own fit. First, do I need dual prop? In retrospect it seems somewhat pointless in lowsec since the cloak can get me to the edge of scram range and there are no bubbles. Maybe I'll drop the MWD for a cap booster in case of neuting. Or maybe a drone tracking whatsit.

And what about the double web? I like the idea of being able to control the range of a couple of ships, at least partially. I also like being able to get under the guns of my target by orbiting. But most cruisers will be MWD fit so the scram plus a web would take care of that. And come to think of it, I can probably fit Ions on instead of Electrons.

To the test server!

Learning more about cruisers

I'm back in the Thorax, looking for someone to kill. There are a surprising number of cruisers about but the only solo ones I see are navy or faction. I'm starting to see a trend here. Finally, I get sick of hunting and foolishly engage a Vexor Navy Issue. I died in about 10 seconds, despite having both reppers overheated.

It was a useful fight. I reviewed the logs and figured out what went wrong: his heavy drones broke straight through my reps. Insane DPS. I want some! So I fired up PYFA (I converted from EFT a while ago) and played around.

Well, for a start my Heavy Drones skill is rubbish. But that, evidently, is what Geckos are for! +600 DPS is quite achievable. But it still doesn't overcome the problem of the nasty suspicious and deceitful minds that my fellow lowsec denizens tend to have. They won't want to engage a Vexor Navy Issue because a) they will lose, and b) they will suspect reinforcements.

So I bought a few Stratios hulls. And promptly lost the first one to a gate camp when my stupid Function key wasn't enabled on the keyboard. I was still uselessly jamming F6 to try and cloak when they broke me. Actually, I often do that with F1 at the start of a fight and then notice that my guns aren't doing anything. Maybe I should get a different keyboard. Or just remember to press the button. Or use a scout when flying an expensive ship.

Anyway, the fit:

[Stratios, Zappity’s cloaky gank v1]

1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
10MN Afterburner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Gecko x2
Nanite Repair Paste x50

DPS is about 170 from guns and 500 from drones with my skills. 42k EHP.

The next time I took one out I remembered to turn the Function keys on. I made it a few jumps out of Ish when I spotted a Caracal, Arbitrator and Firetail on scan. Even better, a corpie, Spocria Charante, was in system  his rail Comet (a marvelous ship, by the way).

They were loitering at the Large plex. I must admit to being a bit nervous! But this is exactly what I had bought the bloody thing for so what the hell. Anyway, Spocria is apparently an avid reader of the thread and was evidently waiting for me to do something. Then he said that the thread was part of the reason he moved to lowsec (op success) and before I knew it I was in cloaked warp, range 50km.

I landed about 15km from the Arbitrator with the Firetail about 40 away, close to the beacon. The Caracal had disappeared which suited me just fine since I was a bit worried about multiple webs forcing me out of electron range.

I approached the Arbitrator. At about 12km I decloaked, hit the MWD for a single cycle and locked him up. I then switched to afterburner and went into a close orbit.

I immediately saw that he was fit with double reps. Oh well, let's see how it goes. The scram and double web combination held him tightly enough that my Geckos were able to hit hard. Sure enough, I was able to chew his hull away between rep cycles and after what felt like hours but in reality was just under one minute, he popped.

Arbitrator: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402967

By this time the Firetail had closed and was doing something nasty to me (to be honest I had been pretty much ignoring him up to now apart from locking him). So I switched everything to him. He died really fast.

Firetail: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402968
And then Spocria podded him! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40149608/

I warped out just after the Caracal landed. Stealth gank! I wonder if I could have killed him, too? But let's not get greedy on the first outing. Also, shouldn’t that Arbitrator have had a tracking disruptor? Was it a rubbish fit? I checked in EFT and was comforted to see that, despite the anti-frigate high slots, it had a decent active tank - it repped hard at nearly 500 dps with the nanite charges in the AAR.

And now I am left to ponder my own fit. First, do I need dual prop? In retrospect it seems somewhat pointless in lowsec since the cloak can get me to the edge of scram range and there are no bubbles. Maybe I'll drop the MWD for a cap booster in case of neuting. Or maybe a drone tracking whatsit.

And what about the double web? I like the idea of being able to control the range of a couple of ships, at least partially. I also like being able to get under the guns of my target by orbiting. But most cruisers will be MWD fit so the scram plus a web would take care of that. And come to think of it, I can probably fit Ions on instead of Electrons.

To the test server!