Getting into a bit of the action...

So I managed to make it out into a fleet today. Yay me!

I only had a bit over an hour, so when I logged into my Stiletto and was informed that the fleet had left and was just a jump away, I hurried along like a good little grunt and caught up shortly. With a fleet sizeable enough to draw complaints of "blob" from those people who weren't currently in a fleet (Aka, more than 5, but less than 1000, which I think would draw cries of 'Oh My Gosh, NODE CRASHING PARTY' as opposed to the far less complimentary 'blob',) we headed out into the great black.

I listened on comms as the scout singlehandedly chased away pretty much everyone in our path, pretty certain that the few docked up or otherwise tedious to track down individuals we had passed along our roam had already spoken up in their intel channels and cleared our path, it was looking like no action for The Dirk today.

Fortunately, some of our own intelligence (intel rocks) filtered back and we managed to charge forward en masse to drop in on a pair of unsuspecting Harbingers.

We wandered on and our scout engaged an enemy, drawing his buddies through to him as we jumped in to assist. Unfortunately, our scout met his end upon our arrival, and the buddies got away, save for the one tethered in place by The Dirk's point. Happy to be so vitally involved, I fair giggled with glee when his armor collapsed. Which in case you can't tell by the number of folks on the killmail, didn't take long.

Shortly after that, I had to log, so I warped off in a random direction and looked forward to the challenge of returning home.

Logged back in a while later, and hunched over my EVE station, eyes alert, maps at the ready. I passed through 7 systems, and only in the last 3 were there any people, and they were all blue. Disappointed, I was just coming out in the second from last system when I heard intel on someone warping my way. Curious, I waited patiently until Kirzath arrived. 188 off gate in a Claw.

I shrugged mentally, having no real idea on if my Stiletto was close to up to snuff, but figuring I could likely hang onto him long enough for SOMEONE to get him, I charged. I'm guessing he figured he could kill me before reinforcements arrived, because he did likewise.

My long-point snatched hold of him, and we made an opening pass, just a love-tap on each others shields. He took it out to distance and I overheated the MWD and brought it back in close, this time dropping the Scrambler I had fitted for such occaisions into place, along with my web, bringing his zipping rampage to a crawl. He knocked my MWD offline with his own scrambler, but for a while there our guns looked to be chewing shield at about the same rate.

Unfortunately for me, he was tidily armor tanked for such solo fights, and soon enough I was in the red. I warped my pod out safely. Fortunately, my efforts had not been in vain, and backup arrived, snatching hold of his Claw and tearing it apart.

I watched as Kirzath smacked the efforts in local with the call of 'SF' (I'm assuming this means crappy fight, from his other comments).

I went and picked up another iteration of The Dirk, and was met by the cavalry, who not only traded me back my wreckage goods, but also Kirzath's. Happy as a pig in mud, I dropped back to my home station, listened on Intel as Kirzath showed up and was blown up again, and unplugged for the night.

Hopefully, there will be more chances in the future for fun like this, until then,

Fly Straight!

Theoretical Combat: Passive Targeter I

Welcome to the first installment of a new section on my blog. Theoretical Combat. Basically it is what it sounds like, different theories regarding possible combats, load-outs, modules, etc. It's theories because often it will be about stuff I've not personally experienced, which will make any feedback you might have all the more valuable to me!

Today I'm pondering the Passive Targeter I

I've not seen these in general use in any PvP ships, and by and large I can see why. If you're flying out in 0.0, your standings determine who is targeting you. If you see a Red, or even a Neutral, you assume they're about to attack you and you act accordingly.

So, clearly this relegates the Passive Targeter to noobs and high-sec gankers, right?

I don't think it should... What if, you were fitting a Ship-of-the-Line (defined in EVE, typically, as a sniper battleship, often with Remote repairing ability) and you sacrificed a little of your range for passive targeting? If you were the only one in the fleet doing it, a complete waste. But what if your entire fleet of BS's were similarly outfit?

Cons:
- One less slot. You have to sacrifice SOMETHING in order to fit the Passive Targeter. Whether that's range, tank or other, something has to go.

Pros:
- No warning prior to damage. That's right, rather than warning the top-5 targets of their possibility of becoming primary (and as such, giving Logistics the top 5 people that need to be ready to be repaired) your fleet would give no warning prior to the execution of it's first Alpha.
- Viability of Missile Damage. An odd one, but a wing of Ravens, separate from the main fleet and with their own target-caller could utilize Passive Targeters to avoid preemptive warping by their target. Sure, that volley of missiles is coming towards you, but also towards your 9 closest buddies, if you want to ALL warp out to avoid it, I don't think your opposing fleet will cry in their cheerios.

What do YOU think? Do Passive Targeting Arrays have a place on Ships-of-the-Line?

Do they have a place somewhere else entirely?

Fly Straight, but keep an eye out, you never know when someone is targeting you...

Making the Game: Spacial Anomaly Generator

I've decided to get on the bandwagon of many other bloggers and occasionally put out a post on what I think would be a great addition or change to EVE.

Today, I'm talking about the Spacial Anomaly Generator. No, EVE-fans, this device doesn't exist, yet. But here's my thoughts...

Many wormhole's have spacial anomalies present that drastically alter the way ships within are fit and go about their fighting. What if, as a new upgrade module for 0.0 space, alliances could generate Spacial Anomalies of that nature for their space?

Obviously, how any given anomaly would be determined would be something CCP would need to look into, but, assuming the anomaly would be either permanent or relatively long-living, it would alter the face of almost all warfare in the system.

Residents, well aware of the properties of their anomaly, would have their 'local defense' and even ratting ships fit to take into account the bonus, offering them home-field advantage against intruders. Said intruders would infiltrate the system in small ships prior to the main event to scout out possible anomalies, and would attempt to take that into account when forming their fleet.

Battles would be different.

I'll stress that one, big fleet battles would HAVE to take the anomaly into account or risk destruction, and the fleet that did not would be at a significant disadvantage. This would give even more options, more changes, more interest, to these large battles, which could easily be won or lost in the planning stages.

I think the Spacial Anomaly Generator should be introduced to the game, what about you?