Continuing input into: The True Bounty Project

General consensus seems to be that The True Bounty Project is an idea that could be made to work....

With some tweaks.

Apparently the numbers that were rolling around in MY head, were too low, generally speaking, to draw the attention of most mercenaries. As such, it was suggested that I put together a few basic bounty packages as guidelines. Obviously, the higher the bounty, the greater the interest. Part of the fun/idea for True Bounty is that a bounty makes you wanted, not just by a specifically hired assassin, but by people who are just willing to do the deed when they see you somewhere they can catch you. A war-dec attack is awesome and all, but it's nothing compared to knowing that a billion isk is sitting on your head for anyone who can catch you in a ship of any real value. A bil, can be split amongst an awful lot of disposable Thrashers and their pilots... Even High-Sec becomes a risk if the value is high enough.

Trust, being the commodity that it is in the great world of EVE, was also an important topic. It was suggested that a third-party, trusted service be used to secure the funds for my third-party project. I have to admit, it seems a bit convoluted. *Grin* But at the same time, I can see the reason behind it. I'm a bit of a nobody, and I can't expect folk to trust me with the kind of money necessary to turn a Merc's head without having been in business for a while to establish a reputation for trustworthiness.

At the same time, I desire to build up the sort of reputation that would be necessary to avoid the unnecessary complication (and the unnecessary divulging of client information) that comes with utilizing a fourth party service (cos that's really what it would be!).

Looking into precedent, I see that people trying to break into the Third Party business usually need to provide some form of incentive to begin their efforts, and that sort of thing makes sense to me, as well.

The pricing thing and standard packages just makes sense. I'll be adjusting that accordingly.

The fourth party service on the other hand is less sure in my mind. I will be giving it some thought, and I'd appreciate some input! Anyone got any ideas on good incentives to get the program up and running, and start building a reputation for honesty? -I- know I'm honest, and that no-one will walk away anything but fairly dealt with, but there's a lot of jerks in EVE.

Until then, Fly Straight (though as was pointed out to me earlier today, angular velocity, or lack thereof, is a killer)

The True Bounty Project

So, perhaps vengeance has laid seeds in my heart. Perhaps it has spawned off this crazy idea that I think could be a lot of fun, for me and for others. Or perhaps I'm doing something that's been done before.

But, with our booting from Wormhole space and our subsequent happy go lucky time in High-Sec, I've been looking for a new project to take on, something interesting to keep things fresh and exciting.

So I've come up with "The True Bounty Project". No, it's not a plan to petition for a new candy-bar, though I think peanuts and coconut would be way better than almonds... Just saying.

No, what it is, is a project for a new resource for capsuleers to use in their travels. A way for aggrieved parties to find redress for their unhappiness without resorting to tears, war decs, or using the fatally flawed in-game bounty system.

Relative new capsuleer suicide-ganked for kicks? True Bounty.
Hulkaggedon caught you unawares? True Bounty.
POS Destroyed while you were away for the weekend....... True Bounty.

It has plenty of applications, but I'll leave that for you to read about and comment on.

Discussion welcome! Flaming, not so much, but hey, bring it on!

Fly Straight, they'll never expect it!

P.S. If you want to chat about this in-game, feel free to join channel: True Bounty

Conditions of Victory

So, today the pilots of Per Ardua Ad Sol scored a mighty victory, assisted by none other than yours truly.

Now admittedly, there's no killmails to be had, but there's also no loss-mail. I guess it really depends on your definition of 'a mighty victory'... You decide.

Today a wormhole opened into Our Slice of Heaven from a suddenly neighbouring class 4+ wormhole. (I didn't stop to check the readings on the other side, but the wormhole indicated at least a C4). Within that wormhole was a branch of the Shadow of xXDEATHXx alliance. They decided to pop in and start running some of our sites.

Understandably I was a little intrigued to see 7 Moa's and a Bestower on my directional scanner when I logged in, and perhaps just the slightest bit amused when dropping combat probes cleared the system in about 25 seconds flat. Give the boys over there in xXDEATHXx credit, they were paying attention and they scrambled their butts out of there when the free gas harvesting time was over.

So while I looted their wrecks, others of the corp scanned the system down properly, identified their entrance and planted a scout.

Not really feeling like doing much, I AFKed for some time and came back to check on things a few hours later.

Seems xXDEATHXx had gotten bored sitting in their own system, and decided to come over and do a few sites.

That's all well and good, but I really wanted to run some of those sites in the next day or so...

What to do, what to do.

So that was when I decided on setting the Conditions of Victory. Against a group of remote-repping (with drones) Drakes and with relatively minimal numbers available on my side, and the knowledge of their numbers back in THEIR wormhole, I decided to see if we couldn't convince them to keep it quick by ripping their wormhole a bit of a new one with a few battleships.

Racquel and Leilani went to work in Scorpion and Dominix respectively, but as they arrived on-gate, an Onyx appeared beside the wormhole. "Oh crap" was pretty much the sentiment all around.

Ducking through, the Shadows converged from all over the wormhole, eventually sporting a fleet of 9 people on Our Slice of Heaven's side of the wormhole, including the Onyx. One drake dropped through and managed to decloak Leilani and she was forced to jump back through. As we're anticipating a HICtor bubble and much pain, Leilani ramped up the warp drive, and to our surprise, noted the Onyx had jumped through!

Racquel quickly scrambled to jump back through to our side, even as Leilani evaded tackles and warped out from under the 8-man gang of battlecruisers (one of them MIGHT have been an Anathema instead, reports vary).

Racquel then joined Leilani in attempting to warp, while the Onyx was still stuck on the "Thirty Second Timer of Doom" that we all know and love. She too managed to slip the tackles on her and warp off to the safety of our POS.

With the damage done, the wormhole starting to look a little ragged, I sat patiently on the wormhole and watched from cloaked safety as they milled about... As they warped back to their own space... As they came back with cloaker ships (sorry, homefield advantage wins in the intelligence business) and left again, and as they finally decided they wanted to play with someone else and popped the wormhole with a few visits of an Armageddon.

So, my Conditions of Victory were met, and the 4 of us that took the time to work on it effectively drove off at least a 9 man fleet.

Oh, and I got to go loot our combat site and salvage their wrecks. Only about 40 million ISK worth of profit, but hey, at least I didn't have to waste any missiles on it. ;)

Fly Straight! Even you Shadow boys! You were organized and you rallied FAST to every change of situation, it was impressive to see you in action, but I'm glad it turned out how it did.

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!

Making The Game: PvP Missions

Once again, the banter on someone else's blog has sparked off a diatribe of a comment that I'm turning into a Making The Game post. What can I say, I get wordy at times...

The original post comes from Letrange over at Letrange's Eve Blog, I give him a C- for blog name originality, (who am I to talk, I just translated my name for a blog title) but a solid A for content, including the two guides on Dominion projection weapon changes that I have linked on the right-side bar of my page and will until something changes to put them out of date. If you don't read his blog, start. :)

Basically, the tl;dr version is that he suggested that PvE should be given elements that make it more exciting and realistic, and offer a 'training' opportunity for budding PvP pilots, so that the flight styles aren't so VASTLY different. One or two people commenting on his post stated their disagreement, that missions are supposed to cater to a different clientèle than PvP.

I think a good compromise/workaround the various schools of thought on this sort of thing (and something more in line with CCP's style) would be to add a new agent-type, that offers advanced military missions.
They already did it for the training lines, but if they did so for missions, they could add agents that offer missions that are designed for PvP fit ships. None of this 'waves of badguys, go-go-drake-tank and wait for the money' and instead more along the lines of 'catch that Rifter for a big bounty'. Stuff that gets the blood pumping a bit more, with higher payouts for the individual kill, but the overall reward being based on the time it'll take you.

One of the great things about EVE is it's 'toolkit' nature. Far too often I read cries of 'nerf this' 'change that' 'this is boring, fix it'. While in some cases that can be appropriate, (if 1 ship is out there defeating all comers, regardless of situation or opponent, there's obviously a balance issue) for the most part the 'toolkit' approach suggests addition over subtraction.

In other words, when you find missions grievously boring (I do) and only run them for money, don't suggest changing missions and driving off the folk who enjoy them, suggest ADDING something new that can allow you an outlet of PC vs NPC violence that YOU will enjoy.

Another possibility. What if they introduced PvP missions that could let you pew pew on other players and make money doing it?

Interested?

Here's a sample.

Capsuleer A is hired by Agent A to take a frigate sized hull out to a rendezvous point, carrying a valuable trade commodity. Naturally, they don't trust Capsuleer A, so they make him put some money down and tell him to 'come alone'. He flies out to the mission coordinates and finds a rusted old Minmatar jump-gate leading into the deadspace. He activates the jump-gate and slingshots out into the complex.

Inside, he finds silence, and receives an incoming communication from his agent. "Agent B is trying to horn in on my deal. Kill his Agent when he shows up, then make the deal."

Here comes the tricky part (from CCP's standpoint), the jump-gate 'sorts' people into different 'instances', the first 2 people to enter arrive together, the next two, the next two, and so on. This way, numerous people can be running the mission, and they'll get their chance to complete it as soon as a second mission-runner shows up. Entering the later half of the complex also gives aggression to you and the other party, keeping Concord out of the equation.

After a set amount of time, the contact shows up and drops a can for his swag.

If no-one else is running the mission, you get to drop off an item for an easy, though probably not large, reward. If someone else is running the mission, you get to drop off an item for the small reward, AND get some 1v1 PvP action, complete with the possibility of recouping the very item you had to put money down on when buying it from your agent, which you can then turn around and sell on the market.

Obviously it needs tweaking and goodness knows I don't know squat about the programming that would be required. But in my head it sounds awesome.

What do you think?

Fly straight!

Friday Flash Fiction 10: “Should you be doing that?”

This week's entry into Ecliptic Rift's Friday Flash Fiction.

Enjoy!

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The distinctive crackling sound that characterized communications funneled through communication drones, dropped surreptitiously through wormholes to connect W-Space to K-Space for corporation and private comms, was evident in KattraStarr's disapproving voice, "Should you be doing that?"

As I threw the Bam a Lam I, one of a matching set of ten Rifter's I had purchased and had my engineering crew fit out in preparation for some silly fun, into a keep-away orbit of a pursuing Amarrian assault frigate, toning down the microwarp-drive so that I didn't completely outrun the armor laden beast, I replied back, my own voice tinged with amusement and adrenaline. "How am I supposed to become a better pilot if I don't risk a few ships here and there. This fellow isn't going to catch me, and it keeps me from getting bored while I hope for a less lopsided match up."

Katt voiced her disapproval anyway, "You get blown up and it'll look bad on the alliance's reputation." She admonished me.

"Bahh, a half-mil Rifter? I'll admit, when she gets blown up, and the speaker's stop blaring Black Betty, I'll be sad for a moment or two, but if anyone gets pissed off that I'm out training in a ship that costs less than what we can make in two volleys of rockets, they're gonna need to harden up." I pulsed the MWD again, throwing the Rifter into a lazy barrel roll as the persistent Amarr continued to burn towards me.

Deciding to make a few safe points and dodge around a bit, I let the engine kick over into warp and left R3TRO behind, zipping around the system making bookmarks and otherwise amusing myself. Dropping back to his location every now and then just to get his hopes up.

"Warning: Incoming target lock." Aura piped up.

Glancing at the gate, and the Tempest battleship that was currently locking me from 150 km out, I grinned. "Amarr boy needed some Minmatar backup." I told Katt gleefully, kicking in the warpdrive again and zipping off to a nearby planet before the target lock could solidify.

Weighing my options, I decided to buzz the other stargates just to see what was around before heading back to base and docking up. As my warp-drive disengaged, I whistled appreciatively at the standing gate-camp, whipped the rifter around, kicking in the MWD foolishly to distance from the spied interceptor, despite its range.

"Well, new Tip of Experience to note in the journal, Katt." I voiced into my comms as my pod zipped safely away from my wreckage. "Don't turn on the MWD when fleeing a sniper gate-camp. Helps them lock you faster and makes the hit a LOT nastier, I've never seen my systems red-line that fast."

"I wonder if the ammo they spent cost more than my Rifter?" I asked her, despite her disapproval, as I flew my pod past R3TRO, offering a 'good job' in Local as I exited 0.0 and dropped back into High-sec space.

"Back to base. Still another 9 Bam a Lam's that need their wings shaken out."

Honour, Humour and Piracy.

Not exactly the Holy Trinity, but it was pleasant the other day after getting jumped while closing an unscheduled Low-Sec hole, (details to follow) to find a set of Pirates with both Yarring skill (see details for a bit of an addenda to that..) a sense of humour, and enough honour to follow through on a ransom.

We lost 2 ships and 1 pod to their gank, which included a Phobos. Fortunately for us, it took them too long to kill Leilani and her pod before moving onto Katt that by the time her Typhoon exploded, the Phobos pilot had run out of capacitor and lost his bubble, so Katt slipped away safely. Fortunately for me, I'd managed to get my cloak on before they jumped through the bubble, and despite some close calls, they didn't manage to close within 2k (<2.6k? Sure, but never less than 2k.. phew).

Tip of Experience: Cap stability is not an optional item on a HIC.

Insurance covered Leilani's loss, but Katt being in the wrong ship cost us a few million, nothing hurtful though.

Normally, this would quite upset us, as would the threat from the pirate gang to further harrange and bother us in Our Slice of Heaven, they were asking for 50M, which isn't a tremendously unpleasant amount of money to pay, which just shows at least they weren't silly. Afterall, we could just hide out in our POS and unless they felt like sieging us while we called the reinforcements, they would have a very boring afternoon.

So, to pay or not to pay? I was working (called away when they warped INTO the wormhole, of all the darned times to get someone at my door), and so Katt held the negotiations. Some of the highlights included the threat of seeing one of the pirates in a Leather Tutu, which surely evoked horror in his compatriots, who fair begged Katt to give them the money and save them from such a fate.

They made Katt laugh, and that was worth 50M to us, so we paid them to go about their business, fully expecting them to stick around and cause trouble.

Well, holy moly! They said their thank-yous and meandered out, assuring us several times of their lack of ill intent. Katt closed the wormhole up boldly, and was unmolested in the process.

So, Pirates, if you're going to ask for a ransom, keep in mind that while you've just had your entertainment and blown someone's ship up, if you're trying to get paid, it helps to get the OTHER party, the gankee if you will, in a good mood! If they'd just threatened us, we'd have kept our money and onlined a few extra defenses at the POS, they'd have spent a very boring day in a wormhole hoping we'd come out, when we'd in actuality cleared the absolute last site in there just hours before their arrival on the scene.

Their sense of humor netted them 50M, and I hope they have similar luck elsewhere.

Well, I also hope the next group they jump on a wormhole is sitting there in a gank-squad and teaches them to leave W-Space holders alone.... But I never said I was consistent.

Speaking In Local...

As I'm sure you're all aware, Wormholes have a 'delayed' local. In actual fact, they're just missing a local entirely, you just have an 'optional local', there's no-one manning the wormhole to tell the populace who has just entered system, so as long as a Pilot keeps their mouth shut, no-one is the wiser.

Well, except for the D-Scanner, and combat probes, both of which are likely being spammed every few seconds.

And cloaked scouts on wormholes...

You get the idea.

Anyway, the lack of a local channel is both a curse and a blessing. For one thing, it makes you paranoid as heck. I know my brief visit out to Syndicate was made incredibly relaxing by the presence of a Local channel. I listened on comms one day as people talked about checking local every few minutes and was agog. Seriously, checking every few minutes? If I had Local all the time, it'd be stretched as tall as it could go, and the moment my screen made a flicker in a way I wasn't expecting I'd be ramping up to speed and gone.

On the other hand, having a Local channel means the guy who drops in knows who you are, how old you are, and what mates you have with you. Intel cuts both ways.

So, when is it a good idea, in a Wormhole, to break the comms' silence and give out the intel that you're around? We've had good luck and bad with making our presence known to trespassers and passers through, and I'm torn as to which is the correct choice.

Just yesterday, a pilot (Boshack) who was passing through spoke up in local, requesting permission to pass through our space. Since I don't go out of my way to be a jerk to people who are nice to me first, I spoke up in reply, letting him know he could pass through, but that all entry points (including the one to his Wormhole) were at critical destabilization, so he should keep the ships nice and small.

Boshack acknowledged the reply, and upon exiting the system, thanked us for our consideration and convoed me for some general chatter about what we enjoyed out in W-Space.

Just this morning, I gave a 45 second warning of wormhole collapse to intruders from null sec, and upon returning to our space, surprisingly without the complete destruction of the wormhole (had enough left for them to get half their gang back through) discovered a present waiting. Katt managed to get away while they primaried my disposable battleship and tore me up, jammed all the while by their Rook pilot (I totally need to get an ECM ship).

So you can see why I'm of mixed thoughts. I've given the 45 second warning before and watched from the safety of cloak as the interlopers warped back to their territory and waved their thanks for the warning in Local, and I've been ganked.

Which is the right choice?

Right now, here's the scoreboard:
Warnings Gratefully Received: 2
Gankings: 1

A 'warm' welcome home.

Yesterday was day 1 of freedom. My 'hades week' in the Work Pod was over with, and I was freed from the confinement of my 9x9 office cell, allowed to roam the world, or, more truthfully, fasten my buttocks to the stability ball that I call a chair and let myself roam through New Eden.

Day 1 didn't go so hot.

Katt and I decided to try clearing an entire magnetometric site in Our Slice of Heaven. We've cleared the first two waves and looted the relics on a regular basis for the past months, but we've never been willing to tempt fate and face the 3 Sleepless Upholders that come at the end of a typical C3 Mag site. With some friends helping out, we figured we could give it a go.

Wave 1, cakewalk. Bring in the Analyzer ship to take care of the relics before we push on, take those back, store safely and come on back in combat ships.

Wave 2, cakewalk. Turn on our tanks, smiling happily at our full capacitors as we ready the remote rep.

Wave 3, manageable. 2 Battleships, not really that big a deal, we were handling it fine and starting to get into a groove when it happened. Onyx and Tengu drop out of warp on top of us, and the bubble goes up.

"Oh crap."

Then the Rokh, Drake and Drake arrive inside the edge of the warp bubble.

"Double crap."

In what must have been a relatively swift and skilled use of combat scanner probes, our ships were reduced from 'hey, we got this!' to imminent death. I scattered for one edge, trying to draw them off while Katt and our corpmates headed the other direction. They seemed intent on destroying her Typhoon, but given that, even at 20km out, my Scimitar's 4 Medium Shield Transporter's were well within range, they weren't having a great time with that.

Their own tanks held up under massed drone-fire without much of a scratch, our ships being outfit for the long-haul of PvE combat, not for burst dps.

They switched targets and came after my Scimitar, but once they had a standard point on me, their Onyx paced the battleships to destroy any hopes of escape. As it was, webbing kept me from getting to the edge before my shields finally (after more than a minute of fire) crumbled. As expected, my pod was sure to follow.

This process was repeated, minus my shield transporting, upon all 3 of the others. I don't have KB links, as P2AS doesn't have a Killboard at this time.

So, what to do when 4 of you are stuck out in Empire? Run for the entrance!

It was closed.

Fortunately, we had other corpmates who had not been deployed and destroyed in the battle of Magnetometric pass. New entrance found.

11 Jumps of low-sec.

Sigh.

Noob-ship fleet action! We made it back without incident, hopped in new ships and converged upon the Wormhole that had permitted the Brotherhood of Starbridge to invade our territory. While we were gone, they had gone to work running every last one of our unfinished sites. Part-way through the wormhole collapsing process, they converged on the wormhole themselves, collapsing it with Leilani on the wrong side, less than 2km from another of their ships.

You guessed it, second BS loss of the day for the alt.

Got the pod 'out' and warped around their system for a while, chatting at their english-speaking comrades, giving them props for their very well executed gank. Eventually I self-destructed and ran my way back into the hole through the previously scanned entrance.

Meanwhile, we had the Tengu (Cov-ops fit), Rokh, and a Heron sitting inside our wormhole. Katt started collapsing the entrance to at least limit their stay, and they camped her outside. She managed to just narrowly escape their clutches and cloak-up in the low-sec system and we outwaited them, Minuit sitting off the gate in a Stealth Bomber, eating popcorn while I watched them hope she would be dumb enough to jump back into their grasp.

We proved to be the more patient group, and when they left, with a parting shot of 'bu))' that I'm not sure I understand, but took to be a sign of great frustration and sadness, we finished collapsing the wormhole and replacing our losses.

All in all, a very expensive day for Katt and I, and P2AS, but, we later went out on a loot-selling run, and recouped pretty much the entire cost of the days adventure, and a months fuel.

Could be worse.

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...

Flash Fiction: Sensor Boosters

Ecliptic Rift's Flash Fiction Friday 5

Grinding her teeth in irritation, Minuit manually reactivated the safety protocols that kept her 200mm autocannons, warp disruptor and web scrambler from melting themselves into so much slag as she watched the Crow's warp-drive kick in and propel the enemy pilot out of range. She apologized profusely to the friendly pilot who had received her incoming fire due to an overview malfunction.

"There's no other skill-book I can implant to speed up locking time, is there?" She asked over comms, to the snickering replies of her squad-mates.

"That's it, 'The Dirk' is getting a sensor booster."

The Adventure Continues...

As promised, here's the remainder of the story.

Leilani was stuck in W-Space. Fortunately, we'd taken the precaution of fitting her ship, not one we usually used for wormhole popping, with a scan-probe launcher and a prototype cloaking device. Any time you're leaving your wormhole for anything but known space, a core-probe launcher is not a luxury item, but a necessity. The prototype cloaking device isn't technically a 'necessity' but if you don't fit one, then while you're scanning things down you have to also manage long warps between safe-points so that you never stop moving.

Having both those items, I warped off into space, created a safe-point, dropped probes at a planet, warped back to my safe-spot and hunkered down in cloak for some scanning.

I hate scanning down other people's wormholes that I'm not going to do anything with.

Seriously, it's kind of depressing to see dozens of signatures and know that all you want is a bloody exit to K-Space.

Some time later, I found the only exits in system were to other wormholes. Great. 1 Class 4+, 1 Class 3. Statistically, the lower the class of the wormhole, the greater its chance of a good exit. Class 3 it is.

I popped through, and held cloak as someone flew past me in a Viator.... Yeah, honest to gosh.

Then I got to start scanning again. Sigh.

The rest of the process was fairly uneventful, scan, scan, scan some more, find an exit to low-sec, pop through to see if it's worth it, do a happy-dance. Right next door to high-sec, no-one in system, and the high-sec system in question is my Empire home-base. You really can't get much better service than that. Especially not when Our Slice of Heaven has a destabilized wormhole not 8 jumps away, with hours left on it's timer.

Leilani's adventure was far less impressive and exciting than Minuit's, but it was more stressful, by and large because I almost never have both of my characters out of the hole at the same time and fate had forced it upon me. The other folk in our wormhole took care of matters beautifully, of course, led by Kattra in destabilizing the remaining holes, and soon enough everyone was back where they belonged.

That night, given my earlier 'success', I decided it was time to install Minuit's Jump-Clone out in ORDR's portion of 0.0. This blog-post needed something a bit more exciting than scanning, after all!

Picking up my interceptor, The Dirk, I shot off like a rocket into the black, 4700mps is a beautiful thing, and I enjoyed every minute of my 16 jumps through low and null sec space. I had been hearing the horror stories of my fellow pilots throughout the week previous about gate-camps and bubbles and the like, so I was fully intent upon my navigation, warping to celestials to avoid Stargate-to-Stargate drag bubbles, scanning in a tight radius or angle to check for people just off grid, or waiting at the end of a long warp.

Not a soul. That's right, I didn't see a single neutral or hostile target the entire way down. I'll admit I was a little disappointed, I docked up, set my medical clone for future use and went to check out our constellation and set up some safe-spots, insta-warps and off-grid locations for various tasks. I discovered that, yes, I can outrun the local rat population without too many worries, and that it was downright RELAXING out here in 0.0.

That's right, 0.0 is relaxing compared to WH space. Every time I clicked my D-Scan out in 0.0, I snickered to myself at the habit, because a glance at local showed everything was clear.

In case you didn't catch it previously, ORDR is settling Syndicate space for the moment. We're excited about the incoming goon targets just like the rest of Syndicate, but we're not actually planning on sticking around in NPC space forever. REAL 0.0 is just too tempting. IT itself (the corp, not BoB) has had a long history in 0.0 space, and the old-timers want to get back to their roots, while the young-bloods like myself just want to see what all the fuss is about. We're currently looking for some partners in this grand endeavor.

So, Syndicate space has its own unique challenges, like the ability for all and sundry to dock up at 'our' stations.

We discourage this practice wherever possible, and during my brief stay yesterday I managed to join in the hunt for an interceptor. Never an easy task. We had him on the run in our home-system, so I ducked next door to sit on gate, MWD burning, point, scram, ewar, all overheated and primed for a target.

Unfortunately, when the interceptor, predictably, jumped through to me, so did one of our other pilots, and my time in WH space showed. I was on the wrong overview tab.

That's right, I locked the heck out of my pal, and pinned him down like nobodies business, while the interceptor ran like he had 5 pilots on his tail.

Oh, that's right, he did.

Once he reached the edges of our borders, we let it go and drew back into our territory. I apologized profusely to my fellow pilot, and gang, and reset my overview settings, adjusting my PvP and a few other tabs settings while I was at it to clean the overview up a bit.

So, to summarize; 0.0 seems like a very relaxing place to be, with the edge of excitement looming on the horizon. I'm looking forward to getting more time out there.

Fly straight, and keep your E-War on the enemy!

An Unintentional Adventure

So this morning has been a little crazy in Our Slice of Heaven.

Katt and I logged in, frowning grimly when we realized someone had come into our wormhole. (For those of you who don't live in WH space, you may not know that WH systems do not 'load' onto the server unless someone is inside. Therefore, if you log in W-Space you'll get a 'this system is still loading, please try again soon' message if you're the first person after downtime to try and enter).

We immediately hopped into our battleships and scanners, calling on additional ships to ensure a nice smooth popping of the offending wormholes.

I found the problem. Our usual exit was still weak and in place, as expected, but we had another opening into 0.0 and someone had obviously poked their nose in.

So we started the not-so-exciting process of weakening the wormhole. Our calculations were running smooth, until I stepped through for the last jump.

The sucking sound that a wormhole makes when it collapses around you is usually a bit exhilerating. When it drops you in Q0OH-V, the butt end of no-where, 30-odd jumps from Empire, in a Typhoon sporting 7 reinforced steel 1600mm's, it's not really all that awesome.

Nope, really not.

So hey, what the heck, I buy these things knowing they're likely to end up on the wrong end of a blaster eventually, I set destination for Keberz and start warping.

20 or so rather boring jumps go by, and I'm starting to wonder if I have a chance of ACTUALLY making it out alive... Nawww....

So I arrive at the gate into GE-8JV to see a Crusader and another sitting on gate. My odds of survival plumet, but I warp through immediately on landing, hoping that the Crusader pilot is a little slow. When my systems come back online in GE, I see a Stiletto. "Ok, I'm toast."

I'm locked up faster than a dog with rabies. I let loose the local message I had prepared 8 or 9 systems earlier, explaining that I was just trying to make it back to Empire, and 'gank if you must, but I'd LOVE a free pass *hopeful smile*'.

I was informed that I could get back to Empire really fast if I warped to the local station.

I played around with my drones a bit while they chewed on my shield-tank. Drove off the nemesis that was torping me and bombing my poor drones. I DID forget to use the 3 guns on my ship, cos I was pretty certain of my demise and having a nice chat with the boys who were doing the demising.

They got through shields and I thanked em for a good fight and asked their corps, offering a mention on my Blog for their hard work... The 7 x 1600mm plates held out longer than I thought they would, under the circumstances. I warped my pod out before the two interceptors could catch it, told em all to 'Fly Straight' and continued on my merry way.

I don't think they tried to follow, though I kept my warping as fast as I could to avoid any hassles. I ducked to a planet to avoid the drag bubbles on the Keberz gate and slipped back into High-Sec, kissing space-dust and thinking about what a journey it had been.

Little did I know that adventure number 2 was about to start...

Another wormhole popped up, and in the process of damaging it, our alt, Leilani, got stuck in a Class 4 Wormhole... *sigh*

But you can read about that tomorrow...

Fly Straight!

Homehole Advantage

We had several uninvited visitors in 'Our Slice of Heaven' today, and it was nice to be able to settle back into our 'Homehole Advantage'. For instance, our ships, pvp and otherwise, are set up for the anomaly within our wormhole.

Our enemies aren't.

We have already scanned down every signature and can warp, cloaked or otherwise, to wherever our enemies are without deploying scan probes and warning our prey.

Our enemies can't.

We know where our various sites are in relation to each other and know when things will appear on D-Scan and when they won't.

Our enemies don't.
Our POS provides not only a safe haven when not enough corp-mates are online to handle an incoming threat (rare) but also gives us a quick pit-stop in the event a battle doesn't go our way. If our enemies don't catch our pods, they can be sure we'll be back with another ship before they can say 'but-my-armor-repairer-isn't-done-yet-you-tool'.

Homehole Advantage is a wonderful thing to have.

Fly Straight, but not into MY home.

Best Gate Camp Ever (But me on the wrong end of it...)

So yesterday was a pretty poor day for me.

I came out of the wormhole (appropriately destabilized) in Gesh, to help a corpmate move some ships. Flying along through low-sec in a Cheetah with cov-ops cloak is rarely stressful, so I wasn't paying as much attention as I should.

Turns out I paid WAY less attention than I should, and got popped on a gate that I was just sitting at like a moron while reading my blogs. *blush*

Suffice to say, I'm annoyed with myself, not with the pirates. I know better.

So I travel on, pick up a shuttle and keep moving. I help my friend (albeit after like 40 jumps because the target wormhole closed and he had to reroute me...) and head back to base in my handy-dandy shuttle. Not as awesome as a Cheetah, but seriously, it's a pretty safe way to fly.

I drop into Udianoor in my shuttle and see a rather healthy gate camp, complete with a half-dozen wrecks. "Woah... that's not so good.." I think to myself as I take a breath and hit the warp button. My ship hurtles forward, cutting a tight corner to align and zips into warp. I let the breath out, knowing that there's almost no chance of being locked, destroyed, locked again, and podded, before I could get through the stargate and be on my way.

I drop out of warp, and there goes my shields, and armor, and structure. I'm in my pod.. Holy cow, spam the jump button! There goes my shields, armor, structure. I'm waking up in a new clone.

I'm up on my feet, staring at the screen, opening up my combat log to try and work out what the heck just happened.

Smartbomb gate-camp.

The lack of locking suddenly makes sense, my poor shuttle and implant-laden (just +3's, nothing to cry about) pod fell victim to a well laid trap involving several smartbombing ships arrayed around both entrance and exit of the system.

My hat, were I wearing one, would be off to MasterMental over at Cosmic Encounter, a well laid trap indeed. Interestingly, Dotlan shows just how successful they were, as Udianoor peaked at over 120 kills within a 6 hour span.

Suffice to say a bad day. Fortunately, I wasn't making my "Loot Run", which I performed today without incident. I can safely say I'm ok with losing some +3's, a Cheetah and Minmatar Shuttle, when comparing it to the over 1Billion ISK in assets I moved and sold today.

Fly straight, unless there's a smartbomb!

EVE Blog Banter #14

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

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledgling mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

Speaking as I often do for both myself, my alt, and my wife, here are our various goals (or inklings of goals, since we're somewhat undecided in some cases..) for 2010.

Minuit Soleil:
As my primary combat pilot, and all around 'main', I've got significant goals in terms of experiences.

Yesterday kicked that party off with my first FCing gig and I've got another scheduled soon. I want to get more experience as both a PvP pilot and FC, so that's definitely a major goal.

I want to see my wallet grow. The past few months have been very profitable, and despite a renewed interest in PvP, I want to continue to grow my wallet. By the end of 2010, I'd like to have 10 billion or more in our combined wallet.

Skill wise, I want to finish off the semi-long-term skills that have been plaguing the edges. Support skills that take several weeks each just to get that last bit of an edge. I also want to increase my training in Battleship sized weaponry and ships, so that hopefully I can give thought to Capital ships in 2011.

Leilani Belle:
As a newer character, Leilani's got a lot more skills to catch up on than Minuit. I'd like to see all the guns she can fire in their Tech II variant, as well as her drone skills optimized to their full potential. That will be her focus for most of the year, though sneaking her into a few specialized ships is definitely something I'm looking at.

KattraStarr:
Katt's not certain on her goals. This is nothing new, we often come up with what we're going to do next for her on the fly. Her primary goal, however, is to stay in Wormhole space and be as self-sufficient as possible! She's got a very close eye on our combined wallet, and has begun our foray into T3 production to help us reach our ISK goals.

Efficiency is always Katt's biggest motivator, so she's looking for newer and faster ways to clear sites with the skill set available to us (curse us all for not going Caldari!) to keep the ISK flowing.

And that's a wrap!

Fly straight, they'll never expect it.


Other Participants in Blog Banter #14:
A Merry Life and a Short One
A Mule in Eve
Life in Low Sec
My God, it's Full of Stars
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
Roc's Ramblings
Flashfresh The Pirate
Adventures in Mission Running
A Pirate's Life for Me!
Rettic's Log
CrazyKinux's Musings
Yarrbear Tales
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility
Kane Rizzel - a Pirates Perspective
K162 Space
Deafplasma's Eve Musings

Trial By Fire...

As I overloaded my afterburner and shrieked back towards the gate I had just come through, I couldn't help but think. "Well, now you've done it, you've gone and got them all screwed."

We had led some few members of Agony Unleashed on a bit of a merry chase through our usual stomping grounds, and in an effort to find a more plausible target for our small, six man fleet of frigates, we dropped into a dead-end system and swarmed upon the asteroid belts.

Our prey proved elusive, however, undoubtedly mooring up at one of the POS in system. Disappointed, but with no signs of the Agony crew, who we had run end-routes around several times, we headed back to the gate.

I jumped through first to get the lay of the land, and that's when the above thought landed in my head. A Drake, a Tengu and a Phobos, bubble deployed. Well, that doesn't sound too healthy.

My afterburner kicked in mightily to slap me back into a tight orbit on the gate as the jump system went to work, and I got back into our possible grave without a scratch. There was no answering flare from the gate to show pursuit, but we gave a bit of distance anyway.

After stewing and formulating our plan for a bit, we repeated the process, keeping everyone close to the gate while I went through to attempt to draw either their Phobos (unlikely, but we can dream) or their dps (more likely) into jumping through...

Turns out luck was very much on our side, the Phobos had warped away (briefly, he joined the following crew) and so the rest of the crew followed through and we zipped out of our dead-end spoke and back into open territory.

Our merry chase continued from there and we eventually lost our hangers-on, moving out of their hunting grounds and heading what I had arbitrarily declared 'north'. Skimming past another gate-camp, we eluded another set of pursuers with a bit too much firepower for our limited gang to handle and ended up sitting in wait on a relatively well travelled piece of the pipe.

Enter our new friend the Taranis. And his buddy, Taranis. And his buddy, Hurricane.

We dodged them at a gate, then held position while the two Taranis cruised in, and smiled when the first one jumped ahead of us. Rounding on the remaining Taranis, while aiming ECM at the Hurricane as it dropped out of warp, we demolished him swiftly. The second Taranis returned at this point, and it was then my inexperience showed. Knowing the difficulty we would have in disengaging, I called the Hurricane as primary, in hopes of getting our frigate sized hulls inside his guns, using tracking disruptors and high angular velocity to keep him at bay. This plan was proven ineffective as the Taranis, by far the easier target with our squad makeup, tore into our like-sized ships.

Our pods streamed for the far corners of the system before beating a hasty retreat. Pilot chatter was up-beat, as despite our ship-losses, we warped away having dropped a T2 interceptor with a gang of cheap frigates.

Three of us managed to stay on for another try. A much shorter roam with two frigates and my Hurricane battlecruiser, it ended in fire, our foolish plan to attack a lone bait-drake on a gate netting us a less than pleasant 'conversation' with a total of three drakes and two scimitar logistics. Yes, I hear you all saying 'OUCH' from back in your pods.

We called it a day on that note, and all in all, fun was had. I have another op scheduled soon. Cruiser's and below this time... Should be fun!

Fly straight, they'll never expect it!

Night before nerves..

In EVE, it's officially clocked over to 01/11/10. I'm an ITer of 2 years. In 14 hours, I'll be forming up a squad of ITer's and our allies and taking them out into the depths of space.

I've read a lot of guides, listened attentively to those with more experience than I, and prepared myself as much as possible. When the time comes, I realize I'm not allowed to express my doubts, or pander to my inexperience. Tonight is my night to express my nerves and to fret about what tomorrow will bring.

My monitor is piling up with sticky notes of important items. My overview has been adjusted countless times and I've familiarized myself with the numerous options available to a fleet-commander in the fleet interface.

So, this is me, signing off on my nerves, frets and worries. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up and take charge of however small or large a fleet is available to me. Wish me luck tonight, because tomorrow, I won't need it.

Preparation...

A quote about being prepared, 'It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.' by Howard Ruff.

Ejected into my 'work capsule' today, by which I mean the 9x9 box that I work from every week on Thursday and Friday, I have decided (at the wife's brilliant suggestion, no less) to work on being as prepared as I can be for my first FCing gig this upcoming Monday.

Interestingly enough, 01/11/10 will also mark my 2 year anniversary as a member of Imperium Technologies. I'm proud to fly with the [IT] ticker, and wish I could still say I'm from IT without BoB's fame causing people to throw ??'s in my chat.

That said, figuring one weakness I could address while stuck in my Pod and unable to access a REAL computer was ship-recognition, I attacked Google with some glee. What should turn up but this post by a fellow blogger over at k162 Space. He offered the delightful links to a random ship-quiz and a set of helpful flash-cards that I am going to pour some time into today.

Looking for some FCing guides, I found a few nuggets of assistance in the guides section of 00sage00's blog, Yarrbear Tales. Also, the FCing Guide (For pirates) over at EVE Newb was very helpful, though I'll not be applying that information in low-sec as IT does not begin aggressions in Empire space, low-sec or otherwise.

Preparations continue...

Biting the Bullet

Today I sent off a Corporation wide mail informing people that I would be FCing an op in the near future.

This was preceded by a relatively lengthy conversation with one of our directors, as well as a conversation with Katt as to what time was both suitable to the corp, agreeable to her, and in any way practical.

Given that my experience as an FC has heretofore consisted of going out in a pair of Rifters with Katt and failing to find a fight, I'm a bit nervous.

Actually, I'm a lot nervous. I suspect that between today and the op I will worriedly be pouring over different notes and charts and the like and will end up needing whatever I did NOT prepare.

I will have my first opportunity to utilize the Eve Maps that Katt bought me for Christmas, and I've already got a few routes in mind. We'll be flying nice inexpensive ships, as a nod to my inexperience, but I'd still like for everyone to be able to have a good time and maybe, just maybe, score a kill or two.

More on my preparations as I do them...