Snowed In!!

So I live in Ohio, and we're getting a little bit of snow. I woke up today to this:

Quick Overviews

With Retribution here and a few weeks to have fun messing with ships and fittings, I really like the rebalanced cruisers, especially the t1 logi's. As Jester point out for a few fittings, the Arbitrator and Omen are both pretty awesome ships, more than they used to be. I hate the safety switch, but the timers and sounds when things are expired or running low are handy for when I'm tabbed out. Overall, a good expansion, IMO.

And Christmas presents. This year, they are mostly just collectible items, with a faction skinned scanning ship for each race. I got the Imicus and Magnate versions for my two characters, along with a pair of Genolution implants between both of them. Not bad, but all my clones already have genolution implants, and I have a stash ready for when I lose my pod again. So, one more set, yay! I will probably end up stashing the ships away until they either increase in prices and sell, or just keep forever.

Overall, I feel the gifts this year really suck. Last year, we had options of fuel block blueprints, ammo, ships, skill books and a few other items. Even a remap was an option. Speaking of remap, I was planning on that remap. Kind of like a Christmas bonus check that never came, I'm pretty pissed off about it. I remapped in September when it became available to train 3 or 4 months of Leadership skills, planning to use this years remap to change to Perc/Will for the next year or two training gunnery, missiles, and spaceship command skills. Doesn't seem like its happening yet, even after being told "No, there is nothing we can do for you" through the petition system.

Consider me the Scrooge or Grinch this year. Bah, humbug!

Lots of Angry People

And I mean this literally: I stole the corp. I was promoted to director, as I think I may have mentioned before. Well, the prior, mostly inactive CEO had not take at least 51% of the shares owned by the corp. So I took them all. After a bit of boredom due to neutral ratters, I (along with most of the corp) voted to make me the new CEO. Of course, this whole thing has been developing for awhile now, with me working on building my awesome charisma skills.

Goings Ons

Been a bit since last post, but that's nothing new to my blog; no matter how much I try to change it. Anyhow, just a small update on the latest and greatest events of my corp and alliance.

Phantasm vs Vengeance

So there I was....Sitting in Heild, with no more combat ships available in the station. I was almost done clearing out my stash in Heild, except my corpse cooler. I havent decided what Im gonna do with that thing. Pulling up my assets window, I check nearby systems for ships....Anathema, Bestower, unfit punisher. And then...There it was; like a shining light at the end of the tunnel.

The Phantasm.

The Return of r1fta!

Memories of Heild haunt my dreams. Going on a roam once in awhile with several rebels, or shooting them as I happened to do infrequently, or even just sitting in Pinky Pie's Bar sharing stories of combat. All good times. And now, I jump cloned back to Heild for some fights with Inappropriate Content, Naughty Cargo and Tavisturus. Good times indeed!

ISK Comparison, Minus the Charts

Things have been kinda busy for me, both IRL and in New Eden. As some may or may not know, Ive moved out to nullsec. I joined Suicides-R-Us [DIII]. Interesting corp name I thought to myself when the recruiter contacted me. Anyhow, Ive been busy. I was reading over on Mabrick's Mumblings his accounting thing for the last two months. I didnt bother messing with his images that were difficult to read because I was too lazy to do the extra clicks to read them. However, at the end, his two month profit for a c3 wormhole was kinda shocking to me. Almost 800 million ISK he's made. In two months. To me, that isnt alot, but then again, Ive never lived in a wormhole.

Leadership

What does it mean to be a leader? Or more specifically, what do you look for in a leader? What qualities do you look for in a person that makes you want to follow through thick and thin? Loyalty, why are you loyal to a person?

What Makes Home "HOME"??

The above question comes from a blog banter a month or two ago, maybe more, about where and why people choose to call a specific place home. I dont remember if I wrote a post of my own about it or if I even commented on it. Yet like many of my posts, Im too lazy to actually check myself.

So what is home to me? It where I store all my things. Its where I go to relax and cool off, usually defending from invaders. For almost a year, Ive made my home in Heild. Going on vacations to Eugales or forgetting things in the storage warehouses in Amarr space dont really make those places my home. Home is where your heart is and my home is and will probally always be Heild, Planet X, Pator Tech School station. As far as a corporation being home? I feel this is where I came into my own in the world of New Eden. I definately grew and learned alot while here with the Black Rebel Rifter Club. Its good to know that my quarters with them will always be available. The Rebels will always be home to me.

Arbitrator vs Stabber

Logging in, I was rather bored. I was sorting through my inventory and finding stuff that I didnt need or had extras of that I could sell for a quick blink of my wallet. Sard Caid comes in and asks for a 1v1 frig fight, so I offer myself up.

Landing in the plaex at 30km, I approach. As Im getting situated with range, a Russian wartarget lands in a harpy in the plex as well and begins shooting me, along with Sard. Needless to say, it wasnt much of a fight and my Punisher was quickly destroyed. I warped the pod out, with the Russian not even attacking Sard at first. I soon get a convo from Sard saying something about how he thought the additional guy was part of my alliance. After a quick update on how r1der accepts and honors all 1v1's, I made Sard feel like an ass for thinking Id broken our 1v1. At which point, he pointed the Russian and let me know to come back if I had a frigate.

Retribution: WTF?

So I see all this doom and gloom about the new exspansion. Lots of people are pissed off about it. But me? I think its going to be pretty cool. I look forward to the changes to cruisers, as Ive been wanting to upgrade to medium ships for awhile now, and what better time to do so than when they get buffed, eh?

Korvus the Fleet Leader

So I had a remap recently, back in September actually. I remapped to train the Leadership skills with the intent of using the Christmas remap to switch to Perc/Will for more gunnery, missile and ship training in January or Feb or whenever I get tired of training leadership skills. The reason for this training is that Id like to lead fleets on a regular basis. Whether or not Im gonna be good at this is up for debate, but I feel Id be a pretty good fleet commander. Plus its fun when I get to take the blame for blowing us up or getting credit for an awesome roam. Take the good with the bad I spose. Anyhow, Ive been leading a fleet here and there with the newbies in r1der lately.

A Return to....What?

Interestingly enough, a little bit. Its been roughly 60 days since my last post on here. Not much has changed in my playtimes, still on and off. I let my killboard lapse, because tbh, it was down for like 2 weeks or something. Well, that and the fact it was mostly red for the last two months with only one or two green lines in that time. As far as blogging, Ive been slacking both on this one and the group one for r1fta. Its not because of lack of things to write about, I did make a few narrow escapes; but I just havent had the motivation to write.

With a few exceptions, several of the blogs I enjoy reading havent posted in awhile either, for one reason or another. One of the features of the blog that I never utilized before was the scheduled posting thing. I figured it out that I can write posts and then schedule them to post later. This is cool because now I can write and set it without worrying about logging in on that day to make a post. Pretty helpful and I can write as much or as little as pleases my fancy for things. Which is cool to me, because I might make use of it now.

Anyhow, plans for this blog include things such as trying out the Arbitrator Plan, similar to the Flight of Dragons blog. I really enjoyed his Punisher Plan and wish he'd go back to posting regularly, but that whole RL thing is a distracting thing once in awhile. Id also like to toss in a few RP stories here and there. Not neccassarily about fights Ive had or encounters Ive been in, just a bit of fan fiction and story on my characters. Oh right, I do have more characters... Ill make a separate post for that info, as it got long winded when I was typing it out.

So yeah, plans for this here blog of mine:
Arbitrator Plan
Fan Fiction type tales of Korvus
Stories of Null Sec Alt Adventures

I think with these three things, I will have plenty to write about and continually be motivated to write about. We'll see how it progesses!

Its a Pirates Life for Me!

And us pirates, we like our stories. Usually told through voice, passed on from one pirate to the next, our stories grow to legends and eventually myths. Fables of the great Miura Bull and his cult following of Rebels, for example.

More so than most, the Black Rebel Rifter Club has many accomplished "warrior poets" as you will. Amoung the regular pirate crews of New Eden, you will find many exciting and storied tales of killing, fighting, sex, drugs, whiskey, and of course, Rifters; a great many originating from this very Club.

Recently, Miura Bull was approached by a mysterious "Fighter X". I dont know the details of the details, but suffice to say that a group of eight were chosen to tell their stories. Some of them arent the greatest pilots of r1fta, but they hold the legends close to heart and rejoice in the tellings of the Club.

So without further ado, I give to you the Black Rebel Rifter Club's collaborative effort at recording this pirate corporations history and stories:

The Fighter at the Gates of Hell

Vengeance vs Ishkur

Ive been away from my blog for almost six weeks. I have done almost nothing in this time away productive. My PI has fallen behind, Ive let one account laspe just cuz I didnt feel like keeping up with it, and I lost almost my entire isk supply gambling. I have issues, I know! Anyhow, I log in once in awhile to find a quick fight or screw around working to bring my sec status back up; the latter of which isnt doing much of moving up since I recently hit -9.0. Im pretty much a career pirate at this point and unlikely that I will ever spend the time needed to "fix" this. Anyhow, enough with the boring stuff, on to the fight!

AFB: Workloads Increasing

Figured Id toss out a quick note. Not gonna be posting anything for awhile. Real life and work and all that fun stuff of working to live.

Losses and More Losses

Here are some big losses I recently had; Not in the mood to post the few wins I did have.

After roaming around in my Merlin with Peri's weekly roam and grabbing a couple of pretty ships, I was disappointed that I didnt lose the ship. Rushing to setup my Merlin, I didnt notice I put on a thermic rigging for Armor, instead of Shields. Woopsy. Anyhow, I rushed into a fight and my first Merlin went boom against a Rifter!

I dont really remember how this fight went down. I think there was a call about some big ships around Heild, so I said fuck it and brought out my Legion. Being that the ships we were going to be fighting were BS's, I chose to not use a web; I went full on tracking disruption. Looking back, I should have fit a prop mod to help the TDs do their job, but I didnt. I also drpped all of my normal faction shinies, because I knew in my gut that the chances of losing my ship in this battle was extremely high. Again, hindsight is a bitch, and I think had I kept my bling, I may have been able to tank the stuff longer.

Eventually though, we would have succumbed because the outgoing dps from our small fleet was not enough to actually hurt the BS's. My Legion lasted quite a long time under fire, Im thinking due to the weak hits that were coming in from the Abaddon. However, once the Typhoon focused is fire on me as well, I was slowly slipping behind in damage race. When I noticed that the Abaddon was able to rep my dps easily, I switched fire to the Typhoon. When I popped, he was at 50-70% armor. I think had I shot the phoon first, with all 3 td's instead of two, we would have taken him out first. Oh well, live and learn.

My next loss was against a few other people who joined in near the end of my Legion loss. The second Merlin was trying to scoop loots I think as I was promptly shot and chased off field in my pod. At least the rigs on this one were right....

And finally, I lost another Vengeance this time, to Wensley of all people in his Thrasher. I had just woken up and saw him lecturinng the E-UNI guys in Heild. I offered up a 1v1 and it was accepted; tossed a fleet inv and undocked. Warped to him, but he was going like 2km/s or so and wasnt letting me closer than 25km. Well, I go to hit my prop mod, but I didnt have one fit! I had forgotten to drop one of my dual webs for an mwd. Woopsy. So I warped back to station to refit and caught some flak from Wensley being cowardly and other such things. I quickly refit and explained in reply to his taunts that I had no prop mod, couldnt catch him, so had to fix that problem. Apparently he thought I was part of EUNI, which I promptly corrected him on.

Anyhow, returning to the fight, I was easily able to catch Wensley now that I could go similar speeds. I OH'd my mwd to catch him with an OH'd web, which was then caught in an OH'd scram! Luckily, I only needed to OH my mids for one cycle. Launchers OH'd and shooting, I was missing him alot, he was just at the cusp of my rocket range, so I hit approach. This was a terrible mistake and he chewed through my armor like a hot knife to butter. I was taken totally by surprise by the amount of dps output on this thrasher; I wasnt even aligned out and Im sure he could have caught my pod had he wanted it. GF's were exchanged and I reshipped with my ctype nos's that had arrived while I was out fighting!

Although these losses had many mistakes by me, either underestimating my opponents or just being wrong, all of them were fun to lose.

Fleeting Chains of Events

During this time, Ive been slowly taking out my Legion for more and more fights. The targets are just presenting themselves, and I dont fly battlecruisers, so the most logical sized ship to use is a cruiser. Works for me. I join up in a fleet with Aliak and our new recruit, Ivan. I think Miss Carry joined as well, but was a jump or two over; or just missed the first engagement, Im not sure. Cargo probed out a plex for us to run and then he logged off, but we didnt get any loot from the plex. Stupid PvE junk.

So I fit up my Legion for probing now because Im too lazy to buy and fit a probing Anathema and no one else had probing ships available. I need to work on probing anyways. So Im probing ships and this group keeps moving around, cant get a lock on them. Moving from my sun safe, I move to a belt safe, while trying to get a lock with the probes. And soon, I dont need a lock; they land in the belt with me. They stay in each location for a minute or so, long enough for me to get a lock but gone by the time I land where they should be. But since they landed, I can call in the fleet to land on 0 in the belt. As they are midwarp, I uncloak and warp as well to 0, with us all landing around the same moment.

Locking down the Arbitrator first, due to the drones and other nasties possible from it, we must make it the primary. With everyone else using their webs and scrams on him, I toss my dual webs and scram on the Rupture that I am 3km from. This works out well, because the Arbi is only 8km from me, well within my range to hit with HAMs. After a moment, the Amarr cruiser explodes. With the drone and ewar threat downed, Ruppy was called primary. I made an attempt to snatch the Cheetah that was on field as well, but he was well out of my range to grab at 50km out. With dual webs and scram on the Rupture and me orbiting at 6500, he wasnt going anywhere. With all firepower focused on him as well as my awesome Legion armor tank, the Rupture went boom as well.

Calling to grab the pod, we were so close, I had only a second left on my countdown, we still missed the pods of both pilots and the cheetah got away. Not bad kills, imo, but Im not sure what the Rupture pilot was thinking with having literally zero tank. Was he thinking a fit similar to a nanocane perhaps? I dont know, I dont fly Minmatar ships. Either way, we offered GF's in local, but I dont remember if they were returned. Im gonna give beenfit of doubt and go with yes they were.

Looting and waiting out GCC, Miss Carry either joined the fleet at this moment or finally said something in corp/fleet chat. I dunno, I was tabbing out alot right now. Anyhow, after a few minutes, before GCC was even gone, a Proteus showed up on scan. I quickly located him with dscan/probes and got a warp-in for the fleet.

Duel webs and Scram put on the Proteus allowed me to pretty much have 100% range dictation from the start of the fight. He tried to run away, OH'ing his AB, but it burnt out a little while after the rest of the fleet arrived. I was extremely concerned that this solo proteus pilot had some friends nearby and was expecting them to come to his rescue quickly, resulting in me losing my legion. With these thoughts, the rest of my fleet landed and applied their dps.

When they landed, I did a quick check info on the proteus to find the best ammo to shoot at him. I already had Nova(explosive) loaded, and from the resist profile, looked to be the right kind of ammo to shoot. Just hopefully, he didnt plug his hole. By now, he was 75% armor, but I know Gallente hulls; they have large amounts of structure. I was hitting him for decent amounts of damage as well as the other guys adding their dps in, we broke through his armor at a decent pace, but I still had a fear of his friends coming in. I really love this fear, gets the adrenaline going. 20% armor.

My armor tank is holding up well, but now Aliak lost his rupture! He got his pod out and reshipped to a Cane super quick. He was back on field when the Proteus was 50% or so structure, which with the cane on field now tossing its dps on it, was quickly reduced to zero.

Not a bad kill, and his friends never showed up. I was not disappointed with my Legions dps output, it was as expected; slow. However, I feel I can drop some tankage and add in a BCS maybe. The dual webs definately aided my missiles in doing full damage against the other strategic cruiser. Not a bad half hour or so of late night fun times in Heild!

Reaper vs Legion

Thats right ladies and gents, the Minmatar rookie ship vs a damn Legion!

Well, sort of. I had my jita clone in perimeter and needed to pick up a skill book in jita that wasnt available where I was. There was some others a few jumps out, but meh, I needed to get back to 4-4 for some contract setup stuff anyways. I also wanted to see if the rookie ship would be able to evade the navies that would undoubtedly be chasing my flashy red ass.

I made it all the way to the station, in my reaper nonetheless. I landed and Scotty said I was getting docked in. Then, my ship exploded. Well fuck me! I spam the dock button and get the session changing timer error thingy. Then, Im not in space anymore and Ive returned home to Heild. Definately not where I want to be. Here would be the result of that loss....

Now, here's where it gets fuzzy for me. Ive always thought if you killed a pod in highsec, concord would get you and you would take a sec status hit for such actions. Its why flashy reds fly around high sec in their pods, they're still "safe". Did these rules get changed? If not, the Legion guy took an exspensive suicide for a shiny killmail like the one I gave. If you can shoot flashy pods and not suffer the consequences of suicide ganking, I didnt know this and these specific mechanics are news to me.

These rules must be news to other people too, because as I write this, I am moving my empty pod from Heild to Amarr, sitting at each and every gate that has a combat ship near it to see if anyone will pop my flashy pod. So far, no one has, and Im only a few jumps from Amarr now.

Im not mad bout this loss, but I am irritated by it that I didnt dock when I should have. Ive only given up 1 pod loss related to combat since Ive had this character and this loss bothers me since it wasnt even combat, just due to some ganker. Ill probally rebuy my +5 implants, but I wont make the mistake of going to Perimeter and back to Jita again. =P

Vengeance, Firetail, & Punisher vs Firetail, Thrasher, Kitsune

Sitting in the plex in Hrober, I was waiting for it to respawn. With the local population glitches, I wasnt watching local very well. Was chatting in the different channels I have available, actually. Well, a Punisher landed inside the plex. I approached with the MWD active and caught point and web. OHd the launchers and began spewing my death upon him. As he entered structure, I aligned to the sun as I saw a Kitsune and Firetail both on dscan now. As the punisher exploded I hesitated, I wanted this pod. I was too slow though and the pod got away. Immediately realigning to the sun, I entered warp. Just at the last second as I left grid, I saw the Kitsune and Firetail both land inside. Guess I got out just in time.

Landing at the sun, I was only a few m from the pod. And damned be all the gods, I missed his pod again. Oh well. I went back to the plex for a bit and didnt get much in the way of loot. Corp chat relayed the pod was in Heild, followed by the Firetail and Kitsune. Well, fuck it, I say to myself, lets go kill them. They obviously want to fight. So I toss up an advert for my fleet and have people join up. Both Alaric and Staxed joined up, I gave directions to Staxed to try and get point, having them engage and we would join in when called. Well, after a bit of cat and mouse, we finally got to engage at the sun in Heild.

I called the Firetail primary, and as he was relieved of his vessel, the Kitsune and thrasher showed up on the overview. I knew the Kitsune was a huge concern and I immediately called it primary, but then quickly saw my fuck up and re-called the primary to the thrasher. The Kitsune was 50km out, and I didnt think my crew would reach them in time before either of them were exploded, both the firetail and the hero tackling punisher. It was a costly mistake on my part as the destroyer class Thrasher made quick work of both my corpmates in their frigates. With both of them out of the field, I was the only one left. The only one left to take the full on fury of the ECM'ing Kitsune 50km away. I couldnt even catch him due to the webs on me and the scram preventing MWD.

This pissed me off greatly. It took these guys a terriblely long time to kill my ship. I couldnt NOS anyone due to not being able to target shit, so my capacitor took a shit on me eventually. Once that happened, they took at least a minute and half to kill my armor, then my ship exploded quickly after that point.

I was aligned out for a long time, cussing up a storm in local due to the dishonorable ECM usage. Alaric tried to give a "gf", but I quickly put a stop to that bullshit. When a small gang of 3 fights another small gang of 3, and ECM is involved, its not a good fight, at all. Two of three of my team was cockblocked from even doing anything, by a ship 50km out. Bad call on my part to not go after him, but I doubt there was much we could have done tbh.

You want to kill me cuz of my shinies, go ahead, I dont mind that reason. But to come to my home with ECM and think youre skilled and actually got me? Go fuck yourself. Come back with your three non-ECM ships and my crew will kick your face in. Bring your Hawk. Bring your shitty Rifter. And even bring your favorite Firetail. We'll bring us and you will be lucky if you get out with your pods because we'll be aiming to make you pod goo.

Vengeance vs Firetail, Rifter and Hawk

And there I was, kiddos, sitting at the sun safe, minding my own business chatting away in corp with a new rebel prospect. I was working on my tan, mind you, not really looking for a fight. In fact, I had setup a 1v1 for my new prodigy with another in a Rifter hull and was patiently awaiting for the parties to meet and watch the outcome. These plans came crashing down, in a blaze of fucking glory as I will soon tell you.

So there I was, sitting at my safe sun spot working on the tan. Local wasnt too busy, roughly 7 or 8 people, but only a few were actually undocked. The computer mentioned something about a Firetail on scan, but I ignored her. The only thing I care about from here is if Im out of capacitor. And that bitch doesnt tell me that anymore. She's learned better than to do that. Smart ship I have. With the way Im positioned under my exotic dancer, I can still pretty easily see my overview screen if something changes on it. The exiles are pretty strong today. Even though they're spose to be standards, I think someone slipped something extra in for me, considering how much I buy from them. Damn my habit is exspensive. Oh well, its worth it, I dont suffer the side effects much anymore, consistent use and all Im thinking.

Anyhow, a red line showed up on the overview screen. Amused by this visitor to my sun, I adjusted to see what it was. Hm, that Firetail wants a fight, but hes 200km off in the distance. Well, Im not gonna chase the man. If he wants a fight, Ill sit still here for him. The range closes pretty quickly, down to 140km after a few seconds. Man, those 'tails are speedy. I did a short warp out of my safe towards the sun, hoping to land closer to the firetail. I ended up about 40km from him, to which he responded by doing a short warp to his safe on grid also. Hm, slick little devil he is. By now, local had jumped up to 11 or 12, and I assumed a couple of them were his friends that he was holding off for. I didnt expect a firetail to actually break my tank.

Eventually, he warped off grid. Meh, guess I was wrong bout his friends showing up. Well, he got me excited for nothing, but I had noticed a Hawk on scan while chasin him around. Now, dont get me wrong, but Im not a fan of fighting a Hawk. I lost Blondie to a Hawk pilot. I miss Blondie. Plus, I needed revenge on this ship. I wasnt going to let it explode this new ship of mine. Amazingly, as if the pilot knew what I was thinking, he landed on grid as I was narrowing down his location on scan.

He was about 30km from me when he landed, so we approached each other. My mwd made this distance quickly covered and put me into web and scram range. The Hawk is a fast little ship, but I assumed he was mwd fit as well due to the speed he approached me as well with how fast it dropped once I had scrammed him. Lucky for me, he wont be avoiding much of my damage. And then his friends showed up! That fuckin Firetail pilot, then a Rifter pilot right behind him.

Now, Im not one to normally judge the stupidity of people, however, these guys have no clue how to fight a Vengeance pilot. You dont come at him in a 500m orbit. You dont just NOS him, you need neuts also. You dont sit there and expect him to not call in his own friends. Well, friend. No one in R1fta was nearby except 3D. Thats right, the newb prodigy of mine who was coming to Heild for his 1v1 I had arranged. Sorry bud, Im gonna have to steal you away for a few minutes! Well, he's one jump out, and Im not doing enough damage to this Hawk fast enough.

Overheating my repper now, I turn my attention from the hawk to the Rifter. It puts out decent dps for a ship of its class but its also fragile. So I make him priority number 1. The Firetail is a threat, but also able to escape quickly if needed. The Hawk can put out considerably dps at a long range, but is also pretty tanky sometimes. This Hawk pilot kept trying to stay closer than 5km though. I dunno why, but Im not too worried bout it. I just set my orbit of him to 6500 and keep myself outside his nos range. Switching my web and scram to the Rifter, I begin to explode him. Sadly, he got out of my range and ran off in structure! One down, two to go!

Switching web and scram to the Firetail, 3d lands on grid. I first call the 'tail as primary, but quickly notice the distance increasing between us. I re-order 3d to fire on and get point on the Hawk while mine cycles through the deactivation process. The Firetail escapes in deep armor. I re-heat my launchers and go full-on crazy on the hawk pilot, hitting approach and applying the web and scram. With my attention focused now, I notice the Hawk is TDing me. "What an idiot," I say to myself, "tracking disruptors wont help you avoid my rockets, kiddo!"

With the added dps of 3d's Rifter, the Hawks shields soon dropped past the optimal regen section. He was trying to escape, even webbed, the Hawk is a fast ship. Luckily, he didnt have a faction scram like myself and he was outside his scram range while I closed range again with my MWD; preventing his escape from us! GFs were exchanged in local while I was being accused of not using a scram and being dual web fit. This irritated me somewhat, because I knew these guys were idiots who were being sore bout getting curb stomped on my front porch, so I hastily linked my fit to show I wasnt fit as they said. Not that I care bout sharing my fits, but I shouldnt have given free info like that. Im sure they were salty at the killmail they lost though with their failed attempt at killing me!

Anyhow, with me surviving and getting a killmail from a 3v1 (+1 for hero tackle 3d!), Im pretty happy. 3d seems to be a competent pilot who can follow orders, which Im thankful for. The Hawk pilots friends pretty much fled when 3d landed on grid, they didnt even bother sticking around to take a loss with their friend when they saw a second R1fta tag show up on grid.

So basically, dont fuck with me, bitches! You interrupted my sun bathing!!

Somer Blink! And you....Oh, and ME!

So Im sure most of you have seen this amazing side game of EvE Online called Somer Blink. If you havent, definately check it out in the in game browser or out of game once youve set it up with some funds to play. Anyhow, to the point...

I win blinks, quite often. I win high value blinks often when I play them. To prove this point with some skeptics in my circle of in game friends, we played a game of pretend blink where we would call numbers we would play and wait to see which ones would on each blink. It so happened that two rorqual blinks came up and on both, I called the winning ticket being part of my set of tickets I would normally buy on such a blink. That would have been 7 billion isk right there with a total investment risk of 1.5 billion isk. Not a bad payoff, in my not so humble opinion.

How much isk have I put in compared to how much have I won? Well, Ill put those down below....

Isk deposited into Blink funds = 31,303,133,138 ISK
Value of items in ISK won = 95,788,000,000 ISK

Thats roughly triple the amount won. Neither of these include how much of that has been transformed into liquid isk in my wallet, nor how much I turned back into blink credits (which doesnt count towards how much deposited btw) and also excludes how many of my wins have been just delivered for me to use (quite alot actually).

So, whats the point of this post? Well, Im going to gamble for you. You give me your ISK and I will gamble with it. Theres no guarentee I will win it back for you. However, if I happen to win, I will return your deposit to me as well as 50% returned. Why would I return such a large amount of isk? Well, high risk, high rewards are the name of the game. I will setup some rules and other crap for myself to follow to give some comfort to those who are skeptical this isnt a scam, but Im way too lazy to do a scam that involves anything less than 100 billion isk tbh. I need something large enough to live out my EvE career in quite peace blowing up other peoples ships in low sec. Anything less than that isnt worth my reputation tbh. And even then, I would have self conflict in taking 100bisk worth of iskies from people who trusted me with their funds.

So yeah...Not a scam. So why would you put your faith in me to win your money and not just say I lost? Well, Ill keep a weekly track record in my wallet. Ill post up screenshots of my beginning wallet balance (will make it 0 to start) each week on Mondays. As for payouts, Im thinking a bi-weekly payout will be acceptable for most people. I play blink alot when Im online, but I do resort to other things in EvE.

What do I get out of giving you 50% of what you win as well as your deposit back? Well, more blink tbh. I love playing blink and they are almost at the 200 trillion point. New features are coming up and I can see a way to give a service to the not so lucky capsuleers out there. Ive got the support of a few people and Im sure if they're willing will post of my credibility to buy their honesty =D

Invest in a brighter tomorrow, today; by investing in me to win for you!

Vengeance vs Ishkur

A few days ago, Sard Caid was streaming. I started watching. It was pretty interesting. If you havent watched yet or havent heard of it, I suggest at least peeking a watch when something is up. Anyhow, with this new found knowledge, I wanted to fight him. I got my chance to do so soon!

He was wanting to fight someone else in r1fta, but I dunno what happened with that; I was distracted dooing PI crap at the moment. A bit later when I finished, the option for us to fight came up. I jumped into my Vengeance and with some quick checks in corp for what resist to hit best would be, I joined his fleet and warped to his safe.

As I undocked and warped to my opponent, I found out through corp chat he was using rails. And lots and lots of drones were a possibility. Luckily, I can very easily tank rail guns. Not luckily, drones hurt me. Oh but wait! Drones dont have much hp, so if I can focus on keeping my target in range, I can kill the drones first and eventually kill my target. All of this in the few seconds of warping. Im gettin good at this pvp shit! Anyhow...

As I landed, 20km from him, I approached. I couldnt get in a closer range than 10km for several seconds. Using my practiced technique of going away and then turning around quickly to close range, I succeeded. Whether or not he let me do so or not is questionable, but either way, I got in range to actually hit him. When I got closer, he was neuting me. Well, I dont like being in that close, so set an orbit of 6500, which usually keeps me around 7km range; just outside neut range but well within my nos range.

Now came the drones, right when his shields went away. Well, I targeted as many as I could, dropped the web off the drone spewing wreck of my opponent, I applied it to my target drone. This did two things for me: 1) it slowed the drone down to increase its return time when he chose to recall them, allowing more damage to be applied and 2) allowed my rockets to hit for full damage against the fast buggers. By the way, the recalling and sending out of drones is super annoying and did nothing but drag out the inevitable event of me killing them. At one point, all he did was send them out, and recall them before they were able to do any damage. I was smart enough though to apply my launchers to his ship in between these times of recalling and launching drones, eating into his armor, and eventually structure.

This was a good fight for me, as I found out I can easily tank drones as well as a railgun. It however, did not end in a killmail for me because the amazing Sard Caid chose to flee the fight when he noticed me killing off his drones and him not able to break my tank at all, even when I was in neut range. Again, a person got away due to me not overheating my scram quickly enough while also spamming my mwd to activate when his deactivated to catch back up. I really need to work on this aspect as it cost me a Vengeance kill later in the evening as well.

I was rather disappointed to see Sard run from the fight rather than to the death, as he had said in local minutes before. Even in my 250misk Vengeances, I rarely run from a fight even when Im losing. Not that I could run away in my brick, but thats not the point. The point is that you shouldnt run away from a fight because you bit off more than you could chew. Especially when youre the one who wanted to the death.

Im sure at some point he might decide to put our fight on his stream, which might be cool tbh, but I doubt it will happen.

Kiting Vengeance vs Wolf (wut?!)

I was kind of bored. There were several people in Heild, so I undocked and warped to a couple safes, scanning around. Found a wolf and dram at the plex. Nifty, Ill crash this party, I says to myself. Landing on grid, I find them 100 or so km from me. Well, this is annoying. I approach the wolf with mwd on, passing the dram who I know can out run me.

Well, the wolf is out far enough and fast enough to orbit me, and the dram dipped into 30km range, so I approached him instead. OHd the web, snagged him with it at 17km. Sadly, he was still going fast enough to get back out of range. I got bored chasing these guys, so just warped out to my sun safe. I found out later that the dram died and I whored on the killmail. Whatever, Ill take it.

The wolf wanted a 1v1 soon, so I sent a fleet invite. Eventually, she accepted. While at my sun safe, the wolf landed on grid, 200km away. Anyways, I approached, she approached. In the time between this and leaving the kiting plexers, I had been inspecting their profiles and doing my research. Im not normally one to call people out on their special-ness and lack of knowledge, however, this one deserves to be called on for sheer stupidity in knowledge of a Vengeance. I dont care if you dont fly this ship. There are some things you just need to know. The first and foremost thing about a Vengeance is that it is NOT a kiter. The Vengeance is 100% brawling badass. We are subject to being easily kited, so Ill give you that, just in case you were confused. Anyways...back on topic...

Our range reached 30km or so, at which point I was bothered to target. Around 18-20km, this wolf started to orbit me. Or keep at range....Either way, it was a mistake. I shot straight up, looked at my target to watch when she adjust flight to chase me, and then quickly hit approach; at which point I was easily in OH'd web range (18km), followed by OHd scram range (12-13km). With her mwd disabled, and mine still going, I turned it off when I reach 5km, applying my orbit range of 1km.

By this point, she had killed my shields, like most people. At this range, I knew the autocannons would do more damage being in optimals or close to it. I wanted to test my armor tank though, so did it anyways. She had also switched ammo I think, as the incoming damage increased noticeablely. Well, shes not without some knowledge of ammos, at least. But it was definately too late for her, as her armor was plumeting quickly. I finished her structure off and gave a gf in local.

In fleet chat however, she said I should try flying something other than my Vengeance because an MWD cant beat it. With the Vengeance being my favorite ship by far to fly, I said its the only one I do fly. She replied that she just wont fight Vengeances anymore. After seeing her fit in the killmail, I suggested trying something else, like an AB instead. I also mentioned that plenty of other ships have trouble in 1v1 against my ship, apparently to her was epeen waving and she promptly left fleet at this point.

During this entire fight and the buildup to it, I was sharing her blog and thoughts of my ship (and others). I feel it unfair to not link her blog, so here it is, specifically the post that made me laugh at her. Some of what she says is right, other things are just flat wrong. Im not going to waste my time explaining it all, because theres plenty and you can figure it out yourself.

Ill just say shes a woman, and give her that as an excuse for being wrong.

Whats in my Hangar?

So with this blog topic going around, Ive resisted posting about it. I just dont have much of an interesting lineup of ships overall. Yet, people continue to think I have a ton of shiny ships sitting all over New Eden. This post dispels that rumor! I can name all my ships available to me in every station I have ships in off the top of my head. Thats how interesting I am when it comes to ship variety.

Vengeances in Heild and Bosena. Roughly 8 fully fit in my "regular" fitting.

10x Rifters in Ishomilken. Shipped there with an empty clone during our campaign, but never got motivated to JC up there and lose them.

Punishers in Heild. For those t1 1v1s.

2x Legions, but I only fit one so far. Ive used it for scanning a c3 WH so far.

A Bestower for hauling crap for PI.

And thats my hangar. Amazing, isnt it?

Vengeance vs Retribution

OOOOO!!! An Amarrian assault frigate fight! Yeah, I havent written in awhile, been busy with RL and crap like that. After an unsuccessful roam around the entire low sec ring of Molden Heath, I found myself back in Bosena. I dont really visit Bos much, unless Im passing through to Teon on an alt. So when when I saw a retri pop up on scan I was ecstatic! I promptly commanded him to warp to the sun, which I also did to show him my ship on dscan.

Luckily, from my 10 minutes in a Retribution, I knew I could outtank him as well as kill him. The problem would be to get him into scram range to turn off his mwd. Surprisingly, he actually landed at the sun, roughly 100km away. I guess he was expecting a trap, there were a couple others in local. I approached him as he did the same. I popped a strong exile booster and immediately regretted doing so due to the Capacitor Capacity penalty I incurred this time. Around 70km, I popped on the mwd and went full speed ahead, right into his face! I turned off the MWD too early though, landing around 20km from my target. I had him locked and he returned the gesture, however, he was able to land the first shots due to scorch. He settled into an 18km or so orbit, dipping into 16-17km often. I tired of this dance quickly.

OH'ing my web, and hitting approach, I refired the MWD while slowing my target. Checking my effects, I was not being scrammed, or webbed. I set my orbit to 1km and allowed the MWD to do its thing. Maybe the faster speed would hurt his tracking, I thought, forgetting about sig size increases. Due to the penalty I took from the booster and ignoring my cap pretty much, I was running low, pulsing my repper now. At one point, I forgot to turn it back on allowing him to hit me down to around 40% armor. The alarms beeping reminded me to turn on and overheat the repper! I also had to turn off my mwd, allowing me to orbit much closer and a lower speed.

Now this was a pretty good fight, however, at the same time, I was moving an alt through the system with some high value items in the hold. I was distracted basically. My launchers were overheated. My repper was OHd. I forgot bout that. When I noticed, I turned off the OH on repper and launcher, but it was too late for the launchers, they were on their last cycle, and were offlined when it finished.

Unfortuneately, because I wasnt scrammed or webbed, I could have left at any time. My opponent on the other hand, I had to let go due to not being able to kill him. I also didnt want to call in backup for this kill, I didnt feel it would be fair to the other guy, considering he got lucky at 40 or 50% structure when my launchers offlined. Damn, wheres that nano paste when you need it!!

Its been awhile since I had a fun little 1v1 like this and I made many, many mistakes that fortuneately enough for myself, didnt result in me losing my ship. I now carry nano paste with me (thanks from someone I killed previously who dropped it for me) just in case I burn my weapons alot again, but not all the way.

Ive also been working on some PI and have been looking into wormhole PI as well as working up my scanning skills. I dipped into a c3 from Hrober last night, that was fun, but I was unprepared to actually do anything there, so I left after making a bookmark or two.

EvE: Missile Mechanics

Ive been asked about missiles recently, several times actually. I guess because I fly the Vengeance, it makes me pro or something. I dunno. Anyways, here's my helpful post for the month of May. This will not contain charts or graphs to prove I am correct in anything. This is entirely my own observations and calculations. If Im wrong, fuck you, because Im right.

Missiles are awesome as well as shitty. They're awesome because they always hit if your target is in range and they're shitty because of delayed damage and high velocity ships. Missiles have several things you need to know in order to use the most effective ones for the situation. Listed here are what you need to worry about the most:

Target Velocity - how fast is your target moving?
Target Signature Radius - How big or small is your target?
Explosion Radius - How big is your missile?
Explosion Velocity - Can your target escape the radius before the explosion hits it?
Missile Velocity - Unlike lasers or projectiles, missiles have fuel and travel time. They start out at zero and expend fuel to increase speed and reach its target. If target is further than fuel (flight time) provides, you miss.

If you examine an Inferno Rocket, for example (all level 5 skills in EFT), you will see the rockets velocity is around 3500, the same from t1 to the Caldari Navy to the T2 Rage versions. This means that if your target is faster than that, you most likely will not hit it, even if within range. Luckily, there arent too many ships who can handle going that fast while also putting out enough dps to break your own tank. Also, using a t2 rage rocket, the flight duration is reduced, causing t2 rockets to have a slightly shorter range than t1 or faction rockets. Something to keep in mind.

Keeping with the same Inferno Rockets, lets look at the explosion radius and explosion velocities. Both t1 and Faction are the same with a radius of 20m and a velocity of 225. The Rage rockets have a slower velocity, but higher radius, each at 210 and 30m. What this means is that the t1 and faction ammo are better at hitting smaller targets, like drones for example while the t2 versions are better at hitting bigger targets, not drones. If youre wondering what the radius means to you, it means that if your signature radius is bigger than the rockets radius, you will take full damage from the rocket if you are sitting still with zero velocity. If however, you are moving when the rocket explodes, lets say 200m/s, you will end up on the edge of the explosion radius when the "boom" reaches you, allowing you to take less damage from the explosion. Pretty fucking cool, yes? See the point needed for a web? Just because a rocket always hits, it doesnt mean it does full damage.

So with all of this in mind, you want to web an opponent, 2 webs if possible. Make sure they can use their MWD often if they have it equipped. You may be saying to yourself "Well, whats the point of webbing, if they can MWD?" Well, thats why I said 2 webs if possible. MWD's increase signature radius, making them a bigger target to hit, giving them a more difficult time to escape your missile's explosion radius, because they are bigger with MWD on.

While I have signature radius attention, I should also mention that t2 Rage missiles increase your own signature radius, while Javelin missiles give you a maximum velocity reduction penalty. I hate javelin missiles, and so I rarely use them personaly, although there have been fights where I would have loved to have some. I solved this dilemma by using faction webs (14km normal, 18km oh'd), allowing me to surprise any kiters and slow them down enough to force them into deep falloff to maintain their speed advantage and unable to break my tank or allow me to fancy fly and slingshot into scram range of them.

In any case, this is a basic example of missiles. Im sure most people are competent enough to switch these numbers around for bigger missiles and adjust their targets accordingly. If you arent able to understand this, dont worry, come visit me in Heild and Ill show you how they work. Nothing better than first hand experience; I always say.


Fly drunk, Fly Punishers!

T1 & T2 vs T1 & T2

So there I was; blacked out of existence. Dreaming dreams of a relentless life of cooking and serving others in a high stress, medium paying enviroment. Comas like this kind of suck. Luckily, I was able to wake from this when the doctors forced a clone jump on me. It was either that, or remain a vegetable I was told. Sure, it could have killed me, but I was dead anyways as veggie. Im back in Heild, in my favorite hull, the Vengeance. This baby, I named after Krole. Old Blondie bit the dust awhile back, as you may have heard. I also have a nice supply of the lower version of this hull, just in case someone might be interested in t1 combat. And by happenchance, there was someone interested.

Within 10 minutes of me logging in, someone in local was asking for a 1v1 t1 frigate fight. Well, ok, I say to myself. Must be fate. I shout out in Local to give me a minute to re-adjust to this clone and re-ship. He obliges kindly and in a few seconds Im out in space again. The chill of space. Ive missed it, although its only been a week of me being in a coma, it seems much, much longer. Im already in a fleet with my friend, Rasto, and hes a few jumps over in Hrober. Being the lazy fuck I am, I just invited my opponent to fleet. I guess he is an old person but new to the killing games. I explain the rules of a 1v1, basically no one joins in or they all die. If either catches the pod, ransmom allowed or just killed or let go, captors choice. Kill each other is the goal. Simple and easy.

And so I warp to my enemy. Pre-heat guns and repper. No drugs, not needed for such a weak hull. D-scan shows an incursus ahead. Being that ship, I was kind of scared of the drone that would pop out. I decided immediately to ignore the drone and kill the ship first. Blasters hurt when I fly my Vengeance, I know they will inflict lots of pain on a Punisher. Scorch is loaded, when I land at 20km. I can reach out to an 11km optimal with scorch. Plenty of time to pew pew until I gewt to 4km range, switching to MF crystals quickly. Web and scram are applied, nos as well. His shields are gone. Mine are almost gone, as I apply the repper, hoping for a rep to land after he breaks into armor, avoiding wasting cap. The drone pops out, Im at 1600m. No prop mod, and webbed, I have no chance of escaping his blaster range, so I begin to manually fly to increase transversal alot. With a tracking rig and DPL's, my lasers can track almost as well as autocannons. I dont know about blasters tracking, so its possible this had no effect on him. I can barely keep up with the incoming damage. I am losing armor quickly, but so is he. Thats a false hope though, I know that Gallente hulls are strong. Both enter structure, me repping back into armor and having it almost instantly burnt back off.

But then, an explosion. I see a pod pop on the Overview and quickly target it, scramming immediately upon lock. Shooting the Warrior II drone while approaching the pod to ensure it doesnt escape, I ask if he wants a quick trip to the clone vat or if he'd like to be released for a price. He chooses clone vat and I send him on his way.

A small chat later, I find out his med bay was in Jita. Long flight back to Heild, my friend. I also find out he was excited to fight a R1fta pilot as a killmail of one of us looks very good when you apply to join. Too bad for him I couldnt oblige.

Later on, Im running the plex in Hrober, then I get a dram bp drop. Nifty, I say to myself, then offer it for sell in corp chat. Offer is taken, so I fly back to Heild to setup the contract. Once done, I head to the plex in Heild. After killing a couple of enemy ships, I see a Vengeance on scan. Possible friend, so I mention in corp in case anyone wants in on the kill if I engage. Haerod accepts and I invite to the Fleet. Rasto is over in Hrober, but it doesnt matter, he's just a PI guy. Soon enough, the Vengeance lands inside the plex with me. I oh'd the MWD as I flew towards him, very quickly covering the 50km distance.

Targeted, webbed and scrammed, this ship is going no where. Launchers were pre-heated, as well as the repper, just in case. I blast through his shields much faster than he did mine. His armor was 75% before Haerod even got in the system from Hrober. Keeping a 6500 orbit to stay in range of my nos, but not his, I ripped apart my opponents armor and structure, exposing his pod just as Haerod landed in the Plex. I was surprised by the speed in which I killed this ship, one that I knew had a great tank normally. Well, not this time. Apparently, he doesnt read my blog or anyone elses for a good fitting on the Vengeance. I warped out without looting to repair my ship, and while doing so, was informed that a nice repper dropped. Checking the km, I saw indeed, a nice one did drop for me and I went back to get it, hoping it was still there. Not as good as what I usually use on my vengeances, so I may use it on my punisher if it hasnt sold on the market by the time I log in again.

And so that was my fun fun times after waking from a coma. On a side note, is Eve-kill going slow for anyone else lately? Not just this weekend, but last several weeks, it has been taking 10+ seconds to load. I may have to look into another killboard if it keeps up; I really hate dial up speed loading times. And its only that one killboard site that does it for me too, R1fta corp kb loads quickly, so I dunno.

EvE: The Neuting Maller

Late last night, there were some people roaming about, looking for a fight. I was a couple jumps over in Hrober, and with a fleet of mine already up, I got the others to join in. GO me! Anyhow...

The call goes out that a Hawk, Wolf, Manticore, and I think there was a Vengeance also for a short moment; were all at the plex in Heild. Well, me being the dick that I am, I had to reship from a Bestower. When I docked, I didnt feel like bringing out my Vengeance; was in the mood for something else. Ah, a Maller, but I dont have any t2 lasers; yet I have plenty of medium neuts for some reason. And so is created the Neuting and ECM Maller. Plenty of tank, for frigates anyways. No point, so Id rely on the others for holding stuff down. Three medium neuts and three small versions, with three ecm modules, one for each of the three or four enemy ships we were about to face.

As I undock, the enemies warp to the sun. I align and warp to the sun at zero. Luckily for me, I landed right on top of the Hawk, the most dangerous of the enemies on grid. The Wolf was in range also, so I tossed a neut on him too. For some reason, the Manticore was within scram range to Aliak, and he killed it promptly with two or three vollies. The Hawk was the proud receiver of my two medium and one small neuts, while the Wolf got my third medium neut, due to being out of range of the smalls. With no capacitor to keep his shield tank going, the Hawk very quickly exploded. With his friends out of the equation, the Wolf pilot also had his ship turned to scrap. Not only did the Wolf pilot like his ship being exploded he wanted a quick trip to his clone vat, so we obliged without him even asking for the assistance. I think the Vengeance warped out early in the fight, as I saw him, but he was out 30km from me, so I didnt bother trying for him.

A short bit later, they were back, this time with the old Vengeance and Myrmidon. Looks like they were pissed at the neuting power of my Maller. I was docked, so I refitted a couple long points this time, I kept the neuts and I should have switched out a plate for a repper, but I didnt. There were probes out and I wasnt watching the alt sitting in a sun safe, so I didnt know until the target lock sound came from the background. My bestower exploded, along with the alts empty clone, neither of which I have mails for atm. I called out on the alt in fleet to warp to him before becoming pod goo, and soon the rest of the fleet landed. The Vengeance's beasty tank stood no chance against the neuts of a Curse and he exploded so fast, I wasnt even on grid for it. When I landed, I was near the Myrm, so he got the full power of all six of my neuts with two long points on him for good measure. My Maller lasted quite awhile under fire, but with no local or remote reps coming in, I exploded soon. The pod on there is the previously mentioned Manticore pilot. I guess he never docked, and I know I did, so that answers the question of when the killmail whoring ends: when the attacker, not victim, docks, but I digress... With my Maller out of action, the Myrm was free to attack my fleet. However, he was neuted to hell and back with very little cap now, so his tank wasnt able to catch up and my revenge was oh so sweet.

Overall, these were all goodfights, nice fleet experiences for both sides I think. For r1fta, I think we only lost a wolf or jag and my alts bestower/pod and my Maller. I think we won the isk war on this one, but we also fielded alot more isk with the curse out there, which I didnt even notice we had until I looked at the killmails. And this was all done via fleet/corp chat without voice comms. Who needs all that organization crap!

We Rebels are pirates!

EVE: Black Rebel Rifter Club is Awesome!

Just sayin. I felt like letting everyone know that.

Recruitment status: CLOSED
Public channel >> The Autocannon
Description:
Rifter hull enthusiasts. (Except me, I fly the Punisher!)
Unwashed beards, grease, silver sunglasses, long beaded hair or shaved heads, tribal faces, armpits, earrings, chain whips, pistols and stripped-down Rifter hulls passing in formation like a burst of dirty thunder. It's Black Rebel time, baby!

Low-sec/null-sec pvp, bar fights and ganks.

Spare drive chain parts from the Rifter's deadly autocannons have been known to be stripped down and used as 'belts' on the Rebels' clothing . . . Always at hand when a bar fight turns ugly.
-- Gallente Police Training Manual.

How they manage to do it? Last I heard they are drinking their beer from unrinsed mindflood flasks. Interesting idea come to think of it. You selling some? - Unknown Roden Shipyards welder, Egghelende.
How did the Rebels grow to be such disliked hell-raisers? Easy, they worked overtime at being crafty, cruel and cowardly.
-- Serpentis chemical plant worker.

Weird Haul Found at Gang's Hideout.
Four coffins, two electronic grave markers and Thukker tribe emblems were found Saturday in the headquarters of a notorious frigate flying gang where three members were arrested on narcotics charges. The residence also contained a throne chair five feet tall, a stuffed owl, an Amarrian beheading sword and assorted frigate trophies and memorabilia.
-- Excerpt from a weekly news report on New Eden's known criminal gangs.

--
Touch Eyeballs To Screen For Cheap Laser Surgery

DarkFall: Training

I had an issue with my connection, client shut down, mumble exploded and I restarted the computer. Before logging back in, I felt like doing a quick DF post. So this is it.

Training. More and more training. Greatswords, knives, swimming, diving, running the right way, using leather armor correctly. It seems to never end. I was killing goblin shaman and fighters for awhile more, easily by the way now. I moved on to goblin marauders and warlords, which are presenting a good challenge for me. I even have to run away sometimes if more than one or two join the fight. Ive switched to killing some zombies and even tried to take down a giant skeleton, to no avail.

I built a nice supply of coin that I had planned to spend on some materials to work on some tradeskills, but the oppurtunity presented itself to grab some "Ready Bags" from the clan bank. That, with the added weapons, was a cool 1500 gold. Not a bad deal, but I havent learned all the prices of items yet. These upgrades will come in handy when I head out to the dead areas for some pve. I may even try to take on some troll lords again.

Oh right, that didnt turn out well the first time. I killed it, but apparently he poisoned me with 5 or 6 dots, that I thought would have dropped when he died. No, dots dont drop when the mob dies. So I died also a moment after my opponent fell to my sword. Sadly, I was bound all the way up in Copperdale. It was a long enough run back to the Hammerdale area, that someone was able to completely loot my corpse. Well, that didnt go as planned.

Aslo, as promised, more of the Mages Hand-guide. Two entries this time, as I really want to get this story out again.

Entry Two: Didn't get much done today. I walked a good twenty miles before nightfall, but I haven't come across anybody yet. Nobody that can help me, leastways. All I have is my walking stick, my bag, my journal and some biscuits and jelly.
The moon is setting and already I can hear the howl of the wolves and coyotes. I used to be afraid, but after I almost stumbled on a coyote and it didn't even attack me, I don't worry anymore. The wolves keep their distance from me, though. They don't like my smell. In all honesty, I haven't showered in clean water for weeks; I wouldn't want to eat me either.

Entry Three: I ran into a stray mutt today. Big brute, he was, nearly up to my hip. He had black fur and brown eyes. He ran like nothing I've ever seen, and when he came up to me it was the first time since I left home that I feared for my life. I didn't hit him with my walking stick, but I gave him a biscuit and bade him a good day. He wasn't phased by me for a moment, but after he taste the jelly on that biscuit he was angry no more.
I also came across a woman too. She didn't dress as if she was a woman. She carried a bow and held two long knives. Her ears were peculiar, though. It was as if somebody had stretched them long and flattened them. She had a certain air about her that told me that she was more than enough for me to handle in combat, and that any chance of being friendly with her was nonexistent. She only looked at me with these strange gold eyes and nodded off towards the forest towards her right. "Go." she seemed to say, but her lips did not move. She turned around, then, and stood with her bow at the ready with an arrow already knocked. I wish I would have said something because she was a beauty. Still, Lersh and Undin wouldn't believe me if I could tell them. They'd say I was dreaming, drunk or "otherwise incapacitated".

EVE: Getting My Groove Back!!

I logged in tonight with not much in mind of what to do. I decided to fit up a Punisher. I will write more bout this ship later, but for now, more fun. While lollygagging around in corp chat, I noticed a call for more hands on deck, a Nyx was tackled! I assumed a troll and other such bs from the Ransm boys, but they came through and actually had a supercarrier locked down! I promptly then joined fleet and comms and headed their direction, only 5 jumps over. On my way, I heard them call a hold fire, spamming fleet chat for those who were not on voice. Lucky for me, tbh, I was still 1 jump over.

The hold fire was given so the NC. could come whore on the km also. Well, ok, I guess....I saw no reason the pirate rabble who had assembled to take down the super carrier should share the km with big bad nullsec alliance guys. But w/e, thats why Im not in politics! I landed on grid, blasting the Nyx with my NOS and one or two pot shots with my lasers to make sure I was on the killmail. Yeah, I wanted to killmail whore too. Yes, it was in bad form, but have you seen my losses this month? I needed to boost the efficiency, you see!

Soon, the SC pilot grows bored of us holding him, trying to extract a ransom from him, so he starts self destruct and almost instantly, shouts for a cyno to go up, which it does, and then alot of big ships land on grid. Not fleeted big ships. I align to gtfo, but the call is for the sun. I was aligned to a planet, so I readjusted, taking some shield damage before making it out, with a 16 billion isk killmail in my pocket!

That'll help the killboard efficiency a bit!

Then I went back and got a couple corpmate to assist in the logistics of getting my PoS setup. Four or 5 trips, with two characters going the route. Then when I actually get it all there, another hour or two of actually setting it up and onlining it. Not to mention, while setting it up, the UI is horrendusly not user friendly when setting up a pos. I was not a happy camper doing this, but the final result was pretty good.

I got back to Heild afterwards, and just in time for a request to come to test test a fit. And so I did. Several fights later (all wins on my part btw, even though only to hull), we switched it up to t1 stuff. Fitting my punisher, I won 2 of the 3 fights. The 3rd one got me due to not being able to keep up with the tracking so close (less than 1500m) as well as capacitor. Even while super micro managing my modules, I couldnt get through that last bit of armor while he chewed through mine once the capacitor gave out. He had just fought me a few times while figuring out what he did wrong, while I was winning, trying to keep doing what I was doing to win. Only difference was the closer orbit range. Damn that laser tracking!

EvE: Paranoia

So my Black Frog shipment arrived. I fit up my Retribution and got Aliak to allow me to test out the fit. Yeah, that didnt happen. Upon undocking, I saw a Vengeance on scan. "AWESOME!" I say to myself. I know his tank will be tanky and my dps will be good enough to either break it or not. I also know thermal and em are the weak resists to the Veng, cuz Im smart like that!

I warp to my sun safe, hoping he will follow me to the sun. A few moments pass and he does arrive at the sun. I notice his speed and distance decreasing. He's coming for me! Well, knowing I need to be about 20km away on landing to set keep at range to allow transversal to be minimized, I warp to 20km from the sun. I think this will put me directly behind him, due to him flying towards me. Yeah that didnt happen either.

I landed 8-9km from my target, unable to turn and run away before he locked and scrammed me. Closing range as I knew he would, I was stuck at 3km or so the entire fight. My tank held out pretty good but it wasnt until I was at 50% armor that I remembered I should switch to Multi Freq. crystals instead of scorch. By this time, he was at 50% also. Switching, I got him down to about 10% armor. He was repping though, slowly, but enough to cancel out my buffer. My ship soon exploded. As this was not technically a 1v1, I was already fleeted with Aliak when I undocked prior to this fight. Aliak was special in the head or something with his dscan as well as chat channels, so when I called point in corp chat, he didnt see it, warping around trying to get the enemy on dscan. I guess he didnt see the vengeance, so assumed it warped away, while waiting for me to call point in fleet. My mistake on the miscommunications. Eventually, (right as my ship exploded actually), Aliak landed on grid and finished off the enemy

A little while later, I was goaded into a fight with a hawk. Knowing my ship, I will most likely lose this fight. A few more taunts later by this person and I said fuck it and went for it, dropping fleet that had my alt PI char and Aliak in it. After some complications, I eventually joined fleet with my opponent for a 1v1. Heading to a safe, I let him know he can warp to me. Having my mwd going so I can get a long range to start the fight. I want to be able to zoom into scram range to cancel out his mwd if he has one, to prevent the possible 15km rocket range. He landed at 70km. Yay, so far, so good!

I zoom into range and all is going well. He had me targeted (auto-retarget perhaps?) but he dropped fleet. This to me was breaking the 1v1, and I called in Aliak, trying desperately to inv to fleet. Apparently he hadnt left the other fleet with my alt yet. Found this out after the fight. Well shyt. In this whole calling for help thing, I had my repper and launchers OHd. I noticed at nearly the last second that my launchers were almost deaded. I clicked those off then moved to click off the repper. At that exact moment, the module greyed out. OH SHYT! I JUST BURNT OUT MY REPPER! I then say to myself, "Self, you are a retard. That is all." Slowly, my armor is diminished and my ship explodes, with Aliak landing 400km away at the belt where my combat safe is at.

Analysis
Many, many things went wrong tonight that normally should not have. Switching crystals from long range to close range would have won me that Vengeance fight solo. Paying more attention to my modules instead of the enemy leaving fleet (due to not seeing me on his overview I guess...fail overview settings!!!), because I thought he refleeted and was bring in friends to whore on my shiny lossmail. That didnt happen, so obviously he refleeted with an alt booster. Nope, that didnt happen either. Just entirely due to fail overview settings of not having fleet members on it.

So, lessons learned tonight: Relearned instant reload with crystals. Make use of it! Dont commit to single ammo like preloading the best likely ammo with the Vengeance. Dont assume 1v1 dishonor just because of fleet droppage. Had I paid more attention, I would not have burnt out my repper. At one or two points, I was able to warp out as well, I noticed this each time it happened. But I did not take the advantage of it like I should have done due to typing in corp channel. I should have remained focused. The stupid combat rush took over due to the adrenaline again. Fuck that feeling is good, but it makes me die. I dont like dieing. I dont like losing. So fuck this feeling and having it often.

I have a supply of punishers that I need to buy fittings for still, but Im done flying bling ships for awhile until the rust comes off. Darkfall is an awesome game, but I prefer EvE. Darkfall has caused my spaceship skills to fail me, and I refuse to let this evening ruin my good god damned time in space!

EvE makes you paranoid of everything.

Goblins and the Brawny

Goblins. Lots and lots of Goblins have been killed by my daggers. Ive kill at a minimum 200 goblin scouts, 100 goblin fighters, and 20 goblin shamen. This grants a title called "the Brawny", apparently magical words that bestow + strength! Awesome! I want more strength, so I search for the next step. Now, a total of 500 trolls must die. Well, this will be interesting, I have never fought a troll before.

Some players have died also, but there was this one in the newbie area who refused to die. He attacked me and I was too slow in landing a retalitory hit while he was "Rogue" that I went rogue instead; resulting in my death to his greatsword. Regearing, I returned and tried to sneak up on him this time. I watched for a few minutes, and learned he heavily relied on magic, but was also an adept melee user.

Fortuneately, I had learnt some of Darkfalls flagging mechanics. As long as he was rogue, the guard towers would help me. So I taunted him into a fight again. He kept hitting me as I swung my sword in his general direction, keeping in mind to walk backwards towards town. Unfortuneately, my skill at guaging distance to the towers is off some, so I died just outside the range of help.

So two full sets of armor gone as well as a pretty nifty little bow and a badass greatsword that was transmuted for fire. It was almost broken, so no biggie, really, but still. The armor wasnt much of a loss either, as I can create my own leather armor (72 skill, almost to studded armor at 75). Im also working on weaponsmithing in small quantities to have my own little supply, but I hate harvesting, so thats slow going.

Things come smoother now though. I can easily combat most goblins, but I did need to seek assistance from my brother for killing a goblin warlord. One of his guarding marauders dropped a "Selentine key" that I used to open a nearby chest. It popped out a nie amount of gold, a great axe and a banded chestpeice that was imbued with a health bonus. There was also a cold resistance boosting shield in there that I am saving for a cold day.

The inventory issue of becoming a clusterfuck has happened a couple times, but Ive made myself several sacks to put within bags as well as figuring out how to label the bags has made sorting things much easier. In the main bank, a combat bag that holds two bags, armor and weapons, and contained within each are bags for different armor and weapon types. In the combat bag, Im working on keeping a "quick load" sack that has a full set of armor and weapons with regeants as needed for a quick resupply upon death. Same as having backup ships fit in my hangar in EvE. Lots of crossover between these two games as far as lessons learned.

After registering on the forums and teamspeak, I was promoted beyond recruit to Sgt in Mutiny. Nifty, but it didnt really bestow anything useful, like clan bank access where the bags full of weapons I want to use reside (more fire swords!! MOAR!) I also tried to get access to use the supply of iron ingots and leather to work on weaponsmithing, but that also didnt go well. Apparently trust in Darkfall is the same as trust in EvE: non-existant. Annoying, but not a problem. Just inconveniant.

We have two holds, Hammerdale and Lost Untilkin, or something similar. The first is a short five to ten minute run by foot from Monkfield (my starting area). The second is a cold, deserted place. So far north, not even normal players traverse this place often. Pretty good place for working on tradeskills I heard. Hammerdale is a human built city that is near an ocean, the name of which I havent learned yet. There are a few more little villages around, also player built I think. The control points provide a gold income for the clan, but Im not sure how that is applied for usage yet.

So far, I havent grouped much at all with clanmates, but when called many were willing to come. Although the target was gone soon, several sent msgs to say again if he showed up. Yeah, I have the ability to call for backup to kill that guy who killed me. Twice. Anyhow, Agon is quickly becoming a new home away from home and I am pretty sure I will be upgrading from a trial soon. Im about 80% sure my brother will be doing the same, although he play still prefers EQ2. For now.

Also, Im going to be posting an amazing story that I read before I started playing Darkfall. Even though player written lore, this story is exactly what drew me into Darkfall in the first place, moreso than anything else Ive encountered about this game. I copied it in its entirety for player made books in EQ2, but since I dont play that anymore, its a shame for this story to fade into obscurity like many things Darkfall related have done. I hope for you all to read it and enjoy as much as I did when Fawkes originally wrote it. So without further ado, the first entry of "The Mages Hand-Guide to Agon", written by Fawkes.

Here is the link giving me permission to copy the story to EQ2. I assume being such an old story, I can post it to my blog also for easier access. Yes, I am Zianlo K'Synth. Whole different story for another day perhaps. Also, no poking fun if you look through my old posts on there bout posting on myspace, those are totally old and noobish posts of mine that I wish I could strike from existence.

THE MAGE'S HANDGUIDE TO AGON

This is in the perspective of Les, a village-dwelling boy who can't seem to find his spot in the whole mess of life. He's seventeen, and by then he still is restless in the village he calls home.

Entry One: I've left home. Ma and Da can't understand me anymore. I feel more powerful now, like I can take Da in a shouting match. Or that I can stand up to my mother when she scolds me for no reason. The only people who understand me are not in this house. Not in this village, perhaps not even in this country, and I know it. I've left home, and as I write this by the river, under this tree and surrounded by nature, I feel like this should have been my home all along.

The Story So Far....

Bronan Darkfrost has been accomplishing small things lately. He's had a few setbacks, but also has had many successes.

First, Id like to mention things I dont like about Darkfall. The UI. I hate the dual UI types, right clicking to use "combat" mode and right clicking again for "active mouse" mode. I see the whys of doing so (more keybinds?) or maybe I dont. Thats not even really that bad, tbh. Its that the UI is not as responsive as I would like. Im used to EverQuest 2 UI where when I hit a key, it does it without delay (excluding the occasional spell lag) What I mean is that there is a delay when I hit spacebar to jump and my character jumping. Its a small, almost unnoticeable delay. Unless you played EQ2 for 8 years. Maybe I was just spoiled by a UI that did what I told it to do quicker. I dunno.

Outside of that, I dont have any complaints about this game. Its extremely PvP focused, allowing you to create just about every item in the game if you have the skills to do so. Speaking of Skills, its a grindfest. You thought EvE is grinding? No, no, youre confused. EvE skills grind by themselves, at no cost to you other than patience. Darkfall skills only grind when you use them. Or as I found out, you pay gold for "Meditation", which is similar in gaining skills like EvE when offline. So theres a work around for the grinding, as well as a bonus for actually using the skills. I havent invested in it yet, but Im sure I will eventually.

Now that the bad is out of the way, time for the good. PvP. Its awesome. Ive killed a couple players on the deleted characters, but on this one, I have made an attempt to be somewhat risk averse when other players are around. This isnt because Im scared to die, but because I have no supplies yet. I dont have that backup gear to replace the armor I currently wear. Well, unfortuneately, fate was not on my side. I lost not just one, but two full sets (not even full set really) of armor to two different people. Both times, they helped a goblin kill me. Gotta work on situation awareness here in Agon.

The next thing, the community. Its small, super small. The last 3 nights Ive logged in, I have seen the same 4 or 5 names in racial alliance chat. Maybe its the time of night I log in. So far, every time Ive asked a question, its been answered. Some responses take longer than others, often times, the question will lead into a debate (knives vs sword/board vs greatsword vs great club). Great community. Its also a community of HTFU, as I havent had a single person offer something for nothing. Except one...

Im out killing goblins for a quest (yes, lots of goblins) and I die. When you die, you are incapacitated while the mobs walk away and you have a chance to be either ganked (equal to being podded), revived by a player, or just wait your timer out to die. Well, while dieing, I was about half way through and Im spinning around waiting to expire when I see a player. A player with a RED name. RED is bad. Ive learned that a player with a RED name is usually there to kill me. So I moan to myself thinking a gank is incoming. And to my great surprise, this person revives me! Yes, he revives me. I get up, say my thanks as I run off, just in case he wants to kill me again himself instead of the goblin. Luckily, he was just passing through and willing to help a noob like me.

After resting up, I return to the goblin village and finish killing what needs killed and collected what needed to be. Upon returning to town, I turn in all the quests possible and almost empty out my journal in the process. I also aquire alot of decent items, items that I stash in the bank for later when needed. There is no mender to repair weapons or armor, so I will need to constantly have to replace my gear at some point, either from wear and tear or having it taken by another player. Enter Tradeskills.

I happen to be a crafter when the action benefits me. Well, crafting my own gear will be pretty damn helpful in the future I feel. I take up tailoring, as it is usually the easiest in most games. I figure out how to make the basic cloth and find out I need a skill of 50 to make leather. Well, this is a grind and a half, and I fell asleep doing it. Crafting in Darkfall is simple in that you get the materials you need, you stand at the station you need and put in how many of the items you want to make. Making 100 of any item is an arduous process and I would not reccomend doing mass orders like that unless you go to bed or afk; because it is definately boring waiting for that little yellow bar to fill up every 10 seconds per item.

So where do I stand right now? Well, Im looking for some steedgrass to make a mount. Im switching between using knives and a 2h greatsword for weapons; one has a longer reach, more damage, but slow while the other is shorter range, fast and lower damage. I am also practicing aiming better with Archery, since the arrows drop rapidly the further away the target is. Similar goes for magic, except I dont have a spell that drops like the arrows. Im working on the other starter city quests also, since the original for me is completed. I feel doing this will help both in getting more armor and weapons stockpiled, but also build some gold supplies as well as the combat increasing my used skills. So far, so good.

Everything is going well in Agon for Bronan. He's had a few harsh losses, but nothing that he hasnt been able to replace with some effort in doing so. Soon, those gankers will attack, and I will win one of these times!

Darkfall: The EVE of Fantasy MMOs

I forgot yesterday was Wednesday, so I didnt post this then. Ive recently been busy playing Darkfall, as the title suggests. They have a 14 day free trial and my brother convinced me to try it out with him. I tried the game a few years ago but I couldnt get into it due to the heavy PvP aspect of it. I couldnt get into it because it was too hard for me to accept the constant loss of equipment. This is at a time when I was heavily raided in EverQuest 2 and having high level gear was the epitome. I didnt like the full loot system and starting over every time I got killed and looted by another player. Two or three years later, none of that bothered me anymore.

Why is that, you ask? Well, Ive been playing EVE for about a year or two now. Ive lost that sense of connection to my equipment and ships. Sure, I have some ships that last awhile and I grow some attachment to them, but when that happens, I purposefully go out and explode that ship. R.I.P. Blondie. **tear**

Anyways, trying out Darkfall trial. Extremely similar to EVE in rules and learning. Mentioned later, but I incapacitated a person and remember X being the gank ability by default (From reading the controls and editing hotkeys) so I hit it and podded this guys body. Totally. Fucking. Awesome. Downside is that I went from full +10 to right in the damn middle, leaning on the evil side. I got rebound to some location so damn far away by default, that when I eventually died, I had no clue wtf I was doing. I dislike the auto-new-home-thing when you become Evil.

I deleted that character, with a name I wanted, thinking I could reuse it. Not possible. Lesson 1: Dont gank people until youre ready to be full time pvp. Lesson 2: Consequences for your actions, even deleting your character. Awesome.

So I re-rolled a dark elf. Didnt like the area. The place I started in was more confusing than Neriak in EverQuest 1 or maybe Kelethin in EQ2. Promptly deleted that character. I liked his surname though, so I kept that with the new character, that I stuck with this time. Enter Bronan Darkfrost.

Human of Mercia. Twin blade, side magic user, shitty archer (but getting better!). Tailor. More tradeskills to come. All prety intricately intertwined, or so it seems. Ive attacked a few people, been ganked once or twice myself, no kills yet on this character. Darkfall has a learning cliff exactly like EVE.

The first time my brother lost a fight and got ganked, he lost all his gear because he didnt listen to me about banking stuff and only carrying what he can afford to lose. Lesson 3, should be 1, 2, 3, 4, ect.... Sound familiar? He died a few more times to people we attacked, Old Sun Republic or some crap, I dunno. He is still stuck in the "must have better gear" mode instead of "have lots of spare gear" mode. Anyhow, the one guy kept running back to the guard towers, and it took me a minute to figure out wtf was happening. Guard Towers = Gate and Station guns when attacking players. Lesson 4: Dont attack players in lawful areas.

And this is over a period of about four to five hours. Skill grinding is definately part of the game, and I keep seeing people say dont craft until you have 40 wisdom, which is when you can aquire the trueforge skill. To that, I asked how to raise wisdom. With a reply of "Go fishing", I went fishing. Lesson 5: Attribute gains are slow. Ive been fishing for about 2 hours and only gotten half (0.5) points of Wisdom gain. Well, this is going to be awhile..

For new characters, its inconceiveable to put off crafting your own gear until wisdom 40 while only harvesting until then. Yeah, better durability is good, but fuck, youre going to lose the gear anyways most likely. Thank you, EVE, for departing on me this wisdom. As soon as I equip that gear from the bank, its already lost. Just like a ship Im sitting in; the moment it is undock, it is already exploded.

I love EvE. I love New Eden and its history and lore. I also love fantasy RPGs. Darkfall has an insane lore and history to it. I continously find myself looking back on Darkfall for the stories the devs and players came up with. Two years ago, I was not even looking at Darkfall in the same way as I am now.

Darkfall is harsh. Darkfall is a world full of consequences for your actions. It is more like EvE than not, when excluding the whole spaceship vs caveman thing. I love Darkfall.

Stealing Ideas

Somehow, Friday came and went without a post from me. I dont really remember WTF I was doing outside of work the last four or five days to be honest. Its just a blur or sleeping, eating, working and shitting. So right now, Im stealing another bloggers idea for a post. Mostly because its one Ive wanted to do, but dont feel like copying anyone. So Im doing it first and he will copy me. Im even going to steal his formatting of his prior Punisher guide. WINNING!

The Vengeance: My Thoughts

This is an awesomely amazing ship. Thats the simple, one sentence description of this god-like Assault Frigate. Many people fly the Rifter hulls and its t2 counterparts, the Wolf and Jaguar; but the Vengeance is an entirely different beast. I feel being able to take damage while also dealing out the damage is the key to winning a battle. As a direct upgrade to the Punisher, it flies in similar ways, close range brawling.

Amarr ships, imo, are the most skill point intensive ships in EVE. You need good capacitor skills (anything that conserves, increases, or regenerates capacitor). Along with that, Lasers use alot of capacitor, so the ship specific skill assists by having a cap reduction bonus for lasers on nearly all Amarrian ships. The majority of Amarrian vessels are armor tanked, so you need acceptable levels of armor compensation skills as well as both Mechanic and Hull Upgrades 4 (preferablely 5 for rank 1 and 2 skills). NNavigation skills help, but really are only needed for the cap reduction skills, which in the process, allow you to use an MWD or AB. For the Vengeance, you need decent missile skills; you dont want your rockets running out of fuel at 5km, missing your target orbiting at 6km. Like all ships, rigging skills, thermodynamics and Tactical Shield Manipulation are all nice to have.

Pros:
Large base capacitor
Quickly regenerating capacitor
High base resists
Rockets

Cons:
Slow
Low damage output
Easily kited
Suspectible to Capacitor Warfare tactics

Vengeance Info
The Vengeance represents the latest in the Kingdom's ongoing mission to wed Amarr and Caldari tech, molding the two into new and exciting forms. Sporting a Caldari ship's launcher hardpoints as well as an Amarr ship's armor systems, this relentless slugger is perfect for when you need to get up close and personal.

Developer: Khanid Innovation

Constantly striving to combine the best of two worlds, Khanid Innovation have utilized their Caldari connections to such an extent that the Kingdom's ships now possess the most advanced missile systems outside Caldari space, as well as fairly robust electronics systems.

Amarr Frigate Skill Bonus:
5% bonus to Rocket Damage per level
-5% bonus to Missile Launcher Rate of Fire per level

Assault Ships Skill Bonus:
5% bonus to Armor Resistances per level
5% bonus to Capacitor Recharge Rate per level

Role bonus: 50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

My Current Fit
[Vengeance]
Implants
Zainou 'Gypsy' Electronics EE-603

Lows
Internal Force Field Array I
Centii A-Type Small Armor Repairer
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
True Sansha Energized Thermic Membrane

Mids
Gistii B-Type 1MN MicroWarpdrive
Dark Blood Warp Scrambler
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier

Highs
Rocket Launcher II, Inferno Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Inferno Rage Rocket
Corpii C-Type Small Nosferatu
Rocket Launcher II, Inferno Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Inferno Rage Rocket

Riggings
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II

The Whys
OMG, look at all that shiny modules!! I can NEVER afford that!! Actually...You can! Well, maybe. Anyways, ISK doesnt matter to me. I aquired the modules I did to accomplish the fit I wanted. I personally hate using armor plates. My experience using them in a Punisher and early Vengeance fits wasnt where I expected them to perform. Maybe I just expected too much, I dunno.

Anyhow, I feel the more resists you got, the better. If you resist 80% of a 100 point shot, you only take 20 damage. Simple enough, right? That scaling applies all the way to titans, where even if you have 99% resists, a shot from them will one shot your Vengeance. Regardless, this is my thought process behind my fit. To fit multiple Energized plates, you need to go faction. High alpha'ing ships are not to be taken lightly.

I felt the t2 small reppers couldnt keep up with the damage output of a wolf or jag (an early lesson learned) so I first upgraded to a small imperial navy repper. It also had issues keeping up. So I went to c-type, with better results, but I wanted more. So I went to the a-type. This also was not enough for me, so I started using Exile boosters. I started with Standards, moving to Improved and recently I have aquired (but not used) Strong Exiles. In any case, Im always trying to increase the tank ability on my ship. Its what it excels at, so I refuse to let it take a back seat to dps even though I am trying out a dps oriented fit soon. With a skilled pilot inside, blaster boats still hurt and are capable of breaking my tank when in closer than 3km, so I avoid those fights if possible.

Early in my pvp career, the bane of my existence were the kiting ships. Always just outside of my range to scram or web, let alone hit, even with scorch. My solution to this after many, many battles was to go faction for the extended range. 14km range on web and 10.5 on scram is a nasty surprise for those who like to sit in the "sweet spot" zone of most modules of lesser quality.

Recent additions to the Assault Ship role was the MWD bonus, which I switched to using recently. With an MWD, I can zoom into my optimal range. Using the longer ranged scram and web, I am able to close range again quickly once they get outside their scram/web range, preventing their escape. I used to use an afterburner, however, I have discovered the advantages the MWD has over an AB. Having High Speed Manuevering 5 is definately on my skill plan to get asap.

As for the NOS, I just got tired of people neuting me from 7500m while my regular nos has only 6600m range. With no cap, I can not repair damage. If I cant repair damage, my ship explodes. With the cap rigging instead of an EM armor rigging, EM is the lowest resist at 77% with my current skills; however, my capactior regernation rate is much more capable of handling 2 small neuts as well as a single medium neutralizer with micro-managing of modules. Practicing with corp mates has provided extremely helpful experience in learning this ability.

Speaking of practicing, I highly reccomend doing so with your corpmates. Learning to ignore the adrenaline of combat will not be learned in this practice, but the abilities to manage modules, keep range in optimals, as well as chasing and getting away will all be turned from a difficult thing to do in middle of combat to something people call "muscle-memory". You laugh, but its true. In the heat of battle, being able to fall back on those practiced skills while trying to turn down the thumps of your heartbeating furiously pumping more and more adrenaline throughout your body....Its a rush you dont find in many places, in or out of New Eden.

Obviosuly, I use Rocket Launcher II's, but some people have used autocannons similar to the Punisher, prior to the AF buff. Another topic, but Ive always felt autocannons are overrated. Personally, I use t2 ammo. I have faction ammo, but I havent used it often. Usually, thermal is pre-loaded as the common low resist, but depending on local targets on dscan, will switch to any of the four types of resists available to me. I have no preference to one or the other, but t2 ammo does have more "dps" but less range than faction ammo. I would suggest using faction ammo against smaller, faster targets while using t2 for larger, slower moving opponents; but like I said, I dont use faction ammo, so my advice here can be taken lightly.

Downsides
There are several downsides to my ship and fit. The main one is capacitor reliance. If its gone, Im dead. From the first moment I entered my first clone in EVE, hearing Aura warn me about not having enough capacitor or it being empty has been terrible. Its engrained into my skull and every single one of my clones that having no capacitor is death. Even with low or slowly regenerating capacitor is better than being capped out. The second downside to the Vengeance is that it is probally the slowest of all Assault Frigates at the baseline level. If a ship wants to gtfo, it usually has a high probability of doing so. Third issue is the low dps output. Make sure you carry plenty of ammo. The Vengeance will outlast the majority of ships in its class, so its a game of perseverance. Who can hold out the longest, or gtfo first.

Two of those problems are solved with my current fit shown above, higher capacitor and regen helps in negating Neuts and longer range scram and web assist in getting back into range with the MWD when able to activate it. The third problem of low dps is really not an issue as many ships Ive encountered cannot maintain a long term, cap stable tank. Only one other assault frigate have I fought against been able to both break my tank as well as hold its tank long enough to beat me was specifically fit to kill my fit. Keep that in mind, if the enemies know your fit, they can counter it easier. Less intel given is less advantage over you given.

And that is how I view the Vengeance. I guess its not much of a guide as much as a "my thoughts" on the ship, eh?