Another lucky kill

Real Life has prevented me for any concerted effort at solo PvP.  I had planned on spending a few hours roaming around lowsec, but then noticed an interesting class on hunting players in wormholes which I sat in on for an hour or so.

Suitably inspired, I jumped into the same Tristan as my previous roam and went out for a look to see what sort of trouble I could get into on a Sunday night.

I made a quick tour of nearby systems, which were pretty quiet.  I noticed a Tristan on scan in one system, followed a Claw into another (but lost him immediately) and jumped into another system to see an Incursus near my gate.

I quite fancied taking on an Incursus, so when I thought I saw him activate the gate, I uncloaked, burned back and jumped through...no Incursus pilot in local.  Hmm, perhaps he warped out straight away? Only that Tristan in local at the mo.

I burned back to the gate, jumped through to an empty system. hohum.  With pickings few and far between I decided to go back to the Tristan system.

Still only the one pilot in local, looks like he's at a small plex so off I go, took the gate, pre-activated scram and kept an eye on local for any incoming.

I land about 5K off him, activate scram, release drones, he targets me and opens fire.

I notice my scram is not on him, though he has his on me, so I activate mine again, stick on my webber for good measure, send in the drones and open fire.

My shields go down a lot quicker than his so I pulse my repper when my armour starts to go, my drones & guns continue to eat through his shields, I think I may have made a mistake to have set my repper to pulse rather than continuous as my armour almost completely disappears, only to recover back to about 50%.

Range is still good, cap is fine and I'm aware that trying to redo my repper settings mid-fight may not go well so I concentrate on activating it again as soon as a cycle ends.

This time my structure dips to about 50% before my armour recovers to about 25%, his armour is pretty low now, but I think he's got me...I desperately fire off another repair cycle, realise I should have been overheating guns & repper when there's an explosion on screen. Bugger! I spam the warp button to the first celestial I can click on my overview...so close, then I realise that my pod has armour & shields and modules :) It wasn't me who blew up http://killfeed.eveuniversity.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=366217

I dropped a gf in local which was reciprocated, then went back for my drones before heading back to base.

Things I thought about / remembered afterwards;

1) I didn't check my safeties again, which may be why my scram didn't take first time (or I may have tried to activate it whilst not quite out of warp)
2) I think he may have redboxed me first
3) For short lived frigate fights, may make more sense to not pulse my repper as it's likely that the fight will be brief (one way or another)
4) Remember to overheat at the start! (and to take it off if no needed or to prevent burnout)
5) Remember to scoop the loot (even if it's not massively pricey, every little helps)
6) There is never a six
7) I was using an overview without drones on it, whilst fighting a drone boat (which wasn't an issue this time, but it could well be if /when I move up to bigger ships or small gangs).  I have the overview setup, just didn't switch to it.

So although I came out on top this time, it was more down to luck than planning :)

Tristan #1
2 kills

Did somebody say Tristan?

Decided there was no time like the present, so jumped into a Tristan and set off for nearest lowsec FW system to see what trouble I could get into on a fine Tuesday night.

What I probably should have done was refresh myself on the layout of the surrounding systems in space (or at least glance at Dotlan) so that I'm not sat there thinking, hmm which gate was the 'bad' one again?

Anyway, there were three in local and I spotted a Navitas at a large FW complex so I piled in, activated scram on the Navitas (who just sat there), released my drones and clicked for my default orbit.

Then realised that my scram wasn't running and the Navitas wasn't locked and seemed to be slowly moving away, my drones idling in space.

I tried to lock him up again, noticed the message about my safety settings being on, clicked the green light, clicked the yellow light, tried to activate scram on him again with no luck, safeties were still on green and he was now about 18K away.

Then clicked the green safety light, selected yellow, then ticked the yellow confirm box, then realised my default orbit was set at 40K and it was me moving, not him. Set a closer orbit, locked him up (finally) and sent in the drones...I think he was dead before I'd even managed to land my scam.

Turns out it wasn't even fit !

So although it was a pretty rubbishy kill, it did mean that I managed to get my setup sorted...eventually.

Tristan #1
1 kill

Been a long time

What have I been doing sine 17th November last year?  Real Life got busy, I kept my skills training and dabbling in a bit of industry / PI with alts but wasn't logging in as often as I'd like.  My training was all over the place as I kept seeing new things I wanted to try, then finding that my skills sucked.

Around the end of the year I even contemplated jacking in EVE altogether, I'd paid both accounts up already (Zebulon for 12 months, my alt account for 6 months), but set them both to expire when that time was up. I was mostly playing Elder Scrolls : Oblivion (for the first time).

EvE just wouldn't leave me alone though and after some useful discussions around skills etc (particularly the Magic 14) I'm back on track, my accounts wont expire and I'm in EvE almost everyday.

I now have a solid Dominix setup for running L4s, all my alts have moved to Nullsec with their PI and one of them is also training up for nullsec exploring.

Zebulon is jumping between campuses, though my home is still Solitude I now have a few ships at the Lowsec, Highsec and Nullsec campuses and try and spend a bit of time at each.

I also took part in some big fleet ops bashing some POCOs which was great fun as well as very useful experience of operating as part of a large fleet.

However, it's now about time I got back to some PvP, particularly as we're constantly at war and I'm aiming to take part in the Lowsec & Nullsec campuses.

To that end I recently bought and fitted 20 Tristans and dropped them in my staging system of Stacmon.  I have a few different fits and will see which fare best.

I've gone with Tristans as I do love drones and have sunk most of my skill points into them, though I also have a bunch of Incursus, Merlins and Algoses if I fancy a bit of a change.

15th Movember

So I spent a few days out and about in lowsec FW space without much luck getting into a decent fight.  I'm managing to resist the urge to charge in at any ship that presents itself, unlike during my previous attempt to get some solo PvP in the summer.

The downside is that I spend a lot of time going 'nope, nope, nope,' and moving on.  I'm guessing as my skills and capabilities improve I'll be able to take on more prospective fights.

I'm still flying Liar (from previous post), and finally found a fight I thought I might stand a chance in - normally I wouldn't dream of taking on a Catalyst in an Incursus, as they are likely to be blaster fit, the same as my Incursus, but have massively more firepower and are designed to take out frigates.

However, in this instance the pilot was fairly new so I was hoping he'd be T1 fit and not have great skills, with fingers crossed I piled in.

He quickly shredded my shields once I'd closed in and unleashed my drone.  My armour repper was able to recover most of the damage to begin with, but couldn't really keep up with the incoming damage.  Then I remembered to Overheat my guns(!) as I was in structure, my repper pulled me back into armour briefly before there was a flash and a Boom!

I was pretty sure I'd died, but my repper must have completed it's cycle just in time! I scooped the loot, dropped a "gf" in local and warped out just as a harpy landed almost on top of me.  I thought the Harpy had caught me, pretty sure I saw the scram icon over my ship but my warp drive had already started.

In retrospect I should probably have kept towards the edge of my scram range to let my drone do it's job, though I couldn't have known that the Catalyst didn't have and repair modules nor scram fitted!

Anyway I lived to fight another day and I made another donation to Movember.  I've now matched my previous number of kills, but in half the time.  Hopefully I'll get a bunch more over the next few days.

9th Movember

I didn't get into space as much as I'd have liked last week, but I have this week off work as we've got builders in at home. Turns out Monday daytime (EU timezone is a little bit quiet), but I decided to do a bit of ratting on the side whilst looking for a fight. I was in an Incursus renamed to Liar and set off wandering through low sec. I found a Serpentis Clone Soldier Trainer at a belt with a 1 million isk bounty and a tag. Nice start, but not what I was after.

I few systems later I landed at an outgate to see a Nemesis jump in and cloak. The pilot was fairly new so I decided to hang around in system. There was only the two of us. I toured the belts in case he was ratting. nope, and no more clone soldier trainers. Nemesis pilot was still in system, but sensibly enough not showing on dscan.

I decided to fly to the sun and then align to my original outgate. Then I checked my evemail. I really should turn my sound on when I'm not playing in front of the TV next to the missus, however if I read my mail in space, I always make sure I can see my overview and ship status, so I quickly spotted the Nemesis when he decloaked and engaged me with his target painter.

I set a tight orbit and burned the 20-odd Km to his ship, releasing and engaging my drone as I did so. His first salvo took about 1/4 of my shields, but I figured I was too small & fast for his Torpedoes to do much damage. As soon as I got into web & scram range I activated the modules and then turned on my Blasters once I got closer.

It didn't take long. Boom!

I scooped the loot dropped a gf in local. The guy knew my ship was too small, but he'd done 30 jumps without a fight and couldn't resist...I know how that feels! I let him know it was for a good cause (I have details about Movember in my Bio). He's supporting Movember too and wished me well.

I dumped loot in station and carried on. Donation to Movember made.

Movember - Day 1

For the month of Movember I'll be having another go at focusing on solo PvP, as well as sporting a handsome 'tache to do my bit for raising awareness of Men's Health issues.

During the month, I shall be blogging about my exploits here and for every successful kill I'll be donating £3 to Movember (I had 3 kills on my killboard at the start of this month).

All of my ships will be named after Queen / Freddie Mercury songs

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, so it only seemed fitting that my first foray was so named.

Suffice to say, it blew my cobwebs off and got my blood pounding...I landed on top of a fairly new character flying a Catalyst in my Merlin.  He promptly warped off whilst I  exiting warp, to be replaced by a Kiting Atron.

I never landed a shot, but I was quite pleased with managing my ASB, even surviving through the reload cycle.  I managed to get out of scram range briefly, but I was too slow on the warp button so I eventually died.

Second ship was fitted up and I took my incursus, newly re-christened as "It's a Hard Life" and headed off up towards Arnon.  A few jumps in there's a lone guy in system, I scan him down to a FW mission, so prepperd my modules and headed in.  He must not have been paying attention as I landed about 50K away and lit my burners to get to him, expecting him to warp out any second.

He eventually woke up and engaged me when he was about half armour, but it was too little, too late.

I dropped a "gf" in local, but didn't get a reply.

Almost a month since my last post...bet you thought I'd packed in and given up!

Sorry to disappoint but I'm still here.  Been away for some holiday time with the family, work is also piling up and will continue pretty much as is until mid September when it'll either slacken off or I will :)

I took a couple of weeks away from Solitude to try and get more solo PVP experience (I even won a prize!) but only ended up getting one solo kill for 12 deaths!  Still plenty to learn there.

In other news I have now proved myself enough to the Gallente Federation Customs L3 agent (running her missions in my trusty Vexor) that she's passed me along to her L4 friend.  I'll need lots more training and a much bigger ship before I can safely handle those missions solo, so for now I'll move onto L3 missions with Federation Intelligence.

I came back from holiday to see I'd finished training Gallente Frigate 5, I'm just rounding off some support skills before moving into Covert Ops and Interceptors, then start training for some bigger ships (see above).

In other news, both alts are making nice passive profit from PI, involving only a few minutes work per week.  Alt #2 has now stopped training (trained decent PI skills plus blockade runner).  Alt#1 is currently training for an Orca.

Fly casual,

Zeb