Still here

Two weeks since my last post, but I'm still here, still in EVE pretty much every day, but for the last two weeks I've not been in Solitude at all.

July 1st saw the start of a month long YOLO SOLO event - go out and find as much solo PvP as you like, get blown up, blow up other people, have fun and make sure you write up your (mis)adventures.

There are mystery prizes, as well as 1st, 2nd & 3rd for most solo kills.  I've even managed to win one of the mystery prizes so far as I blew up someone who'd previously blown me up.  Nice, and the extra 25million prize was promptly spent on more ships to get blown up.

In the last two weeks I have managed to gain 1 solo kill (as above) when I tried to act as bait in a battle venture. Unfortunately for me, I suck and the guy was able to destroy my Venture before I could take out his Thrasher (I was hoping for a T1 frigate).

Unfortunately for the guy, he then decided to hang around in the belt and take on the local belt rat.  I had an Incursus in station in the next system, so I went straight back and blew him up, then scooped the loot from both our wrecks...and won the additional 25million as mentioned earlier. Result!

Other than that kill, the previous two weeks have been littered with my wrecks;

Incursus   Tristan  Merlin  Algos Incursus#2  Incursus#3  Incursus#4  Algos#2  Incursus#5

I don't have a good ratio of Kills:Deaths (1:10) and I've lost more ISK than I've blown up (something like 40million lost vs 6 million killed), but I've enjoyed every explosion.  After every fight my heart is beating faster.

Hopefully I'm also learning and improving. Even after only a small number of fights I feel that I am managing the engagement better, I'm not dictating the fight on my terms yet, but I am understanding what's happening.  I'm managing my modules better (though I did spend one entire fight repeatedly turning my guns on and then off before realising that I hadn't actually locked up the ship I was 'engaging').

More kills will come, no doubt and at the end of the month I'll be back in the peace & quiet of Solitude...with the occasional trip out looking for trouble ;)

My first PvP kill, quickly followed by my first solo PvP kill

Took an incursus out on a small gang roam around some FW areas last night, eventually got into a fight and we scored our first kill in a week long small gang tourney, unfortunately that one kill resulted in all 4 of us dying.

We were doing OK until the confessor turned up, one of the Tristans was this close > < to exploding, honest!

We'll only get better, last longer and put out more damage as we get more practice and in particular as my skills increase.

This morning I decided to get some practice in before work and set out on a short roam.  I soon found a breacher at a small plex, I warped to it and saw the breacher at the gate.  I took the gate and waited to see if he would follow me, he did but I didn't manage to land my web & scram and he pulled range, released his drones and started in with his missiles.

I set my drone onto him, targetted and killed his drones and tried to close distance.  He was maintaining range at 18-21Km.  My Optimal was 6K, falloff at 11K

He killed off my drone, I tried burning away from him then closing distance again but couldn't get close enough to land my web or scram.  I was able to keep repping his damage though by pulsing my repair module...until I ran out of paste. at which point I switched to continuous cycle.  My armour whittled down pretty slowly.

I tried OH my AB to either close distance or get out of scram range...and burnt out my AB.

Then his mate turned up in another breacher and landed 2Km from me.  I switched targets, landed web & scram and OH my guns.

I then noticed my cap was pretty much gone so spent a few cycles of having repairer, web or guns going.

Pretty sure I got the 2nd breacher into hull, but he was able to bring his shields back up. Then the inevitable happened and I warped my pod out.

Definitely a good fight!

lesson learned - bring a mix of ammo so I can vary my range.  more paste - that fight lasted long enough for a reload of the repairer I think.

Anyway, I reshipped and went out again.  this time I found a lone Atron at a large plex.  I warped in at 10 (forgot there isn't a gate for larges), landed 14Km away and burned towards him fully expecting him to warp off.

I landed OH web & scram, set my drone on him and opened up with my guns.  Took off the OH to web & scram once I was close enough.  Everything went straightforward, he didn't even take down my shields.

My first solo kill!

Not a great fight, but I'll take it and a nice way to start the day.

incidentally, I received an evemail from Crake Gaterau (who annihilated me a few days ago in his Stratios that I thought would be piloted by someone with much lower skills).  It was a short note offering encouragement, letting me know he was around for any advice I needed when it comes to PvP and accompanied a 20million isk donation to keep my PvP going.

Much appreciated Crake, I bought some more hulls and modules this morning, they'll all be used in PvP!

a couple more fights

Just a short post about a couple of fights I got into recently

Firstly I went on a short roam around some FW areas, avoided cruisers this time, jumped into a small plex and orbited the button hoping someone would come for a fight.

They did.

I lasted a little longer than my previous fight, fumbled with my ancillary armour repairer, managed to loose my Drone on him, thought i was orbiting at 500, but when I checked his distance saw he was at about 28K.

I think I need to avoid Screaming Hayabusa pilots for a while :)

I then went on a longer, meandering roam through lowsec and ended up in Everyshore (?) before docking up for the night.  no fights, did't find any other ships at any celestials, boring.

This morning before work I decided to head back through lowsec to the FW area and my staging system. 

I was running late but found a Condor in a plex.  Myself and 2 other pilots in local.  I decided to warp in with my Atron and see how it went.

Closest I managed to get was 15K, I was able to rep my armour back after each of his volley's landed, but couldn't get close enough to hit him with my blasters.

I pulled range and warped off, chucking in a gf afterwards.  He agreed it was a good fight until I ran off, but seemed to take it good naturedly when I said there was no point hanging around to explode when I couldn't hit him.

I was fairly pleased that I managed my modules ok, I was able to recognise that it was likely to end up with me exploding if I continued and I was able to disengage and escape.

Thinking about it afterwards, if I'd overheated my Web I wonder if I could have burned close enough to him with my MWD, to stop him running so I could get closer to hit with my blasters.

I was also running with a warp disruptor for the longer range, probably may have been better with a scrambler instead (not sure if he was running a MWD or not).

I should also have thought about swapping out ammo to a longer range variant as I was managing to keep my armour repaired OK.

on to the next!