It feels like ages ago that I had the inspiration and a story to tell worthy of a blog post. You see, after the wormhole days, life in 0.0 was mostly about being behind blue Alliances that had more firepower than you, keeping you safe, and it was mostly a slow learning curve on stuff that you need to know about surviving in 0.0, small roaming gangs and not too many things happening on a day-by-day basis.

Sure, if you make a mistake in 0.0, typically you pay buy losing your ship, like I did two days ago when I lost my carrier. Very good executed hot-drop, melted my Thanny in about 30sec and left me wondering whether I could have survived if I was next to a station instead of a POS, but either way I don’t want to talk to you about how SuperCaps are overpowered and all… I want to talk to you about Wins and Learnings.

The moment I jumped to that cyno, I was feeling safe – that was the real reason behind my loss. What do I mean by that? Let me explain:

Split Infinity alliance has committed to help out –A- coalition in the push to control Tenerifis about a month or so ago. We were becoming complacent in our own little system and the possibility of getting into good fights and sov warfare was quite the driver for most of us – at least folks like myself who haven’t done sov warfare before.

Then, after weeks of sov structure grinds, without any opposition by White Noise we kept gaining space and expanding. At the same time we grew even more complacent. So when we decided to take it to the next step and help with the push in Detorid, we thought it would be not very much different than the Tenerifis grind.

So, when I jumped my carrier 2 nights ago into 3-L at our staging POS, after we had RFed the Station and iHUB in system already with no opposition, I was feeling safe. Then, a Falcon de-cloaked, pointed my ship, and light a cyno. Then the SuperCaps came in and although I lost my good old Thanny, I felt good after a few minutes.

Why? Because, we didn’t come to 0.0 to be glorified carebears, plexing and ratting ABC rocks. We came for the fights, the experience and the fun. This was it and we needed to get our shit together to get things done. We have come to a much more dangerous place than Tenerifis finally and this where it begins…

It took a bit more for this message to sink in with the rest of the alliance though…

With my Thanny replaced and a healthy 35+ man presence from Split Infinity, along with equal numbers from Imperial Order and a few SOB and EON allies, we logged on right after DT on the 4th of June to take the Station in 3-L and the iHUB. We had a nice bashing op going, nothing fancy, and although couple of neuts were in system at the the time we had no issues and shortly after, the Station was ours and we had the iHub dying shortly after.

Got some nice pics off that op:

Next in line was to get the TCU online, and to do that we had to kill off one of the SBUs (since WTB had already SBUed the system we didn’t bother replacing them sooner). We decided to let I0 move on to the next target system and keep sov bashing while SI would bash the SBUs, online the TCU and then go help them out.

What happened next, was that a fleet of about 15 folks with Drakes and Scimitars from DarkSide. came into system. As I learned later on, DarkSide. are quite infamous of their small gang PVP. Back then, we had no idea who they were and our FC called the support fleet to go meet them at the in-gate. We had superior intel and manpower, but we didn’t have good sync with I0 (we never called them to help, we were quite proud and felt we could handle anything) and about that moment everything started to fall apart. Out of our 100 man fleet, only SI subcaps went to that gate, and within few minutes we started losing one ship after the other…

Now remember what I told about being complacent earlier? Our Sub-Caps were ships that were mostly fitted for “safe” sov bashing, like we were used to do for more than a month, back in Tenerifis Sov grind. That meant little to no tank, max DPS and without logi they stood no chance. Once we realized that our ships were getting pwnd, our only option was to get our caps to go with them and provide reps.

If I recall correctly at that stage, we managed to get our fleet back safe, after losing some sub-caps to the DarkSide 15man gang. The fight was completely one-sided as we couldn’t get any ships pointed. GF to DarkSide there for awesome flying. Once we regrouped, DarkSide left system, intel was pretty bad on our side and we decided to go for the SBU again.

Yeah, we should have done this much sooner, killed the SBUs and put online our own. That mistake aside, we recovered the losses, our folks jumped into new ships and we engaged the SBUs. Few moments after, DarkSide returns, bubbles our cap fleet that is on the grid and a cyno pops up.

Yup, “It’s Hot-Drop o’ clock” as Cpt JR said…

Now, 3 great learnings from a situation like this are:

1. Caps take fucking long to lock up anything and by the time they are able to apply reps, ships were about to pop. Effectively, with DarkSide. really knowing what they were doing, they were switching targets and popping our sub-caps faster than we could apply any reps on them.

2. Sub-caps without dedicated ships to point the enemy fleet down will result in massive losses. We had very few tackle with us. That resulted in us not being able to kill anything but a freaking sabre from the enemy fleet. Most of the ships we called primary melted fast, up to the point where they would get off grid and warp back at a distance.

3. If you commit capitals in today’s 0.0 game, a hotdrop of Supers is bound to happen, so make sure you have the counter-hotdrop ready in advance, before you commit your own capitals.

So we learned quite a few things, the hard way and along with some other minor mistakes and a few bad calls that were made. At the end of this engagement, we had lost the field, with heavy losses, but the Station was ours. We have achieved our goal… or did we?

Yeah we still had to take down the SBU… By the time we had a bomber fleet with fighter support on the field hitting that SBU, things escalated.

What happened was that a 30man Wrecked gang with Hellcats came into system. Hellcat fleets are Abaddons with high DPS, supported by Guardians. They had also a Damnation, Loki and Proteus as well as a couple of BCs with them, all in all, a very decent setup. They started bashing our TCU, trash-talking in local and along with other shenanigans, thought they had the upper hand. Well I mean they had all the rights to brag, we pretty much gave them a bunch of free kills earlier, not to mention the hotdrop 2 days ago…

With our sub-caps decimated earlier, we didn’t have the ships ready to do any damage to them, but we had the morale to see this to the end and put up a good fight. However, we needed to ensure that our Caps won’t be risked again without proper support. That meant picking up the Bat-phone and call in the big boys!

PK of Aggressive Tendancies fame, was quick and eager to respond. AAA’s rally time was amazing and they grouped a fleet ready in just a few minutes, to not only take on the 30man gang we had in system, but also to counter-hot drop them once they brought in their Super-Caps.

Only thing we had to do, was to bait them to hot-drop us. Simple, right?

Not really… We did our best, but time went buy and they didn’t take the bait. I had a Cyno fitted on my thanny and AAA was ready to laid them all to waste, once any Supers appeared, but it was almost an hour before we decided to just cyno in the sub-caps and at least kill their sub-cap fleet.

We decided to bait them into position by attacking the SBU with our caps, and so they did. Once everyone was within 20km of my ship, I popped the cyno, waiting for a massive gang of pure pwnage to bridge-in and give these guys some payback for our losses earlier.

What I got instead, was this:

Yup, the Titan instead of bridging-in the fleet, jumped at the cyno. EPIC LOLs.

Took a few moments to regroup and ensure the second Titan was ready with a bridge this time and by then, the enemy fleet warped off grid.

Sometimes luck plays quite the games… I had a cloaky scout in system, with cyno fitted, sitting off a random planet. Guess where the enemy fleet landed. Yep, right next to me! Then of all possible things, the wierdest thing happened! The enemy Phobos in their fleet, decided to put up their bubble!!!

Yeah they were all at planet, at 0, with their own HIC keeping their fleet in a nice bubble. I was only a few clicks away and ready to light the second cyno right on top of them… I was sure that this time we would surely get them… Then local spiked… as second Titan bridged the Sub-caps to the first cyno (where the first Titan had landed) – before my second cyno near the enemy fleet was up…

EPIC LOLs again!

I was a nervous wreck at that time, shaking by adrenaline that was pumping for hrs and really didn’t follow what happened next, while AAA hunted and killed some of the enemy fleet. All I know is, that they fled the scene as fast as they could, and soon after, AAA was back to help us kill the two SBUs and rep up the TCU, before they were gone back home.

Thumbs up to AAA for showing up – even with the mistakes on their end, it was amazing to see how lightning fast they were able to muster such numbers and be able to support us. Too bad we didn’t get to lure the enemy Supers in – that would have been really sweet, but perhaps we’ll get more opportunities for that in the near future…

Wrecked and DarkSide. put up a good fight and got lots of kills with minimal losses. GF to them. Split Infinity on the other hand, got their first real 0.0 warfare experience, learned a lot of things, gained a Station system and realized that no-matter how big you are, this is a game that is so rich and complex, that anything is possible.

EPIC Wins, EPIC Fails and EPIC Lolz, we are here to stay and to have loads of fun!

Oh, and the name of the station is “Hot-Drop o’clock” in memory of yesterday’s events!

Welcome to our sandbox!

qp

Reykjavik

We are in Reykjavik, Iceland and we are broadcasting to you from EVE Online FanFest 2011

We will be publishing daily updates on our YouTube Channel – so make sure to subscribe over there to get the latest stories from FanFest, including Dev Interviews, Beer talk, Community Spotlight and more!

We are currently uploading our T minus 3 Days video – it is taking too damn long already!

Stay Tuned!

qp & Lumi

… the thrill of an op into the unknown

… the passion over comms

… the activity of more and more players

… the killmails and the good fights

We are on the move!

As of last week, we are deploying to claim our new home in deep 0.0. We’ve come a long way since we first moved into our first Class 2 home.

The following pictures featuring 4 Carrier pilots jumping to move some assets is a testament to that.

I recall back in that first move that there was only 1 of us that could fly an Iteron V and the rest had to help hauling in their Badger I’s… Now the question is “who can spare 5k in their Carrier?”

So… a whole new ball-game now. Alliance chat for one is a very nice addition! Playing with other like-minded players and working for a common goal is a great feeling.

Shout-outs go to Helen Burn Corp and Rule of Five, our two new core corporations in Split Infinity. alliance.

Expect a more detailed report after we claim sov and we are able to talk about it…

Stay tuned!

qp

It was a freezing cold day where I live and blazing hot in 4C-B7X, solar system in Outer Ring where Noctis BPOs sale have just started. There was another solar system with sale offers, NM-OEA but it had two major disadvantages that disqualified it as operation target:

1. It has only one stargate connection which makes it easy to lock out.
2. It lacks stations with medical services that are essential for using an expendable scout pilot.

Before even ORE released their new blueprint, 3 pilots were positioned within target system. Those pilots were:

• Dee – a fresh capsuleer with cloning service in 4C-B7X – initially floating in a safe spot.
• Rut – CovOps scout, also in safe spot.
• Archentar – operation leader in Legion, docked in VI 1 station.

Main burden of transporting was to be laid on Strategic Cruiser, due to its adaptability to harsh Null Sec conditions. Here is detailed specification:

[Legion, Null Sec Transport]
Legion Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Legion Defensive - Augmented Plating
Legion Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Legion Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Legion Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher (Sisters Core Scanner Probe)
4x Medium Energy Neutralizer II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
3x Large Shield Extender II
Inertia Stabilizers II
3x 'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
Damage Control II

2x Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

As you can see, it is covert, has pretty strong warp drive, decent tank (45k EHP), scanning capabilities (if only feasible route leads through wormholes) and if all fails, 4 medium energy neutralizers that give a chance of shutting down one or two tacklers.

Due to external reasons, operation started three hours after the release. Rut performed initial recon, and discovered a significant station camp at VI 1. There were more than 20 combat ships and several warp disruption bubbles around it. On the other hand, surroundings of the second station with blueprints were peaceful (at least peaceful for a system that suffered over 1000 ship loses in 24 hours). VI 1 station was selected as primary because when Rut got to 4C-B7X month ago this station was least populated. Even though Archentar had Interdiction Nullifier and safe undock bookmark I have decided to wait till the station clears before undocking.

In the mean time I have checked Jita prices for the merchandise and found out that it is still profitable. It was 600 MISK at that time, so the operation was still in “go”. Dee took the duty of patrolling vicinity of the VI 1. Since she was in Reaper, she was jumping between bookmarks at 100-300 km from the camp. It wasn’t long before hostile fleet moved to the second station leaving one Drake and two bubbles behind. This was a sign for Archentar, who quickly made his way to a safe spot with batch of precious BPOs.

First part of the plan was complete. The easy part. Hard one was to actually get the stuff to Jita. The shortest route from Outer Ring to High Sec leads through Syndicate. Various killboard entries from that day show that it leads through various cloning facilities as well. Given that, I picked following route: http://evemaps.dotlan.net/route/4C-B7X: … ma:-3KNK-A

The idea was to have Dee leading the way with Archentar one system behind. Well, all went pretty smooth, systems on the route were pretty empty, at least to the point then Dee crashed into gatecamp in DY-F70. Thanks to tactical bookmarks, Archentar managed to go further, to FD53-H, but intel suggested that O-ZXUV may contain another gate camp. Jumping further without scout was assessed as too risky, so Dee was ordered to get back. She resurrected in 4C-B7X, but it occurred that she will be able to reach Archentar faster if she starts from one of High Sec stations. But the only way to get there was to die again.

Dee undocked from her cloning facility in 4C-B7X in fully armed Reaper with truly suicidal intentions. There were several combat ships around, so she targeted nearest Hurricane, set orbit at 1 km and opened fire with Civilian Autocannon. Overview reported several ongoing target locks on her rookie ship and first energy bursts impacted her shields. Then, out of the blue, whole hostile fleet disengaged and warped away. I guess the sheer determination of young pilot scarred them off. She had to warp to VI 1 station to finally get podded.

Once back in High Sec and in fresh Reaper, she scouted the rest of the way to FD53-H and to my surprise there was no camp at all. Without any further adventures, Archentar made it to Jita.

Later that day, once enough ISK returned from market, Rut tried his luck with BPO run. Dee went back as forward scout. This time VIII 1 station provided the plans, as no pirates cared to guard it. In order to avoid dangerous DY-F70 neighborhood, Rut went bit longer route: http://evemaps.dotlan.net/route/4C-B7X: … YQ:-X-M2LR This time, no-one even attempted to disrupt the operation.

In the end, whole operation, including both runs and waiting for window of opportunity, took about 4 hours and provided a lot of fun and profit in “dare to be bold” spirit. Of course there were many hours of planning and preparation before that but it was well worth it. After all such opportunity is not a common thing in New Eden.

Fly like you’ve never flown before,
Archentar Symonia

Greetings my fellow corp men and women (& blog readers)!!!

Agatir here again… As one corpmate stated, “It was bound to happen.”

Most of you know that SI Radio has found a new “home” in a small pocket of 0.0 in Providence under the sovereignty control of Noir. Mercenary Group. (NMG.) As such we rent the ability to live and use the areas under their control for a “small” fee. Along with SI Radio there are a few other renters who inhabit the same systems. The majority of folks here have been enjoying the pocket’s military upgrades to farm anomalies and signatures. As you can expect, it is not uncommon to warp into a site only to find that it is already being pillaged. So you pick another site and warp off. Some of these sites are 6/10 and 10/10 complexes. Such sites have the ability to produce some really nice loot items, of the True Sansha variety. So there is some competition to race to the more lucrative sites. It is to be expected.

Since our arrival, SI Radio has lived in relative peace with its new found neighbors, but as my corpmate quote hinted to… it was only a matter of time before some feathers got ruffled.

***Warning: the following is all based upon Agatir Solenth’s in game perspective, and does not pretend to be the whole truth, and not thing but the truth***

As I log into game, yesterday evening, and make my customary salutations, I am greeted with folks telling me NOT to undock! This puzzled me, as there were only blues in system. Suspecting there may be a 20 man roaming gang running through the pocket, I inquired to what was going on? I was informed that we just had a friendly fire incident with our neighbors, in an adjacent system, in a 10/10 complex, and fingers were being pointed back and forth on who shot who first! To further complicate things both sides were claiming that THEY had got to complex first.

WOOT!!! Our first diplomatic crisis! I wasn’t sure if SI Radio even had diplomats other than Luminous or Quivering Palm (QP) and they are just talk show hosts! Luckily QP had just got online, so things were being discussed in some chat channel.

As this is a blog, and not a novel… I’ll just give the quick recap of what was passed in corp chat.

***Warning: the names and places have been changed to protect the fact I didn’t much care to pay that much attention***

Our Guy > We didn’t shoot first.

QP> He says that you did.

Our Guy> I got the logs to prove it.

QP> He says that he has a screen shot & logs to prove it.

QP> http: ENTER SCREEN SHOT HERE

QP>Wow he is really mad.

Our Guy> Yeah I trying to stay diplomatic but how can you when they talk like that?

Our Guy> Yep. He is just mad that we were here first.

QP> Were you?

Our Guy> Yes, we had to warp out and when we warped back in they were there, but we had wrecks all over.

Our Guy> He is claiming that it was his escalation.

Agatir Solenth> Um… guys is it me or is the first thing listed in that screen shot a combat message showing him shooting our drones? Then our drones shoot him?

Our Guy> Yep Agatir. He attacked our drones. They must have been set to aggressive and they attacked him.

QP> He must have been mad because you guys got there first? Did you guys blow his ship up?

Our Guy> No

QP> Then what is he bitching about?

Agatir Solenth>*SHRUG*

So… no blood no foul? I think everyone agreed to go their separate ways, and it was reinforced by our landlords (NMG.) that it is first come first serve on all sites in the pocket. I thought it a fair solution all around.

And in the end I got to test my Abby’s tank against the final room of a 10/10 complex and help my corp score a Nightmare Blueprint! ;p

Fly Safe… Stay profitable…

Next Report: Why do pod pilots hate to walk in stations?

Greetings my fellow corp men and women (& blog readers)!!!

I am Agatir Solenth (or Ag if you prefer). It has come to my attention that the Planet Risk Show is on the verge of being removed from the Blog Pack for lack of posting activity! As Quivering Palm & Luminus Aardokay have been overwhelmed by real life events (like answering fan mail, drinking beer, or chasing half naked girls on the beaches of Greece) I felt it my duty to step up and blog about the recent events surrounding SI Radio’s move to Providence.

It has been almost two months since I joined the ranks of SI Radio, and I can tell you that flying with these guys has been as much fun as listening to the Planet Risk Show Podcast. It isn’t that we have been super successful. We have had some “epic fail” attempts at PvP. We have gotten suckered into a RP event that turned out to be PvP trap (POP went my Geddon). Our wormhole operations have had limited success due to poor spawn rates in our 0.0 pocket.

What has been really successful is the chemistry of the guys who I fly with. As Quivering Palm and Luminus Aardokay have said again and again on their Podcasts, we are bunch of Carebears that have graduated to Noobs! We have as much fun losing ships as we do shooting them. This has made it a lot of fun to go out and try to learn this thing called PvP, and I for one, have become very good at losing ships! It would appear that we are a collection of beer drinking guys that like to fly internet spaceships. Most of us began our careers in EVE mission running and/or doing the industrial trade thing, and got our first taste of PvP in wormhole space.

That being said… what you can expect from my future reports will be snippets of our exploits and failures, lessons I have learned along the way, and my thoughts about EVE in general.

Until then… Fly Safe… Stay profitable…

Next Report: Drama in the Pocket – A Friendly Fire Incident

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: "Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?"

298 days ago, we set foot inside wormhole space for the first time. Back then it was a group of 8 friends, most of us with less than 10M SPs at that time, that had absolutely no idea about wormholes, no idea about PVP (some say we still don’t have a clue), and had turned all the ISK in our wallets into a Medium POS, some supplies and fuel to last about two weeks.

We dared to venture into the unknown, dared to be bold and embraced the sandbox of the EVE Universe. In EVE – YOU – control your own destiny.

During that time, we managed:

…to make and burn more than 50 billion ISK
…to act as a fleet supporting each other instead of being a band of solo players
…to build capital ships
…to ride capital ships
…to self-destruct capital ships (damn you R&K!)
…to master the art of t3 production and make a fortune out of it
…to easily farm C6 plexes
…to have a show, podcast and blog related to w-space that acts as one of the definitive sources of information for EVE players
…to have played a major role into the CSM elections by hosting a series of interviews with Candidates
…to relay Alliance Tournament 7 for two weekends and commentate on the fights afterwards
…to fight alongside seasoned pilots
…to be considered celebrities and widely identified & to fight against (and win) against famous celebrities in planned deathmatches
…to organize our very own PVP tournament
…to lose ships due to friendly fire
…to strip belts out for vast amounts of minerals
…to mine mercoxit
…to keep losing ships and still have the "oh well.. no real harm done" mindset
…to manipulating wormholes and w-space as if we were the ones who designed it
…to see ships in directional and instead of cowering, head over to take them down
…to have a single monthly corporate meeting
…to kill a Rorqual 5 days into the w-space colonization effort
…to successfully ransom a ship for 1 billion ISK
…to take down and destroy a defenseless POS
…to take down and destroy a defended POS that someone else erected into our own back yard
…to participate into large capital fleet warfare
…to help destroy the ego of a large alliance such as the R&K
…to spend Valentine’s day fighting our most epic fight defending our home
…to spend Steak & BJ day self-destructing our assets and evacuating our Class 6 wormhole
…to grow our corp with valuable and trustworthy members
…to have the creator of EVE-HQ in our corp fighting and having fun alongside us
…to get QP’s brother to join EVE
…to make so many friends in the game
…to exploit what w-space has to offer us to the point that we’d grow tired of it
…to lose multiple billions in assets, ships, pride and not /emoragequit
…to make a lengthy post on how much we have achieved during the previous year

None of this would have happened if we haven’t dared to be bold!

This is our message to all new capsuleers:

Dare to be bold pilot!

Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux: The Three Pillars of Wisdom
2. The Elitist: Helping the new guy/gal
3. Hands Off, My Loots: Nothing Needed
4. Rantuket: Blog Banter 16
5. EVE Opportunist: Nooby Cluey
6. Into the Unknown With Gun and Camera: EVE University
7. Zero Kelvin: We’re the young ones!
8. I am Keith Neilson: Set Your Destination
9. Prano’s Journey: Just Like the Very First Time
10. A Merry Life and a Short One: No Seriously
11. Yarrbear Tales: Nublet 101
12. A Mule In EVE: If I only knew
13. Diary of a Space Jockey: WTH did I get myself into?!
14. EVOGANDA: Why?
15. A Memoir From Space: 16th Blog Banter
16. Death’s Sweetest Kiss: Who What When Where Why How??
17. Freebooted: Beyond the Shortcuts
18. Learning to Fly: Noobing
19. Caldari Outcast: My First Blog Banter Post!
20. Roc’s Ramblings: Financial Survival
21. Diary of a Pod Pilot: Free Knowledge Inside
22. Nullsec Carebear: I could’ve been less of an idiot
23. Facepalm’s Ramblings: Something Smells Fishy
24. Kirith Darkblade: Do you wish to know more?
25. Autopilot Disabled: I’m still starting…
26. Finders & Keepers: Relax
27. Confounded Capsuleer: What have you got to loose?
28. Clan Oriana: Sixteen
29. Flashfresh: EVE Blog Banter #16
30. Rettic’s The Chronofile: You Make EVE
31. Diary of a Bored Spaceman: Past Imperfect
32. Chocolate Heaven: Known Unknowns
33. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance Trust No One!
34. More to come soon…

Last night I got myself into some non-consensual PVP… and almost lost my brand new Tengu… and by the looks of it… I might have lost it and never realized that the ship I was flying had a weird bug…

I need to point out, that usually I would take my Cov Ops fitted Tengu when moving in hostile space. However I decided to spend some ISK and build me a nice gank and tank Tengu setup, so I was giving it a try.

So I board my new Tengu from the Ship Maintenance Array, get the bookmarks for the high sec exit from the can (always remember to leave a copy back), and head to the Class 1 static. Stability looks good here, jump inside, check directional.. check directional again.. all good, decloak, warp to the C1 (while spamming directional), activate hardeners before I land on the high sec exit… all good so far…

I activate my weapons, overheat the scrambler, fire up the AB and start orbiting the hole – waiting for the target to decloak… a few seconds pass… nothing… hmm that’s probably someone who is waiting for the session timer to end before jumping ba…

The wormhole at that point is looking really small and by showing info I see that’s on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile another habringer joins the fight and I am not sure what was that 3rd ship.

At that time, my shield has a hard time keeping up and I realize that I might lose that ship because I have not even taken down that Harbirnger’s shield! WTF?! I am supposed to be doing 545 DPS while overloading with my current skills… anyway.. that’s not the time to think about those things…

Overheat my AB, burn the distance (good job on the Harbringers trying to bump me away), and manage to reach it and jump through to the safety of highsec…

I need to give a shout out to Tal Brasi (the first Harbringer pilot) who after chatting with me in wspace colonists channel, offered me the new static signature and the new highsec system so I was back inside Planet Risk not more than an hour later. I was expecting some kind of “welcoming party” there but oh well… we’ll meet again someplace, someday GF!

Now after I am back safely into PR, I start digging to find out how my new Tengu that was supposed to be dishing out pain and suffering couldn’t even bend the shields from that Harbringer, even with overloaded launchers…

Fire up EVEHQ and head to the fitting tool and the Audit tab. Then back to the in-game screen.. Then back again.. then.. aha!

Here are the relevant skills I have:

OK then, petition time. I have to give a thumbs up to CCP GMs here who replied really fast saying:

“Did you try logging off and on again?”

Seriously tho, to cut a long story short, the issue is a confirmed bug and I have submitted a detailed bug report and reproduction steps.

The problem lies with the Ship Assembly Array at the POS. Apparently more T3 ships have reported such issues, so if you are flying a T3 ship, boarded from a Ship Assembly Array in a POS – make sure to check that your bonuses are applied properly!

So these where my thoughts after the dust settled…

Wspace colonists really can’t catch a break with T3 ships inside wspace.

Besides the fact that I cannot change T3 subsystems unless I am in a station, I have discovered that every time I board my ship from the Ship Maintenance Array of my POS, the bonuses I should be getting from the Caldari Offensive Subsystem Skill at level V (that I have trained) are not applied.

If I logoff and then quickly log back on again, before my ship engages the emergency warp drive, the bonuses applied are still the wrong ones.

If I logoff, wait a couple of minutes and then relog, always while flying my Tengu, the correct bonuses are applied.

If I store my ship in the SMA, the next time I’ll pick it up I’ll have the same problem again.

Since I can’t change my subsystem while at my POS (still no news from CCP about this) I can’t confirm for any different subsystems and/or other T3 ships.

Oh the joys of living in wspace!!!

Any of you guys can confirm similar strange behavior?

QP

A sort non-fictional story by Merinid Dormer

February 14th, Sunday. 19:00 New Eden Time.

Vessper was sitting in his Thanatos. “I am aligning and waiting for instructions” he said.

“10 more minutes to go” said Nictutu.

Quivering Palm with a steady voice continued, “ Guys, this is it. It’s now or never”.

“Let’s secure that tower and the stuff we have in it”, I added with a bit of a doubt in my voice. Hopefully no-one had noticed. Morale was not on the highest levels. Some minor fleet changes of the last minute, nothing i could notice while i was shacking. My fleet fight experience wasn’t helping either. All I could think were the Blueprints, Components and Minerals behind the damaged force field of our Production Tower, sitting just 0.54 AU away. Those were what I’ve been working on for the past few months. All the research and effort Eowarian and I have put on these…

“Everyone who has a cloak jump in, the rest stay in place”. He sounded confident. He was Alekseyev Karrde. The CEO of  one of the most notorious and experienced mercenary corporations in New Eden. NOIR. When a mercenary, like his kind, is in your side your only fear is that he might get more money than you gave him from the “enemy”. Alekseyev and NOIR weren’t  like this though, they had the reputation of honoring their contracts, regardless of money. “ Members of SI Radio Corp. you don’t have to worry about anything. We are here and we know how to do this. Follow our lead and we will secure your system again.

TechPalatinus was patient. He and his 30 pilots were ready. All of them, well trained and experienced pilots. “We are in place and waiting for orders as well”. Wormhole Space colonist feared his corporation. Capital Construction Research members were ruthless. They were known for destroying Towers and stealing whatever valuables they could find. They were on our side. They have been friends for quite some time now.

“1 minute 30 seconds” said Nictutu.

“TeaDaze jump in” Quivering ordered. Orders is not something that TeaDaze is supposed to take I thought. The guy is a legend. He was always in our side. What a pilot. He was a daredevil.

“There is a command ship that we can provide for you to fly TeaDaze” said Luminus Aardokay. “Well thanks a lot man” answered TeaDaze.

“SI Radio Corp. members, are you ready?” asked Quivering.

One by one, Luminus Aardokay, Nictutu, Vessper, Estar Tarns, Sengiria, Verona Black, Eowarian D, Viscious Hunter, Sir Keldron, Drapetis and myself replied “Here”. 20 seconds of silence followed, or was it like an hour? At that point I couldn’t make the difference.

“Mr Deaker reporting movement in the enemy tower”

“Reinforced is down in our tower” said Nictutu.

“Vessper you are clear to warp” went on Quivering.

“I see an Armageddon Navy Issue, 3 Proteus, 3 Legions, 2 Bhaalgorn, 2 Thanatos and one Megathron moving & aligning towards planet VIII” continued Mr Deaker.

“Let us know when they are on grid Vessper” said Alekseyev

10 seconds afterwards Vessper was already repairing the Shields of our Control Tower. “They are on grid. I got hostiles all over me.”

“Everyone jump in. Quivering move your fleet in.”

TechPalatinus followed. 20 of his best pilots inside Strategic Cruisers.

Rooks & Kings have failed to spot the trap. And they paid the price. The day was to be remembered as Valentine’s Day Massacre.

The fight over our system was over. We were once again the ones to control it. The Siege was over. Things were getting back on track. But I was left wondering. What was to come next?

It was clear to me that Wormhole Space systems are special. Not just another part of space just recently discovered, but the foundation on which the world we live in is going to grow into something greater. The 3rd generation of Cruiser Construction is the present. But scientist are working on different aspects of any technology discovered in wormhole space. Rumors are traveling about 3rd generation Frigates and Battleships. If those rumors are close to being truth one thing is for sure. Wormhole space is the future. This is where new challenges arise. Where money is made. And day by day more capsuleers dare to be bold. More people pack up their stuff and search for glory,  money inside wormhole space, setting up colonies. 3rd generation production is profitable. Scientist of all major factions are paying good money to get their hands on items saved from Sleeper wrecks. They call them “Blue Tags”. A single Anomaly once gave our corp “Tags” that worth more than 700 million ISK, the salvaged wrecked provided us with enough materials to build 2 3rd Generation Cruisers.

Pirates, Mercs, Spies, Industrialist, Mission Runners, Miners, Traders. They all want their cut. They will come to take it. And to do that they will need to take control of wormhole systems.

The Era Of Capital Fleet Fights Over Control Of Wormhole Systems Is Upon Us

Are The Colonies Prepared To Defend?

After the long hiatus, we are back and eager to clear some sites and make some extra ISK

So after the holidays when everyone was away and not clearing sites we had quite a few spawned inside our new home. In total we had 6 PVE Sites (2 Citadels, 2 Bastions, 1 Strange Energy Readings and 1 Mirror), 9 LADAR sites (Yes 9!!) and 8 Grav Sites (Yes 8!!!) and also a RADAR Site.

So far we’ve cleared most of the PVE and LADARs – but damn! scanning all those signatures every day after server restart just to refresh their sigs so you can scan for any new wormholes is a royal pain! The mining crew has almost cleared a Rarified Core Deposit and we are planning to have a massive mining op soon to clear all the smaller sites in one go.

On the PVE front, we are now using carriers to augment our sleeper encounters and net extra ISK from each site. The first carrier you bring into the mix spawns an additional 6 Sleepless Guardians (the best Sleeper BS kind) while the second carrier you bring spawns an additional 8! Nothing to worry about though… the encounters are easy enough when you have 2x Carriers on grid and the DPS is quite good to clear the sites fast enough. The extra ISK from the Guardians is also most welcome!

Here are some nice looking pics from our recent encounters. Look ma! Lights!

PVP action has been quite low these days – following last month’s massacre where I got podded – I’d say this is not bad. A few days ago we had some folks hauling stuff through our wormhole but we lacked the manpower to setup an effective camp using bubbles etc so we didn’t net any kills. Too bad

On another note, we are still debating whether to build a Rorqual right away or build some Dreadnoughts first. We will talk about that on our next show, as well as give you detailed info on how to use carriers in wspace encounters from our experiences these days.

Last, but not least, on a personal note, my main (Quivering Palm) just got over 20M SPs (huzzah!) roughly about the same time as I celebrated my first year in the game. One year ago I was looking to find level 1 agents with Quality 15+ and now I am debating whether to build a Moros or a Rorqual.. I’d say it has been a good first year and hope much more to come!

See you out there!