Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Moby Dick in space!

Soo, I was playing whale-hunter the other day, and caught me a big fat ORCA!
But funfact: Orcas are called "Killer Whales" but they are actually part of the Dolphin family. ;)

Background:
I had been out taking care of the gazillions of snowflakes that had found it necessary to land on my yard, thus creating meter-high snowpiles.. and what better way to wind down and relax then fly some spaceships!?!?

So I logged on and found only "Jaxxon Voers" and "Kyle Langdon" active in our system, and as both are corpmates I cant really shoot em.. much.
But a roam to the nearby busy "Old man star" felt too taxing, so I took out my old Harbinger and flew it to a ninjaspot near the highsec gate in the system.

Usually you have a scout on the other side of the gate, so you know when something is about to jump in, and what it is.. but I felt silly and just wanted to attack whatever came, be it a huge factionwarfare blob, or a lone hauler.

But nothing came through.
It was just us three Pythons in local doing nothing really.. chatting a bit and maybe browsing something silly with the in-game browser :)

But suddenly local went up by one, and i quickly hit the warp button.
Pulse went up, excitement on what was going to materialize..
Waited.. nothing.. "cant be a threat to me, as he dares not decloak, or he is waiting for friends" i thought.

Suddenly slightly below me the massive hull of an Orca materialized.
Many thoughts rushed through my head, "Is he alone, naah cant be.. can I take him? not likely as this ship cant tank gateguns for too long and they usually have a worthy tank.." etc etc..
But fuckit, I can always warp out if it wont work.. so I locked and warp-disrupted him.

ORCA ON GATE, POINT!
-I shouted in corp-chat, and though my friends got excited, they did not have any big ships in system.. (we´re in a vacation-system atm so not everyone has thier entire ship-selection here)
But being the warriors they are, they came to lend what help they could, Jaxxon in a Thorax and Kyle in a Rifter.
-The orca had some ECM-600 drones that actually broke my lock initially, but as it is slow to align and warp I managed to get the point back on before it got away.

The gateguns were hurting me badly, and with only one repper my Harbinger was going into structure now.. everything had been overheated and red warningsigns lit up the cockpit.
"I have to bail, trying to go get a bigger ship.. hold him if you can, but take no risks in vain"
-I said as I warped off to our station nearby..
And held him they did.
Kyle managed to bump him with the Rifter, so that he could not align to gate or other objects, while Jaxxon tanked the gateguns and kept a point in his hero-tanked Thorax.

Never has the "wait 20+ seconds in station before switching ships" felt sooo long.. But finally my Armageddon-class battleship lumbered out of the docking bay and warped to the gate as fast as it could.
I landed and locked it up again, relieved that it was still there, and Jaxxon warped off with his ship trailing fire. He told me later that he had not been able to hold out many seconds more.

Now with the superior tank of the Armageddon, and Kyles bumping keeping the Orca from getting back to the gate it was just a matter of shooting it to pieces.

And shoot it I did.

(The wreck of the Orca)

Sadly the loot-gods did not look kindly to killing endangered dolphin-whales so the rewards were bad, but the encounter was worth many millions to the three happy pirates.

Much cheering was had, and 15 seconds after we left the gate our esteemed leader mr "Spectre3353353" came online.. and so we got to tease him that had he been just a little faster he could have had the joy of killing an Orca.
-He blamed hot coco or something.. :)

I want to thank my Harbinger for taking such a beating and still flying, Jaxxon´s hero-Thorax and Kyles mad bumping-skills. *salute*

(What is left of my Harbinger)

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Dramiel 101

I´ve seen some forumposts and blogs about the Dramiel lately, so I thought I´d share what I know of this awesome ship.

First, read Skye´s blog.
That is the AC fit.

Then go to contracts, type in "DRAMIEL" and get one close to you, or go to Jita where most seems to be.
-While in Contracts screen, type in "Gistii B-Type 1MN MicroWarpdrive" and buy one of those too.
Some might get cheap here and opt for a normal MWD, but it is the key factor for this fit, as it allows you to be cap stable, zipping around at 6000m/s laughing at anything trying to catch/shoot ye.

For the rest of the fit, I opted to go with Jaxxon´s Arty fit, as I saw him topping the damage-charts on it when the Pythons did Amamake (look at dec 8:th)
And I liked the idea of staying further out if in a gang and target being tackled by others.

[Dramiel, Arties]
Micro Aux Power Core
Tracking Enhancer II
Overdrive Injector System II

Gistii B-Type 1MN MicroWarpdrive
Warp Disruptor II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Cap Recharger II

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
[Heatsink]

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Ancillary Current Router I

Warrior II x4

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Then practise flying it.
Train on some belt rats or a can whatever, but get used to going really fast around your target.
-It gets tricky when there are multiple targets on the field, as you dont want to get too close and get scrammed, but most of the time even then, your speed carries you out of scram-range.

Look at Skyes "How to tackle a sniper-ship" over at Spectre.

The Dramiel has been a part of 193 kills in Python and we have only lost 4.
(I think two were to gateguns, cant speed-tank those!! -Silly Pythonlemmings )
But the one where a Cruor got his faction web on Brick stands out, steer clear of things with web/scram bonuses mmmkay? ;)

I cant remember if you needed AWU IV for this (Advanced Weapon Upgrades, makes guns req less powergrid) but there are also implants that does the trick.

If you do it right, you will get plenty of kills in this, they are just awesome when they are in a gang or flock or.. flight, whatever :)
100m is alot for a Frigate I agree, but you must factor in both how big the chance of you dying in it are, also how bloody fun it is to fly!

...Plus it looks good. ;)

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

RL job in EvE?

Just want to discuss what I do and what you do in the daily chore that can be translated into EvE :)

-But first, the obligatory "Omg we get a Zephyr" post every blogger is doing..
"Omg Zephyr free shuttle with probes and sleeper-safe!!"
There.

Ok then, I thought of this last night as a corpmate were talking about what he was doing for a RL job.. "What would my job be like in EvE-terms?"
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I suppose you could say my day would start with waking up in a backwater planet, -20celcius outside and my shuttle covered with snow.

I would travel a few jumps to a small station in wich I would sit down in my office of a Minmatar/Gallente ship-dealership.
There I would be ordering ships from the various producers, handling the payment of customers and helping with insurance and ship-loans.

Ofcourse there is the customary drinking alot of coffee.. and communing with my Pirate-buddies on what we are going to be up to later in the day, and what some had been up to while I was asleep.

Then the long trip home after 9+ workhours and after a quick bite to eat I jump into the pod for some Piracy!
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-That is the general layout of what a normal day for me would be like in EvE-terms.. what is your RL job like? Are you a "student of hedion university" or.. truckdri..err Freighter-pilot?

-Also, I commented on "Bfoster" that I missed his "Babe of the week" and set out to find something hot.. sadly I failed but found something entirely different yet just as arousing!!

(click for larger)

Holy crap that is a sexy picture!
It says "Alex Murtaza" in the top left corner.. props!