Wednesday 30 March 2011

Key to The Highway

"I got the key to the highway,
Billed out and bound to go.
I'm gonna leave here running;
Walking is most too slow."
                                              -- (Key To The Highway, Derek & The Dominos aka. Eric Clapton)


        For the first time today, I flew a Hurricane. Nano-fit with all that kiting goodness penned in, I loaded up the barrage and hastily attached what rigs I recalled to have put on the fit I'd made in EFT a day or two ago. We had a gang in Jovainnon and time was of the essence. 


If I recall correctly they consisted of 2 Drakes, Myrmidon, Hurricane, Curse and Blackbird. We hadn't truly got a clue of what we had in fleet due to such a quick rallying of the troops but we undocked and Sa'haira proceeded to keep the fleet cohesive and smart with some quality FCing. Unfortunately they didn't feel so confident with the final composition of our gang and all we got was a lonely Drake for our troubles. 


Oh well, I hate Drakes anyway. Here's to other engagements in the Cane!


Complimentary injection of music go! 





Oh and this happened right after... I killed an Exequror:



'You have been added as contact
From:  olegonn 
Sent: 2011.03.30 18:39 


olegonn has added you as contact with Good Standing


bitch girl'


If anyone can help me understand this a little better well... I'd appreciate that!

Monday 28 March 2011

Hounds Of Love

"Among your hounds of love,
And feel your arms surrounding me.
I've always been a coward,
I never know what's good for me."

                                                                -- (Hounds Of Love, Kate Bush)


        The whole ordeal began with the loss of another Dramiel, bringing me to 3 or 4 totalled lifetime if I'm not mistaken. It's still one of my favourite ships to fly and whilst people cry out it's overpowered and all that, I can't help but let it fall on deaf ears in light of the other forms of power within Eve. I fly frigates and I'll be damned if I'm going to be berated for using the best available to me. (I honestly think the Slicer is better anyway so...)


        Anyway, after the loss myself and corpmate Etuura Zellis decided to head out in more modest ships to try and dust off the tears we both held back (check battle reports for full details). Comms, to my recollection, went something akin to...


Etuura - 'I'm thinking Rifters?'
Kishin - 'Good. I'm already in one.' 


As I do with all my fleets, though unbeknownst to my wingmen, I dubbed us the Hounds Of Love for this roam. Partially due to the fact that I was listening to Kate Bush at the time and secondly because this was an old school wolf pack. We were on the same page and we were going to do our best to wreak some havoc in our little wolf pack, that much was certain. Amamake was set as our destination and off we went. All was initially quiet, we spotted the people who had killed us earlier still set with the same trap in Vitrauze and this time we were smart enough to leave them be. It wasn't until we hit Mannar that things got fun. 


        I've always been a little bit of a Fleet Commander at heart, even if I opt for some unorthodox and (to be kind to myself) 'optimistic' plans and this whole roam was no different. As we jumped into Mannar a Slicer spotted us and proceeded to circle us. I gave the call to hold at the gate, wait for him to agress and work together to catch his orbit with the second Rifter. Etuura was deemed primary and I worked to out-manoeuvre the opponent. I latched a scram for a moment, overheating my web to try and keep him down. He pulled from under the scram's grasp with a last ditch attempt and broke free, though my web held firm. One pulse of an overheated afterburner cycle later and he was snagged just in time as Etuura's armour was buckling. 1-0 to the Hounds Of Love


        Things weren't over for our merry crew, he came at us again in a rather suspect Vengeance; 2-0 to the HoL. He even tried to bait us in with a small gun Augoror Navy Issue, but with 5 corp mates waiting on the other side of out gate we thought better against and moved on. 


        Next we hit Oyonata where a Hookbill engaged us at a planet. Overheating everything at point blank range, I sought to extend the life of my tank as best as possible and we managed to claim the kill, though at the cost of my Rifter simultaneously. Etuura held the field and bugged out as a Vengeance charged in. 3-0 HoL.  I flew right out into the heart of Molden Heath to fit up a new Rifter to keep this good thing going. The Hounds Of Love had more hearts to break! All fitted up we reconvened in Vard. 


        For some reason people seemed to have vendettas against our merry gang, with another fellow trying to take us on twice in a row, first dying horribly as a huge gang watched. The second time he clearly fitted null ammo and Etuura walked a dangerous line, unfortunately going down to a gutless move on one of the ships who had watched our previous fight. I refused to leave the field until the Enyo was dead, spewing venom in my bullets as we both cut deep in structure. 30% left and the red lights are flashing, the Harbinger is in scram range, firing it's full rack of lasers at me and the Enyo keeps repping slivers of armour... Finish! The Harbinger sicked his drones on the Enyo and snagged on the kill in another gutless move... I was happy to survive and keep the HoL on the winning side. I burned out from under the Harbi's grasp and warped out, once more losing out on the loot we could have had. 5-0 to the Hounds Of Love in those two engagements! Etuura refit (I love the Amamake market) and we moved on. 


        We got a little celebrity sunshine as number 1 PvPer lukka was in Amamake local talking to the other inhabitants, though after checking his Battleclinic record I can't say I felt all that honoured to be killing his corp mates. After some warping games we engaged a Hawk in top belt which didn't last all too long, though we didn't have time to rest as a Vagabond had been watching 400km away and decided to engage. He'd landed just off us and there was no way out, we either fought like wolves or died like dogs... And fought we did, managing to catch him with an overheated Scrambler.


        I frantically blurted into comms 'Get under his guns! Overheat the afterburners and target the hornets!' We went to work, dispatching his attempt to break free from our combined assortment of tackle. Suddenly, as he hit structure, a Taranis and Enyo gang landed 30km away. 'Overheat the guns!' Vagabond down. We turned to face them, I primaried the Taranis and called to overheat and just burn right through him. Unfortunately after being primaried by every target in the fight my Rifter couldn't hold any longer and I went down, taking the Taranis down simultaneously once more. Etuura leapt upon the Enyo and got right under his Railguns which lead to another victory for the HoL. He had to bug out as overwhelming odds came into the belt. This brings us to 8-0 for the Hounds Of Love, winning each of those engagements ultimately. 


        CEO Ka Jolo hopped on comms and decided to try his hand in a Rifter, joining up and becoming a member of the HoL, where we proceeded to take down a rather surprising opponent. We roamed for a bit longer, though our luck didn't hold so strong after our 9-0 win streak. Some mis-calculations of opponent force numbers lead to a few losses and we headed home to Hevrice. A couple of hours later this little hilarity happened and I could log off with a smile on my face.


        It was a great roam, one of the best I've had in a while. Not only the night before I'd had a great duo pilot roam with fellow corpie (and one of the coolest guys in New Eden) Man Barthelme, so it was awesome to have the events of the Hounds Of Love to follow. I miss my Dramiel even now and have contemplated whether to stretch my funds out to grab another hull, yet I continually hark back to my roots and undock in a Rifter and manage some pretty amazing things. Who knows what will happen, those luxuries get pretty addictive don't they?


All the best fellow capsuleers, keep on plugging.


Saturday 26 March 2011

Babushka Doll

"Little soldier, little insect
You know war, it has no heart
It will kill you in the sunshine
Or just as happily in the dark"

                                                                 -- (Noone Would Riot For Less, Bright Eyes)


        New Eden is a place for dreamers and achievers. Those who will it to come to pass can make it happen, whatever that may be. After seeing the outrage of all the big alliances over the announcements at Fanfest this year I got to thinking about the concept of wealth within New Eden along with the structure of hierarchy that many adhere to. 


         No matter how I chose to approach the subject, the true wealth always lies in the singular person in my eyes. Whoever is top dog, leader of the gang, will generally benefit above most and rightly so surely? They set the whole operation up, those below do his or her bidding and in one way or another everyone cuts a profit along the chain somewhere. Unfortunately, I don't actually believe this to be true in the case of large 0.0 alliances. The alliance holds the sovereignty and the corporations that exist under all fight together for the greater image. Whoever leads the alliance has gained great power and prestige through the process, yet what do the corporations actually get back here? It feels more like a stranglehold the more I think about it all, hearing about all these sights to be ran and the profits therein. the corporations and pilots are being given a 'safe place' to generate personal wealth in exchange for dying to make one person inevitably hundreds of times richer than that pilot could ever hope to be. I suppose it works to some level, though it feels like rather than being paid to work you get paid with more work and somewhere you'll finally get the $$$. 


        I might be totally off the marker having only been in a corporation attached to a greater alliance for a short time in my younger days and with my current situation largely being a 'do it for myself' affair (which is so wonderful; freedom and all that). If I am shooting off target, do throw it up at me, for I'd love clarification as much as the next guy and 0.0 life has always fascinated me for, likely, the wrong reasons. 


        My final other thought pertains to the alliance tournament. The Tuskers teamed up with The Bastards last year for it and admittedly we failed pretty hard, though I'm unsure whether it went down in the history books or not. Somebody asked me in local if we planned to enter this year and rather than saying 'no' I had to honestly say 'we can't, we don't want to be in an alliance again' because it just didn't work for us. I wonder why CCP haven't devised a corporation tournament in lieu of the awesomeness of the alliance tournament. I think on a smaller scale, it could be a really good way to see a much more concentrated and high octane level of PvP. You put me and 4 of my corp mates and you've got a cohesive team right there, it would be awesome to see such an event in my opinion. 


        The little guy loses at the end of the day, as is the way life goes. I'm not asking that to change, honestly I just want to see a corporation Tournament! I've been able to get some good time in New Eden as of late, which is great and I've missed it a lot. Perhaps some write ups of recent engagements may be in order, we'll see. 


QQ: Can corps even take sovereignty? 





        

Thursday 24 March 2011

Lost In The World

"What does Websters say about soul?
All I want is a good home and a wife
And a children, and some food to feed them every night.
After all is said and done build a new route to China if they'll have you."

                                                                                             -- (Lost In The World, Kanye West)

    We all seek to find a home in New Eden and for many it's a long and difficult process. Some run through many corporations that all 'fit' the style of play the pilot is seeking out, which can be an embittering experience to sift through unsuccessfully. Some don't fit this category, finding a corp and sitting tight for a good long time. 

My story (which is chronicled in the dusty recesses of this blog, might I add) is one of content and happiness with the people I experienced New Eden with but a lack of enjoyment with the activities we pursued. I needed piracy and I had only one eye for that; The Tuskers. 

One thing to understand about The Tuskers; we always have and will be a piracy corporation. We currently rank ninth on the corporation rankings of Battleclinic's killboard but we are not in any way elitist. We are currently recruiting and if you believe you are Tusker material, check out our recruitment thread here

Fly safe all. 

Thursday 10 March 2011

In The Dark Places

"So our young men hid
with guns, in the dirt
and in the dark places."

                                          -- (In The Dark Places, PJ Harvey)




Well, I'm still alive. Barely.


My final few months at university along with my internet provider (Virgin Media) becoming total fools and destroying the service due to over-subscription in certain areas, which I unluckily reside in currently, has meant that getting back into New Eden has been nigh impossible. I'm fairly sure I've dropped days of skill training due to the difficulty... Blasphemous, I know. 


I'm just trying to lend an olive branch to those who have enjoyed my blog in the past and (perhaps) like my existence in New Eden that I'm not dead and will be coming back. 


I recently had my first anniversary as a Tusker... which I couldn't even log on for. Sad to not celebrate with a good roam with my corpmates but I'm happy to have been considered 'Tusker material' for a year long. Here's to another year hopefully!


Keep killing, keep kiting and wave if you see me in local.