31 May 2011

Summers in EvE

  Summer is barely underway and I've already started to notice a downturn in activity in New Eden.  This happens almost every year as students head home/abroad and weekend days are spent outside.  I have certainly felt it myself as I have been on vacation or outside instead of in game for at least the past week.  This really provides a nice downtime to help stem the burnout many people are probably reaching at this point, especially given the hectic year it has been for some alliances.

  Personally I hope to spend the summer with at least a toe in the waters of New Eden, even if I don't log in anywhere near as much as I normally would.  Hopefully this will be a good time to tick off some of those extremely long skill training paths that are so hard to start when you are logging in more often.  Perhaps I will have my fully maxed out T2 guns for all races by the end of the summer?  In reality I'm sure I'll be sidetracked by a shiny new skill (as I always am) and be only a little closer to my plans.

  I do certainly plan to enjoy my summer though with as much EvE as I can fit in.  For those of you who won't be on until the days get short again, fly safe!


-Meatay

19 May 2011

Enjoying PvP - My Path

  I don't mind saying that for much of my EvE career I wasn't really that "in" to PvP.  I never really minded going on roams or joining ops for the good of the corp/alliance but it wasn't really something I sought out.  Over time I did come to enjoy seeking kills a bit more but always hated the "inconvenience" of PvP.  By that I mean the trouble getting properly fitted ships to a target location and then re-shipping if you lose them.

  Recently though, I feel like I've found my "groove" as far as PvP goes.  After completing cross training on cruiser sized hulls I found that there were many ships out there that I was missing (such as the Hurricane) which make PvP a lot more fun.  I discovered that it is important to find some ships you like flying because it makes it a lot more fun to go out and shoot people.  Even if you end up flying something different occasionally because of fleet needs you will still have a ship out there that you like to fly waiting for you.

  It's also important to find good people to fly with, and I can't overstate that part enough!  One of the great things about AoV is that (despite being a PvP alliance) no one hassles you about stupid losses on the kill board.  I've had many stupid losses so I should know.  I have always hated corps/alliances that fuss at players for losses.  Unless they are out there specifically trying to junk up your kill board you should just be happy they're out there and willing to fight.  It's also important to find a group that makes it fun.  Good FC's help but if you don't like the people you are roaming with you won't be very likely to do it again.

  As a cap pilot I have a bit less trouble these days getting my ships around; but if you aren't a cap pilot make friends with one.  Be willing to light him cynos every so often and throw some fuel (or gas money) his way if you ask him to move some ships for you.  More often than not he will be happy to help you get your gear to where ever it's going.

Also, get new shinies like a fresh KB :)

-Meatay

18 May 2011

New Shinies - My New KillBoard

I have experimented with the Eve-dev killboard before but decided to give it another try today.  I had to go through several updates and I'm still trying to get older mails accurately updated but it's been a good start:

http://edk.evemeatay.info/

Obviously there is some work to do in the looks department which is something I need to do a little research on. If anyone out there can help me out here I would be very appreciative.

-meatay

15 May 2011

Relaxing in EvE

  It's been a while since I last posted, mostly because of vacations and general lethargy.  Not a whole lot happened in the past week or so except for the loss of two interdictors in a row http://killboard.apotheosisofvirtue.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9607 & http://killboard.apotheosisofvirtue.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9608.  That Sabre had seen me through a lot of good fights and I was a bit sad to see it go, but learned a lesson about keeping alignment up when facing Machariels.  Don't be lazy kids, keep moving to stay alive.

  I was going to post something about the jump bridge changes but actually decided against it.  I'm not upset with the changes themselves but I would like to ask CCP for some clarification on one thing.  It seems they love to promote player driven play with their words but they work so hard to break up actual player content in favor of content that they direct.  That's pretty much my only opinion on the subject as the only people this is really going to hurt are the guys who have to set the jump bridges up and negotiate JB systems amongst allies.

-Meatay

02 May 2011

Roaming Under the Influence: part Duex

  I had the whole weekend off (wife was out of town) so I settled down for a bit of EvE.  It was certainly an interesting time.  As AoV continues to regroup and wind down from the exceedingly intense activity of earlier this year we are settling back into what we do best; PvP.  We do have plenty of logistics still on the board as well as commitments to other entities that we won't ignore but all in all we're getting back to a bit of "business as usual."

  As a part of that I've been trying to do my part and improve my abilities in the realm of PvP.  I'm not trying to bite off more than I can chew so for now that has been limited to attempting to stir up fights and small roams with relaxed rules (this weekend's was another drunk roam which is always fun).  It turns out it isn't very hard to stir up fights if you bring the right bait, but that's a story for another time (maybe I'll let noldevin tell this one).  This weekend's version of the party roam also wasn't shaping up too well until we decided to pack it in and head home.  At which point we managed to run into this unusual fleet: http://killboard.apotheosisofvirtue.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=9354 and http://killboard.apotheosisofvirtue.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=9355 (two parts because of two different systems).  Following this little gem we were baited by a pair of Ravens with a >40 man gang attached; which we sveltely out maneuvered (ie ran away from).  As this was the end of our op we waited these guys out and continued to head home after being sprung by a nearby blue fleet who cleared us a path.

  The rest of the weekend was taken up by a bit of logistics (to you guys who are waiting on me to move things for you I promise to get around to you) and hopping on to some other fleets that were bouncing around.  One of these turned out to be at least interesting if not exactly a full success.  A small group of alliance-mates were burning down a POS in lo-sec to stir up fights and apparently annoy a corporation for fun (I didn't ask why).  I decided to hop on over and throw some dps of my own into the fire.

  I'm really not sure what was going on in the target corp but they started by bringing in 3-5 complete failures of cyno attempts (and the odd PvP ship) which either died or left the fight.  Eventually they managed to get a stable cyno up and promptly jumped an Erebus on us (50 KM from the POS shield).  The pilot had obviously meant to bridge a PvP fleet in and both sides cleared the field as we had no clue what was going on until we had a second to digest what just happened. After the laughter wore down in voice chat I went for a scanning boat but the Erebus had already worked out his return cyno by then. Sad to not get a titan kill but if you have never been fail dropped by an enemy titan I would suggest the experience.  From the obligatory "what's an Erebus" in fleet to the chatter that this generated in local I haven't laughed so hard in EvE in quite sometime.  If I can dig up the local logs I will post them later, once I edit them to take out some of the off topic chatter that was also going on.

-Meatay