Ships with Spinny Bits

 As Rixx over at Evoganda pointed out Spinny Bits are Awesome.  I finally got my long lusted after Rattlesnake  thanks to a corp mate who was generous enough to let his go at a nice price after himself getting a Machariel.  This ship is impressive.  Even with my Caldari BS at only II until tomorrow this ship can put up a target specific tank well over 1,000 dps while those nasty little drones go out and do my killing.  My previous mission ship was a shield tank Dominix which was almost overkill on L4's already, so the Rattlesnake seems laughably over tanked in some missions.  It does draw more attention than my Dominix though as I was visited by a poor excuse for a ninja salvager last night, Lt Arsch.  After failing to beat my salvage Orca to the punch on a series of wrecks he took to bumping me around for a while, until I warped off after pulling full stage aggro and leaving him to it.  I guess he got bored of waiting for me to kill wrecks so he flew out and salvaged the furtherest one and left the system.

Some eye candy:

Going Through My Pictures

I'm not actually one to take a lot of screen caps but I found a few that I thought I'd share while cleaning off some old files from the PC:

Apparently I was once red to myself

The brief time my SB pilot was 14-0

For the record he is now 32-2 http://auf.griefwatch.net/?p=pilot&pilot=Meatay%20Speeday

The goonfleet meets bob moment

Leaving Providence:

Taking a carrier to a new home

A sad goodbye to a long serving POS 

Please don't think too much of my fit in that last picture, I was trying to get all of my useless parts out in one trip so I fitted many of them.

Melting Towers

  Yesterday we got a short notice alert about a tower smashing gang some of our new allies were putting together; more on the new (old) allies and where our alliance has decided to re-locate to later.  We are currently in the middle of a pretty major move so I really didn't feel like suiting up a battleship for the journey and subsequent bash.  So I loaded up my Nemesis and as many torpedoes as I could cram in my hold and I set off.  It turns out that is is quite fun pummeling an incapacitated POS in a stealth bomber.  Those little torpedo launchers can lay down some serious damage on an immobile target!  We ended up taking out two towers in short order before RL cut in and I just had to go to bed or risk missing work the next day (I guess I'm an old man).


  We also managed to steal a Manticore floating in the bubble and obliterate a random bomber who thought he could get some targets of opportunity.  Luckily he died a fiery death and none of our guys got hit.  Killmail: http://auf.griefwatch.net/?p=details&kill=2488

AT-8; Better than Sunday morning TV

  I am glad CCP decided to broadcast the early rounds of AT-8 for everyone to enjoy, it was a nice treat.  I also enjoyed watching the Jita-cam and I really wish someone could do this every weekend, or every so often.

  It was definitely interesting to see the unique setups that some teams brought (Death From Above for one).  The battle Badger delivering cap charges and ammo was fun, and not a bad idea since even in destruction some ammo could be still pulled from the wreck.

Death From Above ship selection (click to embiggen)

  With (what looks to be) 83 ship types fielded there was a nice selection of hardware on display.  It was especially nice to see the large number of faction battleships in action.  I was also interested (and amused) to see the effectiveness of bombers, at least in certain situations.  Of course the Drake was the most heavily fielded which is expected I suppose.  They seemed to fair pretty well; although (despite the skew caused by 34 being flown) their 41.2% survival rate shows they weren't necessarily dominate.  In fact in most of the matches I saw they had little affect except to take a long time to kill.  Their firepower and ability to run cap free did prove handy in some instances but it seemed in general they were often defeated by teams with higher outgoing damage, or other abilities.  Don't get me wrong, as a pilot I am a little bit of a Drake fan for it's versatility.  However I do get tired of being able to guess that at least one Drake will be in almost every fleet.

  I can't help but expect variations from most teams next round, although they will all likely save the big changes for the end.  I would definitely be hesitant to keep my previous setup going into another round, simply for fear of being perfectly countered.  I'm sure some teams have plenty of confidence or other reasons to stick with their current ships (HYDRA's sandbagging for example) but here's hoping we get to see more!

Airblogging?!?

I am currently on my first flight with airborne wifi and thanks to my first class compadres have been drinking a lot which is why I am blogging.

Anyway. I had to set some long training skills for Tyrannis anyway so when I return home from Jamaica I will have fighters V, jump fuel conservation V, logistics IV, and advanced weapon upgrades V on my various toons. Good times.



Fly safe and see you next week.



Ninja edit; the iPhone had some issues earlier so I am actually over Cuba on the return flight posting this.

What I Like About Tyrannis

  EvEGate is awesome.  I guess am one of those lucky few who can log in at work (or work from home for big events every once in a while) but that doesn't mean I always want to log in just to check up on some mails.  I especially don't want to have the client open all day during important times just so I can continue to read alliance mails without having 20 or more stack up on me.  While I have heard a lot of people making fun of EvEGate (or spacebook) since it was announced I believe this is one of the features that the player community has been wanting since the very beginning and I am so glad that CCP has finally found a way to give it to us.

  To be honest I don't know if I will us Planetary Interaction, call me lazy, but this is also one of the features that the players have been begging for.  Well, not PI per se but the ability to control more of the production and supply chain is certainly something players have wanted.  I have heard a lot of chatter about this being a boring update, and that may be true.  BUT this update is all about some of the players greatest wishes and I really appreciate CCP putting in the energy to make them come true for us.

  And don't forget they did add two new and exciting ships, even if most of us will never see them.

Two new Alliance Tournament VIII ships have been added as prizes for the next tournament’s winners: the Adrestia heavy assault ship and the Utu assault ship. These unique ships will not be seeded on the market and will only be made available to the winners of Alliance Tournament VIII.

Coming in out of the cold

  After the flurry of activity related to the fall of Providence and our move to new 0.0 space, a little drama, and a whole lot of spring sunshine showing up; I found myself logged out of EvE for about a month straight.  It was actually a bit more but I did have to change skills.  Burnout is a funny thing, it just sneaks up on you and one day you find yourself having not logged in for a week (or three).  It was nice to get a break, especially from the hectic pace of an entire alliance moving everything they own to a new 0.0 location.

  Am I back?  Well, not completely, but only because I like to spend most of my summer on the lake and you can't really play EvE on the lake to be honest.  Although I will be logging back in now, and working on keeping the blog updated.  Currently I am hoping to work on some political updates because so much has changed, but I'm so far out of the loop that it may take a months worth or reading just to figure out where things stand.  Until then I'll just keep on with the random chatter :)

  On a different subject my character's training has progressed nicely with the time off but I have found myself at a little bit of a sticking point again.  I am not quite sure what I want to do with anyone but the young guy who I have decided to make a Frigate specialist.  My carrier is well fitted and my ratting Drake and Dominix are plenty deadly for the main toons.  My freighter skill is maxed out and I can't afford the jump freighter anyway so the transport pilot is a little bit stumped also.  I would like to fly a Rorqual (and basically can) but with my planned play time a little limited I don't see the point in finishing this out for now.  So for now I'm training some bonus support skills and Fighters V on the main in the hope that I may someday be able to afford a Nyx even though I know I won't.  I'm also training support skills on the freighter toon in the hopes of increasing the sickeningly slow speeds.

Also, Tyrannis is coming out today. I've not read much more than the basic patch notes but I'm sure everyone has already commented enough for you to get your fill

Patch Notes