First 1.42857 weeks in null-sec

After about six months hiatus I returned to EVE and continued from where I left off: low-sec solo roaming. However, I quickly remembered why I got frustrated the last time. Sometimes it could take couple of hours to find a decent target and then the fight either ended in few seconds (to my loss) or continued until buddies of my target arrived to scene (again, with unfortunate consequences to yours truly). I had read lots of guides and articles about combat in EVE, fitted a reasonably priced ship to the limit of my character's skills and watched recordings of my fights to try and learn from my mistakes. Maybe I'm just too slow for this game... Or maybe I needed a fresh perspective before getting bored again.

So I started to look for a corporation to join (giving the benefit of doubt for all those who say 'EVE is not a single player game'). I looked through few recruitment ads joined a public channel to have a chat with a recruiter and then I was on my way to live in null-sec with the Galactic Shipyards Inc.

I found out that GSY consisted of group of veteran EVE players coming back to the game (or certain way of playing it). So it's a great opportunity to learn in a mature and laid-back atmosphere (I don't think GSY is trying to win EVE, just have a good time playing our favorite game).

I liquidated all my unnecessary assets and moved others to my new home in Syndicate region. While flying in I got my first taste of gang warfare when I arrived to a gate just at the same time when other corp members were attacking a Myrmidon. We eventually got it down but our next target, a Devoter, was little bit too much for our small gang (although I heard that we almost got him).

Anyway, living now in null-sec has made EVE much more fun to play. I have become more aware of my surroundings, since any neutral on local is a potential threat (and most likely at least a quadruple threat with all his or her buddies waiting just behind the next gate). I've also learned a few tricks on how to evade gatecamps and lose pursuers. And of course ratting and missioning is more profitable. But most importantly we have quite regularly small roams with cheap ships and those have been very educating in the nuances of PVP.

Last night we had a very decent roam and managed to kill a Merlin, Harpy, Cormorant, Cerberus and an Arbitrator, along with two pod kills. Take a look.

Know your enemy: The Altruist

I got a link from my friend to a blog named The Altruist by Azual Skoll. He has written an extensive overview of the different ships, their abilities and fitting schemes in the context of PvP in his Know Your Enemy series.

This is a good resource for anyone like me who hasn't got much PvP experience and is not yet familiar with all the different kinds of ships there are in EVE. He also explains the rationale behind different fittings, for example I think I now understand how using shield or armor tanking shifts the focus of application of the ships in combat situation. Go check it out.

New year's EVE at Umokka

Yesterday I travelled to Umokka system in Lonetrek to participate in the new year's eve party which was organized by Daggaroth from the New Eden Radio. I had trained Small Energy Turret I just so I could fit a party boat for myself. I put eight small lasers with frequency crystals of different colors to Catalyst and added an afterburner for speed and a capacitor flux coil to keep my lasers working through the night. Hence was Party Boat MMXII born.

When I arrived at Umokka there were about 500 players in the system. Last year there were same number of participants in total so I expected only few hundred players more. How wrong was I... I started placing my Small Secure Containers between the wall of containers already there and the station. The containers were used as targets for lasers, smartbombs or whatever people wanted to use as fireworks.

As midnight (EVE time) drew closer the amount of players in local rose steadily and soon we had 1000 capsuleers in the same system. This started to show as increasing lag. My client also crashed three times during the event, but curiously only at the start of the event. Maybe CCP boosted their server capacity for Umokka or something? I don't know.

At around midnight, when the fireworks really started, we had reached whopping 1800 players. From other people I heard that one of the server nodes had crashed. However, it didn't affect me. I was only experiencing heavy lag, but no more crashes.

During the event DJ Daggaroth hosted the party from New Eden Radio, playing music and commenting on the happenings in Umokka. There was also a raffle where one could win PLEX (donated by CCP) and the new Tier 3 cruisers among other things. Apparently the amount of ISK gathered reached 4bil which made my chances of winning somewhere around 1/666 or 0,0015. Chances shmances, I did not win anything. Congratulations for those who did.

I frapsed the whole event and spent eight hours editing the video today. I hope you enjoy it. Happy new year to everyone!