Faction Warfare, EVE uni Q&A and hot damn, love that thrasher!

Q&A
Recently, I was asked to sit in on a Pirate Q&A panel for Eve University. This was organised by extraordinary pirate Sard Caid from the pirate's side. Joining Sard were two other illustrious and infamous characters: Suleiman Shouaa (Tuskers) and Wowbagger (Shadow Cartel) - of course, a few other chaps were missing but this was through no fault of Sard or Eve Uni.

Our Q&A panel was more honest than this lot....

Still, it was an honour to be present with these guys and despite some initial issues with my mumble account (we use vent, ts and eve-voice); I finally managed to get my head around it and hopefully contributed fruitfully to the discussion. 

The session was two hours long but it went by quick - the listeners were very attentive and fired at us some excellent questions which I hope we, collectively answered as well as we could. Our different cultures and styles as pirates did come through too, every pilot is different even more so when talking about pirates. At the end of the session, I hope that the listeners (both live and those who listen to the recording) will find that low-sec piracy (and living there) an attractive alternative to either high-sec or null-sec. 

Faction Warfare

After numerous chats with corp mates and our flying companions; The Chupacabras - we discussed the possibility of The Bastards signing up for Faction Warfare. With the summer looming, there would be the inevitable drop in activity so why not jump onto FW and see what it can offer for this summer? Certainly, we had a chance now to tackle hostile pilots on gates and stations without a war-dec and no sentry fire! Am up for anything so decided to sign up with the Minmatar republic since our home station is in Minmatar space, if we picked Amarr or Caldari factions - we would certainly be locked out of our own hangars! After the sign-up was processed we went straight for it - taking a fleet of destroyers down to the front line. Now, the struggle between the Minmatar and Amarr is as an old one. We're probably going to add just a bit more death and destruction to it. We checked the operations board: the Minmatar has grabbed a massive chunk of real-estate early on but it looks like this was partly due to the influence of certain Goons, if stories are to be believed. Having the Amarr now come back and grab  their lost systems back means more interesting fights. We found some contested systems and set course. 

When the roam had finished, we ended up killing x2 thrashers, x1 catalyst, x1 drake, x1 stabber, x2 rupture and x1 rifter on the night for the loss of x2 vigils and x1 punisher. We could have killed half that number again if we had any long points. We grabbed nearly all the loot, so jangling all the way home. Not bad for the first outing as an organised group. I even gained some loyalty points. No idea what to do with them though.

Maybe use the LP to get a better prosthetic? 

Now, I think the term for us is now privateers. Should be fun and profitable but so long as activity continues, then we will keep flying. Of course, am going to organise a drunk roam (once my liver heals) and we will be roaming around low-sec too. Just no shooting our new purple tagged friends. 

Coinciding with this summer move of ours, I have seen the return of some of old faces: DJ Akula, Wikkid One, Zemledock, Ard Unjiigo and others. Very happy to see some of these veterans, they'll be rusty no doubt but one should rediscover their killing touch soon enough. 

Incursus

Just want to say, since the buff - this little spiky ships has turned nasty, really nasty. I have to train up Gallente Frigate to V methinks! Thanks to all those who sent in incursus fits to me. I hope to have a few deployed in the coming weeks. There's this dual SAR II fit that I want to try out.

My friends tell me that his is a nasty little bugger...

This is what I would like to fly:


[Incursus, Solo active]

Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Hobgoblin II x1

=================================================

[Incursus, PVP Frig]

Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II

1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
[Empty Rig slot]

Hobgoblin II x1

Faction Cruiser Roam and Death of Capsuleer?

Faction Roam!
We decided on a faction ship roam last night as we were celebrating our third birthday as a corporation. The actually birthday I think is sometime in early September but people were too busy to organise. So, it was with interest when the pirates pulled out all their bling ships for the roam. I saw Republic Fleet Stabbers, Comets, Firetails, Dramiels, Navy Omen and other bits of kit not normally seen in our fleet. We didn't have any of the larger hulls either - a machariel would have been a nice addition.

So we went for a stroll and it was a quiet night, snagging a couple of frigates (and a hauler) until we went into null sec. We did pass up two chances of engagement with a roaming gang made up of a drake, curse, rook, hurricane, phantasm and vagabond. They were not criminals either so am quite sure our frigate/cruiser gang would have suffered serious losses. A well fit hurricane would have mashed up all our frigates for example.

We had Arrhidaeus in his super tanked Navy Augoror (he killed a hauler solo) as bait but we ran into some superior opposition just as we were leaving Etherium Reach, losing the bait ship. Nashh Kadavr following behind was also caught, losing his Gila.

On return, I reflected that a mixed up fleet like ours of different faction cruisers introduced too many strengths and weaknesses and thus, seriously cut down on our effectiveness. The fleet lacked DPS and any force multipliers. We lost our pilgrim early one as well. Many a time I wished that I had a fleet of hurricanes with support instead. No matter, it was a bit of fun and it will be time to put our serious game faces on for the next operation. Back to the venerable battle cruiser class.

Out of interest, I would be very interested to see if there are any corporations / gangs who regularly fly with faction ships. Comment here with your thoughts if you don't mind.

Capsuleer - Save it!

It looks like the well liked Apple App, 'Capsuleer' is doomed. Roc had posted this on the EVE-Online forums and it has generated a lot of responses.

The infamous Nashh Kadavr has started up a petition here and anyone who feels strongly enough should go there and comment. I have signed it and I support the petition but have never used the app as I am an android phone user here. I do understand how important this applications are.

Many people have extolled the virtues of this application and it seems to be indispensable for 'Life Outside of EVE'. I get by with 'Aura' on the Android. There were plans to port the app over to Android but only if there was financial support. The

Great pity that it appears to be doomed now but there *IS* a paypal donate button available on the website (http://capsuleer.evesuite.com/) - am unsure whether enough people donated but for those who said they are willing to pay and just didn't get round to it...I think this is a sad case of barn door + bolted horse...

Poor show by CCP too but looking at the posts, it doesn't appear that CCP promised anything to anyone, despite their enthusiasm and support. A cynic could also say that EVE-GATE may be seen by CCP as the replacement for all things EVE outside of the game.