still in Branch but...pvp??

Ok so we are still living in branch but my new job demands more time. So basically we have time to pve while pvp is rare like ...once a week.

Yogita and I pride ourselves on our ability to adapt. So adapt we have. At the moment we are making great use of our Archon class carriers. Which is such a change from the Chimera Nid set up we used before. Once certain systems have the right citadels in them we will be stepping up to super carriers. At this moment carriers are so awesome the ability to field 27 fighters with I guess is more than 4k dps when using the special attack on the fighters.....means..carriers are still very very viable options in pve, and even pvp.

The other night people were using carriers to hot drop. I know if that happens to us we will lose our ships but I think we should be able to the cyno ship and one carrier. It isn't winning the isk war but it is fun as all get out. I hate it when people start counting isk in pvp.

Here is something that happened when we started using our carriers....poor AHac didn't know what hit him!!

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=33827512

Ah it was a nice kill and now my carrier has a killmark!!

/tata

First NPC dreadnaught down!!

First I would like to complain about the names that are given to faction ships in Eve. Every faction has a kind of "prefix" that tells you if you are lucky to get that rare spawn. For guristas it is "Dread".
Years ago when Yogita, and I moved out to null security space we heard people mention these "dreads". So we both thought that dreadnaught class capitals would spawn in anomalies. Imagine my dissapointment to learn that they are just slightly beefed up battleships.

Now fast forward some years to the Citadel release.....yes ladies and gents, CAPITAL spawns will show up in your anomaly. Yogita and I, like usual were flying carriers....like a boss. We learned the new fighter mechanics launching 27 fighters. For the first time in EVEONLINE Carriers...feel like CARRIERS!!  Before this release, a carrier was basically a large ship transport, that could use drones, and fighters. Fighters sucked years ago. They could only really hit battleships, and battlecruisers. The damage output was crap too.

Then they buffed fighters, and they were...so so. Then Citadel came along.....and now...we have CARRIERS. You can launch 3 squadrons, in each there are 9 fighters with 8 missiles under the wing. Along with the cannon fire, the special missiles pack one hell of a wallop!


Time for pictures:

So we can see that this one had a bounty of 60,000,000, it dropped about 70mil in loot. It took us about 8 minutes to kill it. We have maxed fighters, and Amarr Carrier 5 just for reference. I am going to tweak this fit cause I want to be able to take down the super carrier spawns as well. 

As you can see it hit my Arcon pretty hard, later in the fight it switched to Yogi's carrier, and I was able to repair. It can also drain capacitor as well. 

/TATA!!

Crap lost my mastodon

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=33604192

215 million isk lost...

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=33604157

330 million isk lost.... SAD FACE

All it takes is a second....I was sitting in space near my ratting system....working on some paperwork from work.....BOOM dead...

Ugh.....

/tata

Time to return to the front

Yogita and I have finally figured out how we can make ends meet in high sec, it is time to return to the front lines. The corparation we are with is very understanding, but now it is time to help burn down the goon led empire. 

We will not be using capitals until we are more settled. Right now with current way sov is held, it is easy to grab it, but very hard to hold on to it. We already have 3 carriers stranded, there is no reason to  add to that number. 

On a positive note our ore sold....so that is 6.1 billion in our pocket! I want to try out the new changes to carriers....but we need a stable home in null security space with good intel channels. 

So we will head over to the staging system and remain on standby until it is time to fleet up. 

I have about 250 million isk in tags, so I am hoping to get that to 500 million isk BEFORE heading to the front line. I do not know exactly how ship replacement programs work in this new alliance, so for now we will repalce our own ships....so that means....iskies needed!!!!

/tata

Getting used to life in High sec

One thing people like my wife and I miss about null is the easy isk. You go out in your favorite ratting ship, and usually earn 60-100 million isk an hour. Carriers were awesome for this, rattlesnakes, vindicators, ishtars, Dominixs, Heck I know of people people using super carriers. The bottom line due to awesome intel channels, you knew what was entering your area of space.

Some nights after work a famous multi boxer who uses a group of 4 interceptors would buzz through branch, we would keep on ratting knowing that we were not his targets. We even had a fit that could kill at least on of his ceptors with super fast, super tracking light drones. Too bad carriers will not be able to use drones soon. Not to mention the great complexes that can be probed out.

Nuff said the time to adapt for the short term is on us. Today while grinding missions I realized how I made isk years ago. Tags! In other words there are missions where your target is opposing faction ships. They have no bounty on them, but the tags are worth nice amount of isk. I used to save em up and sell them Usually making hundreds of millions of isk, each time I went to market. In some cases usually monthly I would cash in my lp as well. So I will do the same. Today I have made about 200 million isk salvaging and looting certain missions, making sure to run storyline missions. So instead of waiting until I have billions I wait until I have about a couple hundred mill.

Oh well...on with the grind!

/tata

Hump day

Well it is in the middle of the week. It is time for us to plex our main accounts. Plex is an acronym used in eve. Pilot license extension, which as as its name implies adds game time to a players account. This is an item that you can buy with cash and sell it in game. Yogi and I are really good at making isk....interstellar kredits. Isk is the in game currency. Basically we do not use real money to buy game time.
Right now we have been kicked out of branch, we have left the imperium. Right now we have no good areas to make isk. So tonight we will probe for combat sites. Any good wormholes we will use to take our goods directly to market hubs. Sucks being homeless.

/Tata

Losing our home

Well one thing you can count on in the world of Eve online....nothing stays the same. Right now we are getting invaded on three different fronts. Multiple stations have been "free ported", this means that anyone can dock there. I have not seen something like this before. It seems as if everyone is rising up contesting, and taking our space. Branch is longer a safe zone. Yogi and I have decided the 30-40 billion we have in assets will be collected later. We have enough isk to not worry about losing access to our capitals, and other ships. 

I am left feeling a bit sad because....well branch has been home to us for a long time. We basically took it from the White Noise alliance. We are fighting tooth and nail....but...we are being pushed back. 

So we are at a crossroads....stick with fcon and see how the phoenix rises again. Or start somewhere new....time will tell.

/ tata 

Faction warfare ACTION!!!

Well the night I think it was sunday night started bad....we got blapped by a moa whose tank our 2 corax class destroyers could not break. Well actually Yogi nearly broke him but she burned out her missile launchers, but at that moment he pulled range and warped off! So yogita was laughing her cute butt off! I was busy thinking about the battle. We then decided lets go Algos with a Corax.

Look at the destroyer in more detail here

Here is the ship Yogita flies

Well this was the result

Moa SHOT down!!!

We got killed by a sivpul but he died moments later so we got on his killmail so we feel good about that!

Another kill a stabber class cruiser

Stabber down

So far we have 6 kills together, and 7 total!

We have lost perhaps 5 or 6 ships?

FUN FUN FUN.


/tata

Jita pile....1.2-1.3billion isk

Faction warfare!!!!

Yogi and I were pretty bored on our alts for some time. Running level 4's during our lunch break was ok...but now that is no longer an option due to a new job that I have (YAY!!). We needed to go back to the drawing board and see what we could come up with. Well we found it!! Faction warfare!! You get plenty of fights, isk is very nice as well. Yogita and I are back to theory crafting something we have not done since figuring out how to run the maze.

So far?

This is my hull tanked algos....you can see that it has 3 killmarks which means it was able to land the killing blow on 3 ships.

Yogita  uses an algos and corax...and well...so do I. I just got my ass handed to me by a very well tanked moa class cruiser. It is either boring and you are raking in isk in the form of loyalty points. Loyalty points or LP can be converted to isk buy using the points to buy special gear. Then you sell it on the market....boom you make a profit!

So if you get plenty of action...make sure you have plenty of ready isk which we have. With the new changes to fitting ships....it is a cake walk to fit up multiple ships at a time.

Recently we made about 4.2billion isk each on our recent jita run.. our current jita pile has 400million isk, plus we have to run 2 mazes.....so that might double. That means...we have plenty of isk to theory craft and lose ships, while having a BALL!!

having almost enough isk to buy a Titan is very nice indeed, when you have a fun use for it!!

So we are ratting while replacing what we lose on the fly!! But I need to take a break and grab our mtu loot.....


/tata

4.1 billion isk richer!!!

Yeah so we made a risky trip during our lunch break to drop about 8.2 billion isk in loot, to jita.

It was risky but rewarding in that it saved us a lot of time. Now yogi and I have close to 160 billion combined in our wallets.

With citadel about to drop we are going to be using dreadnought class ships. So we can buy what we need.

We are going to buy a rorqual to aid in mining and with the new fighter sized mining drones....and the emergency force field it can use...this might become a favorite ship to use! .

/Tata

Looks like a new job is in the works.

Alot has has happened so far this month. Basically we went looking for work due to reasons I will not elaborate on at this time.

The next job looks great!! Better pay...better hours, did I meantion better pay?? The boss speaks very good English, and like Mrs Cho she is a teacher as well.

The other teachers have work there for years. One even left after completing his contract only to come back. This is a very goos sign.

On other news we also moved to another apartment. It is larger than our previous apartment.

There is alot more to update on...oh boy a truck nearly hit a chevy spark....truck drivers fault! 

More and more isk!!!

I am really loving 6/10's, right now. I think I have made about 2 billion out of an estimated 6billion jita loot pile just from this lowly plex. 

So isk making is going great. However, we are getting camped yet again! Yogita and I will be ratting in carriers optimzed for omni tank, and pvp. So if you drop on us, first you will need so many blops pilots we will see you coming from a mile away. Usually, the ganks we see are 2-3 blops pouncing on rattlesnakes, ishtars, and sometimes carriers. 

Well we have a nice counter finally set up for these asshats. So Yogita and I will rolling with that set up as well. So not only will you not get as many kills, your going to lose even more blops. Just today a panther class black ops battleship was blown away along with its t3 cruiser heavy tackle. So I am looking forward to some action while ratting tomorrow. One thing people need to realize that when you are getting camped in null sec....the campers have a life too! Figure out a patten to the ganks, while you rat in anothe system. You will soon find out that they like you, are active at certain times of the day. 

Yogita and I once ratted in our home system knowing it was a lull period for the gankers. We ratted for about 2-3 hours. Then, suddenly 5-6 nuets logged in, in a system very far from ours. I quickly used an app to calculate jump range of blops to our system....and we quickly finished the last anom and jumped the carriers out. Likely the bomber was getting a good warp in as we were jumping out. 

I wish I had access to eve while at work, because there are a few systems I would like to scout...I wonder if they are camping a system we used to rat in 3 weeks ago...

Anyways, I will be out baiting blops, my killboard doesn't have enough of them decorating it. In addition they fit nice mods too.....

Come and get us!!!!

/tata

When is rains isk....sometimes it pours!!

Ugh my post was deteleted.

Ok time to start again....stupid app! Basically we have settled in a new system. And while in this new system I have continued working out a fit for a rattlesnake class battleship.

Carrier ratting might be a thing of the past, with changes coming in the release citadel.
Carriers will no longer use drones, instead they will use fighter squadrons.

Well, this is one nice reason why having 120million sp spread out in say battleship level 5 for different races is so nice. Yogita and I have almost perfect skills to fly the rattlesnake. Our battleship skills are level 5 for caldari, and galente. Our drone skills are really nice too. The only thing missing is the drone spec skills at level 5.

So I have settled on a FoF Rattlesnake that gets about 1300-1400 dps. I think I can increase that with faction modules. Basically, the Fire and forget missiles go after targets on its own, and the drones with nice tracking (boosted with dual omni tracking modules with tracking scripts loaded) go after what the missiles are shooting at.

Using this set up I have been farming guristas rally points trying to see how many guristas troop reinvigoration camps I could get. This is a 6/10 class complex that can drop the Gila bpc (around 200-240million isk) , the medium a type shield booster (300million isk), and the  pithum A type invun field (780-800million isk!!).

I have been farming this site and getting 6/10 escalations on a regular basis. The net result? We got a pith A invun field yesterday! Our Jita pile is already at 4.5 billion isk!!! Usually it is at least half of that at this point, well since we went down to jita a couple of months ago with a 6.4 billion isk haul, having 4.5 billion already....very nice indeed. I might be able to break our own record of 7 billion isk. So I am still working out kinks in the fit, like how to escape if a gang pops in local via a wh, if I find that I am pointed by a pesky interceptor.

So...happy farming!!!!

/tata

Getting back on track!

Well last week we move to another area of branch, and we were able to make some very nice coin. Well we moved again, and it is even better in the new system we are in.

Something very nice happened yesterday. Yogita got her first solo kill in her ratting carrier. It started out with her panicking and while raising her voice saying we should jump....they tackled her, and she seem kind of taken aback. As if ok...well lets fight this losing fight and hope we can get saved by the standing fleet. Yogita is a fighter, she was a bit rattled having her carrier tackled.

I showed her what I do. I asses the situation rapidly. I noticed that it was an interceptor roam, and the 10 ships in the enemy fleet could not hurt a chimera with her skill set, and having an allied carrier next to her.

So I told her keep locking them and sending drones after them. I noticed that they seemed to stay too close to us to maintain scrams. So our medium drones with speed boosted by a drone navigation computer, and with tracking double boosted could land hits.

She basically launched her drones, at that moment an interceptor pilot locked her and scrammed her. Her drones automatically attacked him, and he insta popped. Basically he was there one second, and in his pod the next. Our MTU looted his wreck, we now have some fittings for interceptors of our own!

Moral of the story? Calm down, you might be able to take a few enemy ships with you. Heck, attacking aggressively can scare some gangs off. Once, I killed a sabre in one gang that was roaming through branch. Unfortunately for that gang it was their only interdictor capable of holding down ships warping through gates and trying to dock up in stations. Since they lost that ship they tried to kill my fleet issue Typhoon, I simply tanked them and docked up. If I had panicked I would have missed out on a nice kill, and making a gang leave branch to possibly reship, or even give up!

/tata

Settling in a new system...

So it has been perhaps 2 weeks since we moved out of our old system. We are currently in a lower sec status system. I find that I like the fact that because of the lower sec status it doesn't get all that much attention as the -1.0 systems where dozens of people, actually hundreds when you look at different time zones, have settled. Fleets of enemy ships often target those systems, and this means we can make isk nonstop during our break, or after work.

We recently sold out jita pile at a nice 6 billion isk, and our new jita pile is already at 900 million isk. I think due to the lower number of people in system we can just farm farm farm. We don't waste time having to leave an anomaly because another person is in it. Also we can farm for escalations that we want. We like to run 8/10's, and 10/10's.

8/10's just go so fast with a pair of high skilled tengus, and even faster with a pair of level 5 marauders. 10/10's are just gravy. It is nice when we have a couple stacked up to run. So this weekend perhaps Saturday evening, and for a long stretch on Sunday I hope we can get more escalations.

So the new system is working out well. We have basically staged 2 carriers with an assortment of ships for pvp, pve, and scanning ships. This allows us to be very flexible and adapt to different situations.

So time to keep on ratting! Oh and we have a nice fresh batch of 40 mobile tractor units that I built over the holiday. I might see how much loot we can get from dropping 59 mtus!!!

/tata

Ice mining!

Well...yogita and I have found another nice little past time in high sec. Ice mining! The isk made is more than we can make mining veld or some other mineral. In fact we find that our alts actually can send about 200mil a week to our main toons each week! I love it!

I am training my alt to to fly the tengu, and Golem with perfect skills. I might even use skill point injectors depending on how much they end up costing. Now the prices are crazy high, as is the case with new tech in eve online. So I will wait until the market settles, and if the price is right shave 3-4 days each week off of my training goals for my alts. For my main...with 120 million skill points...lets just say I have learned patience a long time ago. It sucks that newbies don't get it. When it takes a long time to develop something...it is so satisfying when things come together later. Like when I run anoms in my carrier, or running complexes in my tengu. Or even when mining I notice that my yield is pretty damn nice. Heck I have so many nice skills to level 5 that even in fleets I end up getting top damage, or getting the last hit more often.

Rushing with these skill point injectors....is just instant gratification. I will use to shave time off my goals for my alt. But my main is my masterpiece. I am currently going to train command ships to level 5. I have a feeling that we will be fielding command ship fleets like pandemic legion is doing right now. They are awesome in tanking, firepower, we were in a fleet of Augour navy issues.....we were quiet tanky...yet we could not break those slephs, and we got cut down like a fly swatter killing flies stuck in honey. BUT I do not mind waiting out the 34 days to get to level 5. I will constantly use 3+ implants, and once I have over 100 billion isk I will go up to +4's.

So we will continue see how well ice mining works for us before bringing our alts into null sec.

notable kills!

I got the last hit each of these ships!!


/tata

Procrastination must stop..

I keep putting off applying for my alt to enter FCON. I need to get on the ball. This week while Yogita was cooking I dual boxed our carriers. Wow, it is super easy and managing drone aggro was a breeze. Not to mention clearing sites was fast. We need to have our alts in ishtars (a very capable drone boat), working with our carriers. The additional isk will be needed. I think in the future switching over to heavy drones after the change to carriers hits the live server will be needed.

So it is time..if my late class student doesn't show up, I will put an app in and get on top of this BEFORE this weekend. I want to have more loot to reprocess into minerals, and we need to run some mining ops. Our home system has plenty of ore waiting for our greedy mining barges to grab!

/tata

Awesome ratting day!!!

We kept on pushing and pushing. We ran three times the number of anomalies that we normally do during our lunch break!

The result? We got three maze escalations. Back in the day I would say 2-3 years ago when it was harder to run, one escalated anomaly was enough....the drops could easily be 500-700 million isk on the low side. While you could get 1.5 billion isk on the high side....even more was possible if enough deadspace modules dropped.

Today to get a nice amount of loot, it is better to spend your evening running 3 mazes. The site its self isn't hard, we can run it in 15-18 minutes. So 3 mazes would around 45 minutes to an hour. Yet with the changes to jump bridges, and jump fatigue limiting how many times you jump....branch just got a lot larger!

So it took us about 2 hours to run all 3 with all of the warping around. The end result? We got a total of 880-900 million isk in drops! So we were quite stoked. Our jita loot pile is growing again! We are hoping to get some escalations, or at least a faction spawn...

Some of the terminology might seem odd to non eve players....let me explain a few things. In Eve you interact with the game world via different ships. Anomalies are areas that you can warp to and kill a set number of npc ships. Basically we are like a police force fighting pirates, and the authorities thank us by paying us "bounties" for killing the pirates. Escalations are random, when you kill a certain ship in the last wave of npc ships you might get a pop up that basically tells you to go to a certain system for a special mission. It is your own personal "dungeon" although players can scan you down, and you can actually save the location and sell it to someone else. Faction npcs have higher bounties, and sometimes drop very valuable modules. Some worth about 700-800 million isk! While others range from 80 to 200 million isk. Deadspace modules are more effective, they are stronger than the regular modules you can fit to your ship. We sometimes use the expression "bling" to describe a ship with a lot of deadspace modules. Something that is even more expensive and rare are Officer spawns. Officer spawns are very powerful npc ships that have very high bounties, and can drop officer grade modules. I can only seen wrecks....I have no run into one by myself....


happy hunting!

/tata

...Could have made 200 million isk today....

We still made 100 million isk, but with plex prices at 1.1billion, 200 would have made me a happy camper. Some days we can barely rat or grind for isk. Work, family issues, sometimes we are worn out and need to rest for the next day. Other times social obligations come up.

Yesterday was special though we got home at the normal time for our break. BUT we got a call that due to the heavy snow we would be shutting down classes for the rest of the day.

So like any Eve player yogita and I thought....ISK MAKING TIME!!! NOT!!!

It seems that someone has paid mercs to attack us in branch. They paid out 1 trillion isk.
So this isn't such a bad thing because home defense fleets go up and we can brawl. BUT it sucks when you main character needs game time (pilot license extension), and you want to get to a billion isk quick.

So while we were all geared up and ready...we stayed docked. Too many gangs kept passing through branch. In hindsight we should have taken our rattlesnakes out....very nice dps and they clear anomalies quick too. Oh well..perhaps next Monday we will get another chance.

I am training exhumer 5 on my main. I really should have done it ages ago. The changes to the mining barges means that extra level makes a Hulk an active miner. A skiff can grab 15 ice cubes fast. Anyways......


/tata

Time to double up!

Yesterday while ratting in our home system I kept seeing pilots with small teams of ships. 2 ishtars, or 1 ishtar and Gila. They are making about 40-50million isk a tick. If I am going to pvp the way I want to (using faction ships, with some high end modules), I need this kind of income. It is isn't like we can not do it....Yogita and I bought have alts that can fly the Ishtar very well. So if we pair the Ishtar with a carrier, I am sure we can reach very decent earnings. I want to start buying blue prints (it is how we build ships in eve), and go on small roams. Something I haven't done since 2013 when I would lead small groups to EC-, or go on roams into venal with Lumbo, Yogita, and another guy....I forgot his name but it is on my skype list.

So I want to make the most out of our PVE and having our alts in high sec....it isn't working out. They barely make 200 million isk a month. So I am going to bring them back home.

Also as I mentioned before I would like to start our mining ops again. They brought in much needed minerals which we used to build drakes when drakes where a thing. It seems our Hurricane bpo will come in handy, as they are seeing more use.

Time to go through the process of bringing out alts into FCON....


/tata

Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel?

Ratting activities are at an all time low. It just isn't worth it during the week to come home to cloaked ships running around, and trying to dodge them while trying to prepare for the Citadel release. Remember we want to build super carriers. Our loot pile from running anomalies is terribly small. So this weekend perhaps Sunday we will have to be very careful while ratting, and deploying MTUs.

Ratting in carriers means that while you can escape by simply jumping to another system, you can not keep doing this due to jump fatigue. Eventually, you will have to jump but you will find that you are unable to....that is when you die in a ball of fire.

You could rat with heavy drones, or fighters, and remain aligned. However, if they get the drop on you....you could be scrammed, or warp disrupted in now time. With the new warp mechanics if you fit a covert ops frig just right they can warp FAST, so while you are on your pc you take your eyes off of your monitor for about 40 seconds, you look at your screen oh *(*&(**(!!!! Hit warp only to find he had a 20 second advantage, and with overheated sensor boosters, and a long point your a sitting duck.

MTUs... I will simply link this

Over 200 dead mobile tractor units....RIP!!!


So yeah even Yogita has lost a few. So basically rat like a ninja, see them coming...dock up, and grab a hauler asap! UGH I hope they get face stomped hard, and leave.
I am still loving the fear of it all though. Null sec ISN'T supposed to be easy!!

/tata

Finally high sec pays off....

So a couple of days ago I am running refuge anoms in high sec, and I get an escalation. I have been running these sites for months now. FINALLY I got the 220 million isk c type invun field. FINALLY

So now I am feeling stoked so I want to keep hunting and search and maybe get another nice drop like that.... However, the reality is my alt needs to be null sec where I can make a hell of alot more isk. Her mining skills would be put to good use as well.

So I think this week we will put in our apps. Our buddy lumbo just isn't doing much at the moment. I need these characters to carry their own weight. Perhaps scouting systems, providing extra dps in pve and pvp situations.

So this will be the final month we stay in high sec.....null sec is where the action is anyway.

/tata

Scorpions SUCK

Ugh so yogi and I tried out a dps fit Scorpion with jammers and points to kill covert cynos. Well the thing is you want to make some isk while wait for them to show up in your constellation. So we undocked and proceeded to rat. IT SUCKED. It took forever to kill a battleship, and we had to super focus on elite cruisers. I think I will reship and sit in a safe spot where they can get the drop on us. Because....really it was so much micromanagement. Now I know there are set ups where you have to actually work at ratting, for example targeting, moving into range for optimal damage application. But those ships that are used are very powerful platforms. They can take out a NPC battleship in 2 or 3 volleys. Vindicators, Macherials, and Rattlesnakes (we have ratting rattlesnakes) boy they pack punch.

But the scorpion with its great tank comes poor damage application to rats. I think with a few changes to our set up we can kill covert cyno ships, and perhaps jam and get away when the blops, and other covert ships arrive. Wow....I would have to seriously gimp the rattlesnakes tank in order for it to be a bit more effective as a ratting ship. Which would mean we would kill the covert cyno while still getting blown away. Which isn't what I want to do. I want to kill tackle, jam secondary tackle and get away (maybe kill secondary tackle. Especially with the command destroyers which have the very nice ability to warp your ship 100km away. So lets say you undock in your scorpion class battleship the command destroyer warps you 100km off the station....you can not even warp to station cause you need 150km to do that. MAYBE you can kill one or two ships, but say goodbye to your ship. And if they have a bubbler....your pod as well.

So yesterday I got frustrated and simply went back to ratting in my carrier while keeping a close eye on enemy movement. Yogita and I stayed together to clear sites MUCH faster. We made total 140 million isk not counting salvage and loot...that would tack on an extra 20-30 mill or so. So not bad but not ideal as we had to use ratting time to theory craft ways to deal with campers in branch. BUT I enjoy that. Eve nothing stays the same. I will still rat I will try baiting, I really want to kill one or two blops (black ops battleships), cause I am sure they are a pain to replace!

/tata

Blops shut down branch!!!

Ugh, this weekend we made NO isk. No that it hurts us, cause we have plenty of isk. It is just that we could not gather loot, or salvage wrecks (which will be needed for the Citadels). Instead we joined pvp fleets, which was ok. Our ANI fleet was destroyed by a command ship fleet of slephinirs. I love that ship. They were arty fit which is something new. The alpha was so strong that our Aurgour Navy Issues did not stand a chance.

So we could not even mine because of Chaos theory, which is an alliance that deployed numerous black ops battleships, and support. Needless to say quite a few ratters where popped but this happened

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=31978811


They lost 3 black ops battleships (over a billion a piece), and a pilgrim I guess he popped the covert cyno for the battleships. After this loss I was confident when I got back to branch (I was deployed), that we could rat in peace. They would pull out after losing that many blops....nope they stayed the whole weekend with pilots even reshipping after losing covert cyno frigates.

Yogita and I came up with some fits to help counter a hot drop. Basically, to kill the cyno and one blops before getting blown apart....it is still a work in progress. Perhaps scorpions....they can jam tank rather well..... We will have to see what we can come up with.

So hats to these guys....they can kill and take losses, they don't care about killboard stats..I wish FCON was the same. Seriously there are many who can afford to take care in command ship roams. But do we do that? NO WAY it is too expensive.....LOL Many of us can make enough isk to fit 2 or 3 command ships ratting for 2 days (and I do not mean glued to your pc ratting cause that rakes in billions).

My favorite kill from this weekend:

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31978878

That was the only command ship kill I saw, after that I was destroyed.
I wish we could have doctrines like this...would be epic!! Killboard red cause...we can we live in one of the riches regions in branch!

/tata

An unexpected fun weeknight roam!

Well first of all lets just say our little roam of about 24 destroyers started out rather mundane. We caught a few ships here and there, I think notable kills were two buzzards.
We were in venal which is one reason why yogita and I joined. During the week we are involved in mainly pvp. Weekends we devote time to fleets usually joining 5-6 fleets during the weekend.

What made this extra fun for me was that I had a full core gen set of implants in my head. So my escape pod was destroyed.....well then it is off to Jita to drop another 400 mill isk on another set. So the second half of the roam got really exciting when we encountered an out of sight gang (they live in venal). They brought drone boats Worms, a Gila or 2. Both fleets traded blows, our fleet was a bit smaller, and we could not reship so easily due to the fact that we were over 20 jumps from home.

I loved how the FC didn't just whine and say "oh there are too many lets burn back home". Instead it was balls to the wall! Yogita and I were doing quite well we avoided getting tackled. Got on some nice kills. But well the shit hit the fan as they say. Suddenly we in the thick of it. There was nothing to do but battle it out it. It was a brawl. Worms were dropping here and there, our own destroyers started exploding. Pods on both sides ended up expelling corpses into the deep freeze of space.

I knew our ticket would come up. And well it did. I got caught as I was trying to run away! They had no bubbler with them at the moment. He had an aggro timer because he dropped his bubble on the side of the gate. So as my armor was melting I do what I usually do when in an expensive pod. I ejected from my ship, and warped to the next. The guys who blew up ships laughed in local, but they told other fleet members, and they soon gave chase.

My core gen set helps even my pod hit warp a bit faster than a normal pod, so I was just zipping in and out of systems and I was able to get back safely.

Yogita had to take a slightly longer route. I think she got out safely as well err minus her ship. Only 3 or 4 ships made it out, our FC (fleet commander) burned out his propulsion module so he was basically a sitting duck and died a bit late into the fight.

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31937765 one of the worms we killed.

So here is to hoping we get a nice weekend with nice pvp kills! CHEERS!

/tata

Time to return to salvaging...

Yogita and I have been making very good use of our MTUs. In fact due to that we have over 6 billion in minerals. At this moment we are working on filling 2 250m3 cans. It will take perhaps until March, but it will yield us another 4 billion in minerals. Not to mention that we are bringing our alts back into null so we will have mining ops to up that even more.
However, on a whim I decided to salvage a few sites and how much isk we have been basically throwing away. I found that on average each site is worth about 4million isk. Loot is worth about 3-10million isk. So if I run 6 anoms salvage and loot them, that is a potential 40-50 million isk I can put in to our wallets. I need this excess cash because when nuets show up I am not one to just dock up and hide. I usually jump in the fray and get my ass killed.

So in a system next to our home there was a gang of cruisers attacking an Orca. I figured that with such a ship being rather tanky many people would be heading to his aid. No this fool didn't pipe up on comms until he was practically dead...


https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31925025 my pod...wow that crow locked me fast!

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31925027 one of my tempests....RIP

So I was a bit annoyed that no one was on field when I arrived. But who cares..lets fight! I nearly killed the crow . SO after getting killed and podded my corpse floating in space, I was very happy because a home defense fleet engaged them and I got on both kms

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31925038

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=31925041

Will I do it again? Yes I will! I have 1 more tempest 2 domis, large number of cruisers and battlecruisers....I will go again in to the fray....maybe next time I will kill one of them.
This is why I play eve to enter act with other players...not run from them. Another reason why PVE is so important to me. I will be purchasing typhoons, and fleet typhoons, for home defense. It is nice to have a nice pile of isk to throw at buying ships.

/tata

Why do I still play Eve?

This is a question that comes up time to time. Especially when I see long term players leave the game, some of them return later.
Eve is really a sandbox. I like how things you do can have a major impact on the game.
I like how everything is basically player run. It is awesome!

But the main thing that I like is that the sky is really the limit. A buddy of mine came back to eve basically to get into the big end game ships of the game. Carriers, dreads, supercarriers. He has I think 4 carriers, 2 dreads, and one super carrier. The problem with this set up is that Super Capitals need holder characters, or you need to start an account JUST FOR THAT SHIP. It can not dock, it needs a POS to protect it. If you are quitting eve....good luck IF you decide to come back....you might lose that super when people see a super carrier on directional scan along with a neutral character in system.

The moral of the story? Don't get stuck into a narrow niche. Capitals, and Super capitals while they are awesome....they are not used that much in null pvp. I love carriers, so I rat in them move stuff around, run certain complexes in them...basically they make isk for me. I can use a variety of ships, battleships, the every present isktar, strategic cruisers, all which are good at ratting in null. I can I will use them IF carriers get nerfed / or changed.

In eve think ahead! I like carriers, but I found that I need to have other means to make isk, so I found out what ships excel at ratting even more that a carrier, and I trained those skills to the max! Macherial, Vindicator (very skill intense because I trained 2 racial battleship skills to level 5. Other example: Rattlesnake very high drone skills, along with missile skills, AND shield tanking skills. I can fly them all! I am now getting into lasers and Amarr ships are looking really nice to have too.

So think ahead look into other aspects of the game. Mining sucks right? Wrong! If you watch a movie, enjoy a mini series, and you have a 2-3 characters in a fleet with Orca, or Rorqual boosts...you can make a nice bit of coin. Many people think isk/hr is important. Not really. Isk/day is more important. If you can make 100million isk a day your are doing it right. If you mine things will be a bit tight (hopefully you enjoy other things in eve besides mining remember niches can get boring!), but if you rat faction spawns, DED escalations provide a side income that can be billions of isk at the end of a month, or 2 months.

I have 81 billion isk in my wallet, with over 56 billion is other assets. I can fly a wide array of ships. This gives me so many options.

Basically I am not talking to low sp chars, I am talking to the people with over 80-100million skill points. Venture into other areas of eve with your friends. Then go back to what you used to do....fun fun, and more fun! Currently it costs about 12 billion in minerals to build a super carrier. Yogita and I have 6 billion isk in minerals from RATTING only. Once we start mining this number will jump, and I will NOT own a super carrier if I can not dock it. This spring dockable supers will be a thing....so I will get into a Super carrier at that time. I guess it is time to train fighter bombers to level 5!

/tata