Cross-town Traffic (So hard to get through to you)

I think this Jimi Hendrix song gives a very good description of the Clown Punchers' little area of space, sitting so near to the only door to Hi-sec in all of Curse. Let's just say it keeps us on our toes, and if people aren't careful well they pay for it real quick. Also, we are now frequently visited by members of Triumvirate, one of the best PvP alliance in the entire EVE galaxy, and these people are not to be underestimated. They fly only the best ships found in the game, and usually fit them for speed so catching them, although possible with massive webbing, is extremely hard. I would love to hear what's going on on their com channel because even when out-numbered these guys just do not panic are rarely make stupid mistakes, and they have a way of making you own mistakes stand out like a chocolate stain in white silk. I myself lost 2 ships under 5 minutes: one because of orders gone wrong and our gang starting to trickle down into their waiting arms, and the second was all me as I headed out in a hurry in a new ship (I had survived the first encounter in my pod) to attempt to mount a counter-offensive but in the rush to undock and get something done I warped to the wrong gate, going straight back into their arms, all alone in my Stabber to face 4 Vagabonds, 2 Zealots, a Deimos, a Falcon and a Rapier. 10 seconds later I was announcing I was taking a short break and went to Quake 3 CPMA to beat the living crap out of something with rockets, rails, and lightning shafts. Yes, EVE-Online is great and all, but at heart I'm still very much a pure 1v1 Deathmatcher, where people do not need years of skill training except for fingers, and gobs of ISK to do a killing; all I need is WASD, left CTRL for jump, my trusty trackball (yes, I'm one of those weirdos and it works fine for me, ask my victims) and Space Bar for TAUNTING !!! I did get back to the game though but with Tri running around in Hemin it took about 2 hours before enough of them leave for me to undock in my pod and make a bee-line for Jorund, then dock and g'night everyone :)

The next day we did get our stuff together though and after a few stalemates and retreats we got some help from our A4D buddies and showed them that nano just isn't everything. They took the defeats in stride though, and now we do see more of them and we have to be extra careful when out in space; none of this "oh, I'll just finish this rat" or "oh, he's probably just passing by" business. At the first sign of a neutral or a red it's cloak or dock or die. Period. If you don't do it quickly enough well you'll be leaving a nice wreck full of ratting loot !!!

Hey, but playing EVE is not all doom and gloom! We do have tons of fun on roaming ops and even at home ratting. Last week, one of the Clown College members (Heimdal Galplen if you want to know) was ratting in our home system and came across a hauler spawn, consisting of 2 battleships and 2 Mammoth class haulers. After quickly dispatching the rats he proceeded to loot the wrecks, only to find that the Mammoths were full to the breaking point of Mexallon and Tritanium. We got a small op going so with people guarding the wrecks and protecting the Clown haulers, we managed to get every single rock out of the wrecks. Thankfully it was a very quiet evening in Jorund and the only disturbance we had was from rat spawns that could have been very harmful to slow and unarmed haulers. Great fun though, laughing all the way to the bank... well, Heimdal was at least :D

And yesterday was my first roaming op under a Fleet Commander who's not from my corp or alliance. The A4D guys were holding a suicide op consisting only of T1 frigates and cruisers, looking for juicy T2, Faction, or just plain big targets. So we paid a visit to some of our red neighbors and we got 3 very nice kills consisting of a Sacrilege (received praise for my webbing on that one), a Paladin (worth over 800 million ISK; russians are weird like that) and an Arazu. That last one was very special because our FC had sent only 2 people in: a tanking ship (Teister's Rupture) and a tackling ship (my own Rifter). A third player in a Caracal also jumped in, which ended up being a good thing as he did most of the damage on the Arazu, but as Teister was losing his point-and-web lock on him I was sticking to him like glue and managed to get the final blow. Yay me !!! So the only ship lost in this "suicide" op was Teister's Rupture, lost to the Arazu pilot's buddies, and he didn't even get podded. So no, we didn't wake up a Titan like some other people did :) While on the op, in the depths of Catch, we come across some weird looking bone-like star gates that look more at home in the Diablo universe. Have a look:



And now in real-life news, I will be taking a short break from gaming in the coming week because I am moving on Friday, April 11th. The downside is I only get my internet back on the following Monday. It has been a crazy autumn and winter, but now spring is here and we can finally turn the page on this sad story. I won't go into details here as this is not the place. If you must know, e-mail me, eve-mail me, convo me, or ask me directly on Ventrilo. But no worries, EVE is beautiful that way: I can set a very long skill and when I do get my internet back it'll be only half done! So my next post will be made from my new home in LaSalle, Quebec. Until then, fly safe, and crouch when you pick up something heavy !!!

o7

PS: I sorta skipped the Industrialism 101 bit I wanted to do. Oh well, suffice it to say that ammo and modules for those suicidal ops are plentiful :)) C ya.