Clown Banter Contest #1: I really like you but...

Aight, bragging about my 20 million skill points will have to wait because the fine sirs at Clown Punchers Syndicate are holding a banter contest, and as I want free swag just as well as the next guy I'm going to have a go at it. And hey, if I'm the only one to enter maybe I'll get all the swag :)

The question we pose to our fellow bloggers for the first installment of the CKIAGFEBBC is, “What is the thing you hate/dislike most about the player run corporation you are in.”

Ah, asking qustions that could cause countless amounts of tears, pain and suffering... yep, it's from the BOZOs alright! Well, I'll give T and Q something to chew on as well because as a lot of people may know, I've spent quite a bit of time in Bozoland and there were a few things I disliked there too. And since I've known only 2 corps/alliances since my humble beginnings I'll make sure to keep everyone happy. I'll also add some things that I really like about each corp. T, Q, if you guys see things as bending the contest rules then by all means disqualify me, but I'm the one typing at the keyboard here :) I'll also like to add that if you really hate something about your corp/alliance, like hate it with a passion, then just quit it and find another corp/alliance better suited for you. Not really hating AMC nor BOZO, I will go with "dislike" for this contest. Alright, let's dive right in...

Apoapsis Multiversal Consortium / ChaosStorm Corporation

What I really dislike: OH MY GOD is AMC a quiet place. There could be 20 people online sometimes and you can get 1 or 2 to answer your "hello" in Alliance chat. Since the departure of a certain corp things did get a bit better, and also EVE audio in Alliance sees more use but still. I know there are a lot of industrialists who are busy with some of the things required to do but when you've been in game say a couple hours and none of the 10-12 chat windows are blinking, things get dull and you lose interest. If we needed to lose a corp in order get more conversations going then all the better. But the quietness doesn't end there: the forums. AMC has some of the deadest forums I've ever seen in any game. I've even sent alliance mails trying to wake people up and talk about what they're doing in-game so that people out-of-game can know WTF is going on, but apart from myself and a few others, forum participation is very small. Not a good thing if you ask me.

What I really like: with the place being so quiet, you can do stuff on your own without feeling like you're letting the team down, unless it's something that goes against corp/alliance policies. And I will say something about my current mates: when something happens that is a threat quietness goes by the wayside and stuff starts to happen. When jokers invade a wormhole system, we get together and fuck 'em up. When other jokers put a POS in our backyard we reinforce the thing and then we pop it, regardless of casualties. When yet more jokers reinforce one of our POSes, we make sure they don't kill it. So AMC may be too quiet for my taste, but it is a good bunch of people to fly with.

Clown Punchers Syndicate:

What I really dislike: This must be a problem encountered in other PvP corps and alliances: finding time to do your own things in the game is very hard, and sometimes impossible. In this game you need ISK for basically everything and even if there's a totally awesome ship and rig replacement program you always need ISK for something like skillbooks, newer and better ships, etc. And of course as you get more advanced these things cost more and more and when you're having a hard time rubbing two ISK together this sucks balls. There were times where for some reason Curse (back then) was very dead and even taking a fleet out on a roam didn't solve anything because EVE was dead in general. And yes, I'll even admit that there were a few times where I told myself "if I had spent all this time ratting I'd be 50mil richer...". My point is you have to make ISK somehow, even if you're in a PvP corp.

What I really like: Action, action, action, and more action !!! When things got busy around Bozo HQ, or out on a roam 20 jumps away with kills every other jump, Bozo was, and still is I think, The Best Place to play EVE. Be it in a BC fleet, a Jihad fleet, or a full-on RRBS fleet, there is always someone willing to fly with you to go out and kill some reds/neuts. Sometimes it felt like gorging ourselves on death and destruction, and life was good. And I will freely admit that I miss this part very much.

And that's it for me. I hope I get this ball rolling >:)

List of participants:

Diary of a Space Jockey - I really like you but…

Musing on Utter Crap - I usually hate Clowns…

Life in Lowsec - Why I hate Hellcats

Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance - Pick a damn lane and drive in it!

The Reckless Rifter - The Fast-Track to Roles Removed

Shenanigans From PP – It has to be said …

Arguably Awesome – CKIAGFEBBC Entry

This is how I do it! – It’s all about the BOZOs

Hands off, My Loots! - I frickin' HATE Ninjas!

Screw Sun Tzu - CKIAGFEBBC #1 Entry

And then they were ten.....

Go fast, go splat!

This was the slogan of the Bug and Lepton classes of martian vehicles in Virtual World Entertainment's Red Planet, where the goal was to go as fast humanly possible during a 10-minute race. Those vehicles had something in common with EVE's interceptor class: in order to be extremely fast they were extremely fragile, and although it was possible to fly them offensively (ie: ram an opponent into the ground or structures) it also came at the price of having to take some damage, and of course offensive moves could just as well backfire and bite you in the ass.

In the EVE universe, the Kings of Speed are the interceptors. Imagine a set of jet engines with a cockpit and a few guns duck-taped on, with all the tank of a paper plane. For every race there are two models of interceptors: fleet tacklers and combat interceptors. Let me give a short description of each type and their use in the game; feel free to flame me if you think I got something wrong.

Fleet tacklers:

• Amarr: Malediction
• Caldari: Raptor
• Gallente: Ares
• Minmatar: Stiletto

These ships are best used in fleets as they have much lower DPS than their combat counterparts, but are much more agile and warp the fastest in the game at 13.5 au/sec. These ships are built with one thing in mind: get there first, stop the prey, and hope reinforcements arrive shortly or else it will be a short battle. This means that their ability to inflict damage is irrelevant; the way to fit these ships is to make them as nimble as possible, and able to run their Microwarp Drives and tackling modules permanently, even if they are the longer ranged Warp Disruptors, which tend to eat up more capacitor. With the Interceptor skill at level IV the range of a Warp Disruptor is 28.8 for a T2 module, and 10.8 for a Warp Scrambler. In a fleet it's usually a good idea to have a mix of both as the first interceptors to arrive on the scene will be able to put points on the target(s), and the scram-fitted inties will make sure the target(s) stay slow and vulnerable. So all in all dealing damage is not really important, but staying alive is, so being able to perma-run the modules creates the ultimate speed-tank.


Combat interceptors:

• Amarr: Crusader
• Caldari: Crow
• Gallente: Taranis
• Minmatar: Claw

These ships are usually slower, or faster but less nimble, but have a slightly better tank and deal considerably more damage than their fleet counterparts. One module makes these ships very effective at solo combat though: the Damage Control. Take a look at this blog's header and you'll understand what I mean. In this picture, Yours Truly had just spotted a TCF Thanatos and the Navitas that cynoed him in. Being hungry for an easy kill (and forgetting AMC was NRDS in low-sec, plus I still had all my Bozo-esque reflexes towards anything TCF) I warped right on top of the cyno and snuffed its lights out. This of course caused the station to shoot at me, but while the station did give hull damage to my Taranis I never felt in trouble. I've applied the same principle to my Claw interceptors but I have these rigged in order to squeeze a bit more DPS out of them, something that doesn't need to be done with the Taranis. I think the Crusader can apply the same principle also, as its lasers can do quite a bit of damage (Bullmastiff, if you read this tell me if I'm wrong), but one exception is the Crow which has to be flown at the extreme edge of Warp Disruptor range, and has to perma-run in order to keep sending missile volleys because, as I've said before, Caldari is latin for "lack of gank". Of these 4 ships, the Taranis is the undisputed King of Pain, and if you are not Gallente-born please do yourself a favor and cross-train in order to fly this beast.

So Letrange... yes, it is entirely possible that your Prowler, which is fit and rigged to get out of harm's way in no time flat, can out-maneuver and out-warp a Claw, but that's what a Prowler is for. Of course, if you want to use it as a tackler, be my guest :)

I declare the Interceptor Flame Wars open !!!

Short Banter edit: as I despise absolutely anything even remotely related to politics, I am staying the hell away from Blog Banter #10. My politic: shoot first, ask questions later.

!!! NEWS BREAK !!!

As I was typing this post Cozmik R5 was breaking the 20 million skill point barrier. Guess the subject of the next post :)

Never fly safe... it's bad for you.

o7

Ah, dammit...

Here's a short update on the AMC front, and the reason why I sometimes totally hate my playing time situation:

As mentionned in mine and Letrange's latest blog post, a wormhole-hopping, PvP-seeking alliance came knocking at one of our POS and put the thing in reinforced before we could stop 'em, much thanks to a dying wormhole. As I am typing this the tower should be coming out of reinforced and reps should be frantically going on, and the previously-mentionned jokers may or may not come back to finish their job. The sad part is I can't be there to help my alliance defend our space. All I can do is cheer my mates on and be there in spirit, with a few words of advice:

Be cool and stay disciplined, and send these assclowns back to their mommies, weeping for some breast milk!

And now some words for the Bloody Tards:

Please keep fitting Ravens like this, it makes me want to sing with joy! You may love hitting on carebears, but I'm afraid you may have poked the wrong bear this time :)

Rough summer

Yep, that's what has been happening to me since mid-June. A double-move into a not-so-new place that needs to be given a lot of love has been keeping me not only away from EVE, but also away from family, friends, drums, my new guitar, as well as other games and sims that I like to play. Add to this the fact that Montreal is having one of its worst summers in terms of weather, and yeah... this summer blows chunks!

Things are not all gloomy though: I am just over a week away from switching jobs. I'll be leaving the Municipal Court and all its crazy denizens and going to LaSalle's Technical Services, the place where they fix trucks, snowplows and whatnot. It's also the place where we order and buy everything from pens to tons of gravel, and it's also the place where we deal with contractors for various jobs in and around the LaSalle burrough. Not only all this will be a nice chance of pace, this place happens to be just about 10 minutes BY BIKE from my house! This will rock !!!

Now, this blog is not about the inner workings of the city of Montreal, and in the midst of all the crazy stuff going on in my life I have been able to play some EVE here and there, but apart from a few Sleepers I haven't fired my guns in anger in a much too long time. I did get to see the Vagabond in action though and those Sleepers, even if they decided I was primary a few times, just didn't have a chance. Having now seen the ship's effectiveness when orbiting at optimal range, now I can't wait to apply those Barrage-hungry 220mm Vulcan IIs to some poor schmuck who happens to be red to me, or a pirate, or trespassing thru AMC-held W-space. I unfortunately don't know when this will happen, but dammit it WILL happen!

Speaking of trespassers, yesterday was one of those times when action started happening as soon as I logged in my trade alt. I barely had time to start checking buy/sell orders when over EVE-voice I start hearing about multiple battleships in one of our colony systems. The PvP started singing its sweet melody and the market was promptly forgotten as I switched characters, got into my Broadsword and started banging the war drums in Alliance chat. Of the 3-4 battleships being scouted at first, one was an Amarr Navy Apocalypse, so of course everyone who was making their way to the K-space entrance system was starting to smell Amarr blood. Unfortunately the closer we were getting to our destination, the more battleships were being called, and our tactic was to change significantly from small-gang-pwnage to pick-off-1-by-1, and suddenly I was in the wrong ship. Well, instead of bubbling at least I could perma-point whoever we picked off, but still, a HIC isn't exactly the best ship for hit-and-run tactics.

As Letrange is working on our warp-in solution on the Navy Apoc, we now knew what those jokers were doing: they were slowly but surely putting one of our POSes into reinforced. "Oh well" said POS owner, and back to current business we were as we didn't have the numbers to counter a POS assault. Let gets in position, everyone in K-space starts heading to the wormhole, but Lo and Behold, NO WORMHOLE !!! We don't know if it died of old age or because of the battleships in there, but dead it was and a new entrance had to be found. Let launched some combat probes in the hopes of maybe causing the enemy fleet to twitch, and a few minutes Let had the new door. It took some fancy flying and some BS dodging before he could actually take a peak at the other side, and when he did the news was grim: 22 jumps away. Because I was in the wrong ship I needed to stop by HQ to pick up something better for the job (a Hurricane in this instance) so 3-4 more jumps for me. When our gang arrives at the new destination I'm still 8 jumps behind, but it's now irrelevant as the enemy fleet is slowly disbanding now that the POS bash is done. It was too late for me to do anything more so off to bed I then went.

Despite the lack of actual fighting it still felt good to at least get ready for some of The PvP again, plus because of the travel time (17+25ish = 42ish jumps o_O) and initial scouting/probing we had plenty of time to think and talk about how we were going to disrupt these jokers, and it was great to have the more advanced players explaining various little things to both newcomers and other advanced players, so the evening wasn't a complete write-off. It was a bit disappointing for me because this was my second time in a row where The PvP turned into Almost The PvP. A couple days before, I was moving some ships into that same W-space system and Let and 2 others were in another system next door, sacking and pillaging Sleeper sites, when Let called a bogey Buzzard on comms, and PvE turned into PvP in about a minute. Unfortunately that was just enough time to see the Cov Ops frigate disappear into nothingness, never to be seen again. The good thing about that particular little op was that if the Buzzard pilot had been ever so slighty slower he would've been caught in my Sabre's bubble. Oh well, there will be next times...

So here's to hoping I do get to sink my guns' teeth into a player's ship as soon as I can. This summer is already pretty rough, but going PvP-less makes it even rougher...

Fly it to lose it,

o7

OK, you can talk now

After the silliness of two weeks ago it was actually good to take a step back from blogging. I took a subject from the wrong angle, I got into some mud-slinging, and as a cherry on top of the sundae my character got stuck with almost a full day of training downtime. In short, two weeks ago sucked. Now all that's in the past and good riddance.

First of all, Congratulations are in order for the winners of of the first blog banter contest. All subjects were very interesting (yes, even Teister's) and I will admit that if all of those suggestions would be looked at by CCP New Eden would be a better place to live in. Will they listen to the players? Hey, who knows... it was worth a try!

So what's been happening since I put on the muzzle. Well, when I get back to my playing computer I will be adding a big fat juicy screenshot of a Vagabond because the first I did when I logged back in 1.5 weeks ago was the following: fly to Rens in a Thrasher filled with all the necessary modules, buy the Vaga, fit it out rigs and all, ditch the ship I came in with and fly out in style. And yes, even after the speed re-balance happened I still feel like this is the ship for me. I have yet to put it through all its paces but I feel like I will get comfortable with it pretty quick. On the other hand replacing losses will be a tad more difficult than the average Jihad cruiser, but as long as I can have enough ISK for one replacement I'll be flying it as hard as I've been flying every other ship.

So now that my main HAC is done I'm back to skilling up for Tech 2 Large guns, which is perfect for my weird every-other-week schedule, and somewhere in there I'll start the push for the T2 Medium Hybrids (yes I can technically fly the Deimos and Ishtar now) and Recon ships. When all these nifty skills will be comfortably swimming in Level IVs (maybe Cloaking V for the Recon) it will be time to start thinking about another major thing, Command Ships.

So slowly but surely Cozmik is turning into a nicely skilled character. Now if overlord r3dfiv3 (that's me :) can have a bit more time to actually PLAY the damn game it would be awesome, but play-time is at a premium these days as I had feared it would when my ex and I started talking about two moves to take care of our boys better. The first part of the move is done (thanks again to Glith, Unzer, IvanAsen and Letrange for the help) but Part Deux is on its way on September 1st so we're not out of the woods yet. The good part is that this was supposed to happen in December so the sooner everything is done the better.

Here's to finding a kill when I come back.

Till next time, fly tons more than I do !!!

o7

Shut the fuck up Coz...

Last post deleted because it is totally useless.

And as Teister and Queb have pointed out, I'm a complete faggot.

C ya in game tomorrow !!!

o7