Shaking the rust off

Come to Brutopia !!!

Last Friday was kind of a special moment for me in EVE, even if it's very common nature to most players. It was the first time I left my fully-implanted clone behind to jump into an un-implanted one, as I was getting ready to fly dangerous/stupid as I usually do over weekends, and it didn't take long for me to do the "fly stupid" part. Feeling enbolded by my lack of semi-expensive implants and by a hangar full of PvP ships, I proceeded to fly around the Minmatar/Amarr border, looking for likely targets for my Taranis. I wasn't very lucky with easy targets though as the only ships I had on scan were pretty much all tied to a POS, and the only traffic I crossed seemed to be the faction militias; there were many open combat sites now visible on the overview but the ships on scan like Vagabonds, Hurricanes, some recons, and more than a few tacklers, would probably chew me up in no time. So I left the combat sites alone and kept looking for a softer target. I didn't find a single mining ship, and the only ratting ship I saw was a Drake, but I got cocky after seeing the pilot's age and went for it. Bad idea. The fight lasted longer than I expected but inevitably his more numerous Warrior I's overcame my puny hull tank. *Sigh*... kids, don't tackle a Drake in a 'Ranis, m'kay?

As I got my pod to head for Dock 94 HQ and a new ship I was trying to decide where to set sail. Should I go to low-sec Derelik and risk getting turned perma-red to CVA? Should I go to the Gallente low-sec? Should I go to Curse and see how T and Q would welcome my trespassing? But as I'm thinking about this I'm listening to EVE Radio (I think I'll start asking for ISK for the publicity...nah!) and it's right on the transition between DJ Blacklight (see previous post about the Goons) and DJ Amergin, who is announcing he's to take a fleet out to the EVE Gate to spam secure containers all over the New Eden system, in a 25-man publicity stunt. I got nothing much to do, I want to head to low-sec or lower anyway, there will be most probably a trap... wtf am I waiting for! I'm the first one to X up for fleet and get shoved into the Wing Commander slot. Well, at least he picked someone who's been in a few fleets before :) Instead of a Taranis, this time I intend to fly cheap, and I needed room for a couple small containers anyway so I hopped into one of my Jihad Thoraxes, and then proceed towards the fleet's rendez-vous point in the Genesis region, 24 jumps away. The fleet's composition is quite eclectic, being formed mostly of T1 frigates of all races, a few cruisers, some people being fleet op veterans, and some on their first fleet. Oh, and one Drake. As soon as I noticed the Drake in fleet I smelled something fishy. Things got even fisher when only a few minutes before departure the Drake pilot, Heiar Helmet, decided to switch to an Apocalypse... yes, some of you can see where this is going, right? Let me tell it for those that don't.

The fleet got underway towards Humanity's entry point into the cluster and about 3 jumps later our stealth-bomber scout calls a big BC/BS gang camping the way in. Heiar, who happens to live in the area, goes to one of his safespots and calls everyone to warp to him. And as I come out of warp, space turns into Studio 54 and I swear I can hear the Bee Gees in the background! His smartbombing antics are mostly a success, but a destroyer, 2 shuttles, the stealth-bomber and my Thorax all survive and are able to get through the camp, which either failed horribly at catching us or just disbanded after their buddy had blown his cover. And finally, a few jumps later, what is left of the EVE Radio fleet gets into the most popular dead-end system in the entire cluster, and we still have 4 containers to anchor. The stealth-bomber pilot, asdlkf, anchors both of his with the intended EVE Radio advertisement, while I decided to put a different spin on it. The first container is a monument to those who got their asses smartied, and the second is an advertisement... for the EVE Montreal Pilot Meets at Brutopia! The return trip was pretty much uneventful, except for a convo with Omgah of the Jerk Cartel, who told me the new BOZOKast was out :)

Saturday morning I was still in my PvP clone, as I'll call it now, and because there is rumour of a move to 0.0 in the semi-near future I decided to get a bit of my 0.0 rust off and head towards Great Wildlands, which is surprisingly close to Rens. Once again I take out Sheik Yerbouti into dangerous space, this time carrying a small T1 bubble; I knew the odds would be totally against me if more than 2 ships came across my "camp", but this little practice op was more about getting back to flying semi safely and making bookmarks, and of course anchoring the bubble so it catches something. Well, I think I need to hop on Sisi and practice a lot more because my bubble couldn't catch a cold in the dead of winter! Plus, the great demon Murphy was interested in me; as I was anchoring the fail-bubble a Probe warped to the gate on autopilot, alnding 15km from the gate but over 60km from me, and I'm in a slow ship. I was able to tackle it and give it exactly one round, but he was too close to the gate and jumped to safety, while I was stuck with gate aggro. By the time I jumped in he was long gone and I lost him. I come back to my bubble, which has now anchored so i can now give it a test, which fails completely by my landing on the gate at 0 meters. Great. As I start unanchoring the thing a Bellicose jumps in and heads to the only other gate. More fail on my part: I'm just on the edge of my own bubble when I try to follow, and I got a message in the middle of my screen that translates to "HAHA YOU SUCK!". The second try is successful and I get to the gate just has the Bellicose jumps. I jump after it and pursue it to the next gate and finally, fun starts. That bitch Murphy is still around tho, as my ECM drones don't get a jam in, and the Belli is T2 fit with tons of drones and a neut. *Moar sigh*. Well, at least I didn't get podded and I'm still very close to home!

So all in all, that was an interesting weekend, but yes, it appears I've gotten a bit soft around the edges. Time to harden the fuck up!

Fly dangerous and flip the bird to Murphy ,,i,,

o7