Reboot !!!

Restarting EVE activities soon. No "TM" !!!

Of Rooks, Kings, and Pipebombs!

Stop what you're doing, go make some pop-corn, grab yourself your favorite drink, and hit play !!!

Fly bombastic!

o7

A little something...

... to prove that I haven't quite given up ;)

QNS Panneton

Fly rusty!

o7


PS: yes I should try to reboot the blog a bit!

Revival

Yes it's been a long time. Yes I've been busy with things other than EVE, and other than games even. This winter I pushed my drumming to the limit with my drumline, going even as far as playing my own drumkit with the drumline. And one does not simply do that without ungodly amounts of practice. Therefore, no gaming, no blogging, and only flams, drags and paradiddles.

As the drumline is taking a short break before the start of the CFL season I am also about to move house, so yeah, I feel like I no longer have any control over anything even resembling a schedule. But me being me I do find a way to put some gaming in and am even subbed into EVE at the moment, though I'll admit that apart from skilling I'm not doing much because playing EVE on a tight schedule is an impossibilty for me; and I don't want to hear from anyone with advice or anything of the sort. I can't. Period. But as I slowly skill up for my suitcase Nidhoggur, here are some other games that received my attention:

- Trackmania2 Stadium: while I don't think I'll ever be competitively fast, I found a lot of interest in building competition tracks. Maybe I can bring down the pro players to my level :)

- Kerbal Space Program: because rockets and MOAR BOOSTERS!

- Skyrim: I still check out new mods and take the occasional romp through the countryside.

- Quake Live: because I need to check once in a while if I still got it. I do >:)

Anyway, here's to hoping I get some handle on my play time; yes playing drums is tons of fun but there are some times when it starts to feel like a chore and that's never good.

Fly more than I do

o7

Madness in B-R5RB, and one last move

It is about a couple of week since a little dead-end system in the ass-end of Immensea went from just another staging system in Null-sec space to a battlefield with legendary status over night. So legendary that in the space of 48 hours after the end of the following downtime (which happened to break standings... good job breaking stuff again CCP) people who previously had no idea what EVE Online is are now interested in its vast and crazy politics and economics. I have buddies at work who are gamers but refuse to start playing EVE because they know of the commitment required and claim they don't have the time, but the Battle of B-R5RB (henceforth known as "Titanomachy") have pushed them just a little closer to the deep end of the pool and it wouldn't take much to see them dive in.

The way it happened from my spectator's perspective, having nothing to do with any of the coalitions (more on this later):

At around 11AM last Monday I get a message from my buddy Cartboard Box that said the following: "PL just lost 3 titans, losing more as we speak". I asked if this was another Asakai event (some dude jumping his Titan to the bridging cyno) but the answer was swift... "Someone forgot to pay the sov bill in the staging system. CFC went balls deep". The rest of that afternoon had me poking at CB for more info as more and more titans were dying, time dilation started kicking in, and all Hell broke lose.

When I got home the roles were reversed as I was the one with access to the streams and #tweetfleet on Twitter, and as the evening advanced my jaw kept digging a bigger dent in the floor. First the smashing of the previous "titans killed in a single battle" which was 12. And then the 20 mark, 30, 40, 50... at that point reports started getting different from one source to the next. Some sources were saying that over 100 titans had died while others were very conservative at around 40. It would take CCP going through the logs to find out, and a few short days after the battle, they delivered the results. Of course I had to explain to tons of people who were now discovering this game about space conquests and "how in the world does one lose 300 thousand US dollars worth of internet spaceships made of pixels?!". I could scarcely believe it myself and had to do the the ISK/USD conversion by hand multiple times to be convinced.

Now that the battle is history, CCP turned it into the most dangerous tourist attraction on the face of New Eden. As of this writing I have yet to do the pilgrimage, but anyone who has read the EVE content on this blog knows that not only am I crazy enough to do it, I plan on doing it very soon indeed. It should be a fun trip :)

***

The last move, at least for a while!

I've said it before and I'll said it again, playing EVE on a tight schedule is a hard thing to do but the lure of space is too great to give up. But there are some annoyances that need to be avoided when you can only log in every so often but still want to have fun. I've narrowed it down to three things: wardecs, reinforcement timers, and moving. The corp I was in just before the holidays had great people to fly with, but it became part of an alliance that lives constantly under multiple wardecs and moving often to bring the fight to the enemy. I have nothing against flying in the middle of hostiles but I do need a breather sometimes. Timers of course mean that X POS will come out of reinforced at Y hour, which of course had a tendency to happen either in the middle of my work day or while I knew I was busy somewhere else. But logging in after a week spent out of game for various reasons to find out the alliance is now 15 jumps away and you're alone in a sea of flashies, that just blows chunks. During the holidays I got very sick coming down with influenza H1N1 v2.0, which kicked my ass like nothing had kicked it before. When I started getting better I did play a little bit of EVE but it was only to consolidate my assets because I knew a move would be in order. But I also knew that a small financial snag meant my account would have to go dormant for 3 weeks. No biggie, it even gave me time to plan Cozmik R5's future.

The first decision I took was to train a ship class I've been putting off for the longest time: carriers. As much as I hated to move that often, it taught me that having my own carrier would have saved a lot of headaches. But to continue proving my disdain of capital ships, I will go for the Nidhoggur! Second was to find a new home, and that was very easy because something special happened. One of the Montreal EVE Meet regulars is pretty highly ranked in the alliance that has always been one of my favorite enemies. With the green light from the alliance he offered me sanctuary and the Red Carpet Treatment. So now unless another massive war happens again I have made my home in the heart of Providence among CVA! But fear not (or rather, fear!), even though the region still plays under NRDS rules of engagement, the role-playing CVA of old is no more and there is a very stong core of pure PvP players which I am now a part of. And there is no shortage of targets because pretty much half of New-Eden is red to me! Another advantage, I know the region like the back of my hand from having hunted and roamed in it for so long. Only this time the ever-annoying jump bridge network is now something I have access to.

So yeah. Some would say that I've turned coat. Some others would say that I've turned into an Amarr loving POS (and I do NOT mean player owned structure) role-playing hostie d'tapette. But in reality all I do is what I've always done: follow an FC's orders, give him the best intel he can have, and tackle/trample whatever happens to be in the way!

PS: Yes, we visited Titanomachy. and obviously Razor Alliance had bubbled out the wazoo. But we had a great fight. Not a tenth as great as the fight that had happened there the week before but a great skirmish nonetheless!

Fly hard, shoot first, and ask questions later!

o7

Complete and Utter Madness in B-R5RB

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what happened. Enjoy the vid and I'll give some thoughts and a short EVE activity update soon™.

gf CFC, RUS, BL, PL, N3

o7

Edit: The official Devblog about the battle

Finding time to blog

One of the things keeping me out of EVE - my best creation to date :)

Hello! Yes I'm alive. I've just been so busy with all sorts of stuff and projects that I barely have time left to update my blog anymore, and when I do have time I just chill out and become a massive couch potato. Needless to say lots of things have happened since the last post so it'd be hard to tell everything in detail; hell sometimes I have trouble remembering what day we are! Let's do a paragraph-by-paragraph recap and let's see where it goes.

EVE Online

Though I am still in the same corp, there has been a change of alliance after some nifty drama. Thankfully our old alliance mates now make for some juicy targets. The downside of the alliance switch is that we have gone through a lot of moves in a very short time and with a few people (myself included) becoming very busy activity has dwindled. Hopefully the coming holidays and the new expansion will set this to rights and we shall gleefully blow shit up soon. The times where I do get to log on are usually fun though, and this corp is the best corp I've been a member of in my soon-to-be 6 year career. I don't see myself moving out of this corp unless we keep moving every other week, but we have been promised that our current HQ should remain the same for a bit as we are pretty close to a lot of fun places. I haven't experienced the new expansion a lot; the new SOE ships are still pretty exhorbitantly priced and my interceptors are out in Null-sec. I did get to fly a Wolf to a system next door this morning and I could see the warp speed difference. I like a lot!

TrackMania

Speaking of speed, I've been falling deeper and deeper into this community of high-speed eSports, not only as a driver but lately as a map maker, which is a total first for me. I'm aiming to build competition-style Tech tracks but I still have a lot to learn before I reach the level of the tracks seen in TmT, ESL and ESWC competitions. As a driver it's the style of map I prefer to drive; I don't find any fun in the super-fast Full Speed tracks where a very subtle slow-down in a particular part of a track can mean that some jumps or sections are impossible to pass. I've been idling in the Twitch channel of one Acer|Frostbeule, one of the best players in the game and I must admit, these are very laid-back guys. On a side note, the current and newly-crowned World Champion is a Quebecer; Dignitas|Carl Jr, je te salue!

Drums/Drumline

I thought I'd be taking a break after the CFL season, but the drumline has my soul apparently! No seriously, when word came out that the Rockline would be participating in another fundraiser Metal Show of Pure Awesome after skipping this year's edition, I couldn't pass it up. So in mid-January we'll be starting the long process of rehearsing the 6 tunes from the 2012 show and learning 5 more. I should still be on the bass line but there's a chance I may move to the snare line if the line is not populated enough. Unlike this summer where there's wasn't a lot of time for actual teaching, this time there will be so come mid-October 2014 when the show arrives I would be more than capable of playing even the trickiest parts.

In another musical subject I am also starting a band with some old friends. I haven't played in a band setting in way too long and I just can't wait to see my drum kit set up again. But there will be an adaption period even here; to get our music machine going we chose a bunch of covers to practice and two of them require double bass drums, or at the very least a double bass pedal. So I went out and bought one! Coming from the John Bonham School of  Single Pedal Speed Freaks, I will have to relearn and start playing the bass drum as i would with my hands, doing rudiments and stuff. Things will get interesting!

Now, does anyone wonder why I sleep so well and why it takes me 4 coffees to wake up? :)

Fly busy... it's less boring that way!

o7 

My paintjob of choice for my Trackmania car

My next tool of the drumming trade :)

WTB: extra hours in a day

The Cynabal is getting a lot of mileage these days

I'm pretty busy and a bit wrung out these days. This silly concept called time is playing games with me. I'll be posting a real blog update soon...ish. I hope.

In case you're wondering, yes I still play EVE, I'm having a blast, my sec status is going back up now that I'm in Null-sec, and [AIL] is a great corp :)

To be continued...

o7

The Downward Spiral

You jumped through the wrong gate!

What do you do when you have limited play time and still want to kill stuff? Well, you camp a well-travelled gate of course! Having escaped or died from a ton of these in my time, I do enjoy turning the tables and preying on the hapless unscouted capsuleer once in a while, even though I much prefer fast roaming gangs and actual fleet engagements. While on one side gate camping maybe the crudest form of EVE PvP, it is also the least stressful and it's a good opportunity to get to know the new people you fly with and also have a good laugh, all the while staying on high alert with our ears constantly straining to hear news from the scout on the other side who could be calling in something juicy at any moment.

We also do keep our ears to the ground for anything that may appear in the neighboring systems, like a Bhaalgorn who looked like he wanted to play Station Games™ will an alliance mate; he would have died quite nicely too if only said alliance mate hadn't aggressed him first, allowing the Blood Raider boat to dock up after getting melted to half armor. Mate swore he was aggressed first and even took a screenshot of the combat logs, ready to petition. A quick look, a massive facepalm and a strong advice NOT to send this to CCP later, we did have a good laugh about it.

So as you notice my security status is plunging like a meteor. I did say I was resubbing for The PvP only and in this regard I do believe I am succeeding. And it's not one single gate camp that will change this. There is talk about a possible redeployment where I could possibly grind up a bit of favor with CONCORD, but I will not slow down my blood thirst. The PvP is too much fun!

Flying safe is out of the question!

o7

Settling back in

Sorry about that tower, but it was in the way!

Well, It's been two weeks since I resubscribed my EVE account and I must say, not only did I miss the game more than I expected but I haven't had so much fun in EVE in a long long time, possibly since the early BOZO days! I knew coming in that if I was resubbing it would be for The PvP only and that my security status was probably going to take a crazy dive so I didn't waste time. One of the first things I did was to roam around the familiar Everyshore Low-sec areas within three jumps of my previous corp's HQ, and sure enough I found a 9-day old character ratting away in a Maller. I wished him a bombastic "Welcome to EVE" the only way I know of course, but also taking time to give him a bit of advice; I didn't have time to give him fitting advice though XD

I rejoined the EVE community shortly after my real-life buddy Cartboard Box started being more active and rejoined his old corporation from his Atlas Alliance days, and soon after CB sent me an enthusiastic message saying "DUDE! You gotta resub!". I wanted to wait until the football/drumline season was over but the coming changes in Odyssey 1.1, CB's enthusiasm and another Montreal EVE pilot giving me a PLEX caused me to reconsider and go right ahead with the resubbing.

As Cartboard promised, he opened me the door to Arcana Imperii Ltd with the promise of good times The PvP without pressure and where everyone knows what they're doing and what's expected of them. I then spent a couple days moving assets to the area of operation and my first op was a multiple but quick POS bash to solidify our alliance's foothold in our region. It was also a good opportunity for nice screenshots as you can see above :)

We also did some gang ops and roams resulting in a few good battles such as a Brave Newbies party crashing; I was the one to suggest using fast and cheap attack cruisers and with CB doing the scouting and target calling, the destroyer gang dropped down easily. I had my first ever use of jump bridges and covert jump bridges for some good ol' "Hot Drop O'Clock" action. It's always impressive to see a Titan filling your screen, and it's a much better feeling when said Titan is on your side!

Another good op was yesterday's roam towards Old Man Star, and we found a gang that was itching for a fight just before we got there. And it was a hotly disputed fight at that! Technically, the other side had the fire power advantage, while we had solid fits and logistics support. But better fleet discipline - after one crazy experience with a frigate gang that could have gone way wrong - and good target calling (part of it by yours truly when a lull happened on comms) prevailed and we can safely say we won the ISK battle.

As one can imagine, all this has given me back my enthusiam for EVE which I had lost about a year ago. I even went so far as to awaken my long dormant second account! I'm not sure exactly what direction my alt's training will take but she's already taken the first steps towards a good PvP role so she will not turn into an industrialist or anything! Meanwhile the low SP crew is also busy, with trade alts in Amarr and Dodixie, a cyno/hauler at Chez Stan HQ, and even my old trusty scout which for now is parked at the favorite home I've ever had in all of New Eden, 5E-VR8 in the Paradise constellation of Curse. This character's main purpose in life is to die repeatedly in the Doril pipe :)

Well there you go, I'm back and actually loving it! My next post will cover some more The PvP action, some of the ships I love to fly and my downward spiral towards the dreaded -10 security status. I give it about a week or two. Oh, and come see the EVE Gate in New Eden. It is truly beautiful ^_^

Fly dangerous because it is the only way to fly

o7

Posting from inside!

Ma Vaga!

OK, I cheated a bit using Photobucket to upload the pic but yes, I am indeed updating my blog from inside EVE Online! The TRUE return will happen soon.... >:)

Fly dangerous!

o7

It's all a game to me!

No I'm not dead. Extremely fucking busy but alive and kicking :) I just wanted to announce that after the current CFL season (which also happens to be a complete bust for the Montreal Alouettes) I will be going on a much needed hiatus from the Rockline drumline so I'll be able to concentrate on that other passion of mine, gaming. Yes I will be returning to EVE Online after almost a full year off and I will have my hands full relearning the tools of the trade and getting used to A LOT of new stuff. I will also fly (read blow up) some rockets in Kerbal Space Program, shoot dumbass guards in the knee in the Elder Scrolls universe (either Skyrim or ESO... please Zenimax send me my key !!!), blow up some Inner Sphere surats in Mechwarrior Online (hey Piranha, you know it's 3050, right?) and obviously get reacquainted to the fine art of Rocket Jumping in Quake Live.

The whole drumline experience has been a lot of fun but after almost two years straight I think it's time to step back a little, and maybe play my own drumkit without having to follow 15 other drummers! So the Big Comeback isn't exactly tomorrow but it's there. The leaves have to change colors first!

Hope you enjoyed Compressorhead !!!

Fly loud

o7

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - Where The F*** Have I Been Edition

This is where I've been, among other places! So yeah, I still live. I still play games here and there. I still play drums with the funnest bunch of drummers. And I'm still patiently (OK, not so patiently) waiting for spring to hopefully maybe perhaps arrive to Montreal; at the time of this writing a mix of freezing rain, sleet and wet crud is falling. and it's beyond depressing out there. I have rarely seen so many Montrealers looking so grim. At least it's NOT because our hockey team sucks this time; on the contrary, the Habs are finally playing back up to their reputation.

Another game I've played a lot lately is TrackMania Nations Forever and the beta of its successor, TrackMania 2 Stadium. This extremely simple yet highly addictive and very popular racing game appeals to the Speed Freak in me. On the world ladder I'm currently #1323169 out of about 7-something million users on the planet, #11203 out of 100000+ in Canada, and #6177 out of 45ish thousand in Quebec. It's also a very exciting eSport to watch.

Last time I checked in I talked about a then-upcoming LAN party, and yes it was quite the success with 14 gamers crammed into Cartboard Box's apartment for the entire weekend, with a slew of epic and unhealthy meals. CB works at Ubisoft and also managed to have some give-away prizes for various mini-competitions thoughout the weekend. Great success all around!

To finish on an EVE note (this started as an EVE blog after all!), pilots Cartboard Box, Ilinane and Letrange will be attending FanFest 2013. Everybody is already preparing their livers for the alcohol assault that will surely happen. At least they don't have to drive anywhere XD

On that note, don't be too good and fly dangerous!

o7

What to do, what to do… ?

The ever-present existential dilemma about spending time in New Eden is rearing its ugly head again. This time not from over-playing, being bored or even being angry at CCP for whatever reason that could make one angry. It seems that I’ve just lost interest. The last time I logged in my skill queue was a couple days overdue and I couldn’t care less. At the time of this writing the subscription is coming to an end and I’m not even sure if I should renew it. Apparently spending an entire summer playing tons of drums and riding hundreds of kilometers on my bike has done something irreversible to the gamer I used to be. Oh I still love gaming, only I want to play games that don’t feel like work. Hell even PvP feels like work sometimes. If you’ve done over 20 jumps without finding a target or spent over 30 minutes goading a target (or another fleet) into an actual fight where action might happen (no garantees), you know what I’m talking about. Yeah the cat and mouse game can be great fun – it is some of the best fun even – but when I already have a lot on my plate I simply don’t have time for it anymore.

I know what a lot of people will say because I’ve been at this for 5 years now. "Join a new corp!", "You fly in Empire space, no wonder!", "Join FW!", "Join RvB!"… and of course the obvious "Can I haz yer stuff?". Yes some of those might help. No, you’re not getting my stuff. But all these happen in a game that has the tendency to suck more time than a black hole sucks light. I know some people say they play EVE casually, or that their corp is casual. But in order to be active you have to log in a lot and for decently long periods of time. And I won’t even talk about big alliances with mandatory ops using hundreds of brainless grunts just for the sake of numbers. If being ordered around by some unknown guy makes you feel good cuz you feel like you’re part of something then good for you. It’s just not for me.

So while the subscription fizzles out I will take a quick breather, have a chat with my corpmates over a beer or three (this is priceless by the way) and decide where I’m going with this.

And the other stuff I’m interested in ? Mechwarrior Online for one ; I already have tons of IRL friends playing and I’ve always been a huge fan of all things Battletech. I’ve also been hearing the call for some eSport FPS stuff, mainly Quake Live with a dab of Warsow. And now Elder Scrolls Online is in the works and it looks like it will be everything I love about the Elder Scrolls universe. And these are all games where if I don’t play for 3-4 weeks no one will start wondering if I dropped off the face of the Earth or something. Cuz you know playing drums is lots of fun but chops need to be worked on. Riding a bike and disconnecting from this universal drug called The Internet is also great fun and oh so necessary. And maybe finding a girlfriend would be fun too you know ! Kinda hard to do that when you spend countless hours glued to a monitor.

It’s been a long and hard road since January 2008, but as I’ve told people around me I’m starting to think that "third time’s the charm" as the saying goes. The third hiatus could very be the one where I say "So long space crazies, have yourself a great immortality". My texts are more positive when I write about other subjects anyway !

Undock or Unsub ? That is the question…

o7

MOAR POWAH !!!

Well it was more than about time. Over the past weekend I have finally upgraded my aging computer with something much better; even if it's no power house the difference can already be felt. Double the number of cores (Intel i5 2.66ghz quad core), quadruple the amount of RAM (8gb) and finally a 64bit OS (Windows 7; Windows 8 is a bit too new to my liking). Yes there are faster machines out there but for me that's a big jump. I do have a pretty serious bottleneck at the moment: I have to wait a couple pay days to get a new video card worthy of the more modern tech so I'm currently using the trusty old GeForce 8800 GT. But even with this old card things are much better. For example, Skyrim. Where it used to take me a good 20-30 seconds to load the game now it's pretty much instantaneous. The aging card keeps me from bumping up the visual quality of the game but where I used to have a few snags and glitches now everything is fast and fluid. Same in EVE Online where I can bump up everything to high. My video card of choice will be a GF 660GTX with 2gb of GDDR5 RAM. Again not the top of the food chain but more than enough for me.

Of course with the new video card I'll also get a new power supply; not that my current one can't handle it but I also needed to use the one from my old box. So soon I will have TWO computers. My boys will be happy... of course the new problem will be to decide who gets to play on dad's machine. I also have to make room for a second computer and in my small appartment that is quite the challenge. But for the moment there's only one working machine so no rush.

But the wait for that magic pay day (February 21st to be exact) will be a long one. I cannot wait to see Skyrim in all its glory, play my Xmas present, F1 2012, and maybe pay a visit to a certain tropical island in the South Pacific; I hear some dip-shit pirate needs a lesson in insanity... I shall teach him all about it >:)

Fly crazy

o7

F@$% this virus!

As you may have noticed I'm taking a bit of a blogging break. I've been sick pretty much all week and didn't play much of anything, including drums and EVE. I've done the Wednesday corp PvP op and put a big one in the skill queue. I've also played a bit of Skyrim, starting a new character that's basically my old Redguard dude but this time focusing a bit more on a Spellsword/Archer/Assassin evil personality. I've already taken some heat by telling off Vilkas after the first big Companion quest mission; being a werewolf with the 100% resist disease is just too much win. I'm using the Live Another Life mod among other things (I've got 30 or so various mods) so instead of the usual "cart ride to execution" start I began as a new Dark Brotherhood recruit (skipping the usual start as well), and as soon as you meet a town NPC you get a quest to investigate what's happening with Helgen and the Imperial/Stormcloak war. There are now many ways to start the game anew.

Apart from that this week I've mostly been vegetating on the couch watching some play-throughs and documentaries. My brain just can't do more at the moment. So the usual Friday music video will be skipped as I try to get rid of this stupid fucking virus.

Fly hard and may the road lead you to warm sands!

o7

ZOMG EVE Montreal makes the EVE News !!!

Kapow !!!

That's right, our bi-monthly (read every fourteen days) EVE pilots meet just got a massive publicity boost thanks to CCP Falcon! All of a sudden Montreal pilots I didn't know about saw my forum thread and started posting in it, and the EVE MTL in-game channel saw an unprecedented 18 players in it yesterday night. I'll be going to Brutopia tonight to make the reservation but I'll be coming back home in a hurry to make my presence known in the channel. I am the one publicizing our meets after all :)

Aight sorry for the lack of postage lately. I've had a busier holiday time than expected, accompanied by a few more hangovers than expected. Example: when a barmaid from a micro-brewery invites you for said micro-brewery's New Year party you do not say no if you have no other plans! Plus I've had other interests pulling me left right and center. I'm still very much into the drumming thing (drumline gig in February, possible gig in late March, and possible reprise of the Wishmaster OES event!) so I gotta make sure I not only remember my parts, I also need to make sure I know the parts of basses 4 AND 5 because we may be playing some gigs with 4 bass players only, which means I gotta fill in the holes left by the missing bass.

I also still have a huge interest in some game that came out last year, a game about adventure and excitement; warriors shouldn't crave it :) But yeah, thanks to a ton of very interesting mods I'm still very much into Skyrim even though my current computer is starting to hate me for it. Yes this box is on its last legs for the latest games. It's fine for the older games my boys play on it but Skyrim and EVE Online hit the limit of what my current machine can do. I've received a Steam gift in the form of F1 2012 and that has to wait, and even though I'm really interested in it I can't even think of installing Farcry 3. But this will be fixed tomorrow as I start putting together a newer machine; OK it won't be a ridiculously overpowered bomb, but an Intel i5 with 8gb of RAM running Windows 7 will be a huge step forward for me. I have to keep my current graphics card for just a little while but even then, I have the feeling the machine will breathe a lot easier.

During the holidays Chez Stan held its first official PvP op, blooding one n00b to the joys of The PvP. Our little 5-man gang was successful in erasing a juicy obvious bait from existence, at the cost of one Caracal. We then roamed towards the Caldari-Gallente border but after many jumps of seeing nothing in space a big Faction Warfare gang got wind of us between Heydeiles and Old Man Star, but because of good scouting we lost only a Vexor and our n00b's Talwar. It was enough for us to call it a night because it was getting late, and because of our juicy kill we were still on top in the ISK battle. Plus it was great fun :)

So there's my short update. The next one will be made from the newer, much faster machine. I'm crossing my fingers so that the migration goes well!

Fly hard and see you at Brutopia !!!

o7

Friday's Electric Lunch Hour - Never Fading Edition

It may be a bit dark, but I find it way cool that someone went through the trouble of remaking the classic "EVE Never Fades" video with current graphics (OK, pre-Retribution so no frilled Vagas). Add that to the fact that I had an utterly great time yesterday in the space lanes of New Eden with my buddy Havegun and some of his The PvP friends. After killing a n00b Imicus I died to Array Aggression of the Board Of Education corp (I know, I aggressed on a gate but Array had awesome timing and caught me pants down), and soon after learning he was friends with Havegun was invited to join a little roam. We first killed a Hurricane (didn't get much damage on him cuz I got on grid a bit late... did get the killmail though!), and a bit later had a successful encounter with two Tusker Drakes in their home system! We found our way to Black Rise but died in a glorious fire (the Vigilant wasn't with us btw).

Awesome evening for some EVE play especially as Montreal got a massive record snow dump of a foot and a half in one day!

Enjoy the video and keep the holiday cheers coming !!!

o7

Edit: The n00b Imicus pilot put a 500000 ISK bounty on my head XD

Saturday Night The PvP & Dat New Stabber

For the first time in what is usually known as "way too effin' long" I have a true blue, 100 proof, 24k (ok, 18k) gold EVE Online blog post! If you don't know that EVE's Retribution expansion came out last week with its changes and tweaks and goodies, you're probably on the wrong blog. But no worries, even for a vet like me some changes were so deep I spent the entire download and install time reading up on the patch notes and dev blogs that explained all the new stuff in more detail, and there was a lot of stuff.

At every major expansion or patch since I've first started playing EVE in 2008 I've asked this simple question upon logging in: what did the vikings break this time? Well, I have to admit that since Crucible I haven't really had to ask that question much. Apparently someone is learning, and that's good! No my first chats after laoding up the new expansion wasn't about broken stuff, but about new skills. A new branch of the Electronics tree had just sprouted: sensor compensation skills, in Gravimetric, Ladar, Magnetometric and Radar flavors. I immediately opened my character sheet to find out what I could train and yep, those four plus a few more were there so off to the nearest school station I went to purchase the skillbooks. I also picked up the Micro Jump Drive Operation skill but I have no idea when I'll actually use it as I almost never fly battleships. I do think they'll be useful on a Sniper BS; imagine it... get your gang on a gate, align to X, hit the MJD, and voila, instant sniping optimal range. Could be useful.

But as you've seen in my previous post the feature I was waiting for the most was the new Stabber hulls. I've been ecstatic about those ever since the first screenshots came out and i wasn't even subscribed at the time! And sure enough the first thing I did once the station environment loaded up was to get into my Vagabond and shed a tear of joy. It's more beautiful that it's ever been before. But I was in for an even bigger surprise. My good budddy Letrange had dropped in for the occasion and upon seeing me started asking "Dude, did you see the Stabber?" "Well yeah, it's nice and all... I'm sitting in my Vaga right now!" says I. But I was in for more. "No no no. The Stabber. If you have one were you are get in it!" Wow, I've rarely seen Let this excited. Of course me being me I always have like 2-3 Stabbers on hand ready to go waste wherever, so I activate one. "OK, open your fitting window now" says Letrange. And at this moment my eyeballs jump out of my skull. One extra low slot, one extra mid* slot, no more useless drone bay, and power grid to spare. I already had a decent fit for the Stabber which I had called the WannabeVaga, but all of a sudden it was TRULY a baby Vagabond. When I settle on my fit and see the increased tank and DPS, I feel ready to attack anything. Will it be successful? Read on.

The Stabber wasn't the only ship to receive a much needed boost. During a discussion about all the new goodies in Retribution my friend Havegun Willtravel tells me about the Thorax. He had played with the fit a little and I was able to do just a little better. So with two of my favorite ships already so much better it was finally time to start looking for trouble.

On Saturday night I undocked my freshly fit Thorax from Rens and looked at what my options were. There is the obvious Amamake region but being solo as I wait for Havegun to finish whatever he's doing to come join me I decided to head for the quieter low-sec pipe leading to Great Wildlands; in case you didn't know, the door to GW is a mere 8 jumps from the Heimatar market hub. Space was really quiet until I hit Null-sec, but with the small gang not too far from the gate and the 31 in Local there was no way I would get much deeper in a Thorax. Dancing on fire is more fun in an interceptor. I needed to get back to Rens to meet up with Gun anyway. Not only that, it was getting late for my two boys and I had to put 'em to bed. But just as I decided to dock up in the first Hi-sec system, I crossed a Venture pilot who had just jumped into Low-sec. I docked up and wished my boys goodnight, and then rushed back to undock and go back to Uplingur at best speed. I jumped in, warped to the star, hit the d-scan and sure enough the Venture pilot was in space. When I checked the pilot's stats I could barely believe it... only a few days old! Time to teach people some New Eden life lessons! A quick readjusting of the d-scan pointed me to a planet with a few asteroid belts so without hesitation I hit the warp drive towards the first belt. And landed my Thorax right in my blasters' optimal range. The Venture simply didn't have time to react before it was vaporized, and a few seconds later I was holding the capsule in warp scram. "You know what I could do, right?" I said in local, and almost instantly a convo invitation appeared on my screen:

[ 2012.12.09 02:05:47 ] Cozmik R5 > Welcome to EVE Online

[ 2012.12.09 02:05:51 ] Lady Kaneald > you already killed my venture let me go

[ 2012.12.09 02:06:14 ] Cozmik R5 > I will but let this be a warning... others won't be as nice as I am

[ 2012.12.09 02:06:24 ] Cozmik R5 > how much is a Venture again?

[ 2012.12.09 02:06:25 ] Lady Kaneald > thanks

[ 2012.12.09 02:06:36 ] Lady Kaneald > about 1.5 mil

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:11 ] Cozmik R5 > here get another one, but do be careful around low-sec

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:19 ] Lady Kaneald > thanks

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:28 ] Lady Kaneald > ive had a long day and kinda wasnt paying attention

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:36 ] Cozmik R5 > np and fly safe...ish

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:45 ] Lady Kaneald > lol you too

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:47 ] Cozmik R5 > this can be deadly in EVE

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:51 ] Cozmik R5 > believe me... I know!

[ 2012.12.09 02:07:54 ] Lady Kaneald > yeah ive notived 

So all in all a good laugh and a fun start to this The PvP night.

A few minutes later Havegun and I met in Rens and decided to head towards the other part of Heimatar Low-sec, starting with the system of Olfeim. And various ships were flying around! We started combing space and with Olfeim being pretty small it didn't take long. After only one or two warps I landed next to a Vexor and instantly the gloves came off and the fight was on. I dispatched his shields with ease but his armor was a tough nut to crack. "Huh Gun?, you're on your way right?" It was clear I couldn't bring down this particular Vexor alone but at least I was hurting him. Just in the nick of time Havegun arrived and the Vexor melted. I survived the ordeal with about 15% structure left. GF's were given and I docked up to repair the damage. As I did this Gun announced that there was a Rifter and a Bellicose out in space. He gave me a rough idea of where the Rifter was and I warped there. And landed right on it! He had turned yellow from looting someone else's wreck so I could kill him with impunity. I barely had time to loot him that Gun announced that the Bellicose was on the move. Once again I hit warp and get lucky landing right on it. Gloves off and dance started, but almost immediately Havegun and our previous victim in a new Vexor arrived. The fight was on! I call the Bellicose primary as I know it should be a softer target, but it was clear that I was the primary for these guys. The Bellicose died and we switched to the Vexor, but the damage was done and this time I didn't have a fresh ship so I died. But during the ordeal Havegun had remained untouched so he was able to dispatch the Vexor with ease. We then toured the small constellation on the other side of Dammalin after I had reshipped into a Stabber but nothing happened. We had had a great time anyway so we called it a night.

===//===//===//===

Telefunken U47. You'll love it. It's a way of life :)

Now that I could safely say I was back into The PvP, I obviously wanted more. And I really wanted to put the new Stabber through its paces. I had tried it a little bit in the first hours of Retribution but not with any great success; in fact I lost 2 or 3. I did almost solo-kill a Wolf in Amamake but my fun stopped when a Falcon showed up and perma-jammed me; my name appears on the Wolf killmail though! I lost another one to a good Rupture pilot in Mya when I failed at getting to a kiting orbit and passed too close to the Ruppy, getting scram/webbed in the process. I had a rematch immediately after in a 1v1 all Rupture match, but again my opponent had the edge. GF Dragon sir! But back on flying the Stabber, this time I wanted to pay a visit to my old haunts in Derelik, with maybe a quick peekaboo into Curse and Providence. The flight towards Curse was uneventful, but as the saying goes "one does not simply walk into it". There was only a small gang on the Sendaya gate in Doril but Local showed 52. A Stabber may be fast but it's no interceptor! So I decided to head towards Providence and maybe test my apparently neutral status there (this shouldn't last long!) Again, uneventful travel to the G-5EN2 system; in case you don't know, this system is MASSIVE. While sitting at the sun the farthest planet is 102 AU away. Plenty of space for stuff to hide in but no activity was apparent. I then jumped into 9-F0B2 and this time another brick wall. A TEST Alliance gang was having fun with the NRDS locals and it was clear that a battle had just happened on the G-5 gate. With so many hostiles out and the night coming to a close I decided to head back home, albeit very slowly just in case something happened. And a few jumps later, it did.

I land on the Bar gate in Gomati and a -8 Rupture pilot lands at almost the same time. I burn away from the gate as fast as I can to get to my kiting orbit, and as soon as I get passed web and scram range I order my guns and missile launchers to start singing. The Rupture is attempting to do the same but he just cannot keep up with my speed, and I'm hurting him a lot. He then sends me a flight of EC-300 Hornets. I then switch off my guns from the Rupture to point them at the incoming drones. My 20 km orbit gave me just enough space to pop two drones, but the remaining three managed to land a jam cycle. At least the missiles were doing a good job at softening up the Rupture. Time to end this little dance. I start spamming the targeting button praying for the jam cycle to end, and when it finally did I opened fire again, overheating my racks and guns. And then there was bright lights and then silence! GFs were given as I picked up my well-earned loot and then called it a night. As I mentioned before I already loved the Stabber from way back in my BOZO days, but it was always a bit short on tank and firepower. The advent of the sized rigs and their radical drop in price were a big step towards making the Baby Vaga much better, and I did have a fit I was pretty successful with, especially in the aftermath of Marlona Sky's "Night of a Thousand Rifters" event. But the new Retribution-era Stabber, with more tank, much more firepower and a smidge more agility... now we're talkin'! I've seen what a single one can do, but I would love to see what a gang of them will do. One thing is certain, flying around Vagabond style in a ship that is one sixth the price is an awesome feeling. Combine that with the brand new rules of engagement, and EVE suddenly feels like the proverbial phoenix risen out of its ashes. The magic is back and let's hope it's here to stay.

The holidays are coming and this will mean plenty of free time to fly around and blow shit up. We have to get together my corpmates and I and work on a plan, one based on fun and The PvP. There is talk of recruitment in the air, though it isn't decided what kind of pilots we'll be looking for. Same thing with the area of operations and the blue list; being the one that is online the most I have a feeling I'll be handling some corp-level work soon. Haven't done that in a while but it can be great fun. So here's to more awesome The PvP in the days to come and to many many explosions!

Fly like it's the last time you will

o7

*Edit: it was an extra MID slot you ninny !!!

Obligatory Vagabond Post

Because Jovians fixed it!

CSNS Blessed Relief