Saturday Night Fights - Back in the Capsule

Saturday night was a surprising example of log in, join fleet, receive pew pew bacon - particularly given the quiet systems I'd been seeing recently.  Between the quiet and lots of summer things to do I hadn't really done much in Eve for a while, even going so far as to install some new games for a bit.  But Saturday night was different.  Sara and Doc Odin had a standing fleet running and I heard them talking through diving into a small plex as soon as I hit comms, so I jumped into a Merlin.  That little Merlin was about to have quite a night.

Ishkur/Succubus

Doc Odin lost a Slicer before I could get to the fleet, but while he was reshipping Sara (in a Thrasher) and I found a Ishkur in a small plex.  We went in and soon enough the Ishkur was burning down hard.  Then a Succubus dropped in to join the fun.  I admit that I was worried to see the pirate frig join in, since the blasters and speed combination of the Merlin is very cap sensitive.  Fortunately for some reason the Succubus latched onto the Thrasher, perhaps because it was closer or perceived as a greater threat than my T1 frig.  However, trying to cap-drain an autocannon Thrasher over a blaster Merlin wasn't a great choice.  We finished off the Ishkur, swapped to the Succubus and burned it down too.  Sadly the shiny afterburner didn't drop.

Scythe Fleet Issue

We moved on and popped an unlucky Rifter.  It wasn't clear if it was meant to be bait or not, but by the time a pile of his friends were entering the plex we had already killed it and scampered on.  We kept moving on, picked up a fourth pilot (Kurt), and then Sara realized we'd walked our way out of the usual FW space.  Rather than retrace our steps Sara started to lead us in a couple hops through highsec towards the Gal/Cal FW space.  In the absence of plexes I was wondering if we might find people not used to the Rifterlings ticker and FW-like roaming.  When Sara and I came through a gate with a neutral Scythe Fleet Issue be decided to act like we were threatened - Sara warped to the nearest belt and I warped to the sun, while Doc and Kurt stayed on the other side.  The Scythe chased Sara and the fight was on.

Sara's Thrasher was running without a point, so I knew it was critical to get on him with my scram before the Scythe pilot realized he was taking on a gang (Thrasher, Worm, Rifter, Merlin).  That also meant I was quickly the primary - which was mostly a concern for the drones once I got into a close orbit under AB.  I really wish I'd thought to turn on Fraps here to see the details, but I started getting pounded - maybe I was orbiting too close and my speed was dropped.  My MASB was cycling and I overheated guns and the MASB.  My last charge was cycling and I was about to tell the gang I was going to lose scram when suddenly the damage stopped and my last charge took my shields back to near full.  The pilot must have gotten frustrated at not breaking me and switched targets.  He moved on to kill Doc's Worm (probably a good choice) and Sara's Thrasher (also a good choice), but then we took him down.  I was pretty damn proud as Sara called my Merlin a beast when we saw I had top damage on the downed Scythe.  Good fights and friendly chat in local - it was generally happy all round, though Doc probably was the worst off for having lost his Worm right after losing the Slicer earlier.

Brutix

Given that every module on my Merlin was heavily heat-damaged I ducked off to repair (and pick up more cap50s) while people reshipped.  On my wander back I was certain I D-scanned a Brutix on a planet.  I called for backup and warped in, scram overheated and hoping he had medium drones only that might not be able to chase me effectively.  But there was no Brutix.  Sure enough D-scan showed that he was within 1.0 AU.  Sara (now in a Firetail) joined me and we started asking on comms for a prober, since we were only two jumps out from home in Sirekur.  Sitting there probably wasn't a great idea, as suddenly we had a Garmur and a Slicer jumping in.  We warped out, but Sara went right back in to try to dance with them.  I tried again, but my Merlin wasn't going to be able play in that MWD speed world unless my warp-in managed to get me in scram range.  In the end I think it was a largely bloodless dance with neither side getting what they wanted, but I wasn't there for it.

Meanwhile Xenovenom dropped in with his Anathema and quickly pinged the Brutix and started orbiting it close under cloak.  Frosty grabbed a Cyclone to provide the heavy hitting, and we all dropped in hard and fast.  If the Brutix pilot (Twinkletoes) was AFK, he got back in control fast and primaried me since I was on top of him and providing the scram.  But between my orbit and Sara's TD his blasters couldn't track and I didn't see any signs of drones.    Soon enough the Brutix was down and that capped off the night for me.  Two hours, four fights, and that includes at least 30min where I was futzing around as I made my way back to our usual hunting grounds.

Lessons Learned:

* Ammo Choice: The Scythe Fleet Issue went down with Hail loaded and the Brutix had Null loaded.  Both were trying to fight off frigate attackers and yet loaded ammo that reduced their tracking.  I remembered to load Void when attacking the Scythe, though I'm honestly not sure I remembered for the Brutix and got some pretty massive damage numbers.

* FRAPS: If I'd remembered to start up Fraps I'd be able to review what happened in each fight to see what I missed, but I forgot.  I need to make that standard practice.

* Overview (Drones): I didn't have my overview loaded to have a Drones-only view, which could have been critical when taking on those bigger ships.  I got lucky that both times that didn't kill me.

Sidenote: I always get confused which ship people mean when they say "SFI" - I think it is generally the Stabber Fleet Issue, not the Scythe Fleet Issue.  Maybe the Stabber is the elder of the two?  Or just more used?

Silence in Space

And no, I'm not referring to the oft-puzzled case of how us pilots hear sounds when flying our ships around.  Turns out there's a lore answer to that, which I heard recently on the Hydrostatic Podcast IIRC, which is that capsuleers without any sound or tactile stimulus tend to go crazy.  That might also explain the "Eve has sound?" bittervet crowd I suppose.  But I digress.  What I was referring to was the low population right now in Eve, though it doesn't seem to be keeping all areas down.

Summer quiet time

It's not just you and it's not just me.  Things seem pretty quiet out there when I'm on too.Login numbers are down for the past few months (Eve Offline), though to hear the more experienced players talk this is pretty normal.  My playing has dropped to a night or two a week and may stay that way for a bit, plus absences for vacations and such.

So what to do?

I see that corpmates that are normally all PVP all the time are often off PVEing when I see them lately. I guess that makes sense, as the population is so low that fights are even harder to come by than before.  Perhaps I should get around to fitting up some better ships for combat exploration and the like and try to run up some ISK.  At my skill level (in character and in person) the higher DED sites might be a decent challenge too, though since I recently finished HAC 5 that might come into play.  I wouldn't mind if my sec-status went positive again either, since perhaps that would make people more likely to engage me when there is a possible fight to be had.

FW looks lively

From articles on TMC and such it sounds like FW isn't slowing down too much for the summer.  I suppose that unlike the nullsec stalemate there is something to gain and ISK to be made by conflict.  Plus if you really thought the other side was slipping into summer doldrums it would be a great time to push over the warzone on them.

So I hope to see people in space out there, and enjoy your RL summer too.
(Unless you're in the southern hemisphere of course)

Below the Asteroids - is that where smarter NPCs are hiding?

A quick one.  I managed to log in briefly and roamed the local belts looking for either tags, mordu, or someone else who is already looking for one of the above.  (Obligatory Below the Asteroids link.  Eve has sound)

Riches in them thar belts

I saw someone else belting, but couldn't get on top of them and they hopped out of system.  On the plus side, I also found two Recruiter rats which made for a nice little bonus.   With Barghest dropping into the "mere" 2.6B range I suppose the rat tags aren't much (Orthus 800M, Garmur 250M).  But what I ran into next was actually made the more interesting impression on me.

Slaughter of rats denied

Since I try to keep my sec status under control when I saw an Angel General I decided to take it down.  The usual routine - keep drones on him, keep an eye on D-scan.  Hey wait, why did my guns stop cycling?  My client tells me that I cannot lock the Angel General - do they have ECM now or something?  No, I don't show the ECM icon.  And then the Angel General warps away.  Huh.

Now I'd heard before that some NPC rats in combat exploration sites had to be pointed or they would bug out.  I had never seen a belt rat do that though, so I never point them even though I only ever rat in a fully PVP capable ship.

Is this part of the new smarter NPC?  This particular behavior is not mentioned in the Kronos patch notes.

I for one welcome our new belt rat overlords

I hope this actually is something new and that we'll see more widespread.  Forcing PVE ships to be fit with a point for high value targets is a great first step towards eliminating the difference between PVP and PVE fittings.  And if there is no difference in the fitting, that eliminates the excuse for why people can't get out in space and take the fight that comes to them.

Sure, when you take your Navy Raven in to run Level 4s you'll be one-shoting most of the hapless NPC enemies that come your way.  But when completing your objectives requires you to put a long-point down on a critical named NPC then PVE will change.  That also will undermine the Dominix / Rattlesnake / Ishtar / Gila hanging out 100km away from the fight while running sentries as well - which I'm all for putting an end to.

Bring on the smarter rats!

Kronos and LowSec Lotteries

I read through the omnibus Kronos devblog and was pretty impressed.  I think when you hear about features in bits and pieces it makes the release seem smaller, and that's something that CCP will definitely have to contend with in the new 6-week iteration schedule.  I definitely get the feeling that CCP is thinking about lowsec more, even if it is just to throw some random elements our way.

Low-Sec Lotteries

I think Kirith Kodachi summed it up well: "What's up with all the low-sec lotteries being added lately?" I think the answer is that CCP has realized there is more player interest in lowsec than they thought.  The addition of at least three CSMs from lowsec probably helped substantially.  So the kind of things we're seeing in lowsec are also things they can do quickly - adding more wormholes is a prime example.  I wouldn't be surprised if the drops in the belts and the new exploration sites were originally intended to be in the Mordu's Legion home space, but instead were broadened to all of lowsec.

Mordu's Legion - Exploration Riches and Targets

Not covered directly in the Kronos overview devblog was the recent one on the new Exploration sites. So there are some new Guristas hacking sites, which will have info you can sell to Mordu (assuming you can make it though the CFC gatecamps). Once enough people have done that we'll see the Besieged Covert Research Facility which the devblog really talks up.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but it sounds like they're setting up the Beseiged site to be really tough.  I'm hoping that means "must bring friends" tough.  That would bring the team-play aspect in that we keep hearing is missing from PVE content (other than Incursions).  And as a low-sec resident I would like that - both to encourage corpmates to get together to run a site in our area, and to provide more targets for us to hunt.

With these exploration sites plus the belt rats, I'm wondering if it might make even more sense for a solo lowsec hunter to be a ship that carries probes.

Other Kronos

I'm looking forward to the new rebalance on the pirate ships, and I'm curious to see if we'll see the wave of hull-tanked Gallente that I'm hearing theory-crafting about.  If the MMJDs bring BCs back to the field then I'll consider that a win I suppose.  And the drones.

I'm looking forward to the different options for drones.  I expect Amarr drones will be popular for the EM damage.  I'm curious whether the prices will be imbalanced in the short term though.

We'll see.  I'll be unable to play June 3rd, so I'll have at least a day's lag to hear how things are going before I get in there.

PVP Lessons from my 10 year old

I've been mulling one an idea for Eve PVP for a while, but I think my 10 year old clinched it for me last night.  So I'm going to start this story with Minecraft and bragging on my son, but trust me I'm going to bring it back to Eve.

Mineplex

My son plays a PVP Minecraft minigame on a site called Mineplex.  I bet some of you know more about it than I do, but the relevant part here is that you have many possible monsters you can play.  Some of these you only can choose if you're a paid member (an "Ultra").  My son hasn't done this, so he's limited to a less powerful set.  A match is four players, all against all though of course people end up teaming as part of their strategy.  Last night he was very excited - he had won a match against one Normal and two Ultra players.  My first thought was that I was glad that "pay to win" wasn't too dominant and he was able to overcome that - he's definitely been getting better and better from what I see over his shoulder.  But what caught my brain was his explanation: "That's because I only play the Creeper, so I've gotten really good at it."

Hangar full of Mediocre

A while back I had decided that I wanted to learn to kite, since I've mostly been a brawler in Eve starting from my blaster-fed Gallente roots.  But what have I done to accomplish that?  Filled my hangar with Stabber, Slasher, Retribution, Omen, Rifter - all sorts of things.  Plus I keep jumping into my trusty Thorax.  I have to wonder if I'm filling my brain with mediocre skills because I keep swapping ships.  Yes, the general kiting ideas should apply to most of those, but I bet they accomplish them in different ways and with different patterns that I'm not letting settle into my brain.  By contrast I think about a corpmate who is almost always in a Slicer (though she recently has branched out), or the recent video compilation of Marlona Sky working Battle Nereus magic.

Lose 20 Rifters

Standard advice to new PVPers is to "Lose 20 Rifters" (or insert your racial favorite here).  I thought of that mostly as just getting to learn PVP in general, but it also means you're really getting to know that ship.  You can extend that up to other ships, as the excellent blog series "Punisher Plan" did by moving up to T2.  I've kinda done this with my Thorax - I've gotten into a lot of brawls solo in my Thorax, as well as used it for tag-ratting.

Too predictable?

I do worry a bit about being too predictable.  That someone will see me in system and pull me up on their favorite killboard and see that I'm most likely to be in a particular ship.  Honestly though, that's probably the least of my concerns.

Too boring?

Will I get bored with focusing on one ship?  Maybe, though if I can come up with a ship that is flexible enough to do tag-ratting or some other activities when the PVP situation is quiet then perhaps I can mix up the action while continuing to build the patterns of the ship up in my head.

So I think I'm going to take a hard look at what all is in my hangar.  Is there one ship I can focus on for a month, perhaps?  A pair of ships with some similar characteristics?  Maybe I should learn something from my ten year old.

If you were going to fly 20 of one ship to learn kiting, what ship would it be?  I'm better trained to turrets, but I've started on missile skills recently.  T1 or T2 is fine.

How do you Asset Management?

We need dps and lots of it.  I run back to station and switch into my Brutix that has been awaiting this day.  That's when I realize I had previously stripped the Brutix down to its rigs and a DCU.  Can I refit it with what's in the hangar fast enough?  Pah, switch to the next best thing and undock.

Does this happen to you?  My life is pretty simple - most of my assets are in one station, and that's not a FW or null-sec station that could flip, so I'm sure those people have it even more complex.  So how do pilots who are more serious than me keep all this straight?  Here's what I'm trying to do, but I'd love to hear what others do.

The Simple Way - Don't buy what you don't need now.
I have a friend for whom this is simple.  I gather he keeps a very few ships and buys on demand in a hub when he loses a ship or wants something new.  The price for this is that he's constantly losing money on the sell and buy side, plus the time needed to fit something up.  But it fits his play style.  He also has a high enough security status to waltz into a major hub - something I no longer have.

Rename Unfit/Partially-fit Ships to ZZ-Bottom
No, not ZZ Top. I used to rename stripped ships to "Stripped."  But then they show up in the middle of my hangar list, and I lose track if they have rigs that dictate a purpose.  I'm now renaming them to "zz" plus function/hull name so they drop to the bottom of the hangar list.  For instance "zzBrawlRax" might be a Thorax I'd stripped to the rigs, but those rigs mean it should be rebuilt as a Brawler.  Note: this never happens because I'd never strip down a brawling Thorax - I always want 'em.

Keep a shopping list outside of the client
When I start to fit a ship and realize I'm missing a fitting then I immediately add it to a shopping list in a Google Doc.  This helps in case I want to ship things from my alt, especially since they can actually get into high-sec hub systems without the faction police getting all frisky.  I fit the ship as far as I can from my stores so I don't run into "one more thing" later, then rename it using the "zz" nomenclature and put it aside.

Groom in-game fittings
I recently went to fit a Tristan in a hurry and grabbed a likely looking named fit from the fitting panel in Eve.  Fortunately I looked at it twice because it was a two-missile / two-railgun Tristan from before the T1 frigate rebalancing pass.  Other than being amusing the only reason to have that in there is to mess me up later.  I've made a note for myself to go through my in game fittings and clean them up.  I don't have too many in there, so it should be decently quick.

Keep Must-Have Modules in stock
There are some modules that I try to always keep in stock - preferably double digit counts.  DCU IIs are an obvious one, and Light Neutron IIs used to be like that for me. I probably should move those to a Google Spreadsheet that pulls against the Eve API and link that to the shopping list.

No Containers
I used to use containers.  However, the fitting tool won't look into of containers, so you don't want to put anything fitting related inside of them.  Plus the first time you have to move home you'll regret those Station Containers.


So, what do you do for asset management in Eve?

Rifterlings vs. Candymen. Go!

For an extended weekend we're having an awox event here in the Point Blank Alliance.  Last night (for US Eastern values of night) we had an event where each side hid 6 MTUs in their home systems.  One side to defend, the other to try to destroy.  I'll give some highlights rather than a blow-by-blow, plus my usual Lessons Learned.  If you were watching Fintarue's stream you saw the whole thing unfold.

The Corps

The difference in the two corps stood out pretty strongly.  Rifterlings threw a lot of ships at the problem, with a limited amount of coordination.  Candymen had half the ships, but of a higher class and apparently actually with a plan.  I wasn't particularly sure how'd that go but I wasn't too confident.

Size versus Numbers

Candymen attacked us first, which was good since we were waffling around a bit.  We started out in armor frigates, a mix of T1 and AFs.  I was in a Rifter.  Candymen came in with something like Vexor x3, Prophecy x3, Dominix.  Ouch.  I had visions of drones wiping us off the field while neuts slapped down anyone going for the fast-close orbit.  We did manage to burn down a Vexor, but then had to retreat and reship to step up to cruisers.  The Vexor pilot had prepositioned an Exequror in our home station, so was back quick.  However, moving up to cruisers allowed us to take down their fleet.  You can really see the difference in the Dominix kill - our ships there now range from AF to T1 cruiser to a Ishtar.
Lessons Learned:
* 12 weaker ships still can have a lot more dps than 7 better ships.  The enemies had a RR tank comp, but we were able to target switch through it.
* Blasters and Overheat management.  I was very happy to manage my heat up to 95% damage at the end of the fight, and kept in the top 3 damage dealers on almost all kills.  I think I was helped there in that the RR meant they had to be close to each other, so when I switched from one target to another they were always in effective neutron blaster range.
* Jumped in the Thorax I had handy, which was active fit when the fleet called for buffer fit.  I have to keep home system better stocked.  If you're a courier contract pilot this means you're about to have more business.

Repairing Lesson

I had gotten my Thrasher pretty shot up so it was down to something like 17% armor on a 400mm plate tank.  Plus when I overheated my guns I managed to leave them overheated a bit too long so the whole top rack was burnt out - that was a nice come-down compared to the overheat on the Thorax.  So I had a useless ship.  I was weighing whether to stay in fleet in hopes that the Candymen would target my hulk and waste fire on it, or run for repairs.  We had a momentary break so I announced I was ducking off and ran to the next system since I'd heard the Sosala station was camped.  Warp, Jump, Warp, Dock, Repair, Undock, Warp, Jump Fast Fast Fast.  See what I did wrong?

I warped back into the fleet and realized my top rack was offline.  If you totally burn out modules out and then repair them, you have to manually online them - preferably in station or else you'll need 95% cap.  So as we waited for the next align-warp call I started onlining the guns one by one as my cap recharged.  I fought that last battle at the wormhole with 3/7 guns, and did successfully draw fire again, so that part was useful at least.
Lesson Learned:
* It's always worth that second to make sure you really are repaired and online, drones in bay, ammo in cargo.