I said to myself a few months ago that I'd never do it. I would never succumb to handing over REAL legal tender to see a few extra zeros in a virtual in-game bank account, but the relenetless fun I've been having with PVP got me feeling nauseous about returning to Dodixie and scavanging off mission runners. Don't get me wrong, ninja looting / salvaging is good fun and reasonably profitable but it doesnt touch the adrenaline rush of PVP. I'm sticking to my original plan of using most of the ISK from the PLEX to set up my alt with a Maelstrom for level 4 mission running. The idea is that from there on I will be totally self-sufficient, occaissonally running the odd mission and forwarding the proceeds to Mr Kha to fund his PVP habit.
But of course, there was much ISK leftover and I suddenly felt like I had more money than sense, storming the market with buy orders. Throwing the T2 modules into my shopping cart whimsically, I even splashed out a Jaguar, a Wolf and and two Stilettos, only being two thirds of the way through the necessary skills to pilot them properly. "Uh oh" I muttered aloud.
Conclusion? I think I actually prefer living on the edge just a little when it comes to ISK. When you have less it becomes more precious and in EVE that directly relates to the infamous adrenaline rush of PVP. Before I sound like some deluded space-peasant I would like to clarify that this does not involve me going out exclusively solo in T1 fit frigates or being too stingy to buy faction ammo. I simply mean to say that having a proffession in EVE with which you can fund PVP increases your appreciation for the value of things, which is ultimately one of the factors that makes EVE what it is. On the flip side, having the wealth to stockpile some well-fitted disposable ships is a great way to learn PVP and It's about striking the balance. You don't want to be throwing faction-fit Navy Issue vessels into the wind like its your job, but you certainly don't want to be duct-taping together a laughable T1 frigate and guarding it as your most prized possession.
-Mr Kha
About Me
- Mr Kha
- Welcome! This is the web journal of an up and coming pirate in the cruel and prosperus world that is the EVE Universe. This journal aims to document the victories, misfortunes and learned lessons of a pirate just starting out in the trade. I am currently roaming with FLA5HY RED [FLA5H] and am delving deeper into the world of Piracy. YARRRRR! o7
25 July 2010
23 July 2010
Learning (the hard way)
Since joining the rabbits with my first pirate toon I have been pleasantly suprised by how active a pirates life can be. I sometimes find myself going on 2 or even 3 roams in a single day accross the timezones. I'd managed to make a respectable job of staying alive for a new pilot during this time, evading gate camps, warping out of bad situations and keeping my losses to a minimum. I've never been one who cared much for the Kill / Death ratios when playing any game, but I'd somehow gotten to 16:1. Not quite as ridiculous as the invincible Bagpuss but I'd certainly suprised myself. "This isn't going to last long" and indeed I'm already starting to get my share of the bad luck. Or is it bad?
A couple of months ago on my first toon I decided to go into low sec on my own to see what I could find. I ended up playing a game of cat and mouse with a Jaguar and decided to use the oppurtunity to hone my GTFO skills. I'd practice warping to celestials at varying ranges, aligning and wapring out when I saw the flashy red Jag appear. The Jaguar pilot lost interest and I decided to warp to a safe spot. Foolishy, I sat there not aligned to anything and not moving. "Who is going to bother probing down a lone rifter?" I thought. "Is probing frigate-sized vessels even possible?" I thought. Wrong. My next mistake was to begin chatting away to my Jaguar friend in local and her corpmates. After about 5 minutes of chit chat whilst eating my dinner I noticed 3 flashy reds suddenly appear in the overview. "I KNEW IT!" I shouted, as I was set apon by the sharpened claws of the Hellcat pirates. But of course, I didn't know it or else I would have avoided it. At the time, I left with my tail between my legs, annoyed at myself for being so careless.
Since then, I jump from safe to safe or at the very least stay aligned to a celestial while checking D-scan for probes and my overall navigation of low security space has improved dramatically. The point obviously being that you learn from your mistakes, however this is a phrase that is thrown around a lot but is only fully appreciated through personal experience.
Recently I found myself thinking back to this. I'd gone out solo in my thrasher and I saw a caracal on scan. I swapped out my ammo for republic fleet EMP and narrowed him down to several times only to find he'd warped out because the belt was empty of rats. I finally found him in one of the belts but the warp in was no good, he was about 40km off and already aligning out. It seemed he was combing through the belts and there werent many of them so I decided to go and sit in one in hope that he would warp in on me by mistake. Sure enough he comes in but to my suprise he instantly aggresses me and jams me up, unleashing a barrage of missiles. I'm getting hit hard and already I was wondering if I'd bit off more than I could chew. Perhaps the hunter had become the hunted? The EVE pvp adrenaline starts pumping and I engage him with everything I've got. I overload my guns and begin laughing as I watch his shield tank being ripped to shreds. About 10 seconds later the guns stop firing. In a panic I clumsily fumbled for the hotkey to turn them back on (not realising at this point they had burnt out) I must have shut off the warp scrambler accidentally and the caracal pilot warps almost instantly to whatever he had been aligned to. "FUCK!" I was bitterly dissapointed. This incident led to me learning a lot more about the intricate mechanics of overheating and inspired me to include Thermodynamics V as part of my skill plan.
So it seems throwing caution to the wind and "getting out there" is a win / win situation for the learning pilot. No matter the outcome, you're guaranteed to learn something useful. This is quite obviously not a highly original conclusion regarding pvp in EVE but what I've come to realise is you dont fully appreciate it until you experience it first hand. In terms of kills and losses the last few days have been a bit wreckless but my faith is immediately restored when I realise something valuable was learned in the process. And as Four2 would agree, it's better to get blown to smitherenes than be sat in the station spinning your ship.
-Mr Kha
A couple of months ago on my first toon I decided to go into low sec on my own to see what I could find. I ended up playing a game of cat and mouse with a Jaguar and decided to use the oppurtunity to hone my GTFO skills. I'd practice warping to celestials at varying ranges, aligning and wapring out when I saw the flashy red Jag appear. The Jaguar pilot lost interest and I decided to warp to a safe spot. Foolishy, I sat there not aligned to anything and not moving. "Who is going to bother probing down a lone rifter?" I thought. "Is probing frigate-sized vessels even possible?" I thought. Wrong. My next mistake was to begin chatting away to my Jaguar friend in local and her corpmates. After about 5 minutes of chit chat whilst eating my dinner I noticed 3 flashy reds suddenly appear in the overview. "I KNEW IT!" I shouted, as I was set apon by the sharpened claws of the Hellcat pirates. But of course, I didn't know it or else I would have avoided it. At the time, I left with my tail between my legs, annoyed at myself for being so careless.
Since then, I jump from safe to safe or at the very least stay aligned to a celestial while checking D-scan for probes and my overall navigation of low security space has improved dramatically. The point obviously being that you learn from your mistakes, however this is a phrase that is thrown around a lot but is only fully appreciated through personal experience.
Recently I found myself thinking back to this. I'd gone out solo in my thrasher and I saw a caracal on scan. I swapped out my ammo for republic fleet EMP and narrowed him down to several times only to find he'd warped out because the belt was empty of rats. I finally found him in one of the belts but the warp in was no good, he was about 40km off and already aligning out. It seemed he was combing through the belts and there werent many of them so I decided to go and sit in one in hope that he would warp in on me by mistake. Sure enough he comes in but to my suprise he instantly aggresses me and jams me up, unleashing a barrage of missiles. I'm getting hit hard and already I was wondering if I'd bit off more than I could chew. Perhaps the hunter had become the hunted? The EVE pvp adrenaline starts pumping and I engage him with everything I've got. I overload my guns and begin laughing as I watch his shield tank being ripped to shreds. About 10 seconds later the guns stop firing. In a panic I clumsily fumbled for the hotkey to turn them back on (not realising at this point they had burnt out) I must have shut off the warp scrambler accidentally and the caracal pilot warps almost instantly to whatever he had been aligned to. "FUCK!" I was bitterly dissapointed. This incident led to me learning a lot more about the intricate mechanics of overheating and inspired me to include Thermodynamics V as part of my skill plan.
So it seems throwing caution to the wind and "getting out there" is a win / win situation for the learning pilot. No matter the outcome, you're guaranteed to learn something useful. This is quite obviously not a highly original conclusion regarding pvp in EVE but what I've come to realise is you dont fully appreciate it until you experience it first hand. In terms of kills and losses the last few days have been a bit wreckless but my faith is immediately restored when I realise something valuable was learned in the process. And as Four2 would agree, it's better to get blown to smitherenes than be sat in the station spinning your ship.
-Mr Kha
21 July 2010
Bacon
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS NONSENSE
Much controversy emerged last night when several pilots engaged in a heated dispute regarding the intricacies of the different play styles used with the different types of bacon. An erruption of hunger inflicted the involved parties and it was unanimously agreed that the presence of bacon would improve morale considerably amongst the fleet.
British bacon has a superior ketchup tank and overall better effective hitpoints but certainly does less dps against the oil hole in the arteries resists. General consenus was that American style bacon is most effective when fitted with faction maple syrup and can work well in a breakfast fleet alongside T2 pancakes. British bacon is also prefered by many pilots owed to it's versatility. It can be fielded during sandwich assaults, dinner engagements or even as part of the infamous "full english" breakfast strategy. Canadian bacon remains somewhat of a mystery and shall not be discussed further, though many see it as a useful ingredient for running lvl 4 pizza deliveries.
-Mr Kha
Much controversy emerged last night when several pilots engaged in a heated dispute regarding the intricacies of the different play styles used with the different types of bacon. An erruption of hunger inflicted the involved parties and it was unanimously agreed that the presence of bacon would improve morale considerably amongst the fleet.
British bacon has a superior ketchup tank and overall better effective hitpoints but certainly does less dps against the oil hole in the arteries resists. General consenus was that American style bacon is most effective when fitted with faction maple syrup and can work well in a breakfast fleet alongside T2 pancakes. British bacon is also prefered by many pilots owed to it's versatility. It can be fielded during sandwich assaults, dinner engagements or even as part of the infamous "full english" breakfast strategy. Canadian bacon remains somewhat of a mystery and shall not be discussed further, though many see it as a useful ingredient for running lvl 4 pizza deliveries.
-Mr Kha
20 July 2010
Diplomacy Fail
Being harrassed in our home system and the occurance of station games is not uncommon for the rabbits. This time however things got a little heated and a good fight ensued. Being a mere frigate and destroyer pilot, I was confined to the station hangar where I was picturing the engagement to the information being relayed over comms.
Things werent looking too good for the harrassors, being forced to dock or burn away several times. Being the enterprising pirate he is, our CEO invites one of our visitors into our ransom channel for a brief chat:
Jarek Kalensa > Good evening
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > :)
Jarek Kalensa > I hope you are enjoying the facilities
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > loving it
Jarek Kalensa > We at the Guristas would be happy to escort you from system for a fee of, say 50 million isk
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > LOL
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > downers
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > o/
After refining the art of docking and undocking a little further he was again approached by our CEO:
Jarek Kalensa > Shall we try that again?
Jarek Kalensa > 50m and you can leave
Jarek Kalensa > as we all have fresh packs of beer and a whole evening to kill
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > ll
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > you cunts are a joke
This time he undocks and burns away from the station "POINT!" is yelled over comms and whoever is still online at this point fields what they can to join the fray. Local begins to spike a little bit and sure enough, the typhoon pilot is accompanied by two Hurricanes, a Drake and a Myrmidon. A raging BC / BS fight ensues with losses on both sides, but the invaders are eventually reppelled or destroyed. Our friend 'DeaDiLy ReVeNgE' has his Typhoon redecorated and leaves in his POD along with the two 'Cane and one Myrm pilot.
Barkarus > Should have paid ...
Bottom Line? You aren't the coolest kid in school after picking a fight with pirates in their home system, calling them cunts and then fleeing the battle in your capsule.
-Mr Kha
Things werent looking too good for the harrassors, being forced to dock or burn away several times. Being the enterprising pirate he is, our CEO invites one of our visitors into our ransom channel for a brief chat:
Jarek Kalensa > Good evening
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > :)
Jarek Kalensa > I hope you are enjoying the facilities
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > loving it
Jarek Kalensa > We at the Guristas would be happy to escort you from system for a fee of, say 50 million isk
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > LOL
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > downers
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > o/
After refining the art of docking and undocking a little further he was again approached by our CEO:
Jarek Kalensa > Shall we try that again?
Jarek Kalensa > 50m and you can leave
Jarek Kalensa > as we all have fresh packs of beer and a whole evening to kill
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > ll
DeaDiLy ReVeNgE > you cunts are a joke
This time he undocks and burns away from the station "POINT!" is yelled over comms and whoever is still online at this point fields what they can to join the fray. Local begins to spike a little bit and sure enough, the typhoon pilot is accompanied by two Hurricanes, a Drake and a Myrmidon. A raging BC / BS fight ensues with losses on both sides, but the invaders are eventually reppelled or destroyed. Our friend 'DeaDiLy ReVeNgE' has his Typhoon redecorated and leaves in his POD along with the two 'Cane and one Myrm pilot.
Barkarus > Should have paid ...
Bottom Line? You aren't the coolest kid in school after picking a fight with pirates in their home system, calling them cunts and then fleeing the battle in your capsule.
-Mr Kha
19 July 2010
Flashy Red
Hooray!
As of about 2 hours ago Mr Kha is officially considered an outlaw in the EVE Universe having broken the -5.0 barrier. All I need now is a bounty :)
-Mr Kha
As of about 2 hours ago Mr Kha is officially considered an outlaw in the EVE Universe having broken the -5.0 barrier. All I need now is a bounty :)
-Mr Kha
POS Theft
So after the tournament we head out on a 13-man roam fielding a nice variety of stuff including a cynabal, falcon, vagabond and a gang of assualt ships and frigates. After podding a thrasher pilot in Hadozeko we get a call over TS from our scout informing us he's pointed and engaged an industrial ship and not only that but he is in the process of anchoring an unarmed control tower in the middle of low-sec space all on his own.
We head through the gate and warp to the engagement and proceed to blast the pilot out of the sky. "POINT ON POD!" is said with great excitement over comms and we offer him a ransom. He declines the offer and swiftly recieves the appropriate treatment. His wreck is filled with various POS fuels and parts and the POS itself proves to be worth up to 350m market value.
The POS has another 40 minutes left on its anchor timer so the party divides with one half staying to guard the POS and the other half to continue the roam while we wait. With around 10 minutes or so to go, the Indy pilot shows up again and strikes up conversation with one of our guys.
Garrick Konquero > Greetings.
Jarek Kalensa > o/
Jarek Kalensa > Would you like to buy a pos?
Garrick Konquero > Hah!
Garrick Konquero > How much?
Jarek Kalensa > 350m
Jarek Kalensa > you have 9 minutes to decide
Garrick Konquero > We can buy one for 280 million.
Jarek Kalensa > that's true.
Jarek Kalensa > but this one already has a cool name :)
Garrick Konquero > Hah. Thanks. But we were taking it down. How about 180 million?
Jarek Kalensa > nah, we'll just sell it.
Jarek Kalensa > good try tho
Jarek Kalensa > you have been pirated by The Black Rabbits. Please tell your friends that we ALWAYS honour ransoms. :)
Garrick Konquero > OK, CEO says 250 million so you don't have to haul it?
Jarek Kalensa > Ah, but you're not valuing the huge morale boost that my pilots will get from the theft
Huge morale boost indeed. Not to mention our share of the loot which in theory is about 18m each. Probably the best haul for me in my beginning Pirate career so I was chuffed to bits. The guy seemed like a good sport so unfortunately no tears this time. Arrangements were quickly made for a hauler to come and scoop up the POS and the loot and head straight out to the safety of high-sec.
-Mr Kha
We head through the gate and warp to the engagement and proceed to blast the pilot out of the sky. "POINT ON POD!" is said with great excitement over comms and we offer him a ransom. He declines the offer and swiftly recieves the appropriate treatment. His wreck is filled with various POS fuels and parts and the POS itself proves to be worth up to 350m market value.
The POS has another 40 minutes left on its anchor timer so the party divides with one half staying to guard the POS and the other half to continue the roam while we wait. With around 10 minutes or so to go, the Indy pilot shows up again and strikes up conversation with one of our guys.
Garrick Konquero > Greetings.
Jarek Kalensa > o/
Jarek Kalensa > Would you like to buy a pos?
Garrick Konquero > Hah!
Garrick Konquero > How much?
Jarek Kalensa > 350m
Jarek Kalensa > you have 9 minutes to decide
Garrick Konquero > We can buy one for 280 million.
Jarek Kalensa > that's true.
Jarek Kalensa > but this one already has a cool name :)
Garrick Konquero > Hah. Thanks. But we were taking it down. How about 180 million?
Jarek Kalensa > nah, we'll just sell it.
Jarek Kalensa > good try tho
Jarek Kalensa > you have been pirated by The Black Rabbits. Please tell your friends that we ALWAYS honour ransoms. :)
Garrick Konquero > OK, CEO says 250 million so you don't have to haul it?
Jarek Kalensa > Ah, but you're not valuing the huge morale boost that my pilots will get from the theft
Huge morale boost indeed. Not to mention our share of the loot which in theory is about 18m each. Probably the best haul for me in my beginning Pirate career so I was chuffed to bits. The guy seemed like a good sport so unfortunately no tears this time. Arrangements were quickly made for a hauler to come and scoop up the POS and the loot and head straight out to the safety of high-sec.
-Mr Kha
18 July 2010
Frig Tournament
So today was the 2nd Black Rabbits frigate tournament. Folks showed up with everything from kiting kestrels to shield tanked rifters and even some tactical (yet predictably dull) E-War usage.
The winner of this todays tournament (and infact the previous tournament) is Otto Jarvis so hats off to him. He was duly treated to the pleasure of having his ship blown to smitherenes by a blob of rookie ships as seems to be rabbit tradition.
Several fights were very close and tactical, making interesting viewing and the betting on the side definately got people cheering and shouting. Next time I will definately be entering me and my rifter to see what happens.
Several fights were very close and tactical, making interesting viewing and the betting on the side definately got people cheering and shouting. Next time I will definately be entering me and my rifter to see what happens.
-Mr Kha
Blog Launch
So it looks like I've followed the trend. Writing a blog is a first for me so I have no idea where this will go but hopefully it will prove to be a worthwhile experience. EVE has proved to be an incredible experience for me so far and I have found myself comfortably integrated into the EVE Universe.
Many things have happened for me in EVE so far and as to not let such stories go to waste, the majority of the next few posts will be somewhat dated by several weeks. From thereon however, I intend to be posting semi-regularly as and when things happen.
Big shout out to my fellow bunnies and stay tuned for the first few 'real' posts.
Mr Kha
Many things have happened for me in EVE so far and as to not let such stories go to waste, the majority of the next few posts will be somewhat dated by several weeks. From thereon however, I intend to be posting semi-regularly as and when things happen.
Big shout out to my fellow bunnies and stay tuned for the first few 'real' posts.
Mr Kha
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