War Record: College Boys

So back in the saddle at last.

I went out on patrol in my Xiphos Executioner. Simple scram range kiter, with a single ancillary armour repairer for defense.

It would be fair to say the Executioner is one of my favourite frigates, and hardly qualifies as Amarrian at all. Yes it has lasers, and the shiny hull, and yes it prefers an armour tank. But it's design focus is downright Minmatar.

A slim profile, and basically all engines with pulse lasers attached, this ship is designed to control range and apply firepower. Not much for cheap tricks (although I do have a couple of ideas that might surprise), but a very capable skirmish ship, fighting out in scram range.

A laser boat that can dictate range is king. Your weapons have phenomenal projection in warp jammer ranges, and very strong damage output. A speedy ship with lasers on it needs some kind of unusual strategy to counter it, be it dual propped Firetails, sensor damped kiters or neuting Slashers.

A little interesting fact, tracking on pulse lasers being what it is, you'll hardly ever want to switch from Scorch. Unless you ca be sure of an orbit at 4km, you'll be far more effective using Scorch. Less than 4km, and you'll be hitting nothing anyway.

And also... have you seen this thing in Matari space?

Crimson metal... I love it!

I warped out of Hek and entered the warzone.

A few jumps in I saw my first complex. A novice, with apparently some Rifters sitting in it. I eyed up local, and it was full of people doing things.

Nothing else for it... I had to check and see if they were friendly, and jumped in to the plex. Damn the odds, I've got a job to do!

Neutrals.

After a fashion.

I locked them up, and orbited at 8km, lasers blazing away in the void. Shields stripped quickly on both sides. Armour Rifters, meaning this was going to be a close fight. And 2 vs. 1 meant the tough was all on me.

Bullets rained in from all sides, but the Rifters could not close distance on me. The first one popped, and although my nanite paste had run dry, my little Executioner hadn't broken a sweat!

It was close between myself and the last Rifter. My capacitor eventually depleted, and he got away,

The plex was mine! But with weapons overheated and nanite depleted, I was in no position to hold it. I warped out to my perch.

Good fights were exchanged in local, and the two neutrals showed themselves to be some fresh faced university graduates trying out the Warzone for fun. Not a particularly grand victory, but not bad for two on one!

I gave them some advice then went to find some extra nanite paste. This ship was not allowed to make it back to Hek. And of course, this kill puts me no closer to getting to the next rank in the militia. Still have some work to do!

Good luck in the future Gardner Khronnus and your buddy whose name I didn't catch! A little more training and you would have had me. I recommend switching to Slashers right now. Rifters are excellent with Barrage, but if you can't use it, the knife fighting Slasher is a little easier to use.

Review

Never underestimate the enemy... but equally, never forget how capable you are.

Nation Warrior

The first rank of the TLF is Nation Warrior. The pin itself has a short inscription:

"Though free I am bound by the chains of my brothers."

Short and simple reminder of why we do what we do.

For my stint as Nation Warrior, I'll be using whatever is laying around in the hangar, an eclectic mix of attack frigates, Breachers and Rifters. I'm not too picky. At this rank I'l be focusing on burning stock rather devising tactics. I know how to use the ships already, so a tactical focus would be a waste of brain power.

Not that I'm using much brains for strategic focus either. My running orders look borderline suicidal, and a little out of character for me:

Standing Orders

Fly into combat zone.
Eliminate opposition.
Find and occupy first novice complex seen.
Find and occupy first small complex seen.
Come back in a pod.

The last one is important. When I spend a lot of time planning a ship and specific mission, I tend to make myself skittish about unknown variables. It's not fear in a normal sense, but more a case of not wanting to look stupid. Giving myself this objective for every ship sent out mitigates that somewhat.

It's simply formalising the "I didn't want that ship anyway" flying philosophy. It sounds bad, but for me it's getting me to take more risks, rather than fretting about how to mitigate them. That's the development I need at this point.

I'm also going to be ignoring my killboard for this entire rank for the same reason. I'll do a tally of victories and losses after I've ranked up. The idea here is to role-play impetuous youth again, with scant regard to loss or consequence.

Of course, I'll be posting any interesting stories along the way. That's the point of my blog after all!

Re-write

I recently wrote about how you need to make your own story. I think my own story came to a bit of a halt for the past few months. Well, half year.

I've spent the holidays trying to write a new narrative for myself. It ranged from the melodramatic to the maudlin, and frankly, was more exhausting than it was worth.

So, I'm re-writing my story.

Yes, simple as that.

And simple is the story I'm re-writing.

I'm leaving the pirates to re-enlist with the militia. The Republic again. I've got a fondness for Hek that goes beyond rational thought. It'll feel good to be part of its defense force.

As a change of tactic, I will also take my rank progression a little more seriously.

Before, I was mostly concerned with perfect fights. I'd sped a few days crafting a ship with tactics to go with it, and then go test it out. I spent a great deal of time on single fights, and analyzing them afterwards.

Valuable, but exhausting.

This time, I will focus on progressing through the ranks of the Republic militia. This is a much broader success criteria, meaning that fighting is just a small part of my overall development. Capturing outposts, mission running, I-Hub sieges... all these are important to success in Faction Warfare. And that's not to mention the logistics of supplying the front.

I fooled myself into thinking that capsuleer combat was all there was to New Eden. This is not true, and frankly, life would be boring if it was. Simple ship to ship duels are just a tiny part of the universe, and I did myself a disservice by focusing on that small section.

But enough rambling. Leaving pirates. Joining militia.

Looking forward to putting down some slave murdering zealots.

Blog Banter 61: Chapter 1

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 61st edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

_________________

TurAmarth asks this question: "What would we encourage ALL new players to do in their first month to get them to subscribe long term, if we had to give out one set of advice for everyone (which we do if we're giving general advice)?" 

To be honest, I expected writers to use this blog banter to promote their little niche of New Eden with. Not that I think it’s wrong to do so. Wormhole lords, null-sec barons and pirate commodores need new blood as much as the most genial mining foreman.

In fact, to show solidarity, I highly recommend Stay Frosty as being a great place to learn the ropes of pirating (perhaps after you've learnt the ropes in general). It’s friendly, welcoming, and has a strong focus on personal freedom, a genuine rarity in New Eden. Even if you’re a solo pilot just looking for a comm channel to fill the void, I strongly urge you to try it once. Not only that, but it’s headed up by the most notorious, gallant and cunning ebil scallywag to ply the stars.

I expect my cheque in the mail Rixx.

 

What's actually been written has been refreshingly realistic, and is focused more on general advice about the right kind of attitude to have as a fresh capsuleer. The ones I've read advocate trying everything. Great advice, if a little lacking in clear objectives.

 

So, no matter who you are, I have only one thing to recommend to new players, and something that I guarantee will keep you in space longer than any single activity:

Record the story.

Blog it, vlog it, personal diary entries, comic strips, kill boards, charts and graphs, tattoos showing how many ship kills you’ve gotten… anything to remember the story by. From spoken Captain’s logs to the humblest screenshot album, recording your personal story will keep you coming back.

New Eden is a canvas.

Some capsuleers will try to convince you that the market is the soul and centre of the galaxy. The majority will probably pontificate about the virtues of social corps, and the bonds of friendship. A little more will lure you into the trap of thinking of space as a massive gladiatorial arena. They are all right, but they do not have the whole story.

The EVE Gate led us to a wild frontier where all narratives are possible. A stardust sandbox, where kings are built grain by grain, battered by competition and blasted by misfortune.  Mighty sandcastles build upon thousands of capsules have been raised, and razed. All of these are fantastic stories, and most likely what brought you here in the first place.

So record it.

The one thing people can tell you about New Eden is how temporary everything is. That ship you slaved for, that horded wallet you ground out of space rock… all can vanish in a instant. Your cherished module, looted from an unsuspecting pirate, can crash in value at a moment’s notice. Even the Null-sec barons know how tenuous their empires are.

But your story can remain.

No matter where you end up, no matter how high you rise or how brilliant and destructive your fall, the one constant is your own impetus, and your continuing saga amongst the stars. That, and that alone, is safe from the galactic predators. Your story is something they can never take from you.

You owe it to yourself to have your chronicles made.

It doesn’t matter if they are never shared. It doesn’t even matter what the form is. Even the simplest kill-mail tracker or leader board is enough. The fact that you are aware of it, and are taking part in the crafting of your legacy is what will drive you. It is what will bring you back to hostile space and under fire, again and again.

So if you are starting off in New Eden: Record your story.

I look forward to seeing all of your Chapter 1s.

 

Slice of the Ol' Pirate Life

The stack of paper glared at me with the intensity that only ink and expectations can give.

I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my tired face with stained hands. The damned black stuff got everywhere, no matter how careful you were. It didn’t even seem to matter most of my work was done at the keyboard these days.

A cheery beep from my terminal reminded me of the half-dozen deadlines for tomorrow.

Take some time to appreciate the situation, I told myself. You’ve got a family to feed, and students who rely on you. And you wanted the shift from teaching language to hard science. Better prospects all around. All you need to do is push through these months of truly hard work, and everything will be better.

Don’t think about that government service job you applied for on a whim. Doesn’t matter you’re through to the second round. You have to think of a secure future.

All good points, I agreed with myself.

The stack of assignments and training plans shifted its glare to impatient gloating.

I need to get out for a while.

I left the sombre, confining office, and wandered out to the living area, my wife conspicuously absent. It wasn’t safe enough to bring her to Ardar yet. She was busy being pregnant with our first child back on Hek. Just a comm call away, but our schedules had fallen out of synch. She should be asleep by now.

I fled the empty, claustrophobic quarters, meandering aimlessly around my small section of the station. My corporation had a few levels rented out for members, but I was the only current occupant, footsteps clanging down the darkened hallways. Had to save power on the lighting bills these days.

I stopped abruptly outside my personal hangar. Three sets of key cards hung on the rack, each coded for a different frigate. Just two Rifters and the Prospect here. A fraction of the fleet gathering dust in Hek. Two Rifters.

I didn’t bother with the furtive glancing around. They were my ships, and if you can’t take your own damn ship out whenever you wanted to, what was the point in shelling out the ISK for it?

I grabbed the card for the Rhys Tai; a little project before I started training for my new job. Standard fitting, with plate and ancilliary repper, 200s and trinity tackle. The devil was in the details for this one. Two projectile ambit extensions instead of the standard nano-pumps.

I was of two minds about it. The nano-pumps were a nice, safe, and easily quantifiable advantage, based on the sound military principle of being on the positive side of damage in versus armour repaired.

The ambits, on top of the Rifter’s already impressive range, gave a much more incalculable advantage. Distance against hard firepower was always tricky, but I was confident the Rifter could exploit this advantage well.

Mostly confident.

Within moments the little Rifter prowled out into space. Its butch form was a façade. This frigate needed a delicate touch, and a careful, considered mind. But still, by looks alone, it is one of the more empowering pod sheathes.  

I jumped a few systems, leaving the paperwork to glower in my ion wake. Just an hour or two away. To fly amongst the stars… And then I’ll be good. I’ll willingly press my face to the grindstone.

The various low-sec denizens fled before me, like startled pigeons. The pirate colours I fly tended to have that effect. I don’t begrudge them it. When I fly the Prospect, I act in the same way. Prudence over bravado is my usual running order.

Not today.

A Slicer on scan.

He who dares…

I warped to the complex gate, slightly changing my initial contact tactic. I tend to gamble on warping in on top of my opponent when using Rifters, a habit born from my early days of flying brawling frigates. Today I started 30km out.

The Slicer probably couldn’t believe his luck! A clapped out old Rifter, flown by a pilot so rusty he melded into the Matari penumbra, and right at his optimal range! Incredible!

Pulse fire came in stripping shields with ease, and chewing through armour with equal abandon. Reppers cycled, but the inevitable stream of fire began melting holes of vulnerability.

But it wasn’t going all his way. It wasn’t, in fact, going his way at all.

My own projectiles had punched through his shields, even as he orbited at 20km, the ambits casting the hail of radiated metal across the gulf between us. His micro-warpdrive made him an absolutely massive target, his signature bloomed out like a waiting flower, my own, Matari engineered radius needle thin in comparison.

I managed a text book slingshot manouver, something I’ve never been able to pull off before, and his incoming fire dropped to a trickle. I was neatly under his guns.

Victory was nearly mine when both my rocket launcher and auto-cannons burned out, melted to slag through over use. I made some efforts at escape, but the inevitable happened, and the Rhys Tai erupted into flames.

I set my pod back to Ardar. Just twenty minutes since I left.

It was… perfect.

Well, not the exploding part. But that was a minor set-back, caused by a little inattention to heat levels, and clumsy, out of practice hands at the controls.

The slingshot perfect. The theory behind the ambits verified, at least in this one test. The Rifter could easily match most mundane kiting frigates, and some navy specials, whilst still brawler fit.

I attacked the stack of papers with renewed vigour, its glare reduced to a morose stare.

Everyone needs a little slice of life every now and then.

Yarr.