Crime & Punishment

Lesson 42: Sometimes, when life throws you a curveball, you just gotta take a break. My killboards have been pretty quiet lately because, out-of-pod, I've been having a year that is interesting in the Chinese curse* kind of way.

But I'm not here to talk about that.

Since my attention has been limited, I've been keeping true to my overall goals and branching out to trying new things. I'm taking another stab at science and industry (sans POS this time), I've ground a little standings to actually get R&D agents for my research character, and I've finally done the SoE Epic Arc. I have to say, as an experience geared towards newer players, the SoE arc is really well done. It takes you through all four empires and introduces you to all of the major mission types (except mining) and all of the NPC pirate factions. If you've never done the SoE Arc, I highly suggest it, even if you're not big into mission running. It can easily be completed in a well-fit destroyer (they're all level 1 missions) in a dedicated day of play, some of the missions are a lot more creative than typical mission content, and at the end you can get a decent boost to standings for one of the empire factions without any derived modifications (i.e. no penalties).


EvE: proving that there's still new content, even for old hands like me who need to take a PvP break.


*To clarify, I'm not making a racial slur here, I'm just referencing the saying about an old Chinese curse that says "May you live in interesting times."

Lesson 44: PvP breaks never seem to last as long as I plan them to. A close out-of-pod friend of mine recently enlisted my assistance with a wardec against his corp. I plan to write a more full report once the war(s) are over because it's an interesting story, but the short version is that it's led to a pair of POS kills on our part with zero losses as the initial aggressors stay docked up or out of harms way for the duration to date. I say "initial" because this little kerfuffle has now grown to include additional participants who may or may not have been hired to harass my corp. It's also led to my most profitable POS bash yet. Good times I say, good times indeed.

Actually, there are several celestial in line with the jita 4-4 undock. Obviously, don't warp to one at 0, but they do help in a pinch.

Lesson 45: Whenever you anchor defensive batteries at a POS, for the love of all that is good and holy make sure that you turn them on. As part of the ongoing series of wardecs I mentioned in Lesson 44, allied forces realized that our aggressors had anchored another POS at the same location as the first one over the weekend, only this time with an assortment of shield hardeners and ECM and a decided lack of loot-dropping structures. We were going to leave it alone until, on a lark, I went to take a few shots at it with a 'Ceptor just to be sure.

Nothing happened. They hadn't enabled their EWAR batteries to fire at war targets!

I promptly reinforced the tower with some Oracles as my allies were offline and we had a good chuckle amongst ourselves afterwards.

Lesson 46: Beware that Orca sitting next to the suspect logis. As fate would have it, our aggressors finally started logging in more regularly, and once they realized when their tower was coming out of reinforced staged a defensive/repping op. Several of us we were cloaked in proximity to the hostile POS waiting on others to arrive. We were also watching some suspect logi repping the hostile POS with an Orca nearby, we noticed a neutral Tengu land on grid. It warped off, and warped back to the tower and engaged one of several suspect logis that were repping the POS.

Unfortunately for the Tengu pilot, that particular logi pilot happened to have a Neut/HAM Legion stored in the Orca. The logi pilot quickly switched ships, and with logi support repping it, it eventually took the Tengu down. Ouch.

Lesson 47: Know your limits. After seeing what happened in Lesson 46, I did a quick killboard check, and realized that several of the WT logi pilots had kills in T3s. Watching the POS under safety of cloak a while longer revealed that they were swapping into and out of logi cruisers and T3s, storing the unused ships in the Orcas. Between that and their superior numbers, we chose to disengage. The next day, I checked the tower with a 'Ceptor again, and someone had finally turned the EWAR batteries on, effectively preventing any further attempts on the POS. Given that several newer allied pilots have started suffering losses, I expect an attempt at de-escalation until the wars expire.

I've just recently started posting on the forums and reading your posts is always a highlight of my experience. Have you considered or do you already have a blog that people can go to to read more about what you do? Thank you for posting - your posts and your attitude are refreshing in this amazing game.

(Edit: I tend to ignore signatures. I'll be a new reader as soon as I return to my home device.)

(Double edit: it links to this thread. If you start a blog I'll be your first reader!)

I just figured as often as you post it might be a valuable (and free) tool to expand on your stories. Regardless, it is highly enjoyable and please keep up the quality posting. True pleasure to read the words of the mature and gentlemanly.

I've dual-boxed frigates (usually one 'ceptor and one 'bomber) against easy targets (usually mining barges) quite a few times before. But those engagements were so short, the tactics so straightforward, the cap management so non-existent, and the builds so simple, they were far easier to manage than this one. Active tanks and/or full racks of neuts, not to mention drones, take a lot more brainpower than lock, orbit, point, and shoot.

I'd have taken that trade too.

Lesson 50: I have a newfound respect for active tanks. I recently participated in another round of Thunderdome-style one-on-one matches. Although I only ended up actually fighting one match, that one match was a doozy.

Here's a video of it from my opponent's viewpoint.

You'll notice that it's a long fight. Fifteen minutes long. No amount of buffer shy of a capital ship would have come close to lasting that long given the levels of DPS being flung about.

When you need to go the distance, an active tank is the way to go.

It would likely have been over in 30 seconds
Then again if it was a heavy missile kiting sac it'd likely have won against said vni

BTW Bronson this is a nice thread. Never took the time to notice before. That and its not been all that active in my ship toasting career