Crime & Punishment

I'm just scanning the thread picking out posts to read here and there. It's great to see someone tell the little stories of Eve. There's so much focus on a few big groups this sort of content is easily overlooked.

I got a Hurricane fit that gets 200 passive shield rep.

But oh sweet raptor jesus does it take forever to get your cap back.......

I love this thread !

So much to read and it's ... it's great ! :D

Thank you, Zappity ! :D

This is a quick post which I can link for all those people in the public Help channel (and there are a LOT of them) who claim that the direction in which your ship model is pointing when stationary affects align time, or time to enter warp.

They are wrong and here is the proof. Test:

I warped the Anshar to the Auvergne gate in Dodixie and from there to the sun. This ensured the ship was aligned directly away from the gate. I then waited until the ship velocity read 0.0 and hit warp to the Auvergne gate.

33 seconds from the warp command until the ship entered warp.

Once landed, I aligned the ship back to the sun and waited a couple of minutes until the model was fully aligned toward the sun. I then hit stop and waited until the ship velocity read 0.0. I then warped back to the sun.

33 seconds from the warp command until the ship entered warp.

The direction in which your ship model is pointing does not matter if the ship is not moving. (Note that despite the speed reading 0.0 the ship was still actually moving in both cases. The curve is not linear and would take ages to actually reach zero. But it still didn't matter.)

Your ship is treated as a point in space. It does not have orientation as far as the server navigation calculations are concerned.

Yeah, fleet actions just don't sound like you, Zap. I mean it's a nice change of pace, but you're a lowdown soloist. Keep it coming!

Arbitrator - not sure if this is feasible as a solo boat aaannddd Stabber :D

I highly recommend buying a command destroyer. Maybe not the best solo ship but they're really fun to derp around with and are probably much more interesting for fleets than dps.

Pandemic Legion was persecuting our alliance and, after a few fights in which they escalated to their supercap fleet, we decided that the best course of action was to run away. So I took all my market orders down, did a few jump freighter runs, and set them up again in the new home system. Then I was bored because there wasn’t much PvP action. So I jumped to lowsec.

I have received several suggestions for solo ships. Thanks everyone!

- RLML Caracal
- Arbitrator
- Stabber
- Procurer (I thought this was the T2 version and was going to scoff in derision at the thought of skilling up into a mining barge. But it is only a day or two training time so I will give it a go.)
- Command Destroyer(s)
- Navy Maulus
- Rifter

I decided to try the Stabber first and upgraded to a Fleet Issue because I could:

[Stabber Fleet Issue, SFI solo dual prop active]

Gyrostabilizer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

50MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
10MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Infiltrator II x3
Acolyte II x2

Republic Fleet EMP M x3000
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M x300
Navy Cap Booster 800 x16
Nanite Repair Paste x70

As usual, I make no claims as to the validity of this fit. My thinking was that I wanted to be able to engage a) other cruisers, and b) small frigate gangs that I would inevitably come across. I wanted to be able to pull gangs apart and therefore needed a MWD. I also knew that getting scrammed was pretty much guaranteed so I fit an afterburner which would help reduce transversal on smaller ships. The end result was essentially a brawling fit but with some semblance of range control.

I set out and soon found a small gang consisting of a couple of Comets plus a Dragoon. Comets can be very nasty and the Dragoon’s neuts would really not help my cap with two reppers running, even with the booster helping out. But, of course, I jumped into the medium plex anyway! They all ran away to the small plex. Ridiculous.

The next candidate was a Svipul. I was very uncertain about taking this fight, too. I would have little trouble killing my SFI in a Svipul, especially if I was in the active tank variant. But what the hell. He waited for me in the plex and we fought. I was instantly scrammed and the Svipul went into a tight orbit.

I turned on my afterburner and aligned to a celestial, wanting to reduce transversal as much as possible. My drones quickly took him to half shields, at which point he repped back to full. Bugger. He then switched to my drones. While he was killing them I overheated the afterburner in an attempt to pull away. It worked, allowing me to land a few solid hits which took him to low shield. Unfortunately, he figured out what was going on and rapidly moved back into a close orbit.

Things were looking grim with a bunch of hot modules and a reducing pile of cap boosters. Fortunately, a plex rat appeared and started attacking the Svipul. Whether on purpose or by mistake, my opponent approached the rat. This gave me an opportunity to scarper.

Svipul OP, please nerf. Seriously, when I devised the Stabber fit I was mentally comparing it to the Svipul, coming to the conclusion that the smaller ship did practically everything better.

Anyway, I escaped. A few systems later I was drawn like a moth to the flame of a Frostline site. I knew from personal experience that the site of a lone ship in one of these sites is entirely irresistible to a PvP-hungry pilot. And so it proved on this occasion.

A Sentinel (again with the neuts!), a Magus and a Thrasher jumped into system and very quickly appeared on short scan. I had already moved to the second room and immediately stopped killing the rats, knowing that they would likely switch targets as soon as the new guys appeared. I also burned away from the site, making it to about 60 km from the beacon by the time they landed. I figured this was a good range given the presence of a Command Destroyer which could jump their entire fleet to 100 km.

The Sentinel burned for me and landed a long point. I set up a slingshot but just missed him at 12 km. I should have jumped to my Snake clone earlier. Still, he wasn't doing much damage so I set my drones on him while I started chewing through my cap boosters. The other two ships were still at the beacon so I started moving away from them, hoping that they would use the dessie to jump. Sure enough, they went for it and I soon had all three ships around me.

For some reason the Magus didn't come too close. But the Thrasher did! I killed him good while burning toward a celestial:

Thrasher: https://zkillboard.com/kill/51003437/

But their combined DPS had hurt a lot, and I was at about half hull when the Thrasher popped. Neither of the other ships had me pointed so I simply hit warp to the celestial I was already aligned to. Good stuff.

I probably should have stayed on field and had a go at the Magus. I hadn't consumed my Exile yet (I forgot about it of course) and still had a bunch of cap boosters. But I hadn't done much solo PvP lately and was satisfied with my win.

*looks at above post*



*hides his Svipul*

Provi, as usual, turned out to welcome my humble Stratios. Half a dozen jumps into their territory I came up against a Drake and a Svipul sitting upon a gate. Innocent Scout informed me of a Cormorant and Sabre in the next system, although they were not on the gate.

I warped to the Svipul and Drake, decloaking on the way in. I was hoping to split them by aggression but the Drake took pre-emptive action and jumped through of his own accord. I tackled the Svipul.

He was no doubt frantically calling for his mate's return and had no intention of escaping. Soon, it was too late. I double webbed and neuted him good while my drones went to work. I made a mistake in launching heavy drones instead of mediums but they started to do a good enough job.

I was dismayed to see the Svipul rep back to full shield. And then even more dismayed to see him do it a second time. I kept cool(ish) and kept the neut pressure on. Sure enough, he soon dipped into armour and then hull. The Svipul died just as the Drake reappeared.

Svipul: https://zkillboard.com/kill/51169302/

I was thinking of tackling him, too, but then the gate flashed and I decided that the wisest course was to bravely run away to the anomaly I was already aligned to.

I gave a gf in local and then petitioned them to look after my Berserkers, especially Fred who had been a faithful old drone. They had a chuckle at that and rewarded me with a small bounty.

I settled in at a safe spot with a mobile depot. I think of this as a temporary camp site where I can lick my wounds (with a temporary armour repper) while mashing d-scan for probes. This time I made a mistake and, instead of pulling off a drone damage amplifier to make space for the repper I pulled off the armour plate. This was a bad idea. The ship's alarms screamed at me - zero armour remaining! I wonder what would have happened if I had been more badly damaged.

The Drake pilot was loitering. He followed me to the next system and loitered some more. I was determined to kill him but very suspicious. Provi had a well-earned reputation for forming defence fleets, and they had certainly had enough time to get organised.

Innocent Scout checked out the next system (empty) so I decloaked and tried to lure him to that gate, wanting to buy a little buffer time in the form of a long warp. He didn't bite. I then warped back to him. Big mistake! Local spiked while I was in warp and suddenly there were 17 pilots sitting on the gate I was travelling to.

To make matters much, much worse, I had been playing around with the Windows 10 game recording feature. Windows decided that this was the best possible moment to inform me of a conflict with my video card, a conflict that locked my screen and forced me to do a hard restart.

My system booted up quickly and I started up the launcher, thinking gloomy thoughts of lost Stratioses and implants all over the place. I was shocked when I saw that, according to the character selection screen, Zappity was still in her ship! She was already in warp when I saw that she was in half armour. Now I was really confused. They had evidently been killing me when I warped away. Untackled?

I was far from safe, though. My warp took me straight back to the disconnect point, right on the gate amidst the nest of angry pilots.

I played it cool, waiting for them to lock me up. All at once they turned red! I jumped! When on the other side I quickly aligned away from the gate and cloaked, narrowly escaping the three pilots who had not aggressed.

17 pilots! I asked for confirmation of my theory while setting up my camp site on the other side of the system. They told me that the pilot responsible for not restraining me had already been shot.

I love Provi.