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Gone Blobbin’
“So, Kesper, why haven’t you posted to your solo PVP blog in, like, a year?”
Well, I’ve been a little busy. Planned the ops to take tech and dysprosium moons in Venal from CO2. Fought Triumvirate and friends in Pure Blind. Became leader of a minor nullsec alliance called Majesta Empire, reinventing its system of leadership in the process. Invaded Geminate and failed badly. Got an (enemy!) titan killed because I am terrible at EVE. Defended the North from the MAX2 invasion (and kicked Atlas out of our space; Majesta was the first alliance in the NC to achieve victory on its front). Killed an Atlas titan and numerous supercarriers in the siege of H-W. Lost my first dreadnought to an NCDOT hotdrop.
Got married.
Saw to it that the way moons in the alliance are handled was changed completely, resulting in greater revenue for us all. Watched Majesta grow to be the sixth largest alliance in EVE; saw five new stations dropped in our space. Watched our supercapital fleet finally start to grow. Invaded Geminate and succeeded wildly; Majesta and its allies now hold nearly all of Geminate, with Majesta and our close allies RAGE holding sovereignty throughout all of western Geminate. Watched Majesta grow into an arguably powerful nullsec alliance.
(Feeling a little like James K. Polk, accomplishing all that in the span of a six-month term in office.)
Then I managed to lose the next election. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth.
So I’ve decided to take a break from political life and get back to doing the other thing I love to do in EVE: Take a single ship deep into enemy territory, wander around and cause as much trouble as I can before dying horribly, then tell the story of what happened to you, my dear readers, to whom I must apologize for being absent for so long.
I haven’t been idle during this hiatus; I’m now able to fly the ships of all four races up through command ships, and I’ve added to my repertoire of fittings, tactics and skills considerably. My tastes have gotten more expensive; my favorite solo ships are now the Dramiel, Cynabal and Sleipnir. I’ve even pulled a blackops hotdrop on an unsuspecting ratter. And just a few days from now, I’ll be taking delivery on an Aeon-class supercarrier. (Breathe easy, corpmates, that’s one ship I won’t be soloing in.)
I’ve just spent most of the last week with my main living entirely in Cache, and I have many stories to tell you. Stay tuned.
In The Queue
It’s been a bit quiet around here lately, in a large part because I have been saving isk to buy a dreadnought in a few weeks, and no isk means no solo PVP (because, in case you haven’t noticed, one dies a lot). However, I have managed to squeeze in a few little roams, which I look forward to telling you, my loyal readers, all about.
Here’s a taste of my recent adventures, and what’s coming:
- A corpmate forgets to turn his guns off.
- An Ishkur pilot gets a nasty suprise.
- Taranis vs. Crusader tactics.
- A blood-chilling tale of the paralyzing horror Sansha’s Nightmare can bring when it lands on top of you, and the paranoia that lets you survive
All this, and possibly a foray into the realm of fiction, coming soon.
An excellent solo PVP thread
I have a confession to make: I’ve only been an interceptor pilot for a couple of weeks now. Shameful, I know. But even though it’s not about either of the ceptors I fly (Crow and Crusader), I found this guide to solo PVP in a Taranis over on the EVE forums enormously helpful. It’s a must read for any interceptor pilot.
Morsus Got ‘Im
The Hurricane I fought the other day got bagged by Morsus Mihi (with some help from Majesta) in WH-JCA. I thought I would link the kill here, since it’s always cool to see the fittings of the stuff you’ve fought:
http://kb.majesta-empire.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=66869
I’m kind of curious to fly a Hurricane some time.
In Which Our Hero Achieves Partial Success
A pilot named Dolmatin from the rather uniquely named Orange Orchestra corporation went on a rampage in Vale of the Silent and Tribute, killing ratters and generally wreaking havoc. He was showing off how the combination of speed, DPS and capacitor independence makes the Hurricane an excellent solo ship while ripping to shreds or running away from everything that came after him.
I could not allow a challenge like this to go unanswered. Hopping in my latest experimental solo Rook fit, a lightly tanked version optimized for DPS and truly serious ECM capability, I went after him. The merry chase went on for five jumps out of Majesta Empire space and into Morsus Mihi’s section of Tribute. As I chased the Hurricane he managed to kill a Morsus Falcon (which I can only assume was asleep at the wheel or something) before I finally caught up to him.
The Hurricane managed to warp before I could lock him not once but twice; only my T2 cruiser’s superior warp speed allowed me to keep up with him. Just past the border to Venal, he decided to stop and fight me, as we were alone in system and it had become obvious that I was burning after him alone.
His first volley put me at half shields, but it didn’t matter – he never got a second volley. I put a Minmatar racial jammer on him and he did not get to fire another shot. Instead my Hobgoblin IIs screamed out and orbited him while I slammed him with Caldari Navy Thunderbolt missiles. He activated his microwarpdrive and started orbiting, trying to lessen my DPS while waiting for me to miss a cycle, but to no avail.
Dolmartin soon did the smart thing and aligned to warp out, his MWD letting him burn out of my disruptor’s range easily enough, and he fled the field just as he entered armor. I couldn’t fault him for withdrawing at that point; it was the only sensible thing to do, and while I would have loved to have gotten a kill on him I will content myself with having won the engagement and driven him off. I pursued him as long as I could, but he was soon long gone.
PVP Blog Spotlight: Ethereal Navy
Securitas Protector of Ethereal Dawn has set up a very promising-looking blog dedicated to the field of PVP with covert and black ops ships. It is an area ripe for innovation, with the changes to black ops battleships and stealth bombers bringing a new wealth of possibilities. Securitas has found a niche for himself as a blackops fleet commander, and I can attest to the effectiveness of their tactics firsthand. I strongly recommend you give it a read!
Ethereal Navy: Commanding An EVE Blackops Team
EPIME 1v1 Cruiser Tournament!
Starting next Friday I’ll be running a special set of features. I am hosting a 1v1 cruiser tournament for my corpmates, with prizes for the winner and runner-up. I’ll give a blow by blow of the matches and see about frapsing them for Youtube as well. It should be some great 1v1 action!
Well, that wasn’t SUPPOSED to be a 1v1…
There is a cliché scene that pops up in action movies once in a while. You know, the one where hero A is busy frantically fighting for his life in the next room while his buddy hero B listens to really loud music or watches TV or something. By the time hero B wakes up to the fact that there’s a fight on, it’s all over.
So it was when my old pal and ex-corpmate Felix Underwood went on a wee little roam through Venal with me. I was in my Rook, and he was in his Deimos. We passed through a great many empty systems, and as I jumped into JURU-T I was suprised to see a neut in local – ewquilibrium from WEPRA Corp. I excitedly told Felix in fleet chat (voice comms were out for both of us due to trying to not wake our respective significant others) that I had a Dominix on scan.
So far, all was well. I narrowed down the Dominix almost instantly and warped to the belt, landing right on top of him – he had been sitting at 0 on the warpin point. The setup was perfect: he had just gotten full aggro from a 3-battleship spawn, so he was already taking very heavy fire. Chortling, I stuck a two-point scram on him along with missiles, drones and ECM. I was confident of victory, between my ECM and over 800 dps between me and my friend in the Deimos, plus the rat DPS, the Domi would surely fold.
The Dominix is jammed and going down nicely, but I notice that I don’t seem to have gotten a reply from Felix. I poke him in fleet chat again, wishing he would hurry up.
Silence. Felix? Anybody home? Uh, I could use some help here…
Still nothing. Finally my jammers missed a cycle and the Domi gets drones and energy neutralizers on me. His drones aren’t hurting me terribly badly, but the energy neutralizers will eventually kill my jammers and my invul fields, so I started screaming at Felix in fleet, wondering where the hell he is.
Felix finally wakes up and warps in just in time to see my neuted, helpless Rook go poof. While I was fighting for my life… he’d been looking at the map. 
I am fairly proud of the fact that I had that Domi almost in structure despite the neutralizers. Unfortunately, without my ECM support, the Deimos turned into a Diemost as he was neuted into oblivion and unable to finish the job with his highly cap-dependant blasters.
Here endeth today’s lesson: Don’t get into a fight expecting backup without first making sure that your backup is aware that action is coming!
The Solo Ship Of My Dreams
One day, when I own my own personal dysprosium moon, I want this:
[Tengu, cloaky pvp]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
10MN Afterburner II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Warp Disruptor II
‘Hypnos’ Multispectral ECM I
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Core Defence Field Extender I
Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Bay Loading Accelerator I
Tengu Offensive – Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Electronics – Dissolution Sequencer
Tengu Defensive – Supplemental Screening
Tengu Propulsion – Interdiction Nullifier
Tengu Engineering – Power Core Multiplier
Resists: 57.1/89.7/84.5/74.1, EHP 67,884
DPS: 394 with Rage torps and CN Antimatter @18km
Sensor strength 35
Warps cloaked and ignores interdiction bubbles.
It even looks sexy.
DO WANT.
A Fatal Pilgrimage, Part One: It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This
I have occasionally heard the Pilgrim’s virtues extolled as a solo ship: sure, it has next to no DPS to speak of, but it can sneak up on enemies undetected and wipe out their capacitor in short order, then let its drones peck away at them until they fall. By all reports it is an extremely tricky ship to fly but can be very rewarding. I’ve occasionally pondered the idea of giving one a try, and when I happened upon a rigged Pilgrim being sold for the cost of an unrigged one, I could not resist picking it up and giving it a try. I already had most of the fittings sitting in my hangar in TVN, looted from Curses long past, so I felt that I had little to lose.
I went on the great loop out from Vale of the Silent into Venal, from TVN to QFF to 3A1, and from there swinging down into H-PA, turning east again at P-F and back out of Venal at Y-W. Blue North was bloody Blue. Even H-PA, wretched hive of scum and villainy that it usually is, was full of friendly faces who waved in local as I went by.
Oddly enough I was just out of Venal, one jump back into Vale of the Silent, when I came upon a lone neutral. Cloaking my Pilgrim and hitting the d-scan, I saw a ton of wrecks and one lone Apocalypse in the area – with no POSes to be seen. I started moving around and trying to narrow down what belt the Apoc was in, expecting him to either log or zoom to a POS at literally any second. But today, for once, luck was with me as the Apocalypse kept right on ratting. I finally caught up with him in one of the lower belts, idly shooting at a two-battlecruiser spawn with a pair of attending frigates.
This was perfect. An unwary Apocalypse, that most capacitor-dependant of battleships, alone in a belt with no allies as far as the eye could see, and me in a Pilgrim able to leave him quite toothless and undefended. I couldn’t believe it! After two weeks of fruitless searching and upwards of a billion isk in losses, I had finally found what I had set out to find: a careless ratter and a decent ship to take him on with.
Of course, this is precisely where my brain ceased to function. The only thought left in my mind was OMG TARGET MUST ATTACK.
Stay tuned for Part Two of this post, in which the reader is given an object lesson in why it is important not to let eagerness cloud your judgement.