25/08/10 15:39 PM
| Jaspet | 55.92 |
| Omber | 55.99 |
| Hemorphite | 62.18 |
| Pyroxeres | 68.21 |
| Hedbergite | 74.04 |
| Veldspar | 65.77 |
| Kernite | 88.68 |
| Plagioclase | 84.13 |
| Scordite | 68.17 |
| Spodumain | 75.94 |
| Dark Ochre | 95.49 |
| Gneiss | 95.24 |
| Crokite | 172.65 |
| Bistot | 216.26 |
| Arkonor | 270.56 |
|
On Moving Slowly And Taking Notes
[caption id="attachment_813" align="alignright" width="309" caption="Sisters of the Guardian"]  [/caption]
We managed to scan out our static and a connecting class 5 wormhole with some nice gas and anomalies. The static was a class two, which no doubt affected the desirability of said wormhole. After some random dithering and discussion, we decided we had sufficient fleet strength and numbers to check out some of the combat opportunities. It helped to sway us that the system contained a Cataclysmic Variable spacial anomaly that works heavily in favour of our chose remote repair strategy. In fact, it means that the large remote armor repair modules mounted on our Guardian logistics ships are 85% more effective!
The Vital Core Reservoir is known to have a couple of Sleepless Keeper battleship sized drones in it and we haven’t faced this particular kind before. Our initial plan of attack involves a fleet of Mr.’s Maelstrom, Scorpion, Dominix and Rook, and finally the Sisters of the Guardian2 for the first encounter. Since the person who scanned down the site had warped to it previously, the enemy was right at hand and waiting to be studied and evaluated. The Guardians quickly set up their logistics lock while Mr.’s Scorpion and Rook began to jam the two battleship class ships. Someone somewhere was writing all this down and making notes about comparable lock times, ECM resistance levels and initial alpha strikes from the ships. Once the initial observations were made, first one and then both battleships were allowed to regain locks and incoming damage assessment began. We were pleasantly surprised with our results and proceeded to just pummel the poor ships after gaining our data.
After gathering some basic intelligence reports from this Ladar, we opted to do the same with a combat site. The results were similarly enlightening and led to some nice discussions about the prospects of future class 5 wormhole colonisation. One of the things we noticed was the slight change from a higher alpha strike to a more sustained DPS. Whereas when we moved from a class 3 to the first class 4 site was the noticeable increase in the first wave of incoming damage. This was probably due in part to our slightly lower skills, unknown expectations and difficult fleet composition. The intervening months have taught us a great deal about how to operate together more efficiently. We were later joined by our Ms. Abaddon pilot and Mr. Frigate Ganking Harbinger. The increased DPS mitigated some of the ECM needs, so Mr. Rook flew off to expedite the salvage operation.
While not an overall cake walk [buy ticket, listen to music, note number, pick up cake] it was certainly an enjoyable exploration of a possible future direction. Little Mr. Harbi took one in the chin as without an explosive armor hardner, even the 8 combined, staggered, drone-assisted, Cataclysmic Variable boosted remote repairs from the Sisters of G2 could help survive the incoming damage. He ping-ponged in and out of structure [full armor, then 95% structure, full armor, 80% structure, full armor, then still lower structure, full armor, 25% structure, full armor, 5% structure] until finally entertaining us with a nice puff of atmospherics and some light. It helped that it was a highly profitable evening with the combat portion of the exploration hovering around 1 billion in revenue for a couple hours work and research.
To cap off the night, a couple of ran back and harvested the 300 million isk gas cloud as there are some friends who would like those polymers. Good deeds and all.
On Friends Coming To Join Us
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="128" caption="Bandits In The Hole"]  [/caption]
This last week or so has seen our good friends and alliance-mates the Fearless Bandits come out to play. They are mainly the Greater Realms’ highsec mission and PVE corporation but they are looking for some diversion and adventure so they have trundled out to the wormhole to set up shop. They have already proven their worth on multiple occasions previously, have been a part of the alliance planning and development from the beginning and we are thrilled to have them along for the ride. It is always a good thing to have more friends around.
While they are primarily focused on mission running in high security, Empire space, they have very quickly adapted to life out in the ‘holes. There are still questions to be considered and answers to deliver, but it’s still a pleasant addition. They now have their own tower up and happily living from it as they join us for several combined operations. Initially they packed light and so we’ve loaned out a few of our now standard fits for them to use. It has helped to know exactly what they are flying and how it should perform in integrating them into our “well-oiled machine” [insert laughter here].
In addition to FEARL coming out to play, we’ve added several new faces who are old faces come round again. Some former corp-mates from long before have finally rejoined us and really stepped out mining/refining game. Hats off to them for helping to capitalise on the resources we just had floating around for lack of more barge pilots.
On Running Out To High-Sec For Some Groceries
As I slip into my ship, I get an incoming com from one of our pilots. He’s actually the only other pilot right now. He mentions that there’s a four jump exit to high-sec and he’s going out to grab some Quafe as it’s getting dry here at home. I am also rather keen to grab a new book or two to read as I’m nearly finished with the current series I’m reading, Recon. It has been a really good series with lots of fun times and some new information along the way, but by the fifth one in the series, it was getting a bit long winded. I am usually patient about finishing the books I start, but for some reason Recon drug by. The Exhumer series seemed to go much faster and even finishing up reading the Astrometric Rangefinding series rather quickly, though it was published under another title.
[caption id="attachment_799" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="New Mini Game?"]  [/caption]
As the other pilot hit the last system before k-space, he reports back that there is small bubble on the hole but poorly placed. Knowing that he’s intending to bring a ship back through, I volunteer to do some bubble popping. I decide that since it is not absolutely essential that I clear the bubble out quickly [other pilot has several jumps to get his ship picked up] and I do not really want to waste any ammo on the stupid thing [sig-rad is tiny on those things] I opt for a pulse Coercer. For those that maybe know some of the ships I usually fly, this is a fairly wide departure [not because it is Amarr] because I am exceptionally unskilled at laser turrets. This almost seems counter culture to flying ships in space, but the reality is, they just never appealed to me all that much. So I trundle the three jumps to the bubbled hole and jump through. Sure enough, a bubble greets me, but I am immune to its psychological effects and uncloak and lock it up. I start flying with the beams of light and watch as the shields on the bubble start to melt satisfyingly, albeit not too terribly fast.
Suddenly, there is a sound, a flash of light [or darkness], and there is a Tengu sitting 10 km off my stern and beginning to lock my ship. Ack, alas and alack, I am in a destroyer fit with racks of heat sinks and some cap rechargers. This is not going to be a fight, it’s going to be a little blip in the pond. Salvo 1 and the shields are gone. Salvo 2 and I am trying to remember if my clone was up-to-date. Salvo 3 and at 30% shields it dawns on me that I have not moved since I jumped into this system and the wormhole is still right there. I start spamming the jump button hoping that my poor ship [actually someone else's poor ship that I borrowed] will hold together until the session change starts. Lo, there is sound and light again and I’m sitting in a distinctly different location though with about 2% of my armor left and thankfully no structure damage.
Not waiting to see if Mr. Don’t Harsh My Bubble decides to follow for the kill, I immediately start heading back home to rethink my strategy in light of the change in situation. I update the pilot out on his shopping spree and he is easily swayed into agreeing that we should ‘defend’ ourselves [ignoring the fact that we may have, um, started things] and try and catch the sneaky, wormhole camping strategic cruiser.
[caption id="attachment_802" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Strats on the Brain"] [/caption]
As a bit of an aside, I have been thinking a lot about the ‘strats’ both from the perspective of picking one up myself as well as their reputation. Though they deserve the kudos they get for being good at a lot of things and their ability to quickly specialise at something extremely well, they are still ships. They can and do die with increasing frequency. From this I have a couple of electrifying bolts of insight:
- There are a lot of really bad ship fittings in the universe.
- Everyone and their clone is buying ‘strats’.
- The sheer number of possible fittings is confusing to say the least.
- Someone is bound to get it wrong, sometime.
and
- How much of their reputation is based on fear.
So we decide to ship up in something suitably pointy and head back and ‘defend’ our right to fly through a system they are living in. The ship shopper contacts another pilot and he slips into our well crafted bait ship to draw the Tengu pilot into engaging. In this case it is a Harbinger that we managed to forget to refit before heading out. It has lasers… well, it has lasers. Ship shopper jumps in a Lachesis to get the long range point and damp the Tengu’s range. I waver between using the Pilgrim that I just finished studying up for or something else. In the end, my rather uncommon sense wins out and I opt for a Rook because the Tengu did not have any turrets when he attacked me. We move out, hoping that we can still catch him and that he does not have a scout on our side of his wormhole [we would have] or backup [we are not likely to think about having backup until we see structural damage].
At the wormhole, things seem quiet and so we engage in some tribal war calls and Bait is sent through to begin bubble burning and we sit in quiet contemplation of the swirling colours around us. In a few seconds we get the call, “Tengu uncloaked at 60km and locking,” to which we indecisively wonder if that is within our engagement range. Bait is ordered to try and kite him in the other direction for a few seconds and we prep to jump. As Bait’s shields finally disappear, we jump in and begin racing for the Tengu. He’s closed to within 50 of the hole and Ship Shopper is able to get a point. I’m able to lock but the first round of jams all fail which causes a bit of distress for Bait. About this time a fourth pilot joins us in his Curse. His neutralisers are welcome, but I’m unsure how effective. His drone on the other hand are very good at what they do.
In order to keep this from going too well, Tengu’s tango partner, Dr. Maelstrom lands 100km off an starts pinging at Bait as well. The ECM kicks in on round two and I try one on the Dr., and manage to get off a lucky strike [Caldari racial jammer on a Minmatar ship] which saves Bait who by now is flaming. Tengu has not been able to do anything since Ship Shopper and I got him damped and locked down and we begin to see his shields crumple. At about 10% shields the Maelstrom warps off just as Bait returns from the nearby planet to get in range of the wormhole [which was still bubbled, but remember, poorly]. The rest of the skirmish flashes by as the bubble-baitings, cloaky camping, terrible Tengu shatters in a sparkling shower of light and we fail to get a lock on the pod. Curse, Ship Shopper and I manage to loot the wreck on the way out of the system. Fearing a larger reprisal, we opt to not target the bubble and head back to our own home. Before we jump, the Tengu pilot lets fly with a ‘gf’ in local and we respond by thanking him for sticking the fight. As we’re warping through another system, Curse asks what a ‘Smokescreen’ Covert Ops Cloak is.
On Remembering Everything You Should Be Doing
So you are out roaming with your friend(s) hoping to find some juicy targets to jump on and clone them back home. What all do you need? Too many things pop into my head – match-up evaluation, situational awareness, environmental factors, meta-game factors, relationships, insurance, cost-benefit analysis [just say no]… and it all makes my head hurt. We’re primarily carebears, so our version of PVP usually involves something along the lines of [edit - fictional conversation following, names have been changed to protect the idiots and events have been altered for greater emphasis on the often humorous way we approach life in general]:
<pilot 1>: I got a <insert ship name> on d-scan in the C<number> two holes out.
<pilot 2>: At a tower?
<pilot 1>: Checking… Nope, want I should scan him down.
<pilot 3>: Reshipping to something pointy.
<pilot 2>: Get a warp-in and we’re on our way.
<pilot 1>: kk – can do.
<pilot 2>: ok, I got my Pilgrim – what are we doing again?
<pilot 1>: hunting wabbits – and get something more pointy as <insert different ship name> is a tough nut to crack
<pilot 3>: Huh? I thought we were going after a tower?
<pilot 2>: How about my Onyx?
<pilot 3>: How’s it fit?
<pilot 2>: HAMs and triple extenders, single WDFG.
<pilot 3>: Meh, won’t be much good against the tower.
<pilot 1>: oooh, you got a tower to shoot? I’m coming back to get the pulse ‘geddon.
<pilot 3>: I thought you had a tower to shoot?
<pilot 2>: I have an Imicus scrammed at our hole!
<pilot 1>: no, I was looking at a <insert still another different ship type>, but it’s unmanned at the tower.
<pilot 3>: Oh – I see, well time to go pick up the significant other at the airport, good luck with the killing.
<pilot 2>: no no no, omg, no – I’m dying to an imicus!
<pilot 1>: huh, you’re in an Onyx, how?
<pilot 2>: No, went back to the Pilgrim but forgot to online all my modules.
<pilot 2>: Gah – new implants for me… goodnight, see you all later.
<pilot 1>: Grah – newbs.
<pilot 4>: o/ Hello Pilot 1, how goes it.
<pilot 1>: you just missed 2 get waxed by an Imicus in his Pilgrim.
<pilot 4>: *snap*, anything else up?
<pilot 1>: got a couple of barges at a grav in c3, 2 jumps out, bms in the can, I’m manoeuvring in for a warp in.
<pilot 4>: cool – omw, HIC ok?
<pilot 1>: great. WH is off dscan so jump in and hold for warp in.
This doesn’t actually reflect any given conversation per se, but the contents are indicative of the great B-film classic, When Carebears Attack as seen somewhere dark and seedy, I am sure. We tend to do a lot of things to excess – too much discussion, too much consideration, too much talking, too much DPS or too much tank, too much flying around in circles, too much laughter and way too much fun. We tend to lack a good sense of: when to engage, when to run away, when to call it quits, what to fly at any given moment, what kind of wine goes good with the cafeteria’s mystery meat and how we managed to get along as well as we have without being utterly wiped out of the wormholes we live.
Mad props to our friends who help us along the way. Kudos to the people who are scanning stuff down faster than we can process them all. Congratulation to those pilots who’ve only managed to lose a couple of ships recently and even more to the ones who’ve taken their opponents down first.
Initially when we moved out into wormhole space, it was to explore, tap some of the untold riches and just see if we could survive. We managed to survive, so then we started practising getting better at “running away” and “not dying” as much. Lately we’ve moved from the running away [though we still do on occasion] to initiating conflict [sometimes at an alarming rate] and learning some lessons about how to actually have more ships than the enemy at the end of combat. At then end of the day, we’re happy when we live, resigned to the losses we incur and determined to carebear our way right through the next fleet we see.
On Cleaning Up The Moons Of Wormhole Space
I happen to wake up in my Buzzard next to the tower to a flurry of activity. Seems one of our pilots has found a tower that is offline a couple of wormhole jumps away. This is little cause for flurries or activity, unless said tower has of particular value to it. And wouldn’t you know it, this tower has a Corp Hangar Array and Ship Maintenance Array as well as, 2 refineries, about 30 gun batteries and a dozen or so various electronic warfare batteries. Rapid structural eliurination reveals a dozen shuttles and several larger boats from the SMA and the CHA produces a lot of Tech 2 equipment and tower arrays and batteries. Several quick transport runs are made due to the presence of potentially hostile forces in a nearby location.
Fully intent upon cleaning up the wayward detritus floating around this distant moon, we loaded up in as many laser ships as we could find and headed out to uproot the tower so that full salvage operations could begin. After a time, an incoming com-link was requested by the tower’s negligent owners. He explained that they had been cut off from their tower and were actually in the process of trying to get everything out when the estrangement occurred. They were prepared to pay up to three hundred million for bookmarks to the tower’s current location. Given the tower was worth more than that and there were at least another 250 milllion in arrays and batteries around it, the offer was declined. A negotiable counter offer of 1 billion was made to offset the time cost of scanning out a location and leaving everything in place. This was additionally declined. At a seeming impasse, preparations were made to fully remove the structures.
The initial fleet was battleships to the rescue complete with portable batteries [Guardian] to keep them firing continually. The change to end of life of the wormhole to our system resulted in a refit to battlecruisers across the board, so the Harbinger gank squad rolled out [plus one Coercer for a pansy industrialist without proper laser skills]. This continued until [insert rational reason for downtime] at which point we safed and planned to return to shooting and looting. One of the keys to this plan was the presence of a Badger Mk II from the aforementioned SMA. The plan was to remove the tower, yank the other modules out to highsec with the indy and call it a day. Along the way a couple things happened to kink said plan.
Firstly, the fleet wasn’t able to reassemble until much later, putting a strain on everyone’s respective schedules. Secondly, the delay allowed a fairly non-trivial portion of the shields to recoup [approximately 10%]. And finally, the static wormhole was too small to fly a covetor through. We grabbed the last of the loot we could, popped the barge and headed out. Our corp-mates had another highsec entrance for us only 12 jumps away through crazy random happenstance. In short order we were all home again and back in normal ships looking for something to do [where do is roughly defined as shoot].
On Going Backwards For A Bit
First, a Public Service Announcement from WHEN. Pro-Tip: Cloak, THEN scan. Recently while scanning, two of my corp-mates cornered a day-tripping scanner in a nearby class 1 wormhole and sent him home, express postage paid. Even in a Tech 1 frigate, fit a cloak if you are going to be scanning. Additionally keep your eyes peeled and on the d-scan. Your first sign of danger shouldn’t be the sound of ammunition pummelling into your hull!
The Wormhole Engineers have done a fabulous job of clearing out the anomalies and signatures in our home system. The standard mode of operations is:
- Scan out the static exit.
- See how deep the rabbit hole goes.
- Prioritise the resources located.
- Secure the area.
- Collect as much as feasible given personnel, skills and equipment.
Numbers one and two happen almost automatically now. It’s become an engrained response to the place we choose to live. Number 3 is somewhat amorphous and can change dynamically [It's the nature of priorities.]. Number 4 can be difficult as there are times when we can easily tell we are out-matched and our best course of action is closing the w’hole as quickly as possible. Sometimes number 4 involves shooting other ships, as was seen in the recent expedition into the nearby class 1. In addition to the uncloaked, and possibly AFK scanner, a salvage-Stabber was chased down and shown the door.
Second, a Public Service Announcement from WHEN. Pro-Tip: Don’t leave a salvager behind to clean up. Especially don’t leave a salvager behind to clean up when:
- A Corp-mate just got podded,
- the wormhole you came in through is end-of-life,
- The poor salvager doesn’t have a probe launcher fit,
- The straggler doesn’t have bookmarks for the other w’holes in the system.
Having done all this, we eschew the neighbouring class 4 system with its relative dearth of anomalies and sites to pursue the cheap candy covered thrills of the class 1 conveniently left behind by the previous, unfortunate visitors. A few minutes are spent debating the relative merits/demerits/benefits/challenges of flying various fleets to best capitalise on the class one in the most efficient manner. In the end, efficiency really becomes less of a concern when dealing with things that can be handled solo. We each hop into our preferred ships and head off to clean up the Sleeper detritus infecting said system.
With the static highsec exit left unscanned/warped, we are able to work in relative safety. Our motley crew ends up being a heavy missile Drake sporting siege warfare links, a heavy assault missile Drake equipped to both hack and analyse [2 magnetometric sites and 1 radar site present] and an Ishtar we half-jokingly refer to as the Salva-Tar for it’s ability to clean up the wrecks as we go along. After a few quick moments we realise that we are not only overkill for a class 1, we are way over tanked as a fleet and begin to split up. Salva-Tar goes back and grabs a specialised salvage boat,the HML drake goes on to the next site and hack Drake finished up on the cans. Joining the HML, the hack-Drake helps make short work of site two and the scenario is repeated for site three. All-in-all, the Drake really proved itself as a wonderful jack of all trades for cleaning up a class 1 wormhole.
In the end, the spoils were average for a class 1, and seemingly low in comparison to doing the same sites in our home class 4, but the evening was in reality a resounding success. We tracked down and killed two defenceless carebears, avoided reprisal, ran several combat sites that were quite beneath our level and left with all of the candy. It was good to feel confident, in control and powerful – if only for a moment. I know that soon we’ll be podded by bigger boys in badder boats and ganked by girls with guns.
On Killing and Being Killed In A Wormhole
If you are going to fly in a wormhole, you are going to die. A lot. For a good summary of how that can happen, check out miningzen’s wonderful post on the subject. The reality is that you are going die everywhere you fly. Like the somewhat over generalised statement, “There are two types of capsuleers: Those that have been killed and; Those that are soon going to be.” Until Incarna, you are safe in the stations, otherwise, you are likely to have a deep and meaningful relationship with the subroutines that automate the transfer of consciousness into your next clone. As an impartial and biased observer, I can fully admit that I am very good at the whole dying game. As an industrial backgrounded character, my Osprey cruiser was as ineffective at resisting incoming damage as it was at chipping veldspar off of floating rocks. Very.
Flashing forward quickly to the present – I wake up in my pod [AT THE POS - I'M NOT DEAD YET] and am greeted with the news that my corpmates have recently stalked down and liquidated a salvage Hurricane and a Brutix in a nearby class one system. It seems that WHEN. pilots have finally shed any residual carebearistic tendencies and are fully blooded now. Well, with the exception of myself. Remember the part where I die a lot – usually first and before being able to contribute towards a successful attack? I was determined to not let that happen again. Ok, determined not to let that happen, every time.
A couple days before, our good buddies sometimes allies, Revival of the Talocan Empire had managed to screw up their settings for the fourth or fifth time and shot my Drake into tiny, tiny little pieces. Probably could have avoided any real hostilities if I had just idled in the tower, but I was incensed. The cheeky bastards bombed my tower! So I threw wads of flaming isk at them in protest. I had managed to bring a new ship into the tower and was considering how to refit for PVP even though I was well aware the the Core Defence Field Purger rigs that it still had on it were less than ideal for combat against other capsuleers.
In the aftermath of the ‘Cane/Brutix killing and clean up operation, one of our pilots noticed an odd dance of sorts going on. It seems that a couple of stealth bombers from the system’s current occupants were trying to harass a Nighthawk that was out running combat sites. They would warp in, drop a bomb and fly away all the while not doing a very good job at being stealth in either their approach, bombing or running away. At one point, the Nighthawk and a helper managed to catch one of them and quickly pop them. At this same time, a couple of our real friends pop up in chat and ask if we have anything they can shoot at. Bingo.
An ad hoc fleet goes up, and are met at the high sec side of the wormhole. I quickly jump into Shhhhh, a corp-mate‘s Manticore class stealth bomber and after loading the bookmarks am off at all speed to meet them. Two wormholes later, I am able to warp within 100 km of them and maintain my cloak the whole way. I begin motoring in toward them and looking for the best position to provide a drop point for our fleet. They finish up the site and start idling while a friendly Pilgrim and destroyer show up and begin looting and salvaging. Noticing that the fleet’s incoming wormhole is out of range of the directional scan, we call the fleet to jump through into the system and make ready to pounce. I managed to fly under their formation and come up, directly underneath them. Each of them is about 4-5 km from me. My heart is pounding and I’m absolutely sure they will launch drones or twitch and decloak me. Just as we say ‘GO’ they finish and warp away! Huh?
A combination of the locals trying to be aggressive and them finding another site to run, they had moved on. Quickly warping to the next anomaly on the list doesn’t show them and the fleet is sent off to a out of range planet to reform. The other stealth bomber has them and warping to him at 70 km manages to preserve my cloak but put me 105 km from them. I begin the crawl toward them and at 60 km the other SB is in perfect position to have the fleet engage. The fleet warps in, bubbles up and open fires. I drop cloak and start unloading torps as fast as I can, trying to burn toward them. The Pilgrim was just on the edge of the bubble and manages to get away, but the Nighthawk is right in the middle and soon goes up in a small but very satisfying ball of flame. Switching targets to the Prophecy, I am suddenly relieved of my ship and decide that it’s time to get into something a bit more secure than my pod. Before I am able to even reach the wormhole headed back to our tower, the comms light up with the news that the large, brick-like, Amarrian battlecruiser has also gone down.
So I managed to finally get a kill, and a Nighthawk at that. I am very grateful to all of our friends for their help and for flying with us. I still managed to lose a ship in combat, but at least I was able to contribute to a successful outcome. We salvaged the rest of their wrecks and were able to come out a head after replacing the two stealth bombers we lost.
Addendum: It was all a short-lived lie. Three days later I managed to find a Sacrilege, Vagabond, Devoter and a Jaguar waiting for me at a new wormhole. It was one of my shorter engagements. A few days later I ignored a yawn at the tower and flew off to support a couple corp-mates at a wormhole camp. I think I fell asleep mid-warp [it was +120 AU] and woke up in a new clone somewhere else. Apparently we had been ambushed from behind as third group of participants had found another hole into the same system and decided we looked tasty. Well, I did. Fortunately the others were able to get out of harms way.
My corporate compadres, denizens of Domnion, wanton wormhole wanna-be’s are relentlessly reminding me that it has been a week two weeks nearly three weeks since I posted any information. I’ve been sorely remiss in spending much time posting information here, as I’ve been busy trying to live life in a pod out in the wilds of Apocrypha. Dominion brought some changes, but nothing overly significant to the capsuleers who fly here the wormhole. So then the question I need to answer to myself is, “What has happened?”
We’re still in the same system and we’ve managed to pick up another regular engineer. He really seems to be settling into the opportunities that exist out here in the unknown and is always eager to learn more. He laughs at our attempts to explain that living out of one or more metal boxes powered by a large metal candy cane is a “Lifestyle Choice,” but is excited about the future. We’ll have to revisit the idealism when he’s been ganked a coupled of times, podded and otherwise thrown under the bus [bus being a euphemism for Tech 2 ships with overwhelming firepower and numbers.]
The ability to run sites has picked up some as well with a fairly balanced effort at participation from all involved. We have tried [and been fairly successful] in making everything a concerted group effort, though the industrial side of things is still a bit of a struggle. The new guy has been very giddy about not only mining Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite, but being able to be compensated for it without having to worry about the market, hauling, refining, et cetra. We’re excited about his excitement too. Along the way we’ve become very adroit at operating together as a unit and understanding each others’ strengths and weaknesses. In many ways our efficiency is finally picking up and coming together.
The flip side of this situation is that we are also beginning to realize just how isolated we are. Our jargon and vocabulary has shifted significantly and we communicate in seeming nonsense to some of our corp-mates. We haul our “bloot” to market, we talk about our gases and our pre-warps, we know that “@#$@” and “aoliv89#*&” mean someone is about to die. We have reached the point where we know within a few million isk how much a particular site is worth. We can judge approximate time frames for running those sites. We have become fairly comfortable with suggesting fittings and I would go as far as to say know what should work. We have established procedures for scanning, scouting, bookmarking, mining, fighting, etc that aren’t really written down in electrons anywhere.
This is all to say that as we add new people to our endeavor out in the uncharted realms of otherwhen, we’ll be struggling not only to bring them up-to-speed, but also even just communicate.
Technorati Tags: old players, new players
With the last wormhole processing wrapped up and the current one in preparation, we’ve decided to make some modifications to our approach. As we’ve been increasingly been in contact with forces that do not have our best interests in mind. Pirates, would be invaders and even other carebears, er industrialists want to use our space for their own gains. It would be fair to stay that until now, we have been fairly tolerant of visitors, as long as we are able to go about our business. Thus we arrive at something that has been coming for some time, but has been put off several times.
Enter the Suicide Death Squad – Dark Star Division for controlling the amount of time we end up having to do things differently. The basic premise is the fact that many of the people looking to have their presence felt in our system are more interested in the numbers. They want to see such things as, “Total Isk Destroyed” and “Isk Recovered” and “Loot Stolen”. We evaluated our options with regard to said mentality and decided on a course of action. For now I’ll sit on the details, but will let you know how it works out.
I  ‘m staring down a long dark hallway that is only dimly lit with some bioluminescent globes that are spaced much too far apart to give any sort of definition to the length or features of the corridor. I cannot see the end, nor can I see any distinguishable openings or portals either. My choices now are to turn around and abandon this path or proceed onward to see what will become of it. Where will it lead…? What have I begun…? What have I become…?
And so my thoughts on beginning the journey towards my current skill objective come to the fore. I’ve had long training plans before. They got me into my Covetor and my Hulk and have helped me max out most of my core skills [AWU - I love/hate you]. They are not pleasant to watch, but they are fun to achieve. Kirith Kodachi has kept many people entertained with his own regales of routines passed on his way to the Ninveah and later a ill-fated Nighthawk.
 My own plans are much more modest. I am working toward the skill set needed for the Amarrian Fleet Command Ship, Damnation. The die has been cast and the decision made. Currently I’m just getting rolling on my Battlecruiser V training. Then it’s a relatively shorter time to Amarr Cruiser V, Warfare Link Specialist IV, and Logistics IV. I’m already excited, but trying to temper that elation with the knowledge that it will still be awhile. I’m also trying really hard to ignore the results of my rather Scientific Background which includes such minor details as having pants for offensive skills. I’ll need to pick up some more training in heavy missiles and heavy assault missiles to be an effective fleet member.
 The impetus for this impulse is the desire for our fleet to be able to run sleeper sites more quickly and efficiently. With the added range for HAM’s, I think it might even be useful to fit them. With a couple cheap [it's all relative right?] rigs I can fling a HAM out to 40 km for approximately 260 DPS and just a smidge over 1,000 alpha strike volley. This is modest damage, but coupled with the ability to be cap stable while running both RR and links is too hard to ignore. In the meantime, I’m an entertaining myself by pasting pictures of my new ship all over the inside of my pod. [In case you hadn't noticed them all over this post by now. I'm also playing around with fittings for Al Abd [the name I've already chosen].
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