Karaoke Corner #4: Can You Hear My Guns Tonight.

The Song is Can You Feel The Love Tonight.

You should just surrender, You've run out of luck,
Pull the drones in and pay the man, or I'll blow you up.
You think I am joking, low-sec is my home.
If you plan to mission here again, please update your clone.

And can you hear my guns tonight
I have probed you out.
Don't you know, I'm a deep space pirater,
No one hears you shout.
And can you hear my guns tonight
Ask for help from god,
Backup's here, it's a Crow and Vagabond,
I'll just pop your pod.

There's time here for everyone if they'll only wait,
This Rupture and that Raven that we all know is bait,
Lose a Navy Mega, just to sate your pride,
Your expensive loot will pay for me to go pimp out my ride,

And can you hear my guns tonight
I have probed you out.
Don't you know, I'm a deep space pirater,
No one hears you shout.
And can you hear my guns tonight
Ask for help from god,
Backup's here, it's a Crow and Vagabond,
I'll just pop your pod.

Backup's here, it's a Crow and Vagabond,
I'll just pop your pod.

Eve Blog Banter #5: Uh...

Welcome to the fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter.

This month's topic comes to us from Mynxee of Life in Low Sec. She asks "Alts and Metagaming: Is playing two accounts who are logged in at the sametime and work together (hauler/miner, explorer/combat associate, trade alts in trade hubs) a form of metagaming that is "ruining the game"?"

Apparently there were some issues with getting this to me in time. I didn't realize it was up till it was already up on other people's blogs. Despite the problems, hey we're full steam ahead.

I've decided to go into a really in-depth reply on this topic. The thing about alts has been something I've given quite alot of thought to in the past, and I welcome the opportunity to go into some detail about my opinions on whether they are ruining the game:

No.

Check out the other guys who apparently had more time than me to make a response!

• Epic Misadventures, This is my Alt - There are many like it but this one is mine.
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, I Missed This Month's Blog Banter!
• A Mule in EvE, Meta what? Is it hurting EvE?
• Morphisat's EVE Online Blog, Me, Myself and I
• One Man And His Spaceship, Me and My Shadow
• Ombeve, Blog Banter edition 5
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, CK's Blog Banter #5: Everybody Needs Somebody
• Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter
• Ecliptic Rift, OOC: Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• The Ralpha Dogs, Me, Myself and I
• Mad Rant, "Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to...."
• EVE Chick, The Handicapper General
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "...you see mate, it's a matter of leverage, savvy?..."
• New Eden Diaries, It's only a game
• Oz’s House of the Evil Dead, If You Can’t Ride Two Horses At Once, You Shouldn’t Be In The Circus
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, Everybody Needs Somebody
• CrazyKinux's Musing, Leave what you know at the door please!
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• EvE - Wotlankor, [OOC] Alts and Metagaming
• Roc's Ramblings, February Blog Banter - Meta Me
• Drunk in Space, Metagaming....so that's the name.
• X1376's Space Odyssey, Blog Banter #5: Army of One
• A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #5: Uh...
  
• Zero Kelvin, Are alts ruining the game?
• DeafPlasma's EVE Musings, Blog Banter #5: Alts & me!
• I am Keith Nielson, EVE is All About the Metagame
• Everyday EvE, Two Accounts Edition
• Blogging from inside the pod, EVE Blog Banter #5: Arletta and I
• Speed Fairy, Meet Paul

Pass the Ammunition

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

Leo Thomas McGarry - The West Wing

We live by the gun. Those we trust, those we respect, our friends, and our corpmates all lead us inevitably from death to life. Sometimes all four are the same person, sometimes not.

What makes us band together and fight?

On the 16th of April, 1746, on the moors of Culloden, seven thousand Scottish Highlanders threw aside their kilts and charged straight into the cannon and musket fire of waiting British troops. There was no question in their mind, they fought alongside their friends and brethren for their way of life.

You follow your orders, because you trusted your leaders the moment you joined the gang.

Between August and September 480 BC, three hundred Spartans held off two hundred thousand to two million Persian troops. Were any of them questioning their leadership as the battle was joined?

You trust the man next to you, and when he needs help you do whatever you can.

Twenty riflemen were ambushed in the Solomons by a machine gun nest on July 31st 1943. Roger Young crawled on his stomach towards the machine gun nest and threw grenades until he was killed. He did what he could to save his squadmates. They survived and he did not. He didn't care.

I fly with some of the best and brightest Eve has to offer. I know they have my back, every time. I know they're on their way, every time. I know I can trust them every time.

And every time I fleet up with a Bastard or a Hellcat I'm proud and honored. I've chosen to only fly with people I trust.

Who do you fly with?

OOC: Hauler Roam

See to them, you're just a freak. Like me!

The Joker - The Dark Knight

Jedziah, Snaptz, Sarge, Kulmid, were already preparing for a Hauler roam and invited me along. I couldn't possibly give up such an interesting concept and away I went. I loaded up a battle Badger Mark II and was on my way. Fifteen jumps through high sec later, while flashing, I was in the low sec meetup system.



After shooting at each other for a bit we were on the way.

We warped into G-5EN2 and almost immediately a Vagabond piloted by Habk came through.

EVE System > Channel changed to G-5EN2 Local Channel
Habk > lol
Habk > i saw this youtube
Habk > fuck that
Fraud > GRRRRRRRRR
Snaptz > o m g thats awesome
Hallan Turrek > We are innocent haulers.
Habk > yes
Hallan Turrek > Please return.
Habk > flashy red innocent haulers

It was no dice, so we decided to move on.

9-F0B2 was somewhat less exciting to start with, but that was soon remedied by an Arazu, Rifter, and Rapier coming through. The Rifter sat off the gate quite a ways, and the Arazu and Rapier jumped through. We waited a bit and finally the Arazu came back. We started to kill it.

At this point I should mention that everyone else started trying to kill it. I was one of only two non sensor boosting ships involved, and my Badger had a 40 secound lock time on that Arazu.

EVE System > Channel changed to 9-F0B2 Local Channel
Snaptz > L O L
Fraud > BITCHES DONT KNOW BOUT OUR MONSTER MAMMOTH DPS
Galligher > \o/

I got about 20 seconds into a lock when the Arazu either damped me or went out of my range. Regardless my lock failed and I was forced to try to reapproach him. I got in range again and tried a lock. I was five seconds away from a lock with my guns primed when he popped. Just as it happened, Vercingetorix died in a Mammoth and the Rapier was apparently not very friendly to the Arazu as he managed to get onto the killmail a bit.

After scooping a true sansha warp disruptor, we moved into the next system and into a huge gatecamp.

EVE System > Channel changed to 4B-NQN Local Channel
Snaptz > For those about to Die ~~~

And we did die, gloriously.

Galligher > sad times
Galligher > all this for haulers?
Galligher > *

My lossmail is only half the story, check the engagement on the AAA killboard.

It was quite a blob for haulers.

Still a good day.

Fragment Four

Just a song before I go,
A lesson to be learned.
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It's easy to get burned.
Crosby, Stills and Nash - Just a Song Before I Go

Yoshimi walked down the corridor. She felt the ship vibrate slightly as the warp bubble collapsed again. She sighed and walked to the makeshift entertainment room as it began to warp again. This covert ops frigate was a cramped space to be stuck for as long as she would be there, but it was her home for better or worse.

Yoshimi looked at the computer screen and mused over the last couple of days.

She'd signed on as a backup pilot. Most ships carry at least one crew member for insurance reasons. If the pilot is incapacitated, or needs a pair of human hands on a job, she'd leave her escape pod and do what she needed to do. In the last twenty years she'd only ever been out of her quarters three times in flight.

Yet here she was, pilotless and bored. The ship's AI directing her to the nearest system with a stargate. Four long years away.

She laughed to herself and pulled up a comm channel with her former employer.

"Paulie!" She said smiling.

"Hey Shimi," The man on the other side said without looking her in the eyes.

"So, wormholes,"

"Yeah,"

"To bad us normal folks can't clone jump out while they're waiting,"

"Heh," The man finally looked up, "Yeah. Uh, how much superfluid you got left in the comm tanks?"

"Enough for about 4 days of continuous communication,"

"Ahh, ok,"

"So, nice talking to you,"

"Yeah nice,"

She closed the comm channel and sighed. The ship vibrated slightly as it came out of warp again.

OOC: A bit of Funny

After quite alot of fiddling around with Audacity, I've decided I really do need a good mic before I venture into the world of podcasting. That probably means a bit of a wait before I get around to it, but in the mean time, I had a bit of fun:

Listen!

These Are the Jokes Kids #1

So a Gallente Politician, Caldari CEO and an Amarr Bishop were walking through a jungle out on Rens V. Suddenly they're captured by some Minmatar.

The Minmatar take them to their chief, who walks up to them and says "Alright, here's the deal. You guys get a choice, Death or Ugu,"

The three guys look at a each other, then the chief. The Chief walks up to the Gallente fellow and says, "You're first,"

The Gallente Politician says "I have no idea what Ugu is, but it must be better than death, I choose Ugu,"

Suddenly seven burly guys come out and forcibly have sex with him until he cannot even move. When they're done they throw him into the bushes.

The Chief walks up to the Caldari CEO, and waits for a response.

"Well, that looked pretty painful, but I'm a rich man and I'll enjoy the rest of my life. I choose Ugu as well,"

Well the same thing happens, and they throw him into the bushes when they're done. Finally, the Chief walks up to the Amarrian Bishop and waits for a response.

"You know," Says the Bishop, "I don't think god could forgive me if you guys did that to me. I choose death,"

The Chief nods and leans forward, "Alright, death it is. But first, Ugu,"

This Is Where We Fight.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell.
Alfred Tennyson- The Charge Of The Light Brigade

My name is Hallan Turrek.

There are people out there that think I'm just a number. They think I'm just a nuisance. They think if they throw some resources at me I'll go away. I won't cost them anything, just redistribute a bit of force and out I'll go. X force applied at Y time for Z result. To them I'm just a number.

A bit ago, a group of Mercenaries moved into Egmar. They didn't talk, they didn't care, they just started killing things. Lots of things. Things we wanted to kill. We avoided them like the plague and operated normally, because we knew who they were.

They'd bait with unaffiliated pilots and bring twenty man gangs down on a single cruiser. They started to camp the Egmar gate in multiple sensor boosted Interceptors. There started to be a Falcon around every corner. To them, we were just a number. Another small bump in the road to them getting what they wanted. Finally we'd had enough.

Concord has sanctioned our war against them. With every advantage they stack the deck with, it's nice to take away a few. Gateguns won't shoot us if we attack them. We can camp them into stations. We can show them what a few good pilots can do, and beat the hordes back.

If we're going to be a number we can be the number of ships they've lost, the total cash they've had to spend to eradicate us. The truth though, is that we're anything but a number.

My name is Hallan Turrek, and we're the fucking Bastards.

Get used to it.

Picking It Up and Taking it Out

I think that any lovin's good lovin.
So I took what I could get.
She looked at me with big brown eyes and said:
You ain't seen nothing yet.
Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

The night started normally enough. I woke up and jacked into the comm systems. A roam was out near Amamake, which is my kind of party. I hopped into the Jokers Wild and was in system with them before their GCC's had counted down.

We had some people who're running through the Bastards recruitment process along for the ride, with Hrothgar Frood and RodneyStar providing some heavy firepower in the form of a Brutix and Hurricane respectively. Hera was our FC in a Taranis, Herdzo was in a Falcon, Nova Blackadder was in a Hurricane, and a new Hellcat named Reyna al'Thor flew a Punisher. I added my Rifter to the mix and we were off to Dal.

Hera mentioned there were some tasty targets about. After a minute we narrowed a CVA Astarte in a belt and no one wasted any time warping to it. He was tackled and began to crumble under our firepower. We got him to 75% structure and decided to attempt a ransom just as a huge CVA fleet came down on our heads. We proceeded to pop the Astarte and everyone warped out except for myself, Reyna, and Nova. Reyna and Nova were pointed and going down, but I was being sneaky.

While the fleet was occupied with my gangmates, I creeped over to the Astarte wreck and removed a full load of tech two loot. I warped away before anything even locked me. The Hurricane and Punisher loss made the engagement a bit less efficient, but a Command ship makes for a nice killmail. We were up twenty million in loot at that point, and I was happy with that.

So we ran back to Evati, dropped the loot off and reshipped. As we were getting situated, we narrowed down a Stabber and Caracal in a belt. They melted like butter under the onslaught, and we picked up everything that wasn't nailed down.

As we waited out our GCC's we heard Nova fighting a Gila in Eifer, and wished him the best. It was a long battle, and we started to make our way towards him as our GCC's went away. Unfortunately the Gila's backup arrived first, and Nova was forced to flee.

Around this time I took over as FC, but myself and Hera began an odd and completely unscripted dual FC role. Before and after battles, I took over, directing ships and assigning roles. During the fights however, Hera would take over, calling points, targets, and giving orders. Neither of us noticed it until after the roam was over, but it worked pretty well.

Just then we heard about an Apocolypse slow boating away from a station in Otosela, so we started to make our way there. We decided to wait for a bit more firepower, and by the time we got in system he'd finally made the wise choice to warp away. We got back into Akkio and almost made it to the Todi gate as yet more intel indicated a missioning Dominix in Todifraun. Raelyf got in a covert ops in Evati and tracked him down fairly quickly. A few of us ran to the mission, made our way through three gates, and finally found the Dominix in the last room. He was pointed and thus began a somewhat epic battle.

It started with a Rifter, Taranis, Claw, Harpy, and Hurricane against a Dominix. He launched Hobgoblin II's and I started to get hit. I aligned away but they caught up to me and I popped almost immediately. I raced back to Evati and tried to reship.

Hera's battle instincts are amazing, and slowly but surely they took down every drone that Dominix carried. He'd already denied a sixty million ransom, and I was resolved to teach him a lesson about that. We popped him. We caught his pod and I offered him a twenty five million ransom. No dice. We popped that too.

We scooped all of the loot, and moved on yet again. This time we at about thirty five million in loot for the night. Once again, I was more than happy with that. We moved back into Evati. I docked up.

Two Sacrileges in a belt. That was the call on Comms. I looked at the pilots, and I thought it smelled funny. Hera was keen on engaging, but I offered up my gut instinct and said it would be a bad idea. Herdzo just watched them while cloaked in his Falcon.

As we discussed it, a neutral Megathron came in and started attacking the Sacs. They engaged back and we watched local for a spike. Nothing. The Megathron amazingly bit hard into the Sacs, downing one, then the other after a little bit of time.

We were already in warp before the second Sac went down, and as we landed, we applied just a little bit more damage, and ended the Mega's killing spree. Very shortly thereafter, we had a bit of chaos, as the two Sacrilege's backup finally arrived, in the form of a Crow and Rapier. Not enough to take us, they wisely turned tail.

An unaffiliated Rupture came down and tried to crash the party as well. We set him on fire. Then the fleet surveyed the field of battle and we were amazed to discover the extent of the loot. Two Sacs, a Mega, a Rupture and almost ten tech two drones.

I set about directing the looting. Hera went for his salvager after we were done and grabbed six Capacitor Consoles worth twenty seven million each from the two Amarr heavy assaults. We recovered three Arbalest Heavy Missile Launchers worth about thirteen each. Every ship that died was fitted with tech two or best named equipment.

An unofficial and conservative tally of the loot for the night reached two hundred and fifty million. That'll be mostly split among five pilots.

Good day.

Stamina

Spike: In terms of a plan?
Angel: We fight.
Spike: Bit more specific.
Angel: Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon.

Angel

So, a Hurricane, Vexor, and Thorax are on scan. I'm in a Rifter. I know the Thorax pilot from an earlier conversation, but I've got no idea how reliable he is. I open a conversation anyhow.

Hallan Turrek > How would you feel about teaming up on a 'cane?
Ascipen > Got a link on the guys name?
Ascipen > or where he's at?
Hallan Turrek > EM Tae
Hallan Turrek > He's here in eifer.
Hallan Turrek > Near one of the four belts.
Hallan Turrek > Checking now.
Hallan Turrek > 4-4 right now.
Hallan Turrek > Get agro and I'll be there
Hallan Turrek > Drones will mess me up
Ascipen > im warping in
Ascipen > go.
Hallan Turrek > warpin'
Hallan Turrek > get point

So I land. The scene is an odd one, neither of the two have drones out. I pull into an orbit of the Hurricane and start firing away. The Thorax does not fair well under the onslaught and is very quickly in a pod. I however, am whole, even after he starts firing. I start fighting a Hurricane that still has about seventy five percent shields. After about a minute however I start to think this may go well for me. I open a chat with the target.

Hallan Turrek > So.
Hallan Turrek > 10 million and I let you go.
Em Tae > lol
Hallan Turrek > Offer's now or never.
Em Tae > never
Hallan Turrek > Good to hear.
Em Tae > srry ,don't ransom
Hallan Turrek > No that's cool.

The fight was obviously kinda repetitive after the first couple of minutes, as I whittled down his armor to about half, my cap finally bottomed out and his assault missiles started to rip out some structure until my Rifter couldn't take any more. I warped the pod out and continued the conversation.

Hallan Turrek > Good fight.
Em Tae > GF
Em Tae > for a frig you gave this a run
Hallan Turrek > Yeah, good fight.
Hallan Turrek > God how long was that?
Hallan Turrek > like 4 minutes?
Em Tae > about

Fortunately I had dropped the loot from my earlier excursions before this fight, and he didn't get much.

You know what though? For a while there I was going toe to toe with a Hurricane in a Rifter. Just goes to show you how great that little ship can be.

Good Day.

Killing In The Name

There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload.'
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates - Schlock Mercenary

The point was on before I commanded my ship to move. I had to move quickly and did. My autocannons began to spin as they spat out their barrage ammo, which caused my sensors to pick up the faint blue flash of shield damage. This Rifter's backup would be here any moment, and I was sure that a Thorax would make my day alot shorter. I grinned to myself as another round of barrage punched through his shields and ripped a chunk of armor off his left nacelle.

A couple rounds more and the autocannons were mercilessly punching through his ship and out the other side. Finally a Gremlin rocket found it's mark and the Rifter became an expanding ball of superheated metals and gasses. I placed my scrambler on his capsule and looted his wreck while exploring my options.

Of course by this time my course of action had already been decided, and the Thorax finally arrived. I fired my autocannons twice more and aligned to warp away. He managed a lock and a point before I quite got up to speed. My afterburner was still running as I pulled out of web range. His drones were still approaching me as I broke twenty kilometers and began to warp.

So far so good.

I sat at my central scanning spot and started a conversation with the Thorax pilot. He bemoaned having to buy his friend a new Rifter, and I offered that he should've had a better tank if he was baiting.

My scans located another Rifter just as the Thorax pilot left local. I caught him in the direction of planet five, and began to warp to the second belt. I turned my scanner down to thirty degrees and watched the other belts as they fell out of the arc, to my surprise I discovered I was warping right to him.

As I started to come out of warp, I cycled my warp scrambler and watched for my targeting computers to become active. There he was, he had probably just arrived. I targeted him and began an orbit. His shields went down at a normal pace, and he had yet to target me. I imagined I was lucky enough to catch him completely flat footed as he'd just landed.

Regardless, eventually his targeting system came alive and I experienced a world of hurt. It was worrying, actually, how quickly he chewed through my shields. Then he hit armor and it was like a brick wall. His own armor was slowly eroding, and if he had a repair module he wasn't using it. Then at around twenty percent armor, he finally activated it. I got another round off and watched a single round fly through his right wing before the armor began to grow on his ship again.

Fortunately enough, my damage output far outstretched his repairing, and slowly but surely his ship became nothing more than swiss cheese. I was at about half armor when he finally exploded, and then I pointed his pod and scooped his loot.

I checked out his history, this wasn't a new pilot by any means. He'd been playing a while, so I invited him to speak about a ransom. He promptly put me on ignore.

I attempted to teach him a lesson in respect, but I think I may've gone a bit overboard.

Earlier, when I'd scooped his loot, I was literally amazed at the amount of high quality equipment he was carrying. This was an expensive ship, but upon closer inspection of the kill, I discovered that he had rigged his Rifter. My rifter costs me about two million, give or take. His had cost him forty two million.

Mr. Forty Two Million Isk Rifter, if you're reading this right now, you're doing it wrong.

So I moved back to a scanning location and waited again. Eventually a Slasher showed up on scan, I warped to him, and the ship went down in an embarrassingly short amount of time. The pod was pointed as well, and I didn't even worry about a ransom. I hoped that wherever his clone was, it was in high security space.

He opened up a conversation with me, and I managed to get five hundred and fifty thousand isk out of him for letting him rat there. Not big bucks, I know, but given the situation, I preferred that to killing him again.

Good Day.

Karaoke Corner #3: Imagine

The song is Imagine, by John Lennon.

Imagine there's no Concord
It's easy if you try
No sentry gun fire,
Every carebear has to die,
Imagine all the pirates,
Picking through your loot.

I... I... I...

Imagine you were mining.
And watching market trends,
Then I warp right to you,
With several of my friends,
Imagine all the pirates,
Picking through your loot.

You...

You may say that I'm a pirate
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And piracy will then have won.

Imagine your possessions,
Weren't currently secured,
No need for cans or hangars,
A ransom is preferred,
Imagine all the pirates,
Picking through your loot.

You...

You may say that I'm a pirate
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And piracy will then have won.

Finding It

I will go down with this ship,
And I won't put my hands up and surrender,
There will be no white flag above my door,
I'm in love and always will be.
Dido - White Flag

The Rifter is as many will tell you, the perfect combat frigate. Four high slots, which provides the damage, a slot in the mids for a speed mod, web, and warp disruption, and three low slots to set up an armor tank. The ship aligns quickly and moves quickly even under the power of an afterburner.

It's small signature radius means that anything bigger than heavy assault missiles will not hurt you. It means that tracking you can be a pain in the ass, especially if you're moving. I have over a hundred Rifters left in my Hangar, and have lost almost fifty since joining the Bastards three and a half months ago. Each one of them called the Jokers Wild.

I consider each new incarnation a continuance of the previous one. The AI stays the same, the fit stays the same. Pod goes in, ship undocks, autocannons spin.

I love my ship.

Today started like alot of days. I got up, headed into space and found nothing. I checked into voice comms to find Hera Darkthorn and Mynxee along with a few others playing out in Resbroko. I decided to head out to where the action was. They'd already killed a guy in a Vexor, who came back for revenge in an Enyo.

By the time I arrived, things had calmed down a bit. We were waiting for a few GCC's to countdown as Hera called out a Raven in a belt. There was some talk about jumping it or not. I engaged my warp drive and let everyone know I was already on the way. It's just a Raven.

My Rifter came out of warp on top of the thing and Hera's Taranis had it down to seventy five percent shields already. I found that odd. I orbited and started to lay on my own brand of pain. He started to die, quickly. The rest of the fleet landed, and we didn't even have time to decide on ransoming him or not before he exploded. The pod met a similar fate very quickly. We all stared at the killmail in awe. He hadn't fit anything. His ship was devoid of modules.

Everyone decided to head back to Evati. As we arrived I got into a scanning position and very quickly narrowed down a Myrmidon. I warped in it's direction and was disappointing as it went offscan before I landed. False positive are annoying in scanning. You know you screwed up, but sometimes it's not clear how. I kicked it up to a three hundred and sixty degree scan, and he didn't show up either. Just at that moment, my ship interface sounded the tell-tale decloaking noise. Myrmidon off the bow, fifteen hundred meters away.

I called my friends who were in various states of disarray at this point. I orbited him, scrambled the Myrm, and waited. I didn't even turn my guns on. I hoped he didn't think I was a threat. He didn't target me.

Eventually Hera said he was in warp, and about that time the Myrm decided to release drones and start firing. I aligned to get away, but I failed, and got my pod out instead. The Myrm quickly followed though. He had a pretty expensive fit, alot of which survived the explosion.

Happy with that, I docked up. A few folks went to the Hub, but Hera was on voice comms before I could get a chance to leave. He had a Wolf and Thrasher clearing a drone infestation.

We both went inside and began to look around. Eventually we found a thrasher, and I orbited him. The pilot was non-responsive, but by the time Hera went through the next gate, the Wolf had left. Hera went back to the station as I killed the Thrasher. Just as I managed to get the Pilot's pod nailed and hammered, Hera engaged the Wolf at the station. He was also sucessful, and we were happy with our teamwork.

It wasn't until later that I discovered this pilot had earlier killed and podded Flashfresh. We were happy to send both of these guys back to the clonevats.

So Hera decided to check the Hub out himself, leaving me alone to patrol the space lanes. I decided to head to Eifer, and give my old haunt a look.

I was very quickly rewarded with a Rifter kill and a five million ransom for the pod. I followed that very shortly with a Kestral kill. I scooped the loot, smiled and went back to Evati to drop things off.

I took off in the other direction and found a bit of action in Klogori, killing a Rifter in a belt there. He died fast and refused a ransom on his pod. I was happy to oblige in murdering him.

With one one battleship, one battlecruiser, a destroyer, three frigates, and two pods dead, my day was complete.

Happy Hunting.

Trouble Can't Find Me

We're going off tonight,
To kick out every light,
To get anything that we want,
To drink everything in sight,
We're going till the world stops turning,
While we burn it to the ground tonight.
Nickelback - Burn It To The Ground

Space is a vast expanse of nothingness, with little specks of death scattered throughout it.

The Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, and Minmatar each control a swath of space near the central portion of the galaxy map. There are two areas of space closely associated with the Amarr empire, the Khanid Empire and Ammatar Mandate.

The Caldari and Gallente came back from the brink of extinction in the same solar system. They worked together to reach the stars, then went their separate ways in a war that brought unbelievable death and destruction. Caldari Prime was given to the Gallente in return for peace. The current war involves the retaking and occupation of Caldari Prime. Both empires see it as their planet and will kill for it.

The Khanid Empire formed before the Minmatar rebelled. It was a somewhat peaceful secession and the Amarr and Khanid still work together in trade.

The Minmatar had an extremly developed culture and in many ways surpassed the other empires in technology when they were found and subjugated by the Amarr. Over the centuries, the Amarr broke down the Minmatar and turned them into slaves.

When the Amarr met the Gallente for the first time, they'd met their match for the first time in their history. They wisely avoided conflict, but when the Amarr learned of the existence of the Jovians, they felt it was their duty to bring them under their empire. One ill fated military campaign later, and while the Amarr bled, the Minmatar rose up and fought for their freedom. Supported by the Gallente, the Minmatar eventually created an empire of their own. They are in constant conflict with the Amarr.

The Ammatar Mandate is simply sovereign space granted as a reward to those Minmatar that remained loyal to the Amarr. It is economically defunct.

The Jovian empire control an area of space out in nullsec that is currently unreachable. There are thankfully no conflicts in Jove space. The Jovian's gave the rest of the galaxy cloning technology and capusleer technology. It's speculated that the Jovian's never actually experienced any crash after the Eve Gate closed. It's also surmised that their culture has directly evolved from whatever colony they were before that event.

The Angel Cartel, Guristas Pirates, Serpentis Corp, Sansha's Nation, The Blood Raiders, and The Thukker Trive all control a somewhat smaller amount of space in nullsec as well.

Each criminal enterprise also has an established presence in each of the empires, killing, stealing and carving out a place to live.

There are twenty two alliances with enough power in nullsec to control an entire constellation. Some of these, like Band of Brothers, Goonswarm, or Tau Ceti Federation control such large portions of space that they rival the empires in size. These huge Alliances fight back and forth. Sometimes thousands of capsuleers fight for just one system.

Smaller groups (sometimes just a single corporation) control certain (sometimes just one) systems, or at least attempt to extend their control. Sometimes the fights are small, but sometimes they are almost as large as the Alliance and Empire battles.

But despite the fact that this Galaxy is in effect a giant meat grinder - I went on a roam tonight and couldn't find a thing to kill.

Goddamnit.

OOC: This One's For The Girls

And with a broken wing,
She still sings,
She keeps an eye on the sky,
With a broken wing,
She carries her dreams,
Man you ought to see her fly.
A Broken Wing - Martina McBride

I really gotta pay my dues. I've been at piracy for almost six months now. As a dude in online games I know that chicks exist and are just as likely to be complete douchbags as anyone else. So it's a pleasure to note that I know of a group of chicks who are, you know, good people.

Lets take a look at the blogging community for a moment. Can you imagine from where I get the most traffic who aren't regular readers? Life In Low Sec, Mynxee's blog.

It doesn't stop there, obviously, we've got a fair number of chicks in the blogging community.

For a new but an excellent blogger: Venom's Bite.

For a piratey lady who does excellent fiction(and is the second highest blogsource of traffic to me): Sweet Little Bad Girl.

The reason I bring this up though, is that the reason I got into fleet based piracy, is that I flew with a couple of these Hellcats. Up until I trekked to Vitrauze and set up shop, I'd never flown with anyone else. Shae and Mynxee were patient and kind enough for a newb like myself to pick a few things up, and I enjoyed the idea of piracy in groups enough that I went out to find a pirate corporation. It's a supreme honor that I still get to fly with them as they came down to Evati and started working with the Bastards.

So if you see the Hellcats out in space, say hey. They're good peoples. Also duck.

Seriously. Duck. They're pirates too.

OOC: Updates #1

Been walking my mind to an easy time,
My back turned towards the sun,
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around,
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line,
To talk about things to come,
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.
James Taylor - Fire and Rain

Thinking I need a consistent name for these informational updates, so there you go. Creative, I know.

Lets start with the latest showing by the Bastards in the alliance tournament.



As you can see, a severe case of rock, paper, scissors. Rock doesn't beat paper apparently. With that loss, we're out of the tourney, but I think the Bastards did a wonderful job and have got a bit of experience under their belts for next year. Be afraid.

Next up? I made it into the blog pack. That's a collection of blogs that meet a certain criteria of quality and updates. If you look under the "I Recommend" links, there's a new section called "Eve Blog Pack" that'll keep you updated.

Which probably brings you to wonder about the "I Recommend" bit. I changed the link listing up a bit and included on it are all of the blogs I personally read on a regular basis. The criteria for "me reading it" is this: It's primarily eve based, it's good, and I like it. I remove any blog that takes more than two weeks to update. It'll show the last update time, and give you the name of the latest update. I think the list is a good one. It's how I navigate blogs really, just load up my own and check for updates there. It's how you can do it too. Come here. Heh.

I'm back at work as well, so my time to blog and play are going to be a bit less. I don't think I'll break from my every two days average, but it's possible.

On the horizon, but far enough off that I'm not sticking myself into a corner, I plan to get a directional scanning guide done. I also have a podcast concept that's been banging around in my head for a couple of months. I'm getting to the point where I think I'll just make due with a sub-par microphone and do it anyhow.

Oh, and Killswitch will be continuing on, despite my vacating Guristas space ingame. I've got enough information to continue a story. Still annoyed I didn't get my faction higher. You can keep up with that story on the right, between the followers and the blog archive.

One last thing, follow this blog. If you read this regularly let me know by clicking the follow button. It'll put me in a good mood, I promise.

See ya in space.