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My name is Hallan Turrek. This is my blog.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

April Fools

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

I set up a base in some rather unpopulated 0.0. I'm not going to quit the game or stop posting here, but I'm done with PvP apparently.

I'll be ratting up my sec status and writing here in the mean time. My apologies to most of my readership who come here for the piratey stories.

On to a little bit of actual content. CCP's apparently working on rebalancing ECM and Stealth Bombers.

Falcon Discussion.

Stealth Bomber Discussion.

See you guys on Friday.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

EVE Blog Banter #6: Die Bard


Welcome to the sixth 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 Quintrala of Speed Fairy . She suggests to "write a short fiction story about the dissolution of the BoB alliance. It could be from BoB's point of view, the Goons', by neutrals in 0.0, civilians in Empire, NPCs or even rats. Write about before, during or after the coup; give us stories of market, war, people or love. In-character or roleplay. We want to know what happened, from those fictional characters that, in your mind, were part of it."

Out in zero zero,
Once was a great power,
They conquered like heroes,
They fell like a tower.

They tried to fight back,
For what it was worth,
They seemed to lose track,
Resistance was birthed.

In their regions they stood,
And in Delve they did fall,
To some Goons from the Hood,
And the Goons took it all.

Think this is funny?
Don't think it at all,
Bob's like a bunny,
Quick to drop the ball.

All the spies in the game,
Didn't help them be good,
Try it next time with pain,
Try it next time with blood.

Annoyed by the Goons?
I Guess that's your call,
Winning is a boon,
Justifies it all.

From the inside easy,
From the outside it's hard,
Still empires are lazy,
And that's all from this bard.

  • Speed Fairy, The Hand of BoB
  • CrazyKinux's Musing, No where to go...
  • A Mule in EVE, Rolling to the Warzone
  • The Ralpha Dogs, Two Tales of Glory and Honor
  • One Man and his Spaceship, Times they are changing
  • OZ's House of the Evil Dead, Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side
  • The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Who the Hell are They?....
  • I am Keith Nielson, He Gave Up the Stars
  • Life in Low Sec, Six Degrees of Seperation
  • A Merry life and a Short One, Die Bard
  • Roc's Ramblings, Mythology
  • Dense Veldspar, EVE Blog Banter #6
  • Letrange's EVE Blog, A toast to the disolution of BoB
  • Fumbling in Space, Scarnan Vs The Fleeing Bankrupt Hordes
  • Friday, March 27, 2009

    Super-Special-Awesome

    Whose eyes am I behind
    I don’t recognize anything that I see
    Whose skin is this design
    I don’t want this to be the way that you see me

    I don’t understand anything anymore
    And this web that I’m tied up
    Is taking me right up these walls
    That I climb up
    To get to your story
    It’s anything but ordinary
    Train - Ordinary

    I don't intend to be average. I never have and never will. The recent updates to Eve have been alot of fun for me. There's always a downside to things. For me that's graphical.

    I'm still not sure why they need to do anything special to "support" low end graphics. Give me an option to turn textures off, give me an option to show nothing but the basic rendering of objects in space. It's in there, underneath the fancy textures, right?

    Long story short, I'm nothing but an ordinary pilot right now, and it stinks. I lag on entry to belts, I lag anytime I undock, I lag anytime a new system loads, I lag sometimes just when bringing up new menus. Not a little bit of lag, like a couple of seconds, but thirty seconds to a minute. Group work is fine, but I can't solo anymore. There's a distinct possibility that if things don't change, and quickly, that I'll be ratting up my security status and going back to high security space.

    I'm taking a semi-sorta break from Eve right now(doing mostly PvE stuff if anything). Hopefully my frustration subsides. In the mean time, you'll still get regular updates from me.

    Good Day.

    Tuesday, March 24, 2009

    The Girls Are Pretty

    Rags to riches or so they say
    Ya gotta-keep pushin'
    for the fortune and fame
    It's all a gamble
    When it's just a game
    Ya treat it like a capital crime
    Everybody's doin' their time
    Guns 'n Roses - Paradise City

    What is it about Evati that's so appealing to me? Kaalikoata is such a boring station. Standard Caldari architecture. We've got the Hub, and I've got the By Jove there, but bars don't make the place a home.

    I've lived alot of places in my time as a Capusleer. I've lived in the heart of Heimatar, near Rens. I've lived near Jita. I've lived out in Vitrauze, in Gusandall, even spent a bit of time populating Amamake. No where have I had as much fun as I've had in Evati.

    The Bastards live there, but that isn't it. It's just... I just can't put my finger on it.

    I guess I'll just have to go ask the Hellcats, maybe they can come up with something.

    Monday, March 23, 2009

    Vote or Die. Then, Give Me Your Stuff.

    But under skinned knees and the skid marks,
    Past the places where you used to learn,
    You howl and listen,
    Listen and wait for the,
    Echoes of angels who won't return.
    Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want

    There's been a bit of talk lately about the concept of a CSM who represents those of us who are, as of yet, unrepresented. That's pirates.

    Visit his website and take a look at Larkonis.

    The CSM is your voice to CCP, and you need to ensure that your voice matches you. This won't be the last time I mention it, expect more on this later.

    Friday, March 20, 2009

    Wanderlust - Part 1 of 2

    'Cause you are not alone,
    And I am there with you,
    And we'll get lost together,
    Till the light comes pouring through,
    'Cause when you feel like you're done,
    And the darkness has won,
    Babe, you're not lost,
    Michael Buble - Lost

    Most of you have already heard the news. I'm glad to say I didn't know anyone on Seyllin One. For so many to die so quickly, it's almost unthinkable. I took the time to trek to the dead world.


    The wormholes that've appeared all over New Eden are the most likely culprits. I've a working knowledge of astrophysics, enough to know that it's likely that a wormhole opened up near Seyllin that connected to the interior of a star. A bit of bad luck and that could've happened in where I live in Evati.

    The best thing to do in such a situation is to get back to living, so I hopped into my Cheetah. I proceeded to hunt down a Radar site in Todifraun. After ripping off the Angel Cartel for about twenty million isk, I started running my probes again. In Akkio I found it.


    I could not resist the urge, and traveled through. I came out in unknown and unexplored space. A ringing alarm that I'd never heard before started as my ship sensors adjusted. As my systems came back to life I checked the alarm. It was a gravitational anomaly alert. A black hole was only a few light years out.



    I warped to a planet and made a bookmark between. I then doubled back to my bookmark and deleted it. Then I warped to another planet, repeating the process, but renaming this bookmark as a safe spot. I released four probes and cloaked.

    I made sure to deactivate three of the probes, and took the other out to start my process of searching.

    Very shortly I found an asteroid belt with some strange signatures coming from it. I order my Cheetah to warp to the location and the strange readings became stronger as I approached.

    A sense of dread filled me as I came into visual range of the asteroids.

    Tuesday, March 17, 2009

    We Were Free

    When you get to where you wanna go
    And you know the things you wanna know
    You're smiling
    When you said what you wanna say
    And you know the way you wanna play
    You'll be so high you'll be flying
    She's the One - World Party

    Are you having fun?

    The roam. It's an integral part of not being bored out of your mind in Eve as a pirate. You pick a destination and just kinda start going there. There's never much of a goal in your mind except to have fun. Well, that's if you want to have fun.

    There are actually quite a few different kinds of roams, depending on how your Fleet Commander likes to run things.

    Most roams start with a bunch of ships in one system, and send a ship ahead one system to scout out targets and get initial tackle. Once the scout has a target nailed down, the rest of you jump in and the target gets to panic as he tries vainly to kill the dogged Rifter that's keeping a point on him. Your fleet comes down around him and suddenly he's ready to die, or not. Sometimes they fight back hard, get their own backup or run like hell.

    Sometimes a roam just takes you somewhere that no matter what numbers you bring, you're bound to get some action. "Set course for Amamake," and fly. Kill until you're full of loot or you're dead, and go home. Rinse, lather repeat. Simple stuff.

    But there are different strategies for battlship roams, battlecruiser roams, and frigate roams. Tech one cruiser roams are different from Heavy Assault Cruiser roams by several miles.

    If you want to make sure everyone has fun, you'll want to learn your fleet commander, and learn what he wants. Learn what strategies he uses and adapt to do them before he has to ask. If he wants more ECM boats, and you want to fly with him, train up ECM. If he likes frigates, keep working on that. But if you're not having fun regularly on these things, drop the FC like a bad habit.

    If you are the FC don't take yourself too seriously. Enjoying yourself is the easiest way to make sure people come along next time. Those serious minded types that pay for this game so they can work will stay behind next time.

    Most of all, try to enjoy yourself.

    Good Day.

    Monday, March 16, 2009

    I Am Not What I Am - Part 3 of 3

    Now I've said too much,
    I thought that I heard you laughing,
    I thought that I heard you sing,
    I think I thought I saw you try.
    REM - Losing My Religion

    Part 1
    Part 2

    Kere was standing next to his comm officer and watched his weapons chief fire a volley of Artillery at his enemies, "Sir," The comm officer began, "The Slicers just finished off the Rupture escort. We've lost two of the Hurricane squads,"

    "Just a little longer," Kere looked over the field of battle, his eyes brightening as a fleet came out of warp on his bottom flank.

    Ronin started to speak first, "So sorry to crash the party ladies. Looks like we arrived in time to get in on the killing," Numerous comments came flowing through the comms as the pirates began to land.

    RoninData's voice broke through, followed by silence, "Check check, Mynx, take our BC's and nail down some Arbitrators,"

    "Roger that," A female voice said softly.

    "We'll take on the battleship squad with everything else, Kere you focus everything you've got left on those Harbingers. Hallan, take the frigate squad and bring me back some Navy Slicer killmails,"

    "Can do Ronin," Hallan added before laughing, "'Amarr Navy Slicers,' Bad infomercials called, they want their knives back,"

    Kere looked at his comm officer, whose face was aghast, "You heard the man, focus on the Harbingers,"

    _________________

    "You know, I've half a mind to take that pretty little Fleet Tempest away from you," Ronin said over comms, "You never mentioned that half the bloody Amarr fleet would be here,"

    "I appreciate your help man,"

    "Yeah yeah. We'll be looting," Kere heard a click, and knew the conversation was over.

    "Set a course for the nearest Republic Fleet Station," Kere said with a sigh, "I've got to bury a friend."

    Friday, March 13, 2009

    Guide: Probing

    They love to tell you
    Stay inside the lines
    But something's better
    On the other side
    John Mayer - No Such Thing


    Hey. Decided to go looking for wormholes huh? Couldn't or didn't get the test server going in time to get a handle on scan probing? Didn't understand it before and still don't? Want a quick reference guide instead of an entire video to find some specific information?

    Yeah me either.

    But given that I've already done it, I guess I might as well put this up:


    We can start by hitting the scanner button, that's circled in white. Once it's up, hit the map button. If you're playing in low-sec space, this is the point where you should be safed and cloaked.


    This brings up the solar system map. Some of you have seen it before, some haven't. A small preview:


    Go ahead and decloak, drop a probe, and recloak. I'll wait.


    Wow, that bubble looks kinda cool doesn't it? If you're already in the center of a system, neat.

    If not, you're going to want to know how to move the probe to the center. Here's a couple of helpful hints. Those little arrows on it? Yeah they're not just for show. Click it and drag it. If you hit shift while doing so you'll move all of the probes you have out in the same direction.


    Now that you've got it in the center of the system, you'll notice it may not cover everything. You want to start at 32 AU and work your way down. You can resize by grabbing the outside of the bubble and dragging. If you have multiple probes out, holding shift while doing that will resize all of them to the same dimension.


    Or you can resize a single probe by right clicking the probe in your scanner menu.


    Once you cover the system properly in bubbles that don't touch each other, hit the Analyze button.


    That starts a scan.


    Your first hit on a signature will look like a bubble. Anomalies are usually so easy to find that at this point you've got their location already locked down.


    That bubble means that the signature is from somewhere inside it. You'll want to shrink the size of your probe radius to get a more accurate reading. Notice that the anomolies already have 100% strength at this point.

    After you shrink the probe's size down you get a hit again, but the size of the hit is smaller. That's good.


    Hmm. Lets try skipping 8 AU's and go straight to 4 AU's.


    Bah, no signature hits at all. See the scanner results? Lets go back up to 8 AU's.



    Ahh a hit again. So 8 AU's is as small as I can go. Time to start triangulating then. Drop 3 more probes.


    Once again, pay attention to their location in space. Move them using the arrows. Don't forget they are three dimensional, so you may or may not need to move them up or down as well.



    Your probes should cover the bubble something like this:


    Ahh we've got the second stage of hits. It's a circle where two probes intersect. That means the location is somewhere on that circle. Move your probes again so that all four cover the space of that circle.


    Before we scan again, take the time to create a filter that will ignore the anomolies. That way we can focus solely on this signature.


    See how they dissapear from the map? Now we're ready to scan again.


    A point hit. Good. A point hit means 3 or more probes have a signal at that location. If it's only 3 probes, the location will be off by a fair amount. If you get two point hits very near each other, just treat it like a circle hit and cover both at the same time.

    You only need 4 probes to get a location narrowed down, so lets resize our probe radius to 4 AU's and move all four to cover that point hit. Make sure that you take note of the hit's location on the plane of the solar system. In this case it's actually above my probes, so I'm going to click one of the arrows that move a single probe up and down, hold shift, and move all four at once.

    Once that's done, and the point is covered by probe radii, analyze again.


    New hit, resize to 2 AU, and move the probes.

    New hit, resize to 1 AU and move the probes.


    You're done. Signature found at 100% by four probes. If you're not done at this point, just keep resizing and moving the probes until you are done.


    You can right click on the hit, and warp to it. Remember if you warp to a hit from the map, and once you get to where it should be it's not there, you've only got a hit with three probes. Just move them a bit and try again. Once you've arrived, bookmarked the location, and left, you can then recover your probes(truthfully you can do that any time you want).


    Hit the button and watch them return.


    And you're done.


    Pretty simple I think. Hope you find this useful.

    Couple of closing comments. If you're having trouble positioning your probes, put them all on the same plane, and position the camera above them.

    If you get down to .25 AU's and you still do not get a 100% hit, you're going to need to boost your scan strength. Get better skills, a covert ops ship, a sister's launcher, implants or move your probes closer to the hit. Or all five.

    Most sites still spawn within 4 AU's of a celestial. CCP has said they can spawn outside of 4 AU's and I have confirmation from others that it is possible.

    Please check this post for links to other material, should you need it.

    If you have any questions, post a comment and I'll try to answer it, and add it to the guide if I can.

    Good Day.

    Thursday, March 12, 2009

    Holey Crap

    In a way, I need a change
    From this burnout scene
    Another time, another town
    Another everything
    But it’s always back to you
    Of A Revolution - Shattered

    Apocrypha is out, and I'm still able to play. That's a win.

    You guys're going to notice(hopefully) a much more regular updating schedule from me. Monday's, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Like today, the between days will be on and off. Sometimes you'll see one and sometimes you won't.

    I spent most of today and yesterday probing. After an initial bit of frustration I found it extremely easy. Those of you with poor spacial reasoning will have just as much trouble with it as you do with scanning. It's not that big a deal.

    Killed some Sleepers inside a wormhole in my Caracal solo. There is easily soloable content in there, but these guys do hit damn hard.

    Next week I'll go into a bit more detail on my experiences.

    Oh, and this is my 100th post. Go me.

    Good Day.

    Tuesday, March 10, 2009

    I Am Not What I Am - Part 2 of 3

    That's me in the corner,
    That's me in the spotlight, I'm,
    Losing my religion,
    Trying to keep up with you,
    And I don't know if I can do it,
    Oh no, I've said too much,
    I haven't said enough.
    REM - Losing My Religion

    "Hey," Kere looked unsteadily into the view screen as the image of RoninData appeared.

    "My favorite blue pass holder," Ronin said with a smile.

    "Heh, best thirty five million I ever spent. You guys feel like coming over to Ofstold and cleaning up a mess?"

    "How big of a mess?"

    "Pretty big," As he spoke a conduit behind him exploded in a shower of sparks.

    Ronin's eyes went wide as he continued on, "Are you already in a battle?"

    "Uh, no." Kere ignored the smoke that now filled his bridge.

    "Then what was that explosion?" Ronin leaned into his camera.

    "Uh, ambiance, I'm Minmatar, wouldn't feel right if something didn't blow up every once in a while,"

    "Whatever, we'll be there. Same terms as before?"

    "All loot is yours, even from my fleet. Reimbursement for any losses, and the five hundred million is already in your corp account,"

    "Good enough, hold on," Ronin turned away from the camera, "Flash put that drink down, we've got some targets. Rest of you, be in a ship in five minutes or we leave without you," Ronin turned back to the camera, "Anything else?"

    "Are you drunk?" Kere squinted his eyes to make out the background.

    "Uh no," Ronin said with a smile.

    "Then why're you in a bar?"

    "Ambiance. I'm Minmatar. Wouldn't feel right if I wasn't drunk,"

    Monday, March 9, 2009

    I Am Not What I Am - Part 1 of 3

    Oh, life is bigger,
    It's bigger than you,
    And you are not me,
    The lengths that I will go to,
    The distance in your eyes,
    Oh no, I've said too much,
    I set it up.
    REM - Losing My Religion


    "Jared. Wow, nice to see a familiar face out here, and that is a nice ship," Kere Hanon spoke from his seat on the bridge of his own vessel. The man on the view screen smiled back at him.

    "Navy Apoc is a fine vessel, but you're doing pretty good yourself,"

    "Yeah, a Fleet Tempest isn't anything to sneeze at," Kere cocked his head to the side and adjusted in his seat.

    "I hear they made you an Admiral now,"

    "Vice-Admiral. You've got Admiral stripes too,"

    "Yeah," Jared's face lost expression for a moment.

    "What're you doing out here in Ofstold old friend?" Kere looked into the eyes of the other man and picked up a flash of insight just as the man spoke.

    "I'm on a mission from the Empress. I'm supposed to take you back,"

    "You're the one that let me go in the first place. You're one of the most moderate nobles in the empire, why would..." Kere looked up at his friend and sighed, "She wants you gone Jared,"

    "I know Kere. She expects me to fail. And you know what happens to my family if I desert or fail,"

    "I'm sorry,"

    "So'm I. So, you want to surrender or...?"

    "You only outnumber us three to one, I'll take my chances,"

    The Amarrian stood up and moved towards the camera, "No matter what happens then, I'll see you in heaven,"

    The Minmatar stood up as well and turned away, "No, you won't,"

    The view screen flashed off and Kere turned to his comm officer, "Get the Firetail wing and Ruppys on that Navy Apoc. Tell the 'Canes and Maelstroms to get some range on the Harby's and Abbadons. We'll arty them to death. This whole thing's going to hing on that Navy Apoc going down fast. Once that's done, tell them to switch to the Slicers and Arbi's. We can't take them down without the frigate support." Kere looked around at his bridge officers, most of whom were listening to him instead of their consoles, "Lets make the Republic proud,"

    "Sir," Came the voice of his comm officer, "We've got a problem,"

    "What's up," He said as he threw himself into his chair.

    "The Apoc has smartbombs,"

    Wednesday, March 4, 2009

    OOC: Update - March 2009

    You say you want a revolution,
    Well, you know,
    We all want to change the world,
    You tell me that it's evolution,
    Well, you know,
    We all want to change the world,
    But when you talk about destruction,
    Don't you know that you can count me out,
    Don't you know it's gonna be all right.
    Beatles - Revolution

    Alrighty then.

    First order on the agenda: Apologies for another failed short story, but my inspiration for Killswitch ran out of steam the moment I left Venal, and despite my best efforts I cannot produce anything of quality to post on it. The story is, like The Measure, on indefinite hiatus.

    Next up: I've been working on changing my format a bit. The blog started primarily as an in charactor battle description log of sorts for my charactor. Truth be told, that was a bit short sighted, as eventually you run out of interesting ways to describe battles. Add to that the fact that analysis posts and the comedy stuff I do get me WAY more traffic, and you'll see less battle reports and more other stuff. This is not to say that I won't periodically post battle reports in charactor, just alot less often.

    Also: You should check out these neat posts:

    Wensley has a great day.

    Mynxee has a great night.

    Shae talks about the war.

    Speed Fairy talks about a race.

    Roc Wieler seriously considers doing something ingame.

    Finally: I've updated the last months blog posts to all have tags. I've been getting lazy about that.

    Good Day.

    Monday, March 2, 2009

    Do Overs

    Steady hands, just take the wheel...
    Every glance is killing me,
    Time to make one last appeal ,
    For the life I lead.

    Stop and stare,
    I think I'm moving but I go nowhere,
    Yeah I know that everyone gets scared,
    But I've become what I can't be.

    Stop and stare,
    You start to wonder why you're here not there,
    And you'd give anything to get what's fair,
    But fair ain't what you really need,
    Oh, can you see what I see.
    One Republic - Stop and Stare

    The cloning companies tell you that you don't die. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, if anything we just die more than the average person. I don't know if non-capsuleers can understand.

    How do you get used to the terror? There's something ingrained in each of our brains that says when you're dying to do everything in your power to stop it. The one time I've lost a clone, I was struggling inside my grave for twenty seconds before it finally popped.

    The pod itself kills you, ironically enough. As soon as the hull of the capsule is breached for any reason it copies your brain and transmits it to the new clone. Design wise it makes sense, but it doesn't alleviate the fear you feel every time you drop down and jack in.

    So what does that mean to you? A lot of capsuleers tell me that their biggest worry is the price of the implants in their heads. I've known people to lose a billion or more with their bodies.

    I know I might die every time I fly, but if you're not prepared to lose your life, you're not prepared to be a pod pilot.

    I suppose that's something they looked for when they did my training.

    What I do know is that the threat of death didn't stop me from solo tackling a Vagabond until my friends could arrive to take it down.

    It also didn't stop me from coming to the aid of another crazy corpmate who tackled a Hurricane alone in his Rifter, with my Rifter as his nearest backup. I'm glad I went.

    So I guess what I'm saying is, if they tested me for it, I passed.