...And a happy new year!

Happy new year guys!

(Post inc in a day or two, detailing my new favourite ship. What could it be?)

Merry Christmas!

I dont really get into the Christmas thing, but I know alot of people do.

So Merry Christmas all!

(I'll keep it short, like I said, I dont get into it much :P)

Secrets out!

Its now been a few weeks since the dominion expansion and we have seen a wide variety of changes. And every change I've came across so far has been "bloody marvellous".

The most marvellous of all has been the changes to the faction ships. One of these faction ships caught my eye within the first day or two, and that ship is the Dramiel.

On paper it doesn't look like much, couple of Ac's, and a shield tank. Looks just like the old Republic Fleet Firetail. Didn't look very special at all...

...Until I started to play with it in EFT. More out of boredom than anything and I started to notice how much potential it could have. It had near uncatchable speed, half decent dps, drones, a falloff bonus, and the ability to fit a large shield buffer. After about 20 mins of EFT warrior-ing I came up with this:

[Dramiel, New Setup 1]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Tracking Enhancer II

Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Gistii B-Type 1MN MicroWarpdrive
Shadow Serpentis Warp Disruptor
Cap Recharger II

200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S
200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S
[empty high slot]

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Ancillary Current Router I


Warrior II x3
Warrior II x1

6950 m/s with snakes NOT overheated. Its insane. Overheat and you break 10k/ms.

"Yeah so what its fast" you say.

Well that's not all it is. Its got 20km falloff with small Ac's, a decent buffer should you screw up, and a better scan res than most interceptors. And on top of all that, its cap stable.

EFT it looked good. I couldn't wait to test it out in game, so I sent off my hauler to Jita to buy one and a bunch of snakes to go with it. Overall it cost me about 250 mil to buy the snakes and the ship. (I didn't buy the faction point at first)

At first I regretted spending so much on a frigate, but the moment I undocked I knew I had got my moneys worth. Holy shit! This thing was fast. It was so ridiculously agile. It literally went to top speed in about 3 seconds.

Since then I've spent most of my Eve time flying one and its already got itself 49 kills. Being the sharing type I quickly let my whole corp know about how awesome the Dramiel was. Most dismissed what I had to say at first. But soon Felix brought one, and we went on a long roam which resulted in the killing of several ships and gangs. One gang in particular consisted of a Blackbird, Thorax, Hurricane, Kestrel, Myrm, Hyena and a Harbinger. And after a long fight we either killed or chased them off with just two Dramiels. (We did have a Taranis with us, but it died within the first few seconds. Sorry Siskin!)

After that, Jaxx got one, then Spec, then pretty much the rest of the corp. Nearly everyone agreed just how awesome it was. It was everything you could expect from a ship.

We soon started flying around gangs 4-5 of these and there was nothing they couldn't handle. nothing could catch us, we just slowly wore our targets down and they either had to flee or die.

We decided to keep the details of the Dramiel and its awesomeness secret from outside of the corp. But as we started to lose a few, and kill alot of ships in gangs consisting of only drameils. The secret started to get out. Already our area is completely overrun by Drameils, there's one on scan in nearly every nearby system. And this particular killmail made me post this.

So here I am. Laying claim to the idea of Dramiel gangs. Python/Space jerks thought of it first! And the rest of you are just unoriginal twats!

Only joking of course :)

Buy one, try it out. Have a blast, send me isk as thanks!

Still Alive!

Recently the Python Cartel has moved to Yvangier. Its a small system near Old Man Star and its kind of link a quiet corner of a very hectic region.

We share the system with another pirate alliance called The Blood Money Cartel (refered to from now on as BMC). Now our esteemed CEO Spectre3353 told us to be nice to BMC, "We have to live right next to each other, we might need thier help sometime!" he would say...

I can be nice. When I want to be.

But after a few days it became clear that BMC didnt want to share thier little corner of the universe, and started to become downright hostile. They convod our CEO and after finally getting to the point, they less than politely asked us to leave. Jerks! (you can read the chat log on Spectres blog here)

We at the Python Cartel didnt take kindly to this, and what started our as a little bit of smack in local has blown into a full blown war. We fight at every oppurtinity and thiers no quater given. They bring Falcons, Logistics and other ECM boats. We undock our carriers and sniper BS's and each fight usualy ends up in a stalemate.

Yesterday was a good example of how we have decided to fight these chumps. We sat outside thier station at the undock with a couple of carriers, a BS or two, and several other different types of ships, camping them inside the station. I myself was in my Tempest Fleet Issue, which has been redisgined and is actualy now a really good ship. Able to fit an armor tank, and have enough slots left over for alot of DPS and nuets.

Anything undocking either died or docked back up immediatly. Only the fastest most agile ships were able to get away and a even those sometimes died horribly.

We kept this up for a few hours and even tho it felt lame, it also felt good to be showing BMC who's boss.

We had no intention of letting up untill an Invicta Hyperion appeared on local scanner, and a few moments later it arrived at the station we were camping.

Now we were very cautious around Invicta. They had a habit of fitting a cyno onto a bait ship and waiting for a carrier to agress them. Then they would light the cyno and jump in 8 or so Dreadnoughts and a couple of carriers.... then kill the carrier before it could deagress and dock backup. Just like what happened to our friend here.

The Hyperion pilot docked up his ship, and then undocked in a pod and left system. And for a moment we thought they were gone. But one of our carrier pilots noticed a suspicious pilot in local and a quick check of his records showed that he was a cloaky-Pilgrim-cyno-pilot who hangs around with Invicta.

We assumed he was watching us and we assumed as soon as one of our Carrier aggressed we would see the Pilgrim uncloak, drop a cyno and unleash a whole world of pain.

So we all agreed that our Carrier pilots wouldnt agress. They would just rep and see what happens.

And nothing did happen for a small while. Untill 2 BMC typhoons undocked and agressed us. What were they thinking? We had like 4 Carriers and had no chance of killing anyone of us. So we soon realised something else was at play here.

Our BS's shot at the Typhoons and we managed to kill one before the other one deagressed. looking at the killmail we saw that the Typhoon had been fit for pure tank and now we knew what they were trying to do.

They were working with Invicta. They wanted our carriers to agress. And they wanted to cyno in the Dreads.

We carried on camping for a small while, untill the second Typhoon undocked again and immediatly started shooting at my Tempest. Our BS's retaliated and the moment we did Mr cloaky-pilgrim-pilot uncloaked. Popped a cyno and to our suprise and shock.... 8 Dreadnoughts and 2 Carriers appeared.

We all immediatly deagressed and it seemed they were all gunning for me. 8 siege mode dreads, 2 carriers and a BS all shooting at my Tempest. I quickly assesed the situation and began to move my ship very slowly. I was being webbed about 5 times, but the 15m/s seemed to help a little. the Dreads couldnt track me very well while I was moving, and my corp mates in thier Carriers bust thier nuts to try keep me alive with reps.

Spamming the dock button I wasnt sure if Id make it. When I hit structure I was so sure it was over. But a few moments after I managed to dock up intact. The Carriers followed me, and all that was left was 8 Invicta Dreadnoughts, looking stupid outside the station, waiting out thier siege modes.

I experessed my love for our Carrier pilots and wondered how the hell I had managed to survive a hotdrop like that. I was STILL ALIVE somhow and I thought of the perfect song for our Invicta buddies:

[ 2009.12.06 02:54:02 ] Andrea Skye > hey invicta
[ 2009.12.06 02:54:04 ] Andrea Skye > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI

This song also has special meaning to us Pythons as its one of our corp anthems. The other being: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hi6yfgOclw

Filling your boots.

The past few weeks Ive been watching our Killboard with some sadness. Activity of late in our corp has gone down considerabilty. Mostly because of a bunch of new games that have come out, and partly because a huge alliance has moved into our home system of Egghelende.

The corp had grown fat. Egghelende gave us all the kills we could wish for without ever having to jump through a stargate. Now were competing for kills tho, alot of people dont seem to be intrested in searching for greenier pastures, and as such our killboard has been very bare.

My own activity has dwindled too, mostly because I've been playing WoW a little and Dragon Age: Origins. But today I felt the urge to play EvE.

Looking through my now overcrowded and slightly dusty hangar, and found myself stuck for choice when it came to ships. I remember when I didnt have a choice when it came to ships. It was Merlin or Ibis, because i simply couldnt afford anything else. How times have changed.

Figuiring I'd be a little rusty, I picked something cheap and expendable, which just happened to be my Stabber. Little Polly as I called her. She had served me well in the past. So I jumped in and undocked and prepared for an epic adventure.

Checking scanner, I noticed the a large number of pilots from the alliance I mentioned ealier. Thier called Dead Terrorists (DT), and what they lack in skill and tactics, they make up for in huge numbers.

Seeing hunting here would be difficult I pointed my ship towards Amamake and set off, arriving a few gate jumps later. I recalibrated my scanner and checked out the many asteroid belts that dot Amamake.

There was alot of ships about. And I assumed that nearly all of them were faction warfare. (as thats usualy the case now). But I continued scanning to find a lone Claw towards a belt. Now I am always wary of engaging scambling frigate ina nano ships, as all they have to do is get under you guns and your a sitting duck.

But, today I was trying a new load out for Little polly and it included 2x Small Energy nuets. If I did get scrambled and couldnt hit him, I could just nuet him and escape right?

Loading up my Guns With EMP I warped straight to the belt. The claw was only 20km off and I locked and activated my warp disruptor just in time to stop him warping away. I hit my MWd and approached him, figuiring he would try to flee. And flee he did, 20km, 25 km, 28km dammit almost outa point range... I overloaded my MWD for that extra burst of speed and noticed I was going nearly as fast the Claw but I still couldnt quite keep up with him. About to give up, I watched in slight amazement as the claw did a 180 and sped straight towards me. Moments later I was scrambled, and he was under my guns. I couldnt hit him and I watched as he started to make slow progress on my shield.

Ok this was it, time to see if those nuets really work . Activating both my nuets the effect was almost instant. The ship almost completely slowed down and I was no longer scrambled. I pulsed my MWD to gain abit of distance and lower transversal, and the Claw ate several facefulls of EMP. He couldnt stand up to the destructive power of the autocannons and exploded shortly after.

'I guess this fit works then' I thought to myself.

As I was checking the wreck, a Rifter landed in the belt only a couple of KM off. I was at about half sheild but i figuired I'd stick around anyways. I can beat a claw, why not a Rifter? as I tackled him, I also got scrambled. I activated my nuets just like before and again he stopped dead in the water, only to be torn to shreds by several rounds of EMP.

Another Rifter warped in. This time I figuired I'd stay outa scram range as I was low on capicator. The pilot was very new and his ship didn't pose much of a challenge. He didnt even get a shot off before his ship exploded.

I quickly looted the wrecks and warped away to the saftey of the station. What a rush! Even tho I had only killed 3 frigates, to me it seemed so intense. I hadnt felt this feeling for a long time, and it seemed I wasnt so rusty afterall.

Destination: Amamake 3-1

Probably the most infamous belt in all of EvE. Your almost as likely to get killed as to get a kill there. And tonight Me and Spectre decided that we needed to fill up or killboard due to the recent inactivity. We had to prove to everybody that kills could still be found, if your willing to go a little bit further than a few AU of the undock of our home station.

We were joined by Kobrakilla, who is a friend of ours from Space Jerks. I was in a Typhoon, Spec in a Megathron, and Kobra was in a sniper Mealstrom.

Following some intel from a source of ours, we found that there was a rather large gang, baiting in 3-1 Amamake.

It would almost certianly be scuicide, but we didnt care. We fitted ECCMs and simply hoped for the best. Warped straight to the belt we landed right in the middle of a gang about 20 in number. They were fighting a smaller group but we didnt care. We picked out the biggest ships and started calling primaries. The fight was pretty intense, and I wont detail every explosion. But in the end we killed 9 of them and they killed 2 of us.

Not bad considering we were vastly outnumbered. and it was a helluvalot of fun.

Dead Terrorists - bad at this game.

Heading home in our capsules, still feeling the adreniline of such a good fight. Spectre informed me that Dead Terrrists were camping the high sec gate in our system. Hardly a suprise, but aparently they only had a smallish gang consisting of a Vagabond, Sliepner, Eagle and a Hyperion. Only me and Spec were available at the time, but we couldnt let this opportunity pass. We had to get at least one of them and so we constructed a plan.

Spec would get an assoiciate of his to watch the gate they were camping while cloaked. Once they went after a target, and thus getting sentries we would make our move. We moved our ships to a safe spot way outa scan range from DT, and we waited a little while for an unsuspecting civilian to jump into Egg.

Sure enough, the Jel gate didnt dissappoint, and soon Spectre was reporting that DT had engaged a Scorpian on the Jel gate. I warped my Raven straight to the gate, and spec followed in his Curse. As we landed we watched to our dismay as all thier ships warped off the gate back to thier safe spot.

That is, all except one of them. I noticed the hyperion head straight to another gate, and I quickly aligned my ship after him. Spec did the same and soon he was teeling me he had a point. I landed a few KM off and locked him. I hadnt really tested This Raven much, and I overheated all my launchers in an attempt to get the Hyperion down as quick as possible before his friends would arrive.

And did he go down. The Torpedos completely annihilated his sheild, and soon his armor. He was in structure when his Sliepner buddy landed, I told spec to drop point ont he Hyperion and to get a point on the Sliepner.

A volley or two later and the Hyperion went up in smoke and I turned my Torps and nuets toward the Sliepner. His sheilds were tough, and my Torpedo explosions were way to big and dumb to do full damage against him. But with the combined nueting power of our ships, his sheild did start to fail.

Watching him slowly dip into armor we were shocked to see a hostile Loki uncloak near us. We figuired we could take that too, but he warped off almost immediatly. A little saddened I turned my attention back to the Sliepner.

Bleeding into structure, we were suprised to see a Megathron Navy issue appear on scan, and then on the gate. Debating wether or not to engage it, a few moments later a hostile falcon uncloaked.

Lameass falcons... This wasnt a fight anymore, it was time to bail. I overloaded my nuets in an attempt to get the Sliepner to stop neuting me. I aligned my ship and it paid off, capped out the Sliepner lost point and I managed to get out. ME and Spec both cursed, the Sliepner was in structure and a few more seconds he would of been toast.

But our anger soon turned to joy as we recieved some intel informing us that the Sliepner had indead been destroyed by another gang just a few second later. The Mega Navy Issue and falcons gang apparently.

Today, me and Spectre filled up our KB (with the help of Kobra) in just a few hours. Proving that just because your home system is overun, doesnt mean you cant find kills elsewhere. And if you cant find them elsewhere... you can always kick DT in the nuts instead.

Karma

What goes around...

Ive always frowned on scamming in any game I play. I always thought I was a lame way to make money and was kinda like cheating. But after hearing of how a couple of my corpies make billions of isk in only a few hours... and staring at my ever shrinking wallet... I decided to get rid of my last shred of decency and take up scamming.

Off I went in my hauler to a nearby trade hub, and I began to use a scamming technique that we all learnt from Lanisum. It was a slow start, most people see a scam right away, and even try to scam you back. After about the 20th convo, and about to give up.. I received a mail saying that he would take all three of my "Fleet Stabbers" off my hands for a reasonable price. After abit of Bartering he brought them for 210 mil for all three.

Except of course they wasn't actually Fleet Stabbers. They were just normal stabbers with a different name. He even thanked me afterwards for giving him a great deal. He probably still flying around in them right now, still not realising they aren't the real thing.

With my first successful scam, I began to get a feel for it. Don't act to pushy, act normal and most of all LIE LIE LIE.

A couple of hours later I was sitting upon 1.3 billion isk and instead of moping in the station wondering where my next meal was going to come from.. now I was looking through every contract throughout EvE looking to splash out on a shiny faction BS.

...comes around

In the end I brought Macherial.. from a friend from Space Jerks (our blue friends in Egg)

I'd always wanted one. Back in the days when I got in my first Rifter I had always dreamed of flying one. In my opinion it is the Sexiest ship in all of EvE bar none.

Scrapping together my modules I managed to fit the Macherial pretty decently with even a couple of faction mods. I sat for a moment spinning it in the station, admiring its beauty from every angle. But this wouldn't do... I needed BLOOD! I needed to get my first killmail with it.

Undocking, I sat outside for a few minutes, and sure enough, a few moments later a Iteron Hauler appeared and docked at our station.

"Haha sucker" I thought "wait till you undock..."

So I waited..

And waited..

And waited some more.

After about 20 minutes of waiting and slowly growing bored of it. I was kinda surprised to see a pilgrim uncloak about 30km off.

I was sitting next to a fellow corpie, Brick0joe (we call him Felix) who was in an Abaddon. Watching Felix start to attack the pilgrim I decided to do the same. As were attacking it, I notice a message in our Intel channel for a different corpie telling me to be careful about agressing the pilgrim. Apparently he well known for bringing huge amounts of ships to kill greatly outnumbered foes.

Looking at local, and seeing it was nearly empty I continued to fire.

" What can he possibly bring thats quick enough to kill me? Id see them enter local and then just deagress and safetly dock up"

The pilgrim was burning towards us quite slowly and was about to go into structure when he suddenly opened a Cyno, and a few seconds later a Huge blob of battle ships and carriers arrive.

Jump bridge. Doh

Deagressing and recalling my drones as quick as I could I started to spam the docking authorities for permission to dock.

DOCKING REQUEST DENIED!

DOCKING REQUEST DENIED!

DOCKING REQUEST DENIED!

About to enter structure, I checked my aggression timer to see I still had about 15 seconds before I could dock. I gave up and watched as my structure melted away and my brand new Macherial exploded into a thousand pieces.

Dammit.

I had had the ship for about 30 minutes and the worst thing is, I never even got a killmail. Karma is indeed a bitch.

Whats this? A post?!

Why hello there my fellow compatriots. This is indeed a post and it is indeed on my blog.

As you may know I went away to play WoW, but here I am, back again... playing EvE. It was "inevitable" after all. So without further ado, here's a little story about what happened just a couple of hours ago.

NBSI

NBSI. Or for those not familiar with the EvE acronyms, it means Not Blue Shoot It. Which in our corp (the glorious The Python Cartel) it means you can shoot pretty much anything, because we have very very few blues, which means we have very few friends outside of the corp. Some might say were like the North Korea of EvE.

A few days ago, a pilot of ours, Apoctasy, decided to leave the corp for reasons of his own. This is fine by me, if your not having fun, or wanna try something different then more power to you. Apoctasy is a really cool guy and Ive flown with him alot of times. We killed loads of things together and had alot of fun.

Anyway today we were gathering the guys together to start a gate camp in our local system. Everyone else undocked and warped to the gate ahead of me, as I had to refit my ship. That ship happened to be my beloved Tempest, and since I've recently just gained the skilled to use T2 large artillery... well that means Ive stuck T2 Large artillery on pretty much every ship that can fit them.

So lagging behind the others, I finally get the permission to undock. As I begin to align to the gate I notice a hauler undocking too.

"Great, a chance to test my 1400mm's again"

As I start spamming the lock tab on my console, I notice the name of the pilot... Shaka Laka... an alt of Apoctasy, which he uses to move his ships around. Obviously he was moving his gear to his new home.

Now I'm faced with a tricky dilemma. On one hand its a free target, He isn't blue, and he probably has a ton of cash in there. On the other, if I do kill him, he will probably never talk to me again. It only took me a few seconds to make the decision however, and it resulted in this.

I called out on our comms channel for somebody to grab the loot for me. As my ship was rather quite fragile with this setup, having no tank whatsoever. Spectre3353 answered my call and quickly scooped anything of value from the wreck just before Apoctasy could try to salvage anything from it, in his nice shiny Reaper.

The Hauler was worth over 200million isk and I didn't feel even the slightest bit bad until Apoctasy came onto our comms channel and asked why the hell I blew up his hauler. I didn't quite know how to respond and I just mumbled something about him being a "free target". Soon after that Apoctasy's friend, Twicedasize, came onto the comms and also voiced his opinion. Apparently I was a jerk for blowing him up. Twicedasize is in our corp at the moment, and Ive also flown with him alot of times.

Am I really a Jerk? Or was it just a fair game. What would you have done?

Given the same choice again.. I don't think I'd have done what I did...

This time I'd have podded him too.

A little something sweeter..

So I've decided to take a break from EvE, which means this blog won't be updated until I decide to return.. I've fell in love with a game I used to play a while ago again, and it doesnt leave much time to play eve, apart from making changes to the skill queue.

In case your wondering the game is... well... I'm pretty sure you already know.. its World of Warcraft.

I'll be back someday, once I get bored of WoW again, which I almost certianly will.

Cu guys around o7.

If you cant beat 'em, join 'em...

For a long time I've lied to myself. For a long time I've been flying Crows, Claws, Stilettos pretending they were great interceptors. But now the charade is up.

About a week ago my skill training finished for the legendary Taranis. Ive always said it had nothing on the other Inties I could fly. Many a time I've had Spectre laugh at me, trying to get me to see what I'm missing out on.

Ever since I've been able to fly it, I haven't flown much else, and my conclusion is....

ITS THE GREATEST SHIP IN THE GAME. EVER. PERIOD.

What makes it so great you say?

Amazing dps for a frig, fast, full tackle, tanks well for a Inty, and it completely WRECKS any other interceptor. The only downside it has, is that it looks like the elephant man.

51 kills in it so far and yet to lose one.

So, if you like interceptors, and you cant fly a Taranis... my advice is...

... Train Galentee Frigate V... RIGHT NOW!

Clusterfuck

Clusterfuck.

I try to use good English on my blog, and rarely use any swear words. But today's title is the word that describes today's post most accurately.

There are several pirate corps in our area. They shoot us, we shoot them, its just one big, happy, free-for-all. But sometimes, when the situation sees fit, we pull together and point our guns at a common goal instead of each other.

It all started when we were sitting in a safe spot waiting out our timers, after we had just killed watched some guys Drake self destruct. Self destruct? yeah. You heard right. Golden helmet had the bright idea to make him eject from his ship, but we all failed to see the message were it said the Drake pilot had initiated self destruct.

So we were sitting there, praising GH about his wonderful ideas when a call came over the comms. It was Diva PRM from Quantar Swords.

"What the hell do they want?" I thought. "Their not usually the chatty type"

Accepting the call, I soon learned that Quantars had a Sandstorm. Archon tackled outside their home station. And Quantars wanted our help to kill it.

We don't get on well with Quantars, but I do have alot of respect for them. talking to Diva we made a temporary truce not to shoot each other if we came to help kill the Carrier.

I docked up my ship and quickly boarded and undocked my Tempest, then set a course for Propel Dynamics factory. Which is where the Carrier was said to be tackled.

Exiting warp I saw I wasn't alone. There was already 10+ ships shooting each other and it seemed that the Sandstorm. Archon had got some backup too. I watched to see which ship our temporary friends were shooting, and focused my fire on it. Which just happened to be the Archon.

A little while went by, and not much changed. We were shooting, they were shooting, but none of us were able to down anything due to the carrier repping capability. I thought about just deagressing, when a bunch of red entered system. Checking their info I saw they belonged to Bamboule, Carebear Stare, and Dirty Filthy Perverts. They landed outside the station with a couple of BS's and I assumed they were here to help us kill the Carrier as they didn't agress any of us at first. They opened up a cyno and they brought in a Carrier or two of their own. Still, they didnt shoot us.

So assuming the newly arrived pirates were just here to help, I continued to fire on the Carrier, just as it seemed the Archons tank was starting fail, I noticed one of the Bamboule guys lock me and open fire.

Maybe a mistake?

He fired again, totally destroying my shield. I saw several other Bambo, DFP, and CBS pilots lock me and I knew I was toast. Id had been called primary and their was nothing I could do about it. I overloaded my hardeners and armor repairers in a feeble attempt to maybe hold out long enough to deagress and dock, but it was hopeless. A few moments later my Tempest exploded and I was warping back to my home station in my pod.

Quantar, realising the newly arrived pirate gang wasnt here to help kill the carrier after all, started to deagress, then dock their ships up and it seemed the fight was over.

Looking back at the battle, I think I know why BAMBO, DFP, CBS, didnt shoot us at first. And that's because they also assumed we were on their side. They thought we were helping them to kill Quantar. As soon as they realised we were shooting their new friends, they turned their guns on us. Turning the battle into a clusterfuck.

So there we have it. The problem with being pirates is you can never be sure who's actually on your side and who isn't. I think from now on its better to not assume anything and if a bunch of reds turn up in local, its safe to assume they didn't come to help you out after all.

Frigates, Frigates, everywhere...

Frigates

Quite recently in Aurohunen, a large corp has moved into the nearby low sec and they spend alot of their time roaming in huge 15-20 man blobs full of... T1 fitted frigates.

One frigate alone isn't much to worry about but when you see a huge 20 man blob that can dish out 2000 dps and the only way to hit them is with your drones, well that's when you start to worry.

So anyway, today me, Spectre and Felix decided we would fly around in our nanod out cruisers and maybe get to kill something before we all docked up for the night and went to bed. Space was pretty empty until we saw 19 reds enter local and checking their info we realised it was the frigate gang.

We figured we could definitely take them being nanod, and most of the pilots in the blob were only a few days old, which means most of them wouldn't of learnt to use Microwarp drives just yet.

After seeing them jump into Dantumi, which is right next door to Aurohunen. we decided to give chase. Aligning to Dantumi we were interrupted by Spectre:

"Ah Crap, just gota sort something, back in a mo"

Being good corp mates, me and Felix decided to leave Spectre alone in space and go hunt the frigate gang ourselves. We both jumped into Dantumi and saw the gang towards a planet. We immediately warped and landed a few kilometers of them all. We activated our microwarp drives and got out of their web and scram range, then released our drones and hoped for the best.

We were soon joined by a couple of Monsters (a corp in our alliance) and all the frigates started dropping very fast. 11 or so frigate explosions later the rest of the frig gang decided to cut their losses and run leaving just a couple of capsules lying around space, which were quickly podded and their corpses collected. (Don't ask why we collect corpses, its best you don't know).

It was while sifting through the wrecks trying to find something useful to take home and maybe sell when Spectres voice crackled over the comms:

"OK back, what I miss?"

Well where do I start?

Sleight of Hand

Sleight of hand is a term magicians use when performing magic. Its about turning the audiences eyes away from the "magic" part of trick with some kind of distraction. And today, that same corp you just read so much about tried to do something similar.

It wasn't long after the previous battle when their leader decided to offer a challenge in the local channel of Dantumi.

"Anyone want a 19v1 fight?"

19 vs 1? that's hardly fair. But it got my interest nevertheless. Opening a private conversation with the guy, I asked what kind of ships we were talking about. Apparently if I accepted the 19v1 challenge I could fly whatever I like, "even a dread" and the opposing gang would only fly frigates.

My thoughts wondered to my tempest floating in my hangar and the huge stack of smart bombs I had just brought from Jita. If this was for real it would be awesome.

We continued our conversation discussing details about the fight and any rules we would have to follow. We agreed to fight at a planet and my friends could watch from a distance if they liked. Everything seemed fine until I started to get a little suspicious of the time they were taking to form up. Apparently they were forming up in Korama and were nearly ready. But again, they were taking a long time about about it and it seemed as tho they were stalling us or something.

Maybe they gota buy new ships or something right?

Wrong.

Ossa is a dead end high sec system next to Dantumi, and its like the Frigate corps second home. they go in and out of there alot and imagine our surprise when one of the alliance scouts, sitting on the Dantumi gate in Ossa, cloaked, told us that there was a FREIGHTER from their corp about to jump into Dantumi.

Auro local began to fill up a little and it seemed the frigate gang was coming after all. But they wasn't coming to fight me, they were coming to escort their freighter through low sec.

Smart, keep us distracted with the prospect of smart bombing 20 or so Frigs and their pods while at same time bring their billion isk freighter through low sec right under our noses.

We played along and watched their freighter jump in and warp to Aurohunen. Some of our gang were already on the gate and as soon as the freighter jumped in Spectre got a point and called for backup.

I was still in my smart bomb Tempest, which isn't exactly the best thing for killing a freighter, but i warped to the gate anyways and as I saw a few of the Frigate gang land trying to protect their freighter from our rather weak gang.

I had landed next to the gate and for those not familiar with the use of smart bombs you cant activate them within 5 k of a gate. So I slowly headed towards the freighter who was about 10km of the gate now. And hoped that I could maybe get out of the gates range quick enough to get a few frigs.

I was scrammed and webbed and only able to go about 50ms, but I eventually made it out of the gates range and activated my full rack of smart bombs destroying a couple of their frigs, a few pods and even one of my own alliance mates (Sorry Dextor!). The remaining frigates bailed and accepted thier freighters fate, which was destroyed shortly after. Unlucky for us it was empty and it refused to pay us a decent ransom.

So the Moral of today's story is:

1. Don't go AFK, even for a few minutes. Or like spectre, you could miss a huge fight.

2. Even carebears are capable of being smart.

One rule to pod them all!

Now when it comes to podding. I don't hesitate, honestly, its the squish that does it for me. There is nothing quite like it. And I know some of you will say that I'm just a homicidal maniac (and your right, I am), but usually the person I pod generally deserves it.

My corp members are all united on this philosophy. Podding someone is like a perk of the job. Today however, after an extra long, and mostly uneventful roam to Old Man Star, our points of view clashed on this.

We arrived in Old Man Star and were disappointed to see that there was absolutely nothing to kill. The whole roam had been relatively boring and all we killed was some idiot in a drake, and then we killed his totally unfitted cormorant afterwards. ANYWAY! Old Man Star. After arriving and seeing that there was nothing to plunder. We decided to head towards Hevrice where a notorious pirate corporation hangs out, called The Tuskers.

So off to Hevrice we headed and when we arrived once again we were disappointed to see that there was nothing in scan in the entire system. Disappointment soon turned to joy however when just as we were about to leave a Tusker Vexor appeared on scan towards the station. Eagerly turning my Belicose (my new favourite ship BTW, but more about that later) I landed on the station and started firing my missiles at it. Little did the Vexor know my gang were waiting next door. And I almost cheered when I saw the vexor agress and the CEO of the Tuskers, Ka Jolo, undock in a Myrmidon. Signalling my corp mates to jump in I kept myself out of web range and dodging Ogre II drones, while the whole time trying to keep a point on the Myrmidon.

The two Tusker pilots must have saw the local channel raise, and they both immediately deaggressed. By the time my gang had landed the Vexor was well into cancelling his aggression timer and a few seconds later he docked. The Myrm who was out of dock range had also managed to warp out. Nothing seemed to be going right today.

We sat on the station a while and contemplated what to do. The Myrm was still out there somewhere but we assumed he was a safe. We were all scanning away trying to pinpoint him regardless tho:

"Hes at the moon"

"No, hes at the other station"

"No hes at the SS"

"No, hes 3k off me!!"

Who said that? 3k? I heard someone call on comms that they had managed to slighly bump him out of dock range and that they had him webbed and scrammed. I aligned immediatly and warped to my corp mate and my other corp mates landed soon after. We quickly melted his Myrmidon and we quickly got a point on his 100million-isk-of-a-bounty-pod.


"Awesome" I thought "not only do we get a squish we also guna get some iskies for it. I pressed my finger against the trigger only to quickly take it off again when Spectre3353 screamed down the comms:

"STOPPP! DON'T POD HIM"

Silence filled the comms for a Moment, but it didnt last long.

"We cant pod Ka jolo, hes my hero" he said quietly

"You cant, but we can" I laughed. Everyone agreed except Spectre3353.

"NO STOP!!! YOU ASSHOLES!" he screamed again.

So here is the situation. Pod some guy you don't even know, and get a fat 100million isk stuck in your wallet and also risk getting kicked out of the corp... or listen to our bleeding heart carebear of a CEO and respect his wishes.

While contempleting this, I watched with horror and Ka jolo managed to creep his pod over to the station and dock.

Comms erupted with disbelief.

"MUTINY!"

"PRIMARY IS SPECTRE!"

"LYNCH HIM!"

"KAMIL ARE YOU PLAYING EVE AGAIN? ITS WAY PAST MIDNIGHT??!! YOU'VE GOT SCHOOL TOMORROW!"

The argument lasted several minutes but in the end we all saw the funny side of it. Spectre would never live this down. From now on whenever something bad happened we would have some ammo to throw in his face. We even got him to change his corp title to something more suitable as we felt he deserved a scar on his record for letting some guy live, when he had a 100 MILLION ISK BOUNTY for no other reason than that he reads his blog sometimes.

What would you have done? would you have podded him? right now I'm wishing I didn't respect Spectres wishes and just pulled the trigger, I know next time I definitely will!

The reason I gave up posting for a while was mostly because I havent had the time. Also I rejoined the newly formed Python Cartel and spent alot of time settling in. But I should be back to posting now, so enjoy :)

Im just a peaceful miner..

No I really am.

I AM!

I spent the majority of the last two days flying around in an Osprey. And it is quickly becoming my most favourite ship of all time. But, its not because I like sitting in belts and sucking huge rocks, and its not because I like fitting shield transporters to it and keeping all my friends alive. ..

Its because I like the way people under estimate it in their interceptors, frigs and AF's and wonder "WTF? WTF just happened?" when they see their overpriced, shiny new frigate explode before their eyes.

Lo and behold... The Doomsprey (shamelessly nicked from some guy who hangs about in one of our local comms channels )

3x Light Nuetron IIs
1x Small Nuet

10m AB
scram II
Web II
Sensor booster II

1600mm Rolled tungsten
EANM II
Damage Control II

Drones to taste, but I go with 4 warrior IIs.

It can handle any AF/frig and yesterday I even managed to gank a Brutix in it. Which has to be one of the greatest moments in my EvE career so far. Sure he was young and barely had a clue, but the mail from Concord sure looks good. I bet the guy handling them must of thought there was some mistake before he posted it.

Anyway, give it a try, you will be surprised how much action it gets, sit in a belt and it wont be long before a cocky guy in an Incursus or a Tanaris comes along thinking hes gotta free kill.

Fraction Battleships!!!11

In low sec its pretty rare to see a faction battleship on scan. And you can imagine our surprise and joy today to see no less than THREE of them on scan, and to kill them afterwards.

It all started when we heard a report over on of the local Intel channels about a Caldari Navy Raven on scan in Aurohunen. Relaying the information to one of my friends, Golden Helmet, he decided to go check it out in his Helios. I told him I would go fit up my Vagabond for mission busting on the off chance he managed to probe him out.

Arriving in Aurohunen, Golden Helmet was busy probing away, and we had been joined by Apoctasy in his Pilgrim. A few moments later GH told us he had a hit and he was warping to it. I aligned my ship in his direction waited for the call...

"Warp to me, hes 20k off.... I got a point!" Gh called down the comms.

Me and Apoc walked in and landed about 20km off, we both got points and GH activated his ship scanner revealing he was decked in faction modules.

"Great, payday" I thought

"Err, wait a minute..." Said GH, interrupting my train of thought "Hes got THREE warp stabs"

God dammit. A few seconds later the raven warped out. Apoc had been unable to get his extra 2 points on him and it seems we had been robbed... we sat there a moment, wondering what to do next.

"Two Navy Megas and a Raven on scan" said GH, filling us all with hope once more.

As he went to probe them out to our surprise the Navy Raven warped back into his mission and began to lock me. He had come back to kill us?? I wondered a moment what was going on. Maybe it was a trap? Maybe he had backup on they way?

I saw Apoc began to scramble him and figured I might as well do the same, Apoc had 3 points on him now and I activated my own point a few moments later. GH warped in after hearing the good news and we proceeded to blow up his ship without much trouble, and we were several million isk richer.

Checking scanner we saw that the other two navy Mega's were on scan, along with the Raven. With our current firepower I doubt we could of took them if they were fitted properly so we asked around our local Intel channels for backup. Our friends The Guristas Assoicates responded and told us they had sizable gang only a few jumps away. Gh continued to probe and a few moments later, to our surprise he told us they appeared to be at a belt?

We cant be that lucky can we?

Gh warped to belt and informed us they were actauly there at 0km RATTING. Guristas Associates responded by jumping their 17 man gang into Auro and warping directly to the belt, me and Apoc followed suit and all landed at the belt spreading out points evenly among them. Jammed by the Guristas super blob and taking huge chucks of their shield and armor, they quickly evaporated leaving nothing but smoking wrecks ready to be looted.

During the fight another pirate gang seemed to have the same idea as we did but they didn't expect a 20 man gang to be in the belt and we managed to bag a Myrmidon of theirs too.

All in all, a pretty good outing wouldn't ya say?

Just like the old days.

"5...4....3...2....1....HIT!, warping to the Raven right now!" Golden Helmet called down the comms.

Golden Helmet was the old CEO of my old corporation, and had recently came back out of retirement to start pirating once again. Him, Spectre3353 and Inertial (he was also one of the directors of The Python Cartel) have both joined The Carebear Stare. And now The Carebear Stare is alot like The Python Cartel as many of its core members are all here. The past few days have been alot of fun.

My own probe finished its cycle 2 seconds later and I also got a hit. Dammit, I lost. Me and Golden Helmet have like a private competition when it comes to probing out mission runners. I'll never hear the end of it, I thought. But lets not worry about that for now, we got to Raven to kill.

This Raven had been flying around our home system for quite some time. It seemed like he was running a mission, but he had to keep warping out, as the Guristas kept kicking his ass. Every time our probe cycle was about to finish he moved spot, and after an hour of this, we were desperate to kill him.

We all landed right next to him and quickly locked and scrambled him. Our gang was relatively weak, consisting of 2 cruisers and 2 Cov ops ships. But the Raven pilot appeared to be clueless. And as we watched his shield melt in a few seconds,, WE KNEW he was clueless.

He exploded a few moments later, and wondered why we had spent so long hunting this guy down. The kill mail showed he had 4 warp stabs. 4?? No wonder the Guristas kept kicking his ass, by the time he had locked one of them his Shields were probably gone.

So, saddened by the anticlimax, we retreated to our safe spots to wait out our timers and dock up. When Spectre3353 alerted us that a friend of his, in a system reasonably far away, in a system called Vifrevaert, had a drake tackled. Apparently he was in a Punisher and couldn't break the Drakes tank. But the Drake couldn't kill him either.

"so how far away is this system Spec?" I asked gingerly.

"17.." he replied

17? by the time we got there he will of either got backup or someone else would have came in and killed him. Spectre wouldn't hear of it and told us he was going anyway. I sighed, and docked up my Buzzard to get my Stabber. And I headed off to Vifrevaert close behind Spectre, and with Golden Helmet close behind me in his Rupture.

We sped through the gates not bothering to check the scanner, while requesting updates from the Punisher pilot on any change of the situation.

About 15 minutes later we arrived in Vifrevaert, and the Punisher Pilot had still got the Drake tackled, and he had been joined by a Rifter. I warped to the Punisher to see Spectre already there attacking the Drake. Checking my watch list I saw Spectre was already half into armor, and I set about orbiting the drake and then firing my 220mm's and heavy missile launchers at it.

Spectre's armor was getting low, and I told him to warp out if he needs to.

"Nah I'm fine, I can take it a little while" he said, drunkenly.

A few moments later, watching his Vexor suddenly go into structure, he yells down the comms "What the hell? Why wont my ship warp?"

"Err maybe hes scrambling you?" I said in a matter-of-fact way.

"Oh shi-" Spectre said quietly. And I watched as another volley of missiles left the drake, hitting Spectre, completely destroying him in the process. I laughed at the situation and continued to fire at the Drake.

Golden Helmet landed and also began firing, the Drakes tank was very strong and now he had started to agress me. I watched as my shield slowly disappeared and I contemplated getting out before I left it to late like Spectre. I overloaded my guns a little more, and hoping he exploded before I did.

Luckily enough the combined DPS from both my Stabber, GH's Rupture, the Rifter and the Punisher, were hitting him pretty hard and soon after the Drake popped.

We gave the loot to the Punisher as thanks for holding the Drake in place for such a long time. The pilot was only a few months old too, and did very well to keep a Drake tackled for so long.

Afterwards, Spectre brought a new Vexor and scrapped together a ship fitting from his old wreck and from the stations in the nearby area, we went around Old Man Star and killed a few other ships including a Thorax, Enyo and a Kitsune . And it really was just like the old days, back in The Python Cartel. Its great to have those guys aboard The Carebear Stare bus!

You gota lose it eventually...

You gota lose it eventually...

This is a saying familiar to most pod pilots. Especially pirates. You see when we buy a new ship, we know that someday, its going to go down in a ball of fire. No matter how careful you are, one day that shiny new Hurricane is going to be nothing but an insurance payout.

Today I proved it, and it all started like any other day. I was sitting in my bunk, watching some rubbish on the Holovision. Why is there never anything good on?

I switched off the Holovison, and the comms panel in my room started to flash. A voice crackled through the speaker, which I recognised as Grumbler1, from the Bamboule corporation. We got on well with those guys, so i listened.

"Charon tackled on Litura gate, send assistance if possible" There was a click and the comms panel went silent.

A Charon? Killing something that big and expensive is a pleasure that comes few and far between. I quickly threw on my jacket and ran down to the hangar bay as quickly as i could. Knocking over several people in the process.

When I arrived I took a moment to decide on a ship. Tempest or Hurricane?

Tempest has more damage, hurricane has... Right! I ran up the ramp and into my Tempest, lovingly named -Bad Karma-. I ordered the Hangar tecs to swap my cap Injector for another Stasis Web, as Keeping the Charon webbed would be important. I hurried the docking manager for permission to undock and was soon out in space.

Litura was it? I'm pretty sure it was. I set a course for the Litura gate, which was a few AU away.

I landed a few moments later, to see Grumbler also in a Tempest blowing large holes into the hull of a Charon. I wondered if i would be able to get a lock in time..

I did, barely, I fired two rounds of my Duel 650mm before the Charon exploded a pretty blue flash. I sat there a second, happy to have killed such an expensive ship, when I saw Grumbler aligning without even checking the wreck. Wheres he going? I wondered

"GET OF THE GATE NOW!" " GET OFF IT!" Grumbler yelled over the comms.

What? I only just got here. There was nothing aro...

The gate fired and a Huginn decloaked 30km off. Immediately I saw what was happening and I frantically tried to warp. Aligning in a battleship takes forever, and just as I was about to enter warp, the Huginn manages to Warp scramble me. I sighed, and locked the Huginn. I opened fire and watched as 6 heavy rounds of EMP shattered against his shield.

That was the only shot I'd fire, because a few moments later a Falcon decloaked and started to jam my targeting systems. I hate those dam things. I lost my lock on the Huginn and realised what was about to happen. I was Webbed, Scrambled, Jammed, and taking fire. I was screwed.

A vagabond jumped in, followed by a Thorax, and then another Tempest. I sat there helpless, being jammed, unable to fight back. This is why I hate Falcons. I don't mind losing a ship, but losing a ship and not being able to fight back has got to be the worse feeling in the universe.

My ship exploded a few moments later and I warped my pod out to safety.

I had helped kill a Charon which was alot more expensive than a Tempest but I couldn't help feeling angry at losing my Tempest in such a lame way. As I docked my pod in the station I promised myself i wouldn't ask questions again. If I was told to get out, Id get without question or hesitation next time.

I went back to my bunk reminding myself that "I had to lose it eventually...". Just a shame it had to be today.

Payback is a bitch... and so am I!

Firstly Id like to say welcome back to an old friend who has come back to Eve after recently escaping a Gallentee high security Prison camp. You can read about his escape here: http://evenewb.blogspot.com/. This is the same guy who inspired this very blog, so welcome back Spectre3353!

Floating lazily in my Rupture, waiting for something worthwhile to kill is how I spend alot of my time in EvE.

Once again I was in Mara, and I was seeking out a Maller. I seemed to keep missing him by a few seconds. It was during one of those close encounters I saw his name on my overview. The name seemed familiar, so I did a quick check on his public records but I couldn't seem to place him.

He was part of one of the training Corps that capsuleers are thrown into when they first become pod Pilots, but I knew I had seen him somewhere before. So I checked our corporations Kills log, which records any ships we destroy or lose.

"Voila!", there he was... It appears he was part of a gang that "baited" my corp mate just the day before. Hmm..

Mallers are great bait ships, as they can withstand alot of punishment. I paused a moment from chasing him and considered my options. This guy is probably bait, so it would be wise to back off no? I didnt know what kind of gang he could be flying with either.. so its probably best to leave him be. Let some other unfortunate soul be victim to the "bait in Mara" trick...

But no.. once again I start to hear a voice in the back of my mind..

"You could kill him before his mates arrive.."

Could I?

Well, there's one way to find out I guess. So shrugging of caution, which seemed so easy to do recently, I set a course to a belt where my scanner had him pinpointed.

Sure enough, he was there. I landed right next to him and quickly began to lock him only for my computer to say:

"NOTIFY: Your attempt to target Maller failed"

A few months ago, I would of started to panic, but I kept my head and gently pressed target once more and waited. You see, I had discovered that this is a bug with some ships computers. I'm not sure what causes it, but if you continue to spam the target button after you get this kind of error. You will never be able to target as the computer just keeps restarting the targeting process. If you press it once and just wait however, even tho it doesn't appear to be targeting, eventually you will get a lock.

And a lock I got. The shield on my Rupture was at half power now, but I was armor tanked so it didn't really matter about my Shields. I opened fire and quickly evaporated his shields under a hail of machine gun fire. I knew that the Maller was also armor tanked just like I was and once I started to do damage to his armor I groaned a little... His armor was stupidly strong and I contemplated trying to escape... but my readout showed that I still had a little sheild left.

His damage was pathetic. So I forgot all thoughts of running away and continued to rain 220mm rounds upon his hull. I knew if nothing changed I would win... but something did change. Just as his armor was starting to take some real damage a Moa warped in, who I knew was with him as he was part of the corp that had killed my corp mate.

The Moa quickly locked me and I was trapped. With no hope of escape I did what I usually do when there's no hope of coming out of a fight intact.. I overloaded my guns and fought on. If I was going to get destroyed I will take one of them with me. The Maller was starting to buckle under the extra pressure, but so was my Rupture. The combined damage from both of their ships was really starting have an impact.

I kept firing, my armor holding... barely. The Maller began to take structure damage, and a few seconds later so did I. I closed my eyes and waited, I heard an explosion followed by another. My pod shot out into space and I quickly warped it out of the belt. Looking back I saw the Maller had been destroyed too, and I felt good that I had taken at least one of them with me.

I went back to passari and quickly jumped in my Vagabond. The Vagabond is my favourite ship when it comes to engaging multiple hostiles and I wanted some revenge.

So I went back to Mara ignoring the sentries that started firing at me as I got to the gate. I jumped through and warped to a safe spot, and I noticed that local had started to fill up. Checking the scanner I saw that several ships were located in the same direction.

Arbitrator, Vengeance, Manticore and two Mallers. Checking the ship names I saw that one of them was the Moa pilot from before, he must have changed ships. Without thinking I set a course right for them and I landed in the belt just as most of the gang had warped off. But there was one still here, alone and not moving. It was the same guy who had killed me in the Moa just moments before. I saw RED.

I turned on my microwarp drive and sped towards him. He was in a Maller this time and I quickly caught up to him and locked and scrambled him. I emptied my drone bay and sent my drones to attack the Maller. I Kept my distance as any good Vaga pilot does and watched as the Maller helplessly tried to close distance. He didn't have any speed mods and was covered in armor plates. He had no chance of catching me.

He was going down pretty fast and a few moments later his friends started to arrive. I overloaded my guns, and continued firing. A Vengeance landed just as the Maller was going into structure and it started to speed towards me. I toggled my MWD on as I knew I got webbed it would be all over. I was going out of range of the Maller now, but my drones continued to attack him. I saw the Maller explode in a bright orange fireball and turned my attention to the retribution. We was quite far from the Arbitrator and the other Maller now and the Retribution Pilot must have understood the situation. I saw him align and warp out just as I was about to get a lock. Cursing, I headed toward the Arbitrator who also warped out, followed closely by the Maller.

My ship slowed down and I calmed down and and savoured the feeling. I scooped the Maller loot to my cargo hold and decided to wait out my timer in a secluded part of the system. Its a great feeling when you destroy someone who had destroyed you just moments before and I recommend it to anyone. So next time you get killed and want to get revenge on someone. DONT pay mercs or some other gun for hire to do it for... do it YOURSELF! its a much better feeling when you do so, and alot more fun too!

Yes, another post about Interceptors!

So there I was.

Criminally Flagged, in a Rapier, in Mara, looking for something to shoot. Mara is the place us pirates go when we feel like a party. Its kinda like Amamake but with better Music.

Hitting the refresh button on my scanner every two seconds was starting to make my fingers ache. There was plenty of targets, but they were either sitting near gates (yuk, sentry guns) or cloaked just like I was. I was about to give up, and dock up for the night when something caught my eye.

Crusader.

I'll never be able to catch that I thought, checking the Pilots records I saw he was quite experienced and from the Veto Corporation. He probably wouldn't be caught unless he wanted to. Hmm, he wouldn't engage a Rapier, even if I sat in the first asteroid belt, uncloaked, and started Mining. So what would he engage?

My mind wondered to the 3 Claws still sitting in my hangar. He almost certainly go for one of those. So I rushed back to Passari, docked up and got into the nearest Claw and then headed back to Mara.

I had that feeling you get just as about combat is imminent. I knew the Crusader wouldn't be able to resist and jumping through the gate back to Mara i rubbed my hands together and got ready to savour a good old fashioned 1v1 interceptor fight "Just like old times" I thought.

I aligned my ship to warp out when I heard a Almighty thud, followed by loud crash. I was being attacked? by what exactly? "CRACCCKKKKK" I saw the tip of my left wing shatter, out the corner of my eye.

"WARP DAMIT!" , I punched warp button on the console, still not knowing what was going on. Luckily I was in a Claw, and they can warp out of bad situations like this pretty fast assuming they ain't scrambled. I entered the warp tunnel and sat back in my chair.

What the hell was that? I checked my ships database for recent aggression and it turns out the person who had been trying to destroy my ship belonged to the Caldari Navy. Hmmmm.... ohhh! then it clicked. Of course. I was Criminally Flagged and the Caldari navy don't like criminals, I don't know why, they are just very touchy about it. Anyway I had been shot by the sentries and my ship was in a pretty bad way, but at least I had survived to laugh about it later on.

Checking the scanner again, the Crusader was still there and he appeared to be looking for me. I watched him warp from Planet to planet trying to find me to no avail.

I sat in my Safe spot, fuming over my stupidity. If I had just waited a few more minutes my ship would be in a fight right now. I couldn't engage now as all my armor had been blown off and engaging a fresh Crusader would just be throwing my ship away. So I sat there waiting, and waiting until my new criminal timer ran out. Hoping that maybe the crusader would stick around until I could get back to the station and repair my ship.

Sure enough as my timer expired the crusader was still zipping around, so I jumped into Passari and went back to the station, repaired my ship and headed back to Mara. I jumped in, checked the local Comms channel (that shows all the pilots in the system) and the Crusader pilot had gone.

Dammit. I sat there a moment trying to decide what to do. Veto were also a pirate cooperation that lived nearby, just a few jumps away in fact, in Ishomilken. Maybe the Crusader pilot had gone back to his home station, and maybe if he saw me in local would want to fight again. However he would probably have friends as it was his home system after all. But caution was never a trait I did possess and I felt cheated out of a good fight. So I set a course for Ishomilken and arrived there a few minutes later.

Just as I thought, the crusader pilot was there, so I quickly warped to the nearest planet and waited again for the crusader. Watching scan, for a while nothing happened. When suddenly a Sentinel appeared on scan. Checking the name of the ship i saw it was the same pilot who had been in the Crusader.

Sentinels are generally a no-no for interceptors, as they use energy neutralisers and tracking disruptor's. Both bad news for a claw as you cant use your Microwarp drive, and they ruin the tracking of your guns. On top of all that they use light drones, which eat interceptors alive.

The Sentinel didn't hang around and soon landed at the planet a little bit away from me. I was going to warp out there and then, but then I remembered how cheated I felt, missing a cool 1v1 interceptor fight and figured Id make the veto guy pay. Id fly around just outside his drone range and tease him until he couldn't take anymore. Then maybe he would go fetch his Crusader again.

So that's what i did, and when I saw the Sentinel warp to the station I clapped my hands together and thanked the EvE gods for being so kind. And I promised to sacrifice a small goat when I get back home. I warped to the station and waited for the Veto pilot to undock and I jumped out my chain when i saw a Crusader appear on my overview.

I quickly locked and tackled it without even thinking and activated my guns. The other crusader pilot didn't seem surprised and I watched as he did the same and started firing back . My shield disintegrated almost instantly, and my armor started to take damage. But my claw was well armored and took all the Crusader could throw at it. Meanwhile my 200mms, were chewing through his armor at an alarming rate and soon his structure. He exploded while I still had most of armor left and I started to lock his pod when I noticed something strange on my overview.

A sentinel?

Wait... I just killed this guy. What the hell was going on? I forgot the pod and quickly warped out and checked the kill mail I received from Concord. And to my surprise the Crusader pilot was actually a different pilot all along, tho he was also from Veto. Maybe they had tried to double team me?

Regardless, I was happy, I came for a Crusader kill, and got one, even tho it wasn't the guy I intended to kill. I warped to the gate to leave and noticed I was being followed, by the Sentinel and the guy I had just blown up. This time he was in a Iskhur and obviously wanted some revenge.

I couldn't take both of them so I quickly made my way back home. And being lighter and more agile I made it without any problems. I docked up at my station and couldn't help feeling an ounce of shame for running away so quickly without really thinking it through.

Maybe I could have lured one of them away from the other and got a second kill? I sat there for a second, and reminded myself I got what I went for and that was a Crusader kill mail. But the voice in the back of my head told me to go back and fight.

Its a very persuasive voice, and extremely hard to resist. The things its made me do, I cant write here as children might be reading, but suffice to say they ain't pretty.

So I had one half of me telling me to dock up for the night, and the other half telling me to go back to Ishomilken. Obviously, being the mentally unstable type I undocked and headed back to Ishomilken and began to look around for the Sentinel Pilot.

I knew the chances were, if he caught me, Id probably lose my ship. But at the time I didn't seem to care. Once I go looking for a fight I usually either get one or get blown up trying to win against impossible odds. I remember the time I tried to solo a Rapier, Rook, Vulture and a Zealot in my Drake (that's a story for another time). It was the same voice now, as it was then.

Anyway, I warped around looking for the sentinel. He seemed to be doing the same and it was like we kept missing each other. Until eventually we landed at the exact same time right near each other. "Here goes nothing" I thought.

He was about 20km off and I burnt towards him. He tried to keep distance but my ship was alot faster. I caught him pretty quickly and activated my warp scrambler, shutting of his Microwarp drive. He launched his drones and I began to hear them start tearing chunks out my ship. I heard the sound of an energy neutraliser and watched as my screen started flashing about how I had low power. My microwarp deactivated as I didn't have the power to run it. But my scrambler was still working, barely. I opened fire and to my suprise the tracking on my guns seemed fine.

Why wasn't I Tracking disrupted? I watched as my guns tore through the other guys ship with striking ease, and it wasn't long before he was scrambling away in his escape pod. I sat there a moment dumbstruck. I had been running from the sentinel for a while now and it turns out he wasn't fit as most Sentinel pilots do.

Afterwards we had a small chat about fittings, and his fit was more of a gang tackler fit. He seemed friendly enough, and I almost felt bad about blowing him up. But he was OK about it, and I know he would of done the same to me if he had the chance.

I made my way back home again (uneventful trip), once again impressed by interceptors and wondered why I ever stopped flying them in the first place. They are a hell of a lot of fun to fly!