Transitions

Well the day has come, time for the 3 Hyper Active WH Junkies to leave ALLROUND FLYING MADNESS and move to our new home. AOE is a very active C5 WH corp that made us an offer we found hard to refuse. They supplied us a C4 w/ very favorable shield tank effects in play as well as a Large Mini tower setup. Now for me to take advantage of this I had to swallow my pride and and shelf the Proteus and dust off the passive shield Domi, H.M.S. Indomitable, as well as train the skills to effectively use transporters. Now all this will take about a week to train, fit and iron out any wrinkles that may or may not pop up. A quote I found awhile back that I had intended to use on a future WH move-in entry fits this topic "While planning the journey, you own the journey. Upon embarking on the journey, the journey owns you." I can't even begin to get into how true this is. How many times have you had perfectly laid plans, only to have the whole thing go FUBAR 30 seconds out of the gate? Well issues popped up w/ the Domi almost from the start. "OK" I say, "lets take this passive/buffer shield Domi and turn it into a resist beast w/ no passive recharge mods, throw a large shield transporter on top and call it good". For those of you trying to apply the quote here, this is the planning of the journey, I OWN THIS PART! Well, turns out that trying to fit several LSE's along w/ Invul's just won't fit w/ my TII large rails and MagStabs...this is the journey fucking me.
Well this issue was solved, from a fitting standpoint, anyway. Field testing has yet to happen though I PLAN on doing some before our C4 move-in...

So what is a Hyper Active WH Junky to do when he has no WH to call WHome? Thats an easy question to answer as far as I'm concerned. Being the master probe'r that I think myself to be, why not use those skills? I dust off the H.M.S Hunter, my low-sec radar/mag running Vexor and head off to Old Man Star and systems in a 7-8 jump boundary. Well, things go well for the first 2 days, 9 Radar sites, even more Mag (anyone else forget how crappy these are when held against the WH space cousins?) sites and 3 Crokite deposits. whenever I found a rock deposit I would BM it and come back right after DT, clear it out then resume site running. Now I don't want to get into how wonderful a local window is (it just might spoil me...) but being the paranoid WH pilot that I am now-a-days, I treat any pilots in system w/ some suspicion and a full drone bay on standby.

After one rather good haul of Crokite a few locals decide to harass the Hulk, now there TI frigs really never had any chance of breaking the tank, and seeing they are new players, I grab H.M.S. Stinger II and head into system, PEW-PEW & don't come back again! Well his buddies got away, but hey, I'm a bit out of practice w/ the Rifter, but oh how fun it was! Well that was fun...

So back to Dodixie it is, fit a Rex and head to Old Man Star, 3rd belt I jump to and I'm locked and pointed, moving the camera I see a hostile Rifter setting into orbit, knowing that his buddies are in warp as we speak ( I mean, who engages a Rex w/ a Rifter? Unless you happen to have encountered the rare Arty-Rift range whore fits that still exist in small nimbers), I try not to laugh when I see him level out at 6km, MY OPTI RANGE!!!

1. Web
2. Scram
3. Drones
4. Heavy Electron Volley
5. Set Warp...

Well just as the Rex aligns, here comes the secondary point in the from of an Inty. Then the gang Vexor, Vexor, Brutix, Caracal. Oh shit, well what to do? The Brutix sets in at 7km so why not? I get a volley or two off before I call no joy, eject and align the pod to the nearest gate. Just as I go into warp I see a Drake pop into the belt and engage the Brutix. I see the Kill Board later, whoever you are WarslayerCr, thank you for getting him, I only hope you survived the rest of the gang, O7 FLY SAFE!

So even outside of a WH, I've found that I can still keep myself occupied, & not only that, but have a blast doing it. The big thing here is that I've avoided missions all together! That's all for tonight folks, as always,

o/ Fly Safe!

Guest Post # One

Due to long hours at work over the last month I've found it harder and harder to keep up the posts and EvE In-Whole-Time. Fortunately I'm gifted w/ some pretty amazing partners in EvE. One of which, Eliniale, agreed to do a guest post for this weeks entry. He briefly hits on a few points that I intend to elaborate on in the very near future.

The industrial was making the transition from warp to sublight smoothly. I snapped the camera drone's view on the control tower, and saw it was halfway packed. Many men and woman could be seen working franticly to continue packing, the last of the pos crew who would go into stasis once the tower was in the process of doing the last automatic sequences. I took one last peek at the planets that had been colonies of mine for the better part of a month, they looked bare now my buildings had self-disassembled. I had picked up the people living there, together with the last produce just minutes earlier, and now not a trace was left.


Splitting my attention between de Directional scan, my communications channels and the information browser, I couldn't come to regret my decision. The people I was talking to seemed nice enough, and their offer was even better. They had scanned down a class 4 wormhole that was only inhabited by a loner in a medium sized station, moreover this wormhole had a static connection to class 3 wormholes and a large variety of planets. The offer was that we would join their corporation and go live in the class 4, while the rest of them would continue to live in their class 5. We would be outfitted with a large death star type POS, and left to our own devices for the rest of the time.


I jumped as I saw a ship appear on the directional scan screen, but relaxed as I saw the ship type, Thephantommajor's transport was no doubt picked up in the split second before cloaking. He was also in the process of taking down his colonies. I asked how the last trip went, and he said without a problem, but we should probably be careful for 5 pirates had entered local before he came back.


As I returned my attention to the information browser I reviewed the sleeper information available, and couldn't help but wonder if bigger things were at work. The Sleepers were too advanced for coincidences, as were the Talocan who were somehow linked with them. No doubt responsible for the wormholes, the Talocan were still rarely encountered in unknown space (much like in known space), yet they were here. I had shown this info to all my fellow wormholes explorers, and they were just as eager to get to the bottom of this, and our class 4, combined with our new allies would no doubt go a long way towards finding answers.

At this point I got the info of the crew that they had gone in stasis, and the packaged pos was busy doing the final straws and self powering down.


Phatom went ahead to scout out the exit, and reported an all clear. I secured the pos in my cargo hold, and engaged the warp, ready to leave our home for a new beginning.

Again I would like to thank our Dutch ally for taking the time to not only read this blog, but also contribute his prose for our enjoyment.

As always 0/ FLY SAFE!

Quick Poll Post

ALCON:

The latest poll has closed. The question was, "What class of ship would you consider best for solo work in a C3 WH (pew-pew, Radar, Mag)?" While we didn't have an overwhelming majority here it seems that BattleCruisers pulled out a narrow win w/ 36%, BattleShips and Strat Cruisers came in second w/ 27% each, CommandShips at 9% and TII BS's had no votes. Rather than talk about the winner I'd like to talk about the lame duck we had in last. Getting no votes is a feat in itself, but what I'd like to discuss is what made this happen? Would I have needed to specify Marauders (I assume that nobody would fly a BlackOps ship for all-out-combat)? Or is it that TII BS hulls simply cost to much vs the risk? Interested to see the comments here & as always,

o/ Fly Safe!

Proteus Loved; Proteus Lost.

Well having invested in my first multi-hundred million ISK ship in the Proteus, I was keen on pushing the test flight to the limit. You know, flying a lvl 3 or even a lvl 4 mission would be below such a fine piece of Gallente engineering; I was heading to a WH.

Now since this is the test flight and nobody wants to loose a ship on one of those, I fit H.M.S. Metamorphosis w/a heavy tank, resists were at the lowest 83% and the highest 97%. I fit Her out w/ a faction MWD, faction armor rep, Sisters launcher, and TII the rest. First WHole I find was a C3. "Disco, Disco" repeating over and over in my head, Sleepers start melting at 2.5KM, the salvager is bringing in some solid loots (4 nano ribbons the first 2 sites) and I'm feeling good w/ the setup. Now w/ that being said, I feel "good" not "great" or "amazing". The cap is going quicker than I'm used to, and I cant seem to land solid hits when orbiting at more than 400m/s. But the tank was holding as well as I had hoped for.

Having "helped" the owner of this WH clean up some sites, I scanned down a connecting WH, hopped thru & took stock of the sites. Oh, what sites this WHole had...I BM the first 5 pew-pew sites, then check the info on the system. C3 w/ a bonus to missile flight time (bleh) and a penalty to my max velocity. Should I? Sure why not! First site I warp into 30KM & lock up the frigates. "KA-BOOSH", pop, pop, & pop. Frigs down, tank is holding. I set orbit on the frig wrecks and salvage as the drones tear thru the first cruiser. After finishing the salvage on the first 3 wrecks I rocket (have I mentioned I'd never flown a cruiser sized ship w/ a MWD?) towards the first cruiser to assist my drones, 2 volleys of Anti-Matter M and it's on to salvaging. I recall the drones and head to the trigger ship.

At this point, things settle down to a routine, first wave pops, is salvaged, second wave goes down the same, though the BS was a bit rougher than I had expected. Well the trigger from the 3rd wave goes and I'm salvaging it as the 4th appears, now this is were things go south, & go south fast.

The last spawn has 3x BS, 2x Cruiser and I'm content to finish my current task before engaging the next section of sleeper vehicles. Well my shields were already down to nada from the first waves, my armor is sitting at around 90% then I hear "ERRRNNNNTTT", less than a heartbeat later I see my mail icon blinking, see my Hull melt to 0% and I'm the proud owner of a new ship. The new model isn't as easy on the eyes as the Proteus...So what went wrong? I have no clue to be honest, bad spawn on the last wave? Any ideas or knowledge that the readers have would be greatly appreciated.

I've since bought a new Proteus and replaced the subs that I lost. The new fit(s) seem to work fine in the C1-2's that I've been running, but I hold my breath every engagement seeing as how the LAST fit held in one C3 but not the other. Well enough for tonight, typed this up in a hurry while at work (on detachment to Top Gun in beautiful Fallon NV.).

o/ Fly Safe!