Happy Birthday To Me

I didn't notice this til just now but, about a week ago, Infernal had his first birthday :)

I remember the first time I sat in my Kestrel shooting at NPCs. I loved that little frigate, I really did. I couldn't see how it could get much better. I ran mission after mission in it til I got my first Caracal, though I wasn't that impressed with it. I just wanted to fly the Kessie more.

That changed when I got my first Drake. It was the best ship ever. I vowed at that moment to become the uber-est Drake pilot New Eden had ever seen.

It was around about this time I had my first taste of PvP and high sec wars. Some Corp whose members were a couple of years old decced us for no apparent reason, as they do. Although a lot of us were younger players we fought them hard. We'd take the fight to them and let them bring it to us. Unfortunately due to lack of experience we didn't do so well, though I loved every minute of it.

After that those of us that enjoyed the PvP would take roams into low sec or go can flipping in the surrounding systems. We thought nothing of jumping into the dangerous low sec system next door when one of our corp mates was in trouble on the gate.

I still continued to mission the rest of the time, earning my ISK and standings. Moved up to the Raven, which was pretty good I suppose, but I was getting bored of missions by that point.

As the Corp started to fall apart we went our separate ways for a while. I joined 8lack Wing, a PvP Corp which was then part of the low sec alliance Idle Empire. This Corp taught me much of what I needed to learn to start PvPing effectively... and how annoying it is to rat your sec status back up to get into empire.
After some time we left the alliance, looking for a good home in 0.0. We spent a couple of months in Cloud Ring, then moved to two other alliances.

Pretty quickly I got bored with null sec. I accepted the offer to join the Corp created by a friend from the Corp I started in. We became like those that taught us how much we loved PvP in the first place. High sec wars were so much fun. What was at that point the three of us pounded on unprepared Corps. We were win. We gathered more members, choosing from people we had fought with, once taking in a member of one Corp who had been accused of being a spy then popped and podded by his so called friends. He was a miner, but since joining us has never looked back. We took in the majority of another small Corp we decced who gave us a good fight. Corps we were at war with would join alliances, we would go so far as to almost crush the alliance. When Corps left, we would dec them too.

Life was good. Something Rotten was WIN with a capital everything.

Then one day one of the Alliances we decced hired Mercs on us. That took our experience up a notch. Both sides fought hard and it ended up pretty equal. To cut a long story short (because I've gone on long enough) today those Mercs are our Alliance.

But even though I am now a year old, I'm still pretty noob. So I have more skillpoints and I can fly more ships, but there's much I haven't done. There's something special about a game that can keep a person playing for years without them seeing all there is to offer. Before now I've never played a game like it and will probably keep playing for a long time to come.

Future plans? Fly more ships, blow up more of other people's ships. I really don't know. I'm happy in Something Rotten, we still are kinda win, even when we're not (if that make sense), and the guys are a lot of fun.

So thanks to everybody who has got me through the last year and helped me become who I am, especialy my current Corp mates, without whom I'd probably have quit long ago.

Cheers guys.

That Makes You a Sad Panda

We are currently in the middle of a lawsuit with PETA, for our unethical treatment of Pandas.

In our defence, what other action should we take when a corp full of relatively young pilots choose to set up home in the only high sec system in the middle of a dead end low sec pipe? We wonder if they moved out here to avoid war decs, can flippers and general harassment. That would be a mistake.

Props to them though, they sure can get a gang together and seem to be well up for battles here and there when there's enough of them.

They've killed some of us, we've killed some of them. And so it goes on.

I actually got my first opportunity to really test the overheating capabilities on my new Rifter: "Crinkley" against one of their youngsters. I screwed up, failing to turn it off in time to save my afterburner, almost destroying my point and web too. Still, one Cormorant down. I didn't really expect to lose the battle given the pilot was rather new.


Trading. No. Just... No.

So I was bringing my alt up from Jita to deliver some more Rifters, a Thrasher and some mods. Sat in Jita I thought to myself that now would be a good time to check price differences between there and Rens, the Minmatar trading hub.
I decided that items used primarily by the Minmatar would be the best plan, although I would absolutely not be the first to think this and take advantage of it.
Anyway, I settled on an item that would, in theory, net me a quick 25mil profit with the limited capital I could put into it and made my way to Rens happily.

As I type, approximately 12 hours later, half of them have sold and I have been forced to lower my prices about 20 times due to being undercut by 1 isk over and over again. Once sold my profit will still be about 20mil, but being sat in a station checking my order details every 10 minutes or so is not my idea of fun. At all.

Though it is slightly amusing to watch all the big time traders scramble to beat the prices of a one-off trading test.

I think I'm just too impatient. I don't want isk in a couple of days. I don't want to sit there watching my wallet go up by a mil or two every hour.

I WANT TO BLOW STUFF UP.

There's No Place Like Home.

Hunting AKA: Don't go AFK in low sec. In a covert ops. Uncloaked.

As expected, I got extremely bored of missions and working on my sec status, so I have returned to low sec to yarr it up a little.
I know I need a lot more practise in my Rifter. With this in mind I jumped in "One Track Mind" and chose a random direction to fly in. I've not had much luck finding solo battles recently so I wasn't expecting much at all. Anything would be nice.

Bogelek. Not far from home. I jump in and there's an Anathema 92km off the gate and moving away. Interesting. I hold my cloak and watch it moving steadily out of gate gun range. After a bit my ship rematerialized and I decide now is the time to go after it.
As I align I suddenly found myself being smacked by missiles from a Cerberus on the gate. It immediately took aggro from the gate guns and, in what I've now decided was the wrong move, I burned away from it towards the Anathema which was just about out of gate gun range. The Cerberus jumped back through the gate as I flew off.
In hindsight I think I should have attacked it. With the guns on my side I may have actually stood a chance against its heavy missiles. The sentries would have broken its tank for me.
But no, instead I flew as fast as I could to the covert ops frigate and proceeded to rip it apart. That's what you get for going AFK. No challenge for me but in my state of boredom from high sec, a kill is a kill.

While I waited out my global the Cerb returned to the system and immediately proceeded to hunt me down. I was in a pretty good safespot but thought I'd have some fun warping to planets, letting him catch up and warping away before he could lock me. It was my intention to continue this until my countdown ended then bait him back to the gate and this time use his aggressive nature against him. Unfortunately he left 30 seconds before my global expired, so no attempted Cerberus kill for me.

At this point some of my corp mates were beginning to appear in comms, so we made arrangements for a small fleet roam. I returned to Hrondedir and fit my brand new Rook (Thanks Web).

We Are 5-20.

With two Ishkurs, a Zealot and a Rook we set out to shoot some people in the face, with fire. On my way back from my solo roam I had spotted Thorax and Rupture class cruisers either ratting or missioning in Ennur, so we decided to head in that direction.
We didn't get quite that far as our neutral scout found a Celestis running a mission in Weskeber. After a failed fleet warp where one of the Ishkurs got left behind, the Celestis was made short work of.
Moving on, we probed out a Drake in a World's Collide mission. Unfortunately he was already past the first room and saw us coming. Sad day.

The Four Horsemen Cometh.

With the addition of another Corp member to our fleet, it was time to return home and begin the Four Horsemen roam.
Four of us were now each flying a different race's Combat Recon Ship. Huginn, Curse, Lachesis and Rook: "Pestilence," "Famine," "Death" and "The Other One." I might be a little off on the names. Also with us was an Ares: "Harbinger of the Horsemen."

And so, prepared, we set off with more fire.

"Retriever autopiloting to you" came the call from the scout. At this point we were in Mateber sat on a gate. Aggress a retriever on a gate in our small ships that would get eaten alive by the guns? Hell YES!!

More waiting on Global Criminal Countdowns... so annoying.

Todifrauan. Our scout probes out a hurricane in a mission. No contest. We attempt to ransom the pod but he wasn't having any of it. "Screw you!" in local was quickly followed by that extremely pleasurable SPLAT of a pod pilot taking the quick route home.

Oh Noes! There's a T1 Cruiser! Oh wait, there's 15!

While waiting out our GCC's... again... a Corp mate who was on his way to join us spotted a roaming gang headed in the direction of the large t1 cruiser fleet put together by the rest of the alliance, so we decided to join and catch them between us.
On a gate in Eiffer, their Ishtar, Armageddon and Hurricane melted under our guns and the rest got away.
We get safed up but before our timers are down, another gang appears in system. Time to go to work. Maulus, Blackbird, Drake and Omen down.

With a nice amount of carnage created we headed back home to resupply and meet up with yet more alliance members. I decide to leave the Rook at home and jumped back in my Rifter "One Track Mind."
After what seemed like an age we were once again on our way out.

In Evati a Hurricane uncloaks by the gate. It's the same Hurricane pilot The Horsemen popped earlier. It just wasn't his day.

A Moment of Stupidity (or Underestimating Gate Guns)

Akkio was our next stop. Then into EOA- where a Drake and Hurricane were using somebody else's bubble to camp the gate.
As local spikes a whole lot they decided to jump back through to Akkio and engage us there. We happily obliged. The Hurricane was already dead by the time I loaded the system but the Drake was a ways off.
I thought to myself... with all these people shooting with GCC surely the gate guns won't notice my meek little Rifter. So I burned toward the Drake who, for some reason, was moving away from the gate while it spewed heavy missiles. Not at me fortunately.
I overheat my afterburner to cover the 40km distance before he could get away. Once in range I locked him down with my overheated scram and web, ignoring the warning about consequences. There's too many of them for the guns to notice me, I think to myself.

WRONG. Strangely I take all gate gun aggro and One Track Mind pops in seconds. We don't post mails without other players on, so I can't link it. Sorry. At least the Drake died.

Only mildly annoyed, its only a Rifter after all, I fly my pod back home and dock up while searching my assets for another. I do have one, in 0.5 space. Fortunately I didn't completely screw my sec status and can still get in.

So, overall a good night. A few kills and I only lost a Rifter. The poor thing. I haven't decided if that's it for high sec for me or whether I'm going to rat it back up a little to continue with a few more missions. Only time will tell.