Resurrection.

It seems after numerous complaints and protests that CCP has restored null sec to it's former glory, Or at least something resembling it, by increasing the amount of sites worth any money it piqued my curiosity enough to step back into EVE once again.

After a lengthy wait on the fresh installation (new computer) I appeared in my captains quarters, While amusing for a short while it's nothing compared to spinning the camera in the hangar, at least in my opinion.
I also remembered as I checked all my mail and set up some skills that I had been removed from my corp to save on dues, so I was now stuck 40 odd jumps into DRF space without allies and to kick it off my old alliance wouldn't give me safe passage out.

So I put my carrier up for sale and scrounging together a few hundred million isk scampered off back to high sec, once again opening the recruitment channel.
A few hours, and several failed Goon scamming attempts later I met some nice players occupying a PvP hot spot, something I'd always yearned for, as well as an outpost.
With nothing to lose I set off to check it out.

Having no money was something I wasn't used to as I arrived in a very cheaply fit Myrm and spent a week waiting for my carrier to sell, but eventually the Isk hit my wallet and I was rich again, quickly picking up a new carrier only to find our systems being camped by a high sec griefer alliance claiming to be based in null sec despite holding no sov.

Now I sit in my beautiful ship spinning it aimlessly and watching local for a chance to make some Isk.

Though I would love to blow up this cloaky...

Nails Into The Coffin.

Has CCP lost their minds?

The latest patch saw many capsuleers (including yours truly) scratching their heads at yet another null sec nerf!

First they nerfed ratting in systems so sanctums would only appear in -0.7 and below systems or above however you wish to see it.

Second they nerfed the jump bridge networks only allowing one jump bridge in each system, while annoying it didn't quite grind life to a halt as much as the first nerf until...

The most recent nerf removed jump bridge access to capital ships, now for those of you who don't fly a capital ship, YES we can jump of our own accord to any cyno within a certain amount of light years of our system, this however requires a pilot with cyno skills, quite often owned by the cap pilot on a separate account meaning CCP gets twice as much money from us, though this isn't my complaint about this nerf...

CCP has constantly told us they are trying to reduce the powerblobs to make 0.0 more accessible to smaller alliances so in reducing capital ship movement they slow the advance and sheer fire power of the larger coalitions, what I believe they fail to see is that smaller alliances with capital fleets such as my own cyno jam every system we own to protect ourselves from the much larger alliances who could tear us apart in minutes, So without our jump bridges or the ability to use gates we are stuck in one system until CCP decides to either allow us to move again or nerf us a few more times until all the capital pilots rage quit which is looking far more likely at this point in time.

In other news Geminate has fallen to the hands of the DRF and backed by RaidenDOT and Pandemic Legion the invasion continued into R.A.G.E and Majesta Empire space with the massive capital fleet taking both alliances home systems.

Both alliances have given orders to withdraw all non combat assets to empire space and to move all combat assets to the RAWR staging system.

Goonswarm's invasion of IRC space ground to a halt as more and more assistance was needed to defend key locations of NC space.

And finally the NC's plan of an assault on WhiteNoise and RaidenDOT space as a distraction from the push has failed as both alliances announced they would be giving up their space in favour of the much richer lands of the Vale of the Silent and other NC regions.

An Inside View.

Sitting outside the reinforced station in L-HV5C I asked one of the local pilots their views on the current situation in Geminate.

impulsje > o/

bolt > Aloha
impulsje > i guess the interesting bit is in FDZ.. 2 systems over
impulsje > Pandemic legion caps and support fleets operate from there
impulsje > DRF has hired them to come help them out
bolt > with a 600 billion isk payout for a 2 month contract I’m well aware ;)
impulsje > that's 10 titans worth
impulsje > or 50 tech moons
impulsje > not too shabby
bolt > Do you feel the DRF has gone about this in an "annoying" way for lack of a better word. Instead of a 1v1 hiring out PL to bolster the force?
impulsje > all is fair in love and war...
impulsje > that includes hiring mercenaries i guess
bolt > What about paying people to drop sov, do you think that's a fair move?
impulsje > with real life money.. it think it's outside the box
impulsje > but for isk.. hey.. it's the economy stupid
bolt > Do you think the DRF will claim Geminate with PL on the payroll?
impulsje > they might
impulsje > but they cant hold it without pl
bolt > What are your thoughts on the ME heist, do you think that will weaken ME's presence in the upcoming fights?
impulsje > these things are always bad.. but seldom have a true impact on forces
impulsje > remeber razor lost a shitload of stuff before.. but it didn't matter really
impulsje > you lose loads more in fights
impulsje > at the hight of the fighting in gem it was 500 billion a day
impulsje > now that is serious isk
bolt > It is, What about Demon Hunters, what are the plans for your alliance obviously i'm not asking for anything secret just a general plan with Raiden and the rest of the DRF coming through.
impulsje > well i think most have notice the front line alliances have rebased in friendly space to be able to keep fighting
impulsje > so by the time we win this war in 2-3 months we can come back to claim what's ours
bolt > So even if geminate falls (temporarily or not) to the DRF you will always have a home in null sec?
impulsje > most likely
bolt > What are your thoughts on the latest patch? with all the sov changes have they affected your corp or alliances income?
impulsje > i think it has yet to really impact most alliances
impulsje > but the potential revenue of systems has dropped significantly
impulsje > so we might see a scaling down
impulsje > some systems are barely worth holding sov anymore

bolt > Do you think this a backwards way for CCP to battle the lag?
impulsje > hehe
impulsje > that would be too clever
impulsje > i think they saw that null sec was becoming too cushy

impulsje > and systems were all equal
impulsje > alliances could live on just a few systems
impulsje > some areas off null sec were more densely packed with capsuleers than high sec
impulsje > i guess they wanted to make it a tad less attractive
impulsje > and the good systems more worth fighting for
impulsje > the interesting bit for gem of course that it has only a few very good systems
impulsje > so is it worth holding for super alliances like DRF or the bigger NC ones
impulsje > for an upstart alliance like ours it is fine
impulsje > Russians will just rent it out
impulsje > and renters can't defend their space

Then I asked for thoughts on anything EVE related;

impulsje > i think the thing i'd like most is for the 'coalition' level of eve to be formalized
impulsje > alliances are now the highest order in eve
impulsje > we need something above it
impulsje > NC and DRF run very large scale networks and enterprises

impulsje > but their organisation is limited by simple matters like only alliance can refuel bridges
impulsje > communication channels are comprimized
impulsje > and the API isn't geared towards large scale information magagment
impulsje > of course I'd love the lag on super scale battles fixed
impulsje > who knows how this war would go without the lag
impulsje > at the same time i understand it might cost more resources than it is worth
impulsje > i guess a nerf on cloaks 'd be nice
impulsje > semi-afk griefers dominate null sec life nowadays
impulsje > maybe some sov mod or pos mod to decloak whole systems for a few minutes
impulsje > or some kind of special probes
impulsje > i dunno.. it's just too good right now
impulsje > oh and an armor rep pos mod.. now that would be cool
impulsje > ppl spend countless ours repping up towers it's stupid
bolt > If towers could rep themselves though they wouldn't change hands as often which im sure ccp is against
impulsje > i was thinking a mod that would use up most of the tower's power/cpu if online
impulsje > and believe me
impulsje > it makes very little difference in null
impulsje > supercaps kill a tower in minutes
impulsje > if you are not there to defend it
impulsje > oh and really... sentry guns on outposts
impulsje > the whole idea of being able to camp an undock is rediculous

Then he disappeared...

It's always nice to talk to someone from the other side and to get a little insight.

Turning Tide.

After another long break from eve during which I trained the ungodly skill Fighters V (64 days) I come back to see a turn in the war that was so crushing our spirits before!

A massive push back by the DRF led to 20+ Geminate systems being put into reinforce including several station systems, backed up by Pandemic Legion once again entering the field under the payroll of the DRF this time with a sum of 600 billion isk!

Yesterday a massive heist was pulled by a member of Majesta Empire (ME) in which a considerable amount of ISK was stolen from not only the corp wallet but also the alliance funds as well as numerous assets and a Nyx super carrier. The amount stolen is in the 300 billion area which will naturally put a massive strain on ME as they may have to stop offering ship replacements at least temporarily until their funds grow again. The NC did not however leave ME in the cold and has been giving economic support to ensure their wellbeing. ME still has its cash flow and a solid member count of loyal capsuleers but with the Geminate invasion intruding on their doorstep this couldn't have come at a worse time.

The recent incursion patch which caused a lot of unrest in the null sec universe has luckily skipped over this pilots head as the system in which I have been basing myself out of is a -1.0 but I must say I feel for those harshly affected by this patch who have had their income severely damaged. With all the power blobs frantically grabbing unclaimed "good" null sec space this may open the doors for new alliances to try their hand at the risky but rewarding side of EVE.

And finally as I type this I am sitting in the L-HV5C system currently owned by Demon Hunters which has been put into reinforce by Raiden. I have seen everything from transports to Dreadnaughts coming in and out of the system and it looks like this battle will be a big one.

If you have any news or stories you'd like to share with the universe feel free to leave a comment below, or simply just leave your name and i'll contact you in game.

Super Caps? No

"Lets build super caps"

"Yeah ok"

~ Me and a corp mate on super cap production ~

No we are not building super caps, but a dream is a dream and like that mansion in Hawaii you could be sitting in right now it just won't happen unless you do something about it! So with this mindset I set off on a small adventure to the Drone Lands to try my luck with drone alloys building smaller ships to see if one day in the future that dream could come true.

With every region in EVE there are bonus' and negative aspects, with the Drone Lands the negatives are that there is no bounties.. for a carrier pilot such as myself this was a bit of a turn off to begin with as the 16-22m wallet flashes are what kept me playing for a while when nothing was going on. The bonus' in the end outweighed this though as drone alloys sold for a heap and the alliance members in the Drone Lands could use these to build anything I needed from modules to drones to ships. With production in the region being so high most things sell for as cheap if not cheaper then high sec.

My personal favourite bonus of the Drone Lands is that the Drone hordes (Sanctum equivalent) have a trigger that can launch all the waves at once, roughly 25-30 battleships + bc's cruisers and frigs, this isn't really a problem to tank and it means I can warp my Noctis in on my other account and clean up as I kill allowing for almost no downtime in my ratting.

Chilling before down time.

I Got A Faction Spawn While Writing This...

Our system defense has been on the rise lately with flash fleets of 10-20 forming almost instantly with back up not to far away, unfortunately this seems to have scared off our usual "customers" so yesterday we took the fight to them.

The fleet moved up to Geminate stopping briefly to pop a Vagabond before resting in a Brick Squad owned system sitting quite comfortably outside their station. A Myrmidon undocks and is met by our grinning faces and torrents of bullets before he quickly redocks and we decide to shoot the station's clone bay...

For those of you who have never shot at a station or had one of your station shot at, this action sends a mail to the owners of the station.

So very shortly later local spikes up to about 50 and we get the order to align to a gate, myself being in the fastest ship i zip off at just under 5000m/s and 250km later the fleet warps to me and we set off home... unfortunately a real life issue shot up right at this point so I logged off and went to sort the issue, I come back a short while later and see the fleet is just about home and only myself and an Ishtar pilot were left in hostile space jumping between safe spots. Local sinks to about 6 including myself and the other fleet member and I tell the Ishtar to keep safe while i check the gate (my ship only cost 20m) I warp to the gate and jump through to 20 reds who light me up like a christmas tree (without the love) and I burn back to the gate and jump back through to meet an interdictor on the other side ready to stop me getting away and I'm promptly popped and podded... Good news is the Ishtar made it out safely!

We also recently moved system and upgraded our small tower to a large one in a much less inhabited system so the sites and belts are almost untouched by anyone but us with the more popular systems on either side of us acting as an intel buffer keeping us nice and safe.

In the rest of the universe its politics politics politics...

SOLAR has set blue (if only temporarily) to STR8NGE BREW [BREW] meaning another alliance will be joining the DRF fleets, this may be at the request of United Pod Service [UPS] and other close alliances to [BREW] as this is a vital time for DRF to make use of all the alliances to claim Geminate.

IT has continued to collapse over the past few weeks with major corporations leaving reducing IT's member count to an all time low (below 2500) which has caused tremendous pressure as the NC continues its warpath through IT sov.

The NC is also struggling with some internal disputes with Goons refusing to help after the NC's crushing defeat in Uemon. The Goons also are now offering a full reimbursement scheme for their members, begin praying to whichever deity you worship because this means trouble for everyone as the goons have no apparent interest in K/D ratio just the kills themselves so watch your intel channels...

The rumors i've heard about Pandemic Legion have been numerous as to what they have been up to and its hard to tell the fabrications from the truth, I've heard they were contracted to obtain assets for clients in the Delve region if this is true or not I'm not certain though it is believable enough with IT's demise imminent, unless some kind of miracle occurs.

Happy Valentines Day...

After a short breather from EVE I returned to the cold depths of space to find a few changes, some good some bad...

First up the return of Tom to the corp with his shiny new Thanatos which is a much welcome addition to the income of the corp wallet and a much welcomed return of a good friend to us all.

Along with Tom came a few others, another cap pilot I recruited just before my break made it out to our home system safely in yet another carrier, and a friend of Jason's will soon be joining us also (in another carrier..)

We also will soon be welcoming the people from our sister corp after their wormhole was finished they decided to join us in null sec so it seems our corp will be growing in size again in the near future.

But with the good news also comes the bad, when I logged back on I had about 50 mails and several notifications including 2 war decs... this didn't really affect me as I like most of the alliance live in null sec and we can be shot by anyone anytime, butI guess the intention was to harass us in high sec as we buy thing... but we can just do that with alts so I really have no clue as to why they have decided to waste their money.

And finally my blog has been listed by CrazyKinux on his blogroll! Massive thanks to him and if you haven't seen his site I suggest you check it out!

In the rest of the universe Rebel Alliance has moved out of Geminate and left several stations up for grabs, this of course being the big hot spot between the Northern Coalition and the Drone Russian Forces means that its a frantic race to claim sov and hold the stations, although the DRF already had an invasion force mobilized giving them the advantage as the NC scrambled a defense fleet.

NC managed to amass an incredible force from almost every alliance in the coalition to defend Geminate and destroyed the 1000 odd from DRF invading and regained control of the region with only 1 station lost to the DRF.

And of course Valentines day a day of love and care and a hell of a fight between DRF and NC with 9 NC titans destroyed, apparently the NC got word of a DRF fleet amassing and decided to hot drop the group but unfortunately for them the DRF had a massive reinforcement fleet inbound. I've asked around but so close to the aftermath its hard to determine the losses on each side but so far i've heard;

NC losses

9 titans (potentially 2 more)

2 super carriers

DRF losses

2 titans

2 super carriers

With news like this floating around it kind of makes me wonder what the rest of the universe does, it seems that either only the NC, DRF and IT have any noteworthy stories or more likely that all the reporters for eve related news are in one of those alliances...

Picture from evenews24

CONCORD: ID-485

Server online? That's new!

So with the servers down once more to fix various bugs that came with incursion I take time out of watching the clock to keep you updated on the goings on of my capsuleers and the rest of the EVE universe.

At about 1am (Australian time) I logged on to EVE to add a skill to my queue before bed, as I logged on I saw a group forming up 1 system over to go on a roam, first to high sec, then back to our home system naturally killing everything on the way.
I jumped into a shuttle as was the plan to make getting to high sec easier and we set off.
We arrived in empire without any problems and started buying and fitting ships, just before I finished fitting my Rook we got news over comms of a Nyx super carrier trapped in a system near our station system... We rushed our new ships to the low sec gate to start the journey back as the Nyx was believed to be cloaked and refusing to show itself until it could cyno out (who wouldn't do that) So we set out on the way home to pick up more members to go Nyx hunting with.

About 10 jumps from home we got news over the intel channel that there were 2 red carriers near our home and they needed help to take them down, already being in PvP ships we burnt to the system as fast as we could.
As it turns out though they didn't need our help at all, jumping in several carriers as well as at least 1 Dreadnaught and tearing them apart before we could even make it there. The trip was not wasted, we arrived home and doubled our size before setting off to hunt the Nyx which was still refusing to show itself.

Jump after jump we traveled until we heard of a 20 man gang of neutrals 2 systems over heading our way, we set up camp and waited...

They never showed up... bugger... but while we were waiting we heard that the Nyx showed up on scan, he had broken cloak to jump and unfortunately he made it, so with no real point to coming out that way anymore we set off to a hotspot nearby to once more set up camp...
Not getting any luck with the gate camp we set off to a system closer to home to try and find some trouble but by this point it was getting late/early and people were getting tired/bored and a few people left us as we passed our home once more...

With only 7-10 remaining we continued along until we found 2 neuts in local, we burnt to 0km on the gate and waited...

A Dramiel (I hate Dramiels) zoomed up to us and didn't jump, we knew it was a scout/tackle and decided to engage, unfortunately the hostile gang was twice our fleets size and was much more alert and prepared and we lost 3 ships and 1 pod in the fray including my Rook which I was a little sad about but jamming was fun none the less.

In the rest of the universe, EVOKE has joined with DRF to reclaim Geminate from the NC with several battles taking place and despite the amazing success of the combined assault on the NC, the Northern Coalition still managed to hold their ground for the time being.

Full story on Evenews24: http://www.evenews24.com/2011/01/27/ev0ke-afrika-korps-with-russian-support-in-geminate/

Red Alliance pushes further and further into The Initiative (INIT) territory and captured 3 stations from them, with little to no resistance it seems INIT has abandoned the region. RA's fleet had roughly 250 with 10+ super carriers and 50 other capitals.

Full story as always on Evenews24: http://www.evenews24.com/2011/01/26/red-alert-fortress-immensea-falls/

A Life Well Wasted.

The problem with being immortal is that life can sometimes have the fun drained out of it so yesterday when a red came into my system I didn't wait in hiding, I warped my carrier back to our POS and swapped to a drake and jumped to a safe spot 300km off the gate and as it would turn out that was the same gate which the red was warping to.

It was a curse (Amarr Combat Recon) vs a drake with no real need for cap? I think I could prove a somewhat annoying adversary for this guy.
Then I saw in fleet chat that one of the other guys in local had just switched to a rook and was waiting on my call, I warped to 0 and started unloading missiles into the curse and he started draining my cap, after a few volleys I gave the call and the Rook landed on top of us and jammed the Curse who proceeded to burn as far out of range as he could.
This fight seemed like a win for us until another red flashed up in local, "Run, this one was bait" I aligned but held out, with no point on me I was waiting to see what the other red was... A Vagabond, I hit warp and returned to my POS.
Hiding again? No not really.
Fleet chat came alive once more with pilots offering tackles, dps and ewar but unfortunately by the time we got anything sorted they had left system.

Yesterday I also celebrated my wallet reaching 1 billion isk once more thanks in no small part to my carrier, despite many interruptions that night it was still a major milestone for me as I have no debts and nothing to replace or to buy so this money is just piling up!

In the rest of the Universe Pandemic Legion has been keeping their assault on the NC in full force allowing us room to breathe down in Russian space. Though with the amount of Titan kills that I keep hearing about i'm sure morale on the NC side is rather high.

Over the Christmas break there was a lottery hosted by Destructive Influence (DICE) through internal feuds this lottery ended up being a rather nice deposit for one player who made a rather hefty profit of 40 billion!

Full story on evenews24: http://www.evenews24.com/2011/01/09/it-alliance-dice-x-mas-lotto-40bil-heist/

Is there a doctor in the house?

With my computer down and out for repair... by me... when i can afford the parts... i find EVE to be a rare part of my life over the last few weeks and being the holiday season i haven't exactly missed it with the family gatherings and the Falls Festival down in Tasmania where i live (4 days, 16,000 people, live music and lots of drinking) not to say i'm moving on from the game, just that i will be definitely slowing my pace a little.

I find myself in a rather stable position at the moment, my skills are just short of joining the capital fleet in the alliance and i think i would like to keep it that way for the time being, not that i'm against helping the alliance or anything, just that more responsibility with my extremely random and short hours that i can play don't make for a healthy fleet pilot.
So with my carrier safely in the home system (and not leaving) it almost seems like an end game position, I have the money to do all kinds of things but no desire to actually do them... So tick by tick my wallet increases and day by day my skill points go up and i'm hoping soon to have a revamped interest in EVE by the time my computer comes back to life.

In the rest of the universe, the Russians have kept out of trouble over the last couple of weeks generally staying out of the news, perhaps a little trouble with the NC here and there but nothing major. It seems the combined frag fest of IT, Goons, PL and our DRF has caused the NC to give up on the invasion to cure boredom as a member of the NC said, as they will no doubt have all the fights they desire on their hands. I doubt anything will cause the NC to crumble but i get the feeling if this keeps up for much longer we will see a rise of new competing super powers in the EVE universe.

Happy New Year!