Five Ships: Target Caller Style

Ripard Teg recently addressed a reader comment asking which ship hulls he would choose if he could only keep five ships.  I thought this was a really good question, and decided to steal it (Sorry, Ripard).  I’ll even agree to his further restriction of only one T3 ship.

My top five list was pretty self-evident to me, and I came up with it in all of fifteen seconds.  The ships I tend to fly will fit into a clear theme: they’re all capable of being flown solo.

Right Message, Wrong Ambassador

CCP Fozzie recently announced the addition of a medium micro jump drive with Kronos, and pretty much anyone who does any sort of legitimate PvP is freaking the hell out.  And that’s not just from a certain segment of the population.  EVERYONE with an interest in PvP is unhappy with this addition.

Of course, I’m right there with them.  The addition of the MJD and the changes making interceptors bubble-immune were terrible ideas.  Regarding the former, it was the first step down the road of obliterating long-points from effectiveness, a step that wasn’t terrible in and of itself, but more because of what it represented.  And those fears were evidently completely justified, as the same filth is being spread to battlecruisers too.  Between Ventures, FW pilots fitting stabs, and MJDs, why don’t they just officially change the category to BvB: brawler vs. brawler?

Greed Is Good (But Engagement Is Better)

I’ve been having a great time playing Eve recently, although much of it has been related to non-PvP activities, including setting up some new towers and operations to fund my PvP.

But with that over, boy, are there a lot of things to talk about!  The first of those is our new drones, the Gecko.  I’m really excited about these, as it fills a great niche that we desperately needed to fill.  For a long time, we’ve been lacking a faction heavy drone from the Caldari, who as we all know, are synonymous with drones.  Thank the Jove CCP got on this major issue!

CSM, or Why I Voted For My Guy

So, the CSM election results are in, and I’m quite pleased with the results.  Sure, the WH guys got screwed.  But among those who did get in, I’m very pleased with quite a number of them.

The one I’m most pleased with is the person I voted for: Sugar Kyle.

I didn’t want to share who I was voting for because, quite frankly, few people actually care.  Those who do and would be swayed by my opinion don’t deserve to vote anyways; it’s we should all arrive at ourselves.  But now that it’s over and I can’t influence anyone, I’m happy to share my vote.

Burn Jita

So, Burn Jita is over, and I’m a little disappointed.  Sure, I was able to kill about 30 billion in ships, and sure, total kills were above 600 billion.  On those accounts, it was a good weekend all around.

But I only managed to lose 3.1 security status.  I’m disappointed in myself.  I had hoped to bring my ratting alt down to negative security status, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

For those of you who haven’t participated in a Burn Jita in the past, here’s generally how the fleets go.  The CFC had two fleets running around the clock, with various FCs rolling responsibility in two or three hour shifts, usually.  It’s similar to what happens during hellcamps.

Boredom and the API

This is one of those articles that posits a problem without presenting a solution.  Sorry.  Sometimes that happens.  After all, I don’t know everything.  But I think this problem is large enough that it deserves to have attention drawn to it.

I’ve mentioned already how I’m somewhat disengaged with Eve.  Part of that is due to the stagnation in null-sec.  A lot of people – myself included – would agree that a null-sec with a lot of small groups would be more entertaining than the current Cold War null-sec, where there are really two groups that matter, with at third who has pretty much been taken out of the fight, and a fourth who’s more interested in holding onto what they have than projecting power beyond Providence.  That’s a lot of space to be carved up by essentially four groups.

What this leads to is a tendency for the best null-sec roaming and small-gang fun to be had by corporations and alliances who AREN’T based in null-sec.  Wormhole corps and low-sec pirate corps near null are no doubt having a field day.  There are a lot of renters out there who don’t have the faintest clue how to resist a gang (though they do know how to safe up), and the small-gang skill of an average null pilot approaches zero asymptotically.

Pretty much, we’re talking Lindisfarne in 793 A.D.

I Want a Challenge

I’ve been finding myself increasingly disengaged with Eve the past couple weeks.  It’s not that I haven’t been playing; I’ve been spending a lot of time running around FW sites shooting frigates.  In my eyes, that’s still a great way to brush up on basic mechanics and counters.  It’s a lot easier to fly and lose T1 frigs against other, equally balanced frigs than it is to lose T2 cruisers or above.  I’ve already covered a lot of my observations about that sort of flying in previous posts.

It’s fun, and I’ve been logging time in game.  It’s not that.  My corp has a lot of players who hunt FW pilots.  Sure, you have your farmers, but there are also a lot of FW pilots who really enjoy the low-risk PvP.  They tend to charge into battle quickly and often, which makes for great content.  And having friends nearby to share intel and team up when we run into a blob only makes it better.