Gen: I’m still here…

Hello readers (if I have any left), my apologies for the lack of posting over the last few weeks/months. It was not my intention to leave it this long without giving you something to read.

Since my last post things have been much the same (hence the lack of posting), I’m still getting some kills and even spent some time in lowsec. The Black Rebels now have Chapters so I’ve moved away from Hek/Auner area and I’m looking for a new home in Caldari space. To be honest I will probably stay available for what is currently a period of ongoing war’s with various different Corps/Alliances some of which are in High Sec (i.e. no negative ten sec status for me yet).

A few weeks ago the Rebels took a small gang around Auner, this was the first time I’ve flown with some of the Rebels and as most of my time is spent Solo it made a nice change. I was in my shiny new armour Cane providing DPS and a big target while the rest of the Rebels were in smaller ships. We ended up killing a Raven (running a mission in low sec.. that’s what d-scan is for), and as a claim to fame (well sort of) I managed to get the final blow on Lady Shaniqua \o/.

She wasn’t too pleased about being “ganked” and come back in a Loki looking for us, but before we could all die under her guns we went after a Battleship (yes it was bait) in a belt and then got blobbed, my Cane died a hero’s death though and managed to kill a Rifter and Rupture before exploding..

Skill training wise I am finishing off what I class as the last of the Core support skills to minimize capacitor/CPU/Powergrid and maximize Tank before topping up some more Gunnery and Missile skills. To be honest I will still fly the “smaller” ships because I enjoy it more than tanking around an a big ass hull. Plus I still have some ships I want to fly and all these wars give me plenty of opportunity to try them out. I did lose a Manticore the other day in 0.0 space on a quick visit, I was about 15KM off the gate when a Dramiel uncloaked me and made short work of my bomber. I will be back though as I want to practice some bombing runs.. I might even head back into WH space in search of some PVP action..

The Black Rebels are also recruiting currently, so if you fancy some small gang PVP and want a awesome bunch of people to fly with (some of the best pilots I’ve ever flown with in Eve), then drop by our in-game public channel The Autocannon or pay a visit to our recruitment thread.

So that’s about it for today, sorry again for the lack of posting I will do my best to improve.. I would also like to say Thank You to all my readers.. I know it may seem strange but because of you guys and the other Bloggers out there I enjoy telling stories of my Eve life, in fact since starting this blog I’ve started another blog about my other passion in life (well not including my awesome girlfriend and family of course) which is all things IT related..

This is totally a none Eve blog so if you are interested (and there isn’t much there yet) please feel free to visit The IT Geek Chronicles. I would ask though if you want to comment etc please use a non Eve account (I want to keep them separate).. oh and Rixx if you are reading this, let me know what you think to my blog banner on that site..

PVP: 3 Month review in the Rebels

So it’s been a while since I posted last, not because I’ve stopped playing Eve just more because I haven’t got anything “interesting” to write about. I’m still floating around Hek picking fights and overall it’s been a case of winning more than I’ve lost (which is always nice).

I’ve been in the Black Rebel Rifter Club for over 3 months now, which for me is a long time to stay in a PVP corp. Not because I am a serial corp hopper, just because usually I either lose interest in PVP or die and get bored. The Rebel’s are a cool bunch to fly with, each with their own style and although we are often spread out across the universe it’s still nice to know a good bunch of pilots have your back. We also have a large number of bloggers in the corp. You can find the RSS feed for them all HERE

This post is a mostly a review of my PVP career in the Rebels, I’m not a great one for posting how awesome I am at killing ships but I am proud of my stats so far (mostly because I’m still new to PVP and I fly solo 100% of the time).

So here for your enjoyment are my R1FTA Killboard Stats:

Kills: 47
Real kills: 43
Losses: 12
Damage done (ISK): 0.28B
Damage received (ISK): 0.09B
Chance of enemy survival: 21.82%
Pilot Efficiency (ISK): 76.05%

Ships & Weapons Used:

Rifter 42 Kills
Wolf 4 Kills
Hookbill 1 Kill

150mm Light AutoCannon II 29 kills
200mm AutoCannon II 14 Kills
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket 1 Kill

Make of this what you like, but I’m pleased with my progress so far, a lot of my kills are against bigger ship classes so that’s a good thing right??

Fly it like you want

Durz

PVP: Bleh moments

So I’ve been a bit quiet the last few weeks, other than publishing my PDF version of my looting and flipping guide that’s been about it. To be honest I’ve reached a bit of a “bleh” moment in Eve. Can flipping and looting wrecks has reached the point where it’s more work than I want and the fights aren’t always “fair”.

I’ve been waiting for some courier contracts to be completed (thanks Red Frog Freight) in order to get my gear into low sec, now all I need is to fly some ships into my new home and then get my mass of modules and ships moved. It means reducing the number of some ships I will be taking but nothing major.

My last couple of outings in Eve have been a bit FAIL, for a couple of reasons. The other night I undocked in my Rifter and after 10 minutes hunting around Hek decided to head back to Arnon (yes I was that bored), on arriving in Arnon I was surprised how quiet it was so decided to head into low sec next door.. Again nothing worth engaging so I decided to have a fly around the area and see what happens.

I randomly chose systems and made some new safes in a couple of locations, I was just about to log for the night when I landed in one system and warped to the station. On arrival at the station I saw a hauler slow boating out of the station and warping off to customs office. I decided for an easy kill and followed, I landed just before the hauler locked him, point, web and started to unload hot rounds of RF ammo into him.. Awesome I thought he’s going down quick.. well not as quick as me when Concord landed and blasted the shit out of me.. Yes yes I was in a 0.6 system and hadn’t thought to check before being a wannabe pirate.

The next day I reshipped in a shiney new Hawk assault frigate, first fail of the day, rocket/shield fit. Second fail of the day engaging a cane in Hek, that wiped me out in seconds. Now I have half decent shield skills and thought I had a decent fit but it made me realise that when it comes to shield fit ships I need a lot more practice flying them so I will stick with armour for now.

2 stupid encounters in 2 days, does it bother me, no not really I think it’s just a side effect of living in high sec for so long, you tend to lose a part of your common sense and forget that fights need planning and attention should be paid to your surroundings at all time.

Oh well, off to low sec I go, I’ve been putting it off for too long.

Fly crazy (but be smart).

Durz

Guides: Looting & Flipping the PDF version

So I know I’m a bit behind with this, but I’m on another batch of medication and in my drug fueled haze I’ve finally finished the PDF version of my Guide to Looting & Flipping. Now I admit I’m no guru with graphics so apologies if it doesn’t look like a fine polished piece of work but I’ve done my best.

You can download the guide HERE

Enjoy

Durz

Gen: Still around in spirit..

This is just a quick post to say I’m still around, just not really “with it” at the minute. The last 4 weeks I’ve been ill and after 6 trips to the doctors, 2 lots of blood tests and 4 different lots of medication I think I’m finally on the road to recovery.

I have been in-game during this time and even managed to get a few kills but my focus hasn’t really been there and I’ve been sleeping a lot. A lot of my in-game time has been spent moving stuff around on my other toons and getting my indy alt settled into his new WH home.

The guide I published a copy of weeks ago is nearly finished in PDF format, just a title to put on it and then i will publish it on this blog for those that are interested.

I posted a week or so again about being unsure about going -10. Well I’ve finally decided to go for it, I will move my stuff into my new low sec home this weekend and then once I’m back to 100% health I will see how long it takes to get -10 (and the all important flashy red). I’ve kinda worked out a skill plan for the next few weeks that will help me with the ships I fly currently and let me get into some new ones. After that it’s back to the support skills I need to max out to make my frigates even more powerful…

Durz

Gen: Oh decisions, decisions

My biggest problem in Eve has always been working out what to do, I train for a specific purpose and then get side tracked into something else before going back to my original plan. The same is to be said about the “role” I chose to play. Durzo started with the intention of being pure PVP and to be honest he has stayed that way, I might have diverted his training for a specific type of ship but always combat related.

The “issue” I have currently is decided what sort of combat I want. Durzo as you know has spent a lot of time can flipping and getting into fights in order to build up his PVP experience, but that’s got boring, then I decided to try a bit of ninja’ing but I’m not sure if that will suit me, sure I have an alt trained with nearly 4mil SP in leadership skills and capable of flying on Orca but can I really wander around solo living out of an Orca?

Lately I’ve been thinking about low sec again, I like low sec there is something about it that feels comfortable and you are always certain of a fight. In fact last night I was hanging around in a low sec system near Hek and I just missed out on the chance of getting a mining barge and then a hoarder and a hawk. The thing that stopped me.. worrying about my sec status. See loosing your sec status is easy, kill some ships, pop some pods and it’s gone. Getting it back is a bitch, I mean a time-consuming, long-winded painful experience that without 0.0 access can take weeks/months in low sec.

Add to that a fair number of Black Rebel’s hitting low sec and causing some pain for other pilots I kind of feel left out, sure the Rebels are a casual bunch who don’t mind what you do but I like the company and it’s better than playing solo.

So my dear readers, what are you views? Shall I make my way to -10 or spend time working on PVP in High sec?

Durz

PS the PDF version of my guide is nearly done, managed to get it to 1 page just need to add some artwork.

Gen: Just wanted to say thank you..

I would like to thank everyone for all the positive feedback and comments since I published my Guide to Looting and Flipping. Over the next week or so I will publish the guide as a 1 page PDF (available for download) and if my geek skills are up to it as a in-game browser compatible web page. I’m not sure if this will be a benefit but it might help some newer players access my guide without having to visit my blog.

Yesterday was my RL birthday (no Eve related presents for me though) so I didn’t get any Eve time in and I was busy over the weekend as well so not much happening. I’m currently work on a new Loki fitting so I can make us of that for some more high sec fun and mischief and to my shame (don’t tell the Black Rebels) I’ve been running some level 4′s to get my sec status back up past -2.0 so I can move more freely around empire space.

Oh my social experiment for creating my own blog related in-game channel so far has only one other visitor (you know who you are), so thank you and hopefully might see some more of you in there at some point.

Durz

Guide: Looting & Flipping

I mentioned at the weekend in Corp chat that I was thinking of writing a guide about this and a few people seemed keen to read it so here you go, my first ever Eve Online players guide. Feel free to leave comments (nice ones) and if there is enough interest I might even make it into a PDF with nice pictures

1.0 Introduction

Hello and welcome to Durzo Smith’s guide to “Looting and flipping”. I’ve spent the last couple of months getting into fights with people, 90% of the time because I’ve either looted their wreck (the looting part) or stealing their ore from their jetcans (and that’s the flipping part). That’s not to say I haven’t lost a fight or 2 or that I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get into a fight which has never occurred.

The purpose of this guide is to share some of my experiences, tips/tricks and general advice on this form of combat (yes some may call it griefing but ssshhh). It won’t be a long guide, no one wants to read pages of text about a game (well I don’t) and I’ve included some pictures to help some of my readers.. (only joking)

NOTE: This guide is the formulation of the ramblings in my head and while I am no Eve expert the thoughts, opinions expressed in this guide are mine and mine alone. I cannot say with 100% certainty that it will all be correct but I have done my best to ensure the facts I’ve written are accurate.

This kind of activity in Eve requires these attributes (in my opinion)

(i) Patience – it can take time to find someone willing to shoot at you
(ii) Imagination – there is more than one way to get a target (without talking smack in local)
(iii) Stupidity (only a small amount) – I’ve attacked an AF once in my Rifter before purely because he went “red” to me after looting one of my wrecks (but no I didn’t die).

2.0 Finding a target

One of the good things about this form of combat is that possible targets are everywhere, wherever there is an asteroid field you could find someone to get into a fight with (all being well). In this section I will discuss the different methods to finding a suitable target and how to progress that into getting them to shoot at you.

2.1 Picking your ship

To be honest this is common sense, no one is going to aggress you (no matter how much you annoy them) if you are flying a battleship or battlecruiser. The best ship in my opinion is a frigate, take your pick, fly whatever you can fit well and don’t mind losing. My ship of choice is the Rifter but then I love Rifters so what do you expect?

2.2 White, Yellow, Blue

No this isn’t some weird colour scheme in my house, it is in fact the different colour wrecks/cans that you might find while hunting for targets. Each colour has a different meaning so I will take a few minutes to explain them.

White – These wrecks/cans either belong to you or someone else in your corp. This means that you can loot/flip to your hearts desire and you won’t get any aggression from anyone.

Blue – These are wrecks/cans that belonged to someone else but they have abandoned them, meaning it’s a free for all and anyone can help themselves to the contents.

Yellow – Yellow wrecks/cans are the ones you want, these belong to someone else and if you take something from either you will get aggression (i.e. turn red) to them. Now the important thing to remember is that in some cases it’s not just the owner you go “red” to, if the owner is in a Corp and/or Alliance you will go “red” to them as well for 15 minutes (adds some danger to the game).

2.3 Picking your target

So you have warped into an asteroid belt and there are several yellow wrecks lying around, what next?? First thing to do is click on the wreck, and then click the information button to find out who owns it. This will show the owner’s information and will allow you to check the players corp (if he’s not in an NPC corp), the players age and all that other good stuff.

Second thing is to check (only if the owner is still in the belt) what ship they are flying, I always check to see what the ship is (I’m getting better at remembering) and what it’s shield and armour resists are like, and if it’s a drone boat etc.

Now you can do a couple of additional steps here if you intend to commit to this act.

(i) check Battleclinic’s killboard to see if this is a real carebear or a killer.
(ii) Set the owner’s corp/alliance to red (add them as a contact with bad standing) to see who else is around in local.

Can flipping offers a few more choices which I will go into more detail about next.

2.4 Going red

So you’ve found something to loot or flip, you’ve done some research, your ship is primed and you are committed to this no matter the outcome.

Wrecks – The only way to loot a wreck is to fly up to it, open it and steal the contents. Sometimes this is enough to start a fight sometimes you need to be a bit more creative. For example, you land in a belt and someone is ratting, they are slowly killing the rats, what do you do? do you wait for them to finish?

No my friends what you do is go and help.. launch yourself towards a rat, lock it up and give yourself a tight orbit, as long as your target does more damage to the rat even if you “kill” it, it will still be yellow, because you are close (probably closer than the target), loot the wreck, lock your target up and see what happens.

If the answer is nothing start following the person around, keep repeating the same thing and turn it into a game to see who can get to the wrecks first (they just won’t know it’s a game). I did this once with a Iteron using a tractor beam, each time a wreck got close I took the contents first (imagine how annoying that would be). They will either attack you or dock up.

If you can’t find anyone ratting, but find rats, kill them but leave the wrecks (don’t take the loot), sometimes people will loot a wreck without realising what will happen to them or because they don’t understand the game mechanics. If you are flying around the same belts in the same system you might catch someone looting your wrecks and then they go “red” to you (that’s a good thing).

Cans – Containers (cans) are by far some of the best objects to “play” with. A lot of miners, once their holds are full will jettison the ore into space, thus ending up in a can (hence the phrase jet(tison)can mining). It has always been my opinion that this is just silly, and people who jetcan mine deserve to have they ore stolen.

Now there is a bit of an art to can flipping (in my opinion) so here is Durzo’s top tips for flipping that can.

So you’ve entered a belt and there is a can next to someone mining, here’s what you do (it takes a bit of time to get this going well).

(i) Bookmark the can
(ii) Warp off (makes it look less obvious you are up to no good)
(iii) In your ship’s cargo hold find something to jettison (like a round of ammo)
(iv) Warp to bookmarked can at 0km
(v) On arrival, jettison your “thing”, open their can and then open your can
(vi) Move the contents of their can into yours (and if you want to take back the thing you jettisoned)

All make sense? Good, you have now stolen all of their ore into your can. You are now officially “red” to them. Lock them up and see what they do. A lot of the time they warp off and wait the 15 minutes until you are no longer “red” to them, but this isn’t a bad thing..

So you’ve flipped someone’s can but they have warped off, what do you do.. 15 minutes is a long time to wait around, I tend to hang around for a bit to see if they come back in a combat ship or in some cases a hauler to steal back the loot. Combat ships (if you have done your research right and picked a good target) will mean a fight, which you will hopefully win.

Now if you are sitting next to the can and the miner comes back he’s not likely to try to take back his ore with you there now is he.. So here are a couple of options:

(i) Cloaky ships are cool, especially if you are cloaked in the belt 20km away from the can. Now I say 20km because it’s within warp disruptor range and gives you enough distance to escape if necessary. You need to make sure that you are out of line of any major transit routes (so you don’t get uncloaked). If your target comes back in a hauler and steals “your” ore you can uncloak, lock, point and fire torps of doom at him.

(ii) So you have a bookmark for the can, change the name of the can to something random (I tend to use time but a couple of hours in the past so people think you’ve left it), warp to the nearest planet, once there align to your bookmark and use your d-scan on a narrow setting (5 degree’s) to keep an eye on “your” can. Hopefully what will happen is your miner will come back to get his ore, see you not around and then take it back. Once you see a hauler on scan and your can disappear (or give the hauler a minute or two) warp to your bookmark ready to blow something up.

3.0 Conclusions

Looting wrecks and flipping cans isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, but for some it’s a good way to get into PVP and if you are creative it can be a lot of fun. Remember not everything has to go bang you might be able to ransom the ship or the ore back to the player.

Your choice of targets is only limited by your imaginstion..

Thank you for reading.
Durz

Gen: Social Experiment

I’ve decided to try a bit of a social experiment, now I’m not claiming blog fame or some kind of celebrity status it’s more an experiment for myself.

I’ve created an in-game channel called “Durzo Chronicles”, basically if you read my blog and are bored at anytime feel free to join the channel and say hi (as long as I’m online), if I’m not about please feel free to hang around and see who else might turn up. There isn’t really a point to this other than one more channel you can join and you never know who will might meet.

That’s it for today, fly it like you are being chased.
Durz

Gen: Blah blah stuff

This is just a quick update post with a more “interesting” one later on in the week.

My PC is now back up and working and I’ve managed to get back into the swing of things again. I managed a few kills on Saturday as well as one lose (1v1 PVP is never a bad thing) and one fight that ended with my opponent self destructing his ship. To be honest it was an awesome fight, myself in a Rifter he was in a Celetis, once I managed to kill his drones off it was a long fight which ended with us both in structure before he blew himself up. Don’t see the point in that to be honest but each to their own I guess.

I’ve also learnt not to underestimate my opponents, I looted the wreck of a month old toon in a Vexor only for him to slaughter me with T2 drones and Neut’s, had a nice chat with him afterwards and looking at this killboard, he’s done a lot of baiting in that thing.. Loses like that never bother me, I think it’s all part of the learning curve and it helps me develop.

Arnon is getting boring now though to be honest, so preparations are underway to find a new home, I’ve decided to take a different route for a while, I’m going to spend a lot more time in all things cloaky, I have a Hound and a cloaky loki already for some solo WH PVP where I will dive into WH’s from high sec and see what I can kill.. (and not sleepers). I tested both out yesterday but the C1 I found only had 1 tower which was abandoned and no targets to hunt. I’m hoping this will improve both my scanning and d-scan skills as you need both in a WH.

In an effort to make more of this blog and give my readers something new I will be writing my first Eve related guide. “Durzo’s Guide to looting & flipping”. This will be my thoughts, tips and suggestions on how to annoy people into fighting you in highsec. I appreciate there might be similar guides already but this one is mine. A couple of Black Rebel’s are expressed an interest in this so hopefully it will be of use to some people.

That’s all for now.. fly safe and remember to jet can mine as much as you want..