Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...

"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy'", she read out loud. "'Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...'"
-- (Terry Pratchett, Jingo) 

Last night, in the afterglow of an epic bit of Piracy and a billion ISK payday for each of those involved, I decided it a good idea to tangle with a small gang that had set up shop on the Gusandall gate in Eifer, in all my genius I decided on taking a new ship out to play and promptly losing it. The rest of the locals with no co-ordination whatsoever followed suit and it ended up being a little farcical with two battleships and three strategic cruisers lost, but we didn't really care, had a laugh after and carried on with our lives

Here are the lessons learnt

•Intel Intel Intel

For fucks sakes, when you have intel, like the fact that there's at least 3 Caracals, 3 Moa, a Gnosis, 2 Ishtar, 3 Scythes and some tackle, jumping in all gung ho is not the smartest move. 
Sometimes being a solo pirate leads to some communication problems and combining forces doesn't always work out as hastily planned
We had sufficient intel and decided to jump in anyways, believing we were that good that we could clean up a remote shield boosting gang with a mix of ships, no voice comms and no fleet setup.

•Active Tanking 101

I haven't active tanked a battleship in a while and I was rusty, a dual rep AAR tank should have lasted much longer than I did, but I failed, the incoming damage was high and I didn't activate my reppers early enough, thinking I could bait tank a bit, but by the time I got them going it was too late.
I'm not a novice at active tanking, I just went full retard thinking I could just pull it off easily.

Dual Large Armour  Repairer or Single rep and single Ancillary rep?  The jury is still out for me, I'll have to play with it more and see which I orefer. I have dual repped in the past and had much success and I feel the boost rep of the Ancillary might be a bit more useful in the type of fights I would take in my right mind

•To MWD or not to MJD

One of the things I was toying with was the Micro Jump Drive, a new unit and one I had never used in combat. 
I was debating the Micro Jump Drive over the Micro Warp Drive and reasoned that I could just jump away if there were no scrams on me.

Were there any scrams on me? 
No, no there weren't
Did I just activate the MJD and jump away?
No, no I didn't

•Smartbomb over neutralizer

I'm undecided on this, the smartbomb could come in useful, had I had time to make best use of it to kill off drones and in this fight the neutralizer wouldn't have saved me, but what it might have done is break the rep chain of the Scythes a bit.

I did get one Moa before they could set up their reps properly but that was it, once they got going I wasn't going to break them, all that was left was for me to explode, even though I could have tanked better and simply micro jumped away.

All in all an expensive lesson, not as expensive as some I've had this year but not going to deter me, I shall still try this out, and maybe, just maybe, not go full retard and ruin what was an epic day :)

FWZ and the cost of combat

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

I'm quite enjoying hunting in the Minmatar Faction Warfare Zone, whilst it is frustrating it can be rewarding. I'm now on to Tristan number six after a less than stellar night.

Last night I warped in on a Firetail that was waiting on the beacon inside a plex, his neut and superior speed made short work of me. Not an auspicious start to my evening. I caught a rather young Condor pilot a bit later, seemingly asleep at the controls.

Things started to get interesting when I warped in a plex just in front of a Maller, there was a Navy Slicer and Malediction on scan too, I was kinda hoping for one of them to come in, but when they all landed the fight was on and a race for survival was on. I aligned to the sun at full speed, clawing range from the Maller but the Slicer and Malediction had me tackled, easily weaving in and out of long point range, I set drones on the Malediction to try force him off, my overloaded repper just about keeping up with the long range damage, every now and again I would Crazy Ivan towards the Slicer but it's superior speed and agility meant I was just not able to get into web range, the Maller at this point was no longer a threat, I either needed to get out of point range o both o them or kill one of these fuckers. my repper was out of paste and as the long reload cycle started I had managed to force the Malediction off, still pointed by the Slicer, but the damage wasn't too overwhelming, I was however in deep structure but it was just me and the Slicer now, painful seconds ticking by as I waited in hope of the reload cycle finishing.

5% structure now and the reload cycle finishes, overload and activate, the rep cycle starts, my structure implodes.

A really good fight and one that lasted far longer than I expected.

The night was seemingly a wash, no much about other than a few larger groups of faction warriors, nothing I could realistically pick off on my own and due to the previous two losses I was feeling a little disappointed, a quick Rifter snack perked me up a little and refreshed my appetite, but it was getting late so I decided to head to Bosena to dock for the night, on the way, passing through Evati I spied another Rifter on scan, I warped to the plex and made my way inside, I land pretty much on top o the Rifter and engage, moving out to Null range and launching my drones.

My shields are stripped and massive holes are being shot out of my armour.

Goddamn Arty Rifter, being flown rather well.

I can not stress to you how important a skill thermodynamics is, the overloaded nanite fuelled repper had kept me alive just barely, now it was out of paste and I had to resort to some smart flying but the Rifter was by this point in trouble, I had hit structure but so had he and fortunately for me, I had more structure, an explosion of satisfaction as debris of the Rifter rains against my Tristan.

A great fight and after looking at the killmail, I saw the pilot was vastly experienced with a very high rank on Battle Clinic, the dude could fly.

This got me looking at my stats at Battle Clinic (I mainly use BC because it's probably the most comprehensive of all the options available and has most of my early kills)

Over the years the way killmails are generated has changed, instead of just showing what was destroyed it now shows everything, a great deal of information can now be harvested from them.

One thing that really stood out for me was the ISK damage I have inflicted over my career... 1.1 Trillion ISK worth of damage to the pilots of New Eden
Average cost per kill is just under 355million ISK
Average cost per loss is just over 85million ISK

Edit: It just ended up being a very, very expensive day

Out of time

"But ye gotta know *where* ye're just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in *anywhere*. It looks bad, havin' to rush oout again straight awa'."

-- Feegle tactics (Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men)  << This quote is one of my all time favourites

Last night I undocked one of my re-purposed Armageddon class battleships called Rob Anybody, the purpose of said undocking was to violence a Crane and Phobos who had strayed a little too far off the undock.

By engaging the Crane first I drew sentry fire and the fight was on, the Crane managed to crawl into dock range and dock up so I switched to the Phobos, a flight of Garde IIs, heavy neuts and pew pew lasers.

Next thing an Apocalypse battleship undocks and the fight gets serious, the Phobos is tanking well but will break, it senses that and crawls towards the station and docks up, I switch to the Apoc and things get interesting, a Hyperion undocks, a Loki decloaks and a few Thorax jump into system.

Splatter Girl was in system with her Thrasher, she had been around the area and helped me earlier when I couldn't break a rather stubborn Drake's tank with my Succubus. Her Thrasher of very little help on the station she recommended I deagress and try dock, I was way ahead of her, I had started to crawl towards the station, deactivated all modules and recalled sentries to stop full aggro, it was a race against the clock, their damage output and my massive passive armour tank.

With half the aggro clock left, they broke my armour and my structure started to buckle, fuel, and atmosphere venting through massive cracks in my hull, the clock continued to count down and with it my structure, sliver by sliver, second by second.

10...

9...

8...

7...

6...

5...

4...

3...




Rob Anybody explodes.

3 seconds, 3 goddamn seconds. I GF as I warp my escape pod to a celestial.

Splatter and I would later try to draw them off the station, their numbers had grown, including a blackbird, oneiros and a few cruisers, but they wouldn't give chase too far, eventually undocking a Thanatos and Archon as a show of force.

I went off and watched the Alliance Tournament, congrats to Pandemic Legion, well done and condolences to my friends in Hydra Reloaded

This wasn't my first loss of the night to sentries, the first though was a lot more fun as I warped a Bellicose into a frig gang on the Emolgranlan gate in Eifer, I shot first, took sentries, killed two, Splatter killed another two and I lost my lovely Bellicose.

Actually had a bit of fun with both those losses, pity I have to take sentry aggro but them's the breaks when you're a Boss. I do sometimes wonder what if I didn't have to take sentry aggro, that will be an interesting day.

Fly it like you stole it...

A day ago the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror and bad things happening to people... If she had anything to do with it anyway.
-- Granny Weatherwax commits optimism
(Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

A few weeks ago I was gifted a Hematos by Sard Caid, I already own a Violator and had used it once or twice to rather hilarious effect. The Hematos I really liked, some nice bonuses and a decent slot layout meant I liked it more than the Violator and was a little more bold.

I was very bold earlier this morning when a Gnosis appeared on scan in Eifer, my long time friend and accomplice  otified me of a young pilot in said Gnosis running a drone anomaly and had already set up the warpin. I entered Eifer in my Hematos conveniently named Flyitlikeyoustoleit.

I landed at 5km away from the Gnosis and engaged, his tech 1 hobgoblins immediately set upon me, and then something curious happened, I exploded.

A little surprised, it took me a moment to gather my senses and warp my escape pod out.
Even more surprised when I looked at the killmail and saw that damn near everything dropped... A nice little payday for the Gnosis pilot, along with a shiny killmail.

Of course when the Gnosis pilot returned to Eifer and started running another anomaly, I returned with something less foolish and revenged. A rather smug now Gnosisless pilot pointed out he won the ISK war but I suppose he is right :)

...

Moving on, I'd like to extend my apologies to  anyone I spoke to about that thing with that POS, but it seems whenever I get a bee in my bonnet about some fools trying to move into my home, they're all hurf blurf and then disappear. The POS is still there but the pilots seem to have gone walkabout elsewhere.

...

Again I want to ask for some help

Keira would like to start running some Incursions and I'm interested in finding out how to make it happen. Any information would be appreciated. Here is her skill set if it helps.

She is a competent logistics pilot but can add DPS if needed, I know some crews require absolute max skills from their DPS ships and a rather large amount of bling.

Do you still make ISK as a logistics pilot? And can she stay in NovaKane?

Recce of Death

Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like "What is my purpose in life?" very quickly lacked both.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)

In trying to gauge the capabilities of the new locals, I have lost a few ships foolishly, or so I would like them to think, but mainly foolishly, I'm a little rusty from my long break. Their will is strong, their capabilities decent... But their smack is lacking.

What I can say is they are a little gun shy when they don't outnumber you, which in my case means they are reluctant to 1v1.

Much like any opponent of overwhelming numbers in the past, I need to be more patient and choose my targets, fight on my terms, may we all live in Interesting Times

Credit where credit is due

- "Have you any last words?"
- YES. I DON'T WANT TO GO.
- "Well. Succinct, anyway."
-- Death at the other end of the scythe, for once
(Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)

Very early this morning, at a time I really should have been asleep at, I tangled with a Dramiel.
Ordinarily a Dramiel doesn't present me with too many problems, but this one was different. It had a long point, artillery and as I would find out later, an ace up it's sleeve.

I undocked a Hawk, something I'm rather enjoying, engaged the Dramiel, easily dispatched it's drones and then was never able to get within range, the Hawk died.

Thinking is not my strong suit when deprived of sleep but I thought I'd try get him with a Daredevil, the strong, long web maybe more suited to catching him, would still need to fly smart to negate his damage.

I warped in, he's at range and where he would stay for the remainder of this five odd minute long dogfight. I locked him up, then lost lock, jammed? No, Damped, sweet jesus, what a maneuver, very smart, down to a 14km lock range, I would never get close enough to acquire lock, let alone land a web, no matter what I tried, he was one step ahead, the Daredevil died.

An expensive evening, an expensive lesson but two very good fights.

Nicely played :)

Rep it up, before you slap it up

"And Howondaland Smith, Balrog Hunter, practic'ly eats the dark for his tea."
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

A day of mixed feelings, I lost Flubber, again, and Keira lost Feet of Clay, her Claymore command ship, to two well flown Tengus. Working on Replacing Flubber and Keira has already replaced her loss.

But that's not why we are here, life goes on, ships explode and I'm in the business of making others explode before I do. Yet another Tengu was trying to run a complex, this time in Eifer and before you knew it, an associate had the co-ordinates.

Grabbing the most capable ship as soon as I could, I undocked in Sgt Detritus, a Harbinger class battle cruiser, a fearsome machine of death and destruction, I initiate warp and check all systems.

ARMOUR CRITICAL 24%

Along with the armour damage I notice most of the weapons and electronics systems have heat damage.

"Nice one Kane, you're going into battle with half a ship

Kane Rizzel > oh christ, going after a tengu with a quarter armour



I enter Eifer as systems were primed to jump as I landed on the stargate in Gusandall (I know you can abort the jump but time was off the essence here)

Well, half a ship was better than no ship, so I warp to my associate as fast as Sgt Detritus could align. All the while my associate is checking that the mark was still inside the plex with her directional scanner.

I land on the acceleration gate and initiate warp, moments later exiting inside the complex.

As luck would have it and I was going to need a lot more in the next few moments, the Tengu was only 8km away as I landed on grid, fortuitous indeed as the merest warm breath might have melted my tackle. Systems primed, locked, cocked and open fire.

It takes the Tengu pilot a moment to figure out what is happening but when he does he opens fire, we trade blows, his shields dipping slowly but surely but my meager armour already evaporating under salvo after salvo of heavy missiles.

Do I dare overheat the pulse lasers? Take a chance? I've been lucky so far in this fight, but luck might turn and with no guns I'd either be dead or helpless to kill him forcing me to warp away with my tail between my legs.

I am Kane Rizzel!

I overheat like a motherfucker, shouting at my drones to spur them on, every last ounce of damage is needed as Sgt Detritus starts to vent fuel and atmosphere into space, the combination of the two bursting into flames before being extinguished by the vacuum, but I'm hurting, his shields disintegrate and the Tengu is not much longer for this 'verse. He explodes, a mighty explosion, a satisfying explosion.

I warp off, the loot safely retrieved and a satisfying if slightly nerve racking kill.

In other news, I've started flying a new class of battleship, will take a little getting used to as range is an issue and I've not truly tested her but she has some kills scratched on her hull already.

Edit: Just had an amazing fight with the Megathron, so I'm here to regale you with awesomeness.

There are some new neighbours taken up residence in Hrondedir and I've tussled with them a few times, stirring the hornets nest so to speak, mainly picking them off in complexes and anomalies. Seems my efforts to get a reaction out of them has succeeded.

A lone Typhoon in an anomaly, screams bait as I had watched them gather a sizeable force earlier to camp the Eifer gate, to no avail.

So... Bait!

I wanted to test the Mega and see if I liked it, an associate had already located it, set up the warpin and told me it was aligned to the station, I undock and warp to her.

I come out of warp 5 clicks in front of the Phoon and engage, drop sentry drones and open fire.

Phoon engages back, tackles me and trap is sprung, local spikes and I see Arazu, Hound, Hurricane and Falcon now in the mix. The all hit grid and a swarm of ec-300 drones engulf my Mega. I pulse the smartbomb and the pressure eases but the Falcon is well and truly messing with my targeting electronics.

I pop an exile booster and continue to tank like a Boss, not being able to shoot anything but doing damage none the less as my drones are still engaging the Phoon and my smartbomb explodes another wave of ec-300s.

One of the locals asks me if anything is going down? I calmly reply "Me"
The locals that are awake x up, a Legion, Loki and Falcon join me in mighty battle, but as they hit grid, the hostiles warp out, leaving my Megathron on fire, deep into structure, no cap boosters left but still in one piece.

The Typhoon explodes from my sentry drone onslaught and I was curious as to why he never warped out, only to see the answer in the killmail.

A cyno? I was Black Ops dropped, managed to tank them all enough for friends to bail me out and still managed a kill, FUCKING RESULT. I initially thought I had been login trapped.

An associate would later probe the Hound out, which was destroyed, the pod probed and popped for good measure



Thanks to RealZonk, Xylorn and Xintri for saving my ass :D
The logs have been parsed and this is the story of the fight:
Total Damage done to your targets: 69,300.2
Total Damage done to you: 77,776.4

•To view the images in all their glory, right click and open link in new tab

[OOC] I will also be around a lot less as I'm back to work tomorrow after a months R&R

Just one of those days

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
-- Schrodinger's Moggy explained
(Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

First time in a long time I've been able to hunt properly and it just didn't happen today.
Flew a Drake for the first time, killed an unfitted Apocalypse, went on a solo roam, lost said Drake making the wrong choices trying to split a gang up, lost a very expensive pod to same gang, lost a very expensive Daredevil to a Jaguar and Ishkur duo later on, got chased off by a Proteus and Loki in my Harbinger and lost a very good Rifter fight against Saftsuze, very close.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

DOH!

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
-- Schrodinger's Moggy explained
(Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

After soloing a Rail Megathron in my Daredevil, I derped and lost it trying to solo a Loki, I screwed up, lost transversal and exploded.

I'm rather upset with myself :(

I'm also now taking donations to replace her, mods, hull, ISK, whatever you can spare. Be part of the Rizzel legacy, donate today

Doh

For all my experience, sometimes it means nothing. There are times I just shouldn't undock and earlier today was such a time. I've been struggling with a Migraine for the past couple of days and I should have been trying to sort it but when Keira reported 4 hostiles engaging two friends outside the station I decided to board "The Fifth Elephant™" and see what the fuss was all about.

The hostiles comprised of two Zealots, a Rapier and a Curse. A nice compact and efficient loadout. The Curse did my cap in, the Rapier held me still and the two Zealots exploded my beloved Sleipnir. My friends had docked up and there was no support around.

Congrats to the PAK pilots on a good kill, your setup is very good and one I shall avoid in future

School of Hard Knocks

Been a few long few days, not much sleep as I've been very busy and stressed but while Keira was in highsec doing some shopping I decided to board "the Fifth Elephant" my Sleipnir class Command Battlecruiser and see what was in local, there were a few pilots from the same corp hanging about and I wanted to see what they were up to and if a fight would be available.

My onboard scanner blinked into life and I spotted a Dominix, 2 Myrmidons and a Deimos in the direction of a belt, a few seconds later only one Myrm was left, obvious bait but maybe, just maybe I could warp in, pick it off and warp out quick enough before his support arrived.
Now going 48 hours without any sleep is never a good idea and let the following be a lesson to you.

I warped in at 2okm with the lone Myrm sitting still, it had fresh aggro so I instantly engaged, its shields started dropping and was soon hitting armour, I got too close and got hit by NOS but flicked my microwarp drive into action to gain some distance all the while keeping my fire concentrated on it. his friends came to join so I started to edge away but the Deimos got on me very quickly, webbed and warp disrupted me, I switched fire while surrounded by drones from all four ships. I was being heavily NOSsed and Neuted so my cap was all but non existant, I was going through cap boosters and cycling my Shield Booster with each boost.
I lost point on my Primaries as they were about to pop due to being capped out and almost got the Deimos and one Myrm but alas "The Fifth Elephant" succumbed to the combined firepower of the small gang.

2008.02.16 01:29:00

Victim: Kane Rizzel
Alliance: Derek Knows Us
Corp: NovaKane Incorporated
Destroyed: Sleipnir
System: Gusandall
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 30539

Involved parties:

Name: NaRico
Security: 5.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: DaRk SouL Ripp3R
Ship: Myrmidon
Weapon: Myrmidon
Damage Done: 15176

Name: H0rta
Security: 3.4
Alliance: NONE
Corp: DaRk SouL Ripp3R
Ship: Myrmidon
Weapon: 250mm Railgun II
Damage Done: 7680

Name: Tapi0n
Security: 5.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: DaRk SouL Ripp3R
Ship: Deimos
Weapon: Valkyrie II
Damage Done: 6009

Name: minnocia (laid the final blow)
Security: 5.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: DaRk SouL Ripp3R
Ship: Dominix
Weapon: Berserker II
Damage Done: 1674

Destroyed items:

Core Defence Capacitor Safeguard I
Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 130
Cap Booster 800
Inertia Stabilizers II
425mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 3
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer

Dropped items:

Nanite Repair Paste, Qty: 500 (Cargo)
Invulnerability Field II
Gyrostabilizer II
Barrage M, Qty: 3000 (Cargo)
Warp Disruptor II
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 84
Caldari Navy X-Large Shield Booster
Damage Control II
425mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 4
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 3758 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer

Well played gents, you earned that kill

I returned to my Hangar in my pod with my tail between my legs and sent a message to Keira to pick up a new Sleipnir for me.
My bunk looks very comfortable, I need sleep, the lack thereof has affected my judgement.