Bringing solo back and slingshotting out of death’s embrace

With the previous blog post, I announced that I wanted to do some more solo PvP, well, this week was a good week. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to have a good time with my corp members due to the lack of free time. However, I liked solo PvP’ing with Rakanishu but that forced me to move Rakanishu out of the wormhole. This got me thinking  about other possibilities. I figured that my alt, Mel Miene, who’s also in the corp might be suited for lowsec FW PvP. Mel Miene didn’t really see that much action in the wormhole so far. Every now and then she was used as a scout or primary tackle but these were mostly things Rakanishu was able to do on his own. So I talked to the CEO of my corp and he didn’t mind taking out my alt into FW.

The main reason which caused this idea (of going out there solo) to pop up in my head is Zarvox Toral. I don't know if you guys know him, but he's a streamer on Twitch. He takes out all kinds of ships and blows them up gloriously in solo PvP (unless he gets blobbed). His streams are always informative and it really sparked my interest in taking out ships for solo PvP.

One of the next days, the highsec connection wasn’t that bad so I grabbed a shuttle and went to Amarr with Mel Miene. Since I’m a big fan of Amarr (and Mel Miene is Caldari, so they’re allies…) I decided to enlist her into the 24^th Imperial Crusade. I immediately joined the militia chat and started to talk to some fellow Amarr loyalists. After a quick chat, I started fitting up some ships. At first I tried a Corax but eventually I went for a dual web, rocket fitted, scram Kestrel.

Quite a few kills were had, quite a few deaths were had as well. Best part of this? I had a lot of fun and didn’t even care when I lost a ship, I just bought a new one and started warping to the FW system again. Most fights I’ve had were 1v1 so far, which are the fights I’ve been looking for. This one time, I got killed by an insta-lock gatecamp but ah well, that happens. So far, it seems that I am going ISK-positive on my killboard (I must admit, I do care a bit for my killboard), but the most important part is that I’m having fun. Another great thing about this is that, I’m able to log in, do something for 15-20minutes and log back out if needed. If I have more spare time, I just try and hang out with corpmembers.

Today was a fun day as well. I decided to take out a Corax again. Though last time I used a passive tanked Corax, I now took out an active tank Corax.

In the first system I was going through, I noticed a Kestrel sitting in a small complex. I warped to the anomaly, took the gate and noticed the Kestrel sitting 5km away from me. We immediately engaged one another but my active tank was holding quite well and I emerged victorious. After docking up to repair my heat damage, I went to a system next door. I sat in a small complex when a Rifter appeared on d-scan. He warped in but he was to fast (MWD with arty kite fit) to apply my web or scram. He kept orbiting me at range at about 20km. After figuring out his orbiting cycle (it was a long and boring 5 minutes to be honest since he barely applied any damage, though after 5 minutes he finally got my in structure) I tried to slingshot out of his point range. I admit, there were a few failed attempts on slingshotting but I finally managed to land a perfect slingshot. This just happened to be at the point where a Succubus was warping in. Due to the slingshot manoeuvre I was aligned to a celestial. I kept spamming the warp button while I saw the distance between me and the Rifter getting bigger and bigger. Finally I heard “Warp drive active” and left the Rifter behind to get destroyed by the Succubus. About 2 minutes later I saw a gf appearing in local and a kill appearing on my killboard, huza!

Instead of linking every single kill/loss I had now, I’ll just show a screenshot of my killboard for now or you guys can look it up as well over here: https://zkillboard.com/character/94671858/

That's it for now. I will keep you guys posted about my solo FW adventures and WH stuff. I'm hoping to gain more experience in FW so that I'll be able to take out Cruisers on a roam as well.

Rakanishu singing off o7

#end of log 013#

Status update and solo pew

o/

Last night I was finally able to join a corp roam again. Real life is really eating up my EVE time, though it’s for the greater good. I’m in the process of moving out of the parental house and go live on my own (together with the gf). It’ll take quite a bit of my free time to organize the move and get the preparations done. My irregular work schedule already limits my EVE time and now I’ll have to start painting when I’m free as well. The move is scheduled to happen mid-November and I hope that everything will settle down by December.

That said, I’m planning on improving my PvP skills anyhow. The plan is to get in cheap frigates (for now) to lowsec and try my hand at solo PvP. Group PvP is always easier, especially when you have a good FC who tells you what to do. Since I want to try and FC more myself, I figured I must gather more knowledge about PvP. Therefore, you’ll be seeing me more often in the Amarr-Minmatar warzone. I’d like to ship up to destroyers/cruisers after a while, but I’m going to burn through some frigates first before I get to that.

Before the corp roam last night, I went out to the warzone for the first time. Looked up some fittings and played around for a bit. The first ship I took out was an Imperial Navy Slicer. After a few jumps I noticed someone opened up a new plex and I went ahead and checked it out. An Algos landed on grid and I quickly took the gate so I could get out of scram range before he landed. This was a success, however, due to some bad piloting I got back into scram range and died a quick death afterwards (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56297053/) (after looking at my killboard, it seems that someone managed to kill the Algos and I got on the kill as well: https://zkillboard.com/kill/56297180/).

After asking for some nice fits in the ‘Bringing Solo Back’ in-game channel, I went and bought a Tormentor. This ship proved its worth against two opponents. I was able to kill an Executioner (first solo kill that was not an explorer or a miner, yay!) (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56297296/) and a Rifter (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56297459/) before losing this beautiful ship with two killmarks to an insta-lock gatecamp /sadface (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56298254/).

After dying, I immediately hopped back into another Tormentor and set out to kill stuff again. On this roam I managed to kill a Punisher (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56298652/) and got involved in a three-way fight. I was brawling an Incursus when shortly after a Sentinel warped in. We managed to kill the Incursus but then the Sentinel neuted my cap dry and I died (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56299009/).

After the last loss I decided to join up the corp in our wormhole for a roam through nullsec. We managed to kill some Nyx’ fighters and me and the other interceptor of our fleet managed to get a pretty nice Crow kill (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56301540/)

All in all, I had a very fun night in EVE and I will definitely be repeating this. See you guys in lowsec perhaps? Rakanishu signing off o7

#end of log 012#

You kill some, you lose some. Today, I lost.

o/

Let me start by telling you guys that I had a bad idea during past night. I got home from a night out with some friends and didn’t want to go sleep yet. Main reason I didn’t go to bed at 1.30 AM my time is that I have night shifts coming up at work. So I tried to stay up as late as possible so  I could sleep long during the day and be ready for the night shift.

I logged in and set up all my PI cycles on my various characters. When I finished doing that, I decided I might do some late night hunting in my Stratios. Some corp members were online as well but not too many at this point. Never really bothered hopping on comms, which I should’ve done but ah well. After jumping through some systems I noticed this space was really quiet, so I decided to go back home after half an hour. One jump before the system our wormhole connection was at, I see a corp member jumping in local. He noticed a Rattlesnake on a gate. We kind off decided to go for it, so I jumped through, tackled it and went in for the kill.

Two mistakes were made here (actually three: logging in at night): Not being on comms and going in blind sighted against a PvP Rattlesnake. His Geckos ate right through my armor and there was nothing I could do but say my final goodbye to my Stratios (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56130108/) . Meanwhile, I hopped on comms and some other corp members arrived on comms as well. We decided to reship and try and get a fight out of him, but the Rattlesnake pilot was just playing games and didn’t want to fight 4-5 of us. One of our corpmembers lost his Gila as well, while trying to tackle the Rattlesnake at a gate and holding it until others arrived, but he got popped rather fast as well.

Anyhow, lessons were taught, lessons have been learned. Rakanishu signing off o7

#end of log 011#

+1

+1

o/

It’s been a week since I was able to write to you guys so it’s about time I give you an update. Wormhole life has been treating me very good. I’m glad to have found The New Eden Yacht Club, they’re a great bunch of people and we don’t really suck at PvP either! Since our corporation has been growing for quite a bit, we have more official doctrines showing up. What I’m about to write today is a direct result of one of these doctrines.

Our nullsec static lead us to Delve. We knew Goons were residing near our entrance to null, so we decided to fleet up and take a look. Well, the fleet was already busy when I joined in. Apparently they were able to tackle a capital but had to bail eventually. The fleet was busy reforming when I was able to log onto EVE. The fleet consisted of Svipuls and the Minmatar logi frig. Rakanishu doesn’t have the skills for a Svipul yet, nor does he have Minmatar frigate V for the logi frig (I will be skilling into these soon guys, I promise!). The fleet was obviously shield focused but I, being the scrub that I am, didn’t have any shield ships laying around. Together with the FC, I decided to get into an interceptor (which was fit with an armor rep btw).

While roaming towards and through Goon space, we were able to kill some ships with our fleet. I was appointed the scout (+1) of the fleet because I was in my interceptor. I basically flew in front of the fleet, scouting the next system in our route. We managed to get a hostile Svipul (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56064188/) and his pod (Due to the Sabre we had in fleet. Pod was empty though). The next kill was an interceptor (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56064276/). I landed on the out-gate and the interceptor was there as well. I aligned towards him and was able to point him. He aggressed me, which was his biggest mistake, seeing my friends warping in. It might seem like the cheapest kill on our roam, but it was definitely the most intense one. We were going head to head and I managed to get a decent amount of damage applied, but so did he. I managed to survive with an overheated ancillary armor rep until the support arrived. It was actually quite fun, seeing my shield go to 100% and back to 0% immediately, only to go back to 100% a second later.

The next kill is the kill I’m most excited about. I jumped into the system like I was during the whole fleet. After jumping in, I see 2 Machariels and 1 Nightmare on d-scan. Using some quick ‘d-scan-fu’, I managed to pin them down to an anomaly. I immediately warp in and land right on top of the three ships. I called the rest of the fleet and they jumped in and warped to me right away. Meanwhile I managed to get tackle on the Nightmare. The 2 Machariels had MJD’d out of range just before the fleet landed. The Nightmare was worth about 1.45b according to zkillboard (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56064497/). Lootfairy said yes btw (FC told me the loot might go towards a skillinjector for Rakanishu, so he can fly a Svipul, but I have yet to see the skillpoints ^^). 

After this kill, we went back home to secure our loot and left again for more pew pew. I quickly refitted my interceptor. This way, it had a long point and a scram, giving me more possibility to acquire tackle.

I could keep on writing as we killed a few more ships, but I’ll end the blog here, or it’ll become a giant wall of text. We had three more kills: a Moa (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56065169/) , a Harbinger (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56065176/) and a Gnosis (https://zkillboard.com/kill/56066114/). 

Thanks for reading and until the next log, Rakanishu signing off o7

#end of log 010#

Scouting the jackpot and 'helping' a newbro

o/

After I wrote my blog yesterday, we started scanning our wormhole chain. We had quite a big chain and it seemed promising as there was some activity to be noticed. After scanning for a while, a corpmate checked our nullsec connection. He found what appeared to be a Tengu running sites, though he couldn't exactly pinpoint his location. I brought in my scanning alt to combat scan him down. After 2 cycles I had him at 87% but then he bounced off. He kept bouncing between planets and safespots so it was impossible to probe him down. While this was happening, we had a small fleet waiting on the other side of the wormhole, just in case. Suddenly, a confessor appeared on d-scan together with some combat probes. After a few minutes, he warped to us at a 100km. We started reshipping in other stuff to catch the confessor but he was too fast.

After playing cat and mouse for a few minutes, I landed on top of him on the connection to his wormhole. I managed to land a few hits on him (deep into armor) before he managed to jump. I jumped through, only to find a fleet (interceptor, Caracal, and a few more kity ships) waiting for us. I immediately jumped back to our home and instawarped to our citadel. We formed a fleet to counter them but eventually we couldn't get a fight. This connection was end of life, so neither of the groups wanted to commit his fleet with the chance of getting cut off.

While this was happening, I retracted my scanning alt from nullsec and went on scanning another part of the chain. After a few minutes I stumbled upon a wormhole leading to nullsec space. It was a small wormhole, only allowing destroyers and smaller ships to pass through. After jumping through (you never know what you might find) I noticed some Hulks in space. There were two ore sites in system so I decided to check them out. Both of them had cargo containers in space. I bookmarked the containers in both sites and went back to our home system. About 15 minutes later, we decided to go and check on this particular system. We reshipped into destroyers (Confessor, Svipul, Sabre) and an interceptor. I decided to split the fleet in two so each half would warp to a bookmark to try and catch some miners. The bookmark I warped to was empty but our Svipul and interceptor landed right on top of three hulks.

The pilot of the Sabre and myself (with the Confessor and alt in a scanning ship [with point, because a scout without a point, is pointless]) quickly warped to the other bookmark. Everyone was spreading and calling points. The Hulks had nowhere to go, especially since the Sabre arrived to drop bubbles. One Hulk pilot thought he could escape with his pod by ejecting from his ship, yet he seemed to have missed the bubbles of our interdictor. We managed to kill all three of the Hulks and their pods. When we looked at the killmails, we were quite surprised and had a good laugh:

Hulk 1: https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901593/ (hulk) + https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901610/ (pod)
Hulk 2: https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901584/ (Hulk) + https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901596/ (pod)
Hulk 3: https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901570/ (hulk) + https://zkillboard.com/kill/55901612/ (pod)

The total value of this adventure was about 3.8 billion ISK destroyed. The loot fairy was pretty generous and gave us about 240 million ISK of loot. The rules of the corp grant full loot access to the scout who finds the targets. In this particular case, it was me. Though because we were with a fun bunch and everyone helped on this kill, I decided to split the value among the participating corp members, which resulted in a nice killboard and 60 million ISK each.

The day after this adventure, I got home from work and warped around our chain when I noticed a venture on dscan. I managed to get him on the wormhole but he warped off. I stay anchored at the citadel only to see a venture appear on d-scan again a few minutes later. I locate him in an ore site in our home. Mel Miene was in a cloaky scanning ship and warped in on the site to get Rakanishu a decent warp-in with his interceptor. When Mel Miene was 5km away, I warped in Rakanishu and started hitting the Venture. They seem to be slippery because he was able to warp away to a random anomaly. I follow him and see him warping to the sun. I initiate warp when I see him typing in local: "I only want to mine". Landing right on top of him, I lock and destroy the Venture. This was followed by locking his pod. I started a conversation with the Venture pilot and it seemed like he was pretty new. His character was made in May this year but he told me he hadn't been active until now and was looking to make some ISK mining. I gave him a few tips, like watching d-scan before you go out and do something and watch d-scan while you are doing things. I told him he should never expect to be alone in a wormhole. I donated him some ISK to replace his Venture, asked him if he wanted a pod express home (which he did) and we said our goodbyes.

It's always nice to encounter a newer player in EVE whom accepts a conversation after he has been killed. I, myself, have also learned some things this way, and it's nice to having someone experienced to give you tips. Hell, he even made some ISK. o7 to you my friend, and may you fly safe!

Rakanishu signing off o7

#end of log 009#

Catching up to catch snakes

o/

A while ago, I received an email stating that there would be an alliance ops soon. It involved 'sleeping in' somewhere and the op would take place the day after. However, I also thought something was about to happen the day everybody was gathering at the sleepover place. To the regret of a few guys, including myself, nothing was really planned for that night. I decided to turn my ship 180° and turn back home because I knew I wasn't able to come on the op the day after because of work.

Fast forward to the day after the sleepover was planned. I got home from work and noticed the fleet was still going. I asked my Belgian friend in corp where the fleet was at and where they were going. Good thing, the fleet was reforming into confessors and everyone was moving to Amarr to buy one. Rakanishu was still sitting in the home wormhole so I switched to an empty clone, undocked the citadel in my pod and self-destructed. Rakanishu came back to life in a system 2 jumps from Amarr. Bought my Confessor and quickly went on my way to the meet-up system so I could catch up to the rest of the fleet (I even got there before the rest of the fleet!). Appearantly, another wormhole group scouted some Russian Rattlesnakes farming sites and asked for more guys. Once we got there, we moved in and waited one jump out of the target wormhole until we were sure they were running sites again.

We waited about 15 minutes until it was 'go-time'. The scout scared the Rattles a bit so they warped back to the wormhole connecting to their homesystem. Meanwhile our fleet was in place and bubbles were up. They were able to jump through the wormhole but the other side was bubbled as well. We ended up killing a few Rattlesnakes. I missed a few kills because one of the rattles jumped through and I went after it to tackle it on the other side.

Rattlesnake kills: https://zkillboard.com/kill/55850139/ & https://zkillboard.com/kill/55850117/

The day before this operation, I was able to test my combat probing skills again. I noticed an Imicus floating around in space on d-scan, moving from time to time. I used my alt, Mel Miene, to combat scan it down, warp to it and scramble it. It's a cheap frigate, but you never know what it may hold so I decided to kill it anyway. Once the frigate was tackled I warped in Rakanishu, who was on his way in a Stratios, to deal the killing blow. Nothing really good dropped, but I got to test my combat scanning skills again.

Imicus kill: https://zkillboard.com/kill/55829461/

See you guys next time,
Rakanishu signing off o7

#end of log 008#