Logistics done, let the pew begin!

So this morning I was up nice and early to get the Charon freighter those last 20 jumps to where I was meeting a friend with a Rhea. Once there I started thinking of the easiest way to get into my new staging system in 0.0.

So I looked at the different possibilities on offer to a lowsec pirate like me. Obviously lowsec was a preference but 80+ jumps through lowsec was NOT going to happen. I also discounted trying to get through one of the five most dangerous systems of EvE HED-GP.

So what I was left with was a 36 jump journey with 4 lowsec and 16 0.0 jumps (the rest being high obviously).

I decided to do this in a Taranis. This is a good travel ship as the fast align speed can get you through even 1.0 systems without damage while it is still a combat ready ship able to take down anything I may decide to engage.

So off I went and got 6 jumps from my destination when I ran into a Sabre interdictor. Now I should explain that I have solo'd a Sabre before in a Ranis while in Sniggwaffe with Hannibal. Knowing this I engaged and got totally boned. I was in structure when he was in half shields and I just couldn't lay down the hurt quick enough. I also got podded so I was back where I started. 36 jumps to go... Again.

Fitting up another Ranis I decided to try a slightly different route and again only 8 jumps from the destination I hit a little snag and I was once again back in my station.

Ok now was time to stop thinking about potential fights and just get to my new home system.

Out came the Loki and I sent my alt to grab me the interdiction nullifier. I already had a spare covert ops subsystem. With these bolted on and a couple of nanofibers in the lows to help my warp align times I set out again.

This time I didn't hit anything and made it to D87. My friend passed me over my new fleet of ships and I started fitting up a ship of each class ready to get some pew on. It came faster than I thought.

I got on TS3 and announced my presence. There was a fleet one system out engaging a stabber fleet and a Hurricane. As I listened to the engagement I started fitting up one of 2 Hurricanes I brought with me. Then over comms I hear that a Thanatos has warped to the gate. I hear people talking about engaging so jump in the newly fitted up Hurricane and start x'ing up in comms for a fleet invite. Until I get the fleet invite I am running blind so start following a friendly Tempest, hoping to God he's going where I want to go.

Two jumps out and I land on the fight with my new friends and fall straight into the PVP zone with drones out, orbit set and guns ablaze.

The Thanatos is tanking us until he starts having cap management problems... Not to mention we bring in a Capital ship of our own.

With reports of 100 man fleets coming in from all over the place we all know we have to kill this guy and get the hell out. He starts going into low armour and you can tell his cap is all but gone. As he hits structure he activates the self destruct and logs off. We take the Thanatos down before the 2 minutes are up but can't get the pod as it insta warps.

To loot the wreck we need haulers so the rest of us are on guard duty while they come in and start grabbing the loot for us.

So all in all an eventful day and a good introduction to the Corp I am on trial with. First kill a capital ship. I wasn't even in system for 30 minutes when that came up... This could be fun.

Fly dangerous o/

Mail

Noobs, stupid moves and sad news.

Ok so which one shall we start with...

Lets start with the sad news.

We still have friends within the ranks of The Guristas Associates and the sad news came via them last night.

Gilg sent out a EvE mail to the Associates saying that The Black Rabbits Academy would be closing as of 7th September 2010 after downtime.
The news came as a bit of a shock if I am honest to all in Fla5hy Red. Alot of the membership of our new corp put alot of time and effort into building TBRA into the best pirate training corp in EvE and we are all sad to see it go.

The offer has been opened for any member of TBRA, regardless of SP to join TBR proper so at least that is something.

Next we will talk about my stupid move.

Now as regular readers of this blog will know I have been training all out for a Phobos. Well last week I finally finished all the skills needed and took my phobos out for a test spin and got on some kills as the role of a Gatecamp fast lock. Nice.

Yesterday a few members of Flashy Red went up to Ikoskio for a bit of a roam/GC and got a couple of kills, then a large FW fleet came through so we started home.

I lagged behind slightly and hit a gate at the same time as a Raptor Interceptor. I jumped through after him and got point and thought I could kill it before his friends showed up.

I was wrong and here is the KM. Ouch.

However I never fly what I can't afford to lose so it will be replaced shortly. It's useful to have in my hanger at any rate.

Now lets talk about Noobs.

Flashy Red (+1 honourary Python member) yesterday took out a good little fleet, T1 and T2 cruisers were the order of the day and after heading to Abune and chasing a Hurricane around we turned for home with no kills and no loses. We did engage 3 frigs in a plex but they were quick and got out of our range.

On the way home we have to pass very close to Tama and itching for a fight we decided it would be a good place to stick our nose in.

In we go and start moving around looking for some thing to kill. Top belt was active with the same gang of frig we had engaged earlier but they didn't hang around long once we were there. then a couple of Cynabals came in and ran away. Shame.

Atfter a couple of minutes we scanned a Drake down in 6-2 belt and expecting a trap all the way we warped in pointed and pounded on him. nothing on scan, nno help was coming.

A lone Drake in a belt in Tama? Ok... Fair enough and thats a kill for us then!

So we go back to a safe and keep scanning around. Our cloaky running around blets and planets a#for targets.

Then we get this in local.

[ 2010.09.05 22:05:09 ] Mr NITREX > can i join a fleet?

Now what would you do if you were a pirate and a 2 month old char asks to join a fleet? Well you would do what we did.

Invite to fleet and he accepts and our cloaky gets nice and close to him and then warps him to the rest of the fleet, and man are we happy when we find out he is flying a Drake!

We motor towards him careful not to lock him till we are in point range, just incase we scare him off.

Once we are all firing I have to admit to feeling a bit sorry for the poor git. I hear a number of other people in vent also saying the same sort of thing. However even as I am saying we should ransom him or stop firing I never stopped my guns lol.

Here is the fleet chat log for the above.

[ 2010.09.05 22:05:49 ] Mr NITREX > thanx
[ 2010.09.05 22:06:11 ] Mr NITREX > where should i come?
[ 2010.09.05 22:06:32 ] Crimson Violet > warp to death fangs
[ 2010.09.05 22:06:57 ] Death Fangs > x
[ 2010.09.05 22:07:19 ] Mr NITREX > coming
[ 2010.09.05 22:07:55 ] Mr NITREX > hey
[ 2010.09.05 22:07:57 ] Mr NITREX > people
[ 2010.09.05 22:07:59 ] Mr NITREX > stop
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:11 ] Crimson Violet > yarrr
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:13 ] Mr NITREX > plz
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:16 ] Mr NITREX > plz
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:19 ] Mr NITREX > i beg u
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:22 ] Mr NITREX > dont kill me
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:23 ] Death Fangs > never accept fleet invite
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:33 ] Mr NITREX > plz let me go
[ 2010.09.05 22:08:51 ] Death Fangs > tks for the loot
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:36 ] Piscis > guys do not feel sorrow
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:39 ] Piscis > be amused
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:41 ] Mail Lite > We don't
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:42 ] The BlackDog > lol
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:43 ] Otto Jarvis > i am
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:44 ] Mail Lite > lol
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:51 ] Piscis > :)
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:52 ] The BlackDog > i'll deal with my demons

And the local:

[ 2010.09.05 22:09:08 ] Mr Kha > a swift lesson in betrayal my young padawan
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:08 ] Mail Lite > Lesson for you, don't join fleets with pirates....
[ 2010.09.05 22:09:52 ] Paul Ofthewolves > sith!
[ 2010.09.05 22:12:10 ] Mail Lite > nope FLA5HY RED (+ honourary The Python Cartel)

So we continue to hang around and see another noob in another Drake (are they giving them away somewhere?) and after chasing him through 3 belts we give up and send him a fleet invite... And he accepts.

He's on station so we send our cloaky in to warp him to us. Alas, as we get ready he docks and drops fleet. Maybe not so stupid then? We will never know.

Of course by now we have been in system to long and a group has come in with the express notion to kill us. We try and take them on and have a Harby in structure before we GTFO. In the end we lost a Thorax, Omen and Rupture. Good fun was had by all.

Ok the last thing I need to do is plug a friends blog. Go read it. Angelina is an old TGA member and a great writer.

Fly Dangerous and watch for that FLA5HY RED!

Mail o/

A good night, fun times and Revenge

Huh,

I logged on last night not really feeling in the mood for much action and just wanting to read some EvE mails and play with some fittings etc.

I then get the call that a certain Dame Death is sitting outside our station in Auner in a Cynabal. I remind the new members of the academy not to engage on station and to ignore the local smack. Now Dame Death has been a member of The Black Rabbits Academy and was kicked for 'Accidently' engaging blues a number of times. He then was given the benefit of the doubt a couple of weeks later and was allowed to rejoin.

He then left again, joined a alliance that was red to TGA and started being a prat.

He then convinced Gilgamesh to let him back in. So he was back for a couple of weeks, then after a number of arguements between members of the alliance he again, left.

He then AGAIN rejoined the alliance, and after some unpleasentness left once again, this time with a life time ban on all his toons.

Dame disapeared from local and a Python Cartel member, Amanda sat on the station we call home at 0 in an Abbadon. So what do TGA do? Why we undock a couple of Battleships and a few Battlecruisers of course. We are just about to engage the Abbadon when it suddenly drops a Cyno field and Dame Death jumps in with the Archon and Nauticaa soon joins the party in a Thanatos.

Fail on their part, if they had waited a few more seconds we would of been engaged, as it was we all just went 'Meh' and docked up. We may be pirate but we ain't dump pirates...

A couple of minutes later a few of us undock in frigs and cruisers and insta warp out to hunt a couple of FW dude in a plex in Auner. Nice.

We ran around, playing cat and mouse with a Taranis, Punisher and Sabre. The Sabre pilot keeps bouncing around planets. When the call comes that the Sabre is off scan I decided to try warping to the only planet off scan from my position. At 0 at that.

Guess what? Yep, got him. I land less than 5000m away get point and web and keep him locked down. I pour on the damage and advise fleet that they can come in when they want.

Sabre Vs Ishkur 1v1 at the moment and I have to admit, it was close. I got him to about 10% structure before Stuart in his Rupture lands the 121 damage to end him.

As you can see... I got out in structure too! 34% to be exact. Good fight!

Anyway after waiting out the GCC I docked and repaired my Ishkur and Gilgamesh came online and said he wanted a number of heavy hitters. I accidently undocked in my shield Brutix and while I'm out I get locked up by Dame Death, now in an Abbadon with a TBR member as my back up in a Vulture.

Dame Death agresses me and after a couple of hits, Gilg tells me to engage and for eveyone in Auner station to undock and attack. My Brutix is going down quick but is doing a good amount of damage so I hold on and overheat as much as I dare.

The fleet undocks in an assortment of Battleships and Battlecruisers. My Brutix is now going down quick and I send out a broadcast for reps. I get a couple but it is not enough. The Abbadon goes down but with it's LAST SHOT it takes out my Brutix. We also manage to pod Dame Death. I like.

I swiftly reship and rejoin fleet as they start locking up Nauticaa in the Thanatos, and join in as we engage, but it docks back up.

I request to borrow another Brutix from a fleet member and manage to get another shield Brutix to take on a roam that Gilg has put together.

We have a scout in front and a tackle Vulture. We don't get any kills on the way down and when in Amamake we manage to get a Hurricane to engage our Drake and Vulture but is is very quick and motors away from the engagement.

We hang around for a minute but it's quite obvious we ain't going to get any kills here today so we start heading back. On the Dal gate from Amamake we run into this Thrasher who is on autopilot and quickly dispatch him and his pod.

On the way back we see a Back to Yarr fleet of 2 x Hurricanes, 2 x Drake and a Brutix. Fleet splits up on different sides of the same gate. One side has a Hurricane pointed and tries to pop it while the other side has a Brutix locked down.

The Hurricane manages to get back to gate and unfotunatley we have chased the Brutix to far off the gate to get point. However we do get the Brutix. Revenge for my Blackbird loss the day before! Yay!

So we arte back home and I call it a night. For someone who wasn't planning on doing much I seemed to have a damn good night.

One other thing... Cebit, an Academy graduate and now member of The Black Rabbits seems to have kept his blog a BIG secret and it's good, very good. So again, I suggest you go read.

I think we now have a TWR Blog, TBR Blog and 3 TBRA blogs. Not bad, not bad at all.

I think thats everything.

Fly dangerous o/

Mail

Jammy Bastard Down!

Hey all,

Just a quick one to let you know that my first Blackbird finally went down in flames last night due to a 'Back to Yarr' gatecamp. Fair play gentlemen.

I immediately went and purchased a new one as I got 10 kills to the 1 loss with the first and really enjoyed flying it.

Maybe I should get a Falcon? I'll think about it after the Arazu and Phobos training is complete.

Another thing, I found out today that a new member of the Academy is keeping a secret blog! Well it ain't secret anymore! It's actually quite good and I will be reading it and I suggest others do as well.

Fly Dangerous o/

Mail

End of Sabatical - First loss

Morning all,


So ok last night was a learning curve. I managed to get my solo kill in the new Vexor I am playing with but I also managed to lose that same Vexor about an hour later.


I was still in Hydeliels and was scanning around again looking for something to get my Yarr' on! I found a Rifter in a belt aparently alone but with a number of other ships on 360 degree scan. I decided to chance it. The ship was fully insured and I needed and acid test on this ship.


I went to the belt, me and the Rifter pilot, Aurical Cryso, closed and started orbiting each other. Both with Warp Scrams running, I let loose a flight of Hammerhead II's and started my Neutrilizers and NOS. The Rifter slows and starts taking damage and an Incursus joins the fight. I focus on the Rifter, being the most dangerous and not notice two facts.

1. Both Frigates were popping my Drones
2. I had run out of cap charge 800's.

I got given a schooling in being prepared and taking more notice of my drones, rather than just letting them go and forgetting about them. I should also remember the fact that this fitting NEEDS cap boosters to survive.

So there I was, no Hammerheads, a set of unuseable Warrior II's in my drone bay (No idea why) and a flight of ECM small drones.

The Rifter has warped off as I had managed to get him into structure so i set the ECM drones on the Incursus to try and get the jam so I can warp out.

No Dice. Rifter warps in and they carry on slowley eroding the armour and structure on the Vexor until it goes pop.

Good fight boys, good fight and I will be around Heyd and OMS more in future!

I have another Vexor in the hanger ready to go. I am going to take Hobgoblin II's and Hammerhead II's instead of the Warriors until I have that skill up to around 3-4.

Going off now, great night and some great lessons learned for next time. Hoping for a rematch!

Fly dangerous! o/

Mail

Still a great day to be a Pirate, but maybe expensive?

Ok so from a day of great victories to a Monday evening of losses. And you know what? I loved every second of it!

When I logged in to EvE last night I wasn’t planning on playing much. I was just going to do some admin stuff, mess around with Hannibal’s new mission Drake and see if it can do the mission that my Harbinger found a bit difficult.

However logging onto Mail Lite I found a fleet was running 5 jumps out of home, the same system where we had the fun yesterday, Ikoskio. I joined fleet, jumped in my Brutix and made my way to join them.

Jumping through one of the gates I found an Onyx HIC sitting on the gate. He was red, like me, and I knew as soon as I uncloaked he would engage me. I advised the fleet of my intentions and broke cloak and started burning back to the gate. He locked and engaged me and I locked back. A friendly Arazu jumped in from the other end of the system and I tanked the Onyx for a few moments, and then jumped out of the system.

Looking back in hindsight I should of engaged that Onyx. I was in a Brutix and with the Arazu as support I could probably have popped his HIC quite easily but my discretion played a part and I made the decision not to.

The fleet had arrived on the other side of the Mushikegi gate and were holding there. The Arazu jumped out to join them and I jumped back to Manjonako with the Onyx to try and get him to engage again. Unfortunatly the HIC pilot had his own scouts and knew my fleet was waiting. We had a bit of a chat in local, where he admitted he was surprised I had not engaged as he was sure I could have taken him, especially with the help from the Arazu.

At that moment the fleet jumped through to me and we made our way back to home base and sent some scouts to a notorious system a few jumps down a different pipe, known well for it’s Russian bait blob fests, Mara. Our fleet reported back a mixture of Battlecruisers, a few Battleships and 5 unaccounted for, which normally means ECM support. While idling on the Nikkishina gate in our home system a red Rupture jumped in and, while we got points and DPS on him he managed to jump through and get away before we could finish him off. We got him to structure but missed on actually popping his Cruiser.

After the FC’s and scouts had had a bit of a discussion on where to go next, they decided that the Russian fleet was too big for us and to head back up to Ikoskio and see what was going on there. So we reformed on the Unna gate and made our way back up the pipe, having a quick chat with the Onyx pilot again as we passed. I must watch out for him if he is going to be in that system for a while, could make for some fun times. We held on the Ikoskio - Asakai gate as we were getting intel of a large fleet in the high sec system we were heading for. They were holding on there Ikoskio gate and had a scout in a Cheetah and another in a Falcon buzzing around. Both the Cheetah and the Falcon got eyes on us as they jumped through scouting the surrounding gates, so they knew our forces just as well as we knew theres.

We had a Falcon, Arazu, 6 x Hurricanes 2 x Drakes, Harbinger, Brutix and a Phobos in our fleet. They on the other hand had 2 x Falcon, Rook, 3 x Myrmidon, 2 x Harbinger, 2 x Drake 2 x Hurricane. We idled around for a while, deciding on whether to engage a fleet that had slightly more ECM support but pretty equal numbers. The major advantage over us that they had would be the gate guns. We are all red outlaws so they can engage us without sentry aggression, however when we engage them we would have to take sentry fire as well.

In the end we jumped into system and warped to our safe spot just off the gate. As we got there the scout advised that they had jumped into system with us and were on the gate. The FC called the warp order and the fight was on.

Rook was called primary and he went pop, our Falcon pilot was doing his best to keep the enemy Falcons jammed but was having issues, the enemy Falcon pilots were good. The DPS fleet primaried a Hurricane and he went down next. The enemy fleet were organized and were calling primaries really well. My Brutix was the first ship to go down. They had 3 Myrmidons, and being able to engage without sentry aggression meant their drones could come into play too. The next ship primaried was a Harbinger, and he went pop as well, though by this point a number of our fleet was lost. A Drake was primaried next but it was decided that retreat was needed and the remainder of the fleet warped to safety, with the aid of our Falcon Pilot, before they could finish the kill.

All in all we lost A Harbinger, Phobos, Brutix and five Hurricanes, for 3 of their ships. Well done Dust to Dust alliance.

The night didn’t end there. Our IRISH CEO was a bit late to the party and was a few jumps out in his Armageddon BS but as the fleet was lost he turned around to go back to home base, where we were to reship and go back for another go at that fleet. This time with Battleships and one of my alts, Gateway1, flying a Kessie of DOOM!

On the way back our CEO ran into a little problem of his own, 2 Drakes and 2 Harbingers in our home system. They popped his Armageddon and he warped back to station and reshipped himself.

Once we all had the ships ready and the fleet had reformed we made haste back up to Ikoskio to find a few of their fleet still in Ikoskio and the rest back in the High Sec system, still hugging the gate. We arrived on gate and engaged, but alas I was too quick with the Cyno and they jumped out just as our Carrier jumped in!

Bugger.

We waited for the Carrier to warp out to a deep safe and then warped the fleet in to stand guard around it, while my poor little Kessie was left defenceless on the gate! Luckily the only things that came past was a neutral Hurricane (my cyno alt is neutral) and a couple of shuttles.

On the way back our CEO ran into a little problem of his own, 2 Drakes and 2 Harbingers in our home system. They popped his Armageddon and he warped back to station and reshipped himself.

Gilg was going to do the Cyno for the Carrier in Ikoskio, but Gateway1 had finally cycled through her countdown and made all haste back to base to light it so Gilg undocked his own Archon carrier, to escort our other carrier, a Chimera, home.

So a tale of losses and premature ecynolation but a good fight was had, some good laughs were had and, even though we came of worse in the fight! We loved every second of it.

In other news, Hannibal is now at his level 3 mission hub in Caldari space and will be trying out his new Drake tonight.

Mail Lite has ordered his next Brutix from our friendly white rabbits, I’m pretty sure I am owed a discount for providing some ore a few weeks ago? *Cough*

Mail Lite also had a Drake delivered, it was meant for Hannibal but he got his from another source so now it's Mail's new toy! A Caracal and Merlin + fittings and fittings for the Drake are on order and should be delivered tomorrow.

I also got recognized in our home system by a reader! First time! I’M FAMOUS! So a shout out to Nivea (I think that’s how it was spelt anyway…) who reads this blog when bored at work, just like I write it when bored at work!

I also have a small computer problem. I was trying to take screen shots yesterday but every time I pressed ‘Prt Scrn’ it took a picture of my desktop instead of the EvE client that I was looking at.

Anyone help me with this issue? Comments below please!

Signing off,

Fly dangerous o/