So I got back from Fanfest a little over a week ago. I actually have a big post prepared to go out on it, but I’ve been delayed by being a) lazy and b) I’m awaiting a lot of photos from other sources. A wall of text is no fun – you need pretty pictures! Expect a more detailed FF2013 post some time this week next week thanks to internet going down. ANYWAY MOVING ON.

I logged on the other day to find two things – our static has less than 20 minutes left, and we had an inbound nullsec. Being the curious git I am, I scout the null until static collapses. As expected, everything docks or runs to a POS when I enter. That’s several drinks right there. After a time, I roll back to our home wormhole where our static has died and begin probing the chain.

C4a? Dull. C3a? Dull. C4b? Two Tengus are on scan as I jumped in and disappear off scan just as quick. A quick scout shows a few piloted ships at a tower – a Scorpion and a mix of frigates. No sign of the Tengus, so I launch probes. Bingo – a wormhole resolves itself in my scan window. It’s a C4. I jump in, preparing to call in allies for a possible trap. D-scan shows a single Sleeper wreck and… one Tengu. Said Tengu is 5km away from me, on the wormhole. I can see boost effects and a quick check of his ship config shows he’s not cloaky. Boosting for his fleetmates? Either way, I’m going for him. As I lock him up, he makes no attempt to flee.

As he dips into armour, I’m frantically checking d-scan. It must be bait, right?

He’ll jump any moment now.

Oh wait. Nope. Pod too. Hrm.

We throw another scout into the wormhole. There’s 5 more Tengus running Sleeper sites and they are still doing it even though I blew up their booster.

So we drop on them, catching 3 of them. Heh.

Meanwhile in k-space

It’s Sunday. EVE turns 10 the day after. Player events are going on across the universe as we attempt to break the current max PCU (max players online at once) of almost 63,000. We have a Ganked roam scheduled, and we also plan to hit the 1,000 Rifter event by Marlona Sky, involving shooting her Nyx. How bad could it be?

First interesting point of the night was that Ganked was plugged by CCP in a devblog. We usually average about 100 people on a Ganked roam? This one broke 300.  Oh dear.

The good news is that Frigates were the name of our game, so we started out with over 200 to start into the dark depths of nullsec. Gathering in Rens beforehand had CCP Foxfour in local replying, amusingly, to our comms. CCP SPAI ON OUR MUMBLE. Off we went into Null!

Our glorious trip revealed nothing and we were beginning to lose hope when CCP announced they were sending out a Dev Fleet. We gathered in Amamake as the CCP live stream kicked into gear, showing them 7 jumps away with their destination set as… Amamake. They appeared to be in a Gnosis/Scimitar gang, presumably with dev hax implants. We set our destination for where they are and set out.

We danced round a couple of systems away as CCP kept trying to throw us off. Only a handlful of locals had gotten here and a 20-man mixed fleet had just been shredded. We finally caught up to the fleet as we broke the record for the PCU count.

We jumped into CCP and engaged, much to the delight of the people talking on the livestream. Many chat comments involved “holy shit that fleet” or some variation thereof. 200 mixed frigates vs a Logi supported, devh4x implant Gnosis gang. Did I mention the Gnosis went 5.5kms+ with their MWD? They did.  As we decloaked, the fight was well and truly on. First primary? CCP Goliath.

Our frigates streaked towards the enemy ships as Time Dilation began to slow the system to less than half it’s normal speed. We caught a couple of Scimitars as they tried to burn away from our gang so the rest of CCP began to kite closer, allowing our faster frigates to begin tackling them. We piled onto Goliath, ending his logistics career and began chewing on a nearby Gnosis who happened to be CCP Vesna Prishla.

Kaboom, first Gnosis kill… ever? Perhaps! Mangala began calling targets like a pig wallowing in mud (or a chav in a cheap off-license, as he described) as we started on CCP Bella Bee whilst tackling CCP Falcon.

Bella Bee falls. Falcon actually lives as we switch targets (he dies later with 170k damage to him, don’t worry). Next is our favourite dev, CCP SocksFoxfour.

Blam. GOOD BYE FOXFOUR. The battle really kicks into gear as some of the first CCP pilots start to reship. Amusing thing to watch was the livestream as we shot the various point-of-view ships they were using.

Eventually we realise the last CCP streaming (despite plenty on field) was some distance from the battle. The only CCP more than 20km away? CCP Rise, currently duelling (and beating) a Talos who only seems to have him pointed (not scrammed).

Sounds like a job for an Atron. Overheat MWD, overheat scram. Go.

It was quite amusing to watch myself tackle Rise on the stream a few seconds later. I called tackle and for bounce-warps to me as the Talos exploded, leaving me alone against the Gnosis. Fortunately he had no web, and his lasers kept glancing off. As my fleet started to land and establish tackle, I bailed before a lucky hit took me out. Bye bye Rise!

Finally, after almost 40 minutes, the last CCP died and we did the most manliest of things. We ran away, since the Nyx event was in 20 minutes and we had 7 systems to cover under Time Dilation. Also, a lot of neutrals were showing up and we had no desire to be bogged down. Flee!

EVE-Kill for the fight.

We proceeded to high-tail it to Flosewin, where almost 1000 pilots were already waiting. We spiked it to 1300 and the number just kept rising. Time dilation was already 15%, then Marlona undocked the Nyx.

Oh dear god, the client lag.

I whored onto the killmail then docked and logged as local spiked to 2,400 and the game became unplayable. Oh well!

Due to many real life issues, I’ve been rather inactive in EVE – hence the lack of posts.

Expect usual service to resume soon.

Firstly, trading report! I’ve been neglecting the alt over the last few days – not updating trade orders anywhere near as often as I should. The result is ISK in the wallet which really should be in items and a lot of the orders I do have are extremely under/overcut. However, I’m edging in on 270mil after 2 weeks, starting from 5 mil with no skills.

Back to the more interesting stuff.

Glorious leader Fin, of our sister C4 wormhole, is calling for aid against a possible target or two and we’re trying to scan a way out to her. The C4 calls for aid, and we will answer. Our static C4a lead us into a second C4b before a C3a and finally a lowsec.

Our enthusiasm turns into disappointment when the lowsec turns out to be over 25 jumps to Fin, and her possible target swapped to a Heron, which Fin exploded anyway. Cursing our poor luck, our scan ships begin to head home to roll the chain.

Arrow, one of our new recruits, jumps back into 4b ahead of me and promptly lights up comms. “Typhoon, Drake on wormhole. Orca on scan. Possible rolling fleet.”

I have no choice but to jump back as well and avoid the two ships, recloaking 5km away. Arrow is burning back to home and Mick is attempting to login. Firetruck Man, another recruit, also logs in. I bounce a planet and land back on C4a to see the Typhoon here. Firefly has his Loki on the far side and reports an Arazu decloaking on him. He tackles it as the Typhoon jumps. I follow suit.

C4a and C4b are both Wolf Rayet wormholes, granting a bonus to armor resistances  but reducing shield resistances, so Firefly’s Loki is struggling. I point the Typhoon as Firetruck lands in a Harbinger and opens fire. The Arazu jumps in structure, so Firefly follows but misses it, due to the cloak. A Drake jumps through into 4a but is quickly battered into armour and jumps back. Firetruck hits low armour and jumps to support Firefly. Mick lands in his Astarte and helps force the Typhoon into jumping back to 4b.

Now in 4b, we make quick work of the Drake. An Abaddon is here too, but he bails rather quick. An Oracle appears at 50km but burns and warps before we land tackle.  The Typhoon gives up the ghost and that’s that.

We head home and roll the chain.

The new C4a is empty and quiet, as is the connecting C3a. It’s only Mick and myself online, so we both decide to log out since it’s getting late.

The early US crowd log in as we log out. Not 2 hours later, I get a message from one of them. Fortunately, I’m still awake.

“Large fleet in 4a site running”

I log in and get fully updated. There appears to be an inbound into 4a now and there’s an… odd… fleet running the 4a sites.

“2 Basilisks, 2 Rokhs, Dominix Navy, Tengu, Legion, Gila, Loki, Ishtar, Maelstrom, Huginn, Noctis in one site”

For one Class 4 sites? They’ll be making pennies each with that many people.

Regardless, there’s only 4 of us online so we can’t go for full fleet action right now. We decide to use bombers to try and catch their salvaging Noctis. This is a great idea, except if;

a) The entire enemy fleet is following the Noctis or

b) The 2 Basilisks have constant repairs on the Noctis.

Guess what? The enemy fleet have done both.

We do try to catch anything that’s slow to leave the site, but they all fleet warp together back to their wormhole after the salvaging is done, collapsing it behind them.

Oh well.

Today there are no battle reports, no guides and no discussions. This is just a post along the lines of “Bloody hell capitals take ages to train”

I decided to start the train for a Thanatos – mostly for C5 Sleeper work but also for transport of stuff in K-Space. Currently I am a few days off Advanced Spaceship Command V, which will be followed by the various Capital repair skills, finally by Navigation skills (Jump drives, etc). I need an alt to Cyno me as well, so I guess I will start one up over the next few days.

So basically, the skillqueue is looking real dull for a couple more months.

Maybe my next post will have more content!

Another game has taken my gaming life over the past few days – Planetside 2, a Free2Play FPS is completely eating my free time.

What is Planetside 2? It’s essentially an MMO in shooter form – 3 teams fight across 3 massive continents for land control using infantry, tanks, transports, fighters and bombers. It’s basically a massive persistent war!

It’s obviously insanely fun.

The game’s requirements are quite high – my 3 year old mid-range laptop chugs along at 15-20 FPS on the lowest settings but it’s playable!

I’ve started playing with the RvBGanked people – Mangala Solaris is running an “outfit” (corp) and we’ve got squads up constantly. We’re also utilizing Mangala’s Mumble which can be found here. There’s about 40 of us at time of writing and it’s very active – last night we ran a 20 man Tank Column to assist the non-EVE Reddit Outfit in an assault on a Tech base.

The game is microtransaction supported – upgrades, extra weapons and appearance can be bought with the real life cash payments, but everything is un-lockable normally – nothing is locked to one type of payment. The basic upgrades are cheap enough, but you’ll have to sink in some serious time and ability to get the higher tier stuff. The base game is completely free to play.

If you think you have what it takes to join us and die hilariously (like a transport flattening the whole squad as we assembled behind a hill) then download the game via Steam or http://www.planetside2.com. Once you start a character, join the VANU SOVEREIGNTY faction and join us on the MATHERSON server. It is US based, but the ping time from the EU is completely negligible. Join the Mumble server linked above, ask for an Outfit invite and bingo – you’re playing.

Who else is with us? The non-EVE Redditors are with us whilst the EVE Redditors (TEST) and PL are on the TR side of the same server.

Join the fight.

EVE posts to resume soon – I’m obviously still playing.