Overheating racks and new portraits.

And so, the Sansha have descended upon us.

They brought with them an amazing new character editor.  I know some people have lamented the fact that the new ones aren't as good as the old ones.  That they liked the cartoon style, that the new editor lacks diverse and unique characters.  I for one, like it.

The new pictures look great, the options are plentiful and the expressions many.  The few things I don't like, it's hard to see the small, tiny, little photo thumbnail.  Some more clothing options might be nice and some more normal haircuts all around, other then that I'm very happy.

I'm gonna be lazy though, since I've already misplaced the pictures I was gonna link twice, I'll settle for the banner art.  I have created a new banner, my skills at photo editing are somewhat lacking, but it's my own and I'm rather happy with it.  The new banner has the new pictures, it's Evoran by the Iteron and Evv by the Mega.  The old ones are in the right sidebar for now. 

I went for a civilized, office sorta look for Evoran, seeing as he's the official guy with the trading and the building.

For Evv I wanted a "rougher" look, ex Navy, don't want his picture taken sort of thing.

I'm pretty darn happy with how they both turned out.

Now on a different note.  The patch brought with it some nice shortcuts, and in doing so it overwrote all the old shortcuts.  I undocked my Abaddon, warped into a mission, The Assault, yes, the same one that cost me my Apoc a while back.  I'm sitting there shooting away at the serpentis ships waiting for aggro from the last bunch to unleash my drones.  Aggro gained, drones out, ctrl-1 to sent drones to attack.  I hear this "plink" sound and think "hmmmmm".  Then the lower rack overheats.  I quickly turn the heat off and and head for the options, while getting shot at in the mission.  I go to drones, find the shortcut and assign ctrl-1 to attack.  I'm told it's already taken so I go to the appropriate page and turn it off, then back to drones to turn it on again.  Thing is, every time you click it, doesn't matter that you're in a menu apparently, it activates.  Sooooooo, by the time I'm done, I esc out of the menu and intend to finish the mission.  I was just in time to see my hardeners burn out, I check overview and see there's a warp scrambling frig on me, then my armor rep'erapparently activating things through menus. gives out.  I was fortunate enough to get out in low armor this time, repaired in station and finished the mission.  Thank you for overwriting my old shortcuts CCP and thank you for

All said and done though, good patch, I like it so far and now, all that's left is to rally some corp mates and try the Sansha for real.  I still have fresh memories of how that went on SiSi.

Fly safe.

2011, still going!

Happy new year to all and may 2011 rain isk or KM's on you, depending on preference.  Myself, I'll take the isk.
2010 ended quietly for me, bogged down in work and family stuff to attend for the holliday I got precious little EVE time in, such is life.  I've mostly been managing trade orders once a day, neglecting everything else and anxiously been waiting for the next Incursions installement to be deployed.  I'm actually looking forward to the new character creator specifically, and I'm not quite sure why I do it.  It's going to be very wierd to change portraits, I've been running around SiSi for a little bit and seeing that new picture in local is downright unerving.  When I get used to it though, the new creator is amazing and I'm really looking forward to recreating faces that have been with me for years now, I suspect I'll spend a few hours tweaking when the creator drops.

There's another couple of things about the patch, the shortcuts and the new NeoCom.  I love the shortcuts, absolutely love them, they're intuitive, they're quick and they reduce clicking by an awsome amount, BUT, I will not get over the fact that I have to click in the chatwindow to type now.  For that reason alone I will probably not use the shortcuts at all, I'm way to used to just start typing when I need instead of clicking somewhere.
The new NeoCom is also great, it has to be enabled in the menus as some BETA option, the problem though is that I will now have to start playing EVE in fullscreen mode.  Previously, EVEMON centered my windowed EVE for me, now I have to use some "Fixed" window option, the downside of this is that the windows start bar has priority at the bottom of my screen, the new NeoCom is also at the bottom of the screen.  Everytime I go for the new NeoCom the windows start bar pop's up.  Small complaints, I know, but still.  I'll have to find a way to get around it, preferably without going back to fullscreen.

Still, Incursions pt. 2 is looking great, can't say how much I appreciate CCP for holding back, staggering deployment and making it all nice and polished before release.

Fly safe all.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone, have a happy holliday and fly safe.

Oh Noes, how depressing!

I'm ashamed to write this.
Today...... I lost a Battleship..........To a lvl 4 mission.
It's the first time I've lost a battleship to a PvE mission, I've lost them in PvP but never to a mission.
It was Serpentis Assault, I fielded an Apocalypse class battleship, and it died, horribly in a fire.

I'm not even sure what happened, I'd just moved an old Apoc up to my primary agent and decided to do a mission before calling it a night.  I get "The Assault", check my hardeners and undock, I punch in the gate activation as I land and stuff started happening from there.
I lock up the rats, smallest ones first and start firing.  The destroyer dies in one volley, naturally, but my modules are stuck, I've had guns stuck in a few lag heavy situations before, but never in a highsec system with 77 people in it.
By the time my guns start cycling proper again, everything is on me.  The whole room aggroes for some reason and my tank is failing horribly, I'm pointed and my drones aren't killing the scrammers fast enough for me to warp out.
Apoc goes boom and I'm left staring at my wreck in disbelief.
I did fetch my trusty Megathron right after and headed back for some proper revenge on the Serpentis Corporation, but the damage was allready done.  I suffered a severly bruised pride and my ego took a serious dent.

First Battleship loss to a mission has now come and gone, fortunately, it was an Amarrian ship, I could not bear the loss of my precious Megathron.

On another note,  I've bought a Noctis and set it up for salvaging, was a little expensive as I bought it early, but well worth the investment.  I payed around 58 mill or so for it, but I don't forsee loosing them very often and I'd still have bought it.  I have to say, it's awsome for salvaging.
The tractor range, speed and salvage speed makes cleanig out a mission site a breeze, nothing to it, very little moving around and the increased cargo space you get is worth it by itself.
You can even pick up all the cap boosters and scrap metal without worrying about cargo space or docking up just to clear out the Destroyer.

Fly safe.

Incursions, part one.

Not had a chance to log in much these last days, been a little to busy with things, so today I was welcomed by a new and shiny log in screen.
Incursions has dropped it seems, or at least the first part of it.  I have to say again, I really like the fact that CCP decided to release it in stages with more of a "when it's done" philosophy rather then on time.
Seems there aren't too many drastic changes as of yet, the things I welcome from this first part is the ability to show probes on the overview, that's a long time coming in my opinion.  I never use the "unofficial" way to get them on the overview in the past, I wasn't sure if it was "safe" or not, but this new ability has great potential.

I'm also welcoming in the changes to various T2 ammo, and the rockets among them, or I will appreciate the rocket boost at least when I train up for them on Evv.
The Noctis is looking really sweet, but a little expensive as of yet, I'll either opt to grab a BPO or wait for the price to drop before I grab one.
Either way I'm gonna wait a little bit, I'm sort of asuming that the Outer Ring area is swarming with people right now, I'm also asuming they don't have my welfare in mind.

The addition of a Meta column on items also makes hangar/loot sorting a little easier, it's a nice touch.
Seems the "nice touch" thing is the thing of this first patch, several small things that are not revolutionary, but nice additions.  I will eagerly await the changes to PI, the actuall Sansha content and I'm really looking forward to having my SP from learning skills reimbursed.

Fly safe all.

Nerfing the Drake?

There's been rumors lately about some incoming nerfs for the Drake battlecruiser, pride of the Caldari Navy and cherished favourite of newbies and missionrunners everywhere.
Personally, I don't fly the Drake to often, Evoran has one Drake in his hangar set up for the occasional combat site or mission, the one time a year he does that stuff.  Evv flies armor, armor all the way, he's trained for Gallente and Amarrian ships and shield tanks are'nt really their natural element.  I have trained some shield skills on him recently though, but mostly just for the buffertanked speed/shield extender ships, and mostly just for the shield extenders themselves.  There should be no need to state that Evv does not fly shield tanked ships very often.
I do have some experience flying a drake, and my impression is as follows, massive and impressive tank, not quite so impressive DPS and it handles like a beached whale.  The Drake is in short a massive brick, and quite an impressive looking brick at that.  I do understand the appeal it has to missionrunners as it seems to be a very AFK friendly ship with a big tank, it's also quite an impressive ship considering that it does not take to long to train for.

Recently though, word has come in from the lawless regions of null security space that the Drake has become a very popular addition to alliance fleets.  So popular in fact that CCP is looking at nerfing it.
There are different reasons for the nerf, but the biggest one at the moment seems to be lag, or rather the fact that a hundred Drakes all firing missiles at once starts to create quite a bit of lag.
The popularity of the Drake in null seems to be much the same as in high sec, big tank, easy to get into, cheap and very replaceable, and excellent counter to armor HAC's.  Seems the the change of the old doomsday had some "unforseen" effects on warfare allowing for bigger fleets of smaller craft, along with the changes to the scanning system making it very easy to get hits on BS sniper fleets, the BS fleets are all but extinct it seems.  Armor tanked HAC's with logi and CS support tore things apart in nullsec for quite some time and then people started countering it with Drakes.  Why Drakes one might ask?  they are  a good counter to the AHAC's, they have huge buffers making it easy for Logi pilots to keep up, they have great alpha strike damage in a fleet of them, the missiles have great range and an easier time of hitting AHAC's then BS turrets have and they're cheap.  You can probably loose about four Drakes for every Zealot isk wise and in a war of atrition that accounts for quite an advantage.  You can also commit more pilots to a fight since you can get fresher pilots willing to loose a BC in your fleets.

Now, I'm not a fan of nerfing ships, people have invested time, money and practice in flying these things (whatever ships is the current big thing).  I think it's a little "cheap" to take this away from them and it's not like the Drake trains are some invulnerable death machine that can't be stopped.  This is EVE, adapt or die.

There are several ways, I've heard, of countering these Drake fleets.  Snipe BS does a great job of stopping them, disciplined AHAC gangs, Zealots in particular also rips through them in a lot of cases.  The point is that they're not invulnerable, instead of nerfing I think we should just sit back and wait for the mastermind FC's to come up with an effective counter to the whole problem.  I would certainly not be happy if a ship I've trained for, bought and fitted got nerfed because something that happened in a particular theater of war.
Either way, all you Caldari mission runners, now's your time to shine in the lawless lands of 0.0.  You're beloved Drake is no longer scorned and primaried by friendly FC's, imortality awaits you, take it.

Fly safe.

Skill Training Completed : Exhumers V

I'd say finally, but it's more been a case of not bothering until recently, I have however "finally" completed Exhumers level 5.  I trained it straight to 4 when I first trained for the Hulk's and it's just been sitting there ever since, it was only after my last skill completion that I decided it was about time to max it out, even though I don't mine as much any more.
I usually trade for my minerals these days, buy cheap, sell high or keep for production.  I've been making some decent money since I got my freighter and started some inter regional mineral trades, there are some good deals to be had out there if you look for them.
Can't say I really feel the difference of those last 3%, but I have been hitting some belts lately, zoning out to the "zen" of the strip miners humming.  Either way, it's a skill I feel I should have as a proper industrialist/miner.

I've also spent some time on SiSi with Evv these last days, testing out some of the sansha stuff, or rather getting me behind handed to me by the Sansha stuff.
I've been flying solo so far so I've not gotten into the sites, I did however head off to an invaded system with the intent to check the belts for the new residents.
So, I fitted up a Sacrilege, figured I'd want tank over gank if I wanted to see anything, tanked it up as best i could and set a destination for Lermireve.  The new journal page is rather handy, it shows you the invaded systems, effects present in the system, the influence ratio and buttons for easy autopilot settings to systems or staging systems.
I arrived in Lerm, checked the gate for nasty pirates, even though there should'nt be any, I'm paranoid, and was immediately greeted with the effects thingy on the left saying your tank, damage, and bounty rate sucks now.
I was however not intimidated by some lowly rats and pointed my noble Sacrilege to the first belt i could see.  There were several beacons in the system, but I wasn't stupid enough to solo warp in on them.

I hit belt and I'm greeted by 2 non descript frigates, a named cruiser and a named battleship.  I lock them all up and fire a volley off at the first frigate, asuming they're the ones that will tackle me I want them dead first.
The Sansha was not impressed however and within a few seconds I was jammed out by the cruiser and neuted dry by the battleship.  I did get another missile volley off at the cruiser between jam cycles, but a few seconds after that my tank was hurting bad and I had to bail out.  The Sansha means bussiness I guess.

Incursions should be very interesting and certainly make high sec a little less safe, I've heard rumors of Sansha gatecamps, but I've no idea if they will scram you or otherwise force a fight.  I do know that I will not be taking my freighter through invaded systems without a heavy escort.
I sure will try to check out the sites on SiSi aswell, and maybe even attempt to kill one of the things this time.

Very pleased that CCP pulled the release of the expansion, opting to do it "right" rather then on time, all in all it's looking pretty good as far as I can see.

Fly safe.