a:3:{s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:3:"rss";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"version";s:3:"2.0";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"channel";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:3:{s:0:"";a:7:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Eve Blog Pack Feed";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:14:"managingEditor";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"noemail@noemail.org (CrazyKinux)";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:13:"lastBuildDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:00:30 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:9:"generator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42:"Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"The thirty most prominent Eve-Online bloggers in one feed ! ";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:20:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"9 Days To Battleship Duel";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"http://www.ninveah.com/2009/10/9-days-to-battleship-duel.html";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"duels";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:34:00 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/bfa69d71d2cda325";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1512:"A lot of people like frigates and cruisers and their tech II and III variants in Eve, and while I definitely appreicate a good Interceptor clipping along at 5 km/sec or a Onyx dropping a bubble on the enemy fleet, I live for the big ships. Battleships, Carriers, Orcas... I get tears in my eyes when I undock in them.

So I'm really really looking forward to my duel with Nashh in 9 days.

I've been spending some free time pouring over EFT and theorycrafting in my head all the permutations this Duel can take on. Unlike the Destroyer duel, I have a lot of options as I can fly Caldari, Amarr, and Gallente all acceptably well and I can use missiles, drones, hybrids, and lasers all decently too. That gives me 9 battleships to choose from; well 8 more accurately because the Scorpion would be useless without its ECM modules which are disallowed in the coming tilt.

Of the ships there are a lot of different options. Hybrids? Drones? Lasers? Missiles? Close up or at range? Active or passive tank? I've looked at multiple setups for all the 8 battleships and each one has something to reccomend it.

Next Sunday will reveal if my planning is all for nought or pays off.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Kirith Kodachi";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"Fanfest Video roundup";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DeafplasmasEveMusings/~3/YtjqcDrmdJo/fanfest-video-roundup.html";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:3:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"video";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"fanfest 2009";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:2;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"eve-online";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:53:00 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/eeb9e805ac8256f7";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3089:"Okay, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on some of the videos from Fanfest 2009. I've been watching every day at lunch instead of writing Blog posts, hence the hiatus, but hours of video does tend to take hours to get through!

Videos + a brief summary of my thoughts from the weeks watching...

PVE/PVP Roundtable discussion - Awesome both of these, and some valid points being brought up in the discussions especially in regard to ECM power, and ECCM lack of it in PVP imho.

CCP Panel - great questions on future of EVE and Dust integration. In summary, initial integration is limited, but sadly we can't gank the Barges as they fly between planets. Shame.

CSM Panel - Nice to hear from the delegates from this round. I'm not personally going to be going in for next CSM elections, but will be on the one after. I would possibly be shot if I agreed to the Sundays and trip in February right now considering other commitments with work, I'd never get to see the girlfriend.

GM Panel - Great to hear GM's are involved in scrum with regards to tools development to help them help us. Nice to hear they play the game as much as us too! Certainally beats some games I've played before - where the CS and GM experience is sometimes somewhat outsourced and seperate from the Dev's.

To watch next week Scrum and Agile Development, Game Design and the Ecomomy sessions.

Oh, and you all so have to listen to the Orchestration of in game songs - DJ Margeir was awesome. PLEASE repeat this next year - I am defeinitely attending fanfest anyhow, but I love orchestras - and orchestras playing Computer tunes is great.

Oh and you have to watch the Alliance panel presentation that Goonswarm (Darius Johnson) gave. Its not on youtube yet, but tentonhammer has the goods. Made me die laughing.

Hope you guys all have a good weekend - at the moment DSTI is concenrtating on producing items enough for the holiday period (I leave for holidays in about a weeks time now - so the mineral queue and production is concentrating on making sure I don't run out of stuff in the interim).

Oh and Rojaz - I've not been ignoring you - just I typically am away from computer whenever you chat to me!

As you may have noticed recently on 00sage00’s blog, we had a rematch 1v1, in which I decided to make it cruisers, just to see how things would go. We met up and headed into the Blue Lagoon, where I warped us to a combat site I had cleared up earlier that day. We locked, and I settled into my 20km orbit around his Vexor, unleashing my Caldari Navy Terror Assault Missiles in a flurry of explosive death. Happily, I watched his shields vaporize when I met the hard nugget of his armor. Tiny chunks were flying as I made slow, but steady progress into it. By this time my shields had hit 50% and I was very concerned about the outcome. I think that I may have gotten him to 75% Armor when I exploded in a flash of failure. Oh well. As part of the agreed upon deal, the Vexor he whooped me in was left at our POS, since I cannot fly it, but more on that in a minute.

Late last night, I determined that the Blue Lagoon is no longer the place for me to be in EVE, and I moved all of my stuff out. Tonight we finish unanchoring the POS and the few remaining modules, as we vacate our home for the last month. For the time being, I am moving into Minmatar space where I will be grounding myself by doing some missions for awhile. However, as a tribute to the Blue Lagoon, and the entertainment it has given me, I am leaving the Vexor floating in space for whomever finds it to lay claim to. I will be putting a note in it’s cargohold for it’s future owner, asking them to leave me a message here when they find it.

Part of my plan for Chainer is to refocus, and get back to what I really love, and that is the story. I will be working on more IC Fiction, as well as having my ingame actions mirror that. Expect a more detailed post on that to come. I am working on EVE Monkey’s Minmatar Stripper fiction idea, and will hopefully have that up over the weekend. Then Tuesday will see Blog Banter #13, and this is going to be a fun one all around. I will try to get one or two more posts in late next week, before NaNoWriMo starts up, since November will be a very hectic month for me, I hope.

Lot’s of talk going on recently in the Blogosphere on what it takes to be a successful blogger, and how you should go about doing it. Needless to say, I agree and disagree with points from all the various submissions we have seen, but I doubt I will write up a full fledged response, as I don’t care to.

In the Skill Training World, I have Chainer now training up various support skills I found him to be lacking in, before he resumes training for a Nighthawk as that will aid in missioning, or whatever I decide to do really. I have also mothballed C’ain for the time being, as I don’t have a particular use for a miner. In his stead, I have a new alt on that account by the name of Daisy, who I am training up to also be a combat pilot, and she is busy as heck training up learning skills. I also need to get her some implants, to speed things up.

Fly Safe folks.

Hi,

Thank you for your interest in the Council of Stellar Management. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your application for candidacy for the fourth Council of Stellar Management due to recent violations of the End User License Agreement associated with your account(s). Should you wish to stand as a candidate in any future CSM elections, you will be free to do so unless there are further violations of the EVE Online EULA.
Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kveðja / With regards
CCP Diagoras
CCP Research and Statistics

Option (A)

Scamming some random poor soul out of 650 million ISK and then rubbing it in via extreme sarcasm and taunting:

[14:50:07] Spectre > hey whats up... want to buy another ship?
[14:50:21] Figis > those are not navy issue
[14:50:27] Figis > u fucked me
[14:50:33] Spectre > what??!! seriously?
[14:50:43] Spectre > must have been a mistake by the guys in the warehouse
[14:50:47] Spectre > let me ask them and ill get right back to you
[14:51:02] Figis > i want my money back
[14:51:12] Spectre > i already spent it on a new house in the hamptons
[14:51:15] Spectre > sorry friend
[14:51:15] Figis > they are normal ships
[14:51:22] Spectre > yea if normal is AWESOME
[14:51:29] Spectre > theyre MEGATHRONS dude, that name is incredible
[14:51:33] Spectre > AWESOME MEGATHRONS
[14:51:46] Figis > i want my money back
[14:52:02] Spectre > better start mining i guess then
[14:53:01] Figis > so you wont trade back
[14:53:18] Spectre > no i will, im just talking to the guys in accounting to sort things out
[14:53:28] Spectre > we should be able to send you a rebate check within 6-8 weeks of this transaction
[14:54:04] Spectre > you can contact our claims department at 1-800-UR-SCRWD

Option (B)

Tricking a newbie pilot into joining my fleet and meeting me at a safe spot to "help me with a mission". Forcing him to eject from the Raven and then bringing it to a station to sell it back to him for 100 million ISK. Destroying his ship he just bought back as it undocks and then podding him.

Option (C)

Making fun of Ken Plante's MySpace page which is publicly accessible and labeled with his in-game character name:

[ 03:11:12 ] Spectre3353 > http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=6098788
[ 03:11:14 ] Switch 4 > it at least gives me some entertainment
[ 03:11:33 ] Kobrakilla > .__. █.____░█.___██_█████____.██___██_.░░░░ █.___.░░░█_█___.░░ █__.░░░█__█____.██___...
[ 03:11:35 ] Kobrakilla > nuts
[ 03:11:45 ] Spectre3353 > you have a phd in experimental pathology? you must be smart
[ 03:12:02 ] Ken Plante > man u r fuckin obsesisve
[ 03:12:04 ] Ken Plante > lol
[ 03:12:09 ] Spectre3353 > yea its so hard to google "ken plante myspace"
[ 03:12:09 ] Ken Plante > u r a weird dude
[ 03:12:15 ] Spectre3353 > I OBSESSED UNTIL I FOUND IT
[ 03:12:18 ] Mashashige > agreed
[ 03:12:24 ] Ken Plante > i wouldnt bother to look at ur screen names myspace
[ 03:12:27 ] Ken Plante > because u dont matter
[ 03:13:21 ] Spectre3353 > people that matter are agnostics and are pisces?
[ 03:13:37 ] Lucifer747 > fuck, i dont matter
[ 03:14:12 ] Spectre3353 > yoo brother wats up...just began college ..the bitches r amazen lmao..keep in touch big bro..hope all it well.
[ 03:14:17 ] Kobrakilla > I for one, am awesome
[ 03:14:21 ] Spectre3353 > sounds like your buddy angelino is having a good week
[ 03:14:37 ] Switch 4 > RAGE IN AMAMAKE LOCAL!
[ 03:14:38 ] Ken Plante > kid i work with in innercity program
[ 03:14:47 ] Spectre3353 > with a phd? thats awesome man
[ 03:14:48 ] Ken Plante > lol spec u r a tard

Solution

The answer is not (A). Scamming is simply an incredibly dick move that individuals with no morals would pull. This is fine for a member of the CSM.

The answer is not (B). Manipulating and totally fucking over a missioning newbie is a perfectly valid form of play.

This leaves only one possible option left:

CCP Diagoras,

Thank you for the consideration and notification. Would you be able to specify what violations were associated with my account(s)? Thanks.

-Spectre

Hi,

The violation in question was sharing real life information of another player within the game. You received a harassment warning from GM Macayle for this at 04:38 on the 29^th September this year.
Kveðja / With regards
CCP Diagoras
CCP Research and Statistics

Correct answer is option (C)! Linking to someones MySpace page is a violation of the End User License Agreement and will render you invalid to run for the CSM if reported.

Unlesss you’ve been living under Omber for the past month or so, then you already know about the upcoming Hellcats Pub party. It’s going to be one of the most epic and massive player organized events and you definitely don’t want to miss it. Here’s why:

4 (and maybe more) hours of continuous partying with the Hellcats and other EVE Celebrities
Total radio coverage by Split Infinity Radio with tons of music, events and fun with Planet Risk Hosts Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm
A *SHITLOAD* of expensive prizes to be given out in random drawings every 10 minutes (See the “drool-list” below)
Limericks Competition
Official release of the Celebrity Deathmatch #16 full video, results and recap of the match.
Interview of the CDM #16 Participants and expert commentator (and CSM candidate) TeaDaze
Official release of Luminus’ new epic parody single
Lots of spontaneous acts

To the details now…

WHEN: Saturday, October 24th 2009 from 20:00 to 00:00 EVE Time (possible extension to 01:00).
WHERE: In-game channel “HELLCATS PUB”
WHO: Mynxee and the Hellcats
HOW: By being in the game channel during the party and being tuned in to Split Infinity Radio. More info in the channel’s MOTD.
WHY: Because of Falcon

The Drool List

Fully fit Loki
100 (!) T2 fit Rifters
Rattlesnake w/T2 rigs
Thanatos
Rigged Helios with Cov Ops Cloak
Rigged Iteron V
Daredevil
Firetail x 2
Dramiel
Ashimu
Phantasm
Gila
Cynabal
Rigged, T2-fit Armageddon
Rigged Drake
Another rigged Drake
Core C-Type 100MN MicroWarpdrive
Dark Blood Medium Nosferatu
Dread Guristas Explosion Dampening Field
Gist C-Type Photon Scattering Field
Mizuro’s Modified Adaptive Nano Plating
Imperial Navy 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates
A-Type and C-Type platings and possibly booster “packs”

This list is growing by the hour! So check out Mynxee’s site for the updated one!

The party has hit massively.com also… Now you know that if you miss this.. you’ll end up in tears!

Today’s recipe comes to us indirectly from FullMetal Basilisk, an old corpmate and all around good guy.

While I’d like to take credit for the Brutor Energy Drink, I cannot. In fact, I’m not even going to post the recipe, as the original blog post is so damn funny I couldn’t possibly outdo it.

Brutor Energy Drink

JOE THE PEACOCK’S INSANE ENERGY DRINK EXPERIMENT

***note: I will be switching out Red Bull for Monster Energy drink, which has five times the caffeine of Red Bull when I try this. Rest assured, I will be trying this.

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9:"rocwieler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:29:"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/";a:1:{s:5:"group";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:29:"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/";a:1:{s:7:"content";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:3:"url";s:73:"http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/c8fc3b26b5ba0f2637d8e01e7249f35d?s=96&d=&r=R";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:26:"Fiction Friday - Chapter 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"http://www.ninveah.com/2009/10/fiction-friday-chapter-2.html";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Fiction";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:55:19 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/913ae90707dceb34";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3187:"Previously:
Chapter 1

* * * * *

The City of Hollis on Perimeter was a bustling metropolis unlike anything we had on Vahunomi and my brother and I were like wide eyed childern on the ride into it from the spaceport. Tall shining skyscrapers, elevated rail links, and several levels of streets running all around them filled with every type of transportation imaginable.

Our hotel was in the heart of the city, and while not as glitzy and extravgent as entertainment districts in Gallente cities that I had seen in holos, it still oozed excess and possibility. I was only 20 years old and the place just revved my bloodstream with the careless fire that only the young have; even my brother, who normalled eschewed any type of boisterous activty, seemed filled with electricty and excitment.

We checked into our room and quickly headed back to the concourse that connected our hotel building with several other hotels and casinos. Bars, gambling floors, restaurants, sports dens, everything you could imagine was within walking distance and everywhere were beautiful people making sure the patrons had drinks. I craned my neck several times to allow my eyes follow a sexy hostess across the floor. Many years later I would visit the Hedonistic Avenues of Luminaire and realize how simple, small, and innocent the Hollis downtown was in comparison, but at the time I felt like I was in the centre of the universe.

As Kor and I walked around and checked out the sights and attractions, I noticed above the main concourse another one that looked down upon us and a few people at the edge sitting or leaning on the rails, talking to each other.

"That would be a good place to see around," I nudged my brother, pointing to the higher level.

He followed my gaze and snorted. "Good luck!"

"What do you mean?"

"That's a restricted level, for pod pilots and their guests only. I read about it on the flight here on the 'net. Its got specialty stores and restaurants and high end luxury service to lure the capsuleers down from the station. They get the five star treatment down here and separation from us mere mortals."

The knowledge I was not allowed up there made me want to go there all the more. It burned me that I was not good enough for that private level. One of the first things I did after I became a pilot and was discharged from the Navy was to spend a weekend here even though I had to go into debt to afford it.

We carried on and after a while we stopped to have dinner at a restaurant that served some excellent beef and a waitress whose bodice was stretched almost to the point of bursting to my brother's consternation. We brought up the directions we had been given and walked for thirty minutes to a quieter and darker part of the underground concourse. There, set in the wall like a cave entrance, was the door to the bar called "The Vortex".

"After you," I said to my brother.

More EVE Online news and rantings at CrazyKinux's Musing!

If I had a million dollars
I'd build a treefort in our yard
If I had a million dollars
You could help it wouldn't be that hard
If I had a million dollars
Maybe we could put a little tiny fridge in there somewhere.
The Barenaked Ladies - If I Had $1000000

ECM is broken. There I said it. Thousands of others have been on the receiving end of an unlucky jam one time to many and have thought and said the same thing. Personally, the number of times I've been jammed out of a fight can be counted on one hand, and the last time someone tried to jam me it didn't work out so well for him. So why do I think ECM is broken if I've yet to be frustrated by it?

I've seen ECM work for my side more often than not, and it works too well. Lets compare it to the other two defensive Ewar modules, Sensor Damps and Tracking Disruptors.

Sensor Dampeners are effective on long range and short range boats. An inty has a short range to start with, and if you damp it down, it's gotta close in more than it might want. Missile boats trade damage for range, and with a range damp you take away some of it's advantage. The damps are next to useless alone when used on a recon. Most of them have high lock ranges but much shorter effective ranges, so dampening their lock range is a waste of time. There is also the added negative of being way beyond web range of what you damp. If he's fast enough, he'll just close the distance. Anyone can add a sensor booster to their ship as well, effectively canceling one of your damps.

So how about tracking disruptors? They're extremely useful when used on any turret based ship, nearly crippling some if used correctly. But if the fleet has a missile or drone boat you're out of luck, and can guarantee you'll be primaried. These are useful for tacklers, but once again there are modules that will nullify most of the effect of these.

Now lets look at ECM. Given absolute knowledge of the enemy gang's composition, you will always bring ECM if that's the option. Why? It's better across the board. If a ship you're facing doesn't carry an ECCM module, it will likely be permajammed. Even if he's using ECCM, there is still a good chance that it won't be able to affect the battle at all. ECCM merely lowers your chance of being jammed, instead of negating that chance completely.

So what's the difference beyond the lack of a proper counter? Well ECM is like a sensor dampener that turns your targeting range to 0. So why use range damps if you have these? ECM is like a tracking disruptor that turns your tracking or optimal to 0 as well, so why use tracking disruptors? It stops missile boats, it stops turret boats, it stops drone boats. It works equally well on all ship types. It is broken.

How do we fix it? You may've noticed the last time I did one of these I talked about how to fix cloaking. This time around I propose to fix ECM, but not by nerfing ECM itself. I want to provide a more direct counter.

Introducing the Frequency Disruptor.

The Frequency Disruptor would be a new midslot module that you can activate on any target you can lock. It should have an optimal and falloff similar to the Tracking Disruptor(with current skills affecting it as an ewar module). Decent skills will put that at around 70k optimal. It would come with a new base and specialization skill to improve it's cap usage and effectiveness, in line with the other defensive Ewar modules.

It should be scriptable to provide either bonus doubled if desired or to run unscripted to use both bonuses at half. It would work on Sensor Dampeners, Tracking Disruptors, and finally ECM. It would reduce Optimal and Falloff, or the strength of the reductions the module gives(in the case of ECM, it would reduce the strength of the jam).

Now if someone tries jam you, and you have one of these onboard, you can burn out of his effective range, and hit him with this. It is an actual counter, and will force ECM pilots to think harder about how they plan to fight. They still get an initial jam in on the ships they need too, but generally a fleet can make him run away or force him to close range to something a bit more uncomfortable.

ECM stops being an easy button but isn't nerfed to hell and back.

That's my idea. What's yours?

The past few days, I have had quite a few 1v1s, enough to start my own CDM.

Rematch: Sage vs. Chainer

It all started when Chainer Cygnus brazenly insulted me in the Eve Bloggers channel:

Chainer Cygnus > Kucian, don’t listen to Sage, he’s a pansy and fails at walking down stairs. :P j/k
00sage00 > D:

He insulted my pansy-hood. He insulted my legs. He even insulted the stairs. So I challenged him to a 1v1. Chainer set the rules of the 1v1 to be cruisers with no ECM, with the winner giving his ship to the loser. We agreed to meet inside his wspace system, Blue Lagoon. This was the fit I used (the neut is placed in the middle of the guns to allow me to overheat longer):

[Vexor, Imma Ragequite Nao]
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
1600mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I

‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I

Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S

Valkyrie II x5
Hammerhead II x5

Total fitting cost was 8 mil. Right before the fight, Chainer revealed that his Caracal costed 45 mil, and was surprised by how much of a cheapskate I was:

Chainer Cygnus > If you win, I might have to take a break from EVE :P
Chainer Cygnus > Ragequit and all that if you will

(Hence my Vexor’s name, “Imma Ragequit Nao”). Long story short, we met and I popped Chainer in around a minute. I was slightly saddened by the win, however. Instead of keeping his expensive ship, I returned to lowsec in a pod, 8 mil poorer.

I Want To Fly A Rifter Again

Not too long afterward the duel with Chainer, Nursultan (who I used to roam lowsec with) wanted to have a trimarked Rifter vs trimarked Punisher 1v1. Apparently he had heard about Spectre’s ignominious defeat and wanted to try his hand at it. The first fight was fairly close, but Nursultan eventually popped.

He then worked some fitting magic and pwned my Rifter. The win was extremely convincing; I am definitely going to try out his fit sometime.

Noobships Are Fun To Fly

Halfway through my bouts with Nursultan, I jokingly asked for a noobship 1v1 in the Eve Bloggers channel. Prometheus09 responded, so I pulled up my saved fittings (yes, I take my Piloting Savviness Guide seriously – I even have fits for some noobships) and chose one.

For the fight, Prometheus and I had both chosen Velators, except that his was armor tanked and mine was shield tanked. I won the first engagement with 50% armor left. However, Prometheus had forgotten to deploy his drones, so we had a rematch. He grabbed another ship and once again we began the dance of death. Prometheus popped first again, but his drones killed me less than a second later. Although winning is good, I frankly am very surprised that I won both 1v1s, as Prometheus has 3x the gunnery skills that I do (not to mention all the other skills he has). Perhaps someday we will have a rematch in a non-noob ship type.

Fear The Maller

The responses to my Maller Guide reinforce my assertion that many pilots underestimate the Maller (for example, see my Eve Forums post). And many who have seen my suggested fits may think, “What idiot would get in close to a ship like that?” It turns out, quite a few of them. Like this Wolf, or this nano Celestis, or this Pilgrim, or this second Wolf.

Of course, I am not saying that the Maller is perfect or “the best”. Obviously, you need to choose targets carefully, but that is the case for any ship. I am simply arguing that the Maller can do far more than people think. And I am not forcing anyone to actually use it.

Moar 1v1s?!

Caels Caldanhai > FYI, I’m building a SageShrine just to make people go, “WTF?”
00sage00 > wtf?
Varnoka > hehe
Caels Caldanhai > Exactly

Apparently people like to try to kill me (I blame Nashh for starting all this :P); currently several other people want 1v1s with me. 1v1s are very fun, but the only thing I do not understand is why I win. Is it just the fittings I use? Or the piloting skill? Why is it that people with far more skill points still lose? I would appreciate it if someone could explain that to me…

Posted in Yarrbearing Tagged: 1v1, honor, maller, punisher, pvp

Seems I have hit a nerve with our ‘friends’ in the large alliance to our Left. Refer to this link http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

Big Yellow Group to the bottom left corner ( yellow is such a great color isn’t it?) haha~ Dont’t get all bent out of shape I knwo you didn’t pick the color i’m just teasing ya.

Several of them in cowardly fashion have deemed it I should be worthy of such terms as ‘faggot’, or ‘jerkwad’, etc. That’s why I turned moderation ON fellas. Learn to read.

In other news, much ado was made on COAD about SYS-K, and the head spy guy The Mittani specifically, have been dueling on said forum. I generally stay out of that cesspool but ever now and then other directors dip a toe in and occasionally our CEO says hi.

Mynxee, the great red headed one will be hosting a party on the 24th of October, go visit her website and learn more about it. Yes, Myxnee for those that do not know if a woman, and plays EvE, and wait for it….is NOT a nerdy ugly woman…GASP!!!! Shock and amazement aside, I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know her, via her blog, and due to the CK’s blogpack and and Roc Wieler website, maybe he was pissed at me for misspelling his name wrong for so long…but I still am waiting good buddy, you said to be patient and well I’m trying (nothing but blogger love for these two Honestly!)

Things seems to ebb and flow, understanding the flow is important.

I am trying to be a patient mule, many times though my impatience is the death of me.

I am looking for any more info on the Sov Changes to be coming.

On another note, a nice brit, and one I still owe a beer or twelve to Zapatero, published a great E:ON again! http://zapatero.wordpress.com/

Cover art is great by the way (not that you need me to tell you that Zapatero) but there i said it and I mean it!

I owe a big apology to Kirith, he does such a good job with the EAS frigates in the E:ON magazine, and well if I stole any thunder I did not mean to bro. I read your article once already, and will reread it again. For those that don’t know it CK was kind enough to offer his blog up for guest posting and well I sent in an article about…EAS frigates.;( http://www.crazykinux.com/2009/10/ship-setups-electronic-attack-ships.html

Over all it really is worth your time and energy to read this awesome magazine!

I was reading the EVE forums this week and yes, I know how dangerous that can be. You see post after post of good and not so good content.

Something caught my eye and yes, I did respond on the forums. Head over and read this thread: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=884478. Tibalt Avalon wrote:

After Emergency Conditions First War Declaration R.E.P.O. have Been Caught Posting Fake Killmails on Our Killboard. Just a Heads Up for Future Reference to Corporations these Guys are and do Post Fake Mails.

Ive Reported the On Our End to our Web Hosts but R.E.P.O’s Childish Move should be Made Public, dont know if anyone else has had the same problem with them. Kinda Sad to be Honest.

Fake Kill Mail Example:
http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=repofakeen7.jpg

Now, there is always smack talk between organizations that are at war with each other and to be honest, I have been a fan or R.E.P.O. from well before their alliance days.

But this is disturbing to me as the first response on this thread was from R.E.P.O. and what is said made me blink. Hans Gates from R.E.P.O. wrote:

I shouldn’t even reply to this, but this guys seems to want to question REPOs reputation.

Your killboard has/had a blank password. WTF…

Our guys seemed compelled to update the board with actual kills, since you don’t seem to post losses.

I’m sure one of my guys posted the kill on your killboard, who wouldn’t screw around with a web site that had a blank password.

Anyways, last thing I need to do is try to defend our rep from you. I’m sure we have enough peeps to vouch for us without your lack of forward thinking about passords and such trying to attack our reputation.

Now for the smack talk, I did call this guy a moron repeatedly in public chat. (ha beat ya to the smack accusations!)

Fly Safe and Good Fights.

I can understand the frustration of a mercenary organization not seeing loss mails posted by their target, but, in case you did not see it, Hans admits that they actually posted kills on someone else’s killboard, without the owners permission. I read further along and Magus Nebula admits to posting kills on their target’s killboard:

I will admit I Did post most of all the legitimate killmails on your board, funny to note how all those were deleted too! And funny no losses at all in your corp, hmmmmm, trying to frame us maybe? but none of that matters, i will be editing this post to reflect everything you have lost to date from us, so the rest of the peeps here can see.

REPO 41 Kills – Emergency Condition 1 Kills

Ixoz – Reaper (Emergency Condition)
Ixoz – Retriever (Emergency Condition)
Jinmei Sang – Brutix (Emergency Condition)
Ngaro – Hurricane + POD (Emergency Condition)
Jinmei Sang - Thorax (Emergency Condition)
EbonWanderer – Condor + POD (Emergency Condition)
Ardaeik Marconea – Ferox + POD (Emergency Condition)
Aurther Haden – Jaguar (Emergency Condition)
Arktour – Rupture (Emergency Condition)
Fionnlagh - Rupture (Emergency Condition)
Aurther Haden – Hound + POD(Emergency Condition)
Jinmei Sang – Thorax (Emergency Condition)
Callus Rem – Cyclone + POD (Emergency Condition)
BY1 – Hurricane + POD (Emergency Condition)
EbonWanderer – Ibis + POD (Emergency Condition)
Jinmei Sang – Thorax (Emergency Condition)
Callus Rem – Rifter + POD (Emergency Condition)
IngenCor – Dominix + POD (Emergency Condition)
Malekev - Hound + POD (Emergency Condition)
Oaack – Tristan + POD (Emergency Condition)
EbonWanderer – Cormorant + POD (Emergency Condition)
Noob Bait – Scorpion + POD (Emergency Condition)
Aurther Haden – Hound + POD (Emergency Condition)
Ardaeik Marconea – Blackbird + POD (Emergency Condition)
Ardaeik Marconea – Drake + POD (Emergency Condition)

Magus Nebula – Arbitrator (REPO)

Hacking a person’s website, no matter how soft the security may be, is still a crime. Updating their target’s killboard to reflect the actual outcome of a battle does not justify breaking the laws concerning computer security.

There is no justification in the real world for changing the content of another person’s website without their permission. R.E.P.O. should have stuck to simply updating their own killboard and called them out on the forums for not posting their loss mails.

The only formal statement I could find from CCP was by CCPStevieSG:

Moved to crime and punishment from Corp and Alliances summit- StevieSG

Seriously, that’s all? The thread was moved. Does CCP condone the hacking of a website of another player organization? I would hope not, but we have not seen anything positive so far.

Many of us remember the Ginger Magician incident, where real world threats were made in game. R.E.P.O. has done something similar here, they have admitted to hacking a website, on the forums.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as it sets a dangerous precedent. I know that CCP can not be the police for the entire world, but they need to make a statement that they do not condone such real world harassment and hacking of another player organization’s website.

Additional commentary added 10-23-2009:

I must extend a healthy thank you to everyone who has commented here on this article so far. I do enjoy a good debate and for everything that has been contributed I am thankful. Given what I have seen in the on the comments here, the comments on the thread on the EVE forums and the various communications I have received both in and out of game, I am left a bit puzzled.

Many people seem to not make the distinction between what constitutes is an illegal act. It seems that people only think something is illegal if they can be caught and punished and/or if damage was done.

If you are driving your car and you are exceeding the speed limit, does the fact that you are violating the traffic laws become less a illegal if the cop behind you does not pull you over and issue a speeding citation?

Does something become less illegal if you are not punished for breaking that law? Does it become less illegal if you are not caught? In reality, no, it does not. It just means that you were not held accountable for your actions.

Is this what we have become? Do we honestly believe something is not a crime when the law has been broken but no one was hurt, no damage was done and/or you are not caught?

We have been dancing around many questions on this debate, but the core of the issue is this. Someone put up a website and admittedly did a poor job. They did not engage in good security practices and effectively left the key in the lock on the door. Someone else exploited that weakness to correct an error in data on that website. Someone opened a door that was supposed to be locked, but was not and in reality did no damage, only update some missing data. The owner of the website was upset that these individuals were able to exploit his poor security and correct an inaccuracy in his data which did cast the owner in a poor light, but justly so as we all can agree on that one point.

Was this act of updating a crime? Under the laws we have discussed here, yes. Is this crime one for which these people should be punished? That is a question that should be left to a judge if it were to go that far, however unlikely. A slap on the wrist for exploiting weak security on a website is enough in my mind and honestly, the slap they received on the EVE forums should suffice in this observers opinion.

Should CCP take any action against these individuals? Only as so far as the EVE Online terms of service allow, which in this case amounts to simply talking about an illegal act they committed, which if I am not mistaken, would be a simple forum ban for a few days. Given that this original thread is over a year old, I would be willing to wager that too much time has gone by for that to be done now if it had not already been done. CCP is usually pretty good about that sort of thing.

I will be leaving the comments on this post open for the time being as I know that there are people who still wish to weigh in. Something to note, I have not approved 2 comments that were submitted, both of which were abusive in nature and for the record, one did support my arguments here. If you wish to comment, please feel free to do so, but do keep a civil nature when you post.

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: computer fraud, EVE, hacking killboard, Hans Gates, internet crime, kill mail, killboard security, Killmails, meta gaming, R.E.P.O

The Bleeding Rose (1)
So, what happened???? (1)
Roaming about, dieing a lot, having fun again (6)
Links (0)
EVE Player Blogs OPML Download (0)

He couldn’t stop staring at her, as was often the case. He squeezed out one more drag of the used cigarette he had found on the ground between numb fingertips; from the cold or something else he couldn’t be sure. He looked away from the rounded glass display case, absently portraying himself as disinterested, though the truth was anything but.

By typical standards, he supposed the dancer wasn’t that attractive, but really, beauty was subjective. To him, she had a healthy amount of meat on her bones; she wasn’t one of those waif thin monstrosities with implanted breasts and lips, ribs sticking out like some malnourished Matari slave. He liked his women plump and natural.

And the way she moved, oh the way she moved. Her full hips were hypnotic in their gyrations, the fluidity of her arm movements mesmerizing.

He spent most of each afternoon and evening on this corner, watching her, sometimes into the early hours of the morning.

He flicked away the cigarette butt, looking around in the dirty snow covered ground for another without success. It didn’t matter; he had wanted to quit smoking years ago, and he would, until he found his next discarded butt.

He reached down and picked up his worn wool hat, wiping off snow and slush, checking to see if anyone had dropped in some change while he wasn’t looking. No such luck today.

He put the upturned hat back on the ground, and adjusted his flimsy, weather wet sign that read “Homeless war veteran. Please help.”

He had never been in the war.

If he had been honest, his sign would’ve read “Blew my own leg off in an industrial accident that could’ve been prevented if I had been paying more attention. Please help”, but he realized that probably wouldn’t generate any sympathy.

And he knew people would care even less if he was to tell them he had opted out of insurance benefits at his old job in order to save a bit of money that he could use to come see the dancers.

Being a war veteran was the better choice.

Mostly people would just throw some coins into the hat, or the occasional smoke, but sometimes one would stop to ask him about his time in the war, how he was injured, and rant about the government not taking care of its soldiers.

Over the last few years, he had developed quite the story.

My unit was deep under enemy lines, far into hostile territory. Every inch we took felt like a victory, as we could never tell when the next movement we made might be our last. We had already lost half of our squad, including our commander, but still had mobile ops with command.

The night was pitch black, and we had stripped ourselves of most high tech equipment to move more easily, and with stealth.

My body was covered with dried blood, even under my fingernails. It had been a brutal engagement with no sign of ever letting up.

The thing about war is that nobody wins, despite the media and political hype. Everyone loses, especially the families of the ones that never come home.

So there we were, neck deep in shit, crawling into a small ghetto apartment block, our objective nearly in sight. There were a group of terrorists holed up on the third floor of a small building 500m away.

The cover fire was heavy, and we lost two more men crossing the exposed roadways, but finally made it inside. Every step of that bomb blasted place creaked; there was no quiet way of going about it.

We rushed up the stairs, kicking open the door to the designated apartment, ready to spray down weapons fire on anything that moved.

Except what we found was a screaming mother, clutching her children to her desperately, bawling her eyes out.

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t care what they had done or IF they had done anything. I wasn’t going to shoot an unarmed woman and her children.

Maybe someone had it wrong. This couldn’t be the right apartment; there was no way.

One of the men beside me lifted his weapon to fire. I hollered at him to stand down. He did, thankfully, but the resulting yelling match between us was one of my greatest shames.

Some of us wanted to follow our orders and get the hell out. Who cares if they died? They were the enemy. Me, and a few, argued that it wasn’t right, that orders just weren’t orders.

There was a bright flash, and a deafening ringing in my ears.

When I awoke, the doctors told me the apartment had been hit by an air strike. Only me and one other guy had survived, and he was in critical condition.

I had lost my leg. He ended up losing his life, due to complications.

I can never forget the look of that mother. I can never forget the inhuman things war can make us do.

On that cue, he would usually shed a tear, a skill he had refined after countless performances, and on those special occasions, enough money would fill his hat that he could actually eat a decent meal.

He used to hate his life. He used to hate what he had allowed himself to sink to. He gave up caring a long time ago.

Now, it simply was what it was. It might not be a glorious existence, but it was all he knew. And he had no complaints.

He had a decent little hole in the wall he slept in, a few meager blankets to keep him warm, though in the winter months he wished he had more, but a little liquor always helped to warm him up, and he managed to eat at least one morsel of food per day, to keep his strength up.

The dancer looked his way. He blushed, turning away. He didn’t’ like it when she looked at him; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t worth looking at. Please stop looking.

He didn’t actually know if the dancers could see out from inside the display cases. They were like store front attractions, displays setup to entice customers to come in and shop the merchandise, but it was more than enough for him to just watch from afar.

He wondered if the display cases were heated, as the dancers never wore much in the way of clothing.

When the joint closed, he sometimes would leave a note on the plexiglass for the dancer to see when she came in the next day. He was very subtle with his writing, like a secret admirer, and one day, when he got his life back on track, he would take her away from this hellish hole they both endured. One day.

He found a flattened cigarette on the ground, wiped it off, and lit it up. Still good.

There was a commotion at the front door. The dancer stopped to watch, mild fear etching itself onto her face.

He squinted his eyes to get a better look, his vision not being what it used to, and saw the bouncer to the place flat on his ass, snow and slush covering him. Was he bleeding? It looked like.

Then he heard the gunshots from inside, and the resulting screams and panic.

Everything he knew told him to pack up and leave; this wasn’t his problem, but he couldn’t move. He was rooted to the spot. The dancer was being yanked from the window.

He could see her shaking her head in the negative, pulling herself backwards against the arm firmly wrapped around her wrist, her back pushing against the street side of the glass.

He couldn’t leave her; he just couldn’t. But who was he? What would he do? He was just a piece of scum that pissed his life away; that’s what he was.

Still.

Most of the customers from inside had left by now, and he watched three gangster types walk non-nonchalantly out of the front door, not a care in the world, heard them cackling at the fallen bouncer.

They had weapons.

Still.

He grabbed his walking stick, some sickly split wooden branch he had found years back, and with great pain and effort, hobbled towards the strip club.

She was his dancer. He wasn’t going to let her die.

His hands hurt from the cold and a number of other physical ailments, his joints creaking, straining with the effort of his aggressive stride, but he was determined to make a difference.

For a brief moment he had mustered up a vision of himself as the soldier in his own story, almost believed it, confident that because he was doing the right thing, he would survive, just like he had the bomb on the apartment.

But the bomb wasn’t real. It had never happened. The story wasn’t real. His life wasn’t real.

Still.

The group pointed his way, laughing amongst themselves as he approached, grimace and malice etched across the deep lines of his face.

He didn’t know what he was going to say or do, but he knew he had to do something. He threw a sidelong glance towards the window; his dancer was gone.

The lead ruffian spoke first.

“What do you want, old man? Gods, what is that smell? Body odour, booze? Did you shit yourself, old man?” He waved his hand in front of his nose, rearing away in mock disgust, his cohorts laughing furiously.

The entire time their hands never left their weapons.

“Release her.” were the words that came out of his mouth. He hadn’t planned them, and was as surprised as they were at what was said.

“Say again? Are you a drug fuck, crazy as a kite? Release who?” the lead ruffian chuckled, creating more mirth for his friends.

The “old man” pointed his hand towards the glass display case.

“She was in there.” he said, his voice rising in pitch at the end. His nerve had left him, and he was starting to feel the fear overcome him.

His good knee began to tremble, his arms shook, making it hard to keep the walking stick steady.

The trio laughed some more.

“Do you have any idea who we are you crazy codger?” the lead ruffian asked, laughing.

He shook his head in the negative.

“Guristas, bitch.”

Their mood went serious suddenly, their body language becoming threatening, murderous intention in their eyes.

“And we don’t like being told what to do. Especially by some foul smelling, gimped old fuck who has a crush on a fat whore.”

Something snapped inside.

He lunged at the lead ruffian, catching all three by surprise, his walking stick repeatedly striking, him screaming at the top of his lungs.

He got in a lucky blow, and heard the resounding wet thwack of his stick breaking the nose of the lead Guristas thug. The other two still seemed dazed from the unexpected attack.

He was doing it. He was winning. He was going to have such a good story to tell after this, and it was real! He was really doing it. His dancer would see. She would know what he had done, and when she asked him, he would say he did it all for her.

He heard a loud bang, like the one from his story. His ears rang more than he had ever described in his spectacular tale.

Was he actually going crazy? Did his mind think he was actually in his war story?

Still.

Everything was still.

Snow fell on his face, and he could see the sky in front of him. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move.

He pulled his hand away from his torso, and his eyes went wide with shock and terror as he saw it covered in his own blood. There was so much blood.

The three gangsters stood over him, the lead one squatting down, his nose bloodied and split.

“You fuck!” he spat on him.

His heart grew sad. He hadn’t saved her. She would never be his now. Maybe it was better that he died. Maybe this is how it was always meant to be. Who was he to dream anyway?

The Guristas pirate captain stood up, aiming a handgun down at the homeless bum that had broken his nose, and pulled the trigger, fulfilling the man’s unspoken wish.

Still.

2009.10.20.21.18.44

It’s been a while since the last post, being quite busy in real life. But now I have holidays. One week in New Eden (and a few nights on tour with my band).

What to do in New Eden when you have a lot of time? PvP of course. But PvP costs some money and where can you get it from? Ratting for example. It has some advantages, especially if you are building your rigs and ships. As I have two accounts, Spezialistin pewpews in a drake and I, Doc, follow her with my Pew-Salvage-TractorBeam-Hurricane. This way you receive much needed materials, collecting bounties at the same time. But: Ratting is boring. Why not plexing?

I didn’t do too many plexes till now. When I flew one, I always had an experienced corpmate with me who was able to tank the sometimes insanely dps pounding on his ship. At least when flying a 8/10 or 10/10. Now it was time for me to do one on my own. Spezialistin has a heavy tanked drake with a nice shield-recharge rate, whereas I have a lot of gank on my Drake. Perfect combination. I spent the whole afternoon scanning for plexes. Quickly I found one in C-F, but it was already occupied. After losing 4 Sisters Core Combat probes due to a bug, I cancelled probing and attended our local gatecamp to blow off some steam about the loss. No luck there as well. It was time for dinner. The water for the spaghettis was about to cook. I just had the time to scan two or three systems. Although I had little hope to find something, I jumped into my Heron to scan down the pipe from T-Z to TVN. There are five systems on my way and if nothing’s there, my EVE-day is done.

First system: Nothing! Second system: Cosmic Signature… I quickly nailed the sig down. A 6/10 Guristas Fortress plex. YES! After the confirmation that the guys in local haven’t found it yet, I ordered Spezi to bring her Drake to the acceleration gate. I flew back to get into my dps-Drake. Time for a premiere: I’ll do a plex on my own for the first time. Spezi easily tanked the dps and I quickly destroyed all those Guristas, keeping the Dread Gurista BS to end. He had two nice little presents for me: Spezialistin Speaks! An escalation and a Dread Gurista Ballistic Defelection Field. Present No.1 for this day!

2009.10.20.21.18.50

A space shuttle-wreck in the Esca.2 pocket. Was Neil Armstrong here?

The escalation was in a system next to TVN, so no worries. The enemies where no problem at all. But what was that? Another Dread Gurista? Present No.2: A Crystal Omega. I didn’t know anything about that implant, so I asked a corp-mate how much it was worth. He just returned an a**hole through the coms. 8-O 980 Mio. ISK. I was totally knocked down. And do you guess it? Spezi spoke again. Escalation No.3 was in Razor-space. As they are blue to us I wouldn’t get into trouble up there, except that the journey would lead me through Venal which is quite hot nowadays.

I decided to wait until one o’clock ET, to let the area cool down a bit. After having a nice little roam with Bongalonga and L’assasine, destroying a Maelstrom in P3E, it was time to go to RZR-land. Nothing much to say about Escalation No.3, except…… Another Dread Gurista showed up. He dropped some smaller modules, worth round 30 Mio. ISK. And another (final) escalation. This time 5 jumps away in Venal. Actually it was quite a relief as I once flew a final escalation in a “Solar Fleet Dead End Station”-system with a few mates. This was quite a thrilling experience as you can guess.

After I brought the modules to a safe station, I entered FHB in Venal. Waving hello to a fellow Morsus Mihi fleet passing thorugh, I bookmarked some safespots and finally made my way to the acceleration gate. The first pocked was cleared quickly. The moment I wanted to warp through the gate, a neutral entered the system. I didn’t want to be NPC-scrambled when there’s a neut nearby, so I waited and scanned for scanner probes. After five minutes another neut jumped in. I continued scanning for ten minutes but neither a single scanner probe, nor any of the neutral ships showed up on my scanner overview. 4:00 a.m. ET! Time to move into the final pocket.

Spezi really had to tank a lot of DPS there and her shield got down to 45%. But thanks to my Drake the NPCs where down after 15 minutes. Christmas time. Let’s open the present. The Pith Officer dropped a Pith A Explosion Dampening Field and tataaaaaaa: A Rattlesnake blueprint.

dread_loot

This is what I got after opening my gifts for this years’ October Christmas!

I finally realized that I was extremely lucky with my first solo-plex! Loot worth ’round two Billion ISK dropped. Now ratting isn’t needed anymore for a while and I can let a lot of my hurricanes get popped.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

That Special Killmark On Our Rifters

Related items

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"DocFloyd";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"Three days, two deaths, one same mistake";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"http://myrhial.blogspot.com/2009/10/three-days-two-deaths-one-same-mistake.html";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"In character";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:15:55 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2680eaefb0878898";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4606:"I have died twice in three days. Twice due to my own fault. Twice due to the same mistake: Carelessness.

On Monday I joined a patrol led by Yishal. Assault Frigates are second nature these days and I have plenty of experience with the Harpy so I thought discussing some PRELI affairs with Lilly at the same time would mean I would get work done while looking for targets. Bad idea! Even more so since the topics discussed were quite serious and I am known to be terrible at multitasking. It is not so much that I cannot manage, but the fact that I want to give my full attention to whatever I do. I informed Yishal I would break away from the fleet and return to Goinard on my own. I should have known better as a few systems before we had learned that gatecamps equipped with remote sensor boosters are quite capable of locking you unless you minimize your align time. So when I jumped into Kamela, and aligned to the next gate, while reading what Lilly was saying, my ship got locked, scrambled and melted before I realized full well what was going on. Instinctively I tried to initiate warp and get my pod to safety but the split second I took to select a celestial was enough for them to get a lock on that as well. Valnurana was quite surprised when I sent her a request to bring me a new set of implants from Dodixie. After all the last set had only been in my head for a good month.

So then yesterday Jude requires an ammo delivery deep down in nulsec, and asks me if I am up for the challenge. Considering it a good learning experience I accept on the terms of him briefing me how to make it there in one piece. After receiving a crash-course on avoiding and surviving bubbles I transfer into a jump clone and take my Buzzard his way. The irony starts when I remark on comms that I often hear nulsec dwellers call lowsec far more dangerous, something I find difficult to understand. "I don't meet gatecamps all that often, and if I do I know how to slip through them. I never fly my bigger ships unescorted either.", I say. As I arrive at the nulsec entrance readouts show my adrenaline level spiking. I watch the gate a moment, before shutting off my thoughts and jumping. As my camera drones activate again a surprise awaits me. There are no other capsuleers in this system and there is no bubble on the gate. I am almost disappointed but conclude there might be one further on. Warp, jump, warp, jump, warp, jump and so forth until I reach my destination. No bubbles anywhere. I've seen a grand total of five pilots registered, never more than two in the same system. Delivering my cargo I plot the course back home. Jude and Morwen are laughing on voice comms. "Well maybe I'll die on the way back!", I retort. Ah, karma must have heard me there. I leave nulsec without meeting any bubbles again, the only thing that seems to be going on around these parts is a group of pilots bringing in ships through cyno. Considering myself safely back into lowsec I continue my course to Goinard while talking over voice comms. Jump, align, cloak, warp, system after system. Until I enter Old Man Star. There's a good reason I usually plot a course around that system, it's a place akin to Amamake. But who is going to catch a covert-ops, right? As I align and activate the cloak I receive the message I cannot cloak and hear my ship is getting locked. And then there is no more ship. "Not again", my last thoughts are before I woke up in another new clone.

While I didn't lose implants the second loss stings the most. They must have been really fast or my cloak must have broken the moment I came through the gate -- they were orbiting it, and I spotted drones -- and they had plenty of time while my system adjusted. Three days, and two deaths. Two deaths that could have been avoided by paying the attention needed. Two times I have taken a step closer to the edge. I must not let this happen again any time soon. And yet I must not try and solve it by keeping myself restricted to the confines of our home station. Because that, though not as much as my own carelessness, has a hand in this as well.

";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"Myrhial Arkenath";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:6:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"8 Secrets of the 80/20 Blogger";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"http://alexiamorgan.blogspot.com/2009/10/8-secrets-of-8020-blogger.html";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"category";a:2:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Blogging";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"Articles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:57:28 PDT";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/149b3b892b4a19b3";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:11:"isPermaLink";s:5:"false";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3731:"There's this thing called 'the 80/20 rule' (or Pareto Principle). It states that in many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It also applies to business, where 20% of the clients will bring in 80% of the sales. I decided to apply the same rule to blogging, and this post is all about the 8 secrets of the 80/20 blogger. I hope that it brings you value.

1. 80% of your posts are meaningless.
80% of what you post is going to be absolute rubbish. But those posts are still important, 'cause without them, your regular readers will go somewhere else. If they're regular, of course. Who'd be regular though if you don't have any posts? Those regular fans you have, they're there for the 20% of your posts that are meaningful to them. And of those fans, 20% of them will link to 80% of those meaningful posts on their own blogs.

2. Your blog is a valuable resource.
If you can work out why only some of your posts are linked back by your fans, you can begin to increase the ratio. Start writing more of what they find interesting and meaningful. And if you can't do this, then you're probably just not bound for success, so you might want to start knitting instead. Maybe you could blog about that? Try to aim for 80% of your posts being talked about by 20% of all your visitors.

3. Be Unique. Don’t be like everyone else. That is so Web 1.0.
You should be tired of looking at your stats and seeing that 20% of your traffic is return visitors. You want 80% returns! If you want more people coming back, you have to be unique. You have to find topics that no one else is talking about, and you have to talk about them yourself. People need to hear things in a new way, and you're going to have to be new if you want them coming back.

4. Become a Google Wunderkind. Delete your archives.
Review all your posts. Clear out the ones that either aren't popular, or are not a good reflection of how you want your blog to be. If you have less content but more of it's linked from other blogs, guess what? You become an overnight Google wunderkind. Google doesn't want you knowing this, but it works.

5. Drop all the advertising bullcrap. Simplicity is betta.
If you have advertising that's not making you money, get rid of it. Now. If you remove 80% of the advertising that's not making you money and optimise the 20% that is, your readers are going to visit your site more, and make your more money in the process. What better reason to do it, right?

7. Quit feeding at the trough.
Spend more time on your blog and less time reading websites or RSS feeds, and any other feeds you might be accessing. It's wasting your time! Quit feeding at the trough and do some creative writing of your own, instead of using other people's content. That's what people feast on, and that's where the success is.

8. Don't TRY to be one, just BE one!
To be one of the 20% of blogs that 80% of people are going to come back to, you have to be one of those 20% of bloggers that 80% of bloggers wish they were. Do more writing. Care less about the crap, and more about the quality. I have a saying sticky-taped to the top of my screen: "combine quality with consistency." Don't try to be what you THINK you should be, just do it and BE it.

The Captains Log 22/10

When I fly throughout New Eden I like to look out the viewport and admire my surroundings. Some of these sights are of extraordinary beauty will some are strange and others a show of power. Instead of keeping these sights private I have decided to share them with you. If you have a image you want the Cluster to see, send it to me and ill upload it with full credit to you.

2009.10.02.06.57.50

Shooting Stars. While raiding a Sansha Fortress, the defenders attempted to overcome my fleet mates tank buy co-ordinating their firing times, resulting in this.

2009.10.02.06.02.48

Ruins. While exploring some of the local space I came across this ruined station. There was indication of what had happened here, had everyone left fleeing a disaster or had pirates raided that station looking for slaves?

2009.09.04.12.21.02

Cloaking Stations. After a hard day’s work I returned to the station, only for it to be invisible. Turns out the station wasn’t cloaked and it was just a malfunction of my camera drones.

prometheus09sigmj5

The Drool List

Brutor Energy Drink

Related posts

People who looked at this item also looked at…

Related items