Ombeve

Following the QR patch and it’s re-routing of gates in The Citadel/ Saila area, I have released a new version of the maps, including those and other changes/ fixes.

v3.56 (12th Nov 2008)

Typos:
Corrected typo in Cloud Ring

Complexes:
Added complex to The Forge/ Uminas

Belts:
Added ice field marker to Black Rise/ Hallanen

Outposts/ Stations:
Added clone service marker to Venal/ PF-QHK
Added outpost to Catch/ 3-OKDA
Added outposts to Providence/ I-MGAB, K1Y-5H, 49GC-R, G-5EN2 & H6-CX8
Added outpost to Period Basis/ TN25-J

System links:
Updated Vale of the Silent and Tribute maps to better reflect their connections with each other
Removed Placid <> Lonetrek & Placid <> The Citadel links from Universe map
Added Placid <> Pure Blind link to Universe map
Added Syndicate <> Verge Vendor link to Universe map
Corrected Catch/ HP-64T to connect with SNFV-I and not 8B-2YA
Corrected The Bleak Lands/ Iesa to connect with Netsalakka and not Sasiekko
Added following connectors to The Citadel (QR patch):

• Komo <-> Oichiya
• Oichiya <-> Laah

Removed following connectors from The Citadel (QR patch):

• Komo <> Motsu
• Saila <> Oichiya
• Saila <> Motsu
• Saila <> Laah

Misc:
Improved layout and/or routing on many regions

—

Other than that, the QR patch seems to have been implemented very smoothly, giving the size and complexity of it. I’ve not really had a chance to get in-game to look at the new stargate eye-candy or to try out the generally slower ships. From what I can gather, there is a lot of whining on the forums, a lot of flaming, and probably the silent majority are adapting and getting on with it.

Looking forward to getting on with some Eve time tonight, as I have just finished training Gallente Cruiser 5 (I am Minmatar focused), so I can now fly their HACs and Recons. Given how important Arazus are going to become (and no doubt going to be damn expensive now too), this is good timing. Also, as I’ve never really flown jamming ships (although I have decent jamming skills), I have treated myself to a Kitsune, and will see what I can do with it.

0.0 politics is a complicated beast, moreso in the regions controlled by the pirate factions. You have small corps and alliances all rubbing shoulders with each other, each one having it’s own set of friends and foes, and usually one “big kid on the block”. In the case of Curse, the big kid is ‘Rebellion Alliance’ (RebAll), who always move around in big gangs. They are considered red (hostile) to us and even in the short time I’ve been in U’K, they’ve been constantly harassing us, and vice versa.

Of course, next door in Catch and Providence, the big boys there are Sylph Alliance and CVA who are allies with each other. We are red to them too. So, we have a lot of enemies and a few blues.

A couple of days ago, one our allies, The Firm, had a POS in YKE4-3 attacked by a mixed RebAll/ Kraftwerk. fleet and put it into ‘reinforced’ (where the POS goes into super armoured mode and can’t be destroyed for 24 hours, giving the defenders time to organise a defence). The POS was two jumps away from our home system, and we offered to help out defend the POS when it came out of reinforced and became vulnerable again.

That time was last night. Having no ships appropriate for that kind of skirmish, I brought an interceptor. With any luck my speed and size would enable me to hold down targets without being immediately wiped out.

We mustered at the ailing POS in YKE, The Firm and U’K having brought a sizeable BS sniper fleet, sat just outside the shield. We didn’t have much in the way of support ships, so any plans I had to ‘not be noticed’ were probably not going to work. The POS came out of reinforced at the planned time, and the assembled Carriers immediately started repairing the damage. We were getting reports of the enemy fleet getting closer and closer, and within minutes there were in local. They paused for a couple of minutes, I would imagine to destroy the anchored large bubble on the in-gate, so as to not hinder their egress.

Sure enough, the warped to the POS. I was right next to the tower, and they landed about 120km away. Here we go. I filtered my overview to get rid of friendlies and any drones and I zoomed my camera drones right out. As soon as primary and secondary targets were called, I kicked my MWD into life, picked out the primary and set 20km orbit. Roaring across the void, I had time to appreciate the insane beauty of the two fleets lobbing death at each other. Cruise missiles tracked across the distance, like a slow promise of destruction. A cyno field opened, and about 5 or 6 hostile carriers appeared in flashes of light. Right, time to concentrate.

Putting myself into a tight orbit around the primary, I engaged my warp disruptor and my puny guns, hoping that maybe they’d filtered out all sub-BS ships from their overviews. I pulled in the external cameras to confirm something- they had very few support ships of their own. Flashing past the behemoths, left and right, I just hoped I wouldn’t bounce off anything, speed was my friend. I zoomed out the cameras again, in time for my threat indicator to flash yellow. I was being targetted by a Scorpion Battleship. Apart from jamming me, he couldn’t really hurt me with cruise missiles. However, he didn’t jam me immediately. I had time to cycle the warp disruptor on the secondary (now primary), and orbit that ship.

Another couple of ships targetted me, one was a Rokh and I think a Drake. The Scorpion jammed me, and I started to take light damage from something. As I was now useless, I pointed my nose away from the fleet and engaged my MWD again. Reaching approximately 7km/s, I outran whatever was causing me an issue in seconds, and warped back to the POS which was now about 300km away. Back in the shields, I repeated my earlier journey.

The FC was calmly calling targets, and it seemed either enemy ships were being scythed down or warping out. They appeared to be a remote repping fleet, but we had quite a few Falcons which were probably causing them untold issues. Having been in a RR fleet a lot in KIA, the only problem they have is being jammed.

I was back in the thick of their fleet again, orbitting and pointing another BS, keeping my speed up as high as I could. This time I was lit up quickly and started taking damage. Dammit. I had no tank on the paper-thin Stiletto and it was time to get out. Again, MWD’d out of the hostile fleet, holding my breath… shields gone, armour might as well have not been there… into structure, 75%…. and….. I was out of range. Even with my MWD making me a huge target, their guns couldn’t hit. Damn that was close. Warped to the POS, and considered my options. I wouldn’t last 5 seconds next time, there was no point offering a free suicide kill. Rep up and come back was the best option.

Warped to the single station in system, scanning ahead. There were ships on station, but couldn’t tell if hostile or friendly. As I exited warp, I could tell they were hostile. SO this was where their support where. If I was them I’d have called in support to chase our Falcons off. Anyway. I quickly warped out to the K-Q gate in order to make the quick trip to pick up another ship- my underused Broadsword as we were suffering from not enough support holding their ships in place.

As I communicated my intentions, I was rightly told an Interdictor would be better as they can drop the bubble and get out, whereas a Hictor would be killed instantly. Good point. Someone said on comms they were bringing an Interdictor, so I thought I’d bring more damage and get a Hound bomber. By the time I got back, docked up, switched to the bomber, left hasty instructions to repair the Stiletto, and got back to YKE, they hostile fleet were withdrawing. We were ordered to interdict their withdrawal as they’d have to come back through CL-, our home system.

I warped to the out gate- there were a couple of hostiles there, but as I had landed on the gate, they’d never catch me in time. I requested jump clearance from the gate. “Please hold, pilot, we are experiencing system difficulties” the gate operator responded.
“WHAT?! I need a jump NOW, or I’m dead” I retorted in desperation, on eye on my overview. Nothing had locked me yet, they probably didn’t see the point.
“I appreciate that sir, just bear with us for a moment” came the glib response.

Now they started to lock me, and fired. I sighed and requested jump clearance again. Nothing doing. My paper thin ship crumpled and my pod was spat out. “Clearance granted pilot, happy journey” the operator said.
“Thanks for nothing pal” I spat as my pod left the system. Maybe he had family in RebAll.

I stepped out of the shower cubicle, water dripping over the floor, and reached for my towel. Pod fluid mixed with water gurgled away into the cubicle drain as I towelled myself off. I’d just returned from a long mission in my Hound CovOps, scouting POSs in some hostile systems. Boring but necessary, it also sharpened up my scanner skills. I had uploaded the data I had collected into the corp’s mainframe before I left my pod.

Dressed and feeling better, I called up Col on my NeoCom to see if he’d manage to undo his earlier mistake of locking a lot of mods and fuel away in the wrong hangar onboard the Varuna. He hadn’t, and was very apologetic. I didn’t give him a hard time about it, it was annoying but not the end of the world. I had a lot of T2 kit in there, and some fuel, but it was all replaceable. I arrived at the corp offices, waved to Zoolkhan (the CEO) who was sat behind a viewscreen at a desk, told Col not to worry and cut the connection.

“Problems?” Zool asked.
“Nah. Well, yes.” I replied. Explaining what the problem was, he grinned at me.
“Is it a Niddy?” he enquired
“Of course, only quality Minmatar engineering for me” I said, with a trace of irony, and a smirk
“Excellent” he exclaimed “I have a engineer friend who, let say, ‘flys a little close to the sun’. He knows how to get around locked doors. I’d just need your access codes to the Niddy and it’d take a few minutes”

I hesitated. I barely knew Zool, and in New Eden I have heard, and witnessed, that blind trust is sometimes a bad idea. However, he was the CEO of a respected corp in U’K, and I am a reasonably good judge of people, so I transmitted the codes for the Varuna to his NeoCom. It was now effectively his.

“Thanks, give me an hour, I’ll see what I can do. I need to try and locate him first” Zool said.

I thanked him and returned to my quarters. I needed a nap, I was exhausted, but couldn’t help being worried about the Varuna. It was the single most expensive item I owned. Nevertheless I drifted off into a dreamless sleep quite quickly.

<BZZZZZT>

An unfamiliar sound yanked me out of my sleep, heart racing. <BZZZZZT> Oh, it was the communicator, someone wanted me. It was Zool.

“oheyzoolwassup” I blurted, still not fully awake
“Come down to your hangar Omb, got something to show you”. He clicked off.

I got up, splashed some water on my face, donned The Shades™, and wandered down to the hangar level, waking up slowly en route. I needed a coffee. Coming upon my hangar’s heavy double doors, I keyed in my code. The doors swooshed open… revealing a grinning Zool surrounded by all my equipment in boxes!

“Don’t forget to reset the codes” he winked at me as he walked out, leaving me to my amazement. And my equipment.

[OOC- note to self. Be really bloody careful with carriers and corporate hangars in future]

As soon as I docked up in CL-8, I decided to take the Vagabond out for a spin. There weren’t many U’K around, or those that were, were busy doing something else. I checked into the quarters set aside for pod pilots, standard the universe over. I guess they thought we could personalise it ourselves. I saw I had a window, something I wasn’t used to, but the view wasn’t up to much- just another part of the station opposite me, with more quarters.

By the time I’d dropped off my personal effects, the Vagabond was assembled and ready to go. I tipped the engineers handsomely, it pays to keep these guys sweet, then got into the pod and Vagabond. I was launched into space, and put the Vaga through it’s paces. I had forgotten to load up, again, on the five light drones I needed to fill the drone bay, so paused in space and called up the market screen. There were no T2 drones near here, so I settled on Hobgoblin 1s. They’d be delivered to my hangar, I could collect them later.

On the intel channel, a hostile Malediction was called as being on the K-Q gate, so I promptly warped to that gate, landing on top of the gate and very close to the Malediction. It just sat there. Smelling a rat, I jumped through to check the other side. Clear apart from an U’K pilot killing some Angels on the gate, in a Huginn. I jumped back through, when we were told a large ‘RA’ gang had entered CL-, about 30 ships. I assumed Red Alliance, but it was actually ‘Rebellion Alliance’, one of the many local alliances. As suspected, the Mala was a lead scout. I got off the gate as the Mala jumped out and safespotted as the enemy gang arrived. My instincts were right for once.

Unfortunately, the Huginn pilot got caught, he had missed the announcement, lost his ship and woke up in a clone vat in Heimatar. I dialled into the U’K Alliance voice communications grid, which was now stored, and I wouldn’t have to set it up again. Two jumps away, a lone U’K pilot, Conlin, was in a Taranis and lurking on the Hemin gate in RMOC-W. He asked if anyone wanted to help, I said I’d be right there.  I entered system and warped to the Hemin gate but as I dropped out of warp, I flashed past his Taranis and a small anchored Warp Disruption bubble that had spectacularly failed to pull me out of warp early and 70km from the gate. Weird, those things are normally very reliable.

Anyway. The only other person in the system with us was a Rebellion Alliance pilot flying a Celestis. I so rarely came across those ships I actually had to look it up to see what it was. A Gallente T1 cruiser with Dampening abilities. Hmm. He swam in and out of scan range, obviously not happy with the bubble on the gate, never actually warping to the gate. We figured we’d jump to Hemin in an effort to lull him into a false sense of security. Hemin was empty, so we sat on the gate and waited. #

We didn’t have to wait very long, he jumped through after a minute. We attempted to lock him, but he cloaked. Conlin and I shot out toward his last spot, or where we thought he would be as he can’t warp cloaked in a Celestis, and Conlin managed to decloak him. Nice work. I put some distance between myself and the cruiser and my Vulcan cannons spun up and spat out white hot Barrage rounds, tracking the Gallente ship’s movement 18km away. His shield popped and we were into armour, but lacking a webbing ship of any kind, he MWD’d back to the gate and jumped out with 25% armour. I’d have done the same under the circumstances.

After a minute or so, a RebAll. Drake appeared and just sat on the gate. If this wasn’t obvious bait, I don’t know what is. We locked him, he locked us. A tense stand-off occurred, then another U’K Arazu appeared from RMOC. The Drake pilot decided he’d had enough and opened fire. As he was now aggressed and unable to jump through, we started pounding on him, keeping one eye on the local count. Munitions and drones filled the space around our dancing ships, I was under attack from his drones, but they weren’t doing a great deal of damage.

Local spiked.

Get off the gate! I entered warp just as the main gang warped in. Conlin wasn’t so lucky, had drifted within web range of the Drake and was destroyed. Bah. He got his pod out successfully. I headed back to base after the gang disappered, where I heard an U’K  gang would be forming up later. While I was chilling out in the station, I saw Star Commander on comms, my old DAC corpmate. I had no idea he was in U’K, but had only been for under 3 weeks. We had a brief chat, I think he was in Empire somewhere.

The small roaming gang eventually formed and we took off. We had 2 Zealots, a Rapier, a Curse, a Kitsune, a Lachesis, a Huginn and my Vagabond. Plenty of damage, plenty of web, plenty of ECM. I gleaned from this that although U’K were staunchly anti-Amarrian loyalist, they still appreciated their technology. A most sensible approach.

We blazed through Curse, Catch and Providence, encountering fleeting ghosts on the scanners and nothing solid. Providence was the home of Curatores Veritatis Alliance, U’K’s natural enemies, their polar opposite. As we were a small gang, we moved quickly and un-noticed for the most part.

In U-HYMT, our scout found a 3 Mackinaw, 3 Drake mining operation in the ice belt… unfortunately, they were at the top end of the ice belt, 300km away from warp in. They were also paying attention sadly, as they warped out quicksharp.

We caught a CVA Dominix ratting in 9UY4-H, an outpost system, so we had to be quick as we were greatly outnumbered. The Domi still had it’s drones out fighting the Sansha pirates in the belt, so hadn’t even seen us enter the system. It didn’t last very long, despite it’s double repper tank. Blue flash.  We sent him to his clone bay.

I had stocked up with the T1 drones, so they helped my damage output, but I was orbiting too far out for my guns to be 100% effective. I’d fix that next time. I didn’t have to wait very long, we caught a Hurricane piloted by Judeo of TransWarp Ventures Alliance. Or rather, our FC, Forty Three did, and had almost killed it on his own by the time we arrived! After some correction I got my orbitting right this time, and was happy with the tracking etc. Hurricane dead. Memory fails me as to whether we destroyed his pod, but he transmitted in local how upset he was with us. An enemy gang spiked the local count, and the chase was on!

They chased us for a few jumps but we weren’t making any mistakes and they gave up.

Fifteen minutes later and some jumps away, we entered Paxton Federation space. They hold sov in 7 or 8 systems and are allied with CVA who control most of Providence. In outpost system MH9C-S, our scout caught a Raven piloted by Ethindar Lexius in belt 7-6. We quickly jump in and warp to the Raven. It was mainly T1 fitted and went down quickly. This time, my orbit was closer, my Vulcans tracer rounds tracking across the kilometres straight to the target, it’s shields flaring as the battleships systems attempted to compensate and maintain. It was quickly drained of capacitor by our Curse and it’s tank had no chance after that.

As we were quickly picking up the still intact modules, from the wreckage, we saw a Blackbird on scanner, just as it warped in…. and landed in the middle of us. Oh dear. Not one to let this double outrage pass, we got chased by a quickly assembled Paxton and Aegis Milita (another group of space holders in Prov.) gang. We made it to DP-JD4, then scattered to safespots. Those of us with cloaks, cloaked, and others including myself, shut off all systems bar life support and comms, and became effectively dead in the water. After a while, the PaxMil gang got bored and went away. We resumed travel, this time back to home.

As we jumped out, we entered warp as another gang arrived on the gate. They were speaking in a dialect I’d not seen before and of the few things they said, one was:

[22:53:53] Cheraldo > schnüffüstück

We all found this word quite amusing for no good reason other than it sounded funny. Don’t have a clue what it means, and neither did the ships translators. We called it a night then and made best speed home with no more easy kills on the way back. A good, but tiring, first night. Props to FC Forty Three for a brilliantly run gang, no losses.

After a couple of weeks away from the hustle and bustle of the frontlines in Geminate and Vale, I started thinking hard about what I actually wanted to do with my life. A nagging thread of guilt had blossomed into a torrent- it suddenly hit me that despite being a Brutor Matari, I hadn’t really done a great deal to further their cause or defend them from the increasingly bitter war with the Amarr. In fact, I’d been the typical, self-serving pod-pilot.

As things weren’t working out for me in the current corp, I filed an application with Mirkur Draug’Tyr, a specialist covops corp within Ushra’Khan alliance. For anyone who doesn’t know, U’K is the premier pro-Minmatar pod-pilot alliance, based out of Curse in the ’south’ of New Eden, on the other side of the Universe to Venal where I currently was.

After sitting down with some of the Varuna’s officers, we plotted a route. It would take 5 jumps to get from Venal to Curse. Each jump would be a lowsec jump to a station, fraught with tension and possible catastrophe. There was no choice however, and I got on comms to a couple of willing cyno pilots I had used before. As I paid very well, they were eager to help out, and we co-ordinated times and places. I was already missing the cynogens…

I arranged for all my ships and mods to be loaded into Varuna’s corporate hangar-space, checked with the cyno pilot in Daras and jumped out to his beacon.

The next 2 jumps were uneventful, but tension filled, each time landing and babysitting the cyno pilot until his ships systems reset from the electrical interference caused by generating the cyno. Each time, the odd pirate sniffed around but they lacked the numbers to risk taking on a carrier while also being under sentry fire. When I gave the order to transfer more Hydrogen Isotopes from storage to the Jump Drive accelerator, we hit an issue. It seemed the storage area was locked, coded with an Oremongers code automatically I that I joined them. I hadn’t noticed this before as I normally stored everything in a free access hangar.

I contacted the stores manager, Col Lueless: “Col, you know when you loaded the 5 km³ of mods, you didn’t put them in corp hangar 3 did you?”

“Yes sir, as per your instructions, you said use 3 to 6″ he replied
“No, I said don’t use 3 to 6″ I sighed. “Please tell me our isotopes aren’t in hangar 3?”
“Erm….” his non-answer told me everything I needed to know.

Dammit. I cut the connection. Calling up the market, I was relieved to see Hydrogen ‘topes on sale a few systems over. Good job we were in Minmatar space really. I unpacked a Cheetah covops from the Maintenance Bat, put cargo expanders mods on, and made a quick trip to collect some fuel. Fortunately the scientists have managed to compact it down nicely so I could get enough on board for another couple of jumps while I sorted out the locked hangars.

Another couple of edgy jumps in Varuna, and I was in Molden Heath. Hadn’t been here for some time, and it was nice to be back in it’s pink nebulae’d systems. I put in an official application to Mirkur Draug’Tyr in  Istodard, then waited until I got get a cyno field opened for me in Curse, specifically CL-85V which is where I’d be based now.

I also made use of the time to visit Rens, the busy Heimatar trade hub where I had spent so much time when I was just a fledgling pilot. It was about time I treated myself to a Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruiser. I’d heard a lot about these ships, but never really been that enthused about them, preferring the Huginn and Rapier Recon ships. However, the Recons had been steadily increasing in price, and I fancied a change of ship and tactics. I was pleased to see that 220m Vulcan Autocannons had come down significantly in price since when I last bought them over a year ago.

After quickly outfitting the HAC, I left to head back to where the Varuna was waiting, deep in Molden Heath lowsec. On the way I discovered, to my annoyance, that I had omitted to buy any drones. Unlike the cruiser it’s based on, the Stabber, it had a drone bay that could hold more than one light drone, and it was a reasonable part of the damage output.

My new CEO, Zoolkhan, kindly lit up a cyno for me and I jumped up to CL-8. If I was concerned about the Guristas in Venal not letting me dock, this was far far worse. I had spent a lot of time killing Angels in my early pilot days, and I wasn’t sure how long a memory these guys have. However, the Archangels, a faction of the Angel Cartel, didn’t seem bothered and granted docking permission. I’d have to stay sharp though…

[OOC: props to Dmian, btw, for making the superb faction flags- the Minmatar one is now at the header of this blog]

While relaxing in my quarters last night, I was reviewing the past few days news of New Eden’s happenings. Aside from the usual piracy, and political wranglings, the main stories were of the stiff resistance that the Band of Brothers (BoB) alliance were encountering against the Northern Coalition.

Morsus Mihi were in the thick of it as usual, and now Razor Alliance and Pandemic Legion had weighed in on the anti-Bob side. KIA seemed absent, I wonder what else they were doing.

I saw that a couple of days ago, BoB lost a titan piloted by Shrike in E-OGL4 (Tribute). Seems the BoB fleet were outnumbered and the NC had about 60 Dreadnoughts. Ouch, that is a lot of fire-power, I am not surprised even a mammoth ship such as a Titan succumbed to it. From what I can see from this piece of intel, the losses were in the realms of:

GBC losses:
1 Titan
2 Motherships
15 Carriers
56-63 Dreadnaughts

NC+TCF+Allied losses:
1 Carrier
34 Dreadnaughts
1 Tower

Although even these are disputed as not being high enough, NC apparently lost more Dreadnoughts. Even so, the amount of ISK lost and crew loss is staggering. If I recall, a Titan has approximately 100,000 crew, with motherships approximately 15,000, and carriers/ dreads about half that. The human cost would be about 1 million souls potentially dead and it terms of ISK, BoB lost about 152 billion ISK worth of ships (not incluing module cost); and NC losing 28 billion. That was the battle a couple of days ago- tag on another 50 billion for the following Titan loss (and 100,000 more crew), and god knows how many more capitals.

A few days later, last night in fact, these two forces met once again in another colossal battle. This time, the system was Obe, gateway to Vale of the Silent where the GBC (Greater Bob Coalition) have been basing from. From what I can gather, a well placed spy in BoB attained the POS password to where Shrike was in his new Avatar class Titan. This time, it appears that the NC had 86 Dreadnoughts and 28 Carriers, and the Avatar stood no chance.

The loss of two Titans to BoB is probably, in ISK terms, no big deal. Ships are replaceable, ISK is replaceable, even crews are replaceable, but the temporary blow to morale is priceless to the NC. I am not directly connected with this fight anymore, yet I admire both sides immensely. It’s not the kind of warfare I enjoy but I respect the stubbornness of the alliances involved.

Welcome to the first installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from PsycheDiver: Ambulation: What are your hopes for your avatar and new functionality of stations?

[It seems I missed the bus on the Blog Banter, and didn't respond to CK's email to get involved although I don't recall seeing it. Anyhoo, here's my take on Ambulation]

What does Ambulation mean to me? On the surface, not a great deal. I have read with interest over most of the other participant bloggers’ thoughts on this and it seems that they are overwhelmingly in favour of it. I feel a lot more neutral on it. So I’ll stick my neck out.

My first thought is really that Eve is first and foremost about space and spaceships and their interactions. A lot of Ambulation of course depends on how CCP implement it, but giving people much more reason to stay docked and do ’stuff’, to my mind, doesn’t promote good gameplay. Decorating an office, choosing what clothes my character wears, seeing other characters face to face…it doesn’t excite me. I would play Second Life for that level of detail.

What would be cool as one of the bloggers said would be if you want to fit mods you can either go for the current drag and drop, or watch the NPCs as they get to work fitting your specific module- no generic video, you’d actually feel like they’re working on your ship. But how many times would you be ‘wow’ed by it before you turn off the effect and go back to the current drag n’ drop for speed?

I don’t believe Ambulation is a waste of time, not by a long way. I get a vague impression that it is a precursor to planetary flight, even if it is a very long way off. At this point, I just feel it’s an unnecessary addition to a game that doesn’t need walking in stations. I guess opinions will be heavily split on this- to (over?) generalise, I think the PvPers will see it as fluff that gets in the way of people undocking and pewpew’ing, whereas everyone else may well enjoy the slower pace of life that it will inevitably introduce.

Is it a major change to Eve? Absolutely. Is it a positive change to Eve? Time will tell. I am sure CCP have got some cool things up their sleeve and I am very interested in Ambulation, even if it currently doesn’t mean a lot to me.

Participants:

* CrazyKinux’s Musing: Exotic Dancers, Corporate Meetings & more
* The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Ambulation - what I hope to see
* Semper EVE: Blog Banter #1 - Ambulation
* The Ralpha Dogs: Ambulation/Walking in Stations: A “Second Life” for EVE?
* Drunk in Space: Look at how much weight he put on…
* Diving into PsycheDiver’s Psyche: Ambulation and Her
* Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - Ambulation
* I am Keith Neilson: Going For A Stroll Through EVE
* Life in Low Sec: Ambulation Fantasies
* Shahirs Journey: Hopes for Ambulation
* A Mule in EVE: Ambulation
* Protosolus: EVE: Gawking in Stations
* One Man, One Ship: Ambulation
* Achernar: Avatars in a spaceships game
* The Shard: Ambulation
* Mad Rant: Saturday Night Fever
* I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: Walking Around…
* A Merry life: Ambulation

Well, I have finally got some kills under my belt in Venal. Seems to me that having a cloaking ship available to use around here is quite important for moving around on your own. I would’ve died several times by now to roaming Pandemic Legion, Vanguard and Razor gangs had it not been for the cloak on my Rapier. When moving in a gang, things are very different of course. Safety in numbers.

As with, I assume, all NPC 0.0 regions, you get all sorts of corps and alliances in residence as you don’t have to worry about being displaced with loss of sovereignty. As a result you get lots of smaller alliances all roaming around and it makes for a more dangerous living space than I had been used to. However, I didn’t come here for a walk in the park with rainbows and butterflies.

A couple of nights ago, I heard a gang was being assembled by WETRAIN, a reasonably well known FC in R.U.S.T. corporation. They’d been in Goodfellas alliance until recently. As R.U.S.T. were blue to us and on very friendly terms. We quickly got a gang assembled and left without any messing around, waiting for people. I was in the Rapier, with a full artillery setup and no scan probes. I had the feeling we wouldn’t be hanging around long enough to use them. There were 15 of us in gang, including a couple of pilots I knew from Daisho- Ketch Kan to name one.

Apparently, Daisho had an internal split and the better PvP pilots had joined a corp called Black Knight Buccaneers which itself had left Daisho. That corp then joined an alliance called “Strength in Numbers” (S-I-N). And here they were in Venal, blue to Black Hand.

The fleet moved very quickly, and there was a lot of chatter on fleet comms, but nothing that got in the way of intel. In fact, within a couple of jumps, we were told to jump into AJCJ-1 and warp to a wreck. The gang jumped in. I aligned my camera drones to see what was going on. About 170km off the gate was the unmistakeable haze of an interdictor sphere, with approximately 4 hostiles. I had to pause a moment to unfilter my HUD to include wrecks, something I normally ignore during ops. Ah, there was an Interceptor wreck, right in the middle of the melee. I engaged warp, turned on my Sensor Booster with a script to focus and increase the scan resolution (to hasten lock time). And remembered to filter the HUD again.

The distant fight leapt toward me as I hopped into and out of warp. The targets were members of Vanguard., the local hostiles to Black Hand. Two interceptors had been downed already, I can only assume that explained the distance from the gate- they’d been chased by our Vagabond and the fight continued. I quickly locked a Vexor cruiser piloted by midge Mo’yb, and saw it was in it’s death throes already- it was on fire and there were holes in it’s structure. I had enough time to get one volley in, then it blew up. I didn’t even have time to lock the Condor frigate (seriously, a T1 frigate out here? I know they’re cheap and all, but still) before it was ended.

The Vanguard. Interdictor was next to go, it’s fragile destroyer hull no match for concentrated firepower. Last to go was a Caracal, another T1 ship, but I barely had time to get more than one volley on it. This little fight demonstrates the reason why T2 ships are so much better than T1 ships (and why Eddz was so insistent that no-one flies T1 ships in KIA).

We moved on quickly, down toward Tribute, and in 3A1P-N, on the Tribute entry gate (Q-CAB2), we were told by our scout that a Manticore Stealth bomber was jumping in. I figured we’d probably not be able to lock him before he cloaked, I knew I certainly wouldn’t. The gate charged, fired and after a pause….. the Manti decloaked and was instantly destroyed. I gaped at this speed of locking, and later found 3 Crow Interceptors and an Eagle Heavy Assault Cruiser had done the damage. Wow. The pilot was in Majesta Empire Alliance.

A couple of jumps further into Tribute, in W6VP-Y, we paused on the IMK-K1 gate having received intel that two Vanguard. ships were about to jump into us- a Crusader interceptor and a Rifter. The gate fires and we wait expectantly. The Rifter decloaks first, and I actually manage to lock it and get a hit in before he is overcome by the damage and pops with a blue flash. The Crusader waits till we’ve destroyed the Rifter, then decloaks and tries to escape. Personally, I’d have gone at the same time as the Rifter, but everyone’s different.  He tries to burn back to the gate, but with two Rapiers and four webifiers he doesn’t make it before he too is destroyed.

The final kill of the night for me was a Morsus Mihi Maelstrom. Not long ago they were red, then allies, and now they are neutrals- the “Not Blue Shoot It” rule turning them into targets once more. Our scout had snagged the Maelstrom 15km off the H-W9TY gate in D7-ZAC, and we all jumped in hurriedly, the thought of a battleship kill whetting our combat appetites.

We hit the lumbering ship with everything we had, a cloud of drones encircling it, little seething balls of hurt. It was quad webbed, but presumably had engaged it’s MWD in an effort to get back to the gate. It was unlikely to make it as we had a Amarrian Curse with us, which I assume would’ve drained it’s capacitor dry. Once the shields had failed with a visible pop, it only lasted a few more seconds, then exploded in a huge flash, scattering the drones away from it with the blast. I recalled my drones and ran a quick diagnostic- as expected, minor shield damage, nothing serious.

That was me done for the night, I thanked them for the fleet and headed for home. At least I had tasted combat in Venal now, and it was good.

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Once again, the Varuna dropped into existence as the jump completed successfully. I had arrived at Y-4CFK in Venal, courtesy of a corpmate who had kindly taken 10 minutes out to create me a cyno.

Unfortunately, as is a hazard of cyno’ing to a station, I landed slightly too close and was bounced off the station’s shields. The Varuna achieved a speed I could only dream of normally, yet I didn’t want to stray too far from the station, and slowly turned the lumbering carrier to re-approach the station.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a problem, so I babysat the immobilised cyno ship until the field dissipated and it’s electronics were recalibrated. We both docked. The official name for the station is Guristas Testing facilities, but it’s not clear exactly what they are testing.

Unlike my previous home in TDE that was staffed by ‘normal’ people, this station was owned by Guristas. Of all the pirate factions, I have a special loathing for Guristas. They caused the destruction of my first ever, oh so beautiful, Rifter. I had wandered into a belt in a 0.5 system that I was ill equipped to deal with. My official standings with them are just below neutral, which meant they would let me dock. Had I been Caldari, I would probably have spent more time hunting them back in the day and might’ve been disallowed docking rights. As it stood, I probably needed to avoid Angel Cartel stations for that very reason!

I docked up and my pod was removed from the Varuna. The engineers seemed friendly enough, but all middle-aged or older. I thought nothing of it at the time, but as I made my way through the station with it’s gaudy decor (Guristas logos and rampant propaganda everywhere), it became apparent that almost none of the Guristas staff were under 35ish. It made me wonder if all of their youth were made to get into ships and pirate from a young age.

I checked into the pod-pilot quarters for an indefinite period. My jokey request for a room with a sea-view was met with stony silence. Clearly my humour was way too advanced for these piratey types. The berth was pretty standard, reasonably clean and it had a working NeoCom display, so all the usual home comforts. I checked my messages quickly and found to my joy that Wotlankor would be joining me in Ore Mongers. I knew he was similarly disillusioned with 0.0 space ownership games and had left KIA for a fresh direction. We were firm friends and as he had friends also in Minmatar Mafia (one of the other corps in Ore Mongers), it was a logical choice. He’d be here soon.

I dumped my stuff, requested my Rapier be made ready and made my way down to my hangar. Within a short space of time I was out into space. The rest of the corp were busy, in empire doing a logistics run, or otherwise engaged. I decided to have a look around, see where the hotspots are, who the local corps and alliances are and basically set the scene for myself. The local bad guys are an Alliance called ‘Varangians.’ who live next door in 6NJ8-V.

A few systems over, in K3JR-J, I was surprised to find some Triumvirate pilots, most likely in the station. I’d have thought they’d mainly be in Vale. I also passed a Ev0ke/ Outbreak gang of 20, no doubt still roaming around, restless as ever. Cloaks are a wonderful thing, and I wasn’t bothered. I disturbed a ratter in one of the systems, and he cloaked up. I did the same, and sat in the system conducting my business, chatting to corp mates and basically to get him used to my name in local. After a while I left and returned back to Y-4.

Tomorrow, the observer would be gone, and the PvPer would be here.