Blog Banter 26- Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not

Welcome to the twenty-sixth 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised "To Boldly Go" blog. Katia asks: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I've found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you've found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it's the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it's the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you've found it, write about it and post an image." Don't be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?

Well this is certainly an interesting question and one that kind of stopped me. What makes this game beautiful? I have said before that there are a lot of things that make this game something worth playing for a long time. But that seems to be a different question than what makes it beautiful.

I think the beauty is in many aspects. For others, it may be in the black of space that gives a feeling of solitude and cold survival. The game itself, graphics wise, is quite beautiful. I can't run it at full capacity since I am running on a Mac laptop, but it is still quite something to see. One thing I can say that will out me as a big carebear is that I love staring at the planets. Just watching a lava planet pulse, a storm planet rage with...well storms, or a temperate planet's clouds drift is enjoyable to me and makes PI that much more interesting. I have found myself a bit jealous of Katia, as I am a photographer IRL, but find myself more enjoying what she finds and shows.

Much of the beauty, and ugliness consequentially, is in the people. The community is a wonderful thing and as aspect that Eve has fostered quite well. It is the first game I have even thought of blogging about or get highly involved in and I've played many games. There is a camaraderie with capsuleers, and burning rivalries, that takes on a life of its own. Even Goons have been somewhat tamed by the Eve universe, finding a stake that they claim and being part of the universe rather than trying to destroy it.

But I think what really draws me to Eve is the complexity. I easily get bored of things that do not engage my mind on more than one level and Eve does just that. Whether it's planning training, theorycrafting fits and strategies, or navigating unknown space Eve has the right amount of difficulty to keep me coming back for a long time.

I think I kind of just beat around it, since I can't really put a finger on it. So what is beauty in Eve to you?
-Mem

Not A Good Night

  I'm tired, it's late and I'm not too happy at the moment so this will be another short post. Finals are nearly done so hopefully things pick up soon. I haven't been able to even log on much for the last week or two, but finally got the chance tonight.

  Oh did I mention my computer charger decided to die on me yesterday too? Ugh...

  Anyways, I've been in a vacation wormhole lately trying to make some ISK. The operation has ended and things moved out. I got a chance to log in and try scanning my way out, only finding a nullsec exit for my trouble. Later, someone else found a highsec in a few systems away as the rest of the corp tried and failed to get a second carrier in one day. My internet connection was shoddy so comms were iffy as it was. Not the best and I should have seen the bad luck streak, logged off, and waited. But I was impatient and stupid.

  So I hurried to try and catch up with the group that was leaving through nullsec, not really knowing where I was headed. Brilliant. I hop out and make my way to the only gate in system as someone types that there is a gate camp two systems over. He doesn't mention, however, that they chased him back to the system I am about to jump in and I get to find out by seeing the fleet with a bubble up...and fastlockers....and I'm not cloaky....sonofa----

  So I wait my time and try burning out with overloaded everything, only to get a second bubble pop up as they burn down my shields. I was neuted out the entire time but I held up for a surprisingly long time. Long enough that when they asploded me, I got my pod out. At least there was that....

  Made my way to a highsec link and logged. I lost my offensive sub skill, so now I have to train it back to 5..whenever I get around to that. Not in a great mood now and not sure when I'll get on next, but it killed more than it was worth before it died so I can't be too bent outta shape. Had to burn most of my money on a PLEX as I noticed I had 4 days left and no RL money in the bank, so I probably won't replace the Tengu for a while. Besides, Amarr Cruiser V finishes in a couple hours so I'll have something else to look at instead.

  Fly safer than I do
-Mem

Gone Divin'

Diving in the Keys, such a hard life :P It's for my college class and when I get back I'll be finishing finals, so I'm sorry I've been pretty MIA. It happens. Wish me luck and I'll see you on the other side.

-Mem

Real Life Railguns

  Eve's railgun systems make suck hard when it comes to being useful in any way except perhaps sniping. But it seems real life engineers are making some hard hitters. 7km range, though, so it's a bit too far in web/scram range for my comfort ;)




  Sorry for the bleed over on the page, it doesn't seem to like me trying to edit width.
-Mem

Mid-day Gank

  School is in overdrive for the next two weeks or so, giving me less and less time to log in to Eve. I am also on a sort of vacation with Memoo, Mech left back home to be able to have fun with the corpmates, but still not easy to do. Today I got lucky.

  After a four or five hour art dept. critique, I came home to chill out before my last class for the day. I checked the forums, facebook, all the usual. I also brought up comms to say hey to everyone, never intending to sign in. Until I hear someone scouting our new connection and finding a site running fleet. After a bit of locating and watching,

  "Legion, Abbadon, Proteus, and Noctis are in the site finishing up."

  So, naturally we quickly formed up and got our HIC to jump in ahead of us. We soon followed and watched him warp off, holding our cloaks for the second he landed with his bubble up. It went flawlessly as I landed, engaging my microwarpdrive and pointing the Proteus. The Noctis got popped before I even landed apparently. When I motored closer, I landed a web and launched drones to keep him occupied but never even got targeted. He managed to get out of the bubble and my web, but the point held and a fellow pilot helped hold him down as we primaried the Legion. He melted under our combined fire, moving on to the tougher Proteus. As nice as his reps were, they weren't nice enough to save him this time. Soon, he was naught but space dust and waking up in a new clone.  Last but not least was our Abbadon friend. He also had reps, but being the size of a barn took our full damage and succumbed to our firepower.

  Now this may just be another gank...but take a close look at those KMs. Pretty, pretty faction that is now in a better home. Faction lasers on the Abbadon, nice deadspace and faction on the Proteus, and....45 mil worth of nanite paste in the Noctis? lolwut? Interesting.

  Good way to let off some stress from academics and Mech is running strong with 100% efficiency. Oh yea...and he was using his Harby with a shield gang. Talk about Brutor balls, eh? :P

  Fly shiny...cuz then you look good on my KB ;P
-Mem

Let's Get Ready To Rumble

  It's that time of year again when alliances gear up for a chance at the limelight that is the Alliance Tournament. This event is exciting, action packed mayhem of bracketed Pvp. Each alliance gets the chance to show their prowess and skill in intel as well as battle against each other, all the for opportunity to claim champion.

  AT9, as it has been for years now, will be broadcasted live over the internet courtesy of Eve Tv. The Devblog detailing this year's rules and allowances gave quite a stir when the rule of banning an opponent's ship was introduced. It got so much pilot attention that CCP decided to withdraw the rule of banning and hope to come up with something else that is a little more thought through as well as something to give this year its own flavor. 

  While not as game changing as banning, the point system is getting a bit of a change itself.

• Tier 1 Battlecruisers, Cruisers and HACS have all had their point values lowered. Marauders also have been lowered.

   This is quite interesting as those ships will see far more use in the fighting and different strategies open up to the teams. Some things are staying the same:

• Flagships: Definitely making a return, officer mods and all!  You will also be able to change their fitting from match to match

   Flagships can turn the tide of a battle, except if I remember correctly the other side is able to see what you have. There is a strategy in itself by designating a flagship and never fielding it, giving false intel or the possibility thereof. This event is hardcore metagame, strategy, and tactical ingenuity. Of course, that's why it's so great to watch.

  So, who is your money on for making it into the finals? To be come champion?

-Mem

CCP Blunders Again

  You may have logged in the last couple of days and found an ad...a very colorful one at that...for the new forums CCP is proud about. My corp kept thinking one of us hacked CCP, since we have such a love for ponies and that ad was right up our alley. Anywho, news has gotten out about why exactly the forums were suddenly taken down.

  Turns out CCP fails yet again and has punished those who pointed it out. A player simply wanted to change his signature, found that he could post as anyone in Eve which included developers and then got banned for making that knowledge public. Supposedly he did petition it, but only expected anything to happen when he went public. They will ban someone for something like this so easily, yet they seem to have trouble doing the same for real issues like botters. The fact that CCP has been yapping about these features for so long and haven't taken the time to make sure it's all secure is rather disturbing.

  And so the roller coaster continues in my faith, trust, and opinion of CCP's executions. It's really not much of an issue to me since I never intended to use them. I don't use the EveO forums now and hardly ever look at them. I already belong to two or three different forums so I'm a bit busy.

  Fun times, eh?
-Mem

Big Patch (Cont)/ADHC Plug

  Double post bananza!

  Instead of going back and editing my previous post as I usually do, I decided to make a separate one. It will allow me more space to expound on my thoughts without making you read a six page wall of text.

  So I have now explored a bit more into the new patch with some interesting findings. The character creator is indeed a permanent feature now with some fun additions. I have added piercings to Memoo that are in the places that I actually have those same piercings IRL. The choices are sometimes limited, so they can look funky on him, but I like it nonetheless. I was hoping to tattoo him too, but Gallente have the silliest looking tattoo choices so I opted out. I played with my alts and love that they now have more personality, more of an interesting look than before. I tweaked their poses too, now that we have the power to do it infinitely. Thank you, CCP. Mech can show off his Brutor pride finally.

  Other things in this patch were things like nerfing nullsec Sanctums. Finally.

  Now, I'm sure I will get flak for that but I really don't care. Frankly, there is too much money in nullsec and ISK sinks might as well not exist in Eve. This will drastically reduce null sec inhabitants' ability to just swim in ISK since Sanctums used to spawn over and over and over again. That mechanic was abused by botters way too much as it was. All the whining and nullsec tears I read were "Woe is us, how dare you CCP! Don't do this or we quit blahblahblah". Srsly? Oh noes, you have to actually work now?! Poor dears, I feel fo--wait. This means you have to care about and plan your space? This means fighting over space might mean something? Hmmm, good move CCP. I live in 0.0 so it's not as if I don't have room to talk. Lawless wormhole space as it may be, but 0.0 space and we don't have the kind of opportunities nullsecers do. /rant

  Moving on. Some bugs and things smaller have been fixed, which is always good. The beta contract page is now final I think. I say I think cuz I always had it on in the first place. Probe selection has color changes, red and green which is especially annoying to me since I am partially colorblind. Also, with truesec changes my home system's sec status is -1.0 instead of good ole' 0.0, barely noticed it though. You can now delete bookmarks from right clicking in space, pretty cool. And if you give someone money, instead of just showing how much you are giving and why, there's portraits of yhou and who you are giving it to. I think that'll help a lot with not mistakenly giving to the wrong person. I hope so at least :P

  On the stupid side, CCP did break things. Hope you didn't like your saved fittings because that got royally screwed. I have 159...you have to check 50 and those are saved to the server and the rest are saved to your harddrive...and then you can't use them. Screw that crap, wtf CCP? There's other stuff too, but the patch tomorrow should fix it. Should..

  In other news, Memoocan is nearly a year old. In 20 days, he will have survived quite a bit in his first year and there is yet more to come.  I'm pretty excited and just might have to do something special to celebrate. So! Give me ideas of what you think would be good for a 1 year event, cuz I'm too burnt out to think these days.

  Also, I am now officially a recruitment officer for Adhocracy Incorporated! All it really means is that I have to pay attention to applications instead of waiting to see them come up for votes. We are coming out of a recruitment freeze and mainly looking for Euro/Pacific/Australian pilots, but if you're interested feel free to look into us anyways. Feel free to come chat me up or our other great pilots in the Adhocracy Public channel, we have cookies. And ponies.

  Anyways, wall of text is done.
-Mem

Annoying Loss and Big Patch

  I have had much less time to play as of late, thanks to school and trying to paint a 4 ft. by 3 ft. self portrait, 2 other smaller ones, and a number of other classes' projects. So when I get on, I simply try to be productive with PI and whatnot. Well, that plan got shot to pieces quite literally yesterday.

TL;DR is that I lost another Falcon. And my pod. That didn't make me too happy, but it was done in the glory of battle, so I can't be too upset. That's my first pod loss in a long time and my first combat death in something like 50 days. The amount of kills that ship got me paid its way before dying.

We found a connection into our new static system, barely had anything scanned out. Turns out we found Duckeye again and said hi. But then we also found a corp trying to crash their dynamic into our static system with an Orca. Scrambling our people, we engaged with too few numbers and piece meal at that. We lost a Rapier in the initial push. The fight dragged on and more of our pilots logged in to help turn the tides. They brought 3x Canes, the Orca, and a Falcon initially. Then they had Scimi support while we had no logis. I had to continually warp in and out, jamming all of them many times, including the Falcon. I guess he got frustrated with it because he disappeared and then showed up in a Rook. For some reason, the Scimi support left through their hole and we got the Rook and his pod. But that was not before I went down. Lag screwed me and my pod was alpha'd back into highsec to buy new implants, hardwiring, and a new ship. Falcons are too useful to not buy another. Big thanks to my corpie, Klok. He knows why. We were to disorganized, but I think we learned the lesson.

---

I hope you remembered to stick a long skill in your que. I mean long, because this patch was quite extended to some player's dismay. So many things patched and added, like tattoos and the like for your character creation. I got confused that my portrait didn't flag as usual and was told the notes said it's now a station service. Fat lot of good that does me in wspace :P I haven't gotten to look at much else, so I will have to save that for another post. But my client didn't break, so I'm happy.

I finished off another level of Amarr Cruiser on Mem and Gunnery V on one of my alts. Wait, Amarr cruiser? Don't you only fly Gallente and Caldari? Well, not only but I do primarily fly those races. But with some internal analysis of my abilities and what I can offer I find some things lacking. I also see opportunities to be taken, through the Legion. Yep, I trained to the Tengu and now I'm already jumping to a different T3. My Tengu has seen some combat, but I do not like taking it into Pvp. It is quite good as Pve and I just tried my first L4 mission with it yesterday, complete success. I want a ship that can take a hit or two and dish out some hurt in different ways. There are two fits I am eager to try out, but properly flying the Legion will take me another month or so. Talk about progression, eh? I really am a bit ADD with my training *le sigh*

Anyways, hope patching goes well for you. Feel free to fill me in on all the little details this monster update gave us.

-Mem

Teehee

  Fear not! Yes, the previous post was a blatant lie in light of April 1st. Sorry if it did upset anyone, it was meant only in jest.

   Now that I think about it...that was kinda stupid. I hope nobody unsubscribed because of it. Lawl...

  I have no intention of quitting Eve in the next few years...if ever. Too many exploits to be had, adventures to be found, and of course FALCON PUNCHing people is always fun ;)

  Anyways, I am doing my first open water Scuba dive tomorrow. Wish me luck!
-Mem
 

Quitting Eve

  Hey guys.

 I've been thinking a lot lately and have come to a rather weighty decision. I have played this game for nearly a year now and have loved every minute of it. But it is taking up too much of my time and affecting my life in some negative ways that I don't need. So, I sadly have decided to quit Eve.

 I do so because life is more than internet spaceships, however fun. I won't be posting anymore and I will be leaving New Eden Chronicles, CK has been informed. I hope this won't matter to much to you, but who knows.

  I want to thank all of you for reading this blog and making me feel like my writing was actually going somewhere, meaning something. Feedburner tells me theres 56 subscribers now, that just blows my mind quite frankly. There are tons of other Eve blogs, so mine won't be missed. Can't say I won't miss it all, but life goes on ya know?

  So fly safe, my friends, and perhaps we will meet in some other form soon. Youcanhasmystuff? Sure, why not.

  Sadly
-Mem

When You Have More Isk Than Sense...

"Combat probes within 4 AU of us."

  The alert certainly got all of us perked up as we camped a connection, waiting for the residents of that hole to come out and play.  A few moments later there was more comm chatter, "Falcon on scan now. Get ready, they have us pinpointed."

  With opportunities from two directions, this was getting interesting. We had popped a few of the idiots on top of their POS and stolen all of their POS modules. Don't leave your stuff unanchored around us. They had a carrier pilot logged in and we were hopeful, but nothing had happened in a while. In such a mixed fleet, we weren't sure what this new contact would turn out to be.

  One of our pilots decides to find where they came from, finding a new connection in system and waiting on it. Fifteen minutes go by without anything happening from either side. Then we find out what found us.

"Tengu on sca--Tengu on grid, Tengu on grid."

  The scout then called out more targets. Three Tengus, Eos, Drake, and two Scimitars. That can be a nasty fleet in the right hands. It didn't seem to be, though, since the Tengu dropped on us alone...then a Loki and another Tengu..then the Drake...and the Falcon decloaked, I had jams on all of them except the Drake. I was suddenly quite happy I had 3 Caldari jammers from a previous fight.

  Two of our pilots had gone to their home connection, holding back the Eos even though it was still providing bonuses. They harassed it into jumping back out and the Scimitars decided to hang back to keep it alive. That was a big mistake.

  Their fleet engaging our main force didn't know we held reserves and started jumping into the hole we had been camping. We pursued after taking care of a the Drake and his pod. I had to bounce, once to get rid of incoming damage when they initially dropped onto us and then again because I had come back at range. By the time I was able to jump in and lock the targets, they were starting to bleed into armor and on their way to space dust and shiny loot. Seriously...more ISK than brains it seems.
 
  They seemed to start panicking because they were jumping back and forth through holes like rabbits, getting polarized and letting our teams work them down to nothing. We lost the Loki somewhere in the system we killed those Tengus, so we moved back to two systems over to finish off the Eos. The scimitars were burning away from us and I couldn't jam them correctly the entire time, so they were able to GTFO.

  So, while we were hoping for a carrier to come play I will definitely settle for over 7 billion from those guys and no losses for us. The best part was that so much of the faction loot dropped for us. Shiny, shiny ISKies. This also ended a semi-dry spell for my Pvp. Quite a nice way to do so, I'd say. Our fleets are getting more and more deadly, even when it's a scramble.

  I am finishing off Vs for my Tengu and thinking I might try level 4 missioning. Never done it alone and I hear it's good money so I could put this thing to use. I am working on getting a different ship for our fleets to rock the dps. Man...I am so ADD with my training.

  Remember, intel wins wars.
-Mem