A new Dawn for Men

If you are showing up at the blog to check us out for recruitment purposes, you should start at the beggining.

Although we are not repopulating the blog, we are happy to announce that for the first time since Ritual Suicide's inception we are actively recruiting.  Check out our forum post or just convo Genocide Machine in game.  We are taking all eager players at all skill levels and SP level.

We have special plan for the holies this time...  come join the mayhem!!

Mac Fanboi

I can't help but post Nerbert's most recent kill, in his own words:

I've been out of the game for a while, but I've made a modest return with mixed results...

In my not so triumphant return to WH space last night, a comms error led to designating the wrong primary target. Eve PvP can be a cruel bitch and mistakes are usually punished... My stealth bomber paid the price and it was a good reminder of how the game works.

Tonight I got the first mission runner I probed down to shoot at me. Once he was pointed he actually put up a pretty good fight... unfortunately, it was his turn to learn something about Eve PvP:

1. Don't shoot at ninjas

2. If you do shoot at ninjas, don't stick around to find out what he's going to do next.

3. If you do stick around to find out what he does next... and he comes back in a combat ship, definitely don't stick around while he slowboats 60km to point you.

4. If you do wait for him to close inside point range, don't be pissed at the ninja when you lose your "only ship."

5. If you are pissed at the ninja, don't cry in local. Everyone will laugh at you and the ninja will send it to his corp for lols (and quite possibly a blog post???)

His parting words:

Burnarator > thank you for blowing the only ship i had up

Burnarator > fuck you

http://www.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9664408

Ah, that's why I love this game.

Burning Ring of Fire

In my last post I alluded to a major revelation that I had. I had given the advice to focus on probing skills over combat skills because you will spend more time probing than fighting. That made me come to the realization that I ought to put some thought into my probing setup. Don't get me wrong I had maximized my probing ability, but past that all I had really done is put two warp stabs and a salvager on my prober.

If I am spending all my time on my prober why is isn't it as well thought out as my bomber, which lead me down a very expensive path to:

[Loki, anvil]
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
10MN Afterburner II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher, Core Scanner Probe I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Loki Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Loki Defensive - Adaptive Shielding
Loki Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Loki Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier


As you can see this thing is tough as nails, and just about impossible to lock down, which gives me alot of comfort while I'm out probing. I've even already used the interdiction nullifier the other night. I was out roaming when I came into a super busy hole, with ships warping all over the place. I finally realized they were coming back to their home stations from a neighboring hole. Probing in the next hole over I was watching the transition hole with my bomber. I watched a short battle between a hound and a couple combat ships (very lopsided) and then watched a broadsword cloak next to the hole. I came back through and a conversation ensued:

Aethrs > Got stairs in your house?
Genocide Forge > oh please im on the edge of my seat
Genocide Forge > finish it
Aethrs > Hehe
Aethrs > Finish what?
Genocide Forge > your two liner
Aethrs > next line was yours silly goon.
Genocide Forge > ahh
Genocide Forge > you an dthe neighbors sharing blows?
Aethrs > Me and a friend used to be in tears
Aethrs > Just saying hi :)
Genocide Forge > ahh... im not much of a team player so i dont know the little secret handshacks
Aethrs > Fair enough.
Aethrs > We used to have fun ninja salvaging.
Genocide Forge > ive been watching you guys for a while... lots going on
Aethrs > We're bursty.
Genocide Forge > a couple corpies do that, but i mostly do this
Aethrs > Yeah we killed a chimera
Aethrs > Were you on grid for that?
Genocide Forge > was that the huge fleet i saw warp into your tower?
Genocide Forge > nice job
Aethrs > Do you have a home wormhole?
Genocide Forge > RENS
Genocide Forge > doesnt move
Aethrs > Got ya.
Genocide Forge > lots of idiots flying around, im guessing you guys arent that variety
Aethrs > Us? We're totally harmless.
Aethrs > ...to diction nullified Loki's :(
Genocide Forge > with double warp stabs too
Aethrs > We almost always fit 3 points.
Aethrs > So actually that wouldn't do so much.
Aethrs > You solo pvp with it?
Genocide Forge > no i duo
Aethrs > Nice.
Aethrs > My former tears friend and I do that a lot.
Aethrs > Curse/Hictor, or similar.
Genocide Forge > all thios does is probe, i was watching your side, i knew you were there
Genocide Forge > i watched the fight with the SB
Aethrs > Yeah we're not real sure what they were thinking with that.
Aethrs > You lose a carrier, so you go in with a SB and a falcon?
Genocide Forge > exactly
Genocide Forge > nerd- rage does terrible things to people
Aethrs > True.
Aethrs > Static 0.0 wormhole is probably rough, too.
Genocide Forge > lol, was that a static?
Aethrs > I think so.
Genocide Forge > i guess ill move on, you guys prolly have this hole pretty well locked down
Aethrs > Meh
Aethrs > Not really
Aethrs > Feel free to wander, if u like.
Genocide Forge > im probing out the web of holes now
Genocide Forge > im two systems out
Aethrs > Fly safe o/
Genocide Forge > o/

Nice guy, even though he used to be TEARS. Downed a carrier... totally sweet.

I Shot a Man in Reno

Genocide Machine is back. It’s been awhile since I shined up the ol’ bomber and took it for a spin , but I’ve been at it for a few days now. I was a little worried that wormholes had fallen out of favor with the EVE crowd, but I recently read in the quarterly report that wormhole inhabitance was up (which I take credit for in the face of my absence from EVE). I was also a little worried that the newbs had grown up and gotten a little wiser. Again, I was pleasantly surprised, finding numerous characters younger than my absence bumbling around in unknown space. Well, luckily for them, I’m back.

My return wasn’t exactly the bloodbath I was hoping for. In fact the first three nights I went out I barely saw anyone active, but I did manage to find a small mining group. Now to their credit they were mining at the outer most planet, off scan from virtually everywhere. To their discredit I managed to botch several things:

1) Warping to zero (thus uncloaking) on the entrance hole where one of them was flying out to hi sec to fit for mining.
2) Warping to 100km on a planet and not realizing that was where my prober was, uncloaking both for a few seconds.

Now I assume they just missed seeing me those times, likely still loading in #1 and just failing to hit scan for #2. However, you’ll notice that I managed to get 4 kills with one point and the BC had 3 light drones. They were obviously AFK. Although they managed to get back to their comps to get 2 of the pods out.

On a far more interesting string of events I was Eve-mailed by a blog reader asking for advice. Always one to feel self important I sent back the best advice I could come up with off the top of my head:

you are lucky, i just got back into "holing" after about a 250 day break. here is the best i can do in an email:

1) you need a prober... either a friend or a second account. I've had friends who try and do it solo and it magnifies the downtime by alot.

2) there is ALOT of downtime, ive been out three nights in a row and got nothing but a botched attempt on a destroyer/cruiser pair. you can easily go hours and hours not even seeing anything, let alone killing anything, but its better than missioning.

3) practice probing, you have to be REALLY good at it. you will get more out of maxxed probing skills than you will get out of maxxed combat skills.

4) get in a rythmn, find a routine that is safe, stick to it, otherwise you will become the hunted. do not break from YOUR routine, there is a reason you do those things. be systematic

5) never being seen is more important than a kill.

6) read the whole blog it is chocked full of good advice.

7) 10 days for minmatar frig 5 is worth it for the hound, its better than all the rest (period)

For regular readers of my blog there isn’t too much new information here, but #3 brought me to a new revelation that my next post will focus on.

Before parting, I’ll share the fit I sent this guy for a solo bomber. This fit isn’t great, but it does allow you to combat probe and kill on your bomber. I’m not sure it will save time over using a real prober to find targets and then coming back in a pure dps fit bomber to do the dirty work, but my friends have gotten kills in this:

[Hound, solo]
Co-Processor II
Co-Processor II
Co-Processor II

Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters
Warp Disruptor II
Parallel Weapon Navigation Transmitter

'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Bane Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Bane Torpedo
'Arbalest' Siege Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Bane Torpedo
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

If you'd like you can waste your breath (fingers) trying to explain to me that the Hound is not the best Stealth Bomber.

Master Billy Quizboy

To ease the recruitment process for the holie corps I have made a short multiple choice quiz for all new perspective applicants:

1) There is a Large Warp Disruption Bubble placed on a high sec exit hole that is a nuisance, you want to destroy it in your Amarr stealth bomber. Do you:
a) Position yourself inside the warp disruption field.
b) Position yourself about 15km from the high sec hole.
c) Equip explosive ammo.
d) All of the above

2) You and your three buddies are running a cosmic anomaly, you notice on D-scan a Vagabond appear, a Badger MkII turn into a wreck and the Vagabond disappear. Do you:
a) Continue running the site, there are four of us and he posses no threat.
b) Continue running the site, only total newbs fly vagas. PWNSAUCES!!!!
c) D-scan?!? Is that like an 8-track!?!
d) All of the above

3) You are returning to the group in question #2 in your dominix after the sleepers destroyed your thorax. Upon arrival at the entrance hole in high sec there is a Typhoon, Brutix and Hurricane waiting at the hole. The pilots are all members of a well known griefing alliance. Do you:
a) Wait for a Drake to join them.
b) Recommend your friends continue to run the site.
c) Watch them jump through and warp to your friends’ site.
d) All of the above

According to field testing last night, the correct answer to all of them is d) All of the above.

If you don’t understand why answer c to question 1 is funny, then you have no business flying Stealth Bombers either.

There is of course a story to these questions. That’s right, I came upon a SB who was trying to destroy a large warp disruption sphere that was blocking a hi sec exit hole. He was about 15km from the probe AND the exit hole. He must have gotten himself a team of PVP experts together to analyze where the worst possible spot to stay perfectly still was, because he was there. Amazingly he ran out of ammo ( I presume) ran out to highsec, reentered and went back to the same terrible spot to keep working on the tower. Thus, he specifically chose this spot. Please educate me, why would an amarr SB use exp ammo in this situation? As far as I can tell WDBs have no resists.

I was poking in and out of a hole all night, eventually there was a couple destroyers guarding (maybe?!?)a badger mkII when some other guys (friends!?!) started running a site. They didn’t seem to mind each others presence, even when I blew up the mkII. After that fight the thorax in the site group blew up and warped to high sec. In the mean time I gathered up a SN wrecking crew and were preparing to warp in on the site crew that was no looting. While sitting at 0 on the outside hole, the thorax pilot came back in a dominix. We stared at each other for about 30seconds when our fourth pilot showed up and we all, including the domi, jumped into system and warped to the site. None of them seemed to be aligning out or were prepared for us. Due to the distance we warped in at, we could only point one of them. The joke was almost on us when the exit hole collapsed from weight, but I had another high sec hole probed already and the last few of us made it out seconds later.

If i didn't mention this kill, one of my readers would lynch me, we waited about an hour for this guy to finish running his site, it was painful. My alt has a kill!!! It was also Necro's first PVP kill, way to go dude!

They call him Larry

I’ve had a good string of luck lately. I engaged two Itty 5s on a hole, being guarded at the time by three combat ships (one in high sec). The only logical thing to do was come back and kill one of the guards too. In terms of luck though, most importantly I haven’t been killed in a wormhole since December of 2009, that’s almost 8 months. In that time I have amassed 142 wormhole KMs. Not too shabby, but it all ended today.

I was wandering through a system that had been dead for at least an hour when a Hurricane piloted by, “a total newb”(I was getting cocky) showed up in system, his character was about a year old. I was tracking him down when a pod and three haulers showed up on scan and warped to the hole. They looked like they were just outside of jump range so I engaged and for some reason set orbit on the hole at 15-20km. I got one of them and their pod, but the hurricane showed up and I was, stupidly, sitting at 15km from the hole. As I motored to the hole he put me into armor. As luck would have it I was attending to other things and over shot the exit hole…. noooooo I thought as he put me in my pod. I warped off and out to rebuild my bomber.

I screwed myself that fight why I didn’t orbit the hole at 2500 like I usually do is beyond me. It turns out Larry Lowblow is no newb at all, in fact he popped Nerbert not long ago, RS seems to have met their match. I traded a 3M KM and a pod for a 100M bomber, well done Larry.

The little ship that could

This was a great story from Nerbert so I had to include it.

A few days ago, I’d jumped my prober and bomber through an end of life hole to watch it close behind me. I’d mentally prepared for that possibility and figured I’d just wander the universe until some other wormhole spit me out close to home. With the nearby trade hub effectively shut down by the war, this was the perfect time for a little adventure.

Eventually, I settled into a cozy little hole with several active POSs and plenty of signatures. The system had an exit to high sec, low sec and a dead end class 4 which was completely untouched. With no targets in either of the two J-systems, I popped into low sec to have a look around. There were roughly 20 people in local with several potential targets on D-scan. I scanned down a covetor sitting at a “safe” and poked some holes in his security.

After spending a few minutes scouting out the low sec system, I returned to the wormhole to find a list of fresh wrecks, a nighthawk, a cruiser and a cormorant on scan. Landing on their grid, I found that they had completed the site and the looter had just started his work. To my surprise, the combat ships warped off to the next site and left their defenseless looter alone in a site to gather the fruits of their labor. Why site runners continue to do this, I’ll never know. I conducted a quick instructional session and had the wreck looted just as the Nighthawk showed up on grid. They returned to the wormhole a while later with a looter drake and an entourage of looter protection vessels. They attempted to lure me out of hiding with taunting messages, but I told them I was satisfied knowing that I had significantly reduced their intake of isk/hour. In no hurry to get back to hi sec, I logged off in the system.

I logged on the next afternoon intending to get a quick refresh on the system signatures to save time for my evening session. I noticed a Badger II on scan and located him at one of the towers. He had offlined most of the guns and was starting to un-anchor… oooh, snap. Not wanting to drop any probes for fear of spooking the badger pilot, I did a check of my previous known wormholes to find them all end of life or closed. Over the next hour and a half I was in and out, keeping track of his progress as he moved his stuff from the large tower to a medium tower in the same system. At some point, an alt jumped into a wreath to help him haul and I had also watched him move a Drake and an Orca.

At several points during the offlining/unanchoring process I had the opportunity to pop him, but I had a deeper motivation. The Machine and I had a recent encounter, detailed elsewhere in this blog, where we had accidentally blown a wreck containing a tower. This time I was going to do everything in my power to ensure a nice payout. Unfortunately, when it came to stealing a POS, I was in system with a Manticore and a Cheetah with a combined cargo space of about 400 cubic meters. Additionally, my only hole to hi sec had been end of life for at least 2 hours and could close any second. This presented a problem, but I was unwilling to give up the vantage points from which I was watching his operation to go retrieve a hauler from the end of life hole. I decided the best course of action was to keep both ships in system and see how it unfolded.
The countdown to game time had finally reached zero and the tower was unanchored. He was about 30 seconds late for his pickup which would have provided me an opportunity to scoop the POS if I had gone the hauler route, alas I had not. As he landed, I dropped the bomb and waited for his pod to show up. Expecting him to be in some state of shock or confusion at his rapid demise, I assumed I’d get the lock, but this pilot was apparently ready. He escaped, which reduced my chances of successful payout significantly. He ran back to his new POS and returned in a Drake. In local [chat log on another computer], I bluffed the presence of a fleet waiting anxiously for his Orca to undock… hehe. I also mentioned that his alt should not show up in the wreath. He didn’t listen, and I killed his second hauler, while he waited impatiently for his drake to lock me up. I conjured up an image of him bouncing off the walls in his parent’s basement, while his Drake – now sitting between two heaping piles of twisted metal that used to comprise half of his wormhole fleet - locked me in slow motion. He did manage to get one salvo into my shields, but I was aligned to a planet and outside point range. At this point he was fighting some inner demons, and unwilling to speak in local. He warped back to his POS and climbed aboard the Orca. I assumed my chances of recovering the POS were about to reach nil. I had done the math, and assuming he showed up without any drones or resistance mods, I didn’t have enough firepower onboard to kill the Orca. But… he continued to sit in his POS stewing over the recent events. After a few minutes, he logged… Wait, WHAT? HE LOGGED!!!

My risk/reward calculus had now changed. I made a bee-line with both characters to the EOL hi sec hole and docked in the first station with a hoarder for sale. I fit it with a couple expanded cargohold II’s, donated so graciously by the wreath pilot, and screamed back through the hole. If you’ve never sat and waited for a hauler to align inside a wormhole, you’ve never lived. To my surprise, I didn’t attract any would be assailants and got my new POS out of the hole safely.
Wow… did I just do that solo with a bomber and a prober? Sure, I needed the hauler to get the loot out, but that was a matter of logistics after the battle had been won. Anyone who says a stealth bomber is a poor solo ship just isn’t using them correctly, or applying the right amount of creativity. I for one absolutely love flying my little ship that could.

I love that the guy returns in a Drake, Carebears in general think the drake is the answer to anything.

The Horrors of War

( 18:30:23 ) Kiritsubo > what are you going to do after the war Devy?

( 18:31:03 ) HevyDevy II > dunno, i don't have any real world skills

( 18:31:07 ) HevyDevy II > find another war, i guess

( 18:32:18 ) HevyDevy II > you?

( 18:32:41 ) Kiritsubo > got a girl back home waiting for me, i'm gonna marry her

Hank killed Hitler

Although I played EVE for a long time before turning to WH PVP, I essentially grew up in WHs at least it feels like it. I’ve done the 0.0 thing and even tried low sec camping, but no where have I felt more comfortable than WHs, in fact I don’t even get the shakes any more when I decloak and engage. I used to literally get so cold when I engaged people I had to wear giant hoody sweatshirts and my hand still felt like ice. My body was going into minor shock from the fight or flight instinct. Shock… from an internet spaceship game! That’s why I loved it and I still do even though I don’t get the rush any more. I used to scream into the mic at my wingmen, hurriedly passing information, but now I calmly (sort of) pass clear concise orders (sometimes). I used to be in mortal fear of losing my bomber, but now I have stock piles of pvp ships, of just about every build, including two fitted bombers and 7 extra Domination Launchers I found at a good price. Every time I log on I have a small fleet of RL friends ready to jump into any wormhole I point too. Nerbert has even become essentially my equal and I often follow him into holes.
Despite all of this, what I do is virtually the same thing over and over and because of that the stories are drying up. For the time being I plan on putting up a few posts, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Confessions is drawing to a close. Until that day, lets take another look into what makes me tick.

A few nights ago Nerbert and I were out doing the usual roam, when I caught a Viator on scan. First we thought it was doing PI in the unk system we were in, but I quickly devised that it was actually deconstructing the tower in the system next door. The best part, the tower had 18 minutes to unanchor. We settled in, got some beers, and waited for the fireworks. About thirty seconds after the timer expired he uncloaked on top of the tower and we made short work of him, including his pod. Now the unfortunate thing was that in the flurry of clicking I went to close on the wreck to loot it, but instead targeted it. That normally wouldn’t be a problem except my missiles were activated from trying to shoot his pod. You all know how that ends, the wreck along with the large tower in its hold was space dust. After our little debacle he convo’d Nerbert and proceeded to mock us because we could have ransomed his pod for 350M. I’m sorry I can’t hear you, all that static from hi sec must be interfering. Don’t get me wrong, I love isk, and I try to get as much of it as I can, but what would I do with it; I’d buy a totally pimped out bomber and go gank people in wormholes with it, that’s what I’d do. Well I have two and I got 7 KMs that night, life is good.

The other notable story from the night was this drake. Quite honestly the KM is enough of a story, but some explanation should save this guy from future humiliation. He was using this drake as a Swiss army knife for his loki in the hole. Believe it or not those stupid ECMs were working like a charm. I did however manage to kill the drake with the loki buzzing around me like a big angry gnat. I really had no choice cause I was warp disrupted. The loki was a different story, we engaged a few times at the hole, but I could not manage to break his tank in my ‘phoon.

We killed this looter while six or seven guys watched, it was awesome, just like all the other looters I’ve killed under peoples noses, like this one a few days later. Yes thats three t2 rigs.

Tonight we stumbled upon two miners at work in a hole. Club Williams our up and coming bomber pilot was out for his second night. After we popped them and one of the pods they convo’d us in local. Typically I’d give a little advise or commentary, but its all in the convo already, I laid it on pretty thick.

Renturu > Wow! for new guys with positive standings... you really know how to pop a mining barge
Renturu > Try a couple of command ships and T3s
Genocide Forge > lol.... you should check killboards and bios before speaking
Renturu > Check out Bryan Havoc then
Renturu > Asshat
Genocide Forge > im sorry i thought you were accusing me of being a newb, not the other way around
Genocide Forge > i never identified you as a newb
Renturu > I know your not
Genocide Forge > or your friend or whatever
Renturu > np
Genocide Forge > cool
Renturu > club is though
Genocide Forge > yeah we all start somewhere
Renturu > hehe
Genocide Forge > hes not doing too bad either
Renturu > what is yoru corps goal?
Genocide Forge > this
Renturu > ahhh
Genocide Forge > if you had been in the loki we would have gotten that... porbably
Renturu > you know. this is noty a heavyaction site
Renturu > For this time of day anyway
Genocide Forge > it was a minute ago
Renturu > until the russians come on
Genocide Forge > yeah well we would typically head on, bt then you got in a t3 and cloaked up
Renturu > docked atm
Renturu > ty
Genocide Forge > so you know what that means... bigger ships and more people
Renturu > they own this site btw
Genocide Forge > who the russians?
Renturu > and many others
Genocide Forge > i love target rich environments
Genocide Forge > to obad hte ruskies wont be getting up very soon
Genocide Forge > we'll be pushing on now
Club Williams > fly safe!

At least he didn’t criticize my spelling. Bryan Havoc does have an impressive KB, he seems especially good at blobbing people in Hi Sec.

A new dawn for men

I have finished my RL transition and am back in EVE, thank you for bearing with me through some guest posters. They did a wonderful job and thank you, but its time to get back into the shit. to recap the time before i went AWOL for a month or two. I killed a Tengu, Cyclone and a Myrm... it was sweet, the stories were typical holies being to confident in their isolation.

More importantly I am back playing, and many thanks should go to HevyDevy II for making my return very eventful. I had just logged in when HDII reported a tower with its shields off and numerous ships floating in space. After a frantic flight out we managed to steal a faction fit Zealot (~200M total) and a T2 fit Ishkur before we pop'd about 10 T1's we were too lazy to steal and sell.

I am so happy to see my boys have been hard at work honing their skills making these opportunities a possibility. So if you woke up and all your shit was gone from your tower... dude refuel it.

We’ve always been at war with Holies

[Kiritsubo; reporting from the Minitrue offices in Dodixie]

Ritual Suicide is excited to announce we have joined Tear Extraction and Reclamation Service [TEARS]. Best known for their core organization Suddenly Ninjas we look forward to teaming with them in expanding our Happiness stealing opportunities.

Look for us in your mission, your asteroid belt and your wormhole, remember:

GENOCIDE MACHINE IS WATCHING YOU!

Call me Ishmael

[Kiritsubo, by NeoCom from somewhere in Unknown Space]

Some days ago, like 5 days, I camped a fresh wormhole in Rens while being thoroughly entertained by Alliance Tournament 8. I ran down a few connected holes but found no Holies active and settled in on the J-Space side.

Early on a Rupture entered and started pooping scan probes while sitting on the hole. I waited a bit, but impatience got the better of me and I opened up with torps. Our subject jumped back through to high sec. Little did I suspect that his brief exposure to J radiation had already been deadly.

A short time later he returned in a Rifter, I watched as he sat stationary for some time then warped off into the system proper. I was unable to track him down via D-scan but a Rifter wreck did appear on scan eventually. He didn’t fly into the resident POS so I’m still a bit confused as to how he died.

Sadder but none the wiser our subject returned an hour later in his Rupture. This time I held my fire until he cleared the hole and watched him warp towards planet 1. I came in at about 70km, which put him at 0 and stationary. The slowly approached under cover of cloak and started spewing white hot murder at 18km. He got his guns going on me and I was down to 80% armor, but he had his fill of my secret sauce. His pod also yielded up its nougaty center.

After the combat I noticed the Local tab blinking and had this bit of wit from our subject:

[ 2010.06.19 19:57:57 ] Newbeans > I am in your ish

Not only had J-Space robbed him of his sense of self-preservation his command of the English language was rapidly disappearing.

Holies do the Darnedest Things (part 2)

*Today's guest contributor is Kiritsubo*

Our heroes, having tasted bitter disappointment, traveled up to recheck our first hole before calling it a night. A quick D-scan revealed another Prowler, located in the vicinity of a POS we had previously bookmarked. I warped over to see with my little eye a Prowler puttering around the gun emplacement beneath the station.

The extreme isolation of J Space had claimed another victim. Well, natural selection would teach all the involved parties’ valuable lessons this day.

Nerbert and I warped to 25 on our victim, dropped bombs and opened up with torpedoes. The Prowler exploded quickly and Nerbert exercised the better part of valor by warping out. I stuck around for the pod kill.

Being an avid corpse collector, I approached to scoop his remains. Unfortunately when my transverse velocity dropped the gun battery turned my shiny Hound into so much superheated plasma.

The gods smiled on me though and most of fittings dropped. Nerbert was able to recover my gear and I quickly fit a new bomber and was able to retrieve Cherilyn’s corpse without further incident.

As promised our story has a moral:

1) Don’t do POS maintenance in a ship whose chief attribute is its CovOps cloak.
2) Don’t be greedy. It gets your ass blown up.
3) Don’t ask Kiritubo what he does with the corpses.

~With apologies to Art Linkletter.

Holies do the Darnedest Things (part 1)

*Today's guest contributor is Kiritsubo*

For the experienced naturalist it is well known that long term exposure to wormhole radiation induces bizarre behavior. On a spontaneous Saturday night roam Nerbert and I encountered several fascinating examples of Holies in their native environment.

Going down from Odatrik our first J system had a few POSes but no active players. Nerbert probed for other holes while I D-scanned all the POSes. Finding another hole we proceeded down further. Our initial D-scan showed a Prowler and some POS rubbish. I quickly got eyes on both stations and saw that the Prowler was not at either.

At about this point we think he saw Nerbert’s scan probes and cloaked up. No big, he finishes the scan and we go down another hole. The third system was uninhabited; we probe a bit and find an exit up to low sec. A dead end so we head back up the wormhole chain.

A quick D-scan shows the Prowler active again and we had narrowed down his location enough the first time through probe him without alerting. Nerbert warped in to get eyes on him and attempted to describe the scene. What followed was a jumble to verbs and nouns that made little sense; I had to warp in myself to appraise the situation. Sitting from our vantage point were a dozen Small Secure Containers strung out roughly a few hundred kilometers from each other, two Small Mobile Warp Disruptors and an uncloaked Prowler, piloted by Alia Ravenswing, CEO of Dark Hat, warping randomly (?) between the cans.

The screen captures don’t do justice to this baffling artifact.

Nerbert and I quickly discussed what the possible uses for such an arrangement could be and the sociological implications of this savage dance. A mating ritual, some attempt to propitiate the local deity or a trap for the unwary anthropologist? As the untimely warning of Admiral Ackbar’s screamed in our heads we decided to engage. We warped to 30 on the can to which our subject was closest and attacked. To disappointing results.

Nerbert’s bomb launched successfully, but mine was fumbled due to some recent changes I’d made to the UI. The Prowler cloaked up immediately after we uncloaked, but was briefly de-cloaked by the bomb as he warped to a POS. We quickly got eyes on the POS and showed him ejecting Battlecruiser, Strat Cruisers and other ships from a hanger. This puffer fish response may be a natural reaction to ward off predators; our subject did have the sense to jump in a Loki fitted with CovOps sub-system.

We stuck around awhile longer observing the Loki travel through the up hole a few times, revisit his space totem and finally return to the POS. All the ejected ships were arduously returned to the hanger and the subject logged off.

The meaning of all this furious green activity will be for future generations to puzzle over and study. All I know is we got a serious case of blue balls.

Gentle reader, if you are still with us, please be assured that part 2 of our story will contain blood.

Double trouble

Today's post is actually a guest speaker, our newest up and coming WH roamer nerbet,

On the feast or famine scale, I had definitely been caught in a bit of a famine. In the past week, I had only chalked up a T1 frig kill. To make matters worse, I had lost a bomber due to my sometimes over-aggressive nature.

Tonight started like most. I warped to a planet and dropped probes, taking notice of a Thrasher also pumping probes about 100k from me (apparently he likes to warp to zero… important observation). I assumed we’d see each other later. I quickly probed down a hole and perused the Thrasher pilot’s info on my way there. I jumped my main in to scout the system and left my alt outside for surveillance. About the time my main got to the outer planet and called the system clear, the thrasher showed up outside the hole and jumped through. I warped back to the exit hole in time to observe the Thrasher warp off to planet VI. Knowing he likes to warp to zero, I warped to twenty. As expected, he was pooping probes. I uncloaked, engaged the disruptor and painter, and unloaded on him. He went down relatively quickly, as did his pod.

I chatted up the kill to the corp members, wondering why a 5 year old character would be probing a wormhole in a looting destroyer. I would have my answer soon enough. I spent the next hour probing through the wormhole complex with no action. On my way back to Hi Sec, I noticed a heron on scan in the first hole. It was my friend from the Thrasher, but this time he didn’t stay put long enough to get a bead on him. He eventually left after bouncing around in the system for a while.

Another twenty minutes went by and he showed up again, but this time he was in a Rohk and toting an alt in a Maelstrom. They hung at the exit hole for a while and warped off to a sleeper site. They were still on scan so I found them quickly. Knowing I was outgunned, I sounded the alarm in the corp channel. Kiritsubo, having more experience than me against larger ships felt the Rohk would go down easy, even with bombers so he showed up. They were looting as they went so we decided to wait until they were on the last wreck and primary the Rohk. On signal, we warped to 30… well, I tried. In a hurry I selected the Rohk instead of the wreck, which delayed my warp. By the time I got there, Kiritsubo had already dropped the bomb and moved inside my bomb radius so I just locked up and started launching torps while I closed to point range. Within seconds the battleship warped off… huh? In an attempt to disengage his overheat, Kiritsubo disabled his disruptor by accident (we later found out the Rohk had fit a stab so it may not have mattered).

Feeling like a couple of newbs out for our first kill, we warped off with our tail between our legs. Discouraged, we decided to scout back through the complex in case anyone had shown up in the deeper systems. When we reached the last system, I started probing deeper and Kiritsubo went back to scout the first system again. Unbelievably, they were back running another site.

After a good deal of time watching and waiting, we applied the lessons learned from our earlier folly. We warped to 30, simultaneously dropped the bomb, and commenced with the aggregate 900-1000 dps. I’m sure he was spamming warp on both ships, but the Rohk was pinned. The Maelstrom left him all alone. He targeted me back; as did the two remaining sleepers in the site (they appeared to give up on them, which is why we didn’t wait). About the time the Rohk popped, I was boogying for the planet I was aligned to. Kiritsubo, having avoided any aggro to this point, managed to get his pod and then also warped off. Somehow, while my armor was melting away, I retained enough presence of mind to BM the wreck in my warp off. After my shields recharged I was able to get my main and my alt in to loot the wreck before the sleepers did too much damage.

What a hunt! Did this guy really come back to run sites in the same system he was just podded in? And then again after two bombers attempted to hijack him? With a decent fit, he probably could have fared much better. Notice he is sporting cruise missile launchers on a gun boat… standard T1’s at that. Not even a Ballistic Control mod fitted. And then a scrambler??? Pointless. Anything moving inside 7500m on a battleship is going to have the legs to get back outside point range. I could go on, but clearly this guy is in need of some help. As has been pointed out in this blog before, every new player needs a mentor… otherwise they become old players that need a mentor.

Kiritsubo runs a profitable ninja looting “service.” For kicks, he sent our victim an invoice for “services rendered.” The following exchange takes place over eve-mail:

----------

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for choosing Ritual Suicide as your service provider. We have already dispatched an agent to your location to assist in the fulfillment of your operational parameters. If you have any questions regarding Ritual Suicide services please contact your Customer Representative, Kiritsubo.

An invoice will be sent after completion of this project.

Regards,

Kiritsubo

ha ha ha witty. I like mostly the fact that you send the funny emails after the kill cos u dont do shit damage nerbert does the hard part.
Brag when you have something to brag about lol

[edit: Difference in damage delivered was due to damage types, not skill level as alluded to by our friend]

???? huh nothing? maybe you dont even write the funny emails? shhh,
ask nerbet he'll do it for you i wont tell!

Dear Valued Customer,

Ritual Suicide is excited to announce the successful fulfillment of all operational parameters. Your invoice has been adjusted to reflect the difficult nature of the project.

Customer: Exnon
Corporation: Minmatar Freedom Revolutionists
Alliance: n/a
System: J112137
Invoice Reference #: 0029
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Service Quantity Service Fee Line Total
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X Ritual Suicide Specialist(s): 3 10,000,000 30,000,000
Service Type: --- --- ---
Deficient Mission Completion: 4,000,000
Salvage Removal: 1,000,000 2,000,000
X Non-Consensual Looting: 1 2,000,000
Ore Canister Reversal: 1,000,000
Wormhole Operating Licenses: --- --- ---
Individual: 20,000,000
Corporation: 200,000,000
X Other Services (by contract): --- 5,000,000
X Deep Space Triangulation: 1 1,000,000 1,000,000
X Hazard Assessment (Sec Status – 2): 0.0 2,000,000 4,000,000
X Wormhole Surcharge: --- 2,000,000 2,000,000
Asset Allocation: --- --- ---
X Frigate: 3 500,000 1,500,000
Destroyer: 500,000
Cruiser: 1,000,000
Battlecruiser: 1,500,000
Battleship: 2,000,000
Capital Ship: 10,000,000
X (Tech II Surcharge): 3 3,000,000 9,000,000
X Hardware Depreciation: 3 500,000 1,500,000
X Ammunition: 1000 500 500,000
Accidental Aggression: 2,000,000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal: 56,500,000
Concord Taxes (1.05): 2,825,000
Final Total: 59,325,000

Please direct any questions regarding your invoice to your Ritual Suicide Customer Service Representative. Payment on your invoice can be made directly to the Ritual Suicide corporate entity. We would like to remind our customers that your agent is prohibited from accepting gratuities, goods or items.

The satisfaction of our customers is paramount and we look forward to partnering with you on future projects. Thank you again for choosing Ritual Suicide.

Regards,

Kiritsubo

oh oh another generic email! do u do anything youself? you dont do shit damage and u dont even write your own mail!?!

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your feedback. Your Ritual Suicide agents work as a team to maximize efficiency. In recognition of your valuable contribution please use the offer code "Genji" when remitting payment.

Regards,

Kiritsubo

Brockness monster

Hunting in wormholes is often feast or famine, honestly most of the times it famine with a few tasty morsels you come across, but recently it truly was a feast, a bloody, bloody feast. My wingman had located a cruiser and dominix. He had eliminated the cruiser before I showed up, but the dominix was in a site and he waited for me to show up in my typhoon. When I showed up in the hole, he had not popped the wreck, which had been on scan for the dominix for about 20 minutes. We got a warp-in on the dominix mid fight and made short work of him. Normally I’d go into a bit of philosophy, but I’m not even close to finish.

It turns out a few jumps over the pilot of the earlier cruiser and his buddies were poking around in tech one frigs and a cruiser. We showed up and started playing cat and mouse. I switched to my hurricane to fit through the hole and another wingman showed up. As we were trying to catch the guys on a timer or at a planet I noticed that there was a wolf on scan at a safe spot. Eventually I concluded he was worth pursuing and I combat probed him. I warped in cloaked and he was stationary uncloaked at a safe spot. The pilot was Ushra’Khan, whom I have a profound respect for after living in Catch/Providence for a few months. I suspected a trap of some sort, but decided to bite. I warped in with my hurricane and he cloaked immediately. Knowing he wasn’t moving I warped off and warped to 0 on his old scan hit. Sure enough he hadn’t moved and I uncloaked him, then I killed him.

I warped back to the exit hole at about 20km to be greeted by a cynabal at the hole. Presuming he was going to run through the hole I started to burn towards him when he started burning towards me, knowing I had two cloakers around I moved away from the hole and disrupted him. I suspected his buddies at any time, but he went down quick. Just as he popped a Drake from his alliance showed up out of warp and engaged. After a botched warp out and return we dispatched him as well. We looted the wrecks and decided to call it a night, as I left we noticed a small gathering of ships outside of the alliance we had just greased. We politely left and gave them the courtesy of burial rights on the two corpses.

One night with four combat ship kills, it was awesome. What were these guys thinking? Here are a few really good pointers, 1) Leave wrecks on in your overview for wormholes, it gives a great indicator via scan what is going on. It is completely inexcusable to go 20 minutes and not notice a fresh kill lingering by a wormhole. 2) You are far from untouchable while running a sleeper site, sleepers may retarget and do a lot of damage, but a decent buffer tank will last long enough for my omfgdiarrheadps to kill you. 3) After you cloak, move somewhere it’s as simple as that, just drive in a random direction. 4) Don’t engage people without a warp disruptor (cynabal), what do you expect to do? 5) Don’t engage targets that are very likely out of your class with no escape plan. 350M faction cruiser versus my 60M hurricane… bring it on. 6) Don’t engage people without a warp disruptor (drake), what do you expect to do? 7) Don’t active tank a drake.

I’m no pvp champ, but I think that’s all pretty good advice.

And then there were four

In four days I have managed to fall behind with 8 kills to post. Amazingly enough they are all great stories too, so here goes.

We had a hole probed close to home and 4 of us on when I stumbled across a hole with a few Dominix on and a Loki. We fleeted up into BCs and BSs and prepared to engage at the time two Dominix and a Loki. We warped in on them, but by sheer coincidence they warped off a the same time and we all scrambled to get back through the wormhole and off scan. In the confusion, Kiritsubo warped to 0 on planet one because he didn’t have the exit hole. I happened to warp to 100 to check the inner planets and one very unfortunate cloaked prober was already sitting at 0. Kiritsubo uncloaked the frig as he came out of warp and made short work of him. He warped off to the exit and I looted and salvaged the frig. In the meanwhile the dominix had grown to 4 and with the loki were running a magnetometric site. The domis were all remote repping about 60km from the site center while the loki looted the boxes clustered in the center about 50km from the domis. It was the perfect time to pounce and we all warped right on top of the loki. The domis could do nothing but watch the loki be cut to pieces, which was the best part. They completely conceded the loss and in fact never even stopped running the site, concluding that we would likely not engage four RR domis, they were right.

Finally a tech 3 kill that was a bit of a challenge. From my previous posts you know that I love killing ships while others stand watch or know I’m around. I don’t think these guys knew we were around, its pretty cocky to keep out like that knowing there is someone snooping around. It surprises me that 5 pilots never noticed us come into the system, combat probe them, botch a warp in attempt, warp to the inners uncloaked, kill loot and salvage a ship, and then exit. Regardless, It was a great kill.

Then we killed a mining cruiser… boring.

It's the ghost of Abraham Lincoln

It is not often that you come across a carrier in a c3 wormhole, it is even less often that you come across a nightmare. Finding both together was a real treat. I had a bunch of corpmates out patrolling with me when we came across a chimera and a nightmare. They had quite the operation going, running the whole system in about an hour. I assume the guy was dual boxing, running the carrier as a remote repper and fighter launcher and the nightmare as a dps platform. We had managed to sneak 4 guys in under the radar and each time he finished a site we were working into position to catch the nightmare if the carrier jumped first, but the pilot was very disciplined warping the nightmare first. To make a long watching story short, he finished 3-4 sites and then came back in two destroyers to loot the sites. Having already bookmarked good warp-in sites for the sites, we quickly deployed to the sites and popped both the destroyers simultaneously. A small convo erupted.

Logit Probit > great job
Kiritsubo > i learned the truth at seventeen
Kiritsubo > that love was just for beauty queens
Genocide Forge > nice carrier
Genocide Forge > you are slick with how you warp, we were gonna have you if you warped the carrier first
Logit Probit > ok
Genocide Forge > fly safe ltr

No philosophy today, just a good story.

Lost in a floyd hole

Although I typically prefer to stay in class 1-3 holes I typically “dead-end” holes. Dead-ending a hole means I probe out every system I come across until I have completely mapped that little wormspace pocket. The process is surprisingly quick, often an hour of probing will set me up with 2-5 systems that I can roam around and terrorize. Class 1-3 systems are typically occupied making the exit holes very easy to find because the occupants usually keep the sites cleared out. The high occupancy rate makes each system a possible source of kills. Class 4-6 however have a drastically reduced occupancy rate making them not only harder to navigate but less likely of coming across active players. The flip side of this argument though is that generally small corps occupy class 1-3 which are often inactive most of the day and never really have much that is worth any large amount of money. I kill more in them, but typically make only a few million each kill. Class 4-6 on the other hand is sparsely populated, but when you do find an occupied system it is often very active with a lot of players all going about their business. They also don’t see a lot of travelers that deep in wormhole space and are generally less cautious. In fact once a wormhole hits a certain occupancy rate it becomes very hard to tell if you have an intruder around. Scans become an infinite wall of hits, and trying to pick out who doesn’t belong can be very hard. Most importantly for me class 4-6 systems are where the real money is. The corps are nice enough to have 5-20 people on clearing sites for me and then packaging it all up in a destroyer.

I happened across a class 6 (I think it was a 6) that had at least 20 pilots on running sites in their command ships and tech IIIs. I noticed a few salvage destroyers out looting the sites the groups were finishing. I managed to combat probe one and sneak in undetected. I quickly killed and looted him and slipped off before the hive got too stirred up. He had a decent haul which will pay for the next bomber I afk through low sec. Miraculously enough not a single pilot broke radio silence and I slipped out relatively easily.

On a side note CCP has reported that planetary interaction will be possible in wormholes. I’m excited about anything that brings more players into wormholes. Especially things that cannot be done under the shields of a POS. That being said I do have a concern for the buildup of “tower trash” and the inability to destroy a tower in the low class wormholes. I know it is feasible, but the practicality of even trying to sustain a wormhole fight over a day or two are horrifically lopsided to the defender. I’m glad they are giving holies more things to do in holes, but I’m concerned about the safety cushion having a tower in a system allows. I guess since there is relatively small amounts of isk to be made via class 1-3 its not really all that important.

It may never come to reality, but RS may be bringing the fight to a class 1-3 tower, we need to decide if the logistics of it will fit with our RL timetables.

The dreaded Candiru

I read the EVE forums pretty regularly and am always amused by the posts about the death/rebirth/lack/bounty of solo pvp in EVE. As a (mostly) solo pvp’r I feel the need to weigh in.

Firstly, most people who claim there is little to no solo pvp in EVE don’t count ganking as true pvp. I’d like to clear a few things up, first of all, although the kills I make are typically straight up, cold hearted, remorseless ganks. I sneak up on helpless miners, haulers or looters, uncloak and annihilate them. That does not mean that I am not pvping. The simple act of flying my high value bomber, which is effectively uninsurable, into a wormhole is a dangerous art form. I’ve jumped into bubbles, campers and am rarely met with open arms. Once I am there, I must locate and sneak up on my targets undetected, which often requires very advanced, personally developed, tactics. Only then do I get to uncloak and gank the guy. After ganking the guy, I need to loot the wreck unable to cloak for a time period and then exit safely as his corp mobilizes. There is so much more that goes into my kills than just F1-F4. There is just as much skill in what I do as solo frig or cruiser encounters in low/hi sec. What people often fail to recognize is that EVE provides long term pvp, instead of instant gratification. PVP in EVE counts so much more than you’re the bad guy… I’m gonna get you bad guy. Everything goes into it, your wallets, your experience, your political stances, your friends, the location, and finally and almost least important your ship and fit. That’s EVE love it or leave it.

Secondly, I’m sick of people who idealize honorable PVP, and slam gankers, scammers, ninja looters, and pirates. Most of these people grind missions, manufactur, mine, trade or some other activity to make money. Well some of us don’t enjoy any of that (although I’m starting to like manufacturing) and have found ways to actually enjoy the way we make isk. Of course we appreciate and depend on those of you who grind your isk, so we can operate our “businesses”. Let me preface my next statement by saying I hate pvp in virtually all MMOs. That being said, EVE is a pvp game through and through, no matter what you are doing, you are pvping. Everything is competition, nothing comes for free. Missions used to be solo content, but thankfully ninja looters have filled the void. Also remember that what many of us do is actually profitable for us, so that we don’t have to grind for enough money for honorable pvp. EVE’s pvp takes place over a longer time scale, who can get to where they want to be or how they want to play first and then who has the most fun. Of course if that’s true, I’ve already won.

This is a blog about cold blooded kills though, and I have a great one for you, It’s even against not one, but three combat ships. I scouted out three ships running an anomaly, a Raven, a Harbringer, and a Drake. With my interest peaked I info’d the pilot and discovered that the two BC pilots had only about a month of training time and the Raven had about 1.5 years. Liking my odds against such inexperienced pilots I jumped out and got in my ‘phoon. I warped to zero on the Raven and opened up. The Harbringer actually targeted me back before warping off and the drake simply ran. The Raven didn’t even fight back, it’s like I wrote the script for that battle before it ever started. I warped out and later crossed path with a stabber. Scared of engaging such a fast ship in my bomber I returned to my now trusty ‘phoon, combat probed him and warped to about 5km on him. He put up a meager defensive, but quickly popped. Then I saw his fit… WTF? Who leaves ALL your lows empty?