My first loss was my first in my Taranis. While hunting WT’s for a while, we pinned some down at a station. Keeping our main fleet a few jumps out, our scout got them to engage outside the station. We jumped into the system, and I warped to 0 to the target. Unfortunately, when I came out of warp, I was right on top of the station, with little room to maneuver. I pointed the Hurricane that was primaried, and attempted to get my orbit going. Being the relative PVP noob that I am, I accidentally turned on my mwd instead of my afterburner. I then forgot about it, and started firing my guns at the ‘cane. Within a couple seconds, I started taking fire from another WT that unlocked in a Myrmidon. He also launched Warrior II’s, which started taking me down quick. I was scrambled, and failed to remember to switch on my afterburner. Realizing I was screwed, I attempted to burn away from the fight, but it was too late. My Taranis went down in a ball of flame and shrapnel. Luckily I got my pod out. I felt like an idiot for dying, but took some solace in the fact that our other Taranis went down as well.

My next loss took place a couple days later. With a WT roam going on in Amarr space, I hopped in my Ferox, and started making my way towards the fleet. As I’m making my way through the two lone lowsec systems laying between me and the fleet, I land on a gate with a sensor boosted Tempest waiting there. I jump through, and watch as the Tempest follows. Knowing that trouble is coming, I hold gate cloak, and start planning. The Tempest uncloaks, and starts taking gate fire. Picking the celestial closest to the bow of my ship, I waited until a neutral drops onto the gate or jumps through. While I’m waiting, an Astarte shows up, a friend of the Tempest. I begin worrying. Finally, another ship landed on gate, something that I was hoping would be a tastier target than my Ferox. I took the opportunity to align and attempt to GTFO. No luck there. I was targeted and pointed within seconds. I then align back to the gate, and hope that I can make it in time. As my Ferox starts to slowly make it’s way back to the gate. Realizing that escape was impossible at this point, I began firing at the Tempest, hoping that maybe I’d get some good shots in and take the Tempest out. No luck there, either. My Ferox explodes, and I again manage to get my pod out. I begin making my way back home, grumbling to myself.

After these losses, I was frustrated to say the least. While I am making strides in learning the finer points of PVP, these losses reminded me of my own mortality. Semper Liber has been doing an awesome job since joining R.E.P.O. and I think that I may have begun feeling invincible. I hadn’t had a loss since my Merlin was taken out while providing cover for a corp mate to GTFO.

This, coupled with some issues in my personal life, have made me steer away from EVE for a couple days, playing games with an easier to reach “I win!” button, just to stroke the ol’ video game ego. I plan on returning this weekend, in time for some more fleet action with one of our various new WT’s. We were recently dec’d by both The 0rphanage, as well as Snatch Victory, long time rivals to R.E.P.O. This should prove interesting.

Not more than 2 hours ago, I made my first successful solo kill. Prepare for story time, my friends.

Today, I got home from work and logged on. R.E.P.O. recently got some new war targets in the form of the Umbrella Chemical Inc alliance. When I got logged on, I joined up with the fleet that was out hunting them, jumped into my Manticore, and started making my way to them. While I was on my way, I stumbled across a lone WT a couple jumps from Jita. Noting this, I move an alt into the system, and park myself at a safe in the neighboring system. After a little bit, the pilot logged. I stepped away from my computer for a bit to hang out with a friend that dropped by. Afterwards, I got back on, and my alt discovered that the pilot was back on, and MINING in an Osprey! I pin down his location, then jump my main back into the system, and immediately warp to the belt at range.

As I landed on grid, my heart was pounding, and my hands were shaky and sweaty. Then I get decloaked by an asteroid. Crap! I wait for the cycle to finish, then reengage the cloak, keeping an eye on his velocity on my overview, as well as on local. Nothing so far, mining lasers still chewing away at an asteroid. I continue into point range, decloak, set my point and target painter, and begin unloading torpedoes at him. It took 4 volleys, and what felt like 5 minutes for him to pop. I attempt to lock his pod, but he manages to get out before I can get him targeted.

My adrenaline still pumping, I let out a shout in triumph, scooped the loot, and warped off. The pilot then convos me, and commends me on the kill, and blames the new Futurama episodes that were airing at the time.

I’ve been spending more time roaming through my usual pipe with my stealth bomber, but targets have been scarce recently. I have been searching lowsec for unwitting haulers and industrials, but everyone I run across either scrambles to a safe spot or POS, or docks up. I think I’m spending too much time in places that are known combat regions. Guess it’s time to either break out the alt, or find new hunting grounds somewhere a little less hostile.

Speaking of PI, I have two planets currently set up, extracting and processing as we speak. Coolant, oxygen, and enriched uranium are being pumped out of my processors. After this weekend, I’ll set up another planet or two, and see if I can figure out what my potential profit so far will be.

I’m going to be gone for the weekend, or else I’d probably have another post before the weekend was out. My little brother is getting married tomorrow, so I get to go play best man for a day, and see some family I have’t seen in a while.

Fly safe this weekend, and good luck to everyone in the Alliance Tournament!

After a minute, we see a notice that another flashy red has entered the system. Lo and behold, he’s the friend of the Drake! Our scouts from earlier knows that the new pilot’s in a Tempest. Not believing our luck, we prepare for him to decloak at the gate. Once he pops up on the overview, we all lock, I decloack and target paint him, and start lobbing torpedoes. He doesn’t last long. As I recloak and change positions, the fleet begins looting the wreck, and discover some 800mm Heavy “Scout” arties, which quickly get scooped up. Our voice comms were filled with laughter for the next couple of minutes as we went over what just happened. That Tempest checked in at almost 160mil ISK, and the Drake was about 47mil ISK, and we barely had to do anything. We couldn’t believe that the Drake would jump through without realizing Piekura was highsec, and even more surprised when his friend in the Tempest followed!

Heading back to Mara, we begin looking for targets. Alex Carmel managed to scan down a Caldari Navy Hookbill, and with that kind of shiny on the field, we pounced. Unfortunately, as this was happening, I was girlfriend scrambled trying to decide on dinner, and missed out on the kill. Oh well. Missed out on a faction frigate, but gained delicious burritos in return. I think that worked out well in the end.

On a side note, I’ve purchased the first command centers I need for my planned PI project. I’m going to focus on POS Fuels, as they seem to be a relatively simple end product to make, and should always be in demand. I really need to spend some more time fiddling around with my PI setup on SISI to make sure I’ve got everything figured out more, but with my new love for lowsec PVP, I’ve been a little distracted.

First off, I located a lone Cormorant ratting in a belt. Got myself in range, called in Unreal with his Curse, and pop went Jarowit, CEO of C.E.T.C, who are apparently here for sex AND violence according to their Corp description.

Next, while roaming near Mara, Alex Carmel engaged a Hawk, hoping to hold it until we could arrive. Unfortunately, we were a little late in getting there, and a Maller showed up, and started engaging Alex as well. Alex ended up popping, and the Hawk bugged out. The Maller stuck around, and then had to deal with Alex’s backup. He didn’t last long. We were all quite surprised to discover 7 Medium Trimarks in his cargo hold, all of which dropped.

Earlier in Tama, Alex got probed out, and lost a Tristan. After roaming around a bit, we returned to Tama, where the pilot that killed just happened to jump back into system with Alex. Knowing he saw him, Alex warped to his old wreck, and waited in his Vexor. We all waited patiently, hoping that the pilot would check back at the wreck. Soon, probes showed up on d-scan, and in he drops with a Harbinger. We warp in, the Curse neuts him to death, and then we melt him.

At this point, I think we were talking about maybe calling it quits. Personally, I was doubting my luck in keeping alive would hold out much longer. Then a Drake pops up on scan. We can’t pass this up. I find him ratting in a belt, call in the other guys, and we begin raining fire down on him. He dies pretty quickly.

This next one was hilarious. We find a Caracal sitting about 250km off this belt not moving at all. With some quick positioning by Raiden Kaine in his Purifier, Unreal dropped in on him at near perfect range, tackles him, and starts draining his cap. I was unfortunately out of range, and he died before I could get my torpedoes to him. As he warps off, he leaves this gem in local:

[00:18:51] Aromenoslow > good kill pussy i was slipping , i will be in my drake next time.

We all had a good chuckle at his fit, as well. Evidently he was worried about his cap.

After this, I call it quits. A great first run for my stealth bomber, and my killboard stats have never looked better. I’m looking forward to refining my fit, and possibly attempting some solo work with it once I get more comfortable with it. Roams like today’s reaffirms my decision to stick around with this group of pilots. Every time we have a roam, I have a good time, gain a little more confidence, and learn something new. We have fun, fly smart, take losses well when they happen, and blow things up pretty darned well, if I do say so myself. I look forward to where we will go in the future.

I recently picked up a copy of both of the EVE novels. As a sci-fi novel junkie (primarily Star Wars), I decided that I should give another franchise a chance. Usually with sci-fi, I grow bored quickly, because, well, it’s not Star Wars. I have started reading The Empyrean Age a couple of days ago, an I’m happy to report that I have not given up on it yet. Having the book placed in a universe that I’m fairly knowledgeable about is definitely helping keep my interest. So far, the book has been decent, however I have heard unfavorable reviews of this one, and an overall better view of the second novel, The Burning Life. I’m enjoying reading about Tibus Heth, though. As a Caldari character, it’s nice to get some further backstory towards his rise to power as a champion of the working class Caldari.

Our recruitment drive has been going well. We have a new recruit, whom I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, but we are still looking for more PVP pilots! Check out my previous post about recruitment for more info!

If you’re interested in joining up, check out our post, drop by our public channel at SEMPER PUB, and you can contact either Raiden Kaine or Unreal in game as well.

I’m excited for this new endeavor. It will be a new career choice for me, and should be fairly profitable as well. We plan on opening recruitment soon to help fill in some of the gaps we have as far as skills and abilities. Having new blood in our ranks will help us appear to be tougher, as well. Hell, Division of Caldari Expansion thought we were just a couple dudes and their alts. They also thought our CEO was 3 months old, so maybe they’re a bad example. The point is that we are still a rather small Corp, with less than 20 members, and not that scary looking on paper.

So, if you have a job that needs handling, be it counter-dec’s, spying, scouting, clearing out macro miners, bodyguard, asset protection/denial, or even an assasination, feel free to get in touch with us in-game!

On a Tyrannis related note, I trained the first few levels of Remote Sensing and the Command Center skills, and did some preliminary scanning and scouting of planets. I have no idea what I will end up deciding on for goods to produce, but Semper Liber plans on doing some PI work, so I’ll probably just take a queue from on of our logistical guys who have a better head for industry than I. Getting some passive income flowing is always a good thing.

This he apparently did not find humorus, so he hired Yojimbo to dec us. This lasted about 2 days before it was retracted. This was probably partially caused by Unreal taking several of them in his Proteus, which has an incredible tank. I guess having a tough ass T3 on your side helps scare away the wannabe mercenaries.

So with that out of the way, we’ve been going on roams to Tama for some pew pew. I haven’t spent much time in Tama, but it seems like people are there mainly for one reason: PVP. I decided to take a chance, and take out my Taranis down there this Saturday for some action. Joining me was Mykael Skychild, Raiden Kane, and the cunning talented handsome modest Buck Flintrock. We spent some time scanning down targets, played cat and mouse with a couple of pilots who got wise to us, avoided Faction Warfare blobs, and got a couple kills in. What we could engage and what we could actually get to fight was kinda slim, but I managed to score my first kill in my Taranis. Unfortunately, real-life prevented me from spending too much time in Tama that day, and when I returned the next day, there was even more blobs and less viable targets.

I’m currently training Propulsion Jamming 5, which has about a little over a week to go until completion. After this, I’ll probably train a level in Medium Blasters to work towards T2 blasters for my cruisers and the like, then continue down the path towards HIC’s. Until then, I’ll be flying my Taranis until it goes down in a ball of fire, then I’ll take my new Manticore out to put it through its paces. Haven’t done much stealth bomber work, but with the wolf packs we’ve been running, I figured it would come in handy.