Helicity

LADIES AND GENTLETHINGS MY BLOG HAS MOVED

2009-10-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hello dear readers! My blog has MOVED TO A NEW LOCATION

please update your bookmarks, links and RSS feeds accordingly!!

http://helicity.machine9.net//

Violently Happy

2009-10-24T04:24:00.000-07:00

So today, after insomnia struck again, I decided to try something new.

Well, not new but new for me.

The Artillery Thrasher.

The Arty thrasher is a wonderful and interesting beast to fly, it's a medium ranged fighter with a fabulous

capacity for annihilating frigate sized vessels with startling efficiency.

It's fast, it makes loud boom noises, and it has all the tank of a wet paper napkin. It's what we call a manly ship in python.

The first one I tried utterly destroyed an unsuspecting merlin within minutes of it's maiden launch. Sadly the joy was short lived as I was in a very wrong place at precisely the wrong moment when a blob landed on my friends ganking a vagabond that had stupidly landed at zero in an asteroid belt. While the vagabond did indeed get it's behind handed to it, A zealot had landed precisely on my own buttocks and was not very gentle with my untanked Thrasher... not gentle at all.

A short GCC later, and a small interlude involving a brutix, I hopped in Thrasher number two and headed off to amamake, where I made a few new friends.

At this point I considered The Thrasher "paid for" and got more bold, I engaged a crow and then a rifter in the top belt of amamake, but had to escape when a second crow landed.

Having initially made good my escape, I made a mistake. I had thought these were just three random pilots out for kills, so I made a bit of distance from my landing spot in planetary orbit, expecting one, perhaps two of the ships to follow me there.

Of course as every good pirate should know, when you suspect something might be a gang/blob, it's best to act as if it is one, to be on the safe side.

Since I didn't do that, I was swiftly overwhelmed by a flock of small and annoyingly speedy interceptors and frigates, ending the short-lived but glorious career of "Balls of Tritanium II"

I immediately ordered two more.

Looking at the numbers of these events:

-2x T2 rigged thrasher: 28 million isk
-flying around amamake hunting: 45 minutes

-5 kills in 30 minutes with loud rumbling artillery fire: PRICELESS.

If you've never flown an artillery Thrasher before, go get one, actually get a couple. You will not be disappointed.

The fit I used (swap for a T2 warp disruptor if you have room to fit that)

[Thrasher, Arty]

Gyrostabilizer II

Damage Control II

Faint Warp Disruptor I

Phased Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters

X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

[empty high slot]

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

Unexpectedly productive day.

2009-10-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

So, after sprucing up python's killboard header I figured I was due for a nice new signature image for the forums.

Being a total attention whore, I showed it off around the usual misfits I hang out with, and promptly several of them demanded their own signatures.

...So I didnt undock all afternoon and made these:

(you can't tell here, but they all have delightful drop shadows and such, you can see em on the EVE-O forums in action here)

If you need some graphics work done, contact me via evemail, I have reasonable ISK fees!

Why we didn't keep griznatle and the bastards declined his Application.

2009-10-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Just after blowing up Griznatle and his friend, and losing two members to the blob that landed after in amamake...

Helicity Boson > gf :D

Switch 4 > gf

Griznatle > gf

Griznatle > nice to see spec outside and pewpewing

Spectre3353 > i think you still have me on ignore griz

Switch 4 > he does

Helicity Boson > lol

Helicity Boson > griz no point talking to spec if you have him on ignore

kelisin > Spectre3353 > i think you still have me on ignore griz

Ahrieman > gf

kelisin > relaying message :P

Zion Zan'threxian > grizie

Zion Zan'threxian > yay

Griznatle > cause he hasnt apologized to me yet for kicking me without giving me any fair chance to change

Griznatle > he treated me like i was pixels

Griznatle > not like a person behind the screen

Helicity Boson > but griz, you fit much better in heretics tbh

Griznatle > but im a person

Griznatle > paying 15 dollars

Griznatle > just like him

Griznatle > and he treated me like crap

Helicity Boson > you also throw around abuse about jews every 5 minutes

Helicity Boson > when your CEO is jewish

Griznatle > LOL

Griznatle > that was 1 day

Helicity Boson > = not too smart

Helicity Boson > that was every day

Helicity Boson > you do it so much you dont even notice xD

Griznatle > w/e, he still owes me an apology

Griznatle > im a person too

Griznatle > and he just shoves the door on me

Helicity Boson > I... dont think so

Griznatle > not cool

Helicity Boson > your moms not cool

kelisin > :O

Helicity Boson > ;)

Griznatle > you dont know my mom, for 1

Griznatle > and your not showing a good example for the csm corp

Omgah > i do though

Zion Zan'threxian > oh dude you mom give the best head

Griznatle > fuck you

Helicity Boson > spec's running for CSM

Griznatle > and btw

Helicity Boson > im not

Griznatle > JEWS

kelisin > careful griz is a pirate irl !

Griznatle > JEWJEWJEWJEJWEJWEJEW

Helicity Boson > I only run for the bathroom

Zion Zan'threxian > aw don't cry dude it was one time

Helicity Boson > i think griz hs neatly demonstrated why we didn't keep him just now

Darth Oxx > damn we were close to havin you lol lucky your buddys came and helped out

Switch 4 > aww

Zion Zan'threxian > stop in sulting my religion

Griznatle > and i think you have demonstrated why your a jew

Helicity Boson > im catholic

Griznatle > blocked btw

Helicity Boson > take your meds dude

Helicity Boson > really

Zion Zan'threxian > blocked

Griznatle > so keep failing

Zion Zan'threxian > your blocked

Griznatle > i get tired of your bullshit

Helicity Boson > i have no problems with you when you take your meds

Helicity Boson > but when you're off em, jesus christ

kelisin > dude if everyone that flew in this system took their meds it would be boring as fuck

Griznatle > your no better than ken plante

Helicity Boson > Griz is kinda pathetic

Griznatle > cept he had honor

Helicity Boson > he blocks people and then continues whining

Helicity Boson > so he can pretend he's right

Griznatle > anyway

Helicity Boson > what a tosser lol

Griznatle > im out like a jew

Griznatle > a gay jew

And this is why Griznatle should take his medicine, because when he does, he's a pretty cool guy. When he doesn't, he's got tourettes and sees things.

Yeah, I went there.

BTW griz, the bastards would never fly with someone that behaves like this, you can pretty much forget it.

HULKAGEDDON 2009

2009-10-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

Press reports have come in all across New Eden of unprovoked suicide attacks on mining fleets in 11 separate regions. Initial Concord reports on the situation did not indicate that the attacks were part of larger terrorist effort to sabotage the ship building industry, but as the number of attacks grew over the weekend it became apparent that the attacks we indeed all linked and guided by some malefic intelligence.
The reasons behind the attacks are still unclear to the authorities, as none of the perpetrators were apprehended. The only clues lie in the garbled and incoherent radio chatter some of the terrorists broadcast during their attacks, which military experts have linked to a smaller outbreak of attacks in the Sinq Laison region earlier this month, suggesting the attacks may have been directed by an outlaw faction known to reside near the Stion constellation. In other news today...

Helicity grinned and turned off the newscast as she focused on a string of encrypted data on her console. Over a hundred confirmed kills, ships and escape capsules alike over 10 billion worth of damages. This was power. This was influence. A capsuleer did not need a Battleship to do damage to the universe, only his or her indomitable will, and the friendship of likeminded pilots.

"Some of us only desire to watch the Galaxy burn" she thought as she pinned a printout of the report on the wall of her cabin, next to some strategic maps.

"And burn it will."

---

So it's been pretty quiet the past week on the blog huh? Well now you know why, I spent the past two weeks or so frantically evemailing, chatting, and generally hassling people to get a little mini event going for the more violent low-sec dwellers I know.

And to their credit over the weekend they destroyed 66 Exhumers, 22 mining barges and 27 pods.

A damage total of: 10,868,124,930 ISK (hulkageddon killboard)

I had a great time organizing hulkageddon 2009 and I would like to thank all those that participated in this hilarious event, and for those who couldn't make it, see you next hulkageddon for your second chance ;)

The roll of honor:

Corporation rankings:

1: The Python Cartel. [132]
2: I.M.M [107]
3: The Bastards [86]
4: The Tuskers [76]
5: Dirty Filthy Pervert... [41]
6: Space Jerks [28]
7: SandStorm. [26]
8: The Scope [19]
9: Bambooule [12]
10: Garoun Investment Ba... [9]
11: Sebiestor tribe [7]
12: Quantar Swords [7]
13: Lyonesse. [5]
14: Mourning Air [5]
15: Perkone [4]
16: Science and Trade In... [4]
17: The Carebear Stare [2]
18: Enigma Tek [2]

Thank you all for participating!

A special shoutout to the hellcats, without your public channel I would not have met all these wonderful people and been able to organise this event.

What terrible schemes will I come up with next? Time will tell... and you will know.

-Helicity

if you were part of hulkageddon and want to give it some more attention to make it easier to organise larger events for me, consider sticking this tiny image in your signatures and linking it to http://hulkageddon.wordpress.com/

Contest reminder! Deadline this friday!

2009-09-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Just a reminder, the contest I started in the previous post will end this friday!
There's only 5 entries so far and a wonderful prize to be won! (hint the prize starts with the letters FAC...)

So post your entry before it's too late!

Pop quiz time readers!

2009-09-17T04:25:00.000-07:00

Yes! SURPRISE! This time it will essentially be you writing my blog entry, as you answer this important question:

Imagine you were the dev charged with redesigning the piracy element of EVE from scratch, what sort of feature(s) would you add to make it so that people can actually pirate, rather than just be violent sociopaths?

The best, most imaginitive answer to this question will be featured for discussion in the next blog, and get a little prize (To be collected in Jita, and no, I'm not telling you what the prize is yet, it's a secret).

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

this is a picture of an arbitrator on fire, and has nothing to do with anything

I have a dream!

2009-09-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

(this is a replication of my EVE-O forum post to the CSMs, feel free to support it if you like it here)

last night, I had a wonderful EVE dream, and I brought it up in the hellcats channel, where it was suggested that I post it here.

In my dream the faction warfare had sucked the empires' resources, all the furthest systems had fallen to lowsec status, making it very hard to find a high-sec route into another empire's space. Most routes required at least 1 system of lowsec to be traversed.

Former low-sec was now called "fallen empire" and was unconquerable 0.0 space, given over to pirates and other lowlifes.

There were missions there too, some of them for pirate factions, or local warlords, some of them for the navy of the empire that used to own the system.

Most stations were in the hands of local power-mongers with little care for any empire, you could pay money and modules and minerals to the station owners to get access to the services of their station.

If you paid them enough cash, or otherwise gained their favor (by for example, accepting a bounty-hunt mission from them) The station's guns would no longer fire on you, as they were your buddies.

There were also random navy npc spawns, little fleets with interceptors, covert ops and battleships, representing the empires' attempts to get their space back in check. They would hunt pirate players, sometimes chasing them through several systems until the pirate managed to lose them.

Should you marshal a pirate fleet and kill them, they sometimes would drop navy faction modules (which makes sense, doesn't it?)

So there you go, that was my wonderful dream last night.

Then I woke up, logged in, and was promptly shot at by gateguns >_<

Paydirt at last.

2009-09-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

So there we were, happily camping the Jel gate when a sneaky covert ops accidentally uncloaked in our safespot, meaning the safespot was now compromised.

Taking immediate action, I docked my harbinger and switch it for my super fast interceptor to go out and make a new safespot for us to lurk in.
Being compulsively paranoid, I hit the scan button as soon as I undocked... and there I saw something that was not usual.

A navy issue megathron, with it's owner's name still embedded in it's beacon...a fresh pilot then.

I couldn't believe my eyes, I made way to make the new safespot as planned while Gamble narrowed down the megathron's position and confirmed he was fighting some 'rats.

It didn't take long before we were all in our mission-busting ships and spectre was launching scanprobes to get us a warp-in on the victim.

Things got tense as we saw a rival pirate was near him, we made haste to catch up, we wouldn't be deprived of this kill!!

As we finally reached the victim, the rival pirate had already turned tail and ran, but the megathron was very far away, taking pot-shots at Spectre's Arazu recon, the Megathron then sped away into warp, disappointment was heard on our comms, but we followed the mega's direction to a station in system... where he didn't dock but continued fighting us.

It was ON.

Heavier ships were brought, damage was done and then spectre's voice piped up over the comms.

"HE'S EJECTED STOP SHOOTING! STOP SHOOTING!"

With uncharacteristic restraint we managed NOT to kill the now pilotless ship and spectre's tiny pod slowly made it's way to the lifeless vessel.

There was some concern about the ship being destroyed before we could dock it, but it made it there in the end.

"WE HAVE FACTION FITTINGS! ALL FACTION!"

Sweeeeet....

Estimated value: 1.75 billion isk.

Megathron Navy Issue

[lows]
True Sansha Capacitor Power Relay
Gallente Navy Armor Kinetic Hardener
Gallente Navy Armor Kinetic Hardener
Gallente Navy Armor Explosive Hardener
Gallente Navy Armor Explosive Hardener
Gallente Navy Armor Thermic Hardener
Gallente Navy Armor Thermic Hardener
Amarr Navy Large Armor Repairer

[mids]
'Palisade' Cap Recharger I
'Palisade' Cap Recharger I
'Palisade' Cap Recharger I
Drone Link Augmentor I
Republic Fleet 100MN Afterburner

[highs]
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun
Gallente Navy 425mm Railgun

[rigs]
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

I think we're going to Hell...

2009-09-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

*the scene is set as gamble tuck, pirate and scholar invites a new player in Egghelende to join our fleet*

Sooo, we invite this noob to our fleet in order to warp to him and murder him.

Andrea Skye > hey
Gamble Tuck > whats up
w0rl0k BRA > ae hi all
w0rl0k BRA > i fine
Gamble Tuck > what you up to
w0rl0k BRA > i in the mission
Gamble Tuck > mission?
Gamble Tuck > cool me too
Andrea Skye > what mission is it
w0rl0k BRA > kill pirat
w0rl0k BRA > fuck u!!
Andrea Skye > what
Andrea Skye > did pirat kill u?
w0rl0k BRA > why u kill me?????????????/
Helicity Boson > EVE2: piwates strike back!
Gamble Tuck > we had to help the pirats
w0rl0k BRA > fuckoff
Andrea Skye > in solviet russia, pirat kill u
w0rl0k BRA > u kill my u such
TwiceDAsiZe > lol

I kinda feel bad now.... but also good.

CONFLICTING EMOTIONS ARE BAD MKAY

The Jel-Gate massacre

2009-09-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

They say a picture says more than a thousand words... after all these hours, this endless rush of fire and death, it's probably best to let a picture do the talking...

Suffice it to say, fullsize this image... really.... Do it now.

For the TL;DR crowd: We enacted a bloody massacre today, it just would not stop. Things kept leaping into the open arms of fiery death.

128 kills / 0 losses

3,850,788,016 ISK / 0 ISK
153.87 points / 0 points

Some highlights included:

-The T1 fitted T3 cruiser from the previous post.
-Two battleships that knew we were camping but jumped in anyways *
*note: we sold back that Navy EANM to yiffles for the second time now
-Not one, but two transports... shame the 1800+ DATACORES in the first one were destroyed. (fortunately we did get piles of isotopes)
-A very foolish Ishtar
-Three different covert ops pilots, who were unable to cloak, due to the piles of dead people and wrecks left by our very own unholy rage.

We finally packed things in when a very angry blob of russians came to inquire after some missing isotopes, by this point we were all so exhausted we could not see straight, my own ammo stores were completely depleted (I just noticed I literally had two shells per gun left).

Today, today was a good day to be a pirate.

We interrupt your normal programming...

2009-09-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

....for this important announcement.

Do not, under any circumstances:

-Fly a T1 fit proteus
-Go AFK in a mission
-In a low sec system almost as red as rancer.

Especially not all of the above at the same time, or the following will happen:

http://pcmk2.griefwatch.net/index.php?p=details&kill=5424

Remember boys and girls, ISK buying makes you stupid!

2009.09.05 02:20:00

Victim: Thrathius
Corp: Flashpoint.
Alliance: Landlord.
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Proteus
System: Egghelende
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 38328

Involved parties:

Name: Corelum Chief Patroller / Serpentis
Damage Done: 31203

Name: Siskin
Security: -9.9
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Arazu
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 2096

Name: Nemain Darru (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Myrmidon
Weapon: Hammerhead II
Damage Done: 2072

Name: Bfoster
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Huginn
Weapon: Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 2022

Name: Gamble Tuck
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 935

Name: Lachesis VII
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Curse
Weapon: Warp Disruptor II
Damage Done: 0

Name: Kazaji
Security: -9.9
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Myrmidon
Weapon: Focused Medium Pulse Laser I
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II, Qty: 2
Proteus Offensive - Drone Synthesis Projector
Cap Recharger II (Cargo)
Proteus Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Proteus Propulsion - Gravitational Capacitor
Cap Recharger II
Salvager I
Ogre I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)
Federation Navy Tungsten Charge M, Qty: 97
Faint Warp Disruptor I
Drone Link Augmentor I
Medium 'Accommodation' Vestment Reconstructer I
Combat Scanner Probe I, Qty: 10 (Cargo)
Proteus Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
250mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon
Heavy Armor Maintenance Bot I (Drone Bay)
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Proteus Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer

Dropped items:

Heavy Shield Maintenance Bot I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I, Qty: 2
Cap Recharger II (Cargo)
10MN Afterburner I
Federation Navy Tungsten Charge M, Qty: 4535 (Cargo)
Cap Recharger II
Ogre I (Drone Bay)
Medium 'Accommodation' Vestment Reconstructer I
Expanded Probe Launcher I (Cargo)
250mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 2
Heavy Armor Maintenance Bot I (Drone Bay)
Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 709 (Cargo)
Energized Basic Reactive Plating
Small Tractor Beam I

Dog days

2009-08-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

After what is now known as the "Faceplante" incident we have collectively moved into Egghelende, and boy do we like it here! After only a few days, the results have been remarkable.

I've been having fun on both my pilots, Helicity is probing around in her brand new Anathema, having already probed out a rival pirate's safe and several mission runners with it, I love this sleek little monster.

Meanwhile, Nemain is prowling about in a monster of her own, I am loving the megathron for our gatecamping activities. Granted, blasters with AM are not the world's greatest in the range department, but so far it's been sufficient to blow the living daylights out of anything after warping onto the gate, they are only very rarely not in her deadly range. (And I do mean deadly, tech II large blasters hurt as hell!)

There is some smack in local from Eternal Perseverence guys, who now find themselves unable to probe missioners as they used to, and are too outnumbered by our rabid packs of lemmings to do anything but the odd station game involving Carriers. They are, to all extents and purposes, beaten and starving. I suspect they will disintegrate or move along shortly.

It feels as if the corp has made a major leap in the last few months, as Helmet remarked, it seems like only yesterday that we were all roaming around Auro in poorly skilled and fitted cruisers. All of the sudden, we have become the scary blob of bigass battleships, HICs, interceptors and stealth bombers.

And the fun has only just begun! So here's a shoutout to the pythons, you guys are awesome fun to fly with, and our random TS banter and bullshit really makes me smile :)

Expect a more story-like blog soonish :)

The Kill

2009-08-21T20:01:00.001-07:00

After his unacceptable level of arrogance, and utterly rude behaviour towards out illustrious leader Spectre, it was decided python needed to teach Mr. Ken Plante of Egghelende a little lesson in manners.

A secretive plan was devised by our crafty brainy people to catch the perp in his brand new prototype Advanced Cruiser, so secretive that no one was even informed as to why we had large numbers of battleships moved into Gulmorogod...

...Even former python Nemain Darru flew in from the far reaches of the galaxy to bring a megathron to bear.

After some maneuvering an allied Raven engaged the local guristas as part of the trap, a cloaked Rapier-class of our fleet was cloaked off it's bow.

After two hours of waiting, Ken's associates appeared on the scanner, their scanprobes wheeling through the system in search of the Raven.

Un beknownst to mr. Plant, 9 Battleships and a pair of recons were holding on the gate one system over.

The proteus warped to the bait, and was surprised to find himself warp scrambled by his erstwhile prey!

and then... there was armageddon... the little ship stood no chance and disappeared almost without a trace in a furious inferno of missiles, torpedos, railgun blasts and burning lasers.

And with that, the kill was complete.

Singer of Rebellions

2009-07-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

For this week's painting challenge, Shae has me paint a Caldari pop star.

I ended up painting what must have been a military-operative-turned-morale-officer from some time period during the Gallente/Caldari War. Her name was Hinamori Kaito, and she livened the spirits of many pilots, capsuleer and regular alike.

Her she is (in both interlaced and non interlaced versions, at my friend's request)

Shae herself was sadly not able to participate this week, having urgent matters to attend to, but hopefully we will be able to see what she made of my "Gravelands" assignment next week!

Hope you enjoyed the show, don't forget to tip the artists ;)

Helicity out.

Soggy boots and Virtual Fencing

2009-07-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

As part of a little project to motivate ourselves into making more art, Shae Tiann and I have started a weekly speedpainting challenge, where we give eachother an assignment every week.

My first assignment was to draw a rural amarr shrine in a remote location.

I present to you a concept painting of the amarr shrine located on Shuman V in the constellation of Sosarir, a backwater bog of a planet, used in earlier times as source of rice farming by the empire.

For her part, I gave Shae the challenge to paint me some gallente indoor sports, she came up with what appears to be some kind of hedonistic virtual fencing, exactly the sort of thing I'd expect from the Gallente :)

Nice work shae! You owe me a new assignment btw ;)

Vacations are awesome

2009-06-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Helicity clutched her head as she tried in vain to navigate the CBD station in Gulmorogod, the massive headache induced by the long trip here and the large volumes of liquor consumed to celebrate the First Annual Python Extended Vacation did not help.

While the station was of the same make as her now familiar home, the mercantile club bureau in Aurohunen, the internal layout was radically different, resulting in a bit of an embarrasement as she bumped a local dignitary's shuttle off her "normal" parking spot with the sleek form of her Crusader.

The local comms had erupted with indignant cries and empty threats that were quickly silenced by pointing her laser turrets at the tiny form of the howling dignitary standing on the dock.

The new location was excellent, access to a decent enough market for supplies and just one jump away from the infamous pirate haven of Amamake.

Takings thus far had been quite generous, and it sure was a lot more fun to be able to fly her swift crusader without too much risk of running into a fleet of cruisers and battleships.

She'd even wandered into the protean depths of wormhole space and laid waste to a mining camp and their high-tech probing vessel, leaving the escape pods of the miners stranded a billion lightyears from home.

As she sat back in her leather chair (couldn't leave it behind) and ordered some new ship parts, she could already feel her headache subsiding... Life is good when on vacation.

Her order completed she turned her chair around, back to the fresh canvas and her paints... Shae Tiann had accepted her painting challenge, and she did not want to come up short!

(Stay tuned for next thursday, the deadline of issue 1 of the Helicity-Shae painting exercises!)

The Wheel In The Sky.

2009-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

"Get out, get out, GET OUT"

The crusader screached and jostled as it attained enough velocity to engage it's warp drive, red warnings flashed left and right and the ship jostled as massive waves of energy cascaded against the space warping effect of the faster than light drive.

"How did it get to this?"

The rear view camera drones displayed a hideous black and red nova, highlighted by a tiny white pinprick of light.

"See you at the clone vats spectre..."

The doomsday's massive effect quickly faded from view behind her.

"Sweet mother of god. Did the rest of you make it out?"

The other pythons checked in over the comms, giggling madly.

"Nice one guys"

The crusader was violently jerked out of the warp tunnel by an interdictor bubble on the exit gate.

"Oh F-"

She slammed down on the microwarpdrive controls, the accelleration felt like a ton of bricks on her chest as she careened through the gatecamp to reach the jump perimiter to leave the system again. Before she left this alliance's territory, there was one more thing she needed to do.

She flicked her attention to the comms and directed a short cleartext message to the Erebus pilot.

"That makes two times I tangle with an erebus and live to tell the tale..."

One born every minute.

2009-05-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

During our late night gatecamp in passari, a clever maelstrom pilot managed to deaggress and elude us by jumping through the gate... what follows is the local channel:

Vampiress > sorry to see u lads failing

Several minutes pass, and the maelstrom jumps back into the system, caught far from the gate and scrammed and webbed to death, we dismantled him...

Vampiress > `burned guns =d
Spectre3353 > very nice tank though
Helicity Boson > who was failing?
Vampiress > dont smack when u go 8vs1
Helicity Boson > don't jump back into camps you smacked
Helicity Boson > :)
Lovely Lily > lol
Vampiress > tbh if you wouldnt have warped 3 of you would be dead still doenset matter
Vampiress > Damage Taken: 102106
Andrea Skye > WAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Vampiress > beat that
Vampiress > anyway hf u're camp still fails =d o/
Helicity Boson > enjoy your pod flight
Helicity Boson > please come again.

So, apparently, smacking a gatecamp and then jumping straight into it again and dying is a clear sign that the camp is "failing"

Oh dear oh dear.

Bantering the blog.

2009-05-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I'm actually participating in a blog banter (shame on me for not joining such a great initiative sooner!).

This week, good old Crazy Kinux posited the following for us to discuss:

"What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe?"

Well now! That is indeed a fun question, I'm sure everyone has their own ideas for this one, but let me start with what I do not really care about: Ambulation.

Ambulation is certainly going to be fun and stuff, but it's not really going to do much to enhance the actual gameplay in my opinion (and I hope to god I do not have to walk places to access any services I can access at a click right now).

No, what this little (and very very biased) pirate wants, is new low-sec mechanics. Funnily enough the Infamous Mittani touched upon several ideas I've already considered in his recent blog entry on tentonhammer.

I want more reasons for people to go to low sec, and interesting an unique mechanics that exist -only- there.

I personally envisioned the following:

1) Special low-sec agents for carebears.

These special agents would belong to a sort of "anti-organised crime" unit of the local Navy. Their missions should take place exclusively in low sec, monetary rewards should be the same, or slightly better than a good quality L4 agent (preferably reducing bounties and rewards for empire L4s to adjust).

In addition to this, they should have their own loyalty point store with very nice rewards that are superior to navy rewards, and possibly more unique.

2) Local security bribes

It should become possible for well established local pirates to manipulate the gate/station guns in some way or form to make it more possible to fight on gates/stations in smaller vessels. The current form of station/gate defense doesn't really protect newbies anyways, and just encourages the use of ships BC and upwards, significantly reducing the variety of ships commonly used in low sec.

3) Improved bounty mechanics

It should be possible for players that use the new low sec agents to gain access to a special bounty office, this office could potentially do two things:

-offer missions to take down specific pirate players, or pirate player corporations and offer monetary reward for blowing up their ships

-just generally award a small monetary bonus for the destruction of pirate player ships based on a kind of formula like: [bounty = ship type value/200 * negative standing of the pilot]. Making pirate hunting profitable.

4) Pirate specific hardware/advantages

To make sure it does not turn into a shooting-pirates-in-a-barrel fest, the other side, us nasty pirates, will likewise be able to align with a local pirate group (or perhaps just a local "shotcaller" NPC) and receive some form of loyalty points based on anti-pirates destroyed, and loot shared with the local "crimelord" in the form of a corp tax set up for this purpose. These points should be used to purchase illegal unique modules that will get you shot for carrying them into highsec, or using them will greatly reduce standings with non-pirate factions (this to keep them in the hands of pirates).

Ideally these modules should be sneaky, dirty, underhanded things, triple strength scramblers with long ranges, anti-gategun ECM systems, or dare I say it, single use emergency beacons that will call in pirate NPCs belonging to your corp's pirate faction to mess people up. Large amounts of narcotics are also an idea. Or how about special pirate-issue ships? These could, as an example, be cruisers that are tougher and faster, but pack a little less punch, for fighting under gateguns. Or maybe battlecruiser-hulls with a reduction in CPU need for probe launchers, to act as an anchor point for a hunting pirate gang chasing down the new breed of organised low-sec missioners.

There's a lot of fun things you could do here, but care would have to be taken that the advantage of using these mechanics is only of use in low security.

Anything that will get traffic into low-sec will create interesting encounters.

Imagine a powerful group of missioners taking over a low-sec system for their missioning needs, fighting off the pirate preying on their supply line?

Oh the fun we'll all have!

edit: final thought, please nerf capitals in low-sec, they don't belong here with the current station and gun mechanics.

List of Participants

CrazyKinux’s Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a Little Game of SecWars?
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, That New Thing is so Shiny!!!
I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 - Return of the Top Gun
Once More from the Beginning, 8th EVE Blog Banter May 2009 Edition
A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
Helicity Boson, Bantering the Blog
Achernar, Unique Adventures
Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and Secondary Factions
The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What New Mechanic Should be Added to EVE?
Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog Banter 8: Mentorship
EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be Boarded!
The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
A Mule in EVE, Expanding EVE
Letrange’s EvE Blog, 8th Blog Banter
Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #8
The Nude Nerd, Blog Banter #8
Scop’s Log, Blog Banter #8: “We’re Caught in a Tractor Beam! It’s Pulling us in!”
Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #8: Charisma Tanking
Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #8: It’s Like Tetris for OCD People
Diary of a Pod Pilot, EVE blog banter #8: Killing in the Name of
Talk Unfraid, Physical Communications

A night out on the town.

2009-05-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

Helicity groaned and threw the ringing alarm clock against the wall of her spartan appartment, the cunning caldari timepiece was fortunately constructed with this use in mind, and deployed a tiny shield just prior to striking the wall. It gently floated to the ground on a grav-chute.

Helicity sneered at it, wisely, the alarm clock's AI had taken the point and the irritating ringing had ceased.

Business kept her on Amarr time, which meant the other Pythons were typically at their most active when she was asleep, but tonight she was going to join them, no matter what.

A brisk cold shower and some semi-legal stimulants later she was floating comfortably in her pod and being loaded into her beloved Arbitrator cruiser.

"Nalvula?" Spec's ever enthausiatic and sarcastic voice came over the comms, grinding on her still-awakening nerves.

"Sure" She replied while adjusting the sights on her beam lasers and assault launcher.

Nalvula, a peculiar system, in a tiny chunk of low security space surrounded by very high security space. The problem was getting there. The only way to get to Nalvula from Aurohunen led through the high security system of Vaajaaita (a name which never stops to elicit laughter from the less mature amongst the Pythons).

Glancing at her overview, running the gate should not be a problem for their makeshift flotilla, no one was flying anything too slow to elude the dull witted Navy officials that would doubtlessly give a half-hearted attempt at stopping them. Again.

As they crossed the threshold of the gate the comms flared into life with garbled messages from Skye and Golden Helmet, their ships were not materializing properly on the other side of the gate and their systems were going offline. This stargate error has been more and more common of late.

Several tense moments later, it appeared that the emergency warp systems on both their ships had saved them from being sitting ducks for the hotheads in the caldari navy that would have gladly blown their ships to smithereens.

Spectre and Skye set about scanning Nalvula and it's surrounding systems for prey, these systems were often home to hopeful young capsuleers, eager to prove their mettle against the non-capsuleer flown ramshackle ships of such organisations as the Guristas and Serpentis, they were easy pickings for a small fleet of capsuleers with real combat experience.

Sadly, after what seemed like hours, it appeared there would be no sport to be had... until Spectre encountered a fellow pirate in Megathron battleship sitting idly near a jumpgate.

We set about our trap, spectre's lachesis would be the bait, while we waited on our side of the gate, lightyears away in real spacial terms. The Megathron would have no way of knowing we were there.

The trap was sprung and Spectre and the Hurricane engaged eachother, our fleet jumped through, and soon Drones, lasers, missiles and hyper-velocity shells streaked through space, the mighty battleship was quickly losing it's defenses, but the gatecrew appeared to take pity on him (or were bribed) and decided to let him use the jumpgate despite his recent acts of aggression, while denying us the use of the jumpgate.

Helicity stifled a cry of frustration and recalled her drones. Pouting in the pod-goop she was beginning to wonder if she should have stayed in bed.

Disheartened the gang returned home, switched some ships and relaunched to check out the local hotbeds of violence and death, Dantumi, Mara and Passari, home of the monkeys from DFP and CBS.

After some fruitless chasing of a former associate in an Onyx (who was far, far too clever to be caught with his pants down) Golden Helmet piped up in his boyish voice:

"I have a caldari navy raven and a megathron on scan, they appear to be in a safespot between two belts, I'm going to probe them out"

Helicity's bloodpressure spiked and adrenaline began to seep into her tissues.

Finally, prey.

Helmet had succeeded in locating the two battleships and was creeping closer to them in his stealthy helios ship, unnoticed by the two behemoths.

"Point! but hurry up, this ship can't take much"

Helicity slammed her arbitrator into warp, the megathron battleship that Helmet was currently holding in place would make short work of his small ship, but she had just the thing for such an occasion...

"CNR is primary, someone point the Mega" Spectre chimed over the comms.

"I'll deal with the megathron" Helicity replied, a vicious grin creeping onto her features.

As the warp bubble collapsed and real space returned, everything slowed down in her mind. The Raven was already being attacked by her corpmates, drones buzzing around it like flies, The megathron loomed right before her, a mighty Gallente battleship with very, very large particle blaster turrets.

She engaged her warp scrambling module, to make sure the battleship went nowhere. With a simple thought impulse she willed her Drones to attack the Raven, while firing her laser and missile batteries at the quickly diminishing shield of the Caldari battleship.

And then the masterstroke, sifting quickly through the code projected into her mind's eye she selected a segment of viral code, loaded it into her two tracking disruptor modules and in a single stroke virtually disabled the Megathron's guns entirely, their tracking and range being utterly debilitated by her electronic warfare modules. As the Megathron's pilot tried in vain to get his weapon systems back in working order, Helmet made good his escape.

The Raven exploded with a pitiful, inaudible, pop. The megathron followed soon after, having been completely unable to bring it's guns to bear during the entire swift encounter due to the arbitrator's formidable ewar abilities.

The chatter on the comms went on for hours, but Helicity was not listening, her skeleton crew diligently guiding her vessel home as she slept in the warm and gentle embrace of her capsule, dreaming of battles and explosions to come.

In space, no one can hear you retard.

2009-05-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

Picswapper guided her ramshackle second hand Exequror cruiser along the projected course line to the ship signature her probes had pinpointed. Salvaging the wrecks left behind when other, more violent capsuleers vented their demigod rage on the local pirates had proven to be a profitable endeavour, though she usually transferred most of her proceeds to the Python fund for orphaned Khanid children (what a strange name that was).

As the shoddy cruiser lurched out of the warp bubble it dropped into a massive cloud of space dust and what appeared to be enough debris to represent a small fleet of ships.

"Bestriding the heavens like angry gods" The words she heard in her youth still echoed in her mind every time she saw the results of other capsuleers' brutality.

The Exequror cruiser slowly plodded towards a large clump of debris that bore the markings of the dreaded EOM faction. A mental impulse set her Salvaging modules to work.

"I suggest you leave"

Picswapper arched an eyebrow at the message that just displayed on her comms, not a regular voice comm mind you, but a simple text transfer. Glancing at her overview, a Gallente destroyer bearing no official markings had emerged from the dust clouds and had a weapons lock on her cruiser.

"Not this again" she thought to herself, eyes rolling tiredly.

She transmitted the official concord protocols on salvage rights to the upstart, hoping he would simply go away.

No response, the lock was still on her ship.

"If you're going to open fire, concord will hunt you down you know"

Still no response. And then, in a massive swirl of dust and debris a mighty Amarr apocalypse-class battleship glided into view behind the catalyst. Clearly it was this ship that had wreaked the destruction of over 40 EOM vessels, and by law, the capsuleer in this vessel had the rights to any surviving ship modules; but not the salvage.

"Hah! do you know how fast I would have a new and better ship!" Came the cajoling reply from the diminutive destroyer.

Picswapper closed the comm link and continued her work, the destroyer posed no threat to her anyways. The Battleship pilot however seemed to be the coveting type, and had started turning the wrecks into useless slag with it's mighty lasers in the mean time, unwilling to share in the spoils of his private war.

And then... someone made a big big mistake.

There was a tiny tingle on the back of her neck as an ineffectual single round of railgun ammunition glanced harmlessly of her shields.

"... your criminal acts will not be tolerated in sovereign space!!"

The booming recorded Concord message screamed over all channels and frequencies, they did this so all Capsuleers in the area might hear the warning, lest they forget that, in empire space at least, they were NOT the law.

In the blink of an eye a massive Concord battleship and escorts were upon the tiny destroyer, Picswapper swore she could hear the cretin sputter apologies on the comms, but it was far too late. A single volley of the concord vessels annihilated the destroyer, leaving only his escape pod floating in space.

"Damn you! I my skill books were on board that ship! I want them back, why you-"

Picswapper closed the comm link, shaking her head and started to salvage the former destroyer.
The battleship pilot had apparently decided to discontinue his destruction in the light of his associate's annihilation.

There is no cure for stupid, even in space.

Endorsement.

2009-05-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

I heartily endorse the election of Larkonis Trassler to the Council of Stellar Management.
Pirates and low-sec dwellers are an important and vibrant community that adds part of the charm to EVE. We are generally pretty much ignored by CCP in favour of the more plentiful high sec carebears and 0.0 dwellers.

It would be fantastic if our voice could be heard, and perhaps a few changes made to make our (and by extention your) lives more interesting and eventful! Hopefully a look can be taken at low sec, and how to draw more folks there.

I know that a large part of the EVE fanbase likes reading pirate stories, so I hope you may read this, and help us get on of our "own" on the council.

Vote larkonis, thank you!

Helicity.

Uninspired picture dump #1

2009-05-12T01:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I've taken over the last few days. I don't feel particularly inspired to write a pretentious post about all the gatecamping and blobbing around we've been doing, but I'm having a blast. Enjoy!

No Mercy/Mercy

2009-05-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

It had been a busy week, over 50 confirmed kills in her logs, her concord security status dropped to an ominous -10.0, as low as it goes. A criminal in the eyes of the galaxy.

From mighty battleships , to innocent miners , and something oddly in between both of those, nothing had been spared.

This had been the most violent week in Helicity's life, and she wanted more. Always more, more death, more explosions, drones, lasers, adrenaline.

The thrill is all that matters.

Or is it? She had woken up (being on gallente time still after her vacation) to the sound of breaking glass, angry voices and small arms fire in the Python meeting room/bar next door. Slipping on her pink bunny slippers and a robe she shuffled to the coffee machine and then to the door, just in time to see a red-faced Spectre storm off into the station. When the rest of the gang had cooled off enough to actually discuss what they had been so angry about, it turned out Spectre had given the order to let a ransomed pod go without even a penny.

The pod had belonged to Ka Jolo , the man who's writings had brought Spectre into the pirate life, and as such was sort of her spiritual grandfather in a way. The bounty on his head had been well over 100 million ISK, which was largely why the pythons were upset, or maybe it was just the shock that Spectre let someone go, she didn't know. As she shuffled into her hangar to inspect the newly assembled Cruisers and Battlecruiser she had delivered to deal with the escalating violence in her area (her preferred small Khanid frigates could not compete against it for the moment) she mused.

Would she have poddd Spectre? Or Mynxee? Or Flashfresh? Or any of her newfound friends?

Probably not, respect, friendship, those are worth more ISK than all the moons in Delve.

It's a hard life cleaning up.

2009-04-04T02:32:00.001-07:00

Cleaning up after those atrocious litterbugs that run missions all day and pollute space with wreckage is hard work. Fortunately there are people that care about cleanliness and clean up after them! no charge!

Xerrik > pics why don't you get your own salvage?
picswapper > gotta keep space clean and safe for everyone!
Xerrik > I can clean up after myself
Xerrik > I don't need a mother mate
Xerrik > Be honest and say your stealing it cause your too lazy to mission yourself
picswapper > it puts the salvage in the basket. or it gets the hose again!
picswapper > also, consult the link in my bio
Xerrik > Too bad Concord doesn't decide, but I do
Xerrik > Eh, at least your not flippin my cans
Xerrik > But you still avoid my suggestion, say your lazy and too lazy to mission yourself
picswapper > I'm not lazy! I took all the effort to scan down your mess and clean it for you tisk tisk. litterbug.
Xerrik > Oh come off the dumb play-acting
Xerrik > If your gonna pirate at least admit to it, there's no shame in that
picswapper > I'm not a pirate, that would be illegal
Xerrik > Oh no!
Xerrik > Come on its another facet of eve, stop living in denial
Xerrik > You took the time to scan, so obviously you thought some gain would come of it
Disunia Vertas > that's the good thing about eve, you can be badass motherfucker or a carebear and get pwnd by badass motherfuckers :/
Xerrik > True
Xerrik > You I'd call the Carebear in this situation
picswapper > I care for the safety and health of pilots everywhere! imagine hitting one of these wrecks at warp! that would constitute a serious danger to health and safety. we can't have that!
Xerrik > Pics, I honestly don't care about the Salvage, I get T2 Salvage from where I base at, but I think the lame playacting is almost rediculous, reminds me of a lil' teenager sitting at home because he has nothing better to do, and prolly can solo lvl 4s
picswapper > I don't need the money from the salvage, I require your tears to fuel my ship!
Xerrik > LOL, thats a laugh, I'm supposed to be crying?
Xerrik > I'm just waiting to see if you flip a can, and provide me more entertainment
picswapper > flipping a can would be illegal! Not to mention immoral!
Xerrik > pfft, I never asked you to be moral, just admit the truth, Piracy is a perfectly respectable profession, some don't like it, but there's all kinds of things to do in EvE
picswapper > But I'm not a pirate! I don't even own a gun. I am but a simple law abiding citizen, doing his part to keep space clean!
Xerrik > Oh come on, I think Pics here is in denial anyone else think so?
Vapor1 > lol

Poll in the sidebar.

2009-03-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

I'd like a moment of your time to evaluate how you all feel about the current low interest in low-security space.

To me it seems there is little of value in low-security to encourage people to actually go there (other than FW and pirates pew pew-ing eachother), I personally think low-sec should offer more in the form of valuable resources to actually encourage both 0.0 dwellers and Empire industrialists to try and gain a foothold in it.

Poll is on the right side, please voice your detailed opinions in the comments below!

Another night another roam.

2009-03-26T04:34:00.000-07:00

Our motley crew of python and ex python members had gathered up once more to sow terror across the high...er...stars.

We were to do a simple roam to the infamous Old Man's Star and back again (preferably with our lives, and some plunder). What an excellent time to test my new dark and golden beauty, a Malediction interceptor!!

After some shenanigans and shadow games in the pirate system of Tama, we decided to be smart for once and not tangle with a larger, better equipped group of foes, and went on our merry Yarring way.

The ever-sharp Andrea skye was manning the scanprobes in his fabulous cloaked force recon vessel, a minmatar rapier, he had brought three of his friends along for some added firepower and emergency repairs. Regulars Kerblammo (who had almost annihilated my beautiful ship in a friendly fire incident before departure; the asshat) and Spectre were also with us for death-dealing.

It was not long after arriving in OMS that the fun began, Skye had managed to find and lock down a Vagabond, a notoriously fast vessel. We sped to assist him and landed on the vagabond at point blank range. My malediction screamed and tossed under me as I orbited the stranded ship at ridiculous speed, my Warp scrambler keeping it's warp systems from functioning after Skye had to warp his damaged vessel out of combat for repairs. He did not last long, deprived from it's main advantage;- speed, the Vagabond was reduced to a flaming heap of shrapnel in space. It's pilot was canny enough to elude us in his escape pod. We did not care much, there were some quite valuable goods left in the wreck.

We scattered after looting for all we were worth, hiding in dark and forgotten parts of the system while our security status reset.

Not long after Skye and Spectre were back to the daily business of scanning down enemies in asteroid belts, it took only minutes before Spectre and Skye had hit paydirt and quickly sent me a pair of coordinates to warp to. Skye had disabled the warpdrive of a Huginn and he and Spectre were already pelting it with missiles and Blaster slugs. Right nearby however floated a ship I recognised well... a Khanid Sacrilege was engaging.

I put my ship in orbit around it and applied the tender love of my warp scrambler to it's engine system, preventing it's escape. To my amazement, the huginn had somehow managed to escape my friends (now reinforced with the rest of the crew), who, in their typical unadaunted fashion simply began pelting the sturdy Heavy assault cruiser with fire now. It was slow going, Khanid ships are tremendously resistant to damage and the Sacrilege in this belt was no exception, but slowly his defenses were failing.

Just as we started to see gasses being vented from fractures in it's hull the huginn pilot returned, apparently in a foolish bid to save his companion. He targetted my Malediction, but the speedy vessel was much too small and fast to hit until he closed range more. I gritted my teeth as I watched the scans of the enemy Sacrilege for signs that it was about to be destroyed, not willing to let my Warp Scrambler off it and potentially let it get away.

A stray shot from the huginn collapses my weak shield... the next hit would perhaps be the last...

A bright blue flash bathed my glossy interceptor's hull as the Sacrilege's power core went critical. It was also too late for the huginn pilot, though he had succeeded in destroying Spectre's cruiser, Skye had disabled his engines and he was not going anywhere. Not willing to take the chance of getting hit again I slammed the Malediction into warp as another shot sailed perilously close past my fragile little death machine. As the belt quickly became a spec in the rear view cameras, I could just make out the blueish glint of it's engines exploding.

We quickly scavenged their ships for loot and made good our escape.

After selling off the regular ship components, and starting a nice auction for the advanced amarr navy equipment we found on the sacrilege, we set a course for home.
Along the way we destroyed a poor neophyte pilot's ship. Hopefully this will teach him that it's called low-security for a reason, he was so harmless I even managed to test my rockets on his pitiful ship.

Surprisingly, the missile launcher model he had (not) been using ended up being even more profitable than the advanced tech-2 modules we had recovered from the wrecks in Old man's star! Everyone had made a profit, even poor Spectre, who somehow always seems to draw more fire than rest of the gang combined.

As I docked up in Aurohunen, I wore a great big smile on my face. This new ship was a flying coffin, but damn was it fun to fly it.

In the quiet of the night... we pilfer.

2009-03-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Helicity shuffled around her quarters in her fluffy pink slippers. She was still on Khanid local time and the rest of the newly reformed Cartel (such as it was) was already either sound asleep or had collapsed in a drunken stupor earlier.

Helicity was wide awake... and feeling the itch, that niggling thing, deeply ingrained in her mind, that compelled her to commit lawless acts and fly into the face of danger, rather than away from it.

The itch would need to be satisfied, but reports of local space revealed that no prey would be forthcoming, unless she wanted to tangle with other criminals. Criminals in very big, very bad ships.

As she slumped in her beat-up leather chair she glanced at the hangar security cam, and something caught her eye. Sat in the darkest corner of the hangar was an old, barely maintained Impairor frigate. The most wretched of all the ships she owned. It had no guns, no speed, no armor to speak of and was not even very mobile.

It was, however, utterly unassuming and likely to be ignored. As usual, a creepy grin worked it's way onto her face. She slammed her hand down on the activation panel for the Coffee-tron 5000 and it jetted forth a quadruple espresso.

Moments later the old and decrepit power systems of the impairor hummed into life once more. As the creaking mass of the tiny frigate glided out into open space, there was a moment of hesitation. "I must be out of my mind" Helicity mumbled to herself.

A quick (as far as anything on the miserable frigate could be done quickly) scan of the system revealed only a pair of the usual local ne'er-do-wells. They could probably be avoided simply by keeping an eye on their movements. A few quick warps through the system's belts revealed little of value. Next stop, the warpgates.
Warpgates are often a treasure trove of forgotten loot, if you're brave or stupid enough to maneuver your ship to the wrecks located there from time to time. The korama gate was (as expected really) devoid of salvage. The Dantumi gate however had two abandoned and burning wrecks and a conspicuous cargo canister hanging near it.

The afterburner that was crudely welded onto the frame of the impairor lugged it's unwilling host closer to the wrecks. The proximity alert suddenly started blaring in Helicity's mind.

"Crap!"

A Moa cruiser had just warped onto the gate. Helicity started to align her ship to get the hell out of dodge, but the moa simply activated the gate and vanished in a shimmer.

Just as planned. Nobody cared about a puny impairor. Helicity sent a mental command to the retrieval subsystems to open the cargo canister and inspect the wreckage.

Happy day, a bunch of big fat rockets, some salvageable energy tranfer units in the container, Helicity had them transferred to the cargo hold.

The wreck however was much, much, nicer. Three tractor beam modules and two salvager units had survived the violence done to the craft. Not a fortune, but definately worth several million isk.

Two trips back and forth to the station and the wreck was emptied of it's last working parts.

On to the next system! Dantumi had some more hostile local fauna, but they seemed uninterested in the old rickety frigate flying through their turf. A quick snatch and grab under the noses of a threesome of Guristas cruiser yielded 4 drones, Warrior MKIIs, that had been left behind by their former owner. Ka-ching!

Just as Helicity steered her ship out of the belt it was engulfed in a massive explosion that sent shards of gilded tritanium hull flying everywhere, alarms sounded in her head and the shock of the impact felt like a sledgehammer. A guristas battleship had appeared and it was sending missiles the size of the damned frigate her way. The battered ship trailed fire as Helicity did everything she could to get the warp drive going again. Another huge missile streaked past, impacting a nearby asteroid. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the warpdrive fired and the impairor wobbled away at breakneck speed.

----

A smallish repair bill later the even-more-battered impairor lumbered out of the local repairshop, a pair of crude unpainted plates welded where once had been a gilded sheen, the technicians visible behind a porthole of the station were still laughing.

----

Helicity was also laughing, not ten kilometers from the station hung a battered cruiser wreck, she could see the sluggish, tiny vessels of the local cleanup crew slowboating their way towards it.

"Laugh at my ship will you..."

She blasted through them with the afterburner on, making them tumble wildly out of control, her coms erupted with indignant cries, threats and citations of salvage right codes. A simple mental command cut their protests short.

"Take everything..."

A nice selection of usable modules remained on the ship...

"Give nothing back!"

...and was quickly devoured by her cargo hold.

----

Thought of the day: Make your own damned adventure instead of being bored, even if it means getting shot at by people while you're in a newb ship.

And sometimes fortune just smiles on you.

2009-03-17T10:28:00.001-07:00

2009.03.17 17:23:00

Victim: Daniel Waynold
Corp: State War Academy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Cormorant
System: Aurohunen
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 2411

Involved parties:

Name: Helicity Boson (laid the final blow)
Security: -7.7
Corp: The Python Cartel.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Punisher
Weapon: Dual Light Pulse Laser I
Damage Done: 2411

Name: Guristas Despoiler / Guristas
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

125mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 2
Small Armor Repairer I (Cargo)
Miner I
Initiated Multispectral ECM I
Solid Pyroxeres, Qty: 1385 (Cargo)
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 3670 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 14
Bloodclaw Light Missile, Qty: 200 (Cargo)
Civilian Shield Booster I
ECM - Spatial Destabilizer I (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Upgraded 'Limos' Standard Missile Bay I
Antimatter Charge S Blueprint (Cargo)
Gallente Navy Midshipman Insignia III (Cargo)
Isogen, Qty: 131 (Cargo)
Nocxium, Qty: 7 (Cargo)
150mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 2
Civilian Damage Control
1MN Afterburner I
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 124
Megacyte (Cargo)
Civilian Shield Booster I

----

I felt a twinge of pity and let the poor newbie pilot's pod go. I hope he will come back for revenge sometime :)

----

Addendum, my good karma was not repaid as as a fucking Ishtar landed right on my head a few minutes later (doh!) :<

He didn't get my pod tho!

The Call of Home

2009-03-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

I sat in the odd foreign comfort of my new hangar in the passari system, sipping a can of quafe.

The last couple of months had been bizarre, unexpected and tragic deaths had taken half my remaining kin in cruel twist of fate and I had to return to the homeworld to arrange for their funerals.

The last thing on my mind now had been the piloting of spaceships and the thirst for action. Even worse, shortly before my departure our pirate outfit had collapsed and it's members scattered.

When I returned to our asteroid hideout in Avenod after many months, the halls were mostly silent. The only movement came from a small gang of new people, people I had no bond with.
I had sent out my contacts to see if the movements of my former associates could be traced, fortunately, bold as they are, this proved to be the case.

It was not long before my black-market friend was arranging the transport of my ships and gear to what was going to be my new home, I was awaiting the second load of cargo when my com-slate lit up, casually I picked it up from the desk, expecting to find the usual spam and pornography in my inbox.

Instead I found something I had not anticipated. Some of my old friends, whom I had come here to see again, had just been fired from the corporation... before I'd even seen any of them in the mess hall. What the hell? In addition it appeared an effort had been made to split us up, purposefully only firing a part of our old crew.

I rubbed my forehead, a fierce migraine rearing it's ugly head.

"Computer drop all roles and request a discharge from this corporation... I want no part of this."

I chucked the com-slate into a corner with a snarl and began to think about a way to explain this to my transportation contact... all my stuff would have to be moved again.

The Com-slate let out an annoying repeating beep. I wasn't going to even read the message really, but the beeping was being exacerbated into a bone-shattering pounding by my newly aquired skull-splitting headache.

"WHAT!? OPEN MESSAGE!"

The com-slate complied to my screeched command, and a familiar voice echoed through my half-filled hangar.

"So, Python?"

My startled look soon gave way to a creeping grin. I sent a few messages and stuffed my jumpsuits back into my backpack.

*not much later in Aurohunen, mercantile station*

Fortunately my old place had not been sold yet... afterall, who lives in a shithole system like Aurohunen... except for us. The Unwanted. The Unnneeded. The Python Cartel.

We would rise again. No matter how few or many we would be. This system belongs to us, and we belong to it.

I looked at the security monitors, my new vengeance was being assembled. I had better get back to my advanced rocket science studies, apparently it's needed for this sleek black version of my beloved Punishers.

Oh yes, we'd be back indeed...

Home sweet home.

2008-10-07T16:21:00.001-07:00

Helicity snuck through the darkened hallways of the nearly-defunct mining station, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in it's industrial gloom, the preferred style of the minmatar peoples (sometimes described as "scrap metal held together with tape") feeling distinctly hostile.

But the place had...a certain something, it was dark and foreboding, a fortress for pirates if there ever was one. The giant asteroids incorporated in it's structure were riddled with tunnels and caverns holding generators, forges and everything else one might need.

It had indeed been a long trip... 43 jumps through some of the deadliest space in new eden, places like Old Man's Star. But she had made it, and her equipment had arrived via the safer high-sec route shortly after.

The rest of the pythons were moving still, sometimes using their mighty capital ships to haul the equivalent of small fleets through the ether in a single hop.

The comms in system were deathly quiet, our arrival in the night was going mostly unnoticed...

Some people would soon be in for a big surprise...

Parting gifts

2008-10-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

...And so it came to pass, that on our last day in Aurohunen a Titan made it's home in our system.

undaunted the brave men and men of the Python Cartel assembled a fleet of their finest tech1 frigates and assorted crap and assaulted the new POS before it's guns could be brought online.

We then proceeded to KILL THEIR MENS and hightail it out, all under the murderous gaze of the helpless titan.

Epic.

(note: I'm on my gallente alt in this picture, Helicity having moved to our new home earlier)

(note 2: After our illustrious leader posted our exploits on the EVE-O forums, we were indeed rewarded with a whole tech 2 frig fleet for our brave swashbuckling, thank you Mr. Pryde!)

small updates

2008-10-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

First things first, spectre has a nice blog up on the awesome encounter we had last night (go read it!). I was hanging in the next system as a lookout, so I didn't get to fire any shots, but I did get to see a mothership :)

Secondly, LOOK AT MAH PRETTEH!

I'm not quite ready to take her into the heat of battle yet (rocket skills severely lacking, some cap issues too) but hey, my first khanid ships are now rolling into my hangar!

Thirdly... I'm working on something equally shiny for my blog, but I'm not gonna reveal exactly what just yet. You'll have to wait and see (and prolly wait quite a while till it is done)

Theft is good.

2008-09-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

What to do as tech1-frig pirate when everyone else is flying big nasty cruisers/battlecruisers/battleships/recons ?

You steal.

You steal EVERYTHING that is not fitted to a ship. You hop every belt, warp to every station, every gate and you TAKE whatever is not nailed down.

You snag battlecruiser wrecks from under their killer's noses and warp out before they lock you, you scoop every drone you find hanging in space, and give them a new home!

Why do you do this? FOR THE GOOD OF ALL PILOTS! A CLEAN SPACE IS A SAFE SPACE!

Why am I posting this you might wonder? Well, after checking my character's cashflow, it turns out i've hit a new record I've earned 20 million isk scooping and stealing over the past two weeks! (contrary to what i just told wensley in a comment on his own blog, it was 20 not 15 mil).

I would like to congratulate myself, my klepto nature, and the shit-head "anti-pirates" camping gates in battleships, for this great achievement in boredom relief!

System upgrades gone wrong.

2008-09-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

Following yet another embarrasing debacle with my pod interface crashing during my roam with mynxee, wensley and corpmate Bfoster (read here, as chronicled by Wensley) I decided it was time to try upgrading the software in my pod (i.e. update my graphic drivers).

*slips out of character*

Let me tell you something... Windows Vista and Nvidia do not love eachother as much as they should.

I ended up reinstalling my entire PC over the weekend, and missing out on thr Python frig tournament and the Destroyer Roam (which I'd suggested we do :/ )

Bullocks.

*resume character*

In a few days, I will complete my training of Evasive Maneuvers, I'll only have a few more skills to train then to fly the Malediction interceptor, something I am looking forwards to tremendously.

One can only fly the Punisher for so long until it gets a bit repetitive, it's lacking mid-slot becoming ever more annoying as time passes, and it's severe limitations in a small gang (no microwarpdrive on a bleeder setup, no real tank/cap on a MWD-fit tackler setup) pretty much leave you as "comic relief".

The malediction will at least prove to be a very useful tackler, and it will be the first ship I use that uses missiles/rockets to do it's damage, I've been given to understand the damage they do is less than stellar, but at least it's a certainty you'll be doing some damage.

If anyone has experiences to share flying the Malediction I'm all ears, because I'm not entirely clear on how to fly it yet (and given the pricetag on interceptor hulls and fittings, I'm not keen on blowing up ten of them to learn the hard way)

So please, your feedback is welcome.

Overheard on the Python Comm-net

2008-09-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

Earlier today:

2008.09.15 20:52:00

Victim: Nyght Star

Corp: Critical Analysis

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Destroyed: Dominix

System: Dantumi

Security: 0.4

Damage Taken: 27637

Involved parties:

Name: Bfoster (laid the final blow)

Security: -9.3

Corp: The Python Cartel

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Raven

Weapon: Juggernaut Torpedo

Damage Done: 24683

Name: Helicity Boson

Security: -6.3

Corp: The Python Cartel

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Punisher

Weapon: Punisher

Damage Done: 2125

Shortly after:

Spectre3353> woa
Spectre3353> phoon, tempest, raven, raven, mega, domi, geddon on scan?
Spectre3353> whats going on here?
Andrea Skye> who0'd you piss off helicity
Helicity Boson> maybe after they popped poor foster's raven they want more
Spectre3353> WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
Helicity Boson> I KILLED A NUB IN A DOMI OK?
Helicity Boson> ...and maybe some other people...
Helicity Boson> ...maybe like 5 today...
Helicity Boson> ...kinda...
Helicity Boson> ...
Helicity Boson> I'm sorry
Helicity Boson> u.u
Spectre3353> domi is towards a belt or planet
Spectre3353> let me seeee
Spectre3353> i see it on scan towards you andrea
Spectre3353> is it at 6?
Andrea Skye> it is
Andrea Skye>
somewhere
Andrea Skye>
who is it and how old
Spectre3353> no idea
Spectre3353> its a domi
Spectre3353> it goes pew pew sometimes

The Disconnect of... UnDoom!?

2008-09-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

The systems of my Punisher frigate had been on the fritz, they'd crashed completely two times already (leaving me in the soundless black inside the pod with no feed from any sensors) and then rebooted.

The reasons remain inexplicable, fortunately the emergency warp systems get you out of harms way most of the time when this occurs.

I'd been drafted as tackler in a small gang composed of two massive battleships and a battlecruiser.

We'd been trying to get our hands on another Amarr battleship for what seemed like hours, but the prey had been too elusive. Fortunately I found a Cormorant in one of our system's asteroid belts, bravely fighting the local pirates, as young capsuleers are wont to do. Unfortunately for him, I'm a bit more dangerous than ships flown by normal crews instead of capsuleers.

I had been chasing him through the asteroid belt, my lasers wreaking havoc on his delicate shield systems and chewing large molten holes in his armor. In turn, the crew of the local pirate ships decided they did not like the competition and were firing volleys of bright missiles at my own ship. Their crude rockets were no match for my glorious amarrian armor thank though, and I was content to ignore them (for the time being).

The cormorant had outranged me after I shaved too close to a floating asteroid and had begun to warp away, my companion Vanamoinen arrived, but too late to scram the would-be escapee.

Mentally I calculated his likely trajectory and slammed down on the warp control, my ship hurtling through space into the next asteroid belt, the cormorant was there... and so was my friend's gleaming, golden, Armageddon-class battleship.

The cormorant ended up sandwiched between our fire, and was quickly reduced to a heap of slag.

After this little apetizer, we felt like more and went to Mara, which was quickly filling up with hostile pilots according to Vanamoinen.

At my friends' request I was scouting out the gates, reporting on the number and types of ship guarding each one (and they were many, and to my eyes BIG ships indeed). It is then that I made a crucial mistake, instead of warping in at a distance at the last gate I was supposed to scout out, I landed right on top of it, and right next to two battlecruisers and a bizarre battleship-sized monstrosity (later this was revealed to be a Caldari Scorpion-class ship).

I panicked, this could not possibly end well!

And then everything went black...was this death? For what seemed like an eternity I could hear or see anything, and then the systems came back online. another damned crash!

Taking stock of my surroundings, it seems the emergency warp system kept me alive yet again, but I saw no sign of my friends, local Comm was full of garbled chatter and explosions, and I had a pretty good idea what was going down. I warped to the gate as fast as I could, just in time to see the scorpion class ship explode under the fire my friends were pouring into it.

But this was too little, too late, my friends were swarmed, and destroyed by the massive blob of enemy ships.

I escorted their escape pods, which had made it out, back to the station, my ship being the only that had survived. I guess that my fritzy electronics have a use afterall... but I'm not too pleased I could not fight alongside my gang when shit hit the fan.

exciting!

2008-09-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

It was late at night in Lonetrek, and Spectre had been chasing around the tech II variant of his own Vexor cruiser throughout Dantumi and Mara, alternating between hunter and prey as each tried to get the drop on the other.

Spectre is a clever pirate though (as his recent money making scheme clearly proves), so Andrea Sky, Lanissum, Bfoster and myself were all hiding in various places in the mara system, ready to pounce on our prey if he made a mistake. In the end it seemed there would be no end to the shadowgames, so we did something the ducker did not suspect.

The next time he jumped through the gate into Mara proved to be the last, as we mercilessly pounced on him and tore his ship to shreds it turned out my fear of this pilot was unfounded, his ridiculously poor fit would have trouble killing even poor little Mr Nibbly, my trusty punisher.

In the end I was merely contributing my warp scrambler though, as i was unable to really damage the Ishtar, but that is in itself still a valuable thing!

Still grinning from our kill we waited out the criminal cooldown in a safespot before moving on to Dantumi, as luck would have it, we detected a young pilot flying a comorant. Seeing as he had only been comissioned as a capsuleer 5 days ago he could not possibly be a threat to us.

I took a guess.

"I bet you he's in the asteroid belt"

He was.

What came after was mercifully brief. Oh dear oh dear.

I hope someone who is new to being a capsuleer reads this; don't go into low-sec space with a ship you can barely fly, equipped with mining lasers ok? Bad things will be done to you by bad people!

A little present.

2008-09-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Helicity looked up from her work and wiped her sweat and grease-soaked brow.

Irritatedly she blew a lock of hair from her face and put down a large wrench before putting her hands on her hips and surveying her hangar.

"oh yes... this will do just fine"

Eight gleaming, gilded Punisher frigates graced the dark confines of the Caldari station, a stark contrast to the drab colours and straight lines of it's architecture.

"This will do just fine indeed"

---

This brings me to a little out-of-character annoyance, CCP TAKE HEED!!

There is no reason, AT ALL, why we cannot rename our ships without being in them.

There is no reason, AT ALL, why we cannot fit our ships without being in them.

apart from shoddy coding of course.

-Helicity out

Mr. Nibbly bites the dust.

2008-09-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

I reclined in my dark office, the familiar creaking of the leather chair soothing my racing mind.

What a lesson that was...

I had just lost my frigate (though hardly an expensive or impressive vessel it was mine) to a well executed gate camp on the way home from a little roam to passari.

I had spotted Jamie James' interceptor on the Dantumi side of the gate, but thought nothing of it, I'd passed through many camps in my frigate already, and it had proved nearly impossible for larger ships to catch me, and most interceptors were (sensibly) quite leery of engaging under the range of the gate guns.

Most interceptor pirates.

The Taranis had followed me through the gate, and on the otherside a pondersome Drake was sitting, it's deadly rocket launchers at the ready.

This meant trouble!

I tried to get my ship to engage it's warpdrive, and fly into the asteroid belt straight ahead; no aligning would be required... but nothing happened, the controls would not respond; the dread beast of system-loading-lag had finally got the better of me.

By the time my ship would respond to commands again, the interceptor had snagged me in a web and disrupted my warp drive; taking heavy fire from the gate guns in the process.

It was then that the plan became clear as the interceptor fled the guns' onslaught... he had been buying time for the Drake to come get me.

Large missiles started to impact my Punisher, the shields winking out in an instant, the hull held up fairly longer though. I contemplated firing up the repper and nos and see how long I could last; presumably a pretty long time.

A quick glance at the comm killed this idea though, no help would be forthcoming... at least not for me, local held only enemies.

I sighed and resigned myself to what would come next.

A bone-shattering lurch as the pod was hurled clear from my exploding ship followed by a terrible rumble as the shockwave hit the pod again.

Gathering my senses I noticed the drake was trying to lock onto my tiny escape pod; he would not get me this day! I slammed on the warp controls and my pod escaped before the Drake could complete it's lock.

Moments later my pod drifted into my home station and I was extracted by the station techs.

I kicked my pod and walked to my office, a sneer on my face.

Fortunately, not all was doom and gloom!

My financial systems indicated a substantial insurance payout was now mine; and all the ship components I had... uhm...found recently had sold.

An eerie grin began to creep over my face, and I hit up a shady Gallente associate of mine, who cared not for who she hauled goods, as long as it paid.

(I can no longer enter high security space, unless I want the local navy to send me packing in a pod again you see)

"I sent you a shopping list... any idea when you can have the goods"

"heh, easy peasy, I might even be able to drop off the goods tomorrow if you like"

*excellent*

Ransom gone wrong, still fun

2008-09-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

The punisher's sleek hull slowly hummed under the dulcet tones of the core's low-power setting.

I was hanging still at a lagrange point far from any planets or asteroid belts, my scanner slowly sweeping the system looking for prey.

As I sorted through the data, I found what i was looking for...

An Omen, a sleek Amarr gunboat cruiser was located in an asteroid belt nearby, and it seemed he had not noticed me yet.
Quickly estimating the possible outcomes of taking him on alone, despite the pilot's young age, I decided this was not the best of plans.

Fortunately, like any half-decent pirates, I have friends.

It did not take long for Infidel and Lanissum to show up, in a rifter and a thorax respectively.
We hurled through the warp conduit, fierce grins splitting our faces, pulse racing for the kill.

We landed in the belt, only to find we had competition! Some guristas were slinging their missiles at the cruiser, but having little luck with defeating it's defenses.

I guided the punisher (Mr. Nibbly to you) into a shallow dive as I swooped in to set my warp scrambler to work on his engines;- He was not leaving.

Seeing that the thorax and rifter were quickly chewing through the Omen, I decided to take out the competition with my lasers instead, keeping the scram locked on the cruiser, which was by now riddled with holes.

The Gurista frigates exploded with a satisfying flash, and I turned my attention to the com.

"Omen going down cease Fir-"

KZZZT

Interference... the com had died and Infidel's rifter came by on another run, pelting the buckling omen with a volley from it's autocannons, it exploded with a pitiful wail, it's escape pod hurled clear from my scram range.

"damn"

No ransom that time.

Testing.

2008-08-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

After a quick roam through the outlying systems of Lonetrek I came up empty-handed, prey-wise. Couldn't find anything suitably crunchy to pirate without getting myself blown to smithereens, had to run from an arby twice (drones = the devil).

I resigned myself to the fact that no kill would be had tonight, and set about making a few trips to collect ship modules for a fit I had heard of. The Bleeder Pattern Punisher.

I quickly engaged some hypno-training to be able to fit the requisite modules and asked one of my fellows to help me test it.

I could not quite get it to work right, but then the ship I was testing it with was a Gallente Interceptor; hardly the right kind of target.

We quickly came to the conclusion that while the fit did actually work, it would only really work against frigates and cruisers that have neither a webber module nor light drones equipped, clearly this was a vanishingly small portion of the ships you may encounter while pirating, only the most inexperienced pilots would fall prey to it.

Disappointed slightly with the tests I docked up and crawled into bed, cradling a copy of Advanced Logic For beginners and continued studying.

Waiting.

2008-08-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

I settled into the cracked leather of the comfy chair in my office in Aurohunen, cradling a copy of "Eidetic Memory For Beginners", a long sigh issueing from my lips as I began to work through the dense material.

I hated studying, but the so called "learning skills" represented a group of mnemonic exercises meant to restructure the pathways of the brain to better process the massive sensory input and other data from the POD, as well as containing methodologies to better absorb further training in the use of ships and modules. These are vital things to a capsuleer, without proper training you will fly your ship like a toddler moves it's body.

There was something of a racket outside the Python Headquarters as a freshly cloned Spectre kicked over a garbage can with a cry of frustration; He'd just lost a battlecruiser and a fresh set of implants... "Probably best to leave him alone", I thought to myself with a furrowed brow.

I was getting station claustrophobia, I'd flown very little the past few days as I was struggling through piles of books rather than sending deadly beams of laser death screaming across the void, the walls were closing in on me and the ever-present sub-aural humming of the station's electrics was becoming unbearable.

I'd learnt a lot from my fellow business men in the past week already, but I was not yet confident in my ability to hold my own, on my own... especially with the recent hostilities in the system, but I'd have to bite the bullet sometime.

Another deep sigh crossed my lips as I got up and walked into the cargo elevator to the docking bay.

"Scotty, prepare my Punisher... I'm going hunting tonight."

I have a plan, part deux.

2008-08-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Having decided, in my rather typical dogged fashion, to fly only the vessels designed by my illustrious kinsmen, I am beginning to develop a sequence of ships I want to learn to fly (after completing those damned learning skills, and learning how to actually FIRE rockets)

It looks a little like this at the moment:

fly my punisher for months, get blown up a lot cause I have no common sense and will tackle anything my corpmates point me at, grinning all the way.

Learn to fly interceptors, buy a Malediction

Tackle more things, and fire rockets with it

Hit up Attack Ships, buy a Vengeance

Hope that at this point, speed nerf goes through

Be the most horrible and unkillable tackling pest there is

do pitiful dps

Grin madly as I learn Heavy Attack Ships, buy a Sacrilege

Spam people to hell with nasty rockets, while laughing loudly in my nigh-invicible, superio khanid ship, then get eaten alive when I severely overestimate my tank.

This should easily keep me occupied for a year... I may need to ask spectre if he has a spare hotplate for my punisher.

Speaking of spectre, he remarked that it's unusual to see someone starting out with the amarr line, this is not entirely true in my case, as I have a higher SP gallente pilot (whom i will be using for some learning time as well while Helicity gains SP).

So why Amarr (especially khanid)?

Because it's fun playing the oddball, the underdog, to make people wonder and keep them guessing! Everybody has a pretty good idea what that Thorax over there is packing, but not everyone will be prepared for the little attack frigate tackler that...just does not seem to die. At least that's my sincere hope.

I do hope some rocket love is forthcoming though, they seem a little sub-par as they are right now compared to the monstrous damage of... say... blasters

I have a plan.

2008-08-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

No really, I do. I want to pirate in a Khanid ship. I am Khanid afterall, I have no use for exotic dancers and minibars in my ships!

To this end, I've set my sights on the gorgeous and deadly (kinda) Vengeance.

This ship is a tough little frigate, with a fat bonus to resists...and to rockets.

Now, I have never fired a rocket in my life, but it seems incredibly spammy, and above all very loud (at least on the high-tech in-brain audio rendering of my pod *cough*nosoundinspace*cough*).

Opinions on the ship seem to be divided somewhat, some people love it, other people think it's a flying pile of poo.

But I've picked, and I'm gonna stick with it and make it work... that is, after I spend an inordinate amount of time training skills, but at least I can now focus on a tight bundle of skills after my learning skill training completes later this month.

Advantages:

-it's black and shiny

-capless weaponry:
-can run MWD and tackle cap stable when not repping
-can run tackle + rep cap stable when not using MWD
-can shoot the whole time while doing it

-It's bloody Khanid bitch.

Disadvantages:

-It's an attack frigate, not an interceptor.
-Cap dries up remarkably fast if you try to rep AND MWD at the same time
-I will need to train a metric fuckton of skills to fit it exactly like I want.

---edit---

I've decided to expand this to include all khanid vessels, barring maybe the curse (lol drone skills). I have a feeling they will prove most vicious post nano-nerfage

First outings

2008-08-25T02:57:00.000-07:00

Having travelled to my new lair and met with some of the low-lifes I'd decided to throw my lot in with, I settled into the pod of my less-than-luxurious Punisher frigate.

I hear from some of my fellow "alternative businessmen" that the gallente interceptors have kitchenettes... a far cry from the spartan interior of an Amarr ship, which comes with a cold stone floor for religious vigils as standard.

I fired up the reactor, checked my laser optics and requested to undock.

My fellows had tracked a Drake battlecruiser on their scanners and were probing him down, I listened intently to the comm.

"COME NOW"

I mentally slammed down the warp-button and with the now-familiar lurch that comes with the lagging of the inertial dampeners my Frigate hurled itself through space

As the warp tunnel collapsed I found myself in an asteroid belt, in the midst of a three way battle between the drake, ourselves and some filthy gistii pirates (much less gentlemanly than we are, let me assure you)

I revved up the 'burners and closed in on the drake, missiles streaking into the Buzzard that had probed out the drake, 30km... 25km... 20km...

"POINT!"

My warp scrambler had done it's work and the drake would no longer be able to flee, our own battlecruiser, a long and slender Gallente Myrmidon arrived and unloaded his deadly cargo of drones.

I smiled to myself, this was so easy!

Then my ship lurched violently as a massive missile detonated of it's bow.

"Taking fire, finish him fast or he's gonna smash me" I screamed into the comm.

Another missile, my shields shimmered and failed.

Another missile, a terrible creaking sound echoed through the ship as armor was sheared from the little frigate.

and then...

Nothing.

The drake had stopped firing on me, it's shields were failing and my ship was still intact.

I relaxed a little and hoped the drake would not change it's mind... another two missiles and he would have been home free.

I watched as the drake turned into a flash of blue light, and then a pile of scrap.

My scram stopped the pilot from escaping in his pod, but he declined our generous offer (apparently quite rudely) and for his refusal, we sent him home to his clone.

I'd done it, I'd killed another pilot, an angry Concord message informed me that my security rating had been lowered;- They'd be watching me.

I just smiled.

Genesis.

2008-08-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the writings of the infamous criminal Spectre, and fresh out of the academy, I surprised my former teachers and friends by blasting out of the station in my brand new Punisher frigate without clearance, ostensibly I was to perform some menial task for the commander...

...I had darker things in my heart.

Through the use of the interstellar communications grid, I had come into contact with one of Spectre's partners in crime, and received a set of coordinates to follow to join the Python Cartel and begin my own life of crime.

Ignoring the angry shouts over the comm system as I left the mission-defined flightplan I smiled to myself and initiated the jump gate.

Here we go.