Hunting Deadly Cat in the Night (reposted from Sugar Kyle)

I totally only JUST noticed this post- almost a month after it was written! xD Go figure :P But I keep re-reading it and, cause I love it and it makes me smile :D (and its totally making me look epic ;) hehehe) So here goes :P

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Hunting Deadly Cat in the Night 

 

This is more than a tale about Jaguars.  It is a story about Jaguar girl power.  If this causes hives and a burning sensation I can only advise taking some diphenhydramine and some type of soothing cream before you try to read this.

Naughty Cargo was having a bad thrasher day.  She is new to the corp.  She started with R1FTA and is focused into her smaller ships.  However, it was just a bad Thrasher day for her. She kept losing them.  After she lost the last one and was really down I looked at her problem and decided I had a solution.

Jaguars.

See, Naughty was not losing her Thrashers because she is stupid.  It is because she needed a better align time, agility and speed then she was getting.  Destroyers are a great concept but for running as light, fast tackle they leave a lot to be desired.

We were docked back up and resorting the fleet.  I had done some shopping the other day, so I tossed her my Jaguar in a buffered fit and told her to give it a whirl.  A few moments later she is in joy on coms over the speed and agility.  Yup, problem located and better ship installed.

It was one of those days when fleets are in and out.  With Naughty refit we were back out and our first test was a group of Ishtar doing a site.  They ignored or did not see the combat probes.  Ren was flying an interceptor and he and a drake were sent in to pin them down.  As he established point Naughty and I hit warp, landed, burned through the first room, landed, and established secondary points as the rest of the fleet piled in.  We lost one of the three and their logistics ship bailed at full speed.  Not bad considering the sheer amount of time it took us to get to them.

Working with another Jaguar is fun.  Naughty and I have complementary flying styles.  Working with more than just me as tackle is amazing.  With the interceptor and two assault frigs we were ridiculously good at chasing things down.  This came to light a bit later.  It was two in the morning for me, and I wanted to stay with the fleet but I had to start to readjust my schedule for work on Monday. I've been off for a week and the thought of a zombie Monday morning back to work at six in the morning was unappealing.  I had a mature moment.

Fortunaly, it was somewhat short lived.  The fleet was reforming with a few new additions and waiting for people to catch up.  As I left to go dock, I passed through a Talos, Tornado, Scythe fleet.  It was only two jumps away from the boys and it seemed to be heading towards them.  I turned around and they sent a scout to peek to find them at range from the gate.  The fleet went to the gate and started to work on a warp in when they warped to the gate, turned around, and headed back to where I was.

It was an unexpected pincer situation.  I had planned on leaving but I could not resist.  The FC sent the interceptor and Naughty in her Jaguar to try to catch them.  As they raced across system the gate I was sitting on fired and a Tornado decloaked 28k off of me.  I had a point. It was a very simple situation.

I pointed the Tornado and started to try to stay alive while the Talos tried to blap me off.  Ren came in his Ares with Naughty right behind in the Jaguar.  Suddenly, Ren made a mistake that lost him his ship. He thought they were running so burned to chase, lost transversal and was instapoped by the Tornado.  Naughty grabbed the Talos and the fleet started to burn them down.  The Tornado started to burn and I was doing all sorts of weird range things trying to avoid both him and the Talos.  Thankfully the Talos went down, the Scythe died at some bit and they finished taking out the Tornado with me in low shields from a few lucky shots.

I went off to bed and Naughty wound up having a fantastic night as the primary tackle without losing her ship.  What she had been trying to do in the Thrasher the Thrasher just could not do for her.  With a bit of a ship change her entire fighting concept snapped into focus.  When I logged in it was to people telling me what an excellent tackle job she did for the fleet, landing them several important kills and getting off the field when she needed to.

Good job all around.  This is the fun part. Even if the bitter vets, with their crustiness complain that the Jaguar used to be better, its what newer players have and we work with what we have.  I think we are finding success in it.

Null-Sec... boring?

Hey heys all. Yeah yeah I haven't updated for a while... what of it? :P I've been busy dealing with university, which as much as I'd like to make this the priority, that has to come first. Lots and lots of writing. On a plus side, I'll be uploading a piece of fiction here based off EVE that I wrote for one of my assignments. Yeah... totally wrote a story based on Naughty's time in EVE for a university assignment... HELLZ YEAH! Professional and Creative Writing FTW! Anyways... on to my main topic of the day- (This might be a shorter post cause its about 11pm and I'm sorta tired hehe) NULL SEC!!

Now, ever since I started this game, null sec has been this big scary place on the outskirts of space that if you go into it, you'll lose your pod one way or another, whether you want to or not. I don't know who first told me this, but early on null sec space was/is this big scary space that just shouldn't be jumped into lightly. In fact, unless you had a very good reason for doing do, or had a fleet behind you, just avoid it altogether. Yes there's no gate guns, but apparently it would be death regardless. And don't even start me on bubbles. Bubbles were the most terrifying of all- these traps where you would get caught and not be able to warp off. To a new PVP'er like me, that just sounded horribly scary. So no null sec for me.

There were very few roams in R1FTA that actually went through null. I know there was a few, but I'd always avoid them at all costs. When an offshoot of R1DER was made- Crimson Reach- a bunch of people ventured into null sec, following Kaeda Maxwell- one of the main players in the alliance at the time. Deciding again, that was a little too out of my depth, I stayed with R1FTA and avoided null at all costs, like usual.

In hindsight, the reason null would kill me invariably is because I was in a frigate. Plain and simple. Even in low sec flying around a solo frigate was fraught with peril. In null.. caught in a bubble... no chance. Your pod is gone before you can blink. But anyways...

Moving from R1FTA to ThC, there didn't seem to be too much of a change. Yeah the odd people went into null now and then, but it wasn't really an active thing, and considering I had only just moved, and didn't know any better, null to me was still that scary insta-pop place. Then came 7-2. These guys have lots of bigger fleets than we do, having more people with bigger ships in general. They would often venture into null, and sometimes ThC members would tag along. I still actively avoided these fleets, and at one point, even though I was directly asked to come along as tackle, I fobbed it off, making some lame excuse about how I had to go.... ewww.

I told myself then and there that it wouldn't happen again, and next time there was a fleet into null sec, I'd go. About a week after this- last week... or this week? (days are blurring together :P)- there was my opportunity.  I joined fleet and got all ready with my faithful jag, all excited and psyched. A lot of ThC would be coming too, as well as my best friend. I figured, why the hell not. I have no excuse this time, and nothing better to do, so lets do this. I had a Sugar in her Jag there as well, and I figured that whatever I did wrong, maybe she could make up for... (hehe guilty.)

Jumping into null for the first time, I could feel my heart beating really fast, and I swear I had butterflies in my stomach. The scout ahead called out that there was a bubble on the out gate of B-VIP9, and I listened silently as we were told to warp to a bounce above the gate. My hand shook slightly as I warped with the fleet, bouncing ahead in front of the bigger ships, quicker to land as usual. And there it was- a bubble. They don't look nearly as menacing as they sound to be honest.

True to their name, they look just like bubbles, shifting slightly as if rippling with some sort of unseen wind, just sitting there all casual, minding its own business. They're very blue too. Relaxing a little, I started properly looking around and I had to smile at the black space contrasting with orangey-red of Minmitar space. Gosh it looks striking. Every time I go into null now I have to look back and look at it. Speaking of which, I have this actual full screenshot as my wallpaper on my laptop at the moment: (which causes a little confusion occasionally when I minimize EVE... hehe)

How cool is that screenshot?! I got some more from that particular fleet that I'll post in a minute just cause they're awesome. :P Anyways, long story short it was one of the more boring fleets I've ever been on to be perfectly honest. Apart from seeing all the new pretty things, and seeing something like shooting a POS (which looks epic with a whole bunch of colourful lasers btw), it was a lot of sitting around seeing if someone would come and fight us. Needless to say, apart from a couple of little kills here and there, nothing really gigantic came, and seeing as we weren't really necessary to the POS killings in our smaller tackle ships, it was actually quite ordinary. Just in a different part of space. Go figure.

The second time I went into null- again with 7-2 and members of ThC, was today. This morning, to be exact. I woke up, sat up in bed, snuggled up in my blankets, turned on EVE and saw that a fleet was about to happen. Sugar asked if I wanted to come along as a second tackle, and I agreed, thinking it could be a nice morning, and that I really wanted to kill something :P (as you do in the mornings hehe). So I got into my jag, undocked and went to group up. We moved out pretty quickly, moving as one fleet towards our target system. This time, it was for a different purpose- they were going to put up their own tower. This meant placing bubbles on the way, which didn't end up happening much I don't think, but anyways, that's beside the point. I thought we were doing alright, if not being bored again, until we got to system and got told that SneakyBadger had been left behind. I was told/asked to go back and meet him at the system he was in, to be a sort of scout. It was about here that things got really confusing. The fleet got into a fight as me and hercules went back to find Sneaky. Somehow, he must have jumped right past us, because I got to the system he was supposed to be in no problems, listening to the fight on comms the whole way, but he wasn't there. Quickly we established that he was now part of the fight, and heading back quickly we jumped back into the system.

I had no idea where to go, so I just warped to Sugar. Seeing about 4 big ships, I just jumped straight in, stayed out of smartbomb range and started shooting so at least if they got any (which they didn't- while I was around anyways), I'd be on the mail. Just as they were warping off, a big group warped in, and everyone retreated to the tower shield before we got blapped. A few people weren't so lucky, but most of us just held our ground (which they didn't really expect) and watched as they killed the bunch of bubbles that had been put there. Well... that was boring. Just orbiting the tower we waited.. and waited... and waited to go home hehe. On the way back, nothing came up, so we got back to Bos no problems. Figures. I'd let to get some action I can actually fight at some point here. See what null's really about.

Until then, Ima see you in your pod in low sec ^.^

Oh, and don't do a dessie 1v1 with Xerxes.... he'll kill you :P

^^^^Pretty rainbow screenshot of  one of my thrashers just before it got owned by Xerxes ^.^

AND I TOTALLY MADE IT TO -10!!!! :D (On my character sheet at least :P)

The Sightseeing of New Eden

Recently, a good friend worked out that I needed to install new drivers for my graphics card. We came to this conclusion because, in hindsight, EVE was officially unplayable. I couldn't see the edges of stations or ships, planets and suns had holes in them and space was glitchy. The chat boxes flickered with each movement of the mouse and everything lagged on a regular basis. Not to mention my station screen/docked thingy- oftentimes I couldn't actually see my ship floating in dock through the glitchy walls and floor/roof. Since the start of my game I have had everything off- explosions, shadows, all that stuff that makes this game uber pretty. It just didn't work. Ship trails all that sorta stuff.

Now I have a new EVE- I can see everything perfectly, as it was intended. There are 5 main points I wish to bring up that this alludes to:

(Note; I don't think alludes is TECHNICALLY right there, but I like the sound of it, so it stays :P Anyways..)

1- It gives this game an extra edge, an extra awesome boost. This is and was something I already love/loved, and now its just on a new level.
2- I spent half an hour alone just looking at various different ships, then spent the next 20 minutes after that watching various guns move and shoot. Yeah... really.
3- Its like starting EVE again but with knowledge: all that I already know. It means learning the names of ships that I didn't know what they looked like.
4- Less reason for error too. It's a LOT easier to fly better... can actually see where I'm going and whats around me.
5- Explosions <3

To celebrate my new-found graphics and extra awesome game, my friend suggested we take some care bear alts and take a little roam, following an EVE travel page he'd discovered (http://evetravel.wordpress.com). Neither of us having done something just to relax and look at EVE, it sounded pretty good and a nice night activity, so we hopped on our alts, set up good 'ol Ibis's (I had a look at the destroyed statue in Jita I had heard about and yet never seen, and its the coolest thing ever!) and took off towards the first stop on the itinerary- The Caldari Monument.We had a look, flew through a big hole in an asteroid just because we could and then took off to our second destination, the one I was looking most forward to- The Counter-Intelligence Center. In hindsight, the main reason it looked cool was probably cause of the carefully taken screenshots on the blog post that made it look particularly colourful... >.>    <.<  but never mind! We got to see the little agent ship sitting on top of the station which was pretty cool.

Orbiting the site lazily I alt tabbed to look at our next destination... which was in null sec. Now, being in little care bear alts, we figured this might not be such a good idea, and decided to just skip to the next destination. Surprise surprise.... in null. Looked at the next one.... It was here that we decided that null (which is SO obviously known for its great scenery :P) was definitely a no go, so my friend suggested the EVE Gate. Having heard of it a few times, it sounded sufficiently interesting, so setting the destination to good 'ol New Eden, we set off.

Of course, you can't do something like 20 jumps without a good old fashioned race, so off we went, me with a slight head-start, constantly trying to distract each other and delay that inevitable click of the mouse at the out gates. We did indeed stop for a moment (at a gate with about 50-60 CONCORD on it just for lolz) to try out the new duel function of the game. For those who don't know about this feature (but I guess most of you do)... find out about it yourself so I don't have to explain :P We were shooting at each other eagerly with our tiny little ships, the small guns blazing, constantly seeking that critical moment in any battle where it will go one way or another. The tide turned in our small Ibis vs Ibis battle when I decided to reveal the presence of a shield booster on my little nooby ship, which my companion did not, and we both disengaged, declaring a draw........... *realisation dawns* .... HANG ON A SECOND.....!!!! *storms off*

*Comes back and wipes hands off* Anyways.... we continued our race and after my friend won (because he so totally cheated!), we eventually reached the first of the 'Normal Name Systems' -as I have dubbed them. (And yes, I know the map is too small to actually read, but you get a basic idea of the layout of the systems. And I had fun with paint.... :P) Access, Exit, Gateway and Central Point were all devoid of life, but when we reached CP we decided to branch off to have a little look in Dead End- my suggestion cause I thought it was cool :P

The Black Monolith that showed on overview instantly caught both our attentions and we warped to it about 100km off, just in case the rats got hungry for a little bit of noob ship. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it DEFINATELY was not a big, black, floating brick. Which apparently is important to the rats. I have no idea why... but *shrugs* meh. Leave em to it. Figured it wouldn't get any more interesting up close, so didn't bother. A brick.... XD

Moving back to CP, we moved on to Promised Land (which made me giggle, being a Christian raised kid) and, as nothing was around, moved on no problem into New Eden. Well... I also didn't really know what to expect here either. Maybe some sort of big epic wormhole or a massive planet or sun. Nope. None of those things. It's sort of a hybrid. Looks like both a wormhole and a sun. I was disappointed I couldn't warp to it (CCP!!! >:[ no fun) and seeing nothing else around, what else to do other than blap each other! Not quite though. We decided because my friend has won the race, he got the honor of dying first to my noble noob ship guns :P and I shot him no problems at all. I set my name 'JessiJoy was here' (JessiJoy being the name I use for just about everything- Jessi being my first name, and Joy being my middle name... hellz yeah!) and promptly self-destructed.

And that was that. Sorta anti-climactic, but hey... now we know. And if I just spoiled it for you, well.... tough luck :P

Oh, and Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron totally spells PWNAGE ;)