Pirates Ahoy! #4 Feast or Famine

Flashfresh> Are you sure this is what you want to do?
Nashh Kadavr> Very much so!
Flashfresh> Piracy is feast or famine, will you be able to deal with that?
Nashh Kadavr> Spinning ships in-station is my 2nd hobby…

-o0o-

He did warn me all those months back…feast or famine…damn…

For two months I have flown my socks off to gain ranking both on the Bastard kill-board and on Battle Clinic. With Raelyf, z0de and Arrhideaus all on part-time basis over that period I performed well, if I may say so myself.

March end totals saw me claim medals for Most Ransoms, Top Killer, Top Scorer, Top Solo-Killer and top Pod Killer. April end totals awarded me Most Ransoms made, Highest Earner in Ransoms, Top Killer, Top Scorer, Top Solo-Killer, Top Pod Killer, Top Damage Dealer and Top Final Blows. Yes I am proud of that and yes I do like to blow my own trumpet.

One of my goals this year was to get myself ranked in the top 10000 on Battle Clinic, starting of in January being ranked 22000. It appears that goal has been reached. My kill count at 367, nearly all of those scored for the Bastards.

Some of my favourite kills include;

Enyo vs Retribution
Enyo vs LOL-fit-Harbinger
Vexor vs Navy Slicer
Killing Lucius Invictus 3 times
Revenge killing of two slippery Hurricanes
Fail ransoming this chap (Ransoming 101 coming soon)
Loki #1
Loki #2

There are some more sexy ones in there but my ego is swelling too big for my head so I’d best stop. I did actually recommend a few posts back that for ones sanity it is very important not to care about statistics too much as it can be very depressing when the stats start swinging against your favour. Well, I am good at giving advice, not taking it, especially not from myself. I am a stats-whore…and I loathe myself.

-o0o-

All this glory comes at a cost, hence the title of this post.

My successes over the last 2 months are much to the contribution of a prober alt, luck and help from Bastards and friends. On many occasions I have hooked up with Lady Shaniqua, a great pilot from whom I am learning a lot. Lady S is also my mentor in ‘Project Rifter’ but more on that soon.

I missed out and currently do not own the coveted ‘KOTM medal’ distributed to the pilot scoring the greatest Solo Kill as voted by our beloved corp. Raelyf won the medal in March by killing a Cynabal in a Rifter (what a hero) and Arhhideaus scored himself a great kill in his Crusader vs Zealot in April. It makes me wish for not having ransomed this chap in his Damnation, in hind-sight I could have solo’d him but called in help from Zem as I had never even seen a Damnation. Babylon Jones was only too happy to part with his 250 million isk and save his ship… next time Babylon....next time…

Some days have been great in the sense that there are lots of targets out, easily probed and/or enticed into a fight or ransom.

On many occasions there has been famine, serious famine. On at least 3 occasions I sacrificed a free day and roamed, probed for 5 hours on end without finding anything at all.

On some days I did find some targets and with spirits high, heart racing I would warp in to find nothing but wrecks in a just finished mission...heartbreaking. On various occasion I would warp in only to be eluded and missing point or finding a target with warp core stabilisers…soul destroying.

One particular night I had just completed a 3 hour fruitless roam and ended up chasing Handyflop around the local area for another hour. The Faction Warfare pilot eluded me every time and mocked me in local. After an hour I got so agitated I switched out to an Arazu with Faction fittings and small rails to kill his Kestrel. I failed again and got laughed at… mind shattering.

There have been losses, a fair few too. About 30 of my ships met their demise in the last 70 days to an estimated value of 550 million isk. I lost 2 pods full of implants as well costing me another 500 million to replace.

I blame Arrhideaus for getting me addicted to Faction Frigates, costly but great fun to fly. As are Tech 2 Frigates, sexy, tough little nuts that are excellent fun, however rarely pay for themselves in kills/loss ratio.

EVE can be an emotional rollercoaster, it has great peaks and highs but sometimes delivers demoralising, lonely times and silly lows and losses. I apologise to my fellow Bastards after my ‘rage-quit’ the other night. I was just a little bit pissed off about a ransom that took too long and failure to get me repped-up. The other way of looking at it is why didn’t I warp off. Either way, in a very unprofessional and unfriendly manner I safed up my prober and pod and logged off…sore loser boo-hoo.

-o0o-

As a (proud) recruitment officer for the Bastards I make sure any applicant is aware of the phenomenon known as feast or famine. Sometimes life is good, sometimes life is boring and/or slaps you around the head with a wet fish.

We have been lucky with some great recruits, some whom have already joined our ranks as Bastards (welcome Interdict and IlikeFoodz). Also some great pilots are running a probation/trial period and look very promising (Kingzolo, Nichonostra, Mucky and Ruben). Let’s see how things work out…

Please note that Bastard recruitment is temporarily closed until after the Alliance Tournament.

‘Project Rifter’ and ‘Ransom 101’ coming soon™


Watch this space….