CDM #23; Entity, Lord of the Items

Celebrity Death Match #23; Entity, Lord of the Items

-=o0o=-

The Celeb

If there were to be an -A-list for the way Celebrity Death Match ranks its celebs, this man would be somewhere at the top of the list. ‘The Lord of the Items’ has been playing EVE since 2003, and is best known for that title and what it stands for.

There are various alliances that wield great power through combined isk values; however this man alone, as a single individual is the wealthiest man in our Universe. His power is not used to fund vast armies or to conquer space; he uses his wealth to fund a very noble hobby, collecting and preserving EVE’s history.

I had heard and read about this man over 2 years ago, as a mission runner, drooling over Navy Issue Ravens, and then looking into a State Raven. Why were they never available on the market or contracts? Looking into rare ships history a bit further it became clear how rare some of these ships actually are. EVEWiki is a great tool to look up basic information on guides or items. Every time I looked at a rare ship’s history; the name ‘Entity’ could be found in the text somewhere…

Entity holds the single largest collection of items in EVE. This includes one hell of a lot Faction, Commander and complex gear most of us could not afford to buy a single piece of. Other than that there are items in Entity’s collection that do not even exist anymore; prototype drones, artefacts. Then there are the items most pilots only dream of having; the rare ships, and boy, does he have a nice collection.

I feel extremely honoured to have been given some time to speak to Mr Entity, he made time for me, joked with me and spoke openly about his history and pretty much anything I asked of him. His involvement with CCP, his banning and un-banning from the game, his isk income… you name it.

One of the reasons I started this project was to be able to meet Pilots of the ‘celebrity’ persuasion, see what they are about, and find out what makes their EVE-day tick. Entity has been one of the most interesting EVEbrities to have met so far, a unique individual with a great history and noble existence in our Universe.

-=o0o=-

Preparations

Entity had not heard of my blog prior to me contacting him, many celebs not in the blogging community haven’t. Its nerve-wracking trying to explain what I do and why I would like to meet up with a potential participant for CDM. Not knowing of CDM, people must think I am nuts. The Lord of the Items was as suspicious as I suspected, but took the time to hear me out and read over previous CDM’s before agreeing to participate.

Interceptors it was to be, another CDM first. Jokes were exchanged about there not being any ‘rare’ interceptors… even if there was, he wouldn’t have undocked in one. I am glad he wouldn’t have; he is preserving items that pilots like me would have foolishly undocked in, then lost, forever.

Faction items were allowed as was Faction ammo, no ECM or ECM drones, other than that everything goes.

As soon as the fight was confirmed I contacted the only man I know that gives me ‘no-bullshit-advice’ on ships, ship-fittings, tactics, my hair and anything else I need help with. Lady Shaniqua answered the call and we got to work…

Yes Entity can be found on Battleclinic but with hardly any history; kills or losses no concrete info is available. He has an army of alts that do his Industry work for him so there is no need for him to have his skills trained in that direction. With well over 100 million skill-points he must be able to fly all races, and be able to fit them as he pleases and well.

Our best guess would be that he would come in a close range, high DPS fit ship and therefore he must be coming in an AB fit Taranis. Within minutes LS ruffled up and old Rail-Ranis fit, some modifications were made, tactics discussed and that was that. The tactics were simply to ‘kite’ at the edge of scram- and web-range peppering the pain. If Entity would for some reason bring a kiting MWD fit himself, manual flight would have to trick him into scram range and victory would be assured. Discussions went on about ‘orbit’ and ‘keep-at-range’ but for the most part I was confident that with this ship I stood a chance, however so slim...


-=o0o=-

The Fight

With Entity not having undocked other than to collect rare items for several years, stood in my favour for sure, I PvP as often as I can. However with a near unlimited budget and with a significant skill-point advantage this fight was sure to swing in his favour. I had already accepted the loss before undocking.

The agreed system was a mere few jumps from my home system and the journey there was without hassle, evading a small camp on the way. I docked up in the agreed system to find a missing module. For some reason the Stasis Web was missing from my setup however a replacement was quickly found.

I baptised my Taranis ‘Entity Destiny’ and undocked into the blackness… and certain doom.

The Carrier that had previously sat at the undock, had gone, and the system was fairly quiet.

‘mm a Ranis?’ Entity quizzed in our fleet chat.

Quickly pinging the scanner revealed no ships in space within 14.5 AU, he must have seen me come in, perhaps the Carrier was his alt, or maybe he was watching me, cloaked.

Silence on deck, as usual, silence before the storm.

With nothing left but the fight, we wished each-other good luck and I initiated the Warp-drive.

Instructions to the Ranis navigation systems were clear, I intended to land at 10k from my foe and remain at roughly that distance.

The long warp didn’t settle my nerves, hitting the D-scanner again as soon as I was within range showed up a single Claw. A Claw? Is that good or bad? I am not familiar with the Claw and don’t know anyone that flies it, in fact I don’t think I have seen one for some time. Should I change tactics? Should I try a tight orbit?

The warp-tunnel collapsed, spewing out my frigate sized vessel, my time to think was up, time for action.

Entity had manoeuvred himself away from the warp-in-point, creating a distance of about 25 kilometres. This was not good; if he was range fit he could easily outrun me, and my anti-blaster-Ranis fit would be useless.

Drones are often overlooked on ships that can only field a few of them, with this in mind I immediately ejected two Hobgoblins and on resolving lock both sped towards the enemy Interceptor. As expected both were ignored as the gap between us rapidly closed. The drones initially overshot but on the return-loop they opened fire and steadily began eating away at the Claw’s defences.

Our speeding vessels nearly collided, both clearly determent to keep each-other close enough to keep within the optimal range of our weapons. Entity’s Auto-cannons ripped large chunks of shield away from my spacecraft, demolishing it in merely a few volleys.

Red and blue lightning snaked from Entity’s Claw to my Ranis; diminishing my capacitor every 4 seconds. A quick check of his speed showed he was AB fit and I turned of my scram, saving every last bit of capacitor for my overheated Rail-guns, Afterburner and Web.

Desperately I tried to create a little distance as my Armour buckles and tears as easily as the shield had done. Flames erupt from my Ranis, this fight was nearing its end, my end.

The superheated rounds of Caldari Navy Antimatter propelled from red-hot-Rail-guns combined with the power of two high-damage drones slowly took their toll on the armour-tanking claw. Too slow however and closing down my HUD I prepared to capture the moment I would valiantly explode in my efforts to take down the Lord of the Items.

I selected his vessel as the focal point, with myself in the background for maximum cinematic effect.

The camera jolted heavily and a burning Taranis appeared in my overview. I… what? The confusion took a few seconds to settle down until I realized what this meant. Opening the HUD showed my vessel had a solid 15% hull remaining and all three mid-slots burned out. Unbelievable! I made it!

-=o0o=-

Aftermath

It took about a minute to make my way back to Entity’s wreck and raid its contents. I returned all dropped goods to its original owner, as I always do. It did drop one unusual item, estimated at about 80 million isk and the Claw sported T2 rigs.

His fit was more expensive than mine; his skills are nearly three times that of my own, why did I win? The answer is not that simple, yes I did manage to get myself to a range where his guns did less damage, whilst mine still did full damage. The truth is; Entity didn’t overheat his modules or weapons.

Mynxee introduced me to overheating, a skill-book I immediately purchased and use every fight I get myself into. It is often the first thing I do, even before a fight starts, it is second nature to me.

I explained to Entity that most modules had burned out and laughed, he went silent for a moment but then stuttered; ‘Crap, I forgot to overheat’. PVP skills go rusty if you don’t use them regularly, it’s not like riding a bike, it’s a spaceship.

This simple equation shows the result if Entity would have overheated;

WINNER =\lim_{z\rightarrow z_0} f(z)=f(z_0)ax^2 >(hothothot)+ bx + c = 0 (Mad skillz) ax2 + x bx + c = 0> = Entity

Pretty obvious indeed, perhaps next time Mr Entity…

-=o0o=-

The video

After my second meeting with Mr Entity, where we spend maybe 2 hours talking about life, love, EVE and other related stuff, I decided to include a video with this CDM. This is not an easy decision as I already knew how much time it takes to make a video, to a standard that pleases me enough.

I had prepared the basic intro to the video in the weeks before our fight, I did some basic editing of the video and Lady Shaniqua helped me get some extra footage to make the video into a spectacular one. I posted a very basic version of it on youtube for LS and Sassy B to give me some feedback on. We agreed it was too long and LS wanted to see some kittens?!

A further 30 hours had been spent on the video; editing, clipping, adding effects, adding music, overlays, you name it.

And then my laptop crashed, and no, I didn’t back anything up. A years’ worth of fraps, programs, fittings, blog-posts, artwork and the Entity video gone forever.

So for your viewing pleasure I present the very first upload of the video, pre-editing;