Weekly Update #3

Weekly update #3 (24th August – 30th August)

This week has been tough as some of my assistants at work are off on holiday and I had to pick up the extra hours. In fact this update is written at work. Don’t tell my boss.

Celebrity Death Matches;
This week saw my lead in the Celebrity Death Match score tumble even further with a loss to fellow Blogger Manasi. The score now almost even with the celebrities trailing with 6 wins versus my 7. Kudos to Manasi who out-performed me in every way and has been a real pleasure to meet.

I fear that Kane Rizzel has blocked me and is not responding to my emails. It’s a shame as I had already parked up a Battlecruiser in his home system in preparation of our agreed fight.

There are some more in the pipe line but the very next fight will be with legendary Pirate CEO Flashfresh from the Bastards. This should be an interesting fight as we have agreed to fly a ‘comedy fit’; T1 Cruiser hulls with a Battleship sized gun. Yeah, you read that right. Break out EFT or similar tools and give it a try. Keep in mind that normally I only fly Caldari. The fight will be this coming Tuesday at 21:00 Eve time at an undisclosed location. Please see Flashfleshs’ blog for some details too and feel free to leave comments or suggestions on the fits. I have already prepared a ship but can’t discuss this until we are both undocked and ready for battle, so watch this space…

Fiction;
I have posted Chapter 3 of my fiction story ‘you win some, you learn some’. Some responses in game have been positive however some have been to correct me on Eve universe laws of physics. All comments are appreciated as they can only drive me to write more and better.

Flashfresh has been very kind to read over the story and will advise me on some of the Bastard lingo and help me make the story more matter-of-fact. I intent to post the last Chapter on Wednesday this week as I originally intended but will re-release the amended story in a month or two with all the drawings I missed out.

In other news;
The dark side has been calling me more and more and on Monday evening I flipped my first ever can. Why? To be honest the only reason I did it is to have some fun and pick a fight. It worked and I had a gang of 3 newer players in frigates attack me with a more skilled pilot in a battleship. I had a laugh and talked briefly with the Battleship pilot after I popped one of the frigates. No hard feelings I hope.

As all 4 attackers left the system I spotted in local something that I had heard about but not seen before. A corp called Pew Pew had entered the system with 7 pilots named; Banana Alpha, Banana Beta, Banana Charlie… you get the idea.

I decided to investigate and finally found an Orca with 7 retrievers in a belt. I flew around for a bit until the Orca pilot convo’d me and asked if I wanted to fight his main in Battleships. Do I? you bet!

I undocked my favourite Raven and jetted off 2 systems away. There was a possibility it was a trap however I was willing to take the risk. I am confident my Raven fit is one of the best and Torpedo damage is assisted with the implants I carry. On damage out-put there will not be many Battleships that better my 1243 DPS.

We met and danced only briefly; his Blaster fit Megathron made short work of my beloved Raven and destroyed it with more than half his armour still intact. I quickly escaped in my pod feeling disappointed in the result. I offered him a GF and took a prolonged lunch break.

I had been wondering not so much how he had beaten me but how he ran 8 accounts. So I decided to have a chat with him;

Jensius Duo > lo :)
Me > 0/
Me > complements on the kill
Me > had a question for you
Jensius Duo > hehe, thanks for bringing it :)
Me > lol
Me > how do you mine with 7 accounts?
Jensius Duo > lol, i run the 7 clients on one pc
Me > jebus
Jensius Duo > on a 1680x1050 20" screen
Me > must be slow?
Jensius Duo > every client is 1024x768
Me > is it worth it?
Jensius Duo > not too bad actually. Got a core 2 quad Q6600, nvidia 285 gtx and 4gb of ram
Jensius Duo > no clue
Jensius Duo > but i kinda got the 6 accounts for free anyway
Me > ?!
Jensius Duo > well EVE had this buddy program, if you invite someone, they get a 21-day extended trial
Jensius Duo > then if they activate, you get +30 days gametime as well
Me > i see
Jensius Duo > now, there was this steam action, where you could active your trial (+30 days) for 5 euro's
Me > aha
Jensius Duo > seeing as i had 2 accounts, i got +90 days on both accounts + 6 51-day accounts, for 30 euro's
Me > feck
Jensius Duo > even normal gtc's for the 90 days would be more expensive
Jensius Duo > :p
Me > nice one, how do you keep track of 9 clients running though?
Jensius Duo > oh, the mining barges only need checking back to every 5 minutes or so
Jensius Duo > so i just quickly go through 'em all every 5 minutes, while doing other stuff :)
Me > very impressive. good on you.


Interesting I thought and went on with my day.

Just to finish;
My career as a Pirate has finally started! Nashh Kadavr has been accepted into The Black Rabbits Academy! I still need to find some time to bring some ships in for him and after one op it has become clear I need something sturdy to deal with gate guns. I wonder if an Ishtar can…

Also on September the 1st new bloggers will have been selected to join the Blog Pack! I have put myself forward and hope I am one of the lucky few. Fingers crossed.

Cant wait for next week!

Related links/posts;
Manasi fight; http://nashhkadavreveblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/celebrity-death-match-9-manasi.html
Flashfresh pre-fight post; LINK PENDING

Celebrity Death Match #9 Manasi

Manasi - The Mule, Blogger Extraordinaire (29th August 2009)

Manasi is a busy man. It had taken some time to pin him down and find time in his busy schedule to meet me for a fight. Being in a 0.0 alliance and pretty much constantly at war, the man has many operations to participate in. I wonder how he still manages to write the amount of brilliant blogs he does…

First contact with Manasi was made some weeks ago. We had exchanged some emails and spoke briefly over private chat channels. He kindly complemented me on the Celebrity Death Match idea and was keen to participate. It’s always nice to hear people like what you do.

I had offered to fly to any location of his choosing but having the luxury of a jump-clone it was very clear that logistically it would be easier for him to meet me instead. Mental note; need to get jump clones.

Fighting Eve celebrities has by the most part worked out well for my RL schedule. It just so happens that most celebs are on American time zones and I am usually on in after 12 midnight my time. I had just finished another gruelling 15 hour shift at work and on arrival home poured myself a nice glass of XO rum and logged in.

‘Manasi’s Death’ had been prepared fairly soon after I had made initial contact with the to-be-recipient of its might. A Caracal with microwarpdrive and a buffer tank.

I had settled in with my drink and my feet up. Skill queues updated and ready to log off I had a quick look at the address book. In it is a folder named ‘to convo for 1 vs 1’ and in it was Mr Manasi. Let’s see what he is up to, I thought, requesting a conversation.

It appeared I got lucky and Manasi who was nearing the end of a war declaration was happy to meet me. He jump cloned from many solar systems away to just 11 jumps from my location. I undocked the speedy Cruiser and set off.

In the time I took to get to his high sec base he managed to shop around and find the modules he intended to fit. After a quick scout of the navigational map we agreed to go to a nearby low security system to avoid CONCORD’s interest in our business.

We had by this point met up on Eve voice, a feature I had not used for some time but worked really well. Manasi and myself chatted about the stuff Eve pilots talk about. It is always nice to talk to nice people and we had a laugh throughout. Neither of us expected to win the fight which thankfully took a little pressure of the event.

It is always a surprise to see what your opponent turns up in and I had not been sure again this time. Not that it would have mattered as the only cruiser I can fit half decent is the trusty Caracal.

Our ships met at the first of four gates and our Rupture and Caracal travelled together to Aldali . Manasi’s flying style I would describe as having excellent 0.0 mentality; always cautious. We scouted the system briefly and found our intended battleground to be deserted, excellent. Manasi’s experience in o.o showed again as he prepared a safe spot about 500k from the furthest planet from any gate.

In my couple of weeks chasing around famous Eve pilots my security status has taken a bit of a knock. I went from a decent 4+ to a -1.1. Surprisingly for a pilot in an alliance that shoots anything and anybody Manasi still holds a respectable and clean +5. Apparently a feature his fellow alliance pilots give him some stick for every once and a while…

With both our capacitors recharged and having stolen from a jettisoned can, the fight was on. I had intended to fit my preferred tech 2 launchers however the tight fit would not allow for all 5 launchers to be just that. Instead I had to sacrifice 3 of them to be of the ‘Makulth’ variety. Not an issue per se however this did split my range; with 2 launchers being able to hit at 38k and the others at 18k. Mental note; do not split weapon types and/or ranges.

My microwarpdrive quickly burned up the 30 kilometre gap to be about 20. With all launcher primed, missiles where expelled from the safety of their launchers as soon as my lock resolved. The foes ship at this stage still static returned the favour but the Caracals speed negated most of his damage output. As I expected his shield were no more within seconds of the fight beginning. My shields held up magnificently even though they started to take some hits. As my speed reduced the pain he was inflicting came in twice fold.

His secondary armoured defence had taken severe damage and reached the half way mark by the time my shields reached theirs. This was to be a close fight for sure, His armour breaking would guarantee his demise but my shields cracking would spell my doom. Overheating weapons and drones did their best but with my capacitor dying it was kiting then speeding up again.

Shield and armour separated from both our ships and sweat started to appear on my forehead. ‘Crap’ I uttered as our fragile hulls appeared at the same time. With my capacitor bone dry all I could do was watch in terror as my hull kept decreasing and his armour started to show signs of regeneration.

Time slowed and my ship erupted in a ball of white fire. ‘Argh’ I started, ‘so close!’. Manasi had brought a good fight and his combat expertise showed. His fit was better and his skill and experience surpassed mine.

We laughed some, docked and waited out the Global Criminal Countdown timers together.

As said Manasi is a busy man. During and shortly after our scrap he was also in various other chat channels and at least 3 other forms of voice communications. One of his friends was taking some flack in a carrier and off he went.

Close, but getting second place in a 1 vs 1 doesn’t win any prizes. My once 4 point lead against the Celebs has been reduced to a mere 1 point advantage this week.

Grrrr!

Related links/posts;
Manasi side of the story; http://www.ceptacemia.com/AMIE/?p=719
Celebrity Death Match Kill Board; http://818-k.eve-tools.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15
Sys-K Killboard; LINK PENDING