In April our alliance started renting some 0.0 from TCF in Wicked Creek. After a somewhat rough start, we settled in and could get some ratting and mining (Arkanor and Gneiss) done, even though small gangs of bad guys (ie. Reds in 0.0 speak) entered the area.
But over the past six weeks or so, the situation worsened. There are now continuously gangs coming in and out. Clownpunchers, Bob, Pure, Goodfellows and what not, can come and go as they please. TCF defense is nowhere to be seen, and the locals aren’t strong enough to take on these organized gangs. And then there is also a few Goons from time to time, who are blue to TCF but red to most other people, which is then cause for lively debate on the security channel.
To make things worse, last month or so (or the month before) the rent was upped. From 200 to 250 a month. Plus you also have to rent an office for 100 mil a month. Our corp isn’t very big, so this was straining the corp wallet a bit. As paying 350mil a month for space you can hardly use doesn’t make a lot of sense, we decided to bail out a few weeks back. The carriers took back most important stuff (ie. nice loot from ratting etc) and we all sold off our ratting and mining gear. I guess we’re not the only ones, the market has taken a tumble now in Wicked Creek. Lots of other people leaving the area as well I assume, so no more 350mil a month for TCF.
All in all it was an interesting experience. To be honest 0.0 is not all it’s cracked up to be. I might make a blogpost about that soon. I especially find it very annoying that other people (ie. mainly the Reds) can dictate what I can and cannot do in game…
So where do we go from here ? I am doing missions, invention and some exploration in empire at the moment, and factional warfare with an alter ego. The corp is scattered about in empire at the moment, with most people doing their own thing. We have been looking into other 0.0 rental options, but haven’t found a very appealing one yet. So if you know something or can make me some sort of offer, I am all ears ;).
The security penalties for suicide ganking will be more severe and the Concord response will be faster. Two frig will come in instantly (lag allowing) and a battleship will arrive to blow the offender to pieces. Also no more insurance payout when Concorde is on the killmail !
Not unreasonable changes. Suicide ganking used to be a pretty rare thing, but lately, for example on the Amarr -> Sivala route, you come across several camps of suiciders, it’s getting a bit out of hand. Luckily I have never been a victim of this particular tactic. Only drawback will ofcourse be the accidental shooting someone that occurs on rare occasions (cough cough).
Just as things were going a bit stale lately in the factional warfare (at least on the Minnie side), the Amarr seem to have upped their game. Whether someone finally took the lead, some new corp joined their war effort, or something else, I don’t know. But they seem to be better organised and actually engage their enemy. And last night they were busy getting their own low sec systems back.
What they do now, is have battleship heavy, remote repping fleet, which is supported by ECM. It’s very hard to break for the minmatar fleet, even though we outnumber them, we usually show up in rifters and cruisers with the odd battleship. Last night we assembled a better fleet, but the whole thing was a bit disorganised, and we suffered some losses.
Amarr morale was up after that fight as all of a sudden they were all over their own lowsec. I did some factional warfare missions in a small group and we were being chased around quite a bit, which was an interesting change. Only thing we lost was my kestrel, so it wasn’t too bad ;).
An interesting turn of events, of course I will keep you all up to date on new developments !
You enjoy Eve’s economic model and you find that the greatest challenge of the game lies in mastering the market. System security status is a matter of profit/no profit for you, and you always factor in the possibility/probability of PvP in your estimates. To you, Eve isn’t a PvP or a PvE game. It’s a simulation of capitalizm in its purest form, and a place where the savvy wins the day.
A new dev blog entry appeared today about a Speed Rebalance ! I guess all the nano whine nerfs on the forums helped ;).
My biggest beef with Nano’d HACs is that they dictate the fight. They run away if they don’t like the odds and engage when they think they can. Unless you use a very specific setup, they’re impossible to catch. And basically only a handful of ships are actually usable as nano ships, so that basically ignores all the rest of all the ships Eve has to offer. You have to fly a flavor of the month ship or not be able to compete at all, which isn’t what Eve is about…
What I really like about the blogpost is that you get a bit of an insight view as to how these balance issues are thought through and analysed. The proposed changes look good to me :).
Am currently halfway through the book and it’s great ! it’s very nice to read about the background of the various races and their internal struggles as well. One question though: Are the Amarr really as evil as depicted in this book ?
I was planning on posting some kind of review here, but the Mahogany Finish blog has already posted a thorough review at http://www.mahoganyfinish.org/ that i certainly agree with.
Does anyone know whether exploration is still worth it ? I am reading some mixed reports on the Forums. I trained up the skills needed for it a while ago, but never got around trying it out.
As I wrote earlier I dusted off an old Minmatar Character to participate in the Factional Warfare. So far it’s often been fun, when we’re chasing wartargets and / or getting ready for big fights. But also sometime boring, taking a few complexes in a system and waiting out the timers isn’t really the most exciting thing Eve has to offer. A patch a few days back also decreased the standings gain for each takeover quite abit. Furthermore you get less standings gain the higher your rank is. I am now around 6.9 with the factional warfare corp. The minmatar standing will come in handy though, they have some very nice (regular) Mission Agents, and the offers from their LP store are a lot more interesting than those from the Caldari corporations. Anyway, I was in a few nice battles the past week or so. Last friday CVA came to aid the Amarr cause. After a lot of cat and mouse, our scouts had found out they brought a BS fleet assisted by Guardians. The names of the guardians were notted down as primaries, and after a pretty long battle we won ! Several of their Battleships and a command ship went down, while we didn’t suffer as much losses.
A few days ago, there was a similar fight, but in that one I was totally lagged out. We warped into thirty or more amarr ships at a gate. They almost all had their drones out, which didn’t help much. My screen simply froze as my Rupture entered the grid, and by the time I was back I was halfway thru my armor. I managed to release my drones somehow, and they got me on two killmails, dissing out over 1000 dmg ;). But a few seconds later I was totally in hull and my ship about to explode. And I was in that state for more than two minutes i think. Then all of a sudden my pod was in a belt (i had frantically been clicking the warp button). So I missed most of the fight, but I think they lost several heavier ships and we lost mainly frigs and cruisers. There sure were a truckload of wrecks at the gate. Earlier that day that same fleet had decimated the minmatar rag tag fleet of rifters and ruptures, so it was a nice revenge. Unfortunately I missed that one.
I haven’t suffered many losses, just a bunch of ruptures and few rifters. especially to pirates I must say. Last night just wasn’t my evening though. I flew back to Rens in my Cyclone (already had that one for quite a while) to refit and get some extra ammo, while a fleet was forming to get rid of some pirates in Dal. Unfortunately no one had mentioned they were sitting on the Amamake gate, and i was pretty stupid for not asking their specific location. So I just jumped through that gate and almost got away, but someone locked me and scrambled, almost when I was warping out. I popped a short time later.
But that wasn’t all. I had already parked a few ships in Dal, so I picked up a rifter and proceeded to Huola. I had seen enough of Dal for the moment so I wanted to join another fleet there. A few jumps away I noticed a Trasher that was battling another soldier of the Minmatar, so I tried to help out, but wasn’t the smartest idea. The guy’s T2 artillery (amarr flying a Minnie ship :(), dealt a lot of dmg to my lone rifter and there I was in a pod again.
I ended the evening by flying back to Rens and setting up two additional Ruptures to be blown up later ;). I noticed the Cyclones are only 20mil now in Rens, so I might be keeping one on standby as well, if we ever need something a bit bigger. I can also fly a Typhoon, but not sure I want to throw that out there at the moment :).
Do you have people in your corp that have an avatar that makes you think you don’t want to meet them in a dark alley ? Or they just creep you out ? I know Rakeriku has at least one ;).
Make a similar blogpost on your blog, or if you haven’t gotten one, link a pic on flickr or a similar service to round em all up ;).
