Friday, 6 January 2012

Fourth Rifter Down

Fit


3x 150mm Autocannon 1
1x Small Nosferatu

1x Stasis Webifier 1
1x Warp Scrambler 1
1x Afterburner 1

1x Damage Control 1
1x 200m Tungsten Plate 1
1x Small Armour Repairer 1





Today I ventured back into my pirate haven of Otou. Opening up my D-Scanner I noticed the same Reaper I saw yesterday, as well as a number of other ships that I spotted earlier. I'm not sure if it's a glitch as there were more ships in system than people shown in local.


I warped to my regular safespot and checked out the locals. Only one real outlaw pirate in system, everyone else was minding their own business.


As I spent some time in Otou I created a few more safe spots, I tried making a safe in range of all major areas like stations and asteroid fields. This will be very helpful when I need to spend some time scanning down a particularly crafty target.


I was in system for around 20 minutes without any realistic targets to go after, then I noticed an Ishkur on my scanner. Low and behold it was the same pilot that had popped me oh-so easily yesterday.


Jumping at the chance to prove myself again I scanned him down to an asteroid field and warped to around 30km out. There he was in the asteroid field, probably trying to scan me down as well. I quickly turned on my damage control and armour repair modules, then I locked my target and went to town.


Once again he ate through my defenses like they were paper. I definitely lasted much longer than I did during our first encounter but it was still a very short engagement.


I got him down to about 1/4 shield and I ended up popping.


Post Battle Thoughts


I feel a lot more confident in my abilities to target, orbit and activate important modules now. Although I totally forgot to scramble him I know I won't forget in the future. I'm even starting to use shortcuts on my keyboard to make my job easier (if anyone knows how to quickly change orbit distances it would greatly be appreciated). 


What was once mind boggling in the D-Scanner I can now use with little to no problem. I'm starting to progress the little skills that make a pirate, even my anxiousness during battle has subsided to an extent. I feel more confident than I did when I first began PvP.


Extra Notes


The Ishkur pilot messaged me 5 minutes after battle and we talked a bit. He said the fight was unfair as he had major SP advantages over me. He told me he had roughly 58m SP compared to my 1m SP. He was also an experienced outlaw.


He told me a bit about Otou, he said that it was hard to find a fight there and that the battles were usually unfair (groups against one pilot, etc). 


He was a genuinely nice person to talk to, he said if I wanted to, he would declare war on my corp and we could arrange 1v1 Frigate duels in highsec as practice. I'm going to have to think about this but what the hell, it could be very good experience for me.


I also bought a PLEX the other day, I figured I work for my money so it's not totally undeserved. I sold it for about 460m, half I gave to my alt that will be a pure trading account. I hope this investment lasts a long time, I should be able to increase my net worth exponentially if I can make some good trades.


I'll be fitting my Rifter with a few tech 2 items. Currently I can only use named modules so my next fit will be including those.



Thursday, 5 January 2012

Third Rifter Down

Fit


3x 150mm Autocannon 1
1x Small Nosferatu

1x Stasis Webifier 1
1x Warp Scrambler 1
1x Afterburner 1

1x Damage Control 1
1x 200m Tungsten Plate 1
1x Small Armour Repairer 1

I took my first intended steps into lowsec space today. I entered Otou because someone had recommended it as a good place to start my lowsec roaming. My first ever time in lowsec was a sad one, I was but a few days old flying a Hoarder. I was transporting pretty much everything I had at the time which was a beginner mining vessel, a few skillbooks and some velspar over to a new station. At the time I didn't really know how dangerous lowsec was and I entered Ammamake without hesitation. What was waiting for me on the other side was a gatecamp, my lowly hoarder was scrambled and promptly destroyed along with all of my belongings. To add to that they destroyed my pod as a final insult.

Luckily I was a beginner at the time and the repercussions were minimal.

Today's venture into lowsec was a different one. I was better prepared for what awaited me, although I was still a little anxious once I hit that jump button into Otou.

Once on the other side and safely in Otou, I started scanning down my surroundings. Not much on the overview other than a Reaper (which I eventually found out was in a safespot) and an Ishkur.

I warped around a couple of times establishing some safe spots to scan from. Nothing special. I had my eye on the Ishkur as I thought this would be a good learning experience fight. For the most part he was in his safe spot not moving, most likely scanning himself. To get a better guage on who was around me I warped to sun and started a 360 degree scan. Once again there wasn't much out there. Then I noticed the Ishkur must have moved because I warped beyond his safespot and noticed that he popped up on my scan results in my new location.

I stayed at the sun for a couple of seconds and finally the Ishkur warped in. It was a quick battle. Once again I was fumbling around for different commands. The rush of battle was overwhelming and I could barely make a move.

He quickly targetted me and I was popped in a matter of seconds.

Post Battle Thoughts

My first though was to switch overview tabs, I was on my scanning tab when the Ishkur warped in. He targeted me and I absolutely had a brain fart about what to do. I don't think I managed to switch the overview tab and I might have accidentally hit "approach" instead of orbit.

The biggest mistake I made was not activating any kind of buffer. I had a damage control module as well as an armour repairer, none were activated. Instead I hit my weapons button and hoped for the best. Since I don't think I switched overview tabs the Ishkur was probably not targeted thus making my decision of activating my weapons a dumb one.

I still need to overcome the rush and anxiety of battle. Although I know in theory what to do, my brain is just clouded once the actual battle begins. I need to seriously work on this if I'm going to be a succesful pirate in New Eden. Keeping better watch over my  overview tabs as well as my buffer modules is also a must.

In the end I was taught a valuable lesson in this skirmish. Once I feel a little more comfortable in my pirate skin I know the battles will be better fought on my side.

Posting Fits/Minor Update

I'm going to start posting my fits on every combat update after someone had suggested it on one of my entries. I think this will help me understand the benefits and drawbacks of every fit I decide upon and it'll give me experience and a feel for what I want out of my combat experience.

Right now I'm using straight tech 1 fits:

High
3x 150mm Light Autocannon 1
1x Small Nosferatu

Medium
1x Stasis Webifier 1
1x 1MN Afterburner 1
1x Warp Scrambler 1

Low
1x 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates 1
1x Small Armour Repairer 1

This fit costs somewhere around 360k ISK, a far cry from the tech 2 fits I'll be utilizing in the near future.

I decided on a cheap fit in the beginning because I knew I'd be losing ships at a quick rate. Being only about a month into the game I haven't established a proven ISK making method yet.

This brings me to my next point. I need to start looking for ways to cover costs. I enjoy probing and scanning so I'm thinking about exploration. This will train my lowsec travel and evasion skills as well as my probe tracking skills. I know exploration is hit or miss at times but I feel this is the best route to go.


To close I'd just like to say thank-you to the number of posters that have commented on my entries and gave me tips, they are definitely all being reviewed and taken to heart. Every little tidbit helps so I hope to hear from as many people as I can.





Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Second Rifter Down

Well another day has begun and another day of can flipping has commenced.

I've been sticking around Hek lately searching for targets to flip. I came across an Osprey on my scanner and noticed there was a can in-field with him. Jumping at the chance for another fight I quickly warped to the asteroid field and was overjoyed that the can belonged to my hopeful target.

I burned towards him and quickly flipped his can. I waited a few seconds and was surprised to see him target me. This however was all set up beforehand. I set my autocannons on the Osprey and opened fire. I really wasn't doing any damage and I noticed my capacitor was completely drained. It seems as if the Osprey was just waiting for a can flipper, he jammed me and drained my cap to empty. Promptly two more ships (of which I couldn't see what type they were) warped in on my location and opened fire. I was done in all but a few seconds. My ship stood no chance and I quickly popped under fire of three ships.

Post Battle Thoughts


This one wasn't much of a learning experience in a combat sense. I'm still fumbling around trying to locate different commands and I can't make snap decisions yet. Once again I was put into a situation where I was pretty much helpless, I didn't have much of an idea of how to get out of it. My first thought was to break orbit and try to burn away from my attackers but with my capacitor completely empty I was pretty much a sitting duck.

I guess what this encounter taught me was to pick my targets well. Maybe I should have scanned my surroundings better perhaps I would have found his corpmates lurking at a nearby planet or asteroid field. I really did feel helpless here, and I don't like it at all. As well as feeling helpless I need to plan for situations like this, there was most likely a logical and simple way to flee but only being around Eve for around a month really gives me limited knowledge of the game as a whole.

I'll hit the books again and figure out what went wrong and how to avoid it.

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

First Rifter Down

Well yesterday I moved from my home of Dodixie to the Minmatar hub Hek. Here I started experimenting with my Directional Scanner.

I've always had problems with the D-Scanner so I really wanted to work this problem out. I set my overview to include ships, asteroid belts and cargo containers. If you don't get the subtle hints and what I was trying to do I'll just come right out and say I was can flipping. This is pretty much the most basic form of piracy known to Eve. What you have to do is find a ship jet can mining (jettison ore to fill a 'jet can' which holds a large capacity compared to your cargohold) and essentially steal the ore which he's put into it. I thought this would be a great place to start my piracy career as I could pick and choose which targets I wanted to attack.

I spent an hour or two just scanning down cargo containers or individual ships until I felt comfortable using the D-Scanner at last. I used my new skill to track down a target that I though would present me with little challenge, a retriever. Wow was this a bad idea. I flipped his ore into my jet-can and he responded by sicking his warrior II drones on me. The battle was pretty even at the beginning. I hit orbit at 500 and started unloading my measly tech I autocannons on him. His drones were his source of damage but I really had no idea how to deal with them. Eventually I took him down to about half armour, he was pretty brittle compared to what I thought he'd be but his drones were too much. I simply didn't have an answer for them.

The battle was over in less than a minute, my first Rifter was turned into dust and I quickly escaped in my pod.

Post Battle Thoughts

Although I thought this would be an easy kill I wasn't prepared for his combat drones. I really need to find a way to get rid of these things before they take me out, I assume once they're out of the picture my kill will be an easy one.

Perhaps flying away from them, hitting my afterburner, and picking them off one by one would work, although that would mean I would have to turn my attention from my target possibly letting him warp to safety. I'm going to have to do some serious research to combat this in the future.

About Oxxe Radak

I joined this game less than a month ago. I've been aware of it's existence for a couple of years but I never had the computer or funds to play it. I was only able to try the game through the 2 week trial feature and I was very impressed by what I saw.

The game's mechanics are deep. Players fit very specific roles such as industrialists, combat experts and whatever you could think of. This little mechanic really got me into Eve and always being a sci-fi fan just solidified my positive view of the game.

I can't say I got very far but I did know that I wanted to be a part of Eve some day.

My trial time eventually expired and I was left with a sad feeling that I'd never get to see Eve again. I left the game for a couple of years and now I finally have everything I need for an extended stay in New Eden.

This blog will document a very new player's experiece wading into the water that is Eve's pvp.

Sunday, 1 January 2012

A New Beginning

I wanted to create this blog to document my journey into the unknown that is Eve PvP.

I've done a blog for a couple of games I've played for myself to read over how I've progressed during my playtime. I thought I'd start one for my current game, Eve Online.

The mission is to familiarize myself with the mechanics of Eve's player versus player scene. I will do this through trial and error. I'll buy myself 20 Rifters, the fits will be adjusted on the fly to adjust to my playstyle.

Currently my only source of income in Eve is salvaging level 4 missions. While this may be partially profitable I need a source of income that will cover costs of destroyed Rifters. I've set myself a trial and error style goal to  get into PvP in Eve so I know I'll be losing all 20 of these Rifters quickly. I need to think of something that will cover these costs quickly. I might buy a PLEX and sell it for a quick 400 million but I hate the idea of not earning what I have.

I'll update this blog when I have everything in order.