Monday, October 10, 2011

Comms Comms Comms

Ever since Black Sail's brief stint in Mean Coalition I have been very strict about people using comms. That last fail alliance would regularly have fleet engagements with multiple corps and multiple comms. It was always a cluster fuck and we usually ended up trying to coordinate through chat windows! I swore that wouldn't happen again while I was running things.

This determination caused a lot of friction with another corp (Sinners) that joined the Yarr alliance. They wanted to use their own comm system while I wanted all joint alliance ops to be on the alliance Vent channel. They saw this as a threat to their independence (or something) and ended up leaving the alliance for this and huge egos a few other reasons.

Whatever. We have a corp policy that if you are going to pvp with us, you must be in fleet and on comms. If you are applying to the corp, you need to have a mic. I used to let a few people in with the understanding that their mic was broke and they would eventually get one. Many times this stretched out and became a real problem during ops. I got sick of this and now we our recruiting forums clearly say that you are not getting accepted unless you have a working mic. It's not like you can't run down to the nearest Wal-Mart and buy a $10 in a pinch.

It's a good policy and it's worked. Last night I had a experience that reminded me of why we have that policy. The (in)famous ex-Python Cartel member and blogger Andrea Skye convoed me and said he was coming back to the game and was interested in joining Black Sail. I immediately set him blue to the alliance and told him to drop an app in-game. I used to read his blog when I first started out with this game and am very excited to have an experienced pirate like him join the team.

A little later a few of us engaged two Solar Fleet battleships (maelstrom and dommi) on a gate. They were pretty tough bastards and we had some trouble breaking the tank of the maelstrom and ended up losing two hurricanes before we killed it. Since we were taking gate fire and I had to warp my tempest away in structure, I brought in my falcon alt to jam the dommi and let some of the battered ships get away. This alt is in a different corp but is still in the same alliance.

Someone said on vent that Andrea was warping in a Gila to help out and not to shoot him. That was cool with me because we needed the DPS. Then my ship immediately got blown out of the water by Andrea. I didn't realize it until after the fight (we still killed the dommi though).

At first I thought Andrea had couble crossed us but it turns out he didn't have a complete picture of what was going on and just been invited to join the fight by "HEY FIGHT AT GATE!! COME HELP! COME HELP". He had set Black Sail to blue but failed to set the entire alliance blue. Upon arrival at the gate he saw an evil non-blue falcon and did what comes natural.

If we had invited him to comms first, we all would have known what was going on and who primary was but since he wasn't...we had another clusterfuck on our hands. Luckily we got it all sorted out and Andrea is still joining us. And we learned a 180mil isk lesson about the importance of using comms.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

That's Dedication

Things have been going great with Black Sail and the alliance as a whole. I have to admit that I had some serious concerns a few months ago that a fail cascade was imminent. We were on horrible terms with everyone in our home system. One corp had just left our alliance and appeared on the verge of joining up with our reds. Our enemies seemed to have the skills and numbers to make us miserable and the kb/activity level was proof that things were headed south.

So I called the move and we went to a new area. It was a rocky start and we lost several members and a few more went inactive. Luckily we got an infusion of new members to Gray Sail and our more experienced Black Sail members did a good job of learning the ins and outs of our new home. We got whipped a few times before we got a feel for our new enemies but the dynamics of the area favored us.

Now things have done a complete 180 from before. Every night shows a large number of pilots logged in. We have a very very high retention rate and our killboard is rocking. Most importantly, people seem to be having a lot of fun when they are logged in. I think this adversity had caused us to bond and we are now working very well together. If you are reading this and you are looking for a fun laid back pirate corp, you may want to check us out. We roam. We gate camp. We do high sec suicide ganks. We make strange homo-erotic comments to each other in vent. It's a blast!

How do I know morale is high? Because one of our members got our corp symbol cut into his hair.
At least that is what he tells me is it. It could also be a hockey mask with wings. Either way, that's dedication! Now if I can just convince everyone to get Black Sail tattoos...




Saturday, September 17, 2011

Pandemic Legion in the house

The big boys have come to low sec and it's getting interesting.

Yarr Collective moved to Egghelende a few months ago and it seemed like a fun stop. Our major problem was Bane alliance but they usually didn't come in system in big numbers and seemed content to pick off corp members who were sloppy on gate camps or while sitting still at a safe. It was actually a good thing because it kept us on our toes.

Then the faction warfare corp Quantum Cats moved in and things got more difficult. While Q-Cats were especially aggressive, they had numbers. Combine them with Bane and we were usually outnumbered 3 to 1 in Egg. This was frustrating but it was also good for the corp. It got us roaming more and we began getting more kills outside of our home system. I figured Q-Cats were only going to be around for a short period of time then we would go back to just dealing with Bane.

Then Pandemic Legion moved in next door in Amamake. I heard that Q-Cats got their asses waxed by them and suddenly Q-Cats was nowhere to be found. I guess they didn't want to deal with being hotdropped every engagement. So it's back to dealing with Bane. Things are back to normal for us in Egg with the exception that PL members will sometimes stick their heads in Egg. When that happens, things get interesting.

We were on a short BC roam the other day in Auga when we came across a PL Hyperion baiting on the Amamake belt. I put a cloaky in system and saw a Rokh and Abbadon on the other side. There was no way we were going to engage PL in their home system so we headed back towards Egg. As we jumped in Siseide I noticed the PL battle ships jumping into Auga and giving chase. I had everyone jump into Egg and dock up with the intent of getting some bigger ships in case they came into system.

I put a cloaky in Egg on the Siseide gate and waited. A hurricane jumped into Egg and a PL rapier and Falcon uncloaked. The PL battleships jumped in and engaged the Hurricane and started taking gate guns. We all undocked and warped to the gate and jumped on them. A few off us had reshipped to Tempests so we had decent firepower plus we had a Falcon come with us. The Rapier bugged out and we were able to kill all three PL battleships while only losing a battlecruiser. It was a great fight and I felt pretty good about it. However I knew that we would be seeing more of PL.

They came back the next night with a bigger battleship fleet and killed a couple of our battlecruisers so I figured it was over but the following night there was an Exequror Navy Issue sitting on top station and one of us engaged it. The rest of our gang warped in to whore on the killmail assist our corpmate when a cyno got lit and 6 capital ships hotdropped us.

It's going to be interesting to see if this going to be a common thing with PL. I wonder how long they are staying.

Friday, September 2, 2011

The continuing adventures of Ragebear

My previous post detailed a funny reaction by one of our alliance carebears to getting ganked. I had hoped that this guy would calm down and start to try to learn the Way of the Flashy Red. Unfortunately it seems his temper is just too short. Someone made the mistake of calling him "Ragebear" in alliance chat and we were off to the races once again. Here is the hilarious chat. It should be obvious but the Ragebear is Amun Akris.


[ 2011.08.27 04:34:25 ] Amun Akris > You're all fucking bitches.
[ 2011.08.27 04:34:41 ] Amun Akris > This "ragebear" is going to come back and kill you all. Don't quit EVE. It will take time.
[ 2011.08.27 04:35:12 ] Amun Akris > And yea, a carebear in a pirate corp. FUCK THAT. Hence, I'm quitting.
[ 2011.08.27 04:35:31 ] Kasdeya Vetis > Really? What'd we do to you besides give you a home?
[ 2011.08.27 04:35:38 ] Amun Akris > Now kindly lick the most sickening part of my unwashed ass, you no-life griefers.
[ 2011.08.27 04:35:58 ] Kasdeya Vetis > y u mad tho?
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:26 ] Amun Akris > Yea. Well. You gave me a home...and talked mad shit about me...
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:31 ] Amun Akris > That NEVER makes anyone mad.
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:39 ] Amun Akris > Ragebear?
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:40 ] Amun Akris > Seriously.
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:52 ] Kasdeya Vetis > to be fair, that was only after you flipped out over a very insignificant event.
[ 2011.08.27 04:36:58 ] Amun Akris > Tears? Not tears...a promise of vengeance. I'm going to kill you all.
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:09 ] Captain Octanis > *ahem* its a game mate
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:16 ] Amun Akris > Yea
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:17 ] Amun Akris > It's a game.
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:22 ] Amun Akris > But you're really a douche. So sad.
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:32 ] Amun Akris > And if I can't kill you in real life, I will do so in game.
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:41 ] Captain Octanis > heh you dont know me bruh, been here for 3 days
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:54 ] Amun Akris > I don't have to. You want to be a pirate.
[ 2011.08.27 04:37:58 ] Kasdeya Vetis > Is this like one of those action movies where the hero slinks away defeated in the beginning, and then comes back at the end all Boss?
[ 2011.08.27 04:38:03 ] Amun Akris > From what I've seen... Pirate = Douchebag
[ 2011.08.27 04:38:19 ] Captain Octanis > pirate- pewpew
[ 2011.08.27 04:38:33 ] Amun Akris > You kill things because you can. Usually weaker, less skilled things.
[ 2011.08.27 04:38:39 ] Amun Akris > Because you lack balls to kill real shit.
[ 2011.08.27 04:39:09 ] Kasdeya Vetis > or, because we make more profit from weaker shit. duh.
[ 2011.08.27 04:39:13 ] Captain Octanis > HE MAD, REAL MAD BRO
[ 2011.08.27 04:39:33 ] Amun Akris > Nice, Octanis. Very original. Please use a meme that isn't driven into the ground?
[ 2011.08.27 04:39:47 ] Captain Octanis > ok, man the fuck up and get over it- its a dam game
[ 2011.08.27 04:39:57 ] Kasdeya Vetis > How many lions do you see jumping other lions when there's gazelles all around? You can't actually be that dumb.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:00 ] Captain Octanis > and thats CAPTAIN.... octanis son
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:05 ] Amun Akris > I will. I'm going to kill you all.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:06 ] Kasdeya Vetis > savvy?
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:19 ] Amun Akris > Lions don't kill for money.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:27 ] Captain Octanis > gonna need moar tear cans...
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:35 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I'm envisioning some of those Dragonball Z angry anime lines beinhd you when you say that, just so you know.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:41 ] Kasdeya Vetis > It makes the threat more epic.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:46 ] Amun Akris > They don't kill fictional people in fictional worlds to sate their lack of self-satisfaction in the real world. Do not equate lions with video games. That's retarded.
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:49 ] Aesomere > Don't forget to add the bounties
[ 2011.08.27 04:40:59 ] Amun Akris > No. No bounties.
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:07 ] Amun Akris > I'm going to kill you myself. And the bounty system is fucked up.
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:13 ] Captain Octanis > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68g2dK43M4
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:16 ] Captain Octanis > ^^^ amun
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:22 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I recommend less talk, more pew pew.
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:29 ] Aesomere > Amen
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:35 ] Amun Akris > I recommend you gobbling a bowl of steaming cock.
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:45 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I mean, you're starting to look like a windbag.
[ 2011.08.27 04:41:55 ] Kasdeya Vetis > You're not in politics in real life, are you?
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:17 ] Amun Akris > I'm trying to get kicked out of this bullshit corp.
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:31 ] Amun Akris > Forceably ejected.
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:32 ] Kasdeya Vetis > Somebody is logging this, right? This is gonna be epic on the blog.
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:42 ] Amun Akris > Oh, and make some enemies. I don't have any. That's not very interesting.
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:46 ] Captain Octanis > and what do you plan to do after? mine us to death?
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:55 ] Aesomere > I can't believe your so pissed u lost that measley 1 mil
[ 2011.08.27 04:42:55 ] Amun Akris > I have 0 mining skills
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:05 ] Amun Akris > Well, 1 mill is a lot when you only have 3 mil
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:06 ] Captain Octanis > well then, thats gonna take a while to kill us
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:07 ] Kasdeya Vetis > Who has enemies in a video game besides butthurt little kids?
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:28 ] Amun Akris > I do.
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:30 ] Kasdeya Vetis > You want me to lend you some cash to get a ship that won't melt in five seconds flat?
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:32 ] Amun Akris > It's more interesting. More challenging.
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:41 ] Aesomere > Whenever you decide to come after us, we'll be here
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:47 ] Captain Octanis > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbcctWbC8Q0
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:49 ] Aesomere > and then you'll rage again
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:49 ] Captain Octanis > IS THIS YOU?!!!
[ 2011.08.27 04:43:56 ] Amun Akris > Don't underestimate the "ragebear."
[ 2011.08.27 04:44:03 ] Amun Akris > After all...a carebear...is still a bear.
[ 2011.08.27 04:44:26 ] Aesomere > type care bear in google
[ 2011.08.27 04:44:37 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I don't think anyone has any estimating to do here. You've made it plain you're a raging idiot.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:00 ] Aesomere > those look more like teddy bears stuffed full of gayness
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:01 ] Kasdeya Vetis > lol at the vid, Cap. I like where he has to stop to take breaths.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:06 ] Amun Akris > Oh really? Since you know me from my online interactions? That makes you an expert.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:14 ] Amun Akris > On me.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:18 ] Amun Akris > You know EVERYTHING about me.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:25 ] Amun Akris > I'm an idiot because you pissed me off?
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:36 ] Aesomere > How did we piss you off
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:41 ] Amun Akris > I get angry...and somehow that makes me less intelligent.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:43 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I'm guessing I'd need a swinging 12 inch black cock to be an expert on you, but I know what I've seen so far.
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:46 ] Aesomere > im not the one who popped your hauler
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:46 ] Amun Akris > Makes NO sense...
[ 2011.08.27 04:45:56 ] Amun Akris > I am a female...so yea...
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:09 ] Amun Akris > I don't swing the other way....so penis is where it's at...
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:12 ] Captain Octanis > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzs ... =relatedoh wait here you are
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:25 ] Kasdeya Vetis > It's hard to tell with the hood.
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:38 ] Captain Octanis > XD
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:38 ] Amun Akris > Rightttt....
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:41 ] Aesomere > chicks dont play eve anyways
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:46 ] Amun Akris > Heh...ok...
[ 2011.08.27 04:46:54 ] Captain Octanis > oh so playing the gender card now eh?
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:05 ] Amun Akris > Hijos de la reputa chingada madre que les pario...
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:07 ] Captain Octanis > "oh wait you're a woman, we should let her rant away at us!"
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:27 ] Kasdeya Vetis > Unless you're coming to my house to blow me, I don't really care if you're male or female. Well, scratch that. I probably wouldn't care then, either.
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:37 ] Kasdeya Vetis > The point is that I don't care.
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:42 ] Amun Akris > Io sono molte cose...mas stupido non e uno...
[ 2011.08.27 04:47:45 ] Captain Octanis > LMAO
[ 2011.08.27 04:48:23 ] Amun Akris > Captain, your links are not watched. As long as you're aware...
[ 2011.08.27 04:48:33 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I used to have a "make me a sammich" gif around here somewhere, but it's probably a moot point.
[ 2011.08.27 04:48:45 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I'm watching his vids, and they are hilarious. Keep posting.
[ 2011.08.27 04:48:53 ] Captain Octanis > io parlo italiano troppo
[ 2011.08.27 04:49:37 ] Aesomere > yes, women should be in the kitchen
[ 2011.08.27 04:49:44 ] Amun Akris > E? Da mi un baccio sul culo...
[ 2011.08.27 04:50:00 ] Kasdeya Vetis > or on me bouncy penor. boing boing boing
[ 2011.08.27 04:50:08 ] Amun Akris > Or in an office making translating for a multinational corporation....
[ 2011.08.27 04:50:08 ] Aesomere > lol
[ 2011.08.27 04:50:22 ] Aesomere > nah, im stickin with kitchen
[ 2011.08.27 04:50:25 ] Kasdeya Vetis > same
[ 2011.08.27 04:51:43 ] Kasdeya Vetis > So what was it like when the ship melted around you? Was there a definite "what the hell is happening" phase, or was it straight to mega-rage?
[ 2011.08.27 04:51:59 ] Captain Octanis > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns9oAGnK9CU
[ 2011.08.27 04:52:00 ] Captain Octanis > my fav
[ 2011.08.27 04:52:03 ] Captain Octanis > eve related
[ 2011.08.27 04:52:29 ] Aesomere > rage, revenge, then wanted to kill pirates that had nothing to do with it
[ 2011.08.27 04:52:46 ] Kasdeya Vetis > The most reasonable response possible, then.
[ 2011.08.27 04:53:14 ] Kasdeya Vetis > I take back my earlier doubts. You are definitely a chick. Not even going to ask for tits to prove it.

So he quit the corp right afterwards. We were going to try to grief him a little bit but he ran as far and as fast as he could to some distant corp. I guess we will have to wait for his revenge.


Friday, August 26, 2011

The death of a carebear but the birth of a pirate?

For those who don't know, Black Sail has an industrial corp (White Sail) that helps keep us in ships and mods.  While Black Sail is full of nasty pirates, we have to manufacturers and miners for White Sail.  We try to stick with people who have the pirate mindset and members are invited to fleet up with the rest of us as long as they keep their sec status up enough to operate in high sec.

One of our newer indy members apparently got his hauler ganked in low sec.  The chat that followed in our alliance chat showed he may have not had an in-depth interview when he was accepted into corp. It's a little long but worth the read:

[13:52:30] White Sail Carebear > A FUCKING PIRATE JUST TOOK OUT MY SHIP
[13:52:32] White Sail Carebear > COCKSUCKER
[13:54:19] Black Sail Pirate > gotta be careful in lowsec
[13:55:17] White Sail Carebear > Well I just lost all my shit
[13:55:30] White Sail Carebear > And I WAS careful
[13:55:35] White Sail Carebear > I'm just a noob flying back to base
[13:55:42] White Sail Carebear > And I warped to 0 and everything
[13:55:44] White Sail Carebear > He was gate camping
[13:55:47] White Sail Carebear > I had no chance.
[13:55:49] Black Sail Pirate > welcome to low-sec
[13:55:51] White Sail Carebear > Killed me in one volley
[13:58:51] White Sail Carebear > Right
[13:59:01] White Sail Carebear > So...who's gonna help me go back there and toast that fucker?
[14:00:36] Black Sail Pirate > im still moving shit out of our old home so im not near ya
[14:02:10] White Sail Carebear > Well I'm back at base...in my goddamn pod...
[14:02:22] White Sail Carebear > I was LITERALLY hauling everything I just earned in Caldari space BACK to base
[14:02:30] White Sail Carebear > Three ships, tons of ore, and weaponry out the ass
[14:02:53] Aesomere > where were you at
[14:03:07] White Sail Carebear > I don't even know
[14:03:11] White Sail Carebear > I tried conversation with him
[14:03:32] White Sail Carebear > And he said "Your account is a year old, you don't expect me to believe you have only 4M skillpoints?"
[14:03:55] White Sail Carebear > I was like "FUck yea, asshole. Who else but a noob would FOLLOW YOU through a gate wondering WTF a blinking red light on the overview meant?"
[14:04:16] Aesomere > lol just because an account is that old doesnt mean whoever owns it has been playin and training a full year
[14:04:31] Black Sail Pirate > exactly
[14:05:01] White Sail Carebear > Tell HIM that
[14:06:16] White Sail Carebear > Wow
[14:06:20] White Sail Carebear > He just fucking blocked me
[14:06:31] White Sail Carebear > Is THIS what pirates do?!?!?!
[14:06:40] White Sail Carebear > Fucking take out noobs to stroke their own fucking piss poor egos?
[14:06:52] White Sail Carebear > I want no part of this shit.
[14:06:57] Black Sail Pirate > dont sweat it man, it happens,
[14:07:01] White Sail Carebear > Ruining other people's gameplay because you can...
[14:07:09] White Sail Carebear > That's fucking humanity for you.
[14:07:34] White Sail Carebear > EVE is an accurate reflection of people "Why did you just destroy me?" Response: "Because I can" or "Because it entertained me"
[14:07:48] White Sail Carebear > Fucking ridiculous
[14:08:07] White Sail Carebear > I thought pirating was just like doing faction warefare. Like...consensual PvP...but no
[14:08:10] White Sail Carebear > It's all about ganking noobs.
[14:08:12] White Sail Carebear > Fail.
[14:08:47] Aesomere > yea, pirating is very much unlike faction warfare
[14:08:58] White Sail Carebear > Well I didn't fucking know that.
[14:09:02] White Sail Carebear > And I want NO part of this shit.
[14:09:17] White Sail Carebear > I will stay in White Sail as long as I never take part in that shameless bullshit.
[14:09:35] White Sail Carebear > Have you guys ganked noobs like that??????
[14:10:23] Black Sail Pirate > we dont take time to check how long someone has been playing
[14:10:34] Black Sail Pirate > some of the best pvpers ive met have been very new players
[14:11:29] Black Sail Pirate Ovaltiney for example
[14:13:00] White Sail Carebear > Well I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. I was in an industrial ship I had JUST learned to fly racing as fast as I could to base with a knowledge that has been corrupted and degraded due to lack of use and the passage of time.
[14:13:06] White Sail Carebear > Call it an excuse, but it's the truth.
[14:13:23] White Sail Carebear > And I did some pretty damn fine Faction Warfare back in December in my punisher....
[14:13:51] White Sail Carebear I rolled with TBC then. Good times. But, the Company moved to a different game
[14:14:22] Black Sail Pirate > Faction warfare is usually a little safer than lowsec, as ppl are careful about what they attack as not to lose sec status, but out here we dont much care about it
[14:14:49] White Sail Carebear > Ah
[14:14:53] White Sail Carebear > Sort of like entry level PvP
[14:15:03] Black Sail Pirate > pretty much
[14:15:15] White Sail Carebear > Alright
[14:15:16] White Sail Carebear > Fine then
[14:15:24] White Sail Carebear > If this is "the way of things" in EVE
[14:15:27] White Sail Carebear > Then FUCK mining.
[14:15:29] Black Sail Pirate > faction warfare is a place for ppl to get the pvp action without as much risk to their sec and stuff
[14:15:33] Aesomere > yea in a pirates mind theres only a couple things he thinks, who can i kill, and how much profit does it make me
[14:15:41] Black Sail Pirate > exactly
[14:15:54] White Sail Carebear > Give me the biggest fucking gun and let me hunt down that fucking bitch who just vaped me.
[14:16:06] White Sail Carebear > Revenge is now my modus operandi
[14:16:09] White Sail Carebear > Get me in Grey Sail
[14:16:21] Black Sail Pirate > i will let buck know
[14:16:30] White Sail Carebear > I'm going to fucking vaporize any goddamn ship that isn't flying Black Sail colors
[14:16:42] Black Sail Pirate > embracing the pirate lifestyle lol
[14:16:58] White Sail Carebear > No, embracing the hell-bent on payback lifestyle.
[14:17:07] Black Sail Pirate > close enough
[14:17:07] White Sail Carebear > If I have to be a pirate to kill everyone...so be it.
[14:17:20] Black Sail Pirate > just be ready to kiss hi-sec goodbye
[14:17:28] Black Sail Pirate > as you wont be welcome there soon
[14:17:32] White Sail Carebear > There will be a great lamentation in the universe when I am done.
[14:17:50] White Sail Carebear > Fuck it. If I need ISK...I'll just fucking take someone else's.
[14:18:05] White Sail Carebear > Kill you, sell your shit. End of story.
[14:18:55] White Sail Carebear > Luckily I had Platinum insurance on every one of those ships. Just in case something like this happened. I did it RIGHT before I left the station.
[14:19:16] White Sail Carebear > I put that cock gobbling pirate wannabe on my watch list.
[14:19:31] White Sail Carebear > I'm going to get my shield tank on, then I'm going to fucking murder him. Repeatedly if I can.
[14:19:59] White Sail Carebear > The ONLY time I've *EVER* lost a ship in this game is to whores like him.
[14:20:10] White Sail Carebear > I lost an Amarr industrial too to pirates.
[14:20:40] White Sail Carebear > Same scenario. I was just minding my own business. Had to cross through low sec to get to my destination. The pirates were sitting at the gate....
[14:20:51] Black Sail Pirate > industials are like pinata's to pirates, crack em open and see what falls out
[14:21:18] White Sail Carebear > Interesting analogy.
[14:21:23] Black Sail Pirate > you can set ur autopilot to avoid lowsec i you are trying to get to a hisec system
[14:21:24] Black Sail Pirate > lol
[14:21:28] Black Sail Pirate > its pretty accurate
[14:21:59] White Sail Carebear > Here's another: I want to crack open fighting pirate ships to watch their entrails fall out into a steaming pile and smile as the light of life slowly leaves their Gods-forsake, no good, yellow bellied ass.
[14:23:01] White Sail Carebear > Then I want to bathe in their blood, rape their wives, and eat their unborn children while dancing on their grandmother's flea-ridden corpse.
[14:23:27] White Sail Carebear > No...it's not about money any more.
[14:23:39] White Sail Carebear > It's about the PEOPLE full of shit sitting behind their keyboards.
[14:23:49] White Sail Carebear > Laughing at me because I was an easy kill.
[14:23:55] White Sail Carebear > It's time THIS carebear grew some teeth.
[14:26:08] White Sail Carebear > That actually pissed me off.
[14:26:11] White Sail Carebear > I'm getting off here.
[14:26:20] White Sail Carebear > I'm going to go watch porn or something to cool down. ROFL
[14:26:26] Black Sail Pirate > lol later man
I found it hilarious how he didn't know that pirates popped haulers.  I guess he didn't check our kb since it is full of indy ship kills.  I also like how his mood changes from wanting to stay the hell away from pvp to shipping up and going out to kill everything.  Maybe he will fleet up on a couple of roams and decide on a new career path.

But then who is going to mine for us?

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Don't Confuse Luck with Skill

Sorry for the lack of postings.  RL and Eve have been very busy.  We'd had some diplomatic issues with blues come up that ended up with a big standings reset.  One of the corps in our alliance has left.  I knew all along the departure was inevitable due to some very big cultural differences between that corp and the rest of the alliance.  I'd actually thought that this split was going to be handed in a friendly manner for once until the CEO of that corp decided to write a blog posting about how great his corp is and how bad Yarr was for not being grateful enough for their advice on everything.   Add an alliance move and you can imagine how busy my Eve time has become.

However before all this drama kicked off a few of us decided to try to suicide gank a hulk in a nearby .5 system.  Suicide thrashers were fitted and I sent my cloaky alt in to get us a warp in point.  The ice belt he was in had a lot of cans and junk around so I was a little too cautious with my warp in.  Our gank landed outside of optimal so we lost our ships to Concord before we could kill him.  It sucked but it happens.

As we warped our pods back to low sec I saw the miner put out a "LOL" in local.  That's to be expected.  Anyone who survives after the shock of a high sec gank will probably use a little of that adrenaline to brag a little.  But this miner talked shit.  And talked shit.  And sent convo requests talking shit.  And send Eve mails talking shit.  It went on and on forever.

Finally I got tired of it and accepted his convo.  I explained that yes, he survived a gank.  Good job and all that but he is apparently mistaking his luck for skill.  I let him know his constant crowing about getting lucky has now made him a special project of the Yarr Collective and that we have sec status and ships to waste just to show him how unlucky he can be.

This pretty much shut him up but you can't take it back once the trigger is pulled.  Two days later he found himself getting a face full of shut the fuck up from a suicide mega and an email titled "The Yarr Collective Sends Their Regards".  I haven't heard much else from him since then.

Thanks to our member Planetary Genocide for tracking that fool down.



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

That had to hurt

Why would anyone take a ship worth over 4 billion isk into low sec and screw around with pirates?  I guess he didn't realize that he could be bumped off gate.

Here are the results.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

All Over the Map

Carebears are an interesting breed.  I've never really been into the whole mission running thing and I would rather shoot myself in the head than go mining.  I do a little trading to make isk to support my habit but I consider it a necessary evil.  Maybe one day I will try some manufacturing to increase my profits but I've been saying that for a long time. Some players approach the game with the understanding that pvp is out there and it may smack you upside the head when you least expect it.  Others feel they are untouchable in high sec and seem to have an incredible sense of outage when they learn differently.

Well last night Yarr Collective decided to go stick it to the man in the form of suicide gank squads.  With the help of the extremely talented griefers in Sinners, miners were slapped around.  Seven Hulks were killed along with one Mac and one Covetor.  It was epic stuff.

Reactions from miners were all over the place.  Most were surprised and like "what just happened?" but some reactions were interesting.  We had one guy who convoed me and said that he hated mining and blowing stuff up looked much more fun.  He ended up applying to our training corp and I think he will like it more than crunching rocks.  Another response was a little more....emotional.  It's short so I will just post the chat log:

[ 2011.07.23 04:09:40 ] Marc Scaurus > MURDERER!
[ 2011.07.23 04:09:42 ] Marc Scaurus > KILLER!
[ 2011.07.23 04:09:53 ] peacemaker79 > why ?
[ 2011.07.23 04:10:02 ] Marc Scaurus > THOSE ASTEROIDS HAVE DONE NOTHING TO YOU
[ 2011.07.23 04:10:12 ] Marc Scaurus > you disgust me taking advantage of innocent lumps of rock like that
[ 2011.07.23 04:10:56 ] peacemaker79 > I understand you destory Hulk
[ 2011.07.23 04:11:03 ] peacemaker79 > but why capsule ?
[ 2011.07.23 04:11:08 ] peacemaker79 > why?
[ 2011.07.23 04:11:09 ] Marc Scaurus > Your sins must be purged
[ 2011.07.23 04:11:23 ] Marc Scaurus > Your clone was infected with the vile stink of roid killing lasers
[ 2011.07.23 04:12:15 ] Marc Scaurus > DO YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY FOR YOUR ACTIONS?
[ 2011.07.23 04:12:35 ] peacemaker79 > you know, what I am going to find you in real life, and fuck your mother, siste and all you fuckin female family
[ 2011.07.23 04:12:39 ] peacemaker79 > you got that ?
[ 2011.07.23 04:13:14 ] Marc Scaurus > WILL YOU FUCK MY FEMALE DOG TOO?
[ 2011.07.23 04:13:38 ] Marc Scaurus > HAVE YOU NO DIGNITY? No, of course not, ROID KILLER
[ 2011.07.23 04:13:51 ] peacemaker79 > I see how low inteligence you are, bud
[ 2011.07.23 04:14:10 ] peacemaker79 > conversation is over


Fascinating stuff eh?



Well after that was all over, a few of us went on a small BC roam.  It was a night of milestones.  Anonymous Zeal FCed for the first time and got two kills.  A new Gray Sail member, Demomitrix, got his first pvp kill ever!  Welcome to a whole new game buddy.  And our corp hermit, Schneizel Veiss, actually got in fleet and ventrilo and roamed with it.  It was a fun roam until a gang of faction battleships landed on our face and raped us.  Ah well.

And on a side note, sorry to Tuscor for my guys killing his cane after he complemented me on my blog.  You jumped out in that rifter and then when you came back in the cane we couldn't resist.  If it makes you feel any better, you got on my km when the faction ships killed me.   Thanks for the kind words though.



Fly safe.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Baiting, tactics, epeens, and hypocrisy


I recently read Rixx's post about playing station games and it got me thinking about the different tactics people use in Eve and reactions to those tactics.  It bothered me a little because Rixx and his crew use very specific tactics to win fights such as baiting on station and then warping in carriers.  Rixx also claims that  "I can honestly and sincerely say that I have never run from a battle and docked up to avoid combat."  No offense to Rixx but I seriously doubt that.  In fact, I was talking with a couple of guys in my alliance who recalled that just the day before, some Lucifer Hammer guys docked up to avoid dying.  And I personally was involved in an engagement when Rixx and another Lucifer pilot was trying to fight us on station in vagabonds.  We were able to get a web on one and started laying into it.  Guess what it did just before it hit structure?  Yep.  It docked up.

So I ask you why is it cowardly to dock up to avoid dying but it isn't to warp in a cap ship?  Or is it only cowardly when it is the other party denying you a kill?

Docking up is a valid tactic when engaged by an obviously superior force and I find it strange for that to be called cowardly. Of course this is just another example of the mindset in Eve that if someone uses a tactic you disapprove of against you, they are blobbers/ECM fags/cowards/noobs and on and on.  However if you actually use that same tactic, you are just fighting smart.  I undocked a Falcon the other night and the other pilot cried in local about how weak that was.  But that pilot had attacked my bait alt with a ship two classes higher than his target.

Why isn't that cowardly if ECM boats are?



The same goes for "blobbing".  If you get engaged without securing an agreed upon 1v1, then you really shouldn't cry when more ships land on your face.  I have seen killmails where a person complains that he thought the other party wanted to solo but instead called for back-up.  Once again, unless you both agreed on a 1v1, why in the world would you assume this and then complain when you got ganked?


Another example is a corp that came down in our space last night.  They had a gang on the other side of the gate with Scorpions, battleships, and a command ship.  We only had four on and we were mostly in BCs.  Well this gang tried so very hard to bait us.  They put a drake on gate but no luck.  They had a cynabal warp in and call us names while dancing around the station.  Then they brought in a BS and tried to get us to engage outside of station.  Of course we knew the gank squad was next door so we didn't take the bait.  Well they got upset and decided to call us all pussies for not engaging and going to a certain death.  I don't begrudge them for baiting but their anger at not being able to provoke a fight was strange because I know they would not have engaged if the odds were reversed.

Then the cynabal pilot started to berate us because we often camp one of the low sec skill book stations in system.  The funny thing is this pilot is usually outside the station in a machariel doing the same thing.  So it is faggy when I kill noobs while flying a cane but it isn't when he uses a faction battleship?  I don't understand the logic.



I guess my point is that  a fair is a place you go to eat cotton candy and step in horse shit.  Fair doesn't really have a place in Eve.  I don't like to lose ships and I tend to engage when the odds are in my favor.  However that's not just me.  Almost everyone does the same thing.  So just play the game you want but don't be a dick when others do the same. Killing noobs on the undock doesn't make you an awesome player but it also doesn't make you an asshole either.  Same goes for baiting, using ECM, and all the other things that everyone bitches about but uses for themselves as well.

Hypocrites suck.  Don't be one.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Want Pirate Booty?


Recruiting is open for all three of the Sails.  Contact me or any corp officer for more info.

Check our FAQs @ our website for more information.  Want to know more about our alliance?  Check here.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Pirate Life for Me



One thing I have found out since running a low sec pirate corp (and now a low sec pirate alliance) is that pirating isn't for everyone.  A lot of players read the blogs and decide they want to go yarr in low sec.  After all, who doesn't want to be a scary pilot and pop haulers in belts?


Unfortunately many people don't realize some of the challenges involved in being a flashy red pirate and they quickly get discouraged and leave the corp/alliance.  What makes it so tough you ask?

Isk, for one.  It's bloody hard to make money as a pirate.  Oh sure you can get the occasional ransom and sometimes some tasty loot.  I remember once when I was with a small gang that got 700 mil worth of loot from a Loki kill.  That was awesome but usually it's crap loot from crap fits.  Some people think they will be a pirate and just rat and mission their way into wealth on the side.  Well that's an idea but rats in low sec don't pay near as well as 0.0 and low is actually more dangerous than null for ratters.  You can try ratting in a belt but odds are you will come back in a pod.  While missions are lucrative, you have the same problem as ratting.  Of course you can do missions in high sec but if you are actively pirating, your sec status will rapidly put high sec missions out of reach.   And speaking of sec status...

Have a low sec status can be a pain in the ass.  You will find that the faction police will have a serious problem with you and all of empire is now off limits.  If you do research or indy stuff, better find new systemst to use.  If you want to buy something in a major trade hub, forget about it.  There are guys who spend all day outside of Jita or Dodixie just waiting for flashy pirate to come out.  Getting supplies changes from just running down to the store for a single mod into training up a neutral hauling alt just to make supply runs.

Low sec PvP is tough.  PvP in low sec isn't like that null sec bullshit of having 200+ ships and just trying to out DPS another 2--+ fleet.  Most fights in low sec involve solo ships or gangs of 3 to 10.  Anything bigger than 15 in low is a HUGE fleet to me.  Smaller gangs require smarter tactics than just locking a target and clicking your guns.  And roaming solo or in a very small gang looking for fights is work.  You have to really know what you are doing with the directional scanner and you have to be aware of high sec/low sec aggro.  I recently lost a Stabber Fleet to Concord because I had my head up my ass.  If you are going to come into low sec to look for fights, you are going to have to learn some skills.

All of these reasons are why I often see a pilot join and then quickly decide to go back to running missions in high sec.  It's unfortunate because I think low sec is the best place in the game.  Fights are fun and plentiful.  There are skilled people to fight and noobs looking for skill books to abuse.  With a little planning, you can take care of your logistical needs.  Isk will always be a problem but if you follow the rule about only flying what you can afford, then you should be okay.

If you have read this and still think you want to give it a try, the Black Sail is still recruiting and the Gray Sail is there for newer/less experienced pilots who need to learn.  Shoot me a mail in game if interested.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

One door closes and another one opens

As I mentioned in an earlier post, our last alliance (Burn Away) is dead.  We at the Black Sail have decided to continue on with our own plans for Eve domination.  I just created the alliance Yarr Collective with Black Sail as the executor corp.  On top of that, we have created the Gray Sail Anarchists as a training academy for newer and less experienced applicants to the Black Sail.  We have also created an industrial corp with the intent of using it to supply the alliance with cheap ships and hopefully to turn a profit.

Yarr Collective is not accepting any other corps just yet.  We are going to continue to build up Black Sail and fill Gray Sail with pilots that we can mold into awesome pirates.  We are going to get a decent income stream from our indy corp and fill our coffers.  Once we get everything running smooth, then we will start accepting other pirate corps into the alliance (if any want to join).

I've very excited about this new direction we are taking.  I have good directors and motivated people to work toward the goal.  With that being said, we are still recruiting.  If you are a decent player and want to try to pirate life, Black Sail may be for you.  If you are new to the game/PVP but want a shot at low sec, Gray Sail could right up your alley.

We are also looking for people that enjoy working with noobs to help with training and fittings.  And if you are a miner or manufacturing pilot who would like to be associated with a pirate corp and yarr on the side, try our indy corp, White Sail Anarchists.  All of you can drop into our public chat "blacksailpub" if you have questions.

*note*

Corp thieves can look elsewhere.  I'm a pirate and I read the blogs.  Access to assets will be strictly limited, especially in the indy corp.  Oh and Incarna sucks my balls.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Another day, another alliance

We joined Burn Away and everything seemed to be going fairly well.  But just as we were starting to get comfortable with the alliance and do some joint hunting, we got notified that the alliance was shutting down.  Apparently the alliance head, Rixx Jarvis, has to take a break from Eve due to RL issues.  I understand that completely.  After all, real life come first to a spaceship game and I wish him the best.  However I was very surprised that no other corp members stepped up to take over as alliance head.  I asked Rixx about it and was told that none of the members were willing to accept the responsibility.

It seems strange to me because Lucifer's Hammer seemed like a real close group of guys.  I dunno what the deal is but Burn Away is effectively dead in the water less than two weeks after we joined them.  Regardless, we aren't letting this slow us down.  In fact, we are actually speeding up.  Recruiting has been amped up and we are starting a new pirate training corp that will affiliated with Black Sail.  This is roughly modeled after the Black Rabbits and their Black Rabbits Academy.  We are also starting to form an industrial corp (similar to the White Rabbits) to help us fund the academy and hopefully get a ship supply program going.

I'm really excited about it.  While recruiting I found that many people were interested in trying piracy but just didn't meet our initial requirements.  An "academy" will let us evaluate the newer players, guide them, and then have a nice pool of experienced low sec pvpers to recruit from.  While we still haven't gotten all the details ironed out, it should be operational soon.

There is still some talk about if we should join another alliance or make our own at this point.  I am leaning towards creating our own and eventually having other pirate corps join if they want.  We are still a long way from that point but it is a goal we can start working towards soon.

In other news, I love our new system of Lisbaetanne.  It is a very active system and we have a ton of kills there already.  When we are tired of killing the noobs, there are several skilled pvp pirate corps in the area that give us good fights.  I have extended an invitation to all the Lucifer Hammer pilots who would like to join up but that offer is going to expire soon and we will be truly independent in a couple of days.

Yarr

Monday, June 13, 2011

Stupid stupid stupid

I went on a roam the other night with the intent of going to a low sec pocket that I like to hunt it.  It was a straight shot through low sec until you come to 3 .5 systems in a row.  Once you go through those, you are back in low sec in the pocket.  I took out a new Stabber Fleet Issue because I wanted some decent power and I wanted to make sure I could avoid the faction police in those high sec systems along the way.

I got to the last low sec system before the first .5 and I decided to run the belts first.  I located a flashy stilleto in the top belt.  Just before I started to lock him a non-flashy dramiel landed next to me.  Since a dramiel is the shiniest of the two, I locked the dramiel and got GCC.  Who cares though, I'm  a pirate right?

Well the dram of course zoomed off before I could kill him and I saw several big ships pop up on directional.  I figured that I should gtfo and continue my journey so I warped to the next gate.  There was a drake sitting there that immediately started to lock me.  No big deal though. I would just jump through the gate and warp to the next system.  So I jumped.  Into a .5 system.  With an active GCC counter.

Hello CONCORD.  Goodbye Stabber Fleet.

I guess that's what happens when you spend all your time in low sec.  You completely forget about high sec game mechanics.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

When the going gets mean, we burn away

That title really makes sense to me, I promise.


So it's finalized and Black Sail is now a proud member of the Burn Away alliance.  I learned about this alliance from following Rixx's blog over at Evoganda. I respected the way they wouldn't put up with the elitist attitude of one alliance or the blue killing of another.  I also like their style.  They seem like a very fun group of guys that just want to enjoy the game and low sec piracy.  Since I was looking to leave Mean at the same time they were looking for member corps, it seemed like a perfect fit.  I look forward to flying with them.

Now the question has been asked of why I pulled out of Mean Coalition.  I hate to air dirty laundry but I haven't been able to PVP much lately and I think we were treated poorly so I guess I need to blog about something eh?

I was never really happy with Mean.  They always seemed fairly unorganized.  The intel channel was a mess of blues from different alliances.  Some were blue to individual corps, some were just friends of directors, so on and so on.  So I never really felt comfortable with it.  It was also like herding cats to get people to use comms.  I can think of multiple engagements where nobody was on comms and people were typing back and forth in several different channels.  It was also hard to get someone to take charge during spur of the moment engagements.  I remember one time when the FC simply announced that he didn't want to FC anymore and was just going to follow instructions IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ENGAGEMENT.  It was just a mess and we got our asses handed to us several times.  I tried to bring it up a few times but was met with indifference.

Another issue was the blue list.  Because you had individual blues and not whole corps, you sometimes ran into these blues roaming in our area with corpmates who weren't blue.  Fights would happen and then you would have the inevitable blue on blue killmails.  It was a real problem.

Spies was another issue.  Mean seems to be blood enemies of Electus Matari and there were always concerns about EM spies in the corp or the intel channel.  I know I heard of several emails from "anonymous" sources that there were spies in my corp.  I think that this was just a tactic by EM to sow discontent within the alliance and I think it worked.

So these were some reasons I was not really happy with Mean.  Now don't think that Mean didn't have its good side as well.  When they pulled it together and got organized, they could do some amazing things.  I can remember several engagements when people actually got on Vent and there was good FC.  Mean absolutely shined during those times and mopped the floor up with their opponents.

I figured Mean has real potential and there are some good people in it that I enjoyed flying with.  For that reason I planned that we would stick it out and try to make things better.  The thing that really set it off was when one of my corp members tried to get a regular roam started during non-peak hours.  This member wanted to try his hand at FCing small gangs and invited people to fly T1 cruisers and frigs during these roams.  He even offered to provide ships to people that wanted to participate.  In the spirit of cooperation, an email was sent to the alliance inviting anyone to attend.

What followed was ridiculous.  The alliance head sent out an email to everyone saying that the roams were not sponsored by the alliance and discouraged anyone from attending.  He then proceeded to insult the member by saying his kb sucked, he was probably a spy, he was a possible corp thief and should join Eve Uni if he wanted to learn PvP.  It was also implied that we were trying to train our members by using the alliance as "meat shields".  We were then told that we needed to investigate our members better and use better judgement.  It was total loony toons.  This guy only wanted T1 ships and offered to supply them!  Hardly the stuff of epic spies.


I was royally pissed that this type of email would be sent across alliance mail instead of being addressed between CEOs or diplomats.  Several email exchanges between myself and the alliance head were very unsatisfactory so I decided that I did not want to be part of an alliance that was so disrespectful to its members.  Since Burn Away had recently had a similar experience with RK, I thought it would be perfect.

I tried to keep the move quiet but word got out quickly and the director of Mean freaked out again.  Another alliance email was sent out berating us for being sneaky or something.  Then we were kicked from the corp and set as nuets.   I was able to talk to him and get us set blue for a week but then one of my members was still on their vent.  He passed on that they were planning on ganking us despite our blue status.  Pretty classy.

Well luckily we based a couple of jumps from the main alliance members so we were able to avoid them and most of us have moved our stuff out.  We lost a couple of members that didn't want to move across the galaxy but that is to be expected.  In a couple of days everything will be settled in and we will start actively recruiting to get back up to full strength.  I'm glad to be out of Mean and it feels like a weight is off our backs. Now we can get back to the basics of low sec pvp.

Monday, May 30, 2011

A brand new day

There are big changes afoot for the Black Sail.  We are leaving our current alliance and moving on to a newer one in another region.  Standard drama has started so I am in damage control mode right now.  Once we get moved and settled in, I think it will work out very well.

Detail about the new alliance to follow once everything gets finalized.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Beating the Odds

I was solo roaming around my old area of Otou in my trusty Stabber Fleet.  I entered Thelan and saw a Navy Hookbill on scan along with a Rupture at a nearby belt.  I warped in and saw them fighting each other. Since I prefer a faction ship kill I pointed and webbed the Hookbill.  As I did so, two Thoraxes from the same corp landed on me.  The Rupture beat it out of there and I knew I was in for a fight.

The hookbill tried to pull out of scram range but since I had it webbed and a flight of Warrior IIs on it, it didn't last very long. Since my mission was accomplished I started trying to get away from the Thoraxes but they were right on top of me and both had me webbed.  I launched ECM drones on one and burned back towards the other and put myself in a tight orbit.  I started tearing into his armor with RF fusion and I webbed him for good measure.  It took longer than the Hookbill but the Thorax went down.

By this time the Stabber was in deep armor. I started trying to put distance between myself and the other undamaged Thorax while spamming the warp button.  ECM drones were doing jack for me but I noticed that the Thorax wasn't doing very much damage.  If I had noticed this sooner, I think I would have put myself in orbit around him but I just entered his optimal and my armor dipped into structure.  Since I was flying a buffer tanked SFI, I didn't have reppers so I had to GTFO.  I put my webs on him and overheated my AB.  Either I made it out of scram range or my ECM drones got the jam because I warped out of there with 8% (yes 8%) structure left.

I could feel the anger coming from the Thorax pilot.  Not only did I kill two of this guy's buds and get away, I did it with a sliver of structure left.  It was quite the rush.  The only bad part was I didn't get to loot the wrecks but I will take what I can get.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

A Merry Chase

Last night, several corpmates and I went for a roam in 0.0. It was pretty dead and we ended up in RAIDEN alliance space. We had a cheetah cloaked and scouting in one system while we were on the gate next door. A RAIDEN Lachesis jumped into us with predictable results.

http://blacksail.eve-domain.com/kb/index.php?a=kill_detail&kll_id=828

That was cool but what happened afterwards was the exciting part. The scout saw RAIDEN come barreling out of their station like a kicked wasp nest. They set up four guardians and bubbled the gate with multiple shiny ships that ended up at least double our number.  We scattered to various safes except for one intoxicated fleetmate. For inexplicable reasons, he jumped into the gate camp and died quick. He also got a one way ticket home on the pod express. 

We tried to get out of go home but they had bubbled our two ways out. Our cloaky scouted the route but it was a bad deal. We decided to log off for 10 minutes to see if they got bored. The scout stayed on to keep an eye on things but they weren't leaving. We decided to log the scout off to completely clear the system.

After 10 more minutes, he logged on and saw the gate was clear so we made our move. We all logged back in and warped to the gate and jumped. We started running for home with our cheetah one system ahead. Suddenly we saw RAIDEN guys appear in local. The race was on! It was slow going because two of us were in battleships and Anon was in the Harbinger with the align time of an ice cream truck.

Each jump got them close to our heels and our Harbinger pilot decided to warp to a planet and log. The rest of us made it to low sec and docked just as local flooded with more RAIDEN guys. They talked smack a little bit but I know they were pissed that we killed one of them in their home system and then outsmarted their little trap. There was no joy in RAIDENville tonight.

After waiting a little longer, we went back out into 0.0 and scouted Anon back into low sec and then I called it a night. It was probably one of the more exciting times I've had in a long time.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Suicide ganking


I like it alot.  We ganked a hulk, a mackinaw, and a retriever.  While all the kills were fun, strangely enough the cheapest kill was the most fun.  Apparently the pilot, Warpborn Omanid, didn't find it that much fun.

Please enjoy the following tears:

Local tears (after I left):


[06:47:08]  Warpborn Omanid > yeah yeah - whatever - lets see how good these guys are against a real target
[06:47:18]  Warpborn Omanid > hmmm - gone quiet ? no surprise there
[06:47:31]  Warpborn Omanid > its not you im after - I want Buck - and I will get him EVERY time he is on
[06:47:39]  Warpborn Omanid > if he wants to play Bad ass pirate - thats fine with me - I prefer legit targets

First email:

Popped
From: Warpborn Omanid
Sent: 2011.04.30 06:38
To: Buck Flintrock,  


Yo Yube - Im gonna bust you every time i see you - its gonna cost you a fortune in lost ships

My reply:

Re: popped
From: Buck Flintrock
Sent: 2011.04.30 06:44
To: Warpborn Omanid,  


u mad?



Second email:

Re: Popped
From: Warpborn Omanid
Sent: 2011.04.30 07:13
To: Buck Flintrock,  


Your damn right Im mad - why pop a defenceless miner ? I really am gonna come after you, you cost me 9 mil ISK - so im gonna take double out of your hide.

Then he convo'd me and this is what I got:



[07:15:10] Buck Flintrock > why hello there fine sir
[07:15:24] Warpborn Omanid > i hope your feeling good now - it wont last
[07:15:43] Buck Flintrock > how can I help you?  Need help refitting your mining ship?
[07:15:55] Buck Flintrock > possible fit tips?
[07:16:01] Buck Flintrock > a small loan perhaps?
[07:16:02] Warpborn Omanid > you cost me 9 mil isk
[07:16:36] Buck Flintrock > ah.....so?
[07:16:56] Warpborn Omanid > so - what goes through your brain - to attack a defenceless miner ?
[07:17:23] Buck Flintrock > well it kinda goes like this:  Hey there's a miner.  KILL HIM!
[07:17:29] Buck Flintrock > pretty simple really
[07:17:42] Warpborn Omanid > ok - let me ask you this - how long you been playing this game
[07:18:11] Buck Flintrock > plus I'm a pirate.  That's kinda what we do.
[07:18:59] Buck Flintrock > welcome to eve
[07:19:44] Buck Flintrock > you know, this is part of the game right?
[07:19:49] Warpborn Omanid > well i been playing for 6 weeks - you just wrecked all that work to get that ship - people like you are why this game is dieing on its ass - however if you want to play the pirate fair enough - im sure you wont bitch when i hunt you then
[07:19:53] Buck Flintrock > "sandbox" and all that
[07:22:30] Warpborn Omanid > the wierd thing is - you didnt profit from poppong me - cos you got wasted in the process - no logic there
[07:23:39] Buck Flintrock > Nope.  I won't bitch at all.  We live in Gultratren if you want to pay a visit
[07:24:05] Buck Flintrock > I didn't know this game was dieing.  Heck you have only been playing for a month.  How do you know?
[07:24:25] Buck Flintrock > and the logic is fun.  Pure and simple
[07:24:26] Warpborn Omanid > because it used to be fice times as many players
[07:24:36] Buck Flintrock > dont think so.
[07:25:15] Warpborn Omanid > lol - you cant be a very good pirate if you get wasted killing a miner
[07:25:38] Buck Flintrock > that is why it is called suicide ganking.  You really are new at this aren't you?
[07:26:31] Warpborn Omanid > wow - sounds real fun - charge, die, spend
[07:27:24] Buck Flintrock > I'm glad we agree.  You done raging?  If so, just fit up a rifter and go pvp.  That is the fun part of eve.  Not staring at a rock
[07:28:23] Warpborn Omanid > i dont have endless cash to do that - as i said earleir
[07:29:45] Buck Flintrock > dont need endless cash.  rifters are cheap
[07:31:50] Buck Flintrock > good times
[07:31:58] Warpborn Omanid > well - i'll see you around then, by the way for the record im still gonna pop you every time i see you
[07:32:07] Buck Flintrock > good luck with that  lol
[07:32:23] Buck Flintrock > gonna be hard in a mining ship though
[07:32:45] Buck Flintrock > you know where to find me. o/

Man suicide ganking is great fun.

********UPDATE**********
He came into low sec to talk smack and then jumped back out.  I waited at the gate and him came back.  It didn't end well for him.  I told him he could have his corpse back for another 9 million isk.  No response back this time.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

A little bit emo








The corp is still growing and it seems like we are adding people everyday.  I am going to have to start farming out some responsibilities because between recruiting, getting the corp website up and running, and hauling people's stuff into low sec, I don't seem to actually have time to pew pew. I guess that is a drawback to being successful.

Last night I finally got some free time and we had quite a few guys on so we decided to go on a short roam.  It was an ad hoc roam with a mix of battlecruisers, a battleship, and a couple of cruisers.  The plan was to send a lone rupture ahead as bait as the main gang would gate camp the system and wait for the word to warp in. Since there was supposed to be a huge gate camp at the Todi/Evati gate, I took us around on the back route to give it time to break-up.

It was a pretty quiet night.  We missed a dramiel that was impossible to lock and we missed a drake that was able to burn back to the gate despite being webbed multiple times.  We decided to head back up toward Egmar and play with the Dragoons.  When we got into Evait, we all got GCC from another failed gank and had to wait it out.  I sent the bait alt into Egmar and saw several Dragoons and a couple of pirates in local.  I thought that everyone in the fleet was done with GCC except for one ship so I told everyone to get into Arnher and wait on the Egmar gate.

I started zipping the alt around belts and got engaged by a wolf.  Then a drake and a harpy warped in.  I checked my main and saw that only 3 of my ships were in system in Arnher.  Where the heck were the rest of them?  I gave the command several more times for everyone to get on the gate.  During this time, the bait ruppie was starting to go down. It hit half armor and I saw that the other ships had just entered Arnher so I gave the command for everyone that could to jump in and warp to the bait ship.  I hated to have my fleet split up but there wasn't much choice.  It didn't actually matter because my bait ship died and the targets warped out before anyone even landed.

I was pretty pissed to be honest.  I thought my commands were clear about everyone getting on the gate and being in position.  The only reason I engaged was because I thought everyone was one jump away and on their way.  My bait is dual 1600mm plated and can last a long time.  I'm not sure where the confusion was but apparently if a majority of people weren't clear, the blame lies with me, the FC.

Pet peeves of mine are when people don't pay attention while roaming but I don't think that was the issue here.  I'm trying to figure out how I should have been clearer and I guess I should not have let myself get engaged until everyone was in position.  It had been a slow night I and I was overeager for some kills.

Unfortunately I was too irritated last night to continue.  Since we were close to home and I was too pissed to go on, I left the fleet and called it a night.  I don't mind losses but I hate stupid losses, especially ones caused by my incompetence.

Well I am calmed down now and I need to apologize to my members, especially the new ones who saw me rage quit last night.  Sorry guys. I'm actually a pretty calm guy who understands it's just pixels.

Usually...

Friday, April 15, 2011

An excellent thing

Things are still rolling along in the Black Sail and in the Mean Coalition. The corp has pretty much stabilized with around 20 members.  We all seem to get along fine and drama is at a minimum.  I missed a pretty nice freighter kill that the corp and alliance got.

I lost a Stabber Fleet to a Cynabal. I gave it a valiant try and did my best to warp in on top of it but it didn't work.  Between the speed, large drone bay, and neuts, it was all over but the crying.  Ahh well.

We went on a small corp roam tonight. T Ray and I had a pretty boring roam and had only been able to kill a rifter so far.  Trelox, was sitting on the Eszur gate in Frerstorn.  T Ray and I were in Frerstorn but not on gate.

We saw gate activation and a Rupture jumped in.  No big deal there but what happened next was surprising.  A pirate Tengu jumped right behind him. Imagine my surprise when he targeted the Rupture and attacked him on the gate.  Now the Ruppie wast flashy so the Tengu started taking gate fire and Trelox was right next to him.

Trelox locked him and the rest of us jumped on top of him.  This guy was active shield tanked and we had four medium neuts and a small nos between us.  The combined DPS of us and the gate guns took him down fairly quickly.

I was pretty dang excited about the kill.  The pilot must have been shocked because he stood there long enough to get podded.  The loot drop sucked but that's okay.  The isk amount of the kill (799 million) is enough to satisfy me. We decided to call it a night after that and end on a high note.

On another issue, I am almost finished with the corporation website.  While it still looks kinda rough, it's functional and I hope it becomes well used by the members. I don't think I am happy with the overall appearance but I am not experienced in Joomla and CSS.  If anyone can recommend a good person to design the webpage for me, let me know.


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Things are still working out well with the Black Sail.  We are close to having 20 members, we are working well with our alliance, and there are usually plenty of people on when I log on (at least in the US TZ).  I am still actively recruiting and I hope to fill the EU TZ a little more.

I've FCed a couple more roams where we've gotten kills but no losses.  I've noticed that my FC style is fairly conservative.  I am slow to engage if I am not fairly sure it is in our favor.  I am also quick to order the fleet to bail if I think something heavy is coming.  The positive of this is that I haven't lost many ships under my command.  The negative is that I pass up on a lot of targets that we might have killed.  Once I get a little more used to FCing, I plan on becoming a little more aggressive.  I also need to get used to a variety of ship types.  Right now I feel most comfortable with BC gangs.  Add a couple of ECW ships, HACs, or sniper fits BSs and I get confused.

Last night I was flying around with my bail alt around Hrondmund when I saw a Drake in system.  I let the corp know what was happening and to be prepared to jump in.  I warped to a belt and waited.  The Drake followed me over and engaged my alt.  I pointed him and called for the calvary.  The drake saw the local spike and started burning off.  I tried to burn towards him and maintain point.  Unfortunately my dual plated Rupture flies like a bag of bricks.  My corpmates landed too far off from me and the Drake warped away in structure. While we were sitting near gate thinking about what just happened, another Drake in the same corp as our original target jumped in.  We engaged him but he burned back to gate and jumped in.  It was all very frustrating.

W decided on a roam after this.  In hindsight, we should have just stayed home.  The night was full of missed kills and screw-ups.  We had missed a force recon ship that burned off from us.  We had a Cyclone mwd back to gate and got away.  There was a Stabber we couldn't lock on time.  And then there was the incident where I misunderstood our scout and thought that Tempest Legion was jumping a gang through to us and we bailed.  Turns out it was a lone Tempest BS that our gang of 7 fled from.

After one more frustrating missed target, I called the op and we headed home.  Once we got there, some of us took out our frustration by killing the macro haulers that infest our area.  I guess it's better then nothing and at least we didn't lose any ships.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Good times

It's been a good couple of days with The Black Sail.  We've lost a couple of members and gained a few more.  We've been working closer with our alliance mates and getting some decent kills.  I've never been a big fan of gate camps but I have found myself enjoying some of the ad hoc camps we've set up in Eifer.
Unfortunately, Eifer doesn't seem to have the same amount of traffic as some of the busier regions such as Otou, Akkio, or Rancer.  However we have gotten some decent kills out of it and I think it will be a regular thing.

Last night we got a little bored of Eifer so I went on a small roam with some corpmates.  I was using my bait alt and we were able to catch a Taranis in Ofage.  Things seemed slow after that but as I ran the belts in Mateber, my alt was attacked by a Wolf.  He didn't last very long.

Today one of our alliance mates was killed in a gate camp in Evati by a local corp called the Chupacabras.  A plan was formed to get a fleet together to teach them a lesson.  We were able to get ten BCs together ready to go seek vengeance.  We hit a small bump when it seemed nobody wanted to volunteer as FC.  Other than 3 man corp gangs, I haven't FCed a real fleet in a long time.  I have been meaning to get some experience so I decided to volunteer.

It went fairly well.  We popped an Eve Uni Hurricane as soon as we left our area.  The Chupacabras were long gone so we set up our on gate camp.  It was slow going and we only killed a Rupture.  Our fleet dwindled down to just four of us so we decided head home.  As we were about to jump in Todi, our scout announced that a Loki was about to jump through into Evati.   We had gate fire and it appeared.  I put my neuts on it and others webbed it.  It started burning back to the gate but I lit my MWD and I bumped it off it's approach.  It took a little work but we were able to bring it down.  The loot drop was outstanding!

Yep.  Things are looking good.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Man With the Plan

We've had a few changes with The Black Sail.  Our CEO has resigned and I am the new CEO of the corp.  When the two of us first decided to form the corp I guess we should have discussed our goals better.  My intention was to have a laid back corp that was focused on just having fun.  I figured that as a newer corp, we would end up with players that were less experienced in piracy and that the kill board would not be a top concern.  I've never been a big fan of corps that were too worried about stats.

Unfortunately, the CEO had the complete opposite view.  He wanted pilots with a lot of experience and he was very focused on the kill board.  There is nothing wrong with that view and most successful corps follow that model.  It's just not how I think though.  We ended up clashing all the time over who to recruit, who to remove from the corp, ect, ect...  It all got very stressful and we were not recruiting the numbers that I wanted.  Once I realized I wasn't having any fun, I announced my intentions to leave the corp.  Well it turns out the CEO wasn't having fun either and he said he would resign and turn the position over to me if I wanted.

Wham bam, I am now the boss.  I ramped up recruiting and we now have more members and people are starting to fly in groups.  Add that to our active alliance and it is rare to have to fly alone.  Our killboard has taken a hit from some of the newer guys as expected.  We have also had some bumps during our ops due to people not being used to working together.  That's to be expected though and is all part of growing as a corp.

We've having fun and that is what really matters.  If you are reading this and think you want to try some piracy with a low stress pirate corp, give me a shout in game.  I expect to recruit about 5 to 7 more pilots before recruiting is closed.

Fly safe.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Notice a Pattern Here?

So I have started using a bait alt.  It's great fun to put a Maller or mining ship in a belt and wait for the attack to come.  It's actually made me a little bit lazy because I have stopped roaming and have started just waiting for the fights to come to me.  I've gotten some great kills of it from greedy wannabe pirates.  The great thing is that the ship is fairly cheap and if I feel like I can't handle it, it's no big thing to let the alt take one for the team.

It also produces some funny stories.  There is one pilot in my area that I have been trying to kill for quite some time.  He is a ratter and fairly slippery.  Well the other day I put my bait alt out in one of the belts when I saw him appear in local.  I didn't think anything of it because he is a total carebear.  Imagine my surprise when he appeared in my belt in a Ruppie and locked up my bait alt.

I took the opportunity to warp in and toast him.  As I left, he said in local that my alt was the luckiest guy around.  Since he didn't pick up on the bait bit, I chatted back to him a little bit before he left system.  Fast forward to today and I put my bait alt back out.  Suddenly the same guy appeared in local again with two corp mates.  He was in a battle cruiser but the other two were noobs in a frig and destroyer.  They attacked my alt.

I wasn't too worried so I warped my Stabber Fleet in and locked the BC.  The frig and destroyer bugged out but the BC wasn't long for this world.  As I warped off, the target put in local that he wasn't going to hunt in any system with me in it again because I was too sneaky.  From his comments, it was apparent that he still hadn't put two and two together.  Maybe I will get to kill him again in a day or so.

LOL  I love the bait alt.

*No killmails posted on this post for OPSEC purposes

Friday, March 11, 2011

The One that Sorta Got Away

I was just logging on to change out skills yesterday when I figured I would give the directional a quick check.  I was in the low sec system of Otou and local was pretty empty.  Imagind my surprise when I saw a Dominix Navy Issue on scan.  A quick check of local showed the only possible pilot to be less than 2 months old. No way was I going to log off when this was in system.

I scanned down a plex where I thought he might be at and I warped to it with my mighty Hurricane O' Doom.  I landed right next to him and immediately put a point on him.  The rats had him down to armor and I laid into him.  Unfortunately, his drones killed the last rat and a new wave spawned.  For whatever reason, I got the aggro from the new rats.  I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as my shields went down.  Since I was shield tanked, this was a problem.

I got the Dominix into structure just as I hit mid armor.  I overheated my guns to kill him before the rats got me and I got to see my guns burn out while he was in half structure.  I started spamming friendly chats but there was nobody available to help.

Defeated, I warped out.  I was pissed all day and then I check the killboard later that night and saw this.

I can't believe that guy barely made it out and then came back to low-sec to go ratting.  Ratting in a belt with a half billion isk ship.  Seriously?

The fact that the ship was eventually killed by my own corp makes me feel sooo much better.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Highs and Lows

Last night I fleeted up for a roam with CEO Strikilla and corpmate T Ray.  Strik fitted up a Moa. T Ray was in a Rupture and I was in my beloved Stabber Fleet issue.

We roamed down towards Todifraun and didn't really see anything other than a possible gate camp on the Helatild gate (a common thing).  We moved down towards Egmar and I decided to check the little dead-end cluster of systems connected to it.  I came across a Myrmidon that was apparently ratting in a belt.  We all engaged it and realized that this Myrm had a hell of a tank.  Strik had to warp off in structure while T Ray and I continued the fight.  I think T Ray was orbiting in the Myrm's blaster optimal and started taking serious damage.  I tried to break the lock with ECM drones but T Ray went down.  My Stabber hung tough though and the Myrm popped soon afterwards.

It sucked that T Ray lost a ship but the isk ration was still pretty good.  He went off to reship and we continued on.  We dodged a gate camp in Hadozeko (again pretty common) and went further south.  We chased a few targets around the Frerstorn area but couldn't catch anything.  I warped my cloaky alt into a belt to see a Drake sitting there.  The Drake warped off in the direction of planet VII.  I put this over the comms and heard Strik say, "Umm we are sitting at planet VII".  That is why you stay aligned at all times.  T Ray's plate Ruppy was too slow to align and the Drake landed right on top of him.  His second Ruppy went down to the Drake.  We couldn't help because there were several of the Drake's mates sitting on the other side of the gate in BCs.

T Ray decided to call it a night at that point and we headed for home.  While enroute, I stuck my head in the out of the way system of Lasleinur and saw two Hulks on scan at a belt.  There were several people in local but I didn't see any combat ships at all.  This was too good a target to pass up so Strik and I warped to the belt.  One Hulk was aligned (see?) and immediately warped off to a station.  I got point on the other Hulk and knew that we only had a short amount of time before something landed on our face.

I started overheating my guns.  As the Hulk entered structure, I saw a Sleipnir on scan.  I yelled for Strik to get out there.  As the Hulk went down, I aligned and blew out of there just as the Sleipnir appeared on my overview and a Curse showed up on scan.  I was laughing about the kill and escape when Strik said he was going down.  Apparently he got stuck in the belt and couldn't warp in time.

I dodged pursuers until my GCC ran out and I was able to safely dock in Otou.  While I am glad I saved my ship, I feel bad for the other guys.  However it was a very fun fight with the Myrm and the Hulk sneak attack was a real rush.  Hopefully we can get similar kills next time without losing three cruisers.