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.