The ATX rollercoaster

So, I am going to try the impossible....to write about being a member of a one corp alliance with about 20 'active' members entering the Alliance tournament. Wow....what to say..... where to start. Being an AT virgin and having the memory of a goldfish, this may be difficult. Don't expect a blow by blow account of the matches, I'll link the Interstellar correspondents page and vids for that. This is just going to be the garbled ramblings of a crap pilot with a bad memory.

The subject had been talked about and the corp had decided to try to get in, we missed out on the initial draw and had to go in via the auction. We had a whip-round and lots of members threw in what they could, my contribution of 500 mill, was obviously a drop in the ocean. One of our corpies who is very space-rich fronted most of the needed isk, a big thanks (I think) to MentalMaverick - space billionaire and top pilot to boot. We scraped in on the second day of auctions for a sizeable chunk of isk.


Then things started to fall apart. Trying to put a finger on what happened and why is impossible without some  serious surveys and honesty among the corp. The number of people logging in started to drop, was it pressure, was it just summer months, was it just an unfortunate set of circumstances? who knows. But trying to get practice sessions going or people even to log in became difficult indeed. 


I reckon that in total we practiced 4 times, maybe less for the whole thing. The final two weeks of the tournament running up to the finals weekend we didn't practice at all, most members barely logged in and only showed up for the match itself.


I must say a big thanks to the Qcats boys at this stage, especially Ammon Dei for cajoling us into any kind of practice and for providing teams for us to practise against, without you guys we wouldn't have practiced at all, and Ammon's 15 minute rant in our public channel about our pathetic lack of enthusiasm was entirely justified, and hilarious by the way.


So our preparation for the fights usually consisted of throwing ships together with a few minutes to spare before we were ported over to Jovian space for the matches themselves. I can not even begin to describe how stressful sitting on comms listening to people panic and try to get mods, implants and ships together is, wondering whether they would make it in time or be ported across in an unfit ship with the wrong implants etc. It's sickening and stomach churning. But very much the corp style, which is presumably the way we all like it. 


Our first match came around all too soon and we were beaten, we brought an anti-ecm drake/harpy/scimi setup that really didn't fare well against the in-your-face bhaalgorn team that Rote Kapelle brought.We took out there logi, but they took out both drakes and a harpy to take the match. We did take points however and stopped them taking the full 50, which was crucial later on. Link to match here


Our second match saw us face Romanian Legion, and we moved over to a heavy dps setup revolving around the now infamous Windicator. They brought Sleipnirs, merlins and logi against our Vindi, logi and vengeance / ishkur team. We exploded all their ships and lost our logistics. A fairly convincing victory, Much happiness and rejoicing followed. Could this band of retarded man-children actually pull it off and get through to the group stages? Indeed it appeared as the Sunday matches unfolded that we had done enough, a total of 77 points from the first 2 matches left us in a respectable 20th place from the 64 teams, and took us through to the group stages. Guaranteeing us a further 3 more matches. Link to match here


I suppose I must say at this point that I didn't participate in either of the first 2 matches due to my general crapness at PvP, there are far better pilots than I in our corp and so obviously they flew in the rounds of 6. I turned up, I helped where I could, but was basically a spectator for the qualifying rounds. I was almost guaranteed to fly in the group stages though, when you only have about 20 active members to choose from and it comes down to things like 'who's got assault frigs 5?' 1 hr before we fight, then I knew I would get a go at some point.


Confession time. The weekend of the group stages I was at a festival (the Rainforest music festival held near the beach north of Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo.....yes that's where I'm lucky enough to live) and staying in a chalet on the beach with my girlfriend and another couple. So the Saturday match came around for me at around 2am on Sunday morning after about 12 hrs of partying that involved.....well lets just say...'a cocktail' of substances. I think I was in a griffin and frankly too removed from normality to actually get too stressed or remember much of it afterwards. We were soundly thumped by Gypsy band who brought a proteus based setup against out sleipnirs and ecm team. We didn't take down a single one of their ships and lost all of ours. I think I died second shortly after our FC. It felt like about 10 seconds into the fight but time does weird things in that arena. Link to match here


I went to bed strangely numb after the match. The next day found me back at home and still slightly other-worldly, this time to find myself in an Ishkur which it came as a bit of a surprise I could actually fly; gallente frig 5 and Assault frigs 5. This time rather than jamming crap, I was expected to tackle stuff and throw my love spuds on the barby, I lasted a little longer this time and we won the fight.which left our group in limbo, all teams winning one and losing one. We were playing Shadow Cartel an alliance I seem to have been rubbing up against ever since I moved to low sec. Link to match here


This time was truly terrifying, having hours of build -up, and being slightly more sober really didn't help with the nerves. The terror when you first getported across to jove space, and then warping to the appropriate beacon and seeing your opponents on the field for the first time. The panic of messing up, moving, hitting the wrong key or something stupid like that and being eliminated before the game begins. 
Great elation and cheer on comms post match, a feeling of disbelief that we might actually do this and get through,  all we had to do was beat Suddenly Spaceships a group that used to be We Form Voltron,,,, alliance tourney vets. Oh Shit. Thankfully and sadly I was to play no further part in the remaining 2 matches, the best pilots for the ships should definitely be flying them and in neither case was that me, which is for the best....the derp is strong in me.


The following weekend would be the final match of the group stage and then the promise of the Finals day immediately after should we qualify from the group stage. It must be pointed out at this time that our group consisted of us (Percussive Pizza Time Diplomacy), Shadow Cartel, Gypsy Band and Suddenly Spaceships. The latter two expected to go through while us and Shadow dropped out. With 1 win and 1 loss each it was all to play for, points didn't matter any more for the table, if we won we went through.
Saturday came around again (or Sunday morning again for me at around 3am :( ) Our FC had decided that a kiting tengu team was going to be fielded, a lot of us were obviously dubious as Shadow had brought it against us the week before, and we had beaten it, what we had that they didn't was great tengu pilots (apparently) so we would be ok. At this point as they moved down a comms channel for the match, I muted teamspeak and went to watch the match without hearing it on comms, there is a 1 or 2 minute delay between the actual fight and the feed, so I didn't want the team re-entering comms and finding out the result before I'd actually watched it. There was a point in the match, it was about 4 or 5 mins in I think, when the last of their tackle died, a big fucking grin came onto my face and I realised that Jack and the team had been right, they were going to win, and they were right about the fact that the reason they won was because they piloted excellently. Michael Bolton III coined the phrase 'Boss-tier' for the tengus and I assume the piloting of them in that match.  One of the commentators later called it the best example of a kiting setup he'd seen in the tournament, and that it had won through top piloting rather than just better ships. When you don't walk away with the big prize you have to take the small victories and cherish them. I was very proud of the retarded man-children that day I can tell you. Link to match here


Onto the finals we go. before going to bed that night, we found out the draws to find that we had been drawn against Darkside, tournament vets and extremely good pilots. Not only that, if by some miracle we won...haha.... we would be facing PL in the next round......bugger.


Needless to say we were curb-stomped. Link to match here


We, basically a 20 man corp, had got to the final 16 of the competition, we had beaten some extremely good teams and got further than many very large alliances with countless resources and pilots to choose from, we had gotten further than anybody else expected us too (and ourselves too tbh). All the forums and match prediction threads had us losing every match.


Some people need to be bigged up at this point: Mentalmaverick obviously for bank-rolling the whole thing almost entirely (and for being one of the excellent tengu pilots). Joe Danger for doing a lot of the theory crafting, flying a lot of the big expensive stuff (windicator), for flying in every match and FCing when MarketJacker wasn't flying. Market for FCing and and theory crafting, BillyBulb for theory crafting and being the only practical person amongst us. The rest of the man-children for generally being greatly retarded and derpish. I love you all.


We can be very proud of ourselves, and we are. It nearly killed the corp, activity (on TQ) has never been so low, the levels of dissatisfaction, bitching and moaning that went on throughout the 3 or 4 weeks was incredible and disheartening. Some very good pilots have left the corp as a result, and they shall be sadly missed. We are hoping that the publicity gained from the ATX will bring a surge in recruitment, which is already proving to be true and we hope that activity picks up again soon. The month before the ATX I had over 100 kills, the month of the ATX I had about 23 and quite a few of those were off-line POS's and POCO take-downs that myself and a few others did in our dreads out of boredom. 


Stand out match of ATX was this bodacious bit of theory crafting from Agony Empire, when people saw your fleet, they laughed, we laughed, everyone was a bit like 'wtf is that?' Then we sat dumbfounded and soon started cheering you on, desperate for you to win, you deserved to win, you were so close. My hats off to you fellas...fucking awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wca4_hty9to&list=PLA59A659455B44498&index=15&feature=plpp_video

Thoughts on stuff

So Inferno is out and has been around for some time now. Time to take a look at some of the pros and cons me thinks.
First just let me say; I'm a pirate that is also part of Gallente faction warfare, I have a sec status that means I can't enter high sec and that anyone can shoot at me without fear of gate / station guns. That's my situation, one I'm happy with; the one I write from. I don't give a shit how inferno has affected null or high sec, I don't give a shit how it has affected anyone not in my situation, in fact I don't give a shit how it has affected people in my situation either. This is my blog and my opinion, that is all.

So the pros: missiles....beautiful. Finally missile boats have launchers and effects and they are very nice indeed, I see no noticeable performance problems with their introduction so it's all good. Me likey mucho.
Faction warfare: I am a recent (3 months now) convert to FW, so by no means an expert and didn't spend too long working with the old mechanics. The time I spent in FW under the old mechanics was fun; all it meant for me was that there were always valid targets around for fights. I didn't plex, I didn't run missions (I couldn't anyway due to my carebear Caldari / Amarr mission running days resulting in a very poor Gallente / Fed Def satndings). I knew from talking to my corp mates that mechanics for FW in general were broken, but as they didn't impinge on my play style; I didn't care.
With the news that FW changes were coming along with Inferno, we decided that we had to make a choice: leave FW, move system, or horror of horrors, plex the damn system we lived in to ensure that we could dock and gain access to our stuffz. The final week before Inferno came out was crazy, we made half-hearted attempts to take the system, but after 5-6 hrs lost the will to live and all went to bed, only to wake up and find it had been decontested overnight. So with 4 days to go, we made the decision to go for it and not stop until it was done. after about 8 hrs of solid plexing, we got the hub vulnerable and took it down with the help of many Gall mil friends. It was then a case of keeping it in under Gallente until patch day. The Caldari tried, and tried hard at points, but we held on. Those final few days were an amazing all out, wtf? battle for the system resulting in hundreds of kills in our system alone. exciting times. Patch day came and it was a bit like xmas. the enemy faction had to leave system with their tails between their legs, selling off much of their stuffz because there was no way of getting it out of a hostile system. The most noticeable things that happened with the patch: Nobody runs missions anymore, or rarely. With the new system of getting LP for offensive plexing and WT kills, nobody needs to. we quickly saw the benefit of taking the dead end system next door, 10k lp for minors, 17.5k for mediums and 25k for majors, orbit the button, get paid! If wt's came in to the plex, you get a fight and the possibility of more LP if you win. there seems to be only a few downsides to this system. The amount of LP washing about has obviously devalued it, and the process of defensive plexing is utterly tedious with no reward except (for us) we get to keep control of the system we live in, and the possibility of fights in there while you circle the button. Farming is now becoming common. why defend a system with no stations, let them flip it and then earn LP flipping it back, everyone wins.  On a personal note, my fave ship was always the drake when I was a none FW pirate, now I seem to fly cruisers and below all the time, which is good in lots of ways, faster, cheaper (almost disposable) ships, and the knowledge of a guaranteed equal fight (if they are in a minor they can only be in frigs or dessies and so can you). SO... FW mostly good, much more enjoyable system, with  few teething issues and things that CCp may want to look at rebalancing / changing later.

My one big gripe about Inferno, and I know from brief forays into the sleazy world of forums, that lots agree, is the UI. Not the user interface but the Unified inventory.
I like all my stuff to be in containers in my hangar. It's all sorted. I know how it works, I know where stuff is, I have no issues working with multiple windows, I liked it. Now......I can not express how angry it makes me sometimes. One of the great changes of the past (I can't remember which patch) was the removal of the ship session change timer. when you could dock, open the ship window, change ships / reship and be back out in seconds, it was amazing. A real leap forward for PvPers everywhere around Eve.
Then the UI came along, there is no ship change session timer, but now it takes 30 seconds or a minute for the inventory to open, and there's no way to say, just open my ship hangar, just open my cargo hold...
As mentioned above, the new FW changes mean that we now get lots of fights in and around our home system, which is great, but often one loses ships and needs to reship quickly to get back out there and continue the fight, when you're in a rush, the new inventory system seems to take hours to open. If you're not going to change it back at least give me the option of having the old system...please CCP...please. I know they have been working on it, I know they are trying to make improvements. The only thing I've  noticed so far is a little green box around my active ship and the ability to open things in a new window. But they are not persistent. What would make all the difference for me is if I could drag them down onto the left hand quickbar. I want my ship hangar on that bar, I want to be able to add links to that bar that make my life easier. At the moment I think a system that worked and had no real issues has been taken and badly fucked up. Given that there are lots of other areas of the game that require attention, I really don't understand why they did this.

TL;DR - Inferno, mainly great....but the unified inventory makes me want to smash up my laptop.

A smattering of Eve images

Back in Black (Rise)

So, it's been a long time since I posted, partly because my Eve account took a Skyrim to the knee, partly due to extended Xmas break that lasted 6 weeks. I finally returned to Eve about a month or so ago and have settled into the Black Rise region with some old corp mates who had joined a low sec pirate / FW corp there called Percussive Diplomacy.
These guys are a pleasure to fly with, mostly professional, except the occasional bouts of utter drunkenness.
Thanks to these guys I've started doing things I'd never done in Eve before and am enjoying it a lot.
I now own both a carrier and a dreadnought (Caldari of course; for which I'm am frequently laughed at),
which is very novel for someone who has been able to light cyno's for some time but had never had a reason to do it. I've now got used to flying my alt about in a cheap t1 frig with a cyno and setting up points of station for me to jump in.  It's all pathetically childish but exciting. I've done a little bit of POS bashing before but always in subcaps, which while worrying (sat in a slow moving torp raven) it doesn't compare to the trouser filling nature of being sat in 2 billion isk worth of ship in siege mode, knowing that there's no getting out if you are hot dropped and being in a shield tanking dread is equivalent to having a target painted your ship and a neon flashing 'Primary Me' sign.

I've got used to roaming around in T3 strategic cruisers and having the luxury of boosts being up when the shit goes down. Needless to say I lost my tengu which I'd pimped out a few weeks earlier. I've never lost something worth 1.6 billion before and I think I took it surprisingly well.

I'm loving being back; it took me a few weeks to blow off the cobwebs, dust down the ships, remember what all these things in my hangar did, revisit all the fittings and improve them, where better skills allowed.

Highlight kills of the last month or so:

Quite soon after joining the corp, one of the guys found two chaps in a WH running sites in a Machariel and a Vargur. This was like Eve treating me to an early xmas present for returning to the game. We all got in T3's and covert ops ships and paid them a visit. They had very kindly pimped out their ships for us, so the kills were very juicy indeed.
http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=15395643 the Vargur dies.
http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=15395418 as does the Machariel.

Thanks guys for the welcome back present.

Same day we caught this Loki, which seemed quite cheap in comparison :)

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=15403573 the Loki goes down like a whore in Amsterdam.

A day like that convinces one that the right decision has been made.

An Orca in low sec is not something you see very often at all, so when a corp mate says 'Orca coming through the gate!' you get in a ship undock and go kill it. Which we did; I think this was T-rays first or second day in the corp; it was good to be flying with him again.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=15873893 Down she goes.

Then this Machariel that usually plays station games with us in our home system, was caught and taken down like a big fat pinata.  http://slapd.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12992698

As I went to our killboard then to find links for the kills I notice the lads have been busy overnight while I've been in bed. I'm doing this while sat in work so am now eager to go home and logon to find out wtf? has been happening.

Hopefully I'll blog a bit more frequently from now on. With screenshots too:)

I'll leave you with a video that one of our guys produced of a good fight we got into, you maybe can't tell but we almost lost both a Proteus and a Tengu in this fight. I managed to get out with about 20% structure left and the Proteus got out in deep armour. I returned in a drake and we eventually held the field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OyVNzf09Qs

Reli out