Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Downward Spiral

So it has begun. In keeping with the mandate set forth in one of my previous posts, Vasavia has been making great strides. The last week has been an eventful one. Truth be told, it's been about the most active week Vasavia has had in quite some time. The day that journal entry was created, Vasavia strapped into her pod and set out for more fun.

Gunpoint has been very active in the last week. Part of this is due to the simple fact that we've been enjoying a small spike in membership. Having now grown to a small band of 11 capsuleers (about 8 or 9 of which are regularly active), most of whom have an abundant amount of pvp experience, we now have the backbone to take on more gangs then we previously could confidently engage. Couple this with the fact that we also enjoy pretty healthy relationships with some other Molden Heath pirate corps we not only have our own bigger internal resources to pull from, but also that of our friends. Thus, the opportunities for better engagements has opened up quite a bit.

In all honesty, the past week and a half or so has been the most fun I've had in New Eden since first starting my journey down Yarr-bear Lane. Don't get me wrong, running around with Sard, Raxip, and others has always been fun. Shooting shit, getting blown up ourselves, has never ceased to be of utmost fun. Lately though, the mood, the action, the explosions, they're just fucking moar fun now. I think a huge part of the increased fun comes from one common denominator - Gunpoint as a corp has started the great flashy downward spiral (again).

Sard had previously expressed to us the tactical importance of staying above Concord's threshold for labeling capsuleers "criminal". Naturally, he was right. It does make more sense, especially in lowsec where the non-aggressor in a fight taking place on a gate would enjoy the support of the sentry guns. Honestly though, we were finding ourselves spending a considerable amount of time taking bounties on Angel rats in GW to try to keep ourselves within the "decent"-graces of Concord, and not getting decent fights unless we were the aggressor on the gate (which defeated the whole purpose of staying above Crim status).

When I made the "New Year. New Rage." post I linked above, I didn't know it at the time, but Sard also shared my sentiments. He actually was already back to being a criminal. I had some catching up to do. Having thrown our previous concerns regarding our security standings out the window, as well as the old tactics playbook, we set out in the last week simply to rage on everything we came across that was an advantageous target. Given the 75 kills (give or take - I counted quickly) we've enjoyed since just this past Friday alone, it indeed was a good change in operations.

As a side note, today marks my 1-year anniversary with Gunpoint Diplomacy since returning to her from my brief excursion into null-sec with another outfit - as detailed in this blog post. I can honestly say, I couldn't be happier that my 1-year mark has fallen at this point in time in Gunpoint's history because it's the most fun I think any of us have had in a long while. It's been an absolutely fantastic return to pirating roots, just getting out there and shooting everything, our gangs scooting around Molden Heath flying with reckless-abandon once again. And quite frankly, Sard and the entire [RANSM] family are the best people I've ever met through an online game. Love em all.

The last couple weeks have been filled with so many kills, all of which providing great lolz, and fun times that no one in particular stands out enough to really detail thoroughly (because they were all just fantastic fun - you'd be reading this post for days if I tried to detail everything). So, a link to the front page of our Killboard will have to suffice for juicier details on the recent actions/violence [RANSM] has achieved. That being said, I raise my glass for moar [RANSM] infused Violence.

o/


p.s. [RANSM] I <3 U FOR EVA

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

OMFG! I found Raxip on the YouTubez

I swear to God, this dude sounds like Raxip. Be warned though, this video, while funny in a pathetic way, can be really hard to watch...

Rage Mode Engage

In keeping with the theme of yesterday's post, all I can say is Rage Mode engage. I logged in to the docking bay of Gunpoint's base of operations in Egbinger and checked in on our top-sekret unofficially official corp chat channel. I quickly was brought up to speed - the corp was out around Odde having some haphazard fun in frigates.

Thankfully, my Rifter was already sitting on the tarmac, cargo filled with ammo and ready to roll out of the station at a moments notice. I initiated the undocking procedures and slid my Rifter into the appropriate traffic lane and announced my departure to my corpmates already on the hunt. I set the navcomp to destination Oddelulf and made best speed for that system.

Odde is just a handful of jumps away from Egbinger so the trip across the different star systems took mere minutes (thank the Gods for warp drives and stargates). It is easy to take for granted how quickly we can traverse light years now, especially having never known space travel without warp drives and stargates. I digress however.

I arrived in Bosena (a lovely pirate system home to the blood-thirstiest of the blood thirsty yarrbears in Molden Heath) and sat in a pounce several 100km from the Odde gate. Sard and Wensley were already working scanners trying to pinpoint a couple potential targets for our lovely frigate swarm to devour. I sat idle, listening in on comms, when Aria came through announcing (with much glee) that there were a pair of Hulks in neighboring Teon that needed violenced.

Aria asked all pilots in fleet to dock up in a station in Odde where she would distribute ganky Thrashers to purge the Hulks from that asteroid belt in Teon. Destroyers were quickly issued to the fleet, primed already for the ganky love-fest that was about to befall those helpless mining barges. The fleet was split into two wings, the plan simple. 1st Wing would launch its attack while the 2nd wing would hold back to take out the other Hulk, or hunt down a new Hulk in Teon. It only takes a certain number of Thrashers to suicide a hulk before Concord arrives to wipe the system of the gankers, so there was no need to have the entire fleet warp in and destroy the Hulk - it'd be overkill and a waste of a few destroyers.

I was assigned to the 2nd Wing with Wensley leading while Aria and Sard led the 1st Wing into Teon to issue [RANSM]'s brand of great justice to the miners. The 1st Wing made short work of the first Hulk. Naturally, Concord arrived just as the Hulk's structure was giving way and our pilots of 1st Wing flew home in their pods.

By now, 2nd Wing had amassed on the Bosena Gate in Odde, ready to start making our way to Teon via the Odde - Bosena - Teon route. We sat on the Bosena gate and watched our fleet members from 1st Wing jump back into Odde in their pods. It's pretty much the only time seeing so many friendly pods flying around is a righteous occurrence. As the last of 1st Wing's pods came back into Odde, Wensley gave the order to 2nd Wing to jump into Bosena and make for the Teon Gate.

I initiated the jump sequence of my Thrasher and soon was enveloped by the cyno field of the jump gate. Odde vanished and Bosena faded in to existence. Wensley initiated a joint squad warp and all Thrashers of 2nd Wing sped off the gate towards the Teon gate in unison. As our Thrasher wing landed Wensley gave the "jump jump" command, the pilots of 2nd Wing pounced into Teon. We had a scout in a belt already with another Hulk and Wensley gave the order to warp to Masty. Our primary target announced, Cronox Xon was about to become a very disappointed miner.

Our wing of pain landed 10k off our target. Sensor boosted, I engaged my targeting computer, the lock resolved quickly and I engaged my artillery cannons. My shells flew through the belt towards their mark, impacting the shields of Hulk. With the combined force of the wing's artillery cannons, the Hulk's shields quickly gave way. Damage bled through into armor which also quickly gave way to the Hulk's structure.

The Hulk succumbed to the barrage of our artillery in short order. The local comms channel had already lit up with the first volley about our criminal transgressions and Concord was already on the field working through our wing of Thrashers. The plan had been launched, and had succeeded. As my Thrasher gave way to the fury of Concord I launched my Pod back towards lowsec and made best speed back to Odde.

While neither Hulk yielded much in the way of loot, they did provide plenty of lols for us. Much to my delight, the lols (for me atleast) did not end with the destruction of the Hulks. No no my friends, the victim of my Wing's violence found it necessary to hail me through private comms. As my communications interface announced the incoming hail from Cronox Xon I launched my fingers for the accept button.

The private communications window from Cronox Xon's hail popped up on my communications interface, and the tears began to flow. The butthurt was immense with this one. I'll need to edit this entry, as I'm currently not in a position to access my communications logs, but I will post Cronox Xon's brief tear-capades later this evening. Be warned however, his English is broken, or he was really just that upset he couldn't type coherently. I like to think it was the latter rather than the former.

OOC: My action was short and brief last night as I was at home with Kiddos as my wife was working into the evening. Between the Kids' dinners, and the eldest proclaiming his unyielding need to make "pee-pee water", and his proclamation of "poopy's commin' Daddy!" (we started the whole potty training business), I did not really have the freedom to continue on with the fleet and logged for the evening. Nevertheless, it was a most excellent way to come back into the fold & start abusing my sec-status. The fleet continued on however and had a successful evening of spanking more locals as evidenced by the front page of corp Killboard. It is good to be back in the saddle.

Monday, January 17, 2011

New Year. New Rage.

Yes, It's basically been a year since last post. Sorry :( I just haven't felt inspired to write much. Lots went on over the last year. Sard continues to boggle my mind with everything he knows about pvp. Raxip still wants me to hold him. We have some new pilots with us in RANSM now, exceptionally good pilots (great...moar people to make me feel like a lemming).

Aria (sorry deary I don't have your blog link handy) and the Wens-inator (New Eden's favorite Drifter in his Rifter - actually, he doesn't fly these much anymore). Aria is fucking fantastic at everything from 'splosions to sammiches. Wens, well, I haven't had much time flying with him because he came right around my burn-out. He's the fucking Dread Pirate though, so his name speaks for itself.

I've spent the last few weeks contemplating my EVE journey (/me rolls eyes *drama*). I have to admit, I think I got a little burnt out. I've been trying a few different things in game to take a break from what was the norm (mission alt *gasp*), and of course, some other games. I've spent alot of time in the last few weeks playing Armed Assault 2 (fucking awesome milsim for people who are into that stuff), a little bit of FFXIV (since it's currently free to play in it's currently borked form), and I finally picked up Starcraft 2 cause I was just in the mood for an RTS - which is totally out of character for me I usually despise RTS games...cause I suck at them. Starcraft 2 is made of Win though.

I've been getting the itch to go out and roam around Molden Again though, with much less focus on maintaining that sec-status. Months ago, while I was out methodically ratting around Great Wildlands trying to keep my sec status around -2.0, Sard told me he thought I'd just have to accept the flashy status. Literally, "Dude, Vas, I think you're just gonna have to accept your ass going flashy".

I've thought about that ALOT over the last few months and I think he's right. I've become to focused on maintaining my sec-status because it made the most tactical sense. I had become more focused on game mechanics and making sure I was putting myself in the "right" situation at all times, then actually, you know, going out there to blow shit up for fun. My pews had become all business and no fun (queue sad clown face).

So. In short. New Year. New Rage. To hell with the bullshit.


(P.S. Next Year, I predict the theme will be: "Holy Fuck. What the hell have I done to my Sec-status?!?!)