ITS THE LAW

EVE System > Channel MOTD: Hello, one or more members of The Tuskers are prepared to destroy your vessel. Should you wish to pay a ransom to save your ship, please do the following immediately:
1. Turn off all modules (including guns, missile turrets, webbers, scrams, etc.) and recall all drones. Stop your ship.
2. From the time a ransom amount appears below, you will have 30 seconds to pay the amount specified. Right-click the picture of the pirate stating our demands and select "give money" to do this.
If you do not comply immediately, we will re-open fire on your vessel. If we get nervous for any reason we will re-open fire on your vessel.

Romeo Blakstorm > hi
Romeo Blakstorm > do you have the required paperwork ?
Romeo Blakstorm > we need to check if you have paid the mining tax
Romeo Blakstorm > hello Drecdar?
Drecdar > well Im completly new to this game so I have no idea
Romeo Blakstorm > ok bare with me
Romeo Blakstorm > did you speak to Sheriff Jolo about mining in Hevrice?
Drecdar > no
Romeo Blakstorm > oh -- well you need to pay us 2 million isk and we let you go home safe
Drecdar > I do not have that kind of money, and I didn't mine anything
Romeo Blakstorm > these are Heritage asteroids - protected by law.
Romeo Blakstorm > well .....
Drecdar > I wasn't aware of that.
Romeo Blakstorm > I'm afraid we have to uphold the law in this instance
Drecdar > I see
Romeo Blakstorm > next time please have the documents handy and we don't need to be so strict
Drecdar > Of course, thank you sir

EVE System > Drecdar was kicked from the channel by Romeo Blakstorm. Effective until 2009.12.29 02:15:32, Reason: "No mining tax payment ".

Jin EnTonik > worries me when they're that polite....

Meat Gangbang Extravaganza

The gimmick only lasted a few months before he split from Terri after Terri saw Meat kissing Marianna, Terri's nemesis, on the Titantron. This led to her and Chaz attacking Meat. In the next couple of weeks Meat reverted to using his real name.
He had a brief feud early fall of 1999. That is how Angle defeated Stasiak in his in-ring debut.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Luck is a fickle mistress. Despite all the precautions I mentioned in my last post I knew my luck would run out eventually. When I wrote that post I had hoped it would be later rather than sooner but things don't always turn out as one hopes. Earlier this evening (or morning depending where you live) my beloved jag was atomized by a rather tricky hurricane. It was pretty clear he was waiting for just such an occasion. He was hanging around some belts, clearly enticing the arrayed fleet to come and get him.

Unfortunately I offered to make the tackle, playing right into his hands. His 'cane fit neuted and webbed me, which is pretty normal, to the extent that I could not gain range by the time I was completely capped. Struggling to gain transversal I popped just as the cavalry arrived.

Farewell noble beast, I will never forget you.

Lucky Bastard

I just knocked on wood, picked a four leaf clover and killed a rabbit for its foot. Been a hell of a ride and its only getting better.

Old man star can be a lot of fun. There are plenty of ships around to shoot at and be shot by and of course the inevitable question of who's baiting whom. After some initial successes it was put forth that we try oms with our frigate heavy gang. What the hell, I thought. Why not? I can't fly the same ship forever.

The gang found a few ships initially. Surprisingly there were two dramiels. We happened upon them several times but couldn't engage them as their pilots skillfully kept more than 20km away and at extreme speed.

There were a few ganks as well, nothing really worth mentioning. Someone spotted a ship inside the faction war mission that had sprung up. After an initial failed tackle we set a bait at the complex.

As anyone knows once you set a bait in old man star you can expect something to come and bite. In this case the something came in the form of a hurricane and vagabond. This combination proved lethal to our frigates and eventually the bait itself, which happened to be the largest ship we had brought.

Somehow I managed to burn out to 20km from the cane and vaga with my afterburner and warp out with around 1/4 shield remaining. My guess is they were preoccupied eating the bait.
Dodged that bullet.

Then today whilst scouting out some lowsec systems I had an unfortunate run in with a crow at a gate camp. He pointed me before I could warp and I was forced to burn back to the gate and escape the massive gank squad in structure.

Rarrrr!

<3

'A Whaling We Shall Go'

I find it difficult to fully appreciate the irony of naming an orca "Free Willie". What a terrible movie. Future generations will trace the decline of western civilization to it's release. It should come as no surprise that only a truly deranged or idiotic individual would name his ship such.

However, it takes a truly special mind to blindly fly that same orca through lowsec. Looking back its hard for me to say whether our victim was simply mind-bending-ly daft or harbored more bizarre motivations. I believe its safe to say we did as he asked and freed willie from its mortal coil.

Glory goes to Egret for the smack down.

Suddenly Tuskers

Ninjapirate hybrids? Quantum death rays?

Best to get it in check, holmes.

Get it in check. Yarr?

Good

It seems the madness of constantly resetting my glitchy cache is over. CCP fixed the error (according to them) with this last patch.

Hurrah!

Glitches Suck

The other day I was flying back from Jita and messing with my people/places menu when the game crashed. When I started it back up my character would not load and instead the progress bar taunted me from the finished position but never fully loaded.

After informing ccp, who evidently know about this issue, I followed their recommendation and reset the games cache. Now I could at least load the character but with all my overview settings changed to default. I kept the original settings backed up but who knows if I can ever use them again. For now everything is new and in a way that's refreshing.

Sort of.

GODDAMM!

Oh it was all too obvious what was going on. Somehow I didn't care.

I was out on an errand in Oulletta and had just undocked from station to see a little flashy red friend targeting me. Outlaw: check. Punisher: check. No doubt this pilot was far older than me but I've been feeling more confident with my abilities behind a rifter. What the hell, I can take this guy.

So we begin the doom spiral that is frigate combat. Immediately I begin flying away from him in a tight arc. My shields are dipping and his web is not helping my situation. Slowly I gain range on the punisher, autocannons blasting away the whole time, melting his armor. At around 8km I am not longer taking damage and the kiting process is complete. He dips under 50% armor.

At about this time I notice two more flashy playmates appear on the overview.

Crap.

Still blasting the punisher I'm now frantically trying to align although it would make no difference. The wolf and stabber fleet that just arrived finish the punishers work, vaporizing me in a matter of seconds. Somehow my pod does not warp despite my spamming and that goes too in another instant. Oh well.

I suppose I should give mine enemies props for a trap well sprung but all I really want is that punisher. They could get me afterward but that kill would be sweet.

The Evidence

Tracking Enhancers!

Sometimes an engagement at range can be frustrating because it gives your opponent the opportunity to escape before you can point them. Luckily thespore was looking for a fight.

Tooling around in Adirain today I happened upon another rifter pilot. After some scanner foreplay I warped to the belt nearest to him. Moments later he warped in near the center of the asteroids, about 60km from me. I began kiting him.

With the recent changes to tracking enhancers they become extremely useful for ranged combat. Thespore and I had relatively conventional rifters: his the armor buffer variety and mine the shield buffer.

What threw the fight for him was my tracking enhancer. Through some careful manual kiting I managed to totally reduce his shields before he could catch up to me. Once he got into web range the enhancer helped track him as he orbited my webbed ship.

When he popped I was a little under 50% shield. Not bad at all.

Killmail

Dominion: First Thoughts

1. Really glad I invested in faction ships.

2. Still miffed AF's get no afterburner bonus (someday).

3. Minmatar are awesome.

4. Sparklies!

5. Might be a good time to raid nullsec?
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 That is all.