Venting...

Who uses their blog to vent?

I really feel like I have a few things to really vent about but am hitting a dilemma in which I don't want to hurt feelings but I am entirely too frustrated to write in a nice way about the situation.

Being pissed and writing tactfully don't seem to go together.  I think I will hold off on my topic of venting for now and just go sleep this one off.

What I can say is over 1 week for this to happen is beyond me.  I need to make more money and buy an alt that can do what I need done.

I still have respect for those that do what I need done but goddamn, I'm drowning in mediocrity among those I depend on.

Reminder:  It is a game.

*eats handfuls of chill pills*

Dastardly Drake

Popped a Hurricane
My Harby goes pop
Drake Popped by corp mate

I was out in my 'sader about to set up some more pounces when I find a Harbinger on gate - I jump through - he has a buddy in a Harpy on the other side.  I get a corp mate to come and play while I hurry home to jump into my Harbinger.  The neut Harbinger bailed to high-sec but his friend wanted to play a little in his Harpy.  Suffice to say, we only melted his shields before he ran to high-sec.  We were on each side of a gate and he burned out of my Drake partners disruptor range after I had a few pop shots at him on one side.

We soon found a Hurricane in a nearby system just chilling in a belt.  My corpmate went in for the tackle and scored big.  I land, with no shields (damn sentry guns) and the 'cane quickly switches to me as primary.  He had smartbombs fit and my partner lost his drones but somehow mine survived.  As soon as we are scooping loot a Drake lands right on top of us.  I was at about 85% armor at this point.

I start burning toward a planet as I figured I would be primaried.  I did not time it right to warp out and come back in at range and was stuck in the fight.  Right as we burn through his tank, I am sitting at about 10% armor.  At this point, in my excitement, I burned out my guns!  I end up popping with the drake about 50% structure!!!

I think I would have survived if I did not burn out my guns nor have rat aggro (3% damage on the KM, hah!).

I think the Drake is an overlooked powerhouse.  In HAM range, they are fairly beast and his tank, with only one BCU, was enough to take on a Drake and a Harby's DPS long enough to pop me.  It almost makes me want to train into one but that's a long train.  I'll stick with my lasers for now.

Being a Wuss or Smart Decision?

A few of us were chattering on vent and decided to get a small gang together and play with the locals.  We started out with 4 Harbs and a Drake.  I guess the Drake pilot did not get the memo.  We were a little obvious in our choice of 'scout'/'bait' and the Drake is our looking for a fight.  Us harbs were sitting on a gate while the drake was fishing.  We didn't get much interest in the drake as he is completely obviously bait (we need to work on different lures!) and so we move into the system we were just baiting so the scout could move to the next promising one.  This area is usualy pretty active.  This was giving me the heeby jeeby's because we were sitting a LOT.  30 mins at a 350k spot off a gate is...well....it's any choice of synonyms for 'retarded'.

We end up getting spotted by a larger alliance and are on their radar now.  We decide to start roaming so we don't get squashed in by a plan to counter our gang of about 8 BC's.  We jump a few systems and we manage to get a Hurricane on gate to engage us.  Unbeknownst to us, we had just ate some bate.  Several alarm bells should have went off - Hurricane, not moving on gate, engaging 8 BC's.  Regional gate to boot! :(

Suffice it to say he was the perfect bait for us.  We were harby heavy, so he was able to burn out of harms way very fast.  We soon realized almost completely too late that this was bad news as the gate is flashing like a lightening bug and we have a bunch of neuts pouring in. 

We were definatly not prepared for this tarp and it showed in the FC's orders.  Three quick orders which all contradicted each one.  Most of us had stayed aligned (which was the best order he gave) and were able to get out as soon as the larger gang dropped in.  This is where the title comes in.  I think, if we were more mentally prepared for the drop, we could have done decent against the gang.  Soon as the FC's orders were confused and not focused, I warped out as the gang was spreading points.  Was this a hasty decision?

I think we only lost 1 or 2 people, while everyone else was able to get out.  I felt bad for making my own decision to get out but others did also.  The primary was 40k off from most of the gang because the gate was so huge.  No new primaries called and basically mass chaos.  I think I made the right choice because I lived along with many others.  I need to FC so that I know how it feels to lead and be run over so I can make these choices easier for myself.

*edit*  The FC doesn't suck.  The situation sucked.  I wasn't trying to rag on him or anything, we all have bad fights from time to time :)

Logistical Woes

Buy Ships.
Contract Ships.
???
No ships delivered.

I don't know what is going down but I am having complete crap luck at getting things shipped out to our home base.  It is frustrating to miss out on gangs because of a new gang setup in which your ships can't keep up (thank you trimarks!).  Being new to the corp, I hope that this isn't reflecting poorly on myself when I come up for review to see if I make the cut.  Hopefully my 80%+ efficiency will help.

Don't get it twisted, I love anyone who runs logistics and gets gear moved.  Many people couldn't function without the things they do.  It is one of those feelings that you get when you don't have control over something and are utterly dependent on other people.  When things don't happen you just feel helpless.

*lightbulb*

I had somewhat of an epiphany last night.

I love PvP.  In order to pursure that love, I have to PvE.  It's like having a mistress who pays me to be with PvP but I would never want them to meet.

It made me think of my blogs title;  POS Life.  POS can mean two things in relation to Eve.  With a little imagination I think you can figure out both meanings. :)

The darkside, POS, is PvE - the curse!
The bright side, Life, is PvP - the immortality!

I don't think this is the only meaning that can be derived from POS Life, but recently this has been how I've felt about it.  I have done more PvE than PvP lately which has led me to be somewhat dry of things to write about of my own experience. 

Hopefully it's not a POS blog at the moment!  Rereading my epiphany, I seem like somewhat of a madman.  So there you have it kids, PvE rots your brain!

Pouncing

Just a quick tidbit.  I feel like I missed out on a whole concept when I was in nullsec.  The whole idea of having a quick "Pounce" (I like to call it ninja) off of a gate.  For some reason in all my experience in nullsec, we never really utilized these.  It almost makes me feel like a complete nublet.

A 'ninja' or 'pounce' is when you have a bookmark over 1,000 km off of a gate.  It allows a gang to be off grid, in a fast response safe.  The main downside would be that you are on scan.  It lets your gang be safe while you assess the situation, set up a trap, or numerous other situational tactics.  It also enables you to have a close-by spot in which to warp off and back onto gate if need be (useful for ECM pilots).  It is especially useful when you have GCC or Global Criminal Countdown in which gate guns are ravaging you.

You could get in a fast mover and go to a gate and burn off over 1k from the gate.  This takes time and too much effort.  I like to make them on the go.  When I am in warp to a gate, I'll have my bookmark creator ready to go with a name for the bookmark.  Just above your hud with your cap/guns/etc. you'll see a distance counter.  I wait until it gets to around 20-30k and then I hit bookmark.  Usually there is a little lag so the bookmark will actually end up around 7-9k off the gate.  This is like a 5 second warp to the gate until you can activate modules/target someone.

Very useful to have around your roaming grounds.

Do a little dance. Shoot a little laser. Pop a Wyvern tonight!

I am just cruisin' through missions, reading a book, and just taking it easy.  I decide to catch up on my blinky channels and notice some suh-weet news.  "Wyvern tackled in Tama!".  After I freak out, I am killing that instance of EvE and loading Nar Lee.  I jump up a few channels to get in the channel with the gang that made the announcement.  They are all currently attacking the Wyvern and blowing their minds.

Since it was in Tama there was no way this would stay quiet.  When they first started in on it there were only 30 in system.  I quickly hop in my Armageddon and start to make the 8 jumps to Tama.  Every jump made me feel like I was going to die.  By the time I reached Tama the situation was out of control.  200+ people were in system and being very pirate like.  The gang I was in had to warp off Wyvern because they were starting to get too much heat from the local FW gangs.

We met up at the station and decided that while the Wyvern's tank was getting widdled away we would make the best of it and pop targets of opportunity.  We would warp in on a tackled target, pop it, and warp out.  The FW gangs did not want anyone else around it seemed so this was our best option since we no longer had to tackle the Wyvern or really help with the DPS.  This may sound like kill mail whoring but it's low sec....everyone in that system wanted to be on that kill mail! :)

Our cloaky tackler was doing awesome.  The kill mails are a little crazy so here are the kills I was on as I was late to the party:

Drake
Maelstrom
Hurricane
Typhoon
Hurricane

I did not get on the Wyvern killmail unfortunately.  We had warped out and on my way back to whore the mail it popped when I landed :(  Next time I'll be sure to have my kill mail whoring skills up to par!

Good times were had by all!

I think that the Wyvern was a GM Event of some sort.  I had no clue those happened in EvE but I should have known since it IS a MMO.  I need to look up information about these things because it seems interesting.  When I get around to it and if I find enough information I'll make a post explaining it.