Personal Execution

A day to remember was the successful entrapment and destruction of a carefully chosen target responsible for my own demise a few weeks prior. As mentioned in an earlier report, a pirate outfit managed to destroy my favourite vessel; a command ship by the name of PageraMANTOn. Although this 'accident' was entirely of my own making I still wanted to feel hot blood spatter my face despite running low on slaves. This ship was lovingly assembled from the appropriated wares of several victims and WOOT! loots. Painfully her demise was experienced, but upon cloning I vowed to exact my revenge upon those responsible, or vent my fury in some fashion.

Logon traps are not my repertoire as they require the assistance of many pilots and I usually work solo or in tandem with B13. Using my newest ally; Blake, as bait, the target; a Cerburus was aggressed, trapped and subsequently eliminated from the void with earnest violence, as well as the poor pirates POD. The corpse; a dainty female with no skin, is now a hat stand in my office.

I now feel satisfied that my revenge was exacted, particularly as the kill itself was flawless and the ship in question dropped a plethora of tech II loot as well as CN missiles. I was completely satisfied yet baffled by this drop – who in creation puts such a fantastic modules on such a crap ship? I had thought it must be a counter trap, but nothing came of it, even after waiting the standard 15 minutes for the aggression timer to expire.

I don’t consider the matter closed as the pilots in question were not brought to justice in this twisted court, but the plan worked like a dream. The loss sustained by my enemies corporation at least totals the loss on my part, so with this in mind I would recommend a logon trap for even the smaller kills, if they are important enough to warrant the collaboration of several pilots to execute.

Happy trapping…

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Virus!

For the protection of your POD and the continuation of your space faring careers I wanted to point y’all toward a free virus protection suite that I can personally recommend, particularly as it is effective, easy to use and free.

Avast! is state-of-the-art virus protection for your POD. Avast! can perform a thorough virus check before your OS runs which helps to eliminate and prevent stubborn programs that may have embedded themselves.

Free to download, free to use and free from unwanted spam mails (if chosen) so that you may get on with your life without the constant interruptions from the program. There is a purchasable version with more features, but for my own personal uses I have no reservations about recommending the effectiveness of this free virus software.

Related Links
Avast! (website)

PvP Pop

A suitable audio score is a useful yet understated tool that livens up tired senses for the task at hand. I have a soundtrack; music to murder by..., to to get me in the mood, but lately this song by the Minmatar Separatist group; Sigue Sigue Sputnik(Persistent, perpetual traveller), is monopolising my minds audio craving. The accompanying video shows the rebellion against the Empire and how, although outmatched in almost every way, the Minmatar were able to inflict heavy casualties upon the innocent Amarr populace using crude but no less effective weaponry.



Related Links
Music to Murder by...
Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile (mp3 download)

Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf was a clear favourite past-time from my youth. Originally released in 1988, it was an instant cult show with an 11 year lifespan, solidifying the casts careers and instigating a split following of those idiots that 'didn't get it' to the other idiots who completely adored the show and it's brand of crazy comedy and proposterous plots.

Created by Doug Naylor and Rob Grant; Red Dwarf had some of the best characters ever to grace a CRT. My favourite has to be the 'Cat,' an evolved feline humanoid intent on womanising and subject to impractical bouts of vanity. Genius. I can never tire of catching up with this iconic sci-fi-com and, in-part the best past-time was working out which popular sci-fi was being parodied by the show.

Originally Red Dwarf was very nearly not made, but thanks to the persistence of the creators, the BBC finally allowed the lunacy to become reality. But I am sad that such a classic show came to an end but all good things must come to an end so we may cherish them.



Related Links
Red Dwarf (official site)
Red Dwarf Episodes Collection

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Immersion

New Eden lacks consistent immersion. The level at which one is layered under the veneer of a virtual galaxy endured. An example of this is docking. In almost any film where spacecraft are required to dock or undock, the event itself is celebrated, an opportunity to portray size, scale and weight to help make the ships themselves appear larger in your minds eye. In EvE Online the suspension of 'dis-belief' is shattered every-time a ship docks, undocks, swaps vessels, jumps through stargates, ejects a canister, fires missiles or does anything which does not respond in a fashion that’s consistent with the inferred or expected.

To be fair, these things are superfluous to the mechanics of New Eden, but in the interests of maintaining a healthy dollop of immersion, these omissions should be addressed. Perhaps a cut-scene animation could be created to run during the docking manoeuvre using the current gorgeous real-time graphics engine to show a ship being towed into the intended station, a POD being transferred via mechanical arms or tubes from one ship to the next, a missile or drone leaving its launch bay and, in the case of drones similarly returning to dock with the host.

At present, docking/undocking we have a progress bar which, I’m sure you’ll agree does absolutely nothing to maintain the assumption that we are in a hugely powerful vessel of steel and that this vessel is in one of the most hostile environments known, space. If CCP’s strategy is to attract an increasingly diverse spectrum of players to New Eden by appealing to those paying pundits who find shiny things interesting, then the trimmings may become much more important to the sort of clientele they are aiming for.

Obliterating the lag monster is of up most importance to our sanity and should be given due attention, but reading patch notes where "A spelling mistake has been corrected," there is obviously some manpower overflowing at CCP...devote it to something interesting please.

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The Trap

A wonderfully covert method of engaging in guerrilla warfare is to use a logon trap within the target system. This involves deploying gank pilots within said system, preferably when the enemy is diverted or vacant. The fleet then logs off and awaits instructions to logon and emergency warp to the last known location. Whilst this is happening the targets are held via a bait ship, something not obvious to avoid suspicion, fielding a formidable omni-tank.

As the target ship is held the fleet can emerge from the confused darkness of emergency warp and proceed to the target for obliteration. The nasty trick with this method is that the local beacon will not divulge intel to the enemy about fleet presence until it’s (hopefully) too late. I have never yet used this method of trapping a target, favoured by greater warlords, but the mechanics themselves are consistent.

At this time a logon trap is set against my enemy, it’s a matter of revenge you see. Everything is set; capable pilots waiting in the targets’ system, all that is needed is the target itself for my own personal flavour of revenge – it will be served cold.

Happy hunting…

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WOOT!!!

In New Eden Macro-Miners are prime pests to pillage. The damage to the economy will never truly be known but thankfully they are also very dumb. Easily identifiable as such when, exploring wrecks about a hulk I noticed a True Sansha wreck, among others with loot within. Scanning the wreck for the assailant; it was the Hulk chewing on several asteroids, oblivious to my intentions. Upon opening the wreck I found a Tech II Social Adaptation Implant worth in excess of 100 million ISK. Stealing this loot did not provoke aggravation from the owner of the wreck confirming without doubt that this Hulk was an auto-pilot.

Macro-miners are a menace, but every now and then they can reward one with profit through ignorance. It’s a shame no aggro was initiated, but if it was then a macro the pilot wasn’t. I was disappointed that a macro kill was missed, but I was thankful for the loot which has in part funded the replacement of my Command Ship lost a few days prior.

Thanks for the drop you macro-morons…

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Life begins at 400

My mentor and oldest friend EiD enjoyed his 400th birthday today, although enjoyment was not observed on this special day. It is a trait of any ageing character to become depressed, especially as the centuries continue to increase.

Over the years EiD has been there through all turmoils and successes and has served as constant source of advice and companionship whenever needed. He is the I-A corporation and I wish him another 400 years within New Eden. Space is a much darker place should I imagine it without his brainy beacon.

To celebrate his life I prepared him a rifter so he may join me on a hunt for combat, a nod to his earlier days as a pirate and before that; a naval recruit. I'm sure that the hunt should re-awaken those tired senses and make him feel young(er).

Related Links
Rifter - Pirate Fitting

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Retail Therapy

Our corporate hanger, where all operations into wormholes stem from, has several ships all of differing designs for differing roles. Singularity serves as a sounding board for these designs and, at present I’m attempting to condense the roles of some of these ships into as few as possible. This increases the costs, but also reduces operation times considerably and in some cases is less of a risk with less exposure.

Scratching my head for the last few weeks it has been decided that the only way to fulfil this mandate is to produce my first Tech III hull(s). So late night study periods have enabled my brain some gain in the field of Strategic Cruisers, including a Neural remap, but I ain't no engineer...

Required Modules
Expanded Probe Launcher
Small Tractor beam
Covert Operations Cloaking Device II
Electronic Counter Measures
Salvager II

Desired Equipment
Code-Breaker II/Analyzer II
Electronic Warfare Drones

Desired Abilities
Tank: Omni - Sustained Defence Ability; 1k dps
Capacitor: NOS Proof
Speed: 1km/second
Warp-Core: Stable/Immune to Interdiction
Sensors: Reinforced
Gank: Minimum; 750 dps

Legion
Lows
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II x2

Mediums
10MN Afterburner II
Codebreaker II
Large Capacitor Battery II
Medium Hull Repairer II

Highs
Heavy Beam Laser II x2
Salvager II
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Small Tractor Beam I
Rocket Launcher II

Rigs
Capacitor Control Circuit II
Anti-Thermic Pump II
Auxiliary Nano Pump II

Sub-systems
Legion Defensive - Nanobot Injector
Legion Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Legion Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Legion Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Legion Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration

Designed primarily for exploration, the current fit does everything I need except the DPS, which is dissappointing, but realistically it's too much to ask of a ship of this type and size. Already at around 1 billion ISK, this is a serious investment and one which I may still lavish faction equipment onto. Clearly I have more money than sense, or I know how to steal...

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