CCP needs to be convinced.

                The player owned starbase revamp needs to happen. CCP says it doesn’t affect enough players to make it worth the time spent on an entire expansion. Word around the internet is CCP doesn’t think it is marketable enough to warrant an entire expansion on it. The player base has already done a pretty good job of disproving that mindset by pointing out example of Wormholes in the Apocrypha expansion. It was one thing that spread throughout all aspects of New Eden. There are many good ideas out there. I want to reiterate on some of those and add some of my own, as well as tweak them so they sound more plausible in our EVE without making anything totally game breaking or something that would require an entire rewrite of the code of EVE (just the large amount of POS code). If my feeble single brain can hammer this out then I am sure with some effort the great minds at CCP can make this happen. CCP Unifex just has to believe that the time and money should be spent on it. A POS revamp can be fun and exciting for all those involved in PvP and PvE, not just a select few. The logic starts with what everyone else in all the blogs and articles has been touting, POSes are used by few because they are not wanted, or they aren’t fun. The same point was made with T1 frigates and Cruisers. Fix POSes like they fixed T1 cruisers and frigates and viola, you have everyone using them or wanting to use them.

                I used to run POSes. I ran 14 of them back when Dysprosium and Neo were the hottest moons to have, before Tech became the bottleneck. I remember the archaic interface, and the mind numbing fueling and hauling (before jump freighters). I made good ISK doing this but after awhile it made me want to quit EVE. The three other players that funded and ran the POS farm with me all took a break afterwards. It was almost the death knell for our accounts and our characters. I vowed to never run a POS again. They weren’t fun, they were a necessity. CCP knows this and the players know this. I am going to explore some ideas that might make me and the rest of the player base WANT to own one of these things.

                I am going to start with PvP and then move to PvE and cover everything starbases could be or could enhance as part of this grand game we all play. Of course my list isn’t a final suggestion as to what the new POSes could or should do; they are just examples to get creative juices flowing. I am not an expert in game design but I have played this game enough to know what might work and what probably will not.

                The Force Field: Why do we currently have it? Well, we need a safe place to have our ships. We need a safe place to run to if there is trouble. The current POS is a tower encased with a force field and some modules strung about, in or around this bubble. The new talk of Modular POSes looks to be something that foregoes this. We would dock at these new POSes just like stations. With a dockable POS we no longer need a force field and all the silly mechanics that go along with it. So let’s make subcaps, capitals and even supercaps dockable in a POS with the right additions to the POS. Yes I said supercaps. This is a major game changing mechanic but I think it is needed. I mean if a CSAA can build a Titan why can’t it dock there too? Why should we regulate the characters that fly these space coffins to ONLY fly the supers and never able to safely get out of them without risk of losing their ship from a thief? Perhaps there should be a limit to how many supers can dock depending on how many Super Capital Docking ports are installed on the POS (Look I just made up a POS component!) This would make it more realistic and non game breaking.

                Since we do not have a force field anymore, we can now put the guns on the actual structure of the POS itself. Same goes for any modules and hardeners. In fact, since we are proposing to make POSes modular, let’s make them fitable like a ship. You can fit defense nodes on a POS that increase fuel requirement the more you put on. If you want to spend the fuel, you can have one that is nearly impenetrable with enough guns to take down a 30 man dread fleet. Or you can have minimal, or no defenses at all. Each defense node would give a certain amount of PG and CPU to fit guns of all sizes. Each node could have 8 slots of highs, mids and lows. You can fit them with whatever size guns or missiles and hardeners you want, and of course webs and scrams and ECM. Each node would have bonuses depending on the type of node and the race of node. You can have ECM bonused nodes, weapons bonused ones or tackling bonused ones. It would be just like ships. Everyone likes fitting ships and seeing what creative things they can do. I think people would like to set up their POSes just like people like to fit ships.  I also think this is very balanced as fuel costs can get expensive if you want a deathstar or they can be minimal if you just need basic defense.

                Now let’s talk about gang bonuses. Right now, people use POSes they have in a system for an advantage. You can set up a gang linked command ship or Strat Cruiser in the bubble and give bonuses to your fleet in system with no risk at all. I think that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gives people that have a POS in the system an advantage. So now we don’t have a force field on our new POS so what do we do? Let’s make the POS able to fit its own gang links. You can fit a defense node that gives bonuses to gang links. It won’t give mindlinked, max skilled bonuses you can get from a booster T3; but maybe 50% of that for anything off grid. That sounds fair right? Then we can make it give a stronger bonus on grid with the POS. Maybe like 75% of a mindlinked, max skilled booster. This would give actual defense of the POS more advantages for the defender. You have to make it less then what you could get from an actual player in a ship. A piloted ship should always give the most benefit for a fleet then a tower’s bonuses.  

                What kind of roles could we give POSes for small sub cap roaming gangs? Well incapacitating all the guns would make it too easy for the attacker. Let’s make the guns take some real firepower to incapacitate, like what dreads can dish out. Let’s have sub caps be able to take out some of the other services in the POS. Now I know what you are thinking, “We already have this type of mechanic on stations and it doesn’t really work well!” You are right, you need dread or supercarrier dps to take out the current outpost services with any speed and that’s boring as any other structure grind. If the EHP of the services on the new POS were what a gang that has about 4000 dps, could take out in 4 or 5 minutes that would be quick and easy. The balance is that they can’t take out the guns on the defense nodes, so they have to tank them with speed, local tanks or logistics. This would also put stress on them if they had defenders to deal with. Like pirates and anti pirates getting in a fight on a low sec gate, the pirates (or the attackers) have to deal with sentry fire as well the dps from the other ships. If the POS had a bunch of defense nodes that have capital-sized guns on them, then the sub cap gang of attackers can come in and just keep moving to not damaged by the slow tracking guns. If the defender set up a bunch of nodes with smaller guns the sub gang will be in trouble, but a capital gang can tank it with ease.

                Next up is PvE. How about a module or node that you can put on the starbase that tells you what kind of exploration sites are in system? Then you don’t have to waste time doing that part you can just scan them down. There could be a module that increases the scanning strength of the ship you are using. This could be a passive bonus just like gang links. How about creating a module that opens wormholes? It could open a wormhole to a random system once per day in addition to the naturally occurring wormholes. That would give explorers something else to do.

For mining and production/invention, you HAVE to nerf high sec first. Nothing else will work unless this is done. It should be more expensive to do things in the confines of safety. NPC stations should charge a lot of ISK to run production on their slots and to refine in their stations. Null sec should be the cheapest because you have to front the ISK for the equipment to do so. I don’t know why CCP hasn’t done this years ago. Refining in null sec should be the only place you can do it with 100% efficiency with some good skills. Everywhere else should be maybe 90-95% with perfect skills. Invention and research doesn’t really have to be changed much from high sec as availability with slots already encourages POS usage, but maybe increase costs more in high sec too.

                I remember CCP Greyscale talking about POSes warping around and some other crazy stuff. Why not? Have some beacon that has to be anchored at an empty moon and a 24 hour spool up timer. After the spool up timer the POS will jump to it like a capital ship. The beacon pops up on everyone’s overview like a cyno and can be warped to. The beacon has the same hp as a POCO so a medium sized gang could destroy it but a random passer-by cannot. This would make the beacon have to be defended by the owner of the POS if he wants to move it. Make moving POSes difficult, especially into hostile territory. If you are moving the POS into an undefended system that no one cares about, it will not be that hard to move it. Just like it is not hard to erect a tower in a system like that now.

                The artwork groundwork has already been explored by one talented player here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9543&find=unread Many of my ideas and the ideas floating around out there is based off of this theory of revamping the POS.

                So we now have a POS that can be built as large or as small as the owner would like. It can defend a small gang or a capital fleet. It can dock Titans and Supercarriers or just subcaps. It can be tailored to help the avid explorer find riches in the depth of space and a drop off for his loot. He can open a cyno into a remote and undefended corner of New Eden, set up shop for a week, and then move out. If the owner of the space find him and wants to kick him out, they can disable the POS and force him to leave, or if he stays after that, they can destroy it and all his riches inside. The industrialist can set up a large refining and production POS in the heart of his alliances space. He and his friends can mine, refine, and build ships for his alliance better than anywhere else in New Eden. His counterparts in High sec may be safer and not had to front the ISK for the POS, but they won’t make it as cheap. After some time the industrialist will undercut his competition in high sec and low sec to actually pay off the investment of his POS and start making a profit. Inventors can use the best labs with the best chances of making T2 and T3 goods. PvPers can roam around enemy territory and plan raids against vulnerable and poorly defended POSes and make the defender either fight or live with greatly reduced capabilities of their POS. The defender can pay out the nose for fuel to keep a POS running that can deflect all but the largest and most organized fleets. Large alliances and coalitions can move their deathstars into enemy territory by defending their beacons with enough time to move into hostile territory. If they make it in, they now have huge advantages they would normally not enjoy. Instead of spamming towers across territory you can simply up and move them closer to enemy lines. This sounds fun to me. This makes me want to own a POS again, even after the horrible experience I had running 14 of them before. I hope it might make you want to own and operate one of these things too.

                So there you have it, I just linked the new modular POS into something that will affect everyone. I am sure balancing issues would need to be done and some of my ideas are crap or some ideas are better. But if one person can do this based on the idea I got from reading of the other players ideas, why can’t CCP do this? Well they can, they just need to be convinced it is worth it.

 

New horizons and new friends...

Lately APEX has been kinda slow. We did have a Gallente FW alliance reinforce three of our POCO's but according to my research, they were mostly Euro guys and they came out in US late night time. So we outnumbered their 8 people that they brought and we even got a bomber kill before chasing them off. We were also within 10% hull of killing Loren Gallen which would have been some bragging rights since he is the 6th top ranked PvPer on Battleclinic. We have had a few people go inactive or just not playing as much. We have had a few high sec wars and every time something disastrous happens. Expensive and stupid is what happens. Things that don't need to happen. So those are very demoralizing events and make me lose my zeal for the game. I never took a break, but I just had some really stupid mistakes that made me look like a noob compared to what I know I can do. Our other bros are still cool to fly with but other then that I have been looking for a change. I have been wanting to get one of my characters into a null sec ~elite PvP~ alliance that commands a little more respect. It is the one thing I haven't really done in this game yet. I figured I had a connection into Pandemic Legion through someone I knew. Honestly I have gotten real life jobs easier then applying into HABIT. I had to answer a very long and difficult application and then get hazed a bit by the current members. After that I was assigned a very specific "arts and crafts" project where I had to draw a large picture. I guess it was good because even though I am new in PL I am known a bit by the guy that drew the "awesome picture." Not that it was very good technically, but I guess I just happen to draw the scene really well as far as capturing the humor of an inside joke among PL. So I got into PL and it has been a big culture shock. Comms, the EVE slang is different. I have spent the better parts of the last week just reading their internal forums learning as much as I can. I don't want to give off the first impression I am a scrub, but for null sec capital stuff, I'm a scrub. Luckily because of my pseudo fame for my picture and the fact my voice isn't "annoying as hell" I am getting more help then trolls and hazing for a new guy. PL is pretty brutal as far as "constructive criticism" but they have been helpful as well. I even got to take my APEX carriers into a cap operation fleet but I was late to a fight that ended up in a carrier and Megathron kill.

This is definitely a learning experience for me and will definitely make me a better player overall. I just wish Maxwell had some more skill points because he can only fly a few of the standard fleet ships that PL rolls in and no capitals yet.

Cruicible and Tears of Irony

Yes I know that it has been QUITE some time since my last blog but the holidays have been busy. It hasn't been me not logging into EVE because I have been doing plenty of that. I was on the test server quite a bit getting familiar with all the new stuff before the bulk of the rest of the community. One thing out of all the awesomeness that was the Crucible expansion that really got me excited was the POCOs or Player Owned Customs Offices. Being that APEX spends plenty of time in low sec and I do lots of Planetary Interaction I found this to be a key component to the expansion that really spoke to me and my gaming style. Now I could put up something in low sec besides a POS that will actually MAKE me ISK instead of cost me something and it will open the way to some PvP hopefully as well! So once the patch hit I organized our glorious alliance to help me out with my one Dreadnaught (a Moros) and take out an Interbus CO and put up our first one at a good planet. It was fairly uneventful but was nice to work together on something. After putting it up I did have my qualms about the local pirates taking it out. However, because of the game mechanics involved with a POCO, I knew that we would have a good chance to save it. Unlike POSes which you have to keep filled with Strontium so they can go into a reinforced mode, POCOs will do it automatically with no Stront. Also, depending on the time a POS starts it's RF timer and with the amount of Stront in its Stront cargo bay will determine what time it comes out of RF mode and when you have to be ready to defend it. A POCO has a configure menu that will let you pick a 2 hour range of when it will come out of RF and it will add 24 hours to that so you have time to coordinate a defense. What this means for APEX and our American time zone players, is that when the European pirates shoot our POCOs, it will be 4AM in the morning when they have to come finish it off and it will be 7 o'clock PM for us Americans. It gives us a significant advantage. So the Carebear Stare either unaware of this or not caring about this, decides to RF our first POCO. We ready a defense fleet and get shield reppers ready as well. Once a POCO comes out of RF it has 1% shields. It will have to be reinforced again if we can get it's shields above 25% and repping it any higher will just be icing on the cake. With 3 Basilisks and a Chimera it took about 25 minutes to get it to 50% shields and we called it good.

A few days later, CareBear Stare decided to do it again. By this time I had two more POCOs put up. They only RFed one of them. This time I was going to be on vacation away from home and not able to be there when it came out of RF. Luckily my alliance stepped up and defended it for me. We also discovered another thing, as long as we guard it and no one else shoots it, the passive recharge of the shields will get it to 95% by downtime. We don't even need to rep it! It will get to 25% and be safe after only 3 hours or so. With this new knowledge we put up 4 more POCOs. After that it was quiet for about a week. Then I logged on and saw a bunch of eve mails that all 6 of our POCOs in one system had been RFed. Really? Wow these guys are wasting so much of their own time. Again we just made sure no one shot at them when they came out of RF as we waited for targets to take our bait in Mara. So the lesson is, shooting a POCO to annoy the owner isn't really annoying. It isn't like a POS where it is annoying as hell when someone incapacitates your guns and reinforces your tower.

The POCOs are making us ISK and saving me ISK at the same time. It isn't a lot and it will take some time to make up the cost of putting them up. I like the sense of ownership though and will continue to put more up.

With the rest of the Crucible expansion I feel CCP really did a great job. The amazing thing is, it seems like it was faster and less work for them to put out an expansion most of the player base loved. Fixing stuff is easier then adding new stuff. I really think blasters are going to be used much more often then before. I used them before anyway because our style of PvP was land on grid and melt faces but most of the rest of the PvP community had eschewed the use of Blasters and rails (which was never used in PvP as long as I can remember). With the new lesser fitting requirements and the speed and agility buffs many Gallente ships are being used again. The Triple rep Hyperions are more popular because you can fit bigger guns now with your monster tank. Brutixs are about the same but at least they are faster and more agile and can also fit a full rack of Neutron Blaster Cannons much easier then before if you want to fit max gank. The rail platforms are a little better but I think rails just need a different approach overall. I feel like they should be the highest DPS long range guns in the game with a high ROF and very low alpha, just the opposite end of the spectrum then the other long range guns. This would add some flavor to the game and encourage their use.

The new Tier 3 Battlecruisers are pretty cool, and they do what they are meant to do. They are glass cannons and are very fast. I have seen some really fail fits so far but also some really good ones as pilots learn how to use them. There has been a few Nagas, Oracles, Tornadoes and Talos that have killed us or at least given us trouble. Some people just don't learn though that you can't track stuff very well. http://apexunlimited.griefwatch.net/?p=details&kill=2586

The new graphics are amazing. It feels like I am playing EVE 2 and not even the same game with the new nebula and new font and new warp effects. Warping through a planet for the first time was a nice surprise too. I am also very happy they nerfed supercaps, I no longer see supercarriers being thrown around and hot dropped on single cruisers for the lulz.

On another topic:

The amount of hypocrisy of some pirates is absolutely mindboggling. So we as APEX are playing the role of anti-pirates, trying to keep a semblance of order within low sec and not let pirates run rampant. We are space cops in a sense, and when a criminal or group of criminals in real life commit a crime, do the real life cops only bring an amount of cops to have  "good fights" or "honorable fights?" No, they bring so many cops that they minimize any losses to as close to zero as possible. They strive for having none of their own getting hurt.  They do the real life version of "ganking" and "blobbing." That is the role that APEX plays.

Some pirates are looking for easy ganks, some are looking for good fights, some are looking for both. Whatever the situation, when they take the bait of a defenseless or lone ship, they are showing us they have no problem in overwhelming odds in their favor. We too, are like them in we like overwhelming odds in our favor as well. So when we "gank" or "blob" a pirate (as they claim in local) and they complain, the irony is both enjoyable and hilarious. Our policy is always to throw a "gf" in local first no matter if we won or lost, but when our opponent starts smacking, we will tend to reply (even though silence REALLY gets them MAD BRO). Our favorite is when we kill them and they talk about how horrible we are because we "blobbed." Ha ha! Sorry man but your ship got blown up not ours!

We have had a guy recently who is in a e-peen null sec alliance that proceeds to smack whenever we engage him. It is really childish really. The only time I smack is trying to entice a fight. After the fight it serves no purpose. It just makes you look like a tool.

Learning the terrain in EVE.

One thing that many veteren players know that many newer players dont even think about is the terrain of a star system in EVE for combat purposes. This is where I lose some of you already, "Terrain? Dude this is space what terrain are you talking about." Well, you are right in one sense. On grid, not much changes the battle in open space. Asteroid fields can change things when a ship bumps into them or gets stuck around them, a Stargate size or station can effect how battles are determined, but other then that there isn't really much on a grid to be classified as terrain.
That isn't what I am talking about. I am talking about how a star system is layed out. For example, I know that in Aunenen, once I jump in my directional scanner (d-scan) can pick up every celestial group in the solar system except the farthest planet that has one station that people don't use much EXCEPT to stay off d-scan from everyone else. Back when probing was done with a max of 4 probes contributing to the hit I would blanked a system with 16 of them from my two Recons and cover as much as I could with 4 groups of 4 probes. This would allow me to continuously scan the system and know what ships were where. It was a tremendous intelligence tool and since probes couldn't be filtered seperatly on the overview many people never noticed the probes on d-scan.
This made me learn the "terrain" of systems I hunted often very well. This helps you in finding people or to avoid being found. You know where to warp to and you know where to point your d-scan.
This is why people have certain stomping grounds they know and have a harder time in places they have never been before.
So please, learn your terrain and you will be a much more effective PvPer. :-)

High sec wars are REALLY REALLY DUMB.

So after a few days of the high sec war, I have made the above conclusion. Our enemies use nuetral alt boosters that lock my falcon and prevent it from cloaking, so I spend most of my time in low sec where I can choose to shoot thier nuetral alts if I want to. Also, I have a capital ship advantage too. They want to play dirty then I will use all my resources I can as well. First couple days my newer players are trying to fight, even though I told them they would lose, they insist on it as they can learn from it and it is still fun for them. Ok fine, I can accept that, but having my corp and alliance lose ships isn't fun for me, but I look the other way. Killboard stats may have ruined EVE but I like to look competant to my enemies as well. *shrug*

Such is EVE....

When myself or Fang is logged in, what I consider our "vets," then it is a differant story. Either we play back and forth and no one can kill each other, or they stay docked when we outnumber them. This is the high sec war crap I remember. So Thomas and 86camino lose ships, Sami loses a ship and gets podded, and our indy play Caldari 159 loses a hauler full of goodies *sigh.* At LEAST be in a combat ship if you are going to lose a ship. Blockade Runners are the only haulers allowed in high sec wars. Sorry Cal, I know this is a learning experiance for you but I gotta be blunt. Cal is probably thinking, "Fuck you Cloora I didn't lose a Navy Mega like a noob anyway!" LOL.

So our break is on friday night when we have most all our people online. So the war targets are staying at bay. Poking thier heads in from time to time but we have too many for them to handle at this point in time. We resort back to our old low sec ways and we have our kiwi buddies online as well. After raping a few Fleet stabbers, we see Amelia Duskspace in a Hurricane flying around Passari. She is being careful not to be caught so we largely ignore her. Until that is, she logs off with agression (she shot at one of us at a gate a few minutes prior) in space! From my experiance catching pirates in Mara I know this opportunity and I pounce on it. I dock Mil and get her Helios and drop probes immediatly. We smell a trap of some sort but we also know that barring something REALLY unexpected we can barrel through whatever trap they might have. So I find her Hurricane and squad warp. We land and dismantle the Hurricane with no effort. (BTW Battle Helios FTW) Her pod then e-warps off and I re-run a scan find the pod and warp to it. Done. Other then that it has been a very boring war.

They did put my small POS in High sec into reinforced mode and incapped my guns and stuff. With 1 day and 9 hours left on the timer I retracted the war. So far with no counter dec back I have time to either rep the POS or put up a large with lots of ECM to make it a royal pain to do that again.

In conclusion. High Sec wars need a revamp. Nuetral reppers and boosters and scouts need to be dealt with in some way. Personal war decs need to exist if someone is in a NPC corp.

Overconfidence

I have been flying pretty "high and mighty" as of late. Not really many losses and been pushing APEX's dominance everywhere I go in low sec. Our reputation has been making it difficult to get in any fights. People think of us as "blobbers" and "ECM fags." Well, we are sometimes, but there is a lot of times I roam around solo. Just me and my 4 alts where I wouldn't consider myself a blob, I do pack ECM most times. :-) Last Sunday I had an incident that put me back on my heels. I got socked in the nose in an EVE sense and beaten at my own game of baiting.

There was a pilot flying around Passari and Mara who was in a Myrmidon. She was positive security status and seemed to be ratting. She was being very passive. Running when I locked her and sometimes running away when I just showed up in the belt. If she wanted a fight she would stick around I thought.

So I got comfortable with her in system running around the belts. I had my Raven and Brutix running around just ratting myself. I got so comfortable I went AFK with my ships sitting in the belts as I went to do sometimes for about 30 seconds. (I forgot what it was) Karok was on standby with his non scanning pilgrim (the cheaper fit) and Cloora in her Falcon. When I got back from my 30 second interlude, I see a red Myrm on my Brutix! JOY! She got confident and cocky and thinks her Myrm will best my lower tier BattleCruiser! I was still way up in shields on my shield tanked Brutix so I figure I am fine and she just went red on me.

I engage my guns on her at point blank range. I expect to tear into her armor quickly and she may have a triple rep active setup. I'll need the Pilgrim just in case to nuet her out. I mistake a slow moving armor tank for repping up as I move my eyes to my other screens looking at what I need to do. I see local spike up 4 more people. Not a problem my Falcon is now cloaked 50km off from Milonia and Karok has landed now with the Raven also on it's way. I notice now that my blasters are not really tearing into the Myrms armor like it should. Also she has ECM drones out on me. I have lost lock with the Brutix and my Brutix ECM drones are getting damaged from a Smartbomb? This is getting odd. Apparently she is a passive tanked smarty fit? My pilgrim is useless against this. A Dominix, Typhoon and Hurricane have now landed. I uncloak my Falcon and start with the JAMZ! The Domi drops Sentry drones so even when jammed, they still are firing at my Falcon. It hurts but my armor tank is holding for now. They quickly dismantle my Brutix and I warp Mil off in her pod. I start to get a few jams off on the battleships after I realize I am wasting my Gallente jammer on the damn Myrm, but the Sentry drones have gotten my Falcon into low armor and I must warp off and back in again. My poor Raven is next on their kill list as he keeps trying to apply the DEEPS to the Myrm. Besides being in the wrong ships for this engagement my lack of target swapping was my second biggest mistake I made in this fight. In order to make the best of the cards I was dealt. I suppose I should have moved everything over to the Domi as its drones were causing the biggest headache for me. With it out of the fight I would have had JAMZ! again and any other drones would get chewed up by my Falcon's smarties. I could have TDed the Cane and nueted the Domi (in case of active tank) and just hoped to tank the Phoon with my afterburner speed and my MAR II. The Raven could have also helped absorb any other damage left with its decent EHP while putting down the hurt with it's Torpedoes. Even if the Brutix would have still died then she could have shipped to a Logi or another Falcon.

Unfortunately that is NOT what I did. I started to give up. Thomas Ononion was on grid with me by this time and he diligently followed my orders to keep on the Myrm. We still hadn't killed it by the time the Pilgrim fell. I could not bring my Falcon back at this time as it would have been primaried and of little use. I made the 3rd mistake of the fight and upshipped Mil into her BAMF ship the Navy Mega. I counted on getting Karok into the Archon and just going Beserker Rage into the battlefield killing anything that dared stay on the battlefield. I sounded the Calvary charge and Thomas quickly told me to not come as he was already in armor. It was too late I canceled warp a second too late the Navy Mega was now in warp. Now I am in overdrive mode as I am trying to get the fat ass Archon to stop moving and align and warp to the battle. Thomas' Drake pops. The Navy Mega lands, the Archon  is still aligning. I figure I need to kill something to I STILL go after the Myrm. Well this time I'm in a Navy Mega of course I killed it. But now they are on my Navy Mega full bore. DAMNIT ARCHON GET INTO WARP!!! After my half of the Mega's EHP is now stripped away the Archon finally gets into warp! The mega has now tackled the Domi but has less then 1/4 armor left. Unfortunatly the capital ship lands 2 seconds after the Mega pops and they scatter into the wind as the arrival of the powerful ship.

As I have stated before, I sometimes take expensive losses well if I just was not able to do anything or it was still a good fight. If I make horrible mistakes, I get VERY upset with myself. So I was quite mad with this loss. The ISK was nothing I replaced all the ships with one Jita run. It was the fact I looked like a noob out there. I am NOT a noob and I think I am well skilled in what I do. These guys were probably laughing at me and I don't take kind to that. What I did was what me and Fang joke about what the we LOVE the enemy to do. You know those kung fu movies? The bad ones? Where there are a few good guys in the middle and they are surrounded by bad guys. The bad guys send one person in at a time to get thier butt kicked by the few good guys in the middle. That is what I did.

So, after some really quick research into these guys, I dec both corps...

The morals of an anti-pirate.

Recently, I have been challenged in my morals and how I should operate in my daily EVE ongoings. I try to hold myself to more of a "Not Red Don't Shoot" or NRDS standard then most people in low sec who are NBSI or "Not Blue Shoot It." Well at least the pirates are definitely NBSI. However, I have some friends that are full on Ransoming pirates with a -10 security Status. I have worked with them before and told them I will not shoot them. I just don't like shooting my friends. One thing about EVE I enjoy is inflicting misery on others. Tears are delicious and I get less enjoyment when my foe tells me gf or compliments me and just leaves. I want RAAAGGGEE in local. When pirates or gankers rage and call me names it makes me laugh and adds enjoyment to my kill. So when it comes to friends I haven't yet developed the "good sportsmanship" attitude that would come in other games from playing against your friends. However, my friends aren't necessarily going to be friends with my friends, and that situation came up last week. A couple of Sinners guys came through Mara when I was in fleet with a few other APEXers and some other local anti-pies. I wasn't really in command of the fleet but no one else was officially leading the fleet either (that's just the way we operate.). I told the other guys that we shouldn't engage these guys and I don't think they will engage us either. I was in a public channel with the pirates as well and they were telling me to "pretend" to go AFK so they could do their dirty work. I told them no I can't I'm in fleet with them. I also told them do not engage with anyone in our fleet as I will defend them. At the Mara/Dantumi gate some confusion was in process. A pirate in a Drake locked and fired at bumnz in Dantumi and bumnz responded with missiles back at him. Fang and the rest of our fleet warped to the Dantumi gate and said they are taking anything out they can that is red as they engaged us first. Fang's words were, "fuck these guys I don't know them!" I tried to hold off but my fleet was counting on me being there for them so I said fuck it and grabbed one of the pirates and got on one of their killmails . My buddy also got popped and podded as I told bumnz not to pod him but it was too late. Luckily Professor Terror was not butt hurt about the loss and he said he was in a naked clone.

With this incident I have come to the conclusion that ALL pirates are shoot on sight (SoS) unless they are blue for some reason (which should match some RP reason) or unless I have come to some sort of temporary agreement with said pirates to go against some other foe.

Another incident also came up which I am torn on. Genius Loci, a known and competent pirate, was out and about in Passari, I guess Fang Khan has worked with him before and stated "he's cool" but I never have and he is in a corp red to us. If it's red it's dead. Normally he undocks and I engage and he redocks in a ship that might handle what I have better or trump my ship. I then redock and undock in a ship that trumps his (or just more ships) until we are in Battleships and Carriers etc. If I have more numbers he runs off with his insta-undock or just stays docked. This time he came out in a Dominix that was active shield tanked. I was in a Navy Mega and my Absolution. I started firing and he was tanking it for a little bit but then I tore into his armor, he didn't do anything. I am now into his structure and he isn't docking. Well hell I'm not stopping maybe he aggressed and I didn't notice. I popped him and thats when i realized that he crashed or logged. His pod e-warps off in a random direction and I think, "he's got a 15 minute aggro time now!" I don't even hesitate I redock and get into a covops and a Hurricane and undock. I scan down his pod and pop it. He logs in a few minutes late and doesn't seem to mind the expected loss of the Domi but he is mad that I podded him. Would he have not done the same to me in that situation? I think so. Or was I a dick for podding him?