A New Name And A New Home
One of the reasons that I haven’t posted for a little while is that there have been some behind the scene changes going on. After plenty of fiddling around trying to get things just right it is time to announce a major change to this blog. Henceforth “Wensley: The Pirate Diaries” will be known as …
Rifter Drifter
… and will live in its new home at http://www.rifterdrifter.com/. Please update your bookmarks and links to reflect this change. The new RSS feed is http://www.rifterdrifter.com/feed/.
All of the content from this site has already been transferred over. Hopefully the fact that I now have my own domain will allow me to do more than just the standard features that wordpress.com allowed.
See you on the other side.
Edit: How odd. We seem to be having some teething problems. I’ll try and work out what’s causing them.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Thrashers Make Me Stupid
Just a quick post today. I don’t really have much to write to you about. One thing I learnt over the weekend, though, is that destroyers make me stupid. I have been playing with a couple of autocannon-fitted Thrashers and having fun annihilating targets. For some reason that I can’t explain, though, I have managed to warp both of them to gates when I have a GCC and then lost them to sentry fire. Thankfully neither of them had another player on the mail so I don’t have to embarrass myself on the killboard.
Maybe I’ll come back and visit them again when I have some more ISK. For now its back to Rifters and doing silly things with them well away from gates. Fly reckless!
Filed under: Thrasher | 4 Comments
There are a couple of very cool videos up on the MyEve forum at the moment. I’m pretty sure anyone who reads this will love them, especially the Minmatar pilots amongst you.
Disintigrated features Disintigrator flying Tempests, Hurricanes, Jaguars, Claws, and Rifters. Most of the action takes place in null sec but there’s plenty of solo carnage to whet even the most bloodthirsty Sebestior’s appetite. His Claw piloting in particular is an absolute delight. I have the parts on order to change my current afterburner Claws into a proper dogfighting interceptor so I can have a go at emulating him.
Negative Eleven shows, amongst other ships, quite how amazing the Jaguar can be when you pimp it out a bit. Mezzik spends plenty of cash on his fittings but I do like the look of the small shield booster setup rather than the more traditional passive tanks. With the price of assault frigate hulls being what it is a couple of deadspace modules are probably worth it just to keep the thing alive.
Its good to see the small Minmatar ships getting plenty of video love. It shows I’m not alone in appreciating their power and flexibility.
Filed under: Videos | Leave a Comment
Causus Belli
Causus Belli: “Since I joined The Tuskers we’ve been on the receiving end of a handful of war declarations. Every time we get one of these mails the whole corporation’s overwhelming response is puzzlement. Why are people spending their hard-earned ISK declaring war on a bunch of outlaws. They can already engage us at will and we can only return fire on targets that aggress us. And that means individually too. If I’m shot at Ka Jolo can’t come to my aid until they shoot him too.”
(Via The Tuskers Public Relations.)
Filed under: The Tuskers Public Relations | 3 Comments
If you’re not familiar with the workings of the Income Redistribution Service then I have a treat for you. A lot of the posts in the Crime and Punishment forum on the Eve Online site are filled with trolling and chest-beating. There is the occasional diamond in the rough and Vladimir Norkoff’s journals are one such gem.
The latest instalment finds Vlad setting up shop in a wormhole and claiming it as his own. His logs are filled with tales of intruders, vassals, bloodthirsty towers, and the untold wealth of deep space.
I highly recommend that you check it out.
Filed under: Forums | 1 Comment
A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation aint satisfactioning me
A little more bite and a little less bark
A little less fight and a little more spark
Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me
Satisfy me babyA Little Less Conversation, Elvis Presley
It seems that since my little holiday things have started to heat up in low security space again. Until recently things had been pretty quiet but over the last week or so the fights have been coming thick and fast and that’s how I like them.
Last night was no different. I woke up in the sleeping quarters of my Rupture class cruiser. The Rupture is a ship that will appeal to any Brutor. It packs a rack of medium autocannons and can fit a mean amount of armour. Being the blood-thirsty killer that I am I optimise mine for massive amounts of autocannon damage. It really is a veritable space galleon. Anyway, I digress. My Rupture was stationed in Adirain following an alert the previous day. Although I missed the kill I’d stayed in Adirain and powered my ships systems down in deep space.
As my systems came online I spied a Vagabond in the local system. Because my ship was in orbit around a planet he scanned me down and warped towards me but I wasn’t to be caught off guard. For a while I toyed with the idea of trying to pin down the high speed Minmatar cruiser and take it down but I didn’t have enough confidence in my own ship’s defensive systems. Maybe I should invest in some of those implants I’ve heard about Sansha pilots flying with. Either way I decided that Adirain was too hot and set my computer for home.
As I jumped into Hevrice I was greeted by the sight of an outlawed Jaguar sitting just off the gate. This was too juicy a target to ignore and I primed my guns and tackled systems before bursting out of the cover that the gate’s cloaking system was providing me with. The assault frigate pilot, a member of the Black Rabbits, was caught off guard and my ECM drones prevented him from responding while rounds of Republic Fleet EMP tore into his advanced shield systems. While I was settling into orbit an Ishkur landed in support. This didn’t look good and I began yelling for support in the corporate communications channels but no-one was able to respond. A Rifter landed at range but bugged out leaving me with just the Jaguar and Ishkur to worry about. Surprisingly it seemed that the two ships were concentrating their damage on my ECM drones and I melted the Jaguar for minimal damage to my own systems. Next up was the Ishkur which met a similar fate. Between the two of them they’d barely been able to dent my shields. It was a pleasant surprise. Either ship should be able to give me a run for my money and both were piloted by pirates. It was a good way to start the evening’s killing.
I docked up the Rupture and had my technicians dispose of the loot while I prepared a Rifter. My plan was to head over to Old Man Star and see if I could find any trouble. That place is a hotbed of action with peaceful pilots, militiamen, and pirates aplenty. I wasn’t surprised at all to see another Tusker lurking in the system. Caster Rom was cruising around in his Taranis looking for a fight too. Pretty soon we were joined by PreZidenT and Alex Rudd and had a force capable of looking for a proper target. That came along when PreZ decided to tackle a Scorpion that was obviously playing bait in a belt. Confident that we could get out if a trap was sprung we all followed into the fray and began chipping away at the Scorpions shields and then armour. His ECM units occasionally broke our locks but we had enough ships to keep him pinned down. He had been assigned fighters from a carrier which couldn’t hit us but kept us on high alert for reinforcements. The Scorpion’s armour was dropping to critical levels when a Cerbereus and then Navy Issue Megathron warped in. The Tusker fleet aborted and warped out but Alex’s Thrasher was lost. It was a close call for the Scorpion pilot and with maybe one more frigate we’d have been able to take down the powerful ECM battleship. Good work, Tuskers.
While looking for my next good fight I scanned down a Catalyst in a belt. The pilot was fresh out of the academy and it didn’t take long to kill his destroyer and pod. During this time local was full of greetings and banter. It seems that in addition to my Rifter guide the release of my first combat film has made me even more well-known. One of the members of Space Perverts and Forum Warriors challenged me to fight his Vigil and capture it on film. Frigate on frigate? Well, the fight seemed pretty balanced so I was keen but aware of the fact he had friends in local. I was flagged as a criminal from engaging the Catalyst so I warped to the gate that he was camping at long range and then warped off to a planet in the hope that he had seen me and would follow. Now all I had to do was prime my weapons and wait…
Sure enough the Vigil landed 30 km from me and my camera drones were set to record. Now the Vigil is an electronic warfare support frigate and its main strength is its sheer speed. It can’t fit much of a tank so my plan was to fight it like I would an interceptor. To that end I had loaded my guns with close range ammo with the plan to get in close and orbit under his guns. The Rifter has a bonus to autocannon tracking which the Vigil lacks. I sped towards my opponent and he did the same to me. As I hit lock range I gave the command to begin targeting and as my systems resolved I was greeted by the gentle glow of my overloaded tackle systems coming to life. But not for long, though. The Vigil was soon out of my range. What?! Damn. He had an afterburner fitted. Still from that range he would be hard pushed to do me damage. Sure enough my shields and then armour were being slowly but inexorably chipped away despite my repairer. I concentrated on trying to manoeuvre into range and completely forgot to change my ammunition over to a long range variant. By the time I rectified this mistake it was too late. My stasis webifier had burnt out and my armour levels were critically low. I braced myself as my Rifter exploded and quickly warped my pod to safety. Looking at the killmail it seems that my opponent had taken advantage of the Vigil’s excellent capacitor to fit lasers. These long range weapons would allow him to chip away at me out of range of my own guns. I wonder what would have happened if I’d had Barrage loaded. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Well played, Tosi. That’s an excellent fit and the fight will definitely feature in my next film.
Back in Hevrice I docked my pod and went away to do some chores while my criminal status wore off. Thankfully I have a hangar full of Rifters so I was back out in space almost immediately. On the station undock I was greeted by the sight of a war target! Did I not mention that The Tuskers are at war again? The Wolf was engaging PreZ’s Thorax and I burnt back to the station to get something with a bit more punch. There was a report of a hostile fleet camping the Hevrice gate in Muetralle so I would have to act quickly. My hangar crew made the change in record time and I was soon back out in my Rupture. I locked down the Wolf and began firing, rejoined by PreZ. He didn’t stand a chance and we soon destroyed him. I locked down the pod for good measure and was about to begin ransom negotiations when I saw the system population rise rapidly. I span up my autocannons and aligned to warp to safety, not even stopping to loot the wreck. This was a good decision. The hostile fleet landed as I entered warp. On my return the wreck was already looted and the station camped so I made for the docking ramp without hanging around.
My mood was buoyant. So far I’d made four good kills for just the loss of a single Rifter. I wasn’t going to stop now so I hopped back into my favourite ship and undocked. I waved at the camping fleet as my nimble ship entered warp before they could even respond at my presence and went about my business unimpeded. This is one of my favourite things about the Rifter. You can’t camp me in and its almost impossible to disrupt my activities if I’m careful. I set my navigation system for Adirain and went to see if I could find any targets in this border system rather than stay around Hevrice and be hunted by this fleet.
In Adirain I quickly scanned down a Thorax ratting in a belt. The pilot was young and inexperienced so I should be able to take him on in my Rifter. I engaged my warp drive and pounced into the fray. My ship landed 30 km from my target and after an initial miscommunication with my navicom I was soon burning towards him. He had a handful of low tech medium drones out so I shrugged them off and concentrated my fire on the cruiser instead. My guns made good progress through his shields and armour and as he began to take hull damage I opened up a ransom channel. As soon as I’d offered him the chance to save his ship a hostile Punisher landed in the belt. I didn’t have time to hang around and negotiate so I finished off the Thorax and apologised to the pilot. My focus was now on the Punisher and I burnt towards it at full speed reloading my guns as I shot through the black of space. I was soon upon him and my guns tore through his defences. Incredibly quickly, in fact. Destroying him was the work of moments and it needed to be because as his hull buckled a Sleipnir landed in the belt as well. I didn’t hang around and gave the command to warp out while instructing my navigator to bookmark the location of the Punisher’s wreck. I was coming back for that. As soon as I landed I turned my ship around and headed back to retrieve my winnings. I came out of warp just out of cargo transfer range and had to burn towards to wreck to obtain my prize. With the loot scooped I hit the warp command again and made it out to safety but not before the mighty command ship had hit me with a powerful volley from its vulcan autocannons, stripping my armour down to half integrity. Luckily the Sleipnir moved off and I was able to loot the Thorax’s wreck in peace. It was a shame that his valuable armour repair system was destroyed in the explosion but that’s life.
With six kills under my belt I was finally done for the evening and I headed back to Hevrice to dock up. Back in my quarters I caught up with a few old friends and spoke to Allii about some things I wanted buying. She reported back that my loot was selling well and that our account was currently flush with ISK. I began fantasising about what to spend it on. While I was day dreaming reports came in of a fight against a Hurricane, Manticore, and pair of Eagles but I was half asleep and left my corp mates to dispose of the threat in true Tusker style.
Filed under: Rifter, Rupture | Leave a Comment
Happy Birthday To Me
Wow, the time has shot by! Its a whole year since I started playing Eve. In that time I’ve had some pretty great adventures including going out to 0.0 and learning how to fight and then coming back to low security space and putting it into action as a swashbuckling pirate. I’ve travelled all around New Eden in search of fun and profit and flown many different ships but I always seem to come back to my beloved Rifter. Now, I wonder if anyone got me any nice presents…
Filed under: Uncategorized | 14 Comments
[Video] Inconceivable
After plugging various videos that I’ve enjoyed watching, its time to reverse the trend a bit. May I present to you ‘Inconceivable’, my first foray into proper Eve video making.
Ships featured: Rifter, Claw, Stabber Fleet Issue
Download Here
Also available to stream on DamageDealer (was EveTube).
Soundtrack:
- D.A.N.C.E. – Justice
- A Cause des Garçons (TEPR Remix Edit) – Yelle
- La Musique – Riot in Belgium
- Stay the Same – AutoKratz
- Outversion – Mark Ronson
Details: 20 minutes @ 1280 x 720, 573 MB AVI
Thanks to Ka Jolo for creating The Tuskers and fostering such a brilliant corporation, all of The Tuskers for being great guys and top pilots, Ess Erbe for the donation of the Stabber Fleet Issue, Chribba for hosting at Eve Files, and everyone that I fought regardless of whether I lost or won. Sorry I didn’t remember to start record for all the fights that don’t feature in this.
Please head over to the thread on Eve Online and leave a comment so I know what you thought of it. If you liked it and want to see more then donations are always very gratefully accepted.
Filed under: Claw, Rifter, Stabber Fleet Issue, Videos | 3 Comments
I donned my FC hat again today and lead another Tuskers fleet out on a corporate operation. Ten Tuskers reported for duty and a pretty epic fight ensued. Read all about it at The Tuskers Public Relations.
Filed under: Rifter | 3 Comments
Normal Service Is Resumed
After a relaxing week away from the front lines I’m back in Hevrice and ready to kick some arse. To make my return even more momentous I thought I’d mix up the ships I was flying so Monday night saw me cruising around Obray constellation in a Claw.
Pretty much as soon as I undocked there was a target in system. PreZiDent was already out in his Thorax hunting for a Catalyst running missions for the Caldari milita. The destroyer pilot was on the ball and the slow cruiser was unable to get a good lock on him. Hopefully the advanced electronic systems of my interceptor would change this around. After I’d chased him out of his deadspace complex a couple of times PreZ and I settled in on the acceleration gate to try and camp him down. If I could get a scramble on his warp engines he’d be unable to activate the gate and we’d have him pinned down. (For those who don’t already know acceleration gates use your warp drive not an anchored wormhole like stargates so you can’t use them when your warp drive is disrupted.)
The Catalyst warped in and I quickly got a lock and settled into a tight orbit. My afterburner and reduced signature radius should keep me safe from his railguns. He returned lock on me and fired. By heck that hurt. And another volley. Shit. He was blaster fitted. Time to quickly get out to a safe range. As my ship began to take structural damage I was finally able to get out to a relatively safe orbit. By now PreZ had got his lock and his additional firepower melted the Catalyst. That was far too close. I got out with 20% structural integrity remaining.
For a while things were pretty quiet. There wasn’t much to be seen in Hevrice so I hopped back into my customary Rifter and went for a roam. On the Aeschee gate in Adirain I spotted a Helios sitting uncloaked. Now frigates really aren’t designed to operate under gate guns but covert ops ships are extremely fragile. I approached him and once sitting right next to him aligned to a planet, locked, and fired. I had him down at about half armour before I had to warp off to the safety of a planet. Never mind. He stayed uncloaked but ran off to hide at a POS. Not long after I scanned down a second Helios, this time sitting uncloaked at the sun. Again I warped in but this time he was 100 km from me and was able to warp out before I could close the gap. He stayed uncloaked but not at any celestial I could find.
Meanwhile back in Hevrice a cluster of ships were being reported including a pair of Ishkurs and a Kitsune. After a bit of debate the decision was taken to engage and I undocked in my Hound. The plan was simple. PreZ’s Thorax would act as bait with the Hound and Joc’s Pilgrim cloaked and ready. Suffice to say the bait was taken and the covert ships uncloaked to spring the trap. The Kitsune focussed on Joc initially allow PreZ and I to pop the first Ishkur before I turned my attention to the Kitsune while the others got their drones on the second Ishkur. As I got my first volley off the Kitsune jammed me and I retreated from the field in order to break his jam. By the time I returned the second Ishkur was down and the Kitsune had fled with heavy armour damage from my cruise missiles. My Hound is going to be having its systems updated soon so it can warp cloaked and fit siege launchers to better engage battleships. I definitely want to experiment with these new capabilities in gangs soon.
That was all the action I saw that night. After the fight I docked up and headed to one of the station’s bars to catch up with some friends. Tuesday saw me back in space and back in a Rifter.
I was able to scan down a Rifter but as I warped to its location it warped in to the planet I was scanning from. Damn. It was an outlaw too. I turned my Rifter round as a Tristan landed in my belt but by the time I got back to my original location the Rifter was gone. Never mind, the Tristan was where I left it so I warped back to the belt. The pilot was a young cadet who had already made contact with us on our forums. Unfazed by the fact I was a seasoned combat pilot he began to make a beeline for my Rifter. I returned the favour while telling my navigation computer to settle into a nice wide orbit, well out of the range of his blasters. Pinned down by my tackle systems the Tristan didn’t stand a chance and I tore it apart. As the smoke cleared and his pod warped to safety the pilot hailed me over comms and we discussed the fight. He was keen to learn more so I introduced him to the rest of my corporation while I continued my hunt. A Rifter was on scan but when I warped to his location he was 100 km away and he warped off to the Adirain gate.
I like hunting in Adirain and this guy wasn’t going to shake me off. I warped to the gate and jumped through myself. I warped to my favourite safe spot and began scanning. As well as a background of mission runners I saw an Arbitrator and the Rifter bouncing between planets. After warping in on them a couple of times with the Rifter at 100 km and the Arbitrator at the warp in point I decided that I could probably split them up and engage. I headed for the Rifter which promptly warped off and the Arbitrator gave chase. Interesting. Maybe they weren’t together and the Arbitrator was hunting too. I taunted the Arbitrator a couple of times, orbiting it outside of its warp disruption range to get a measure of its speed and capabilities. Each time he warped off I followed. Eventually I saw him with drones out and seeing that he had Hobgoblins I decided to engage. I tucked into a nice orbit at 7,500 m to make sure I was safe from any small energy neutralisers that he might have. Without my capacitor I didn’t have a chance to dispose of the drones. With his ship scrambled the fight was on. I engaged his flight of Hobgoblin IIs using my web to slow down each one while my guns popped it. Without his drones I’d neutered his damage potential and closed in for the kill. He unleashed a pack of Hammerhead IIs but the medium drones had a hard time hitting me. His defences couldn’t cope with my onslaught and I was able to destroy the cruiser but his pod escaped.
Overall a nice bunch of fights to ease myself back in from my holidays and a nice bunch of ISK in my pocket from the loot. I hope you all had a good Easter. See you in space.
Oh, and Roc, watch out… I’m heading in your direction…
Filed under: Claw, Hound, Rifter | 6 Comments
Wensley: The Pirate Diaries 