Showing posts with label english. Show all posts
Showing posts with label english. Show all posts
2009-04-17
Not You
honey, can i be your sitcom neighbour
the sub-plot character with the irrational behaviour
would you grant me another cameo in your show
until i get a movie of my own
lady, could i be your knight in armour
mr. rose-between-my-teeth, your chocolate charmer
would you let me serenade you from the yard outside your room
until i get a ballad of my own
until i get a ballad of my own
this is not what i’m looking for / this is not what i need
you’re not what i’m craving / not for you that i bleed
lovers, do you need me as the voice of reason
mister fix-it to assist you in and out of season
i’ll be the man in the middle with a fiddle out of tune
or i might just get a romance of my own
baby, can i be your cool, kind stranger
the deus ex machina in your hour of danger
could i wrap you in my cloak until the dark has flown
or should i get a story of my own
could i get a story of my own
this is not what i’m looking for / this is not what i need
you’re not what i’m craving / not for you that i bleed
autopilot
sweet'n'sour stir-fry imagination
timewarp'd like a video on heavy rotation
are you part of the static
or part of the station?
banter, bicker, bite or kiss
all your love on a laundry list
guilty as charged
obsessed
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
sugar-high monochrome cartoon
jittery as a mayfly on the first of june
nowhere to go
and you're already home
backtrack, snipe or bunny-hop
skimming like a spinning top
itching to scratch
can't stop
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
don't go linear on me now
navigation crash-course in-flight
crawling for the tunnel at the end of the light
you'd rather be happy
but you're not even right
sell out, wig out, stick or ditch?
close your eyes and make a wish?
take your pick
... bitch
don't go linear on me now
(why won't you)
don't go linear on me now
(let dreaming dogs lie)
don't go linear on me now
(let them lie to themselves)
don't go linear on me now
(they gotta lie to themselves)
like every poem,
this is to life
a toast in champagne & shampoo in the eyes
memories & meetings, meditations on a milkshake
a personal earthquake & a beautiful day
a pin in the hay, the story so far
the most glorious thing never seen
worries & wonders, feathers & tar
sleepwalking, daydreaming, times in between
the noise within, the mystery without
& everything else it’s about
life until death
the hearts of the matter, the art of a breath
sausage & sorrows, chocolate & flowers
lightning flash hours, revelation by braille
loving by e-mail, praying by journal
the truth you would rather not know
moments eternal, mornings infernal
trailblazing, navelgazing, angels in the snow
the choice within, the destiny without
somehow turning water into wine
steadily stumbling down the scenic route
to the inevitable
deadline
Shaiya: The Budget NM Sneaky Stabbings Guide To Enjoying 1-15 PvP
(Go Directly To Fun, Do Not Pass Grind)
Hello all. I was bored waiting for stuff to sell, so I started writing. It struck me a while back, that there didn't seem to be a beginner-friendly guide to the nitty-gritty of playing Sin/Ranger.
There's an excellent guide here, which everyone really should read first. But it's more general and macro-focused than what I had in mind.
Now, a lot of this is Obvious if you're an old hand. And most of it is Highly Opinionated. You're quite welcome to snort and disagree. I'll just say, this is my experience and hard-earned wisdom, managing to have fun with my dirt-poor NM Sin, mostly solo in 1-15. (Though, a lot of it has broader application, even for other classes.)
Disclaimer: If your personal goal in PvP is "getting mah ranks real quick", this is not for you. Go make a... really, anything else.
If you're like me - yeah, I know, what are the odds - and enjoy PvP for the sake of PvP... read on.
So, you've got your 3 str / 2 dex Assassin / Ranger to L15. You've got your noble kit good to go. Cup of coffee handy, you step into the free-for-all zone.
The first lesson is learning not to fight. This is your class privilege. Stealth and Sprint. Try to have at least one of them ready at all times. Yes, I know, the recharge timers are cruel. But you need to start slow. Getting caught up in a repeated lemming rush will crush your soul.
Speaking of which, see that big pile of people on the hill, facing off against the other side's even bigger pile? Yeah, you don't want to be there. Trust me on this. You can not contribute in a ranged standoff. Get out of there. Go around. There's plenty of room.
Yes, there will come a time when you can actually break camps, but... it's not the first thing you should try. That way lies boredom, depression and repeatedly dying horribly.
Don't bring knives to a gunfight. Don't fight on the other guy's terms.
Dex-based dodging only gets you so far. Lapis-enhanced REC, def, magic resist or hp gets you a bit further. But your main way of avoiding death is neither of these. You're a Miyagi Tank. "The best block is not being there." Never be where you are expected. Never stay where twelve guys can give you their full attention. You're not Frontal Assault Person. Don't even try to be. Flank, avoid, hit-and-run and - when you can pull it off - sprint right through all of them. Never get into a stand-up fight. You're not made for it.
Go roaming. Get the lay of the land. Make friends in the Iron Blood. (Anyone who's there is either another non-hiller or a questing greenhorn. The former is Your Kind Of People and the latter... needs a helping hand and - *cough* - early indoctrination. To save them from becoming lemmings later.)
Pay attention. Keep your eye on the radar. When it flashes, find the enemy by cycling targets with § (key-to-the-left-of-1, tilde on some keyboards) before they're even in visual range. Always keep looking around. (Moving by ground-click lets you turn the camera while staying your course. Moving by forward double-tap lets you turn yourself. Both have their uses.) Never get so caught up chasing anyone, you stop watching your surroundings. And if someone retreats into guard range, don't follow. Don't. Follow. Back up, give them a sarcastic clap-as-admitted, and move on.
Start slow. Find yourself some 1v1s. Learn. Then move up. Oh, I can take two targets if I kill the one who's snoozing first? Wooo. What about three? Raaaah, got one. Now I'm almost dead, but hey... poofstealthgone. Get a sense of what's manageable, and don't hesitate to leave when in over your head.
Use your surroundings to your advantage. Force melee enemies to follow you around cover, so that the ranged ones lose line-of-sight. By all means, make them chase you into the orange guards and then stun the heck out of them. You'll live longer, and there's nothing more satisfying than wiping an entire party with just a bit of timely assistance from NPC Security.
If at all possible, don't fight people while you've got monster aggro. Run out of range or finish off the critter, then turn your attention to enemy players. (Stealth prevents monster aggro, but doesn't break it. And even if the mobs will miss you most of the time, you don't want a handy AoE / ground shock target following you around while you're making a quiet getaway.)
On a related note: when going to the Iron Blood, bring Slow cure scrolls. And take pains not to antagonize the Vipers. (If possible, make enemies run through them to get to you. Slowed targets are good targets.) In fact, always position yourself so that others have to draw monster aggro to get to you. Dex monkeys can dodge NPCs very well. Everyone else can't. And you can always use a bit of extra damage on a target.
When you're Stealthing out of trouble, immediately start moving by WASD. It stops you accidentally auto-attacking and becoming visible again, and gets you out of range of traps, ground shocks and clerical True Seeing spells. Which will all ruin your day.
Sprinting or Stealthing away doesn't always have to mean you're leaving the fight. Get some distance, reassess who's wounded and who's stopped paying attention to you... and go back in. (Sometimes, all you need to win is a few more seconds for the potion timer to recharge.)
You can /town while stealthed. Use at your discretion. (If I'm hiding in a cluster of Sonic Cheese and can't get out of range before timer runs out, I will sometimes teleport home. If they've bored me. On other occasions... "%¤% it, I'm taking this Mage with me or I die trying. Possibly both.")
If you do want to help with the campers... move up the waterway and thin the herd of reinforcements. Or if you're in a roaming party - that rare and beautiful beast - go hit the altar. If you can take it, woo. If it pulls the campers off your hill, woo. Really, it's win-win. (And if your party yields to temptation and gets stuck in a Staring Contest... ask them to get moving. If they won't, politely thank them for the group, refresh the LUC buff one final time and leave.)
When jumping on a backline cluster of Zapmeisters and Doctors... don't focus on one target. Spread the love around. Land as many halt kicks and stuns as you can on different people. (Nine seconds of silence or four seconds of nothing can make a big difference to your pals pounding on their frontline. Assuming you have pals pounding on their frontline. If not, why are you in the backline caster cluster?)
When surrounded by Sonic Hedgehogs and all out of both Stealth and Sprint... don't try to run. Either fight till your last breath or stop and fire off as many different emotes as you can. This increases your Style rankings, which is something I just made up.
Don't keep pounding on a high-defense target unless they're alone. And if they are alone, don't get too obsessed with breaking them. Taking down a defender/guardian is not a fight. It's a bloody siege. Chances are you'll get jumped just as you get them to 10% hp. On the bright side, they usually can't do more than debuff you. If they're with a party, you can cheerfully leave them for last. (Oh, and here's something it took me a while to learn: the tanks have blunt weapons, fighters/warriors have sharp ones.)
On a related note, never leave a Doctor unmolested. Take them out as soon as you see the golden glow of doom. If they're wearing kevlar undies, as many of them do, just halt-kick, then return to beating on whoever they were healing. Repeat as necessary.
When someone kills you in a string of all crits, make a note. Then don't fight that person ever again. Miyagi Tank, remember? They're paying for easy kills, but you're not getting paid to provide it. You're a sneaky stabby one. You have the option of boring them to death. (By all means, if you're with a group, be sure to stun-and-pile-on. But don't get too surprised when they mysteriously vanish at 30% hp. Some people are more interested in Winning than they are in Playing. Shrug, and move on.)
If you're the kind of person who beats up pinball machines... bring lots of blood pressure medication. Here's why. You're sprinting and chasing? "Insufficent range." You're sprinting and hitting from the front? "Insufficient range." They're slowed? "Insufficient range." They're stationary? "Insufficient range." They're stationary and resting? "Insufficient range." They're chained to a wall with an elephant sitting on their head? "Insufficient range."
Lag happens and - thanks to skill chains and timers - you're the one who suffers the most from it. Take deep breaths.
Insult to injury, all of your debuffs - stop, silence, stun, drag down and venom - can be cured by scrolls and potions. Always assume everyone brought cures and be pleasantly surprised when they didn't. (It's better than being unpleasantly surprised when the choppy git you just stunned takes 75% of your hitpoints in half a second.)
Bring your own cures. Dispel potions take care of stop, stun and slow - but they're expensive and only come in stacks of 3. Stop, stun and slow cure scrolls are cheaper and come in bigger stacks, but require more Correctly Pressing The Right Button. Use whatever works for you. If you can, get rid of any Damage-over-Time before you hit Stealth. If you can't... well, at least it breaks target lock. (Poison cures take care of Drag Down and Venom, but not the archer/hunter Sustain thingy. Fighter/warrior stomp debuff can't be cured either. Deep breaths.)
Speaking of the Drag Down chain - as an NM, don't bother. It's about equal to a bad rash, and if you need to de-stealth your counterparts, drop a trap as soon as they vanish.
Make use of the keyboard macros. The number keys are good for your skill chains, but when the excrement hits the spinny air-mover-around... you need every millisecond. You don't want to have to reach across they keyboard or - god forbid - move the cursor to click on potions or stealth. And do make sure to drag basic attack onto the skillbar. There are times when you'll just stop hitting after a stun / aggravation. Not having to point-and-click helps. (I have the second skill bar bound to R F C X Z < T G V. I'm sure you can see why.) Find a setup that works for you and practice until it's second nature.
Hang on, I hear you say. Umpty-dozen paragraphs and barely a mention of Teh Ubar Gear?
Well, good news. You're the class that's least reliant on gear. (Like you're the class most suited for NM PvP.) Because you don't - primarily - fight with the big scary numbahs on your equipment. You fight with, erm, tactical concepts. You do mediocre damage, but it doesn't matter if they can't hit back at all. You're too squishy, but then you're just not there. You don't get to kill crowds, but you can disrupt and create chaos like nobody's business.
Clever party members (and out-of-party allies) will know how to capitalize on what you do. (You'll know you're in good company when everyone you stun has a Dogpile of Doom on them in seconds. Or when you zoom into the middle of an enemy party, get promptly targeted by everyone... stealth out and watch your friends stomp all over their distracted heads.)
But, okay. Gear.
During my early NM days, I found my main problem was just not having enough time to get out of dodge. I had some cheap L3 craft and shrewd lapis on... but it was far from enough to reliably dodge or quickly outdamage fighters. And of course, it did nothing against magic. Alright, magic resist will help against zappings, REC will help against physical damage... I compromised. L3 life lapis on your clothes will near double your hitpoints, and has the benefit of helping against all kinds of ouchies. When I can afford breaking umpteen more Dual Craft 3s, I'll get those. About the same hp bonus with a lot more hurt. For now... I've "usually" got enough of a hitpoint buffer to take a bit of a beating and still have time to break and run or bwahahahstealth.
Your mileage may of course vary. And the richer you are, the more options you have. But - and here's my main lesson - you do not have to wait until you're filthy rich and ultimate uber mode of "pwn". Really, you shouldn't. You're missing out on a lot of fun.
Best of luck!
- *Jones
Hello all. I was bored waiting for stuff to sell, so I started writing. It struck me a while back, that there didn't seem to be a beginner-friendly guide to the nitty-gritty of playing Sin/Ranger.
There's an excellent guide here, which everyone really should read first. But it's more general and macro-focused than what I had in mind.
Now, a lot of this is Obvious if you're an old hand. And most of it is Highly Opinionated. You're quite welcome to snort and disagree. I'll just say, this is my experience and hard-earned wisdom, managing to have fun with my dirt-poor NM Sin, mostly solo in 1-15. (Though, a lot of it has broader application, even for other classes.)
Disclaimer: If your personal goal in PvP is "getting mah ranks real quick", this is not for you. Go make a... really, anything else.
If you're like me - yeah, I know, what are the odds - and enjoy PvP for the sake of PvP... read on.
So, you've got your 3 str / 2 dex Assassin / Ranger to L15. You've got your noble kit good to go. Cup of coffee handy, you step into the free-for-all zone.
The first lesson is learning not to fight. This is your class privilege. Stealth and Sprint. Try to have at least one of them ready at all times. Yes, I know, the recharge timers are cruel. But you need to start slow. Getting caught up in a repeated lemming rush will crush your soul.
Speaking of which, see that big pile of people on the hill, facing off against the other side's even bigger pile? Yeah, you don't want to be there. Trust me on this. You can not contribute in a ranged standoff. Get out of there. Go around. There's plenty of room.
Yes, there will come a time when you can actually break camps, but... it's not the first thing you should try. That way lies boredom, depression and repeatedly dying horribly.
Don't bring knives to a gunfight. Don't fight on the other guy's terms.
Dex-based dodging only gets you so far. Lapis-enhanced REC, def, magic resist or hp gets you a bit further. But your main way of avoiding death is neither of these. You're a Miyagi Tank. "The best block is not being there." Never be where you are expected. Never stay where twelve guys can give you their full attention. You're not Frontal Assault Person. Don't even try to be. Flank, avoid, hit-and-run and - when you can pull it off - sprint right through all of them. Never get into a stand-up fight. You're not made for it.
Go roaming. Get the lay of the land. Make friends in the Iron Blood. (Anyone who's there is either another non-hiller or a questing greenhorn. The former is Your Kind Of People and the latter... needs a helping hand and - *cough* - early indoctrination. To save them from becoming lemmings later.)
Pay attention. Keep your eye on the radar. When it flashes, find the enemy by cycling targets with § (key-to-the-left-of-1, tilde on some keyboards) before they're even in visual range. Always keep looking around. (Moving by ground-click lets you turn the camera while staying your course. Moving by forward double-tap lets you turn yourself. Both have their uses.) Never get so caught up chasing anyone, you stop watching your surroundings. And if someone retreats into guard range, don't follow. Don't. Follow. Back up, give them a sarcastic clap-as-admitted, and move on.
Start slow. Find yourself some 1v1s. Learn. Then move up. Oh, I can take two targets if I kill the one who's snoozing first? Wooo. What about three? Raaaah, got one. Now I'm almost dead, but hey... poofstealthgone. Get a sense of what's manageable, and don't hesitate to leave when in over your head.
Use your surroundings to your advantage. Force melee enemies to follow you around cover, so that the ranged ones lose line-of-sight. By all means, make them chase you into the orange guards and then stun the heck out of them. You'll live longer, and there's nothing more satisfying than wiping an entire party with just a bit of timely assistance from NPC Security.
If at all possible, don't fight people while you've got monster aggro. Run out of range or finish off the critter, then turn your attention to enemy players. (Stealth prevents monster aggro, but doesn't break it. And even if the mobs will miss you most of the time, you don't want a handy AoE / ground shock target following you around while you're making a quiet getaway.)
On a related note: when going to the Iron Blood, bring Slow cure scrolls. And take pains not to antagonize the Vipers. (If possible, make enemies run through them to get to you. Slowed targets are good targets.) In fact, always position yourself so that others have to draw monster aggro to get to you. Dex monkeys can dodge NPCs very well. Everyone else can't. And you can always use a bit of extra damage on a target.
When you're Stealthing out of trouble, immediately start moving by WASD. It stops you accidentally auto-attacking and becoming visible again, and gets you out of range of traps, ground shocks and clerical True Seeing spells. Which will all ruin your day.
Sprinting or Stealthing away doesn't always have to mean you're leaving the fight. Get some distance, reassess who's wounded and who's stopped paying attention to you... and go back in. (Sometimes, all you need to win is a few more seconds for the potion timer to recharge.)
You can /town while stealthed. Use at your discretion. (If I'm hiding in a cluster of Sonic Cheese and can't get out of range before timer runs out, I will sometimes teleport home. If they've bored me. On other occasions... "%¤% it, I'm taking this Mage with me or I die trying. Possibly both.")
If you do want to help with the campers... move up the waterway and thin the herd of reinforcements. Or if you're in a roaming party - that rare and beautiful beast - go hit the altar. If you can take it, woo. If it pulls the campers off your hill, woo. Really, it's win-win. (And if your party yields to temptation and gets stuck in a Staring Contest... ask them to get moving. If they won't, politely thank them for the group, refresh the LUC buff one final time and leave.)
When jumping on a backline cluster of Zapmeisters and Doctors... don't focus on one target. Spread the love around. Land as many halt kicks and stuns as you can on different people. (Nine seconds of silence or four seconds of nothing can make a big difference to your pals pounding on their frontline. Assuming you have pals pounding on their frontline. If not, why are you in the backline caster cluster?)
When surrounded by Sonic Hedgehogs and all out of both Stealth and Sprint... don't try to run. Either fight till your last breath or stop and fire off as many different emotes as you can. This increases your Style rankings, which is something I just made up.
Don't keep pounding on a high-defense target unless they're alone. And if they are alone, don't get too obsessed with breaking them. Taking down a defender/guardian is not a fight. It's a bloody siege. Chances are you'll get jumped just as you get them to 10% hp. On the bright side, they usually can't do more than debuff you. If they're with a party, you can cheerfully leave them for last. (Oh, and here's something it took me a while to learn: the tanks have blunt weapons, fighters/warriors have sharp ones.)
On a related note, never leave a Doctor unmolested. Take them out as soon as you see the golden glow of doom. If they're wearing kevlar undies, as many of them do, just halt-kick, then return to beating on whoever they were healing. Repeat as necessary.
When someone kills you in a string of all crits, make a note. Then don't fight that person ever again. Miyagi Tank, remember? They're paying for easy kills, but you're not getting paid to provide it. You're a sneaky stabby one. You have the option of boring them to death. (By all means, if you're with a group, be sure to stun-and-pile-on. But don't get too surprised when they mysteriously vanish at 30% hp. Some people are more interested in Winning than they are in Playing. Shrug, and move on.)
If you're the kind of person who beats up pinball machines... bring lots of blood pressure medication. Here's why. You're sprinting and chasing? "Insufficent range." You're sprinting and hitting from the front? "Insufficient range." They're slowed? "Insufficient range." They're stationary? "Insufficient range." They're stationary and resting? "Insufficient range." They're chained to a wall with an elephant sitting on their head? "Insufficient range."
Lag happens and - thanks to skill chains and timers - you're the one who suffers the most from it. Take deep breaths.
Insult to injury, all of your debuffs - stop, silence, stun, drag down and venom - can be cured by scrolls and potions. Always assume everyone brought cures and be pleasantly surprised when they didn't. (It's better than being unpleasantly surprised when the choppy git you just stunned takes 75% of your hitpoints in half a second.)
Bring your own cures. Dispel potions take care of stop, stun and slow - but they're expensive and only come in stacks of 3. Stop, stun and slow cure scrolls are cheaper and come in bigger stacks, but require more Correctly Pressing The Right Button. Use whatever works for you. If you can, get rid of any Damage-over-Time before you hit Stealth. If you can't... well, at least it breaks target lock. (Poison cures take care of Drag Down and Venom, but not the archer/hunter Sustain thingy. Fighter/warrior stomp debuff can't be cured either. Deep breaths.)
Speaking of the Drag Down chain - as an NM, don't bother. It's about equal to a bad rash, and if you need to de-stealth your counterparts, drop a trap as soon as they vanish.
Make use of the keyboard macros. The number keys are good for your skill chains, but when the excrement hits the spinny air-mover-around... you need every millisecond. You don't want to have to reach across they keyboard or - god forbid - move the cursor to click on potions or stealth. And do make sure to drag basic attack onto the skillbar. There are times when you'll just stop hitting after a stun / aggravation. Not having to point-and-click helps. (I have the second skill bar bound to R F C X Z < T G V. I'm sure you can see why.) Find a setup that works for you and practice until it's second nature.
Hang on, I hear you say. Umpty-dozen paragraphs and barely a mention of Teh Ubar Gear?
Well, good news. You're the class that's least reliant on gear. (Like you're the class most suited for NM PvP.) Because you don't - primarily - fight with the big scary numbahs on your equipment. You fight with, erm, tactical concepts. You do mediocre damage, but it doesn't matter if they can't hit back at all. You're too squishy, but then you're just not there. You don't get to kill crowds, but you can disrupt and create chaos like nobody's business.
Clever party members (and out-of-party allies) will know how to capitalize on what you do. (You'll know you're in good company when everyone you stun has a Dogpile of Doom on them in seconds. Or when you zoom into the middle of an enemy party, get promptly targeted by everyone... stealth out and watch your friends stomp all over their distracted heads.)
But, okay. Gear.
During my early NM days, I found my main problem was just not having enough time to get out of dodge. I had some cheap L3 craft and shrewd lapis on... but it was far from enough to reliably dodge or quickly outdamage fighters. And of course, it did nothing against magic. Alright, magic resist will help against zappings, REC will help against physical damage... I compromised. L3 life lapis on your clothes will near double your hitpoints, and has the benefit of helping against all kinds of ouchies. When I can afford breaking umpteen more Dual Craft 3s, I'll get those. About the same hp bonus with a lot more hurt. For now... I've "usually" got enough of a hitpoint buffer to take a bit of a beating and still have time to break and run or bwahahahstealth.
Your mileage may of course vary. And the richer you are, the more options you have. But - and here's my main lesson - you do not have to wait until you're filthy rich and ultimate uber mode of "pwn". Really, you shouldn't. You're missing out on a lot of fun.
Best of luck!
- *Jones
EVE Online: Life in the Abyss
Name's Roach, and I'm a pirate.
It wasn't always like this, but that's another story. Let's just say, he who hunts pirates must take care lest he realize the pirates are, on the whole, having more fun. And while you scan the abyss for manageable targets, the abyss is scanning you. Then it goes: "Really, shouldn't you be over here?"
So, here I am, prowling the Sneezy system in my Celestis-class cruiser Rogue/Wizard, when I spot something out of place. There's a Hyperion in an asteroid belt. A battleship, quite capable of shredding a cruiser in seconds, assuming a straight-up slugfest. It appears to be hunting some poor schmucks from the Serpentis corporation.
This is wrong on so many levels. The Serps are dumb as a fifteen-line string of code, which is pretty much what they are. Non-Players. Even their battlecruisers can be handled in a cheap-as-dirt frigate. Simply put, bringing a 100+ million piece of hardware to do the job of a 250k throwaway ship indicates an astounding lack of sense.
Of course, he could be bait. There could very well be half a dozen guys sitting cloaked right next to him, or hanging on the stargate one system out, waiting to pounce. It's been known to happen.
But there's a reason I fly cruisers worth 10 million or less. Caution is for pilots in ships they can't afford to lose. I'm all about the adrenaline rush and the acceptable loss.
I double-check the ship scanner - yes, my target's still in that asteroid belt. Where in the belt, scanner doesn't tell, but... a battleship is - usually - slow as a glacier. Even if I come in at some distance, I can most likely close the gap and scramble his warp drive before he can align for escape.
Then again, I did give up some firepower and durability to squeeze a recon probe launcher onto my ship. Might as well use it. Out goes the Snoop probe and just over a minute later, I have the Hyperion's exact location.
Timber the shivers! Lock and load! Hoist the warp drive and avast the navigational array! (Fine. I live in the country, but I do not speak the language.)
My cruiser enters the belt a mere 20 kilometers off the battleship. Target lock acquired, warp disruptor activated. Let slip the drones of war, the missiles of vulnerability-specific damage and the railgun of every little bit helps.
I hold my breath.
An entire fleet of nothing decloaks off my bow. No cavalry charges into the system. Alrighty then. Just a matter of beating up a single ship ten times the size of mine.
The Celestis isn't a fast cruiser. It lacks the outrageous firepower of the Thorax. It's got nothing on the durability and drone complement of the Vexor. My current setup has no shield boosters, no armor plates, no repair systems. It will fall to pieces if a frigate gets lucky. The Hyperion? A few solid hits and I'd be gone.
If it could lock me.
What the Celestis has, is a bastard of a gadget called a remote sensor dampener. Actually, mine has three. This will slow any hostile target lock and reduce their locking range to a fraction. This is how you avoid a straight-up slugfest.
I'm not fast, but fast enough to stay between the maximum lock range of the Hyperion and the minimum range of my own warp disruptor. I don't hit hard, but he can't hit back at all.
The question becomes, can I break him? It's entirely possible to set up a battleship well enough to withstand all the damage a cruiser can dish out. Indefinitely. And the longer I take, the greater the risk of intervention. The Hyperion pilot might not have cavalry on standby, but this is Sneezy. Low-sec crossroads of the damned. Crawling with pirates, most of which are a lot scarier than me.
As my weapons chew away at his shields, I spot the tell-tale flash of a shield booster. Good news. Gallente ships lean towards reinforcing armour. His self-repair setup is not efficient. I might just be able to pull this-
Two minutes into the fight, his shield all but gone, the Hyperion pilot warps away.
I utter the curse of small-time low-sec pirates everywhere.
Bloody Warp Core Stabilizers.
A WCS will counter the effect of a single point of warp disruption, which is all I had. It badly hampers your own fighting ability - effectively sensor-dampening yourself - but this isn't much of an issue when fighting only AI pirates. It appears the Hyperion pilot wasn't entirely devoid of sense after all.
I shrug off the annoyance and prepare to look for targets elsewhere. One last check on the scanner before I leave...
Oh dear. I take it all back. Someone is setting a new galactic record for sense-lacking.
The Hyperion has not left. Not docked. Nor safe-spotted up. He has gone to another local asteroid belt. He knows I'm still around, but figures I can't pin him down long enough to kill him. Given my current ship setup, this is true.
Now, I could drop a sensor dampener and install one more warp disruptor, but it'd take some time. And for all I know, he could have two warp core stabilizers on. Three would be unlikely, since it'd make him so nearsighted and slow-locking that he'd kill things faster and further by getting out and throwing rocks.
I hop on a comm channel. My own corp mates aren't around, but we do have some friendlies. Well-mannered honourable dirty scumbags like ourselves. Most of them Swedes. Warms my heart.
"Got a ratting Hyperion in Sneezy. I know! Just need a couple points, don't bother with big ships. Anyone nearby?"
I get two enthusiastic replies. Grinning, I launch another Snoop probe. Twenty seconds before the result comes up, my Celestis is joined by a pair of other cruisers. Insomniac brought a Rupture. Fine ship, all duct tape, autocannon and heavy armour. Billy flies a Thorax, hard-hitting but somewhat glass-jawed. Also, it has an interesting, much joked-about shape.
In the belt, half an astronomical unit away, the Hyperion is blissfully shooting at non-players. Not running an actual agent mission, which might make his foray into low-sec vaguely profitable. Not keeping a close eye on the local channel. Not checking his scanner. Quite secure in the knowledge he brought enough WCS to run if trouble approaches again.
Guided by the Snoop, three cruisers land on top of him, all at once. It's not pretty.
If not for the running, I would've 'sploded him on my own, eventually. With at least three points of warp scrambling, he's not running this time. The 'Rax and Rupture being proper combat ships, there's about five times as much firepower being brought to bear.
The last of his armour breaking, the Hyperion pilot logs off.
Maybe he thinks this will save him. It won't - if you've been fighting, your ship stays in space for ten minutes even if you're not online. Maybe he thinks it will save his pod, with its expensive implants. There are better ways to do that. Ways that involve playing the damn game.
Now, I'm pretty easy-going as pirates go. I don't bother too hard with catching pods if there's no practical reason for it. (E.g, backup can warp directly to a gang-mates' pod, which means it's often prudent to "banish" them, even if they present no direct threat.) I don't respond to smack talk and will cheerfully compliment people who blow me up. Well. Most of the time.
What does offend me, is people trying to avoid losing by kicking over the poker table. So to speak.
A ransom demand now impossible, we gleefully batter away at the Hyperion until it explodes. The player being offline, the pilot's pod automatically initiates a one-million kilometer emergency warp and zooms off. Like a ship, it will remain in space for another ten minutes.
We loot the wreck. The surviving modules are nothing spectacular, but well worth the effort. I do some quick math and pay my cohorts equal shares. Thank them for responding on such short notice. Grin at the rush of beating up a 100+ million Hyperion in three cruisers worth at most a quarter of that. Non-sensible opponent or not, a battleship is a battleship.
Then I grimly deploy my last Snoop, find the playerless pod hanging in empty space and squish it. Name's Roach. I'm a dirty scumbag pirate. But I have standards.
Epilogue:
Two hours later, the magnificent Rogue/Wizard (bane of the unwary, avoider of fair fights, evil one-trick pony) is a flaming piece of wreckage.
See, I'm sitting in a safe-spot, just a bit giddy, not paying much attention. When my evil twin manages to probe me out. An Ares interceptor drops in and slaps a warp scrambler on me. Not a problem. I triple-sensor-dampen the speedy little bastard and his lock breaks. Completely failing to realize what the presence of an interceptor means, I decide to see if my combat drones can catch him. They can, just barely. I chuckle smugly, as the Ares pilot takes extremely evasive action.
At which point another Celestis and two 'Raxes come screaming out of warp and I get a terminal dose of my own medicine.
Blink and slip. You go boom. This is EVE and why we love her.
It wasn't always like this, but that's another story. Let's just say, he who hunts pirates must take care lest he realize the pirates are, on the whole, having more fun. And while you scan the abyss for manageable targets, the abyss is scanning you. Then it goes: "Really, shouldn't you be over here?"
So, here I am, prowling the Sneezy system in my Celestis-class cruiser Rogue/Wizard, when I spot something out of place. There's a Hyperion in an asteroid belt. A battleship, quite capable of shredding a cruiser in seconds, assuming a straight-up slugfest. It appears to be hunting some poor schmucks from the Serpentis corporation.
This is wrong on so many levels. The Serps are dumb as a fifteen-line string of code, which is pretty much what they are. Non-Players. Even their battlecruisers can be handled in a cheap-as-dirt frigate. Simply put, bringing a 100+ million piece of hardware to do the job of a 250k throwaway ship indicates an astounding lack of sense.
Of course, he could be bait. There could very well be half a dozen guys sitting cloaked right next to him, or hanging on the stargate one system out, waiting to pounce. It's been known to happen.
But there's a reason I fly cruisers worth 10 million or less. Caution is for pilots in ships they can't afford to lose. I'm all about the adrenaline rush and the acceptable loss.
I double-check the ship scanner - yes, my target's still in that asteroid belt. Where in the belt, scanner doesn't tell, but... a battleship is - usually - slow as a glacier. Even if I come in at some distance, I can most likely close the gap and scramble his warp drive before he can align for escape.
Then again, I did give up some firepower and durability to squeeze a recon probe launcher onto my ship. Might as well use it. Out goes the Snoop probe and just over a minute later, I have the Hyperion's exact location.
Timber the shivers! Lock and load! Hoist the warp drive and avast the navigational array! (Fine. I live in the country, but I do not speak the language.)
My cruiser enters the belt a mere 20 kilometers off the battleship. Target lock acquired, warp disruptor activated. Let slip the drones of war, the missiles of vulnerability-specific damage and the railgun of every little bit helps.
I hold my breath.
An entire fleet of nothing decloaks off my bow. No cavalry charges into the system. Alrighty then. Just a matter of beating up a single ship ten times the size of mine.
The Celestis isn't a fast cruiser. It lacks the outrageous firepower of the Thorax. It's got nothing on the durability and drone complement of the Vexor. My current setup has no shield boosters, no armor plates, no repair systems. It will fall to pieces if a frigate gets lucky. The Hyperion? A few solid hits and I'd be gone.
If it could lock me.
What the Celestis has, is a bastard of a gadget called a remote sensor dampener. Actually, mine has three. This will slow any hostile target lock and reduce their locking range to a fraction. This is how you avoid a straight-up slugfest.
I'm not fast, but fast enough to stay between the maximum lock range of the Hyperion and the minimum range of my own warp disruptor. I don't hit hard, but he can't hit back at all.
The question becomes, can I break him? It's entirely possible to set up a battleship well enough to withstand all the damage a cruiser can dish out. Indefinitely. And the longer I take, the greater the risk of intervention. The Hyperion pilot might not have cavalry on standby, but this is Sneezy. Low-sec crossroads of the damned. Crawling with pirates, most of which are a lot scarier than me.
As my weapons chew away at his shields, I spot the tell-tale flash of a shield booster. Good news. Gallente ships lean towards reinforcing armour. His self-repair setup is not efficient. I might just be able to pull this-
Two minutes into the fight, his shield all but gone, the Hyperion pilot warps away.
I utter the curse of small-time low-sec pirates everywhere.
Bloody Warp Core Stabilizers.
A WCS will counter the effect of a single point of warp disruption, which is all I had. It badly hampers your own fighting ability - effectively sensor-dampening yourself - but this isn't much of an issue when fighting only AI pirates. It appears the Hyperion pilot wasn't entirely devoid of sense after all.
I shrug off the annoyance and prepare to look for targets elsewhere. One last check on the scanner before I leave...
Oh dear. I take it all back. Someone is setting a new galactic record for sense-lacking.
The Hyperion has not left. Not docked. Nor safe-spotted up. He has gone to another local asteroid belt. He knows I'm still around, but figures I can't pin him down long enough to kill him. Given my current ship setup, this is true.
Now, I could drop a sensor dampener and install one more warp disruptor, but it'd take some time. And for all I know, he could have two warp core stabilizers on. Three would be unlikely, since it'd make him so nearsighted and slow-locking that he'd kill things faster and further by getting out and throwing rocks.
I hop on a comm channel. My own corp mates aren't around, but we do have some friendlies. Well-mannered honourable dirty scumbags like ourselves. Most of them Swedes. Warms my heart.
"Got a ratting Hyperion in Sneezy. I know! Just need a couple points, don't bother with big ships. Anyone nearby?"
I get two enthusiastic replies. Grinning, I launch another Snoop probe. Twenty seconds before the result comes up, my Celestis is joined by a pair of other cruisers. Insomniac brought a Rupture. Fine ship, all duct tape, autocannon and heavy armour. Billy flies a Thorax, hard-hitting but somewhat glass-jawed. Also, it has an interesting, much joked-about shape.
In the belt, half an astronomical unit away, the Hyperion is blissfully shooting at non-players. Not running an actual agent mission, which might make his foray into low-sec vaguely profitable. Not keeping a close eye on the local channel. Not checking his scanner. Quite secure in the knowledge he brought enough WCS to run if trouble approaches again.
Guided by the Snoop, three cruisers land on top of him, all at once. It's not pretty.
If not for the running, I would've 'sploded him on my own, eventually. With at least three points of warp scrambling, he's not running this time. The 'Rax and Rupture being proper combat ships, there's about five times as much firepower being brought to bear.
The last of his armour breaking, the Hyperion pilot logs off.
Maybe he thinks this will save him. It won't - if you've been fighting, your ship stays in space for ten minutes even if you're not online. Maybe he thinks it will save his pod, with its expensive implants. There are better ways to do that. Ways that involve playing the damn game.
Now, I'm pretty easy-going as pirates go. I don't bother too hard with catching pods if there's no practical reason for it. (E.g, backup can warp directly to a gang-mates' pod, which means it's often prudent to "banish" them, even if they present no direct threat.) I don't respond to smack talk and will cheerfully compliment people who blow me up. Well. Most of the time.
What does offend me, is people trying to avoid losing by kicking over the poker table. So to speak.
A ransom demand now impossible, we gleefully batter away at the Hyperion until it explodes. The player being offline, the pilot's pod automatically initiates a one-million kilometer emergency warp and zooms off. Like a ship, it will remain in space for another ten minutes.
We loot the wreck. The surviving modules are nothing spectacular, but well worth the effort. I do some quick math and pay my cohorts equal shares. Thank them for responding on such short notice. Grin at the rush of beating up a 100+ million Hyperion in three cruisers worth at most a quarter of that. Non-sensible opponent or not, a battleship is a battleship.
Then I grimly deploy my last Snoop, find the playerless pod hanging in empty space and squish it. Name's Roach. I'm a dirty scumbag pirate. But I have standards.
Epilogue:
Two hours later, the magnificent Rogue/Wizard (bane of the unwary, avoider of fair fights, evil one-trick pony) is a flaming piece of wreckage.
See, I'm sitting in a safe-spot, just a bit giddy, not paying much attention. When my evil twin manages to probe me out. An Ares interceptor drops in and slaps a warp scrambler on me. Not a problem. I triple-sensor-dampen the speedy little bastard and his lock breaks. Completely failing to realize what the presence of an interceptor means, I decide to see if my combat drones can catch him. They can, just barely. I chuckle smugly, as the Ares pilot takes extremely evasive action.
At which point another Celestis and two 'Raxes come screaming out of warp and I get a terminal dose of my own medicine.
Blink and slip. You go boom. This is EVE and why we love her.
Minor Apocalypse Strikes The World Of Rain
"Civilian causalties were kept to an absolute minimum," says Metatron, official Spokesentity of the Host. A representative of the Adversary is quoted saying, "Heck, gotta give those celestial bastards credit. That was quality genocide if I've ever seen it. Was all we could do to keep up with 'em."
Independent observers estimate the death count being in the range of eighty-five million. Environmental damage includes the two moons shattering, two-thirds of the seas turning into blood, a rain of fire ("More of a drizzle, really," according to the Metatron), and the entire continent of Dew sinking into the ocean. (Our source in the Adversary's camp states, "Apparently, the ol' Blunderbuss of Mayhem misfired. Prince K'x'r'd'f'l swears by his Name he was aiming for that pansy-arsed angel with the incense bowl.")
When asked about plans for rebuilding the World, the Adversary's representative stated "Oh, yeah, we'll move right in and fix things up nice and cozy." He then ended his commentary with what this reporter perceived to be a rather half-hearted "Muahahahahahahahah." The Metatron chose not to comment, instead citing the Host's "Bigger Picture" doctrine, exhorting the struggling survivors to "have faith".
- Zandriel Jones, staff writer, the TransPlanary Chronicle
"When Things Fall Apart, We Bring You The Debris"
Independent observers estimate the death count being in the range of eighty-five million. Environmental damage includes the two moons shattering, two-thirds of the seas turning into blood, a rain of fire ("More of a drizzle, really," according to the Metatron), and the entire continent of Dew sinking into the ocean. (Our source in the Adversary's camp states, "Apparently, the ol' Blunderbuss of Mayhem misfired. Prince K'x'r'd'f'l swears by his Name he was aiming for that pansy-arsed angel with the incense bowl.")
When asked about plans for rebuilding the World, the Adversary's representative stated "Oh, yeah, we'll move right in and fix things up nice and cozy." He then ended his commentary with what this reporter perceived to be a rather half-hearted "Muahahahahahahahah." The Metatron chose not to comment, instead citing the Host's "Bigger Picture" doctrine, exhorting the struggling survivors to "have faith".
- Zandriel Jones, staff writer, the TransPlanary Chronicle
"When Things Fall Apart, We Bring You The Debris"
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