Red v Blue

Well the Eve bug has taken me again. After a while exploring Placid I signed up for Red v Blue and have gotten about 300k worth of ships blown up for not a single kill mail in return. I have downsized to ships I can afford, then downsized again to ships that are cheaper - not much mind you, the fittings cost more than the hull when you are dealing with small ships.
I have some nicely fitted Thorax ready to go, lost the first to a blob, lost the second to not having my overview correctly set up, (always helps if you can see the person shooting at you!) and the third to a insta-hurricane gate camp in the Bleak Lands while in a public fleet. I then bought a bunch of ships of contract,a REALLY nice feature of RvB. They are fit for low skill toons so I am losing out on Slays skill points but for giggles it works well.
Tonight I went and took up an offer of a 1 on 1 frigate fight. My first Incursus went pop very quickly so I fitted the second with tech 2 and had a good fight. Unfortunately I didn't bring enough cap boosters and went poof not after a good long fight, I suspect he would have gone soon after but he linked his fit and this is the analysis of his fit:

1. He was afterburner fit;
2. He used his disruptor to close off my MWD;
3. He used an energy neutralizer on me: because of my cap boosters i don't think this had a material effect on the fight;
4. He used 3 x neutron blasters which, when at optimal, went through my armor very quickly, a single repair unit would not have kept me alive;

This is the analysis of my fit:

1. I was MWD fight, this used up power grid that would have been better used on fitting bigger guns (I had ion blasters II);
2. I didn't bring enough boosters for my cap booster - this ultimately lost me the fight;
3. My MWD was no use;
4. No idea if the hobgoblin II caused any pressure on him;

I have refitted the two remaining Incursus with 3 x neutron blasters, afterburner, LAR x2 with the rigs to support this. (Tried to insert EFT XML but blogger does funny things to the XML)

I flew over to Blue Head Quarters (bhq), got into a fight on their on dock with several people and survived. Destroyed a merlin that aggressed me, the wolf was a tad harder but he ended up warping away.

Eve Online MkIV

Eve Online is a drug, you play it to death, go cold turkey, quit. A few months later you read about a new change, a new mechanic a twist on exploration or you view the new trailer... Hmm, now that gate looks promising.

So Slayfoe's Bull signed up again, he was in Jita with a Vindicator hull and a pile of cash. I looked up the new Sisters of Eve ship the Astero, stuck Amarr frigate into my training queue and bought the required goodies to scan down some sites. Total cost of ship plus fittings ~144million. Not cheap.

Saturday evening I jumped into my new toy and had a look at the map. I had picked Solitude as my target, noticed lots of kills on the main route in so went south via Aridia. Jumped into Solitude, scanned down a few anomalies to get back in the swing of it and eventually found myself a data site. Second hack and a Sacrilege appears beside me. I hit the cloak button but he is already targeting me. I let go of my ECM drones and align for the sun, too late, his mates jump into system and begin arriving. It takes them a surprising amount of time to start shooting, but the end result is the same, my pod is winging its way to the nearest station.

Lessons learnt.

1. Be aligned;
2. Be checking for probes on d-scan;
3. Simply don't bother running a site when some one else is in system!
4. Switch automatic targeting back on! When part of a large alliance you switch this feature off for space battles so you don't end up shooting your own logistics, as it was, I suspect my ECM drones hung round waiting for me to tell them what to do.

So Slay is on the way back to Jita to re-ship. This time I am going out in a Helios, a damn site cheaper to do the same thing! 

And then I discovered Vindicators

I have been playing Eve Online on and off for four years. In that time I have never been rich. Money flows through my wallet with such surprising ease that I have never had 1 billion in my wallet. It was during a corp day (taxes bumped up to 100% in order to raise cash for the corp) that I first watched a Vindicator in action. It was scary. They can single shot battlecruisers and make light of battleships. I had to have one.
The problem - the hull alone costs just over 1 billion. To fit it out correctly costs another 2 billion.
The solution - sell everything that looked vaguable valuable from my hangars. The Gila BPC, shadow serpentis disruptors, a plex that I got from a buddy programme and the real boost - a snake omega implant that dropped on Sir Question as he casually flew into a Placid icebelt and found a Shadow Serpentis waiting. It went to Jita and made 420million for the Vindi fund.

Loosing one of these to a hot drop while ratting will cost you a 250m fine in BSCL so you want to be a bit careful how you use it. I have mine fitted out with tech II gear atm and for the first time in Eve I am looking at purple loot as more than something to make a money out of. I am looking at fitting faction and deadspace mods to a ship I fly. For PVE it turns out that shields are the way to go. These leaves your low slots available for magstabs and tracking enhancers - Gurista melting modules or cash making modules. This is the way I plan to proceed. Make enought money to buy a set of three Fed Navy magstabs. Then slowly upgrade my shield booster and only then, if I am feeling flush, invest in a set of Crystal implants for a clone.

[Vindicator, Vindicator PVE]
Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II

Large Shield Booster II
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II

Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L
Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Void L

Large Anti-Thermic Pump I
Large Anti-Kinetic Pump I
Large Hybrid Collision Accelerator I


Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Vespa EC-600 x5

This set up gives me just under 20m a tick. I am told that once I know what i am doing this should reach closer to 40m a tick. Insane, just insane money.

Low sec exploration

A colleague expressed and interest in Eve.
1 buddy account later... I am bumming round Gallente low sec in a character I made, but never used, in 2008 before CCP changed the character generation system. I am flying a Federation Navy Comet, he is flying a Celestis cruiser. To anyone casually checking out my character (as I do to anyone that enters the low sec system I am scanning in!) they will see a 2008 character that has never left the Federation Navy. Of course the reality is that the character has only 900k skill points. This takes some adjusting to when you are used to your main having 60million skillpoints!

The path I took the first time I played Eve was pretty usual, high sec mission running avoiding low-sec as if it had the plague. On the other hand, my colleague has lost 3 cruisers to other players in low sec inside the first two weeks, but half a plex accounts for a lot of cruisers so he isn't yet deterred. Joining him in low sec was a revelation. Whereas I am used to living in wormholes, highsec and denseley inhabited null sec (Deklein) I have had little experience of low-sec. So it came as a great surprise to find that most systems I enter have multiple signatures in them. Discard a quarter of them to wormholes, another quarter to ladar (gas) and gravimetric (mining) sites and you are left with a nice amount of unknown, radar and magnet sites.
You have to be selective about the sites you run, the Comet is a fabulous ship but a little low in the dps when it comes to taking out 200k bounty cruiser/ battlecuiser rats. However, unguarded radar sites are just money waiting to be scanned out.
The real jackpot came when I jumped to an ice belt to see what was there. Waiting for me was a Shadow Serpentis cruiser with a tag, a Serpentis EANM, faction ammo AND a low grade snake omega implant. That NEVER seems to happen in null sec. So it came about that my lowly starting toon is funding a Vindicator for my null sec main.

Here is how I have fitted it out. EFT says it has a dps of 43(150mm rails with spike) + 27.7(hobgoblin II drones) and can do 2852m/s with very little navigation skills. Killing things is simply a case of orbitting at 25-30km and shooting them outside their range. No rat can come close to touching me and I only scan from a safe moving upwards at 400m/s. Anyone else enters local I keep an eye out for probes but in faction warfare systems (which seem to have the most signatures!) no one seems bothered about scanning people out.

[Federation Navy Comet, Comet lowsec explorer]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Shadow Serpentis Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Adaptive Nano Plating II

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Cap Recharger II
Codebreaker I

150mm Railgun II, Spike S
150mm Railgun II, Spike S
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe I

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
[empty rig slot]

Hobgoblin I x3

Sad to say, CCP removed the flashy blue light from the model in game...

The way I climbed the Gallente PVE ship ladder

Thorax
My first love, as soon as I got over the fun of pressing F1-F8 on a Catalyst I settled into this ship for quite a while, it was able to field 5No Hammerhead had a nice armour tank and able to mission the early missions well. It was also where I was first popped in low sec by an Arazu. Later I went back to try to take on a Arazu with a Thorax but to no avail.
Mrymidon
After getting into trouble on some level 3's I managed to save up enough for the next step up the chain - a battlecruiser. Seeing as how 90% of my damage was coming from drones I picked the drone boat and armour tanked it. One of the early skills I brought up to level V was battlecruiser and I nearly never left the Myrmidon. I moved onto to trying out a shield tank on various ships only to find the the Myrmidon passive tank was rock solid and beat the pants of the armour tank for missioning mainly because you don't have to swop out for specialised resists depending on the mission.
Dominix
Shortly after getting the Mrymidon I bought a Dominix and after three missions got it blown apart. It was a valuable lesson and quite a while before I got back into a battleship. About this time I moved into wormhole space and the Dominix was our workhorse, spider tanked with sentries, the Dominix was repsonsible for a lot of Sleeper wrecks.
Ishtar 
This was a long term goal of mine, to fly the Drone Assault Cruiser. Small, hard, fastish (compared with the Domi), it quickly developed a passive shield tank, a single gun (later a civilian gun!) to show the drones what to kill and a drone bay full of nasty hurt. The tank could handle almost anything until I met 10/10 complexes. Up till then I had never added propulsion modules and was happy to slow boat round. After loosing my shields to alpha I started adding speed to my tank. I finished my engineering skills bringing all my shield skills to V.
Astarte
The one downside of the Ishtar was that it didn't do much damage. It would eventually wear anything down but you had to be patient. With BC V and a tendency to fly Brutix for PVP I naturally moved into the Astarte Command Ship. 7 Heavy Neutron Blasters firing tech 2 ammmo with 3 magstabs puts out over 1000dps not including 5 No Hammerheads, not much can withstand that and it's natural resists make it ideal for Gurista space.
The future
At 50 million skillpoints Slay can hardly be considered young. Flying in nullsec has pointed out that there are ships better able to pull in the iskies - faction battleships and carriers. Seeing has how I have never had much money I am going to stay sub capital and improve my base skills. Their are a few end-game PVE ships - the Marachiel seems to be everyones favorite though the Navy Domi or the Navy Mega might suit my skill set better.

Guristas and their damage

After some abortive scanning round Deklein last night (6 systems and ony 1 WH?), the corp settled into destroying anomolies. And by destory I mean rape, pillage and burn to a beat that wouldn't be out of place in a fast foxtrot. I suspect that 2 anomolies were burnt through for each tick of the wallet. By the time I left the wallet has ticked 7, 10 and 7m with lots more to come when I logged off. The group included a Macherial, Thanatos, Gila, 2 Tengus and myself in an Astarte. I suspect I was the least productive of the group apart from being a tank a lot of the time - those Guristas really don't like Gallente.
Some number comparing ensued and I did some look up. 7 tech 2 neutron blasters and I was doing pitiful damage. It was suggested that I might add a magstab or two so I went away to look at my fit and Guristas. Turns out that Guristas are not like Angels at all, they do Kenetic with a little thermal damage and that is it. As the Astarte is currently used as PVE only I'll strip the EANM and Explosive hardener and add two magstabs tonight and see what difference that makes.
I also have to find a good source of tech 2 blaster ammo because running anomolies like that goes through the stuff fast and without the tech 2 ammo I am getting no bonus from my blaster specialisation skills.
Before these changes my fitting screen has a dps of 575ish. Hopefully the 2 extra magstabs and tech 2 ammo should push that up over 700.

Later...
Turns out Null ammo and 3 No Magstabs pushes dps up to 1001 on EFT and 978 in-game but makes the tank a lot tighter.

Tracking

Enhancers (low slot)
Tech II (5)- tracking speed bonus 9.5%, optimal range bonus 15%, fall-off bonus 30%
Domination (8)- tracking speed bonus 10%, optimal range bonus 15%, fall-off bonus 30%
Republic (8)- tracking speed bonus 10%, optimal range bonus 15%, fall-off bonus 30%

Links (mid slot)
Tech II (5)- tracking speed bonus 15%, optimal range bonus 7.5%, optimal range +6.5km
Fed Navy (5)- tracking speed bonus 17.5%, optimal range bonus 8%, optimal range +7.5km
Shadow Serpentis (8)- tracking speed bonus 17.5%, optimal range bonus 8%, optimal range +7.5km

Computers (mid slot)
Tech II (5)- tracking speed bonus 15%, optimal range bonus 7.5%, falloff bonus 15%
Fed Navy(8)- tracking speed bonus 17.5 ,optimal range bonus 8%, falloff bonus 16%
Shadow Serpentis (8) - tracking speed bonus 17.5, optimal 8%, fall off bonus 16%

Appears the difference between links and computers are in the optimal range bonus(links) v fall off(computers) bonus. The forums claim that hybrids are designed to act within their optimal whereas projectile are designed to act within their fall-off making links good for hybrids and computers good for projectile.Looking at the range on a Heavy Neutron Cannon II (Tech 2 BS grade blaster), I notice that a link would about double the base optimal (7.5km optimal + 6.5km + 7.5% = 15km but this depends on how the bonuses are added).
Then there are enhancers. These do something similar but by using up a low slot, a place often reserved for damage mods or armour tanking. So it comes down to replacing a magstab with an enhancer. Straight damage vs better range and tracking, instinctually I would put an enhancer on a long range boat (rail fit).

Later...
Turns out that links are designed to allow a ship to improve a different ship, ie a remote tracking improvement.

The Maze

The end game of plexing in Eve - the famous Maze. A 10/10 plex in northern nullsec this will test a tank and find a weakness.

A series of deadspace gates linked up together in such a manner to cause players without the secret of the maze to end up back where they started. However, if the right gate sequence is followed, you end up in a room with a Gurista Space Station throwing 30k torps at the unfortunate tank and an opportunity for some nice loot.

Last night 5 of us ran it, one of us a Gila tank with 83%EM resists (the shade of hurt the torps deliver), a shield logi, 3 Drakes and myself in an Astarte mixing it up with the blinky red crosses at spitting range. It took us 90minutes because some nice person had been there before us and had cleaned the place out as far as the last room. All we had to do was get to the last room, kill everything and loot! The tank shields on our watch lists told us why the previous occupant had bugged out, at one point the Gila was bleeding armour, his shield gone and all of us looking at the short trip home in a pod, but the next rep cycle picked him up and allowed us to reduce the Gurista ships to a manageable number.

The trick to the gates was this. Align your actual view so that you are looking directly down on the gates from above. Then open F11 and align your view (the white cone) to the north of the map. The gate pointing towards the following numbers is the correct gate to take.
Room 1 - 4 o'clock gate
Room 2 - 8 o'clock gate
Room 3 - 12 o'clock gate
Room 4 - 9 o'clock gate
In between the main rooms there are small antechambers with one gate in it and defenders to disuade you from going further.
The station dropped a container containing 3 pieces of Gisti loot that should sell for about 1.4billion between them. 250million for the five of us for an evenings work isn't bad!

Joining BSCL

Slayfoe's Bull was a year in SI Radio. I got to play in Providence, Great Wildlands and then Tenerifis. It was my first nullsec outing (WormHole space is different in my eyes) and showed me what Eve Online has to offer at the deep end. I can whole-heartedly say that I recommend it to anyone that feels like playing Eve.
For the beginner, it helps to have a few skill points but it isn't strictly necessary. The guidance you get from the corp members will be invaluable. A shield drake is enough to do 0,0 ratting, mining is monetarily rewarding and you can help groups in plexes with salvaging or even a bit of dps. But above all you will learn game skills that you'll never get in Empire - scouting, agression mechanics, sovereignty mechanics and fleet survival skills. You'll also make friends because you will be relying on people like you never have to in Empire.
Once you get used to living in NBSI (Not Blue, Shoot It!) coming back to Empire for the odd shopping trip is strange. Space is crowded, you can't ses everyone in local and you can buy anything you please at your local supermarket system. But best of all, the Empire folks will buy anything you bring back from deep null sec, generally ABC ores.
When you live in nullsec you live a different game, who is at war with who matters. Will the station you logged off in before the weekend still be yours in Monday evening? Will your space be full of roaming gangs? Has your alliance decided to take space from someone? You check the sov maps daily, you keep and eye on the rag called Eve24 and ensure your escape routes are clear. The really organised make an alt able to pilot a jumpfrieghter and ensure you live within jump distance of low-sec, but that requires money and time. Well organised corporations will offer this logistical ability to their members.
But the good times come to an end. In my case we lost the head of our corporation and alliance. And with the head cut off, the body failed. So now Slayfoe's Bull runs with BSCL out of Deklein, a good bunch of friendly players willing to help each other out and not take anything too seriously.

Not a Failscade

Players of Eve Online tend to be of the more dedicated, even serious, types of gamers. Sometimes we take a break, sometimes real life intrudes but on the whole a lot of us have played and invested in the game quite heavily. This is particularly true once you take sov in null-sec and the reason it hurts all the more to be kicked back to Empire by the Red Juggernaut.

It looks like the final station timer on our erstwhile home of KW-0AM will happen shortly and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that we can do about it. In my mind we would all go down in flames fighting to the last Stealth Bomber in a guerilla harrassement campaign, getting back to the station by pod express. Of course saner minds prevailed and all assets have been evacuated back to Empire space.

The downside to this orderly withdrawal has been the end of the alliance. We didn't fight together to hold the space so we disperse on the wind with well-meaning goodbyes and fly safes. The more aggressive immediately seeking out other null-sec homes, the more industrious to the ice belts of Empire Space.

A Failscade can be defined as the end of an alliance in an undignified manner. Perhaps not an appropriate description in this case so lets just call it a fitting end to a null sec adventure.

It is called a 0,0 lagfest for a reason...

Last night we participated in the defence of 46DP in southern Tenerifis as part of the -A- block. The station was coming out of reinforced at about 2300 suiting late Euro/ early American tz. With 2 hours to go various fleets had accumulated round the area, an -A- BS fleet, a carrier triage fleet to rep the station and a sub-capital fleet made up of associated coalition alliances.
With 30 minutes to go local spiked from 600 to 1200 and the fight was on. Red Alliance entered 46DP-0(Tenerifis) from 77S8-E(Detorid), bubbles went up, defense warped to the gate, the overview loaded and for the next 30minutes it was very hard to ascertain what had happened. Brackets are off, overview is limited to enemy logistics targets and still it is hard to make out what is happening. Your modules appear to cycle, from time to time apparently random damage registers, your ship keeps going in whatever direction it was going when you entered grid. I am fortunate to have a second computer with another client running in the home station and kept expecting to see my main appear in the clone bay.
After an hour I logged off to see if it made a difference and on re logging I found my stealth bomber off station, apparently I had warped there sometime in the last hour. The fleet is a mess, wing commander slots are mainly empty, fleet bonuses are apparently not being passed on. I warp back to the engagement by warping to a fleet member that is cosying up to Red Avatar. As local begins to drop from 1300 towards 1100 things begin to move again. Overview appears to be more 'correct' than the visual however you still get plenty of messages saying that so and so is no longer on grid when he is still in overview. Trying to find a target on grid becomes the priority. Unfortunately for the titan pilot, he is the biggest thing reliably rendered on everyones screen, he is called primary, various reports of how far he is in shields/ armour/ structure are called then he is no longer there.
An anxious wait later and he appears on the killboards! First titan on our killboard, though I doubt my railguns did more then scratch his paintwork... then again maybe a hybrid antimatter shot penetrated the backup reactor through an emergency exhaust at the end of a trench...
A bit of chasing ensued as the remnants of White Noise and Red sub capital fleets made for adjacent systems, SBUs dropped last Monday by the invaders popped in quick succession. Yours truly ended up in the wrong system and while admiring the titan killmail (read: trying to find how much damage I had done :-) I get popped by a small gang. It is 2 in the morning, time to call it a night.

Astarte Ratting Ship (Angel Space)

So why am I using an Astarte as a ratting ship? Well, I am Gallente and am fed up ratting in an Ishtar (even Beserkers IIs take forever to break an Angel BS tank). So next class up is battlecruiser and their tech 2 brethren, the command ship. Enter the Astarte.
At the moment it appears to me to be a tech2 Brutix, full rack of medium neutron blasters with improved resistances inherent to a tech2 ship. The first time I took it out, I MWD over to the rat BS, opened up with the blasters and was a bit disappointed. As usual I have over-tanked it. The rats shot away the shields and made no in road into the armour with only 1 rep running.

Astarte: current fit
Highs-----------------------
7 x heavy neutron blaster II
Mediums---------------------
10MN MWD II
Tracking SomethingOrOther
Lows------------------------
MAR II
MAR II
EANM II
Explosive Hardener II
Tracking computer II
Rigs------------------------
CCC
Grid augmentation rig
Drones----------------------
5 x Hammerhead II
Ammo------------------------
Faction antimatter
tracking script

I noticed that tracking the Angel BS are not a problem, so I can probably remove the tracking devices. On top of this I'll give the null a go, even with it's tracking penalty I should be able to hit the big ships. The only problem will be if I miss local spiking and get jumped.

Astarte: modified for ratting
Highs-----------------------
7 x heavy neutron blaster II
Mediums---------------------
10MN MWD II
Tracking Somethingorother
*Web II*
Cap recharger II
Lows------------------------
MAR II
EANM II
Explosive Hardener II
*2 x Magnetic stabiliser II*
Rigs------------------------
CCC
Grid augmentation rig
Drones----------------------
*5 x warrior II*
*5 x EC-300 Hornets*
Ammo------------------------
*Null*

This set up assumes no problem with tracking, or if necessary a web to hold the warp scrambling frigates in place while I blast them. It 'might' even catch an interceptor/ Dramiel. I have changed the medium drones for more smaller ones. That the can catch the small fast rat frigates and any Dramiel that jumps me. I also have the back up of EC-300 drones if I want a chance at getting out of there with my expensive ship :-)

Command Ship (Carraig naTairbhe)

With 11m skillpoints in leadership Carraig has been trained up to support Slay while in system either siting in an Orca or, ideally, a command ship. Seeing has how shields are the flavour of the month out in Tenerefis I should choose the Caldari Vulture which has bonuses to its shield warfare command modules. Carraig already has the command skill but this isn't enough! Command ships have requirements beyond those that of the Command Ship skill - namely racial cruiser V, logistics IV and all the support skills required for this (long range targeting V).
Because I ignored cruisers with Carraig and jumped straight to BCs, I never bothered with any racial cruiser (BC is non-racial). As such I can make the decision to specialise in any racial and Caldari seems like the best bet though Minnie was close behind. Caldari Cruiser V will get me access to both the Vulture (shield command ship) and the Basilisk (shield logistic ship).
So 9 days to long range targeting and then a decision: 27 days to wing command V (allowing fleet command and multiple wings) or skip that and go straight to ship command (perception and willpower) for Caldari Cruiser V and Command Ship V.

Command Ships (Slayfoe's Bull)

I have always liked battlecruisers, enough cpu and powergrid to fit a full rack of guns while not requiring large gun skills. My first was a Myrmidon which saw me through my early carebear days missioning out of Auvergne as an armour tanked, multi-purpose dps/ salvage ship able to do L3 missions with ease. After a while I looked into passive shield tanking, my beautiful Myrmidon was re-modelled and I no longer had to switch out hardeners for the different missions. In fact, it's tank is so hard, there are only a few L4 missions that can't be done without warping out.
In those days 100m isk seemed like a lot of money and tech2 command ships seemed beyond what I could afford so I went down the route of heavy assault cruisers (the Ishtar is THE perfect Gallente passive shield mission boat). Now, thanks to a few iskies made from selling prime arkonor, Slay is the proud owner of an Astarte, the tech2 version of the Brutix. Much to my disappointment, the first Angel BS I came across in the belts of KW didn't melt on the first volley, or the second.
I have always protected my investments (roaming BC are considered throw-away) by overtanking them. Looks like I will have to drop the second armour rep for a magstab, perhaps lose the EANM2 for another and load up on faction antimatter. I might even lose the tracking computer for a third magstab... After all, I am only really after the BS in the belts, the smaller stuff can simply be ignored or, if warp scrambling, taken out with warrior2s.
Drone complement: EC-300 Hornets x5, Warrior II x5.

Alliance Drama

You find a nice group to play with, you have a good work/ play balance, your character isn't broke, excitement comes calling at least once an evening and you like the people on teamspeak.
Then the powers that be announce change. One of the corporations that make up the alliance is leaving. Unfortunately they are taking with them the services they provided: empire logistics and a mineral buy/sell programme, both of which made life in nullsec a lot easier.
Unfortunately I had sold the programme 45m trit the night before along with 340m iskies worth of ark, bistot and miscellaneous stuff. The high end stuff isn't a problem, but replacing the trit in KW is going to be much harder. So not only can I not make ships, I can't import them.
Boo.
The other side is the lose of people. I don't like mentioning individuals usually but Jovial Krill [Ro5] has been exceedingly good company and we will miss him on TS.
Double boo.

Life in Null Sec (part 1)

I joined SI Radio when they decided to have a go at the null sec game and looked for volunteers to join.
Providence
At that time CVA had been chased from Providence and SIRadio had acquired the rights to a few systems there. About a week after I arrived I was scrambling along with the rest to evacuate back to high sec as the latest (I believe it was Kadeshi?) round of conquering capsuleers took over.
Great WildLands
So while alternative arrangements were sought, I reactivated my alt, bought an Orca, polished my exploration skills and began exploration. I was just getting used to entering low-sec when our great leaders arranged space in The Great WildLands, NPC null sec in the east. That was my first experience of being (a small) part of larger fleets. The local alliance we were friendly with were called Old Republic? and had some moderately successful fleet commanders.
Tenerifis
However this stopgap came to an end when Against All Authorities (-A-) reconquered space taken from them by The Initiative in the South. SIRadio formed SI Alliance and became a renter in Tenerifis, the marches of -A- space. For a while we settled in, mined the prime arkonor, ratted and had a go at local exploration.
At that point the anomoly nerf took place and the true sec of a system suddenly mattered again. No longer was it enough to have any old nullsec system and simply upgrade it. To maximise profits alliances wanted -10 truesec systems. This had an enourmous effect on all alliances as the map of what was valuable changed overnight. -A- found Tenerifis more valuable than Catch, renters moved out and -A- alts moved in.
Then as the war that ended NC up north got serious, -A- moved in to retake the rest of Tenerifis. It was pushing an open door, there was no resistance and the Region changed ownership over a fortnight.
Of course, once the steamroller is moving, it is hard to stop and Detorid has even better true sec than Tenerifis...

Life in Null Sec (Part 2)

Detorid
In Spring 2011 Tenerifis and Detorid were largely owned by White Noise. They has gone north to take out the NC and claim their Technetium moons leaving almost no one at home to mind the fort.
-A- organised small/ medium corporations to move into this space. SI Alliance was part of this push along with SOB, Imperial Order and various others. Space was divided out, SOB were going to get the valuable low true sec systems down south and SI Alliance got various ones up north on the border with Red Alliance Space. I helped take our Detorid base system went on holiday and came back to find that the alliance had helped itself to a further 20ish systems.
Unfortunately for us, the NC had failscaded and the PVPers from the grand eastern coalition that were looking for fights came back south to retake Detorid. They brought with them their IWIN buttons, supercapitals.
SuperCapitals
It is hard to explain to someone not used to nullsec just how good these beasts are. They are summoned straight onto the field of battle from several systems out by a cyno boat. They deploy fighters and bombers which are in effect giant drones with the toughness of a cruiser in flights of up to about 20. They are immune to ECM, they have millions of hit points, they have special repair bonuses and are in effect untouchable to an alliance the size of SI. Naturally they roams in packs.
The Goonswarm have managed to counter them in the last month by deploying hundreds of battleships with massive alpha strikes. This allows a fleet of sub-capitals to take down capitals without them getting the chance to repair.
Our Detorid adventure lasted about a month, now it is full of Red Alliance renter corporations and a place for us to roam. SI Alliance is back in KW licking its wounds, making money and readying itself for the apparantly inevitable invasion by Red once the situation between them and the GoonSwarm resolves itself.

Tenerifis

Tenerifis is conquerable nullsec in the south of the cluster. It is a long chain with small loops off the main chain and with some small branches.
The Angel Cartel are omni-present. According to the forums one of the Angel Officers has been present in this region - I've never seen him!.

Stations:

10 outposts in the region at the moment spread from the top to the bottom. These have all the services you will need (if you can get to them!)

Players:

Situation as of April 2011
In April 2011 it is divided between AAA renters (AAA Citizens) and White Noise. EON are a small French Alliance in the centre. Very much a NRSI policy in effect with effective intel channel through the region.
Situation as of July 2011The area is under control of -A- renting out systems to SI Alliance (around KW), EON (near DG7) and others down south. It is at the border of -A- and Red Alliance space.


The region is DANGEROUS.

Connections:

To the north and east, Tenerifis connects to Immensea (2 connections, one at each side of the region) and Detorid.
To the south and west, Tenerifis connects to Impass, Omist and Feythabolis.
To the north and west, Tenerifis connects to Catch.

Central Angel Sparkling Tower - Radar Plex

Radar in 0,0

Hordes and hordes of small frigates and cruisers with a ring of missile towers. Some webbing, some target painting, no obvious warp distrupting. Clear the nasties and you can use a codebreaker on various Angel computery gadgets. On cracking open the Angel Database 4 more cruisers warp in - but by then I had looted the database and was off with my loot!

Loot

Datacore - Nuclear Physics x 14
Datacore - Mechanical Engineering x 9
Decryptors - Minmater, Advanced Theories
Decryptors - Minmater, Circuitry Schematics
Skillbook - Minmater Encryption Methods
Cryptics Data Interface Blueprint
Materials and Compounds - Construction Alloy x 85
Materials and Compounds - Data Processor x 94
Materials and Compounds - Electric Conduit x 96
Materials and Compounds - Mechanical Parts x 71

Ship

Passive shield Ishtar with codebreaker II, prototype cloaking device and 3 x 220mm projectile weapons.

Angel Cartel Naval Shipyard

Where: Tenerifis

How: scanned down an unknown signature in a Helios  (Slay needed to bring Sister Probes down to 0.25au with very good probing skills and cov ops V!)

When: 15th March 2011

Description: So while searching for WH for the corp to pillage Slay came across this DED rated 10/10 complex. Enough people were on line, Errik volunteered to tank, two were volunteered to do the logisitics and everyone else outfitted in dps. Eight warped to the complex deadspace gate, Eric warped in to get the aggro, we followed and in short order we had chewed up the rats.

Loot: Most the bosses refused to drop anything, we got the static drops of overseer stuff, some T2 loot of one of the bosses but it wasn't till the last boss that it became worth doing. This one dropped a Marcharial bpc along with some x-gisti shield somthingorother. It went into the pot, Errik volunteered to jump to high-sec to sell it off and distribute the loot.

We each made some million from bouties, there was a load of salvage but until the final loot stuff is sold and distributed it remains a corp group pve exercise.

Suggestions for CCP: harden the fuck up! Unlike sleepers rats there was no aggro switching and the whole thing was a walk in the park - the rats shot the unbreakable tank - we shot the rats. The whole exercise could be done with 2? boats if you were willing to take your time about it - 1 tank with drone dps and 1 logi with drone dps - mind you it really would take a while...

Last thoughts: apparantly you need a Leadership of V to be able to enter these 10/10 DED complexes. A shout out to Luminous Ardokay for for his reading of the colour text :)