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.