Eve Opportunist: April 2011

Saturday, April 30, 2011

EBB #26 : Beauty is destruction.

Welcome to the twenty-sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised "To Boldly Go" blog. Katia asks: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I've found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you've found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it's the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it's the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you've found it, write about it and post an image." Don't be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?

As is usual for me, my enjoyment of Eve started as finding my way in the game, learning new things to do, skilling into new ships, learning and mastering new and innovative ways to kill, and fight my way through it. Soon enough I started to find just as much enjoyment out of the friendships and corp banter, at least in good corps. Around that point I had already made it past the toughest parts of the learning curve, had two accounts, fought in both major 0.0 wars and minor ones. Roamed with Pirates and anti-pirates, and everything between. PvE and PvP.

Somewhere along the line I found that combat in Eve is what drove me to play the game. Not the massive fights, but the good, small ones, where individual pilot skill, ship fittings and guile played a larger part in the fights. Perfect comms during a fight became beautiful, looking back at battles and trying hard to find fault with how I or my gangmates flew. Frapsing the battle and enjoying the replay, watching the beauty of the battle, ships dancing around one another, explosions, the quiet intensity in every command. Expectations of each fight, individually being better each time, and every fight it's own flower.

It was along this road that I found groups of like-minded people, and that had it's own beauty. It's not that Eve is, in it setting, beautiful, it IS the dark place its supposed to be. What everyone does with that back-drop that makes the explosions on screen all that much more pretty. Everyone is actively trying to think out of the box. One of my favorite quotes from eve is, "This is Eve, if you aren't actively trying to inconvenience someone, in some way, You've got a lot of catching up to do."

Even when I'm taking a small break or without enough time to play as much as I want to, I can still look back and watch some PvP video's to get my fix of explosions and re-kindle the beauty I find in each.

Other banter's :

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Art of the Slingshot (The Art of part 3)

One of the most useful tools when solo or in a small group and engaging one or a few nano-type ships, like the Vagabond/Cynabal or even some battle cruisers, is the Slingshot.

NO! Not this kind of slingshot!

The situation is this, you in your slower, heavier, scram/web fitted ship is being effectively kited by a faster kiting opponent. You can't catch them, and can't bring them into a fight at your range. If you are caught off a gate, or in a belt, your chance at catching them is nil, and all that is left is a long, slow death, begging for help. Help yourself by learning and effectively using the slingshot. Bring them into engagement range and allow your heavier weapons to tell, heavier tank to shrug off their damage while you crush them.

Once engaged by your unsuspecting target (he's busy thinking you're his kill) the first thing he will do if he's a good pilot is try to pull parallel with you, to match heading and staying at your side, working to prevent this exact maneuver, usually somewhere between 16-24 KM from your ship. First thing is first, get him in the right position for the slingshot. Turn directly away from him, and as your stern(ass) spins around to face him(mooning him), you activate your MWD, as if you are attempting to escape. Pull range like mad, as if trying to escaping, heading for 26+ km, or 30+ if he has a faction point. It may be a good idea to try to align towards something you can warp out to just in case you do get out of point range and want to bail quickly before he recovers point.

Now with him "behind" and your MWD helping you extend the range from him, he will turn as well, trying to bring you back to his kiting range of 18-24 km. To close the distance faster he'll light off his MWD, this is where having velocity on your overview pays off. Wait for him to build some speed/inertia with the MWD or AB. Usually this is somewhere between 900-1200+m/s, or enough speed to start closing the distance between you and him, the deeper he "bites" the better luck you will have catching him at the end of this maneuver. Use a little judgement and at the right time, when he's committed to closing range, that is when you control-space to kill your forward boost, but leave your MWD active, waiting for your speed bar to drop just below the 3/4 tick mark on your HUD, giving your ship the best chance at a fast rate of turn. Repeatedly click approach target towards him, leaving your MWD active.

Now you are turning towards him and he is still burning towards you, the range between you should be dropping quickly, faster as you gain speed towards him. The easy way is to continue to mash the approach button, but this is not the best way, there is a chance he will correct and the wasted time you try to go directly at him let's him escape. The harder way it's going to take some practice. Try to eyeball where his path is going to take him in space and where you can be to bring him to a Closest point of Advance, then aiming for where he is now. You just need that CPA to be inside of your scram/web range so 11-14km.... Now don't forget to overheat your MWD/Scram/Web for extra speed and extra range on your tackle. Once he slings himself inside of your scram web range, apply DPS and tackle, don't let him out... Alive.

If you miss the first time, try try again, until either you die or he does, or you escape.

Another pro-tip is that most people don't think very well in 3-d space, but it's difficult to describe what I am talking about so I will do my best. Generally if you are on the same "plane" as the nano pilot, he has a better chance of avoiding your slingshot because distance is easier marked that way. Try the same maneuver with a slight angle added. Force him to be behind you but above the plane you are currently taking away from him, or even below you as most pilots always like to be above their targets in the game, force them to feel more agressive. If they are thinking, "oh no, you aren't getting away from me." You are already close to success. To put it simply humans, in general, are more likely to mis-judge the distance when operating with angles to the target as well as range.

Executing this tactic successfully can net you some nice kills in ships that should never be able to land tackle on, or up-engage faster, light, nano-ships. I won't even try to count how many times I have seen his in PvP video's where the Ferox catches the Vagabond. Or the Abaddon catches the BC. When I re-find video's where you can clearly see this happening I will post them.

Example Video's for the slingshot

Endless Subversion's Mind Game or Direct download

Prom's Friggank series, can be found in this handy FHC link

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Followers abound and breaking most visits in a day

So I promised myself mostly that when I hit 30 followers I would say something about it. I was looking through those who follow my blog and found many people who's blog I read on a consistant basis,

Sard Caid - Who's blog was the first I read, and got me into the idea of blogging, while he was playing around as a part of Rote Kapelle. Still a good read even though it's rarely updated. Also introduced me to Flashfresh's blog, the Blog pack, Raxip Elamp's blog and many others.

Raxip Elamp - as mentioned above he was one of the first blogs I read and damned if not entertaining. Raxip and I share a "special" relationship of undisclosed status (even to us). Now go write some more of your fiction!

Flashfresh - Another early read, keeping me entertained for quite a long time, another great read.

Rixx Javix - Of course someone I consider a friend, and the artist/writer of Eveoganda, recently added to the ranks of Rote Kapelle, of course enjoying his corps trial period!

Lady Shaniqua - She writes a very entertaining blog over at http://ladyshaniqua.blogspot.com/. I follow her exploits with an interest that can only be categorized as stalker-ish.

Cebit - Who's good looks (and nice kills) keep me coming back to his blog, http://cebit.evepress.com/

Shalee Lianne - Writes two blogs, one IC and one OOC(but eve related for those who aren't lolrpers), incidentally she needs to get back into updating both her blogs =P http://shaleelianneirl.blogspot.com/ and http://amarrian.blogspot.com/

Eve SOB - Found his blog on one of my lazy days passing through the eve blog lists over at http://www.evebloggers.com/ and haven't been able to give it up since. He's even got a pet name for me that makes me sound even more overweight than I already am... BBW. Great blog, keep it up.

Arrhidaeus - Blogs on http://antiquityinspace.blogspot.com/, or Cogito Ergo Yarr. Has a very entertaining writing style and is much better than Hallan Turreks eve-blog!

Mynxee - Of course everyone knows Mynxee now, but it wasn't always that way. Her blog is still a great read, http://lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com/

The musings of the man behind Ecliptic Rift, Always entertaining even if he operates in an entirely different perception of the Eve universe than I do. His views keep me thinking and expand how I think about the game.

Laedy - Her wonderful blog, Laedy in Red. I liked her more in MH ;)

Too many others also follow me and write great blogs, people like Kishin Hattori, a true pirate. Myrhial Arkenath, Dairy of a pod pilot. Quivering palm of The Planet Risk Show, something I wish I had more time to follow. Kirith Darkblade, Who I hope hasn't left eve! Romeo Blakstorm, who has swapped over to being Oxidizing Agent, his blog is also lacking for updates. Miura Bull, of Brutor Bullfighter.

And to all the others, well you are basically unimportant. No, I kid, gotta love Noam, Crazy Kinux, Dante, Astrial Stargaze, and Kalaratiri.

A special shout out to one of my oldest readers who's never once complained or commented, and I have no idea who he is, a round of applaus to Zuke Prime!

In any case, thanks for reading my bog and I will try to keep the semi-sporadic updated coming.

I have to say that just one mention from Eveoganda and my google analytics stats started to look like Mount EVErest.

Reference Pages