Thursday, May 13, 2010

Rancer Gate Camps

I've heard the horror stories.  Huge gatecamps, sensor boosted interceptors, and smart bombing battleships, oh my!  But in over two years in New Eden, I've never experience one first hand.  Until today that is...

Minding my own business, I was taking a shortcut through low sec in my trusty rifter.  No worries right?  I can align and jump faster than most people can lock a frigate.  So that takes care of most things.  I jump into rancer and warp across, straight into a smartbombing typhoon.  In an instant, my shields and armor are stripped away.  I will aura to jump as fast as she can, hoping another cycle doesn't go through and obliterate my ship.  Finally, the gate activates and I'm shot hundreds of AU's away from danger, deep into structure.  I limped quickly the last few jumps to my destination, safe, but shaken.

Lesson of the day: Always fly with your damage control and hardeners on.  I wouldn't have made it otherwise.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Lights of Jita

Jita is "The" trade hub in New Eden.  If you need something, legal or otherwise, you're guaranteed to find it.  Buying and selling, however, aren't the only things afoot...


Charon approaches an inbound gate under CONCORD's watchful eye.


The majestic Providence laden down with supplies.



A tech III Legion up to no good.   

A warning to capsuleers leaving Jita.  

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Gradient

I made it!  I was officially welcomed into Gradient and Electus Matari the other day.  So far everyone I've met has been more than kind and very helpful and willing to answer the questions of such a noob as I.  That's about all I got done today between that and a bit of spring cleaning of the hangar.  Forgive me the short post, my implants are frying inside my head due to all the new information I have to take in now.

Shout Outs

I just wanted to give a couple shout outs to the pod pilots whom I'm taking inspiration from for this blog.

Mark726 of EVE Travel, I'm almost infringing upon his intellectual property as I'm copying a lot of what he does.  In this case though, it is the highest form of flattery.

And also to Kaisersoze434 of Flying Bipolar, because I struggle with the same thing and it's good to know there are others who do and still blog.  

And of course CrazyKinux  at CrazyKinux's Musing because he's just awesome at blogging.

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for more posts soon!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Ransoming the Ransomer

I'm not really the piratey-yarr type of pod pilot, but I did earn my first ransom the other day.  It wasn't a lot by pirate terms, but was exciting for me.

A little background up front:  for the last month or so, I've been living out in minmatar low-sec, a poorly traveled constellation there abouts.  I also had deployed a large minmatar dickstar to support my efforts out there.  Well I knew when I put it up that it would be a juicy target considering I can't put up any reasonable defense being the loan member of my corp.  So I wrote it off as lost the minute I anchored it.  This attitude would prove to be helpful towards the end of my stay.

I woke up that morning to aura incessantly beeping at me to tell me I had an urgent notification.  My POS was under attack.  I quickly jumped in my pod and into the closest ship I had with a cloak, a prowler I love flying.  I speed off to my POS to see it indeed being pounded on by a motley crew mostly made of of War Never Changes pod pilots.  They had two carriers and an assortment of support ships, no way I could mount an effective defense.  I was planning on leaving that system as soon as the last bunch of BPO research was done anyway, so a lot of the modules had already been taking to hi-sec.  Luckily the only non-offensive module left was the lab, so all i had to do was cancel the jobs and unanchor it.

While I was doing this I got a convo request from the FC of the enemy gang.  Some of the chat log are posted below.  In summary, they said they'd leave me alone that instant if I transferred 400m ISK to his account.  Not trusting anyone, as is too common in EVE, I declined.  Plus I had already taking the POS's eventual demise into account in my finances.

Then shortly thereafter, social engineering lead to the single greatest coup in my short capsuleer life to date.

Enemy FC: how about working some thing out so we don't have to kill your pos
Enemy FC: what you think
Me: i wont pay if thats what your after
Enemy FC: well the tower is going to cost you 350m to replace
Me: the minute i anchored the tower, i lost it
Me: such is eve
Enemy FC: i am offering you a way to avoide losing it
Enemy FC: ill even scout you to safe space
Me: as a matter of theory, how can i trust you to your word?
Enemy FC: i can get some people that i have ransomed before to vouch for me
Enemy FC:  if they are on
Enemy FC: but it would serve me no good to not houner it
Me: well in all honesty, i cant afford your initial offer or anything remotely near it
Enemy FC: word gets out and i lose my way of making isk
Enemy FC: what can you afford
Me: around 100m, but again i said i wasnt goign to pay
Enemy FC: hmm
Enemy FC: 100 mill and the lab and you have a deal

At this point I was  unanchoring the last lab in the pos with my blockade runner.  I knew I could get out safely without any help from the enemy FC.

Enemy FC: i will escort you out of here
Me: no thanks
Enemy FC: so its worth losing 350 mill over it ?
Me: in short, yes, my time here was worth it
Enemy FC: well then damn
Enemy FC: i reall dont want to shoot a pos
Me: im planning on offlining the jammers for ya

POS bashing is boring as hell.  I wouldn't wish it  on anyone, especially since I had mine configured as the infamous dickstar.

Enemy FC: if you want to be real nice just off line the pos
Enemy FC:  just aline out so they cant shoot you
Me: nah, you've got to work for it atleast a little
Enemy FC: damn it
Enemy FC: ill give you 25mill
Enemy FC:  to turn the poss of
Enemy FC: off

This was the opening I was looking for, now to push it harder.  Him paying me to kill my POS?  Not bad.

Me: 50
Enemy FC: 30
Me: 35
Enemy FC: done
Enemy FC: i just dont want to sit here that long
Me: no prob, nice doing business with you
Me: dont blame you
Me: fly safe o/

Note: Names redacted for privacy.

Making 35m off of a tower I knew I was going to lose wasn't too bad.  The enemy FC was very friendly and honored his deal.  I ended up offlining the tower and getting out of dodge.  All said and done I made 35m off of a tower I knew I was going to lose.  This ransoming thing is turning out to be kind of fun...

Monday, May 3, 2010

Droning on

I was minding my own business running some missions, yes I have some carebear tendencies, when I warp into my mission deadspace.  I was instantly greeted by one of the largest structures I've encountered in New Eden: a drone superstructure.  It was magnificent and awe-inspiring to say the least.  So complete was my rapture that Aura had to warn me about the incoming hostile signatures.  A swarm of drones had exited they're home to destroy the intruder, namely me.  Snapping out of my trance, I proceeded to take care of business.

A wide shot of the entire structure.  Third death star maybe?

The maw of the beast.

Thinking I had seen the worst of it, I warped into the next deadspace pocket and was greeted by an even larger, more complex drone superstructure.  I always get flak for this, but I truly believe drone hives are some of the most magnificent structures in all of New Eden.


Bigger, Badder, Better!

 
It's watching you. 

 In other news, I present to you a shield tanked, rail gun wielding Armageddon.  Those EoM guys really are crazy.  

 
A study in contradictions.

[OOC]   One of the reasons I can still stand running missions is because of gems like these hidden in some of the lesser run missions.  CCP should get kudos for designing some truly spectacular environments in New Eden.  

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Beginning

My journey starts in Abudban having just retired from the TLF for bigger and better things.


Adubdan IV an ice planet reflecting the system's sun.

I hop in my trusty covert ops ship, The Ronin, and head off into the abyss that is New Eden.

The Ronin cloaked but illuminated by the star.

Another shot of The Ronin.

In true Thukker fashion, I'm on a path to find all that New Eden has to offer that most capsuleers don't even know about.  

Saturday, May 1, 2010

About the Author

My name is Thurenu, and I was born and raised Thukker. I have Thukker blood running through my veins and can't fight the urge to just travel. So that is what I will be doing, in my free time. I'll be documenting any neat and interesting places I come across and just overall appreciating the beauty of New Eden. You can expect me to send back home short summaries and lots and lots of pictures!

My main job will hopefully be with Gradient, part of Electus Matari. I've filled out all the paperwork and gone through the initial interview. So, fingers crossed, I'll get in. There will be a little bit of that thrown in here too if something interesting happens. I'm looking forward to my travels!

-- Thurenu

P.S. The Ronin is my ship, the minmatar covops cheetah.

[OOC]

You might have guessed it already, but this blog is going to document in living color my travels around New Eden, with a splash of RP thrown in here and there for flavor. I have indeed applied to Gradient, and pending approval, I'll get to fly with them as well. So stay tuned for hopefully stunningly beautiful shots of New Eden.