As you may have heard by now, Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) was closed today. Similar to the Band of Brothers collapse, corps were formed to take the CVA name (look up the characters Asarus Mekalurin and Rayleen Orendo for some examples).

As expected, there are various rumors flying about as to the cause of this. Some claim that a director account was hacked; CCP is said to have locked down certain accounts to verify this. Traceless Representatives of Anonymous Players has also claimed responsibility.

Until official word comes out, I have begun my own investigations (slight edits to keep convo relevant):

Song Li > I log out for lunch and CVA dies
Song Li > Man, I have to stop logging
Kellnirr Tiryon > Same here!
00sage00 > what were you doing when BoB died?
00sage00 > eating lunch as well?
Song Li > No.. I think it was dinner
00sage00 > hm. i think that’s enough grounds for a criminal investigation of food.
00sage00 > could you describe it for us?
00sage00 > how was it behaving?
00sage00 > did you notice anything unusual?
Song Li > it was delicious
00sage00 > would you agree that it had criminal tendencies?
Song Li > No.
00sage00 > oh so you’re defending it
00sage00 > i think we need to investigate you as well

I am sure you have seen this warning message that pops up before you enter lowsec or nullsec:

It warns people that they are leaving CONCORD protection; i.e. leaving safe space for “unsafe” space. Similar warning messages should be implemented for when you are about to enter space in which you are Kill On Sight (KOS).

Pilots with a low security status should be given a warning message before entering dangerous highsec space. For example, a pirate with a -2.67 security status should receive this warning prior to jumping into a 0.9 security system: “The destination system is 0.9 security status. This is extremely dangerous as CONCORD police will confront you. Do you want to proceed?”

In addition, pilots with low faction standing (e.g. missioners) should also receive a similar warning message. For example, a Caldari missioner with -5.38 Gallente faction standing should receive this warning message before entering Gallente highsec: “The destination system is Gallente-controlled. This is extremely dangerous as faction police will pursue you. Do you want to proceed?”

Such warning messages could prevent countless fatal mistakes when traveling through New Eden; it is a simple solution to a massive problem.

I will not vote for any CSM candidate who does not vow to fix invisible timers.

Enough said.

I was running a level 4 mission in my little lowsec system (yes yes I know, don’t run missions in lowsec) when I saw probes on scan. I warped out to see what happened, waited a little, then warped back in to bait the prober. It was a huge mistake (see this post for a more successful bait attempt). Mid-warp, my client disconnected, and when I logged back in, I found my Abaddon scrambled and surrounded by hostile drones. I had landed right on top of a waiting Pilgrim.

Inanamus Zura > 80 mil and u live
Inanamus Zura > otherwise ur in for along fight
00sage00 > done
Inanamus Zura > how about 80 more?
00sage00 > don’t have that much

Panicking, I went against my better judgment and paid the ransom. But the Pilgrim did not let me go. He continued to try to kill me. Cursing, I set my drones on him in a desperate attempt to get free. I temporarily forgot all my piloting skills, which allowed him to kill all but four of my drones (two Hammerheads, two Warriors).

Then I reassessed the situation, recalled my drones, and began managing my (nearly nonexistent) cap. I was not going down without a fight. I attacked his drones, then his ship, and discovered a weakness. He could not ignore my four remaining drones, as I was alternately killing his drones (his only source of DPS) and attacking him (bad for a buffer tank). So every time I put drones out, he had to pull in his medium drones and deploy small ones to kill mine. That, in turn, temporarily took pressure off of my tank. And when he tried to kill my drones, I could simply pull them back in and redeploy so that he had to retarget them.

While engaging in the DroneWars, I discovered another flaw: he was barely short of being able to fully cap me out (post-battle analysis in EFT shows that, with two medium neuts and one small, his Pilgrim drained 78 cap per second, while my Abaddon gained 86 cap per second at peak cap recharge (around 26%)). So I was able to maintain a pattern where I would build up cap to 30%, activate an armor rep cycle, then wait more for my cap to slowly charge back up again. Using this in combination with my drone-fu, I could almost tank his DPS.

Fifteen minutes later, with both of us at 60% armor, he ran out of cap charges and his neuting lightened slightly. Nursing my capacitor, I was able to climb back to 90% armor while simultaneously bringing the Pilgrim down to 40% armor. Twenty-one minutes into the fight, the Pilgrim pilot warped out, leaving a “gf” in local.

I was disappointed, as I had stupidly paid a 80 mil bounty (nearly my entire wallet; I’m poor). But I was also extremely happy – few people get attacked by a Pilgrim and emerge victorious. I learned a lot from the twenty-one minute fight:

• When baiting, don’t underestimate your enemy. It is too easy to get self-confident and careless. I did not think that the prober would be able to find me in under two minutes, so I foolishly stayed in my missioning ship.
• Never pay a ransom. Trustworthiness is a rare commodity in Eve, and even those who are reliable in real life can be utter liars in Eve. Also, do not forget to insure your ship.
• Stay calm and focused. Adrenaline may be exciting, but it is counterproductive and can easily kill you, especially in a close fight. If I had run my rep even one cycle too much or fired my lasers, my cap would have dropped below the peak recharge, allowing the Pilgrim to cap me out. Take a look at this Abaddon, this Armageddon, this Zealot, and this Megathron. All were more cap stable than I was, yet I was able to dry them out with a Arbitrator because they mismanaged their capacitor (and do not forget that not only does the Arbitrator lack a bonus to neuting, but it also cannot fit two med nuets without severely compromising the tank).
• Never give up. People naturally engage in futile actions (shooting the main guns, repping too much and capping out, etc.), especially when their death seems inevitable. Don’t. There are always ways you can fight back.

The past few days, I have had quite a few 1v1s, enough to start my own CDM.

Rematch: Sage vs. Chainer

It all started when Chainer Cygnus brazenly insulted me in the Eve Bloggers channel:

Chainer Cygnus > Kucian, don’t listen to Sage, he’s a pansy and fails at walking down stairs. :P j/k
00sage00 > D:

He insulted my pansy-hood. He insulted my legs. He even insulted the stairs. So I challenged him to a 1v1. Chainer set the rules of the 1v1 to be cruisers with no ECM, with the winner giving his ship to the loser. We agreed to meet inside his wspace system, Blue Lagoon. This was the fit I used (the neut is placed in the middle of the guns to allow me to overheat longer):

[Vexor, Imma Ragequite Nao]
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
1600mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I

‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I

Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S
Limited Light Neutron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S

Valkyrie II x5
Hammerhead II x5

Total fitting cost was 8 mil. Right before the fight, Chainer revealed that his Caracal costed 45 mil, and was surprised by how much of a cheapskate I was:

Chainer Cygnus > If you win, I might have to take a break from EVE :P
Chainer Cygnus > Ragequit and all that if you will

(Hence my Vexor’s name, “Imma Ragequit Nao”). Long story short, we met and I popped Chainer in around a minute. I was slightly saddened by the win, however. Instead of keeping his expensive ship, I returned to lowsec in a pod, 8 mil poorer.

I Want To Fly A Rifter Again

Not too long afterward the duel with Chainer, Nursultan (who I used to roam lowsec with) wanted to have a trimarked Rifter vs trimarked Punisher 1v1. Apparently he had heard about Spectre’s ignominious defeat and wanted to try his hand at it. The first fight was fairly close, but Nursultan eventually popped.

He then worked some fitting magic and pwned my Rifter. The win was extremely convincing; I am definitely going to try out his fit sometime.

Noobships Are Fun To Fly

Halfway through my bouts with Nursultan, I jokingly asked for a noobship 1v1 in the Eve Bloggers channel. Prometheus09 responded, so I pulled up my saved fittings (yes, I take my Piloting Savviness Guide seriously – I even have fits for some noobships) and chose one.

For the fight, Prometheus and I had both chosen Velators, except that his was armor tanked and mine was shield tanked. I won the first engagement with 50% armor left. However, Prometheus had forgotten to deploy his drones, so we had a rematch. He grabbed another ship and once again we began the dance of death. Prometheus popped first again, but his drones killed me less than a second later. Although winning is good, I frankly am very surprised that I won both 1v1s, as Prometheus has 3x the gunnery skills that I do (not to mention all the other skills he has). Perhaps someday we will have a rematch in a non-noob ship type.

Fear The Maller

The responses to my Maller Guide reinforce my assertion that many pilots underestimate the Maller (for example, see my Eve Forums post). And many who have seen my suggested fits may think, “What idiot would get in close to a ship like that?” It turns out, quite a few of them. Like this Wolf, or this nano Celestis, or this Pilgrim, or this second Wolf.

Of course, I am not saying that the Maller is perfect or “the best”. Obviously, you need to choose targets carefully, but that is the case for any ship. I am simply arguing that the Maller can do far more than people think. And I am not forcing anyone to actually use it.

Moar 1v1s?!

Caels Caldanhai > FYI, I’m building a SageShrine just to make people go, “WTF?”
00sage00 > wtf?
Varnoka > hehe
Caels Caldanhai > Exactly

Apparently people like to try to kill me (I blame Nashh for starting all this :P); currently several other people want 1v1s with me. 1v1s are very fun, but the only thing I do not understand is why I win. Is it just the fittings I use? Or the piloting skill? Why is it that people with far more skill points still lose? I would appreciate it if someone could explain that to me…