Things That Happen in EVERY Uni War

Any time any war fighting organization goes to war, there are certain things that you can be absolutely sure will happen. They have always happened and they always will happen. To wit:

- A Uni pilot will get solo popped returning to Korsiki from a Jita 4-4 shopping expedition.
- A Uni pilot will lose a mining ship while mining during wartime.
- 30 minutes into the first gate camp, Fleet Chat will contain "This is booooooring. I wanna shoot sum body!"
- 40 minutes into the first gate camp, FC on TS will say "Frigates, you should still be orbiting in jump range. 25Km is _not_ jump range."
- A Uni pilot will target: a gate / a corpmate / a wreck / a billboard and try to tackle it.

Also these:

- A uber l33t walking e-peen PvP machine will lose his fully T2 fitted T2 ship named "F34R the R34P3R!" to a 30+ T1 Uni fleet.
- Someone in local will ask "Holy s***! What class is the Uni having???"
- There will be an occasion where the fleet will consist of 36 pilots and local count will be 37. The one guy will be at the pod wash removing brown stain.

But most importantly, this:

Eve Uni kicks serious tail!

This is because of our team work and our pilots. 'Grats!

War! Yarr! Beer!

The Uni has been war dec'ed by a corp of self confessed can flippers, griefers and empire gankers. They would want me to mention their name...

War prep began shortly after the dec was received and I'm sure all the shopping will be complete shortly.

I've moved all the barges to the back of the hangar. Combat ships are being tweaked & peaked.

The end of another long road....

Finished a period of intense (at least for me) mission running last night. The target was to raise my standings with Expert Distribution to the magic 6.7 level so I'd have zero tax at our mining base in Lower Debyl.

You'll hear mission runners talk about 'grinding'. I really appreciate that attitude more now. The last 1/2 standing point seemed to take forever.

Bottom line: Mission accomplished. I now have perfect refine/zero tax at both Expert Housing & Expert Distribution. Looking forward to helping the Uni miners get the most value for their mining effort at our two bases.

Stealth Bomber fun...

An impromptu free for all broke out last night at Planet 2. I'd been looking for an excuse to roll out my new Manticore, so I saddled up & off we went.

Not wanting to seem rude, I determined that I'd limit myself to 1 volley (1 EM, 1 Thermal, 1 Kinetic) so as to not pop any of the frigates. That 1 volley was almost too much a couple of times!

After a few minutes, another Uni Manticore showed up, so we ganged & started a series of drive by's on the larger ships.

From chat:

"Dee??? Where did you come from?"
"WTF!!"
"Ouch! Ouch!"
"Dee, where did you go?"

:)

Just a few thoughts:

- Manticore is paper thin.

- Script nerf hurts. Can't really fit any kind of EW, so you need to be ready to leave the scene if you get targeted.

- A co-ordinated short squad of six of these would be _really_ nasty.

- If you are going to fly Cov-Ops, being able to fly Stealth Bombers is only a short step.

Hi Sec Can Flippers

Come in two flavors; true ore thieves and PvP cowards.

I don't hate the first flavor. They take advantage of the fact that miners employ an accepted exploit (jet cans were never intended by the devs to be a mining tool) that leaves open the opportunity for theft, without consequences to the thief and only small, avoidable consequences for the victim, as long as the thievery is executed correctly. These guys are like shoplifters. What they do is wrong. It's a pain in the ass. But they will never cost me a ship. These guys work in teams of 2 or 3, with a flipper in a fast, small ship (shuttle), a hauler with a tractor and an optional scout. The shuttle drops a can right next to yours, the hauler targets the can, flipper starts a warp out to a station and (while aligning) moves the contents from your can to his. As soon as he hits warp, the hauler turns on tractor beam, pulls the can & picks up the contents. Flipper docks & waits out the timer. Not flagged (he didn't take from your can!), Hauler docks with your ore. Rinse & repeat. Done correctly, you never have a chance to engage these guys.

I hate the second flavor. These are school yard bullies. 14 year olds who hang out on the elementary school play ground, stealing lunch money from 8 year olds. They want a fight, but only against the weak. They flip cans in combat ships and hope that they will be underestimated by a new barge pilot. They want to blow you up. If they get some salvage or loot from it, fine, but that's not the point. If you choose to ignore them, they smack in local or open a convo to tell you how lame you are. Again, hoping that you will engage, so that they can blow you up. If you have backup, they hope to use aggro timers to allow them to isolate weaker teammates to kill after the rest of the gang's aggro timers expire. These PvP wannabe's could go to low sec or 0.0 and get all the pretty lights they want. The problem with that is they might actually have to face a fair fight. So, they pretend to be tough guys & pick on nOOb miners.

It's easy to avoid both types and to keep your ship facing the second.

1. Don't mine into a jet can. For new miners, use a GSC, put a password on it and haul it when it gets full.

2. Mine to a jet can, but have a hauler standing by to move the ore to their hold. Put a single round of ammo or a bookmark in the can ("popper stopper") and transfer the ore as soon as it's dumped. If a can flipper flips 1 round of ammo, laugh at him in local. Partner with another member & swap off hauling duties. Split the take 50/50.

3. Ignore them. Follow Silentbrick's procedures for reporting a can flipper in Corp chat and then do not engage. Remember, they are flagged as thieves to the whole corp, but they can't shoot at you unless & until you shoot at them. YOU have control of the engagement, not them.

Scripts = mid slot nerf

Had a couple of questions about scripts last night in corp...

Pre Trininty (PT), some modules boosted 2 attributes. For example, sensor boosters both increased your lock range and reduced your lock time. 2 sensor boosters in a sniping Rokh gave you the ability to lock out to 249km at to have a relatively quick lock time on small targets.

As a part of the Trinity patch, these dual boost modules had their base bonuses cut in half. You can add a script to the module to increase one of bonuses back to PT level, at the expense of no boost to the second bonus.

So, in order to get the same attribute bonus as 1 PT sensor booster, you now have to fit 2. Double the number of mids required to get the same performance.

Snipers now have to choose between range, lock time, damage & tracking speed. Fitting just got a whole lot more complicated and juggling scripts adds to the combat load of the pod pilot. Anyone else want a EWO in the backseat?

No, I'm not dead, it's just been one of those months...

No excuses, just facts... RL holidays & end of year work stuff. Struggling with the Trinity upgrade. None of my boxes can run the premium content and all of my boxes have suffered from significant frame rate drops using Classic graphics with the new engine... My notebook played the best before Trinity, but is now unplayable for anything beyond basic travel & station work. From 40+fps pre patch in station to 7 fps afterward. My older desktop went from 30fps to about 20fps. And yes, I've upgraded all the firmware, drivers & direct X. I turned off sound & effects. I'm running full screen mode with the same resolution set for Windows & for the game.... All that, still no joy.. My bug report, with attached DXDiag is in the queue, but I'm not taking any bets on how long it will take to be answered.

In game, we've had 4 weeks of war, with all the fun and frustration that goes along with it... I only had one "Ruh Roe" moment as I logged on at lunch & answered Saber's call to "Get your ass in your Scorp & get on the Osmon gate, now!" I'm in warp to the gate, when I see local start spiking... Tango count goes from 1 to 12+ while I'm in warp.... Predictably, I'm called primary as soon as I drop out of warp on the gate... Jammed 4 & tried to align for warp out... My pod made it, but my Scorp went out in flames! And I'm asking myself, "Hey Dumbass! Why are warping to the gate when you can jam from 150km & you have a set of bookmarks at that distance?" Dumbass didn't have a good answer. :(

The past few days have been better as I've at least got a semi-usable box. We've popped a few can flippers and producing scripts has had a positive impact on my wallet. Working on plans for some kind of mining contest and a road trip to Debyl before year end. Anything to keep me from having to go shopping with She Who Must Be Obeyed & the daughters! lol!