Merlin is no Magician

My explorer had been doing some profitable low and high sec exploration during much of the 3-day weekend along with Jack Dancer making an uneventful foray into Great Wildlands null sec.  Then on Monday evening I checked Heild and found a bunch of activity.

This game is a lot of fun when there are other pilots around.

I had a bit of sparring with Sebastian  Petras (we were both in rifters and he was sitting at the sun when I found him), but he was able to break off the engagement (due to the fact that I didn't have room to equip a web to slow his escape down) when things were going well for me in a shield tanked rifter ...

[ 2012.05.28 23:45:49 ] Sebastian Petras > damn jack.. shield tank?
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:03 ] Jack Dancer > Gotta keep you guessing...
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:08 ] Sebastian Petras > lol
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:16 ] Jack Dancer > gf
[ 2012.05.28 23:46:22 ] Sebastian Petras > gf

A few minutes later Sebastian Petras was ganked by Sleepysheep and Rahgg Graageor.

After that I joined haerod and Thestarling in fleet to catch up to Sleepysheep and Rahgg Graageor who were terrorizing the neighborhood in their Tornado and Jaguar.  I managed to zig when I should have zagged and wasn't involved in the excitement when haerod and Thestarling turned the Tornado and Jaguar into burning masses of twisted metal.  But it was fun to at least be in on the hunt.

Then it was time for a trip out with my delightful wife to grab a couple Vietnamese sandwiches...

When I got back, I found Heild to be quieter, but with a couple possible targets.  One of them, Jareedon, was flying a Merlin and appeared to be ratting in the asteroid belts.  I managed to land on him once, just as he was leaving.  And then seemed to miss him at a few other belts.

But finally...

I caught up with him.  I targeted, orbited, turned everything up to 11 and started pummeling him with my autocannons and rockets.  As a side note, these new rocket graphics are great.  Like watching Chinese fireworks.  I totally approve.

I was doing good damage to his ship's shields while my shields evaporated (I had switched to an armor rifter - gotta keep people guessing...).  But my armor was built of stouter stuff and held up nicely.  I methodically worked through his defenses and it didn't take long.  He exploded.  \o/  GFs were exchanged in local.  And in the corp chat channel Grernandez noted that he was also hunting for Jareedon, but I had managed to catch him first.

It turns out that the fight took long enough for my warp scrambler to burn out as had my afterburners. I'm going to have to remember to turn the overheater off when I have my victim scrambled and webbed...

But it was a clear win in the Death to Flying Things Campaign.  Current score 9-21-1.

Inferno's New Inventory System

The biggest noise related to the expansion ("Inferno") that arrived a couple days ago is related to the new inventory system.  The forums are filled with angst and CCP has a plan to fix some of the major inconveniences. 

Personally, the new inventory system seems fine.  I can still do my usual shuffling of items and building of ships.  No big deal. 

But apparently it is a big deal to a small group of Eve players - botters.  Their botting programs aren't working and the new inventory system is causing havoc with them.  It seems possible that this is a side reason for CCP's changes to the inventory system since it's no doubt a main part of any botting software.

Check out The Nosy Gamer for a fun read on the subject (he's often writing about botter tears...).  http://nosygamer.blogspot.com.au/

R1FTA Is Hiring!

We're looking for pilots interesting in our unfettered, unorganized, unsavory style of play!

Check out the details (thanks Duke and Kaeda!) here: http://thethunderhorsechronicles.blogspot.com/2012/05/wanted-thieves-gankers-and-scallywags.html

Short Trip to Null Sec

With the realization that I have far too many rifters sitting around and that I had been spending far too much time with my explorer alt finding profitable radar and DED sites (which is a lot of fun and very profitable) - I rededicated myself to getting Jack Dancer more active.

First stop - Null Sec.

I recently watched the excellent Kil2 video on finding fights using the map and followed his method.  I mapped out a route through some active systems - Ubtes, 7Q-8Z2 and to a final destination of U3K-4A (a dead end system in the Great Wildlands) - a very convenient route from Heild.

Things started off well.  The low sec jumps were completely empty and the entry system at 7Q was pretty quiet - just 4 or 5 pilots in local.  I searched around for them with no luck.  So I moved on.

SUR-F7 was also quiet.  So I moved on.

OK-6XN was definitely not quiet.  I landed in some of those warp bubbles that I had heard about.  Oh oh, that's trouble.  I was 12k from the gate with a Federation Navy Comet, a Heretic, and a Rapier on top of me.  I didn't panic (though I probably should have...) and tried to return to the gate with my afterburner overheating and armor repper fired up.

My rifter didn't make it.

Neither did my pod.

Well, it's a start on getting Jack more active - I found some pvp...  I probably should have been flying with an empty head.  Though the price on the lossmail of those implants is much higher than what I actually paid (for instance, I bought scores of the SP-803s for about 20k instead of the 700k on the loss mail).  

I'll be back for more.  But maybe not back to OK-6XN...  

What's In My Hangar?

With many of the blogs I read having a common theme lately (“What’s in my hangar”) I thought I’d add my list. 

As you might guess, for a blog titled, “Jack Dancer – Rifter Pilot” mine isn’t too complicated…

1 – Cheetah

1 – Hound

1 – Wolf

1 – Rupture  
1 – Bestower

5 – Thrashers

224(!) – Rifters

The Cheetah, Hound, Wolf, and Rupture were purchased to fill up space on a Black Frog delivery (and possibly as future ships to fly).  The Bestower for hauling junk around.  The 5 Thrashers are for ganking and general high jinks.  And the 224 Rifters are what they are…

On a related note, my hauler alt managed to slip an Iteron V industrial through Bosena and into Heild loaded with rifter hulls, modules, ammo and implants last night.  It was an exciting trip with a different alt acting as scout and checking the gates (the scout was targeted, but managed to warp off before being destroyed by one of my Black Rebel brothers…).  The Iteron is now back safe in high sec.

Ratting Leads to Death

So I thought I'd head over to Jita and along the way do some ratting to get my security status back under that magic -2.0 so that I could freely run around and pick up some rifter components strewn around the galaxy.  Things were going well on the ratting front.  Earlier I had managed to kill two Gurista battleships with my rifter which seemed to help - my status had dropped form -2.1 down to -2.0.  Just needed a few more rat kills to get me back in the good graces of the authorities.

So off to Jita I went.  I killed a Gurista cruiser in Nikkishina and another one in Hasama.  Then in Mara I headed to the top belt to start looking for a rat victim, when instead I land right on top of a bright red flashing (his sec status is -10!) pilot named K'Roa T'Jal in a Gila (a Gurista faction cruiser)!

Battle stations! Battle stations!

I orbited, opened fire with overheated weapons and put a secure scramble on his warp drive.  Unfortunately, he wasn't going anywhere.  He let loose his 5 warrior II drones and started shooting missiles at me.  My shields, armor and hull all crumpled relatively quickly (I don't actually remember hitting the big red armor repair button on my control panel, so that might have hastened my demise...) and I exploded.

GFs were exchanged in local...

K'Roa T'Jal > gf bro
Jack Dancer > gf
Jack Dancer > I hate those warriors...
Jack Dancer > :-)
K'Roa T'Jal > ya .. this thing is tanked like a beast too
K'Roa T'Jal > did i make a dent in your cap at all?
Jack Dancer > Not sure.  Too much going on to pay attention...
K'Roa T'Jal > hehe =)
K'Roa T'Jal > good ole pvp shakes
Jack Dancer > yup
Jack Dancer > You made some serious dents in my armor.
K'Roa T'Jal > little rifter though it was ... you still got my blood up =)  thanks
Jack Dancer > Thanks to you too.

Looking back at the logs, the drones were tearing me up - but the missiles weren't doing too much damage (I tried to keep my speed up - orbiting further out than 500m probably would have been a better idea in order to keep a high rate of speed to avoid the missile damage...).

It was a fun adrenalin fight for both of us.

My personal "Death to Flying Things" score is now 8-21-1.

Ratting Leads to a Kill

I had this idea that I should grab all the junk I have strewn around space and haul it to Jita so that I can easily contract it to be delivered in low sec (now that my sec status is making it uncomfortable to visit some ritzy high sec neighborhoods).  So I decided to do some ratting last night to see if I could raise my security status from -2.1 up to -1.99 to allow me to cruise around high sec unmolested in my Bestower.

It didn't go especially well.  I killed rats on asteroid belts in a few systems, and saw my security status change from -2.1 to hmmmm...  errr... -2.1.  No change.  This might be a long process at this rate!

But enough of that drudgery.

This morning Jack is sitting in Ishomilken (in station!) and I'm also doing some exploration in another screen with an alt.  I noticed a challenge from Brick0Joe in Ishomilken local:

Brick0Joe > jack
Brick0Joe > I know you fight rifters
Brick0Joe > fight my rifter

What else could I answer, but

Jack Dancer > OK
Jack Dancer > Planet 9

Brick0Joe showed up in his rifter and we began the Dance of Death...

At first I was a bit worried.  No, make that a lot worried.  I had all systems overheating and we orbited close.  My shields evaporated while his weren't moving much at all.  Oh oh.  He's a very experienced player - his history goes back to 2005 and his security status is a cool -9.9.  I didn't have much hope going into this contest, and even less as I hit armor while his shields were slowly dropping.

But you just never know.

Once I got through his shields (and he was close to being through my armor even with my repper doing yeoman service) things started to change. I wrecked havoc on his armor as I was keeping mine generally in one piece.  Eventually, as I started losing burning pieces of my hull while trying to restore armor to hold off his attack, he passed me in the destruction race!  He was suddenly in structure - even lower than me!  And then he blowed up!  \o/

I was at 37% structure - so it was a close one.

GFs were exchanged in local along with an interesting recap of the fight.  Brick wasn't flying with rigs and was flying a shield fit rifter (something I'm going to try to do more often now that I bought a pile of regolith medium shield extenders for about 3.3 million isk each in a backwater market).

How did ratting lead to this kill?  Well, I forgot to change my ammo from last night's failed attempt at security status repair.  I was still shooting basic non-faction cheapo EMP ammo instead of fancy faction fusion or phased plasma that I usually have in the autocannons.  Since Brick0Joe was flying without rigs and didn't have his em hole plugged on his shields - my EMP was hitting his shields with 0% protection.  Nice!

Of course, my loyal readers will know that I didn't figure this out on my own - in the post-fight chat Brick pointed this out...

But, regardless, for a change I got lucky!

Brick0Joe has been away from Eve for a year and just returned.  I advised him to consider joining R1FTA and would certainly recommend him.

Death to Flying Things Score: 8-20-1