10 losses closer and a new environment.

I've lost 10 ships now in my "50 losses" campaign. Honestly I thought I'd lose them faster, and the first 4 ships went down with only 1 kill. So in the next 6 ships I've got 23 kills, which I think isn't too shabby. So then, here's the highs and lows so far:-

The fail fit Abaddon. - Yes. That's right. Quad tank. Don't know how it didn't win. We found this sitting at 0 in a belt, and after taking out it's drones I just kept it pointed while backup arrived. We thought it might be bait. Turns out it was just fail.

The hide-and-seek Blackbird. - We must have spent the better part of 2 hours chasing this, and when we finally caught it, it jammed 1 of us and warped out from the other point with it's stab as a third was warping in. So a couple of hours later it turns up again with a small fleet. Well there was a couple more of us on at the time, and we just thought what the hell, let's get him this time. I only lost a cheap punisher on that one, and damn it was worth it :D

The newb Maller. - This guy was 16 days old when I found him ratting in a belt, so it took me all of 0.001 of a second to decide to go for it in my Rifter. I forgot that Maller's could be a pain to take down in a frigate. Nothing to do with the damage, he didn't hit me once. But it took 3 reloads and over 10 minutes to finally kill him, and I was even trying to ransom him at the same time, for less than the market value of his ship, but hey, maybe he likes spending more than he could. Shame I couldn't catch his pod as well.

The suicide Punisher. - I lost this ship during a roam with 3 others. We'd scanned a megathron down to a belt, and were debating whether to engage or not. We knew it was most likely going to be bait considering where we were, and we knew we'd most likely die. But no one was in anything particularly hard to replace, and we'd not found anything after a couple of hours roaming. So hey, why not see if we can take it down before his support takes us down? So 4 frigates aligned, warped and started unloading into him. We got him into armor when the support arrived, the first of us popped when we had him down to about 60%, another popped very quickly after. I think we managed to get it to about 30% armour before we were all popped, laughing all the way back to Aldali.

That was one of the most fun engagements I've ever had. We all knew it was suicide, we all knew that we could get podded, we knew that there was a very small chance of actually popping it, yet we didn't care and just went straight in. 100% pure fun, and we even got the "gf"s over local :D

The mistake. - This loss was the stupidest mistake I've ever done. I entered the system and saw a neutral Merlin sitting 10km from me. So I moved and sat on the gate. Me being flashy red and him not meant I had to try and get him to attack, so I targeted and set up an orbit without my afterburner on, don't want to give away too much do I? Well he warped away, then returned a minute later and decided to engage. It was a pretty even fight for the most part. He got through my shields quickly enough, but was having trouble with my armour, I had trouble with his shields, but his armour was starting to go quickly. Then a blue exited warp and started shooting me.

I was quite confused now, so I opened up a conversation with the pilot and asked what he was doing. Turns out he was with the Merlin, and that apparently I wasn't blue to him, turns out I hadn't been set blue to his alliance yet which I thought I had. But after a short conversation we all disengaged and apologised, and straight afterwards a myrmidon exited warp. Instead of aligning and warping I just brought up his pilot info. What I was thinking I don't know, I mean, I had no shield, my cap was low after the fight and my armour was only half repaired. So yeah, the myrmidon pretty quickly killed me. And I can't even say there was nothing I could do. There's always something I could have done, such as not just acted like a fish in a barrel. That's the worst mistake I've done so far, but hey, every mistake is an opportunity to learn.

The Tuskers.

I decided it was about time to join another corp again, and after searching around the forums, reading various blogs and asking a few people, I applied to join The Tuskers. The way they operate looks exactly like how I operate, and a look on their kill board shows a lot of them use Frigates, Cruisers and Battlecruisers. So there's no massive 0.0 capital fleets to worry about, no BS required roams to trouble my skill points with, and a lot of kills to be had.

Well I've been accepted, and given a proper welcome from Wensley of Rifter Drifter in a Dramiel, who promptly relieved me of my Rifter shortly after arriving in system to hand in my application. Was a good fight that don't think I could have won, I got him to 50% armour when I popped, and a Ferox finished him off shortly after, so I still got a final kill mail from Hartcraft's Revenge.

But that's got to be a pretty good welcome for a pirate corporation, kinda sets the mood for things to come :D I'm just waiting on my stasis period after leaving my own corp to end so I can officially be part of The Tuskers now, I think a lot of fun times are coming :D

That's all for now.

Fly Safe.

- Noir Avlaa.

Over 9000!!

Quite a bit over 9000 actually, I hit 6million skill points at some point today, for some reason I've had 6mil as a milestone... Next is 10mil. Most of my skills at the moment are for frigates so it's definately time for a change, I think I'm going to finish a couple more skills then move onto cruisers properly... I can fly cruisers, just not all that well, but it shouldn't take me too long to get the skills half decent :)

In other news I'm sporting an 18-7 kill-death ratio in my 50 losses 'campaign'. At the moment I've got a rifter an a harbinger with 3 kill for the harbinger and 5 for the rifter each that haven't died, but that's bound to happen soon enough. I'm thinking of getting an assault frigate when my harbinger pops, that sounds like lots of fun. :D

Fly Safe.

- Noir Avlaa.

Move out!

I've finally come to the conclusion that the system(Aldali) and surrounding low-sec area of space I pirate in isn't good anymore. When I first located myself there it was great, but now it's got 2 alliances that are constantly in fleet, and others who I pirate with sometimes who live in system with me, and less traffic than travels through the area than used to.

I've had a quick look through the Ombeve 2D maps and have found a nice little system not too far away, right next to a trade hub with every facility, and as such I intend to use that system as my new home. It's also a nice bottleneck system from high-sec to low-sec.

Scouting out the area now to see how easy it's gonna be to move my stuff there and if it's worth it, but so far it looks promising, hoping that the local pirates aren't already in the system in abundance...

In other news i'm up to 7 deaths on my 50 losses, with 10 kills attributed. I've got most of my kills in the last few ships that have been lost, so i'm going to try work my way up to at least a 2:1 kill:death ratio.

Fly Safe.

- Noir Avlaa.

50 fights

A few weeks I read one of the articles from Alexia Morgan over at Punishment. Second time i've linked that blog in 2 posts, but it's one of the blogs I read fully more than others, instead of just scan reading.

The jist of the article if you haven't read it, or clicked the link, is that people become to attached to their ships in EVE. Even though the ships are just a tool for achieving a set goal. That said, the post challenges anyone to have 50 fights. No less. And maybe die 50 times. But at the end of it, stop getting so attached to what is essentially a caveman's club. Some clubs are bigger, some are smaller and the wielder is more agile with it. Who knows, it's a club. A piece of log. Just because it's made from metal and flies through space doesn't change the fact that you try and get one better than someone else's to hit them harder.

Well i'm gonna take up that challenge, even if i'm taking it up a bit late, and i'm going to put it instead of having 50 fights, have 50 deaths. So make sure I die 50 times. Build 50 ships, go out, pick some targets, and try to win. But if I lose, the hell with it, dock up and grab a new ship.

So here's the rules i'm going for:-

1. Once a fight has begun, you either win or die. Pick or don't pick targets, but don't ever disengage.
2. Getting podded doesn't count as a loss.
3. All kills must be accounted for, and for this i'm adding a new side bar with each loss, value, kills/ransoms attributed to the ship and date on it.

Only 3 rules, all are easy to stick to. I'm going to try and mix the ships I use up a bit. So far i've lost 5 ships, 3 rifters and 2 punishers. I'm training for Cruiser and Battlecruiser skills so soon i'll start adding those losses when i'm ready to start using them, as i'm not going to use a ship i'm not properly trained for just for the sake of adding a loss.

Let's see if anyone else starts this up aswell, hopefully it's going to be bags of fun.

Fly Safe.

- Noir Avlaa.

Pick the pen up again.

I've had a bit of writer's block lately, so instead of forcing myself to write something, i've just left it until I had something to say that I could put down.

Alexia Morgan over at Punishment is asking what people do out of EVE. Easy enough, got a form and everything, so why not. I've already spoken somewhat about myself but i'll put the whole hog on here, no reason why not:

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Your character name:

Noir Avlaa

Your real name:

Lawrence "Lol" Pickford.

The country you're living in:

England - Liverpool to be exact.

How old are you:

20, birthday is 16th May.

What kind of work do you do:

I'm a professional games tester for Sony. That doesn't mean I know anything and my opinion accounts for nothing. All I do is test the game, therefore any opinion about the game after i'm allowed to talk about it is still null and void, as my perception of the game will be skewed. So don't ask me :P

What other hobbies or interests do you have:

Left 4 Dead aswell as EVE really. I go round to a mate's house every Wednesday or Tuesday and play card/board games like Magic, EVE Conquests, Game of Thrones. Though Magic seems to be winning if I go on how much we play it. Which is alot.

I go drinking on the weekends a bit with whoever's about. And if there's not many of us it's usually me going and meeting a new group of people to hang out with for the night... it's more fun when nothing's planned I find :) Anyone in Liverpool drop me a line and let's get drunk :D

And if you're wondering why I have "Lol" in the middle of my name, it's a nickname i've had since I was about 2, not because of "Laugh out loud" :P

Do you have a personal blog or non-Eve website you want to share:

Nope, this is it folks.

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Everyone else's turn now :).
Well time for some EVE talk, and lately i've had quite a lot of bad luck. I've lost 2 rifters, my tank punisher and have been podded, in 2 days of roaming. This is my worst streak so far, and even if they are cheap ships, it's annoying. Luckily I only use +2s and have 3 jump clones with implants in waiting. And it did provide me with an excuse to jump 45 jumps away to move my clone to a more favourable location.

I've had 1 kill though, but it was only another Punisher. So now i've bought another Rifter 45 jumps away from home in low-sec, and am moving through the sea of space to get back, hopefully without another loss, but we'll see shall we? Hopefully my luck will turn, i'm almost out of cash and could do with a nice ransom or 2 soon, or i'll have to put a proper amount of time into my mining character, and that's just boring to me.

Fly Safe.

- Noir Avlaa.