Tusker Frigate FFA Round #2 - 05/01/13 - 18:00 to 24:00

Artwork by Rixx Javix, ran on behalf of I Legionnaire

After the roaring success of the last Tusker Frigate FFA, we're doing it again on the 5th January 2013. This time, it'll be bigger (Destroyers will also be allowed in the latter half) and longer (it'll last 6 hours instead of 4). Plus, if you sign up, we'll set aside a few fitted hulls for you.

More details can be found here, including the various ways you can sign up for free ships.

See you there!

A brand new Eve

My desktop is finally setup and ready to go so I've been easing back into Eve.

Sure is pretty with everything on high settings. Got into two decent scraps so far which I've recorded. Rusty as hell though.







Prizes for guessing what (absolutely terrible) mistakes I made ^^

Frigate FFA: Prizes

Took longer than I expected due to the killboard not giving me all the statistics I required + people not posting all their kills & losses, but I have finalised the list of prizes and who won what. Details can be found here.

Frigate Free For All Tournament

I've started a job so RL has been fairly hectic for the last few weeks and any Evetime I have I've been using to set up a Frigate FFA Tournament aimed at new pilots, but there are rewards for pilots of any age. Details can be found here if you're interested.

Interview

Hilmar_Keller, an writer for The Mittani had an interview with me, with topics ranging from how I PvP (where, in what, how often etc.) as well as some questions regarding the Tuskers themselves. The interview can be found here if you're interested.

If you have any other questions you want me to answer, evemail me ingame with them and I'll answer them in a blogpost sometime next week.

4 Years of Tuskers

From Jaxley, fellow Tusker Director, extra details added.

Last Sunday, The Tuskers celebrated their 4th birthday making spaceships explode I guess and not actually noticing. Turns out I actually lead out an organised roam with us in Armour HACs on this momentous day, with the first kills being us fighting a 15-18 man FW Battlecruiser gang with our 15, smashing all of their Taloses and a few of their support, their 3 Scimitars, Siege Links courtesy of their Vulture as well as 2 Falcons making our task much harder.

Next fight immediately afterwards was against their blues, the local Russians. This time, they were in Armour BCs, numbering between 18 and 25. We snagged most of them, but were unable to pin down their Arazu and several Battlecruisers & Cruisers.

 At this point in time we have accumulated more than 50,000 kills, over 10,000 of which have been pods. Today this puts us at the all time #2 spot on BattleClinic's corp ranking, with the gap to the top shrinking.

Luckily, Tuskers have some real accomplishments to celebrate:

 4 years is quite a long stretch, even considering the glacial pace of internet spaceships; 4 years of sharing the same home, the same basic requirements to join, the same code. Very, very few corporations can claim to have done this. Despite this, we remain positive - Low sec is still exciting (arguably more recently than in the past) and there are still ~goodfites~ to be had, as well as ganks against those who should know better.

 We've come a long way from only being able to afford & have the Skill Points to fly Tech 1 Frigates - we regularly fly 100MN Tengus (I've caught onto this craze also, they are amazing fun), Tier3 Battlecruisers and Recons are common sights in our fleets, we're branching into Faction Battleships but despite this we still use our destroyers & frigates, routinely down-sizing when challenges approach.

Tuskers. It's what we are. It's what we do.

Portent #3

Unrigged Brutix + Myrmidon vs Drake, Drake, Hurricane, Myrmidon, Stabber Fleet Issue

Situation:  I found a Hurricane & Myrmidon bearing, killed them both. Their friends got mad and camped me in, I pulled them around system whilst a corpmate in a Brutix made his way over. There is one planet that's ~45AU from the sun and pretty much everything else, I stayed around there then with their SFI watching, warped to the sun at 100. My corpmate in the meantime made a pounce just off the sun and aligned down to me. SFI landed ontop of me and the video started.

Corpmate arrives in a Cyclone very late into the fight, but is driven off pretty quickly.

Complete Guide to Ammunition Choices

This guide is for people who want to know what ammunition to carry in new ships they've trained and why. It's actually posted (amongst other guides) internally on The Tusker forums if anyone was curious. 

Whilst there is some benefit in carrying every single ammunition type available, often for cargo bay reasons (both for loot & cap boosters), this isn't wise for the very slight increase in performance over using the following list. Selecting the right ammunition is crucial - most pilots have absolutely no idea on which ammunition to carry and why and blindly follow whoever told them how to fit their ship, which themselves often never pay attention to correct damage selection. In lage fleet warfare, this makes little difference, but for those who solo/small gang pvp often, this difference is often crucial. 

First of all, a quick summary of correct damage types to use (assuming some specific hardening has been done to patch large resist holes (less likely at frigate level, much more likely at BS level where you have more slots for tanking):

Tech 1 ships:

Armour tanked - Explosive > Kinetic > Thermal > EM

Shield tanked - EM > Thermal > Kinetic > Explosive

Unsure or unclear - Thermal / Kinetic > EM/Explosive

Tech 2 ships:

Amarr - Thermal > EM > Kinetic > Explosive

Caldari - EM > Explosive > Thermal > Kinetic

Gallente - EM > Explosive > Thermal > Kinetic

Minmatar - Explosive > Kinetic > Thermal > EM

Missiles:

Missiles are radically different from turrets - their Tech 2 versions actually penalise the ship as a whole as well as the missile launcher, making them less desirable than turrets. Additionally, Caldari ships often have specific damage bonuses to Kinetic missiles, making them the default ammunition of choice rather than the full damage selection offered by other race's missile boats. However, an opposing damage type must still be sought to use against Caldari & Gallente T2 ships.

NOTE: For support ships such as Recons which do not do much DPS with their launchers, DO NOT USE Tech 2 missiles - both penalties (furies increasing your signature radius and javelins reducing your velocity) are unacceptable for a mere 10-20 DPS increase over faction ammunition.

Caldari Ships with Kinetic Bonus - Use Kinetic ammunition as default, swapping to Mjolnir if fighting Tech 2 Caldari or Gallente targets.

Close range missiles - Heavy Assault Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes etc.

Caldari Navy Mjolnir - Does EM damage. Nice contrast with Kinetic damage as mentioned above. Use against targets smaller than you or same size targets who are not webbed.

Caldari Navy Scourge - Default missile choice to have in your launchers. Use against targets smaller than you or same size targets who are not webbed.

Mjolnir Rage - Does EM damage. Nice contrast with Kinetic damage as mentioned above. Use against targets larger than you, although can be used against tagets the same ship size as you if they are webbed. Can be used on smaller targets if you have a target painter or two as well as a web on the target. Increases your signature radius substantially!

Scourge Rage - Does Kinetic damage. Use against targets larger than you, although can be used against targets the same ship size as you if they are webbed. Can be used on smaller targets if you have a target painter or two as well as a web on the target. Increases your signature radius substantially!

Long range missiles - Heavy Missiles, Standard Missile Launchers, Cruise Missile Launchers etc.

Same as above, although adding in Scourge F.O.F. missiles to use when you are damped or ECM'd to hell. They will fire on the closest target that is currently aggressing you, including drones.

Missile boats with no damage bonus - Same as above, but instead of using Scourge (Kinetic) missiles, use Nova (Explosive) missiles in order to have two completely different damage types, as well as carrying some Inferno (Thermal) missiles when not sure on how the enemy is tanked.

Turrets:

Energy Weapons - Good base damage, good range but relatively poor tracking and uses large amount of capacitor. Instant swapping of crystals & their low volume makes ammo choice selection fairly easy. Also locked to EM/Thermal damage types.

Pulse Lasers - Close range variant, but able to project to medium range due to Scorch.

Conflagration - Used for very close range brawling. Use when you are able to dictate the enemy's transversal by manually piloting or using "keep at range" command, by being faster than them (having a web here helps). Also works well when shooting ships larger than you. Uses more capacitor than other crystals, but the added DPS is worth it, as well as it doing 50:50 ratio of EM:Thermal damage, meaning that is much stronger against targets where EM damage is lackluster.

Imperial Navy Multifrequency - Standard close range ammunition when shooting targets that you can't reduce their transversal. Does more EM damage than Thermal.

Scorch - Long range ammunition, predominantly EM damage.

Beam Lasers - Long range variant, high DPS, good tracking & range.

Gleam - Short range ammunition with a tracking bonus.

Imperial Navy Multifrequency - Standard medium range ammunition. Does more EM damage than Thermal.

Imperial Navy Standard - Standard long range ammunition. Does substantially more EM damage than Thermal.

Hybrid Turrets - Highest damage weapon system with best tracking, but generally lacking in range. 5 second reload time. Locked to Kinetic/Thermal damage types.

Blasters - Close range variant, high DPS, high tracking but typically poor range.

Caldari/Federation Navy Antimatter - Short range ammunition. Does more Kinetic damage than Thermal.

Null - Long range ammunition.

Void - Used for very close range brawling. Use when you are able to dictate the enemy's transversal by manually piloting or using "keep at range" command, by being faster than them (having a web here helps). Also works well when shooting ships larger than you. Does half Thermal and half Kinetic damage.

Railguns - Long range variant, moderate DPS, high tracking and high range.

Caldari/Federation Navy Antimatter - Short range ammunition. Does more Kinetic damage than Thermal.

Caldari/Federation Navy Iridium - Medium range ammunition. Does more Kinetic damage than Thermal.

Caldari/Federation Navy Uranium - Long range ammunition. Does more Kinetic damage than Thermal. 

Javelin - very short range ammunition, with a significant tracking bonus. Does more Thermal damage than Kinetic.  

Projectile Turrets - Good damage selection, moderate range, good tracking but low base DPS although most Minmatar ships have a "double damage" bonus on their hull, ie. Turret Rate of Fire & Turret Damage.

Autocannons - Close range variant, low DPS but good tracking

Barrage - Used for kiting purposes. Does predominantly explosive damage.

Hail - Used for very close range brawling. Use when you are able to dictate the enemy's transversal by manually piloting or using "keep at range" command, by being faster than them (having a web here helps). Also works well when shooting ships larger than you. Does predominantly explosive damage.

Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium - Used when you need more tracking, ie. medium turrets vs frigates and you are unable to pull range or neut them off you. Does a mixture of damage types so will hit at least one resist hole.

Republic Fleet EMP - Close range ammo, does predominantly EM (bit of explosive).

Republic Fleet Fusion - Close range ammo, does predominantly explosive (bit of kinetic).

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma - Close range ammo, does predominantly thermal damage (bit of kinetic).

Artillery - Long range variant, high alpha but low DPS

Quake - Short range, slightly higher tracking version of RF Fusion.

Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium - Used when you need a bit more range than EMP/Fusion/PP will give you. Also gives a moderate tracking bonus. Does a mixture of damage types so will hit at least one resist hole.

Republic Fleet EMP - Close range ammo, does predominantly EM (bit of explosive).

Republic Fleet Fusion - Close range ammo, does predominantly explosive (bit of kinetic).

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma - Close range ammo, does predominantly thermal damage (bit of kinetic).

If you found this guide useful, please post in the comments as well as suggestions for anything else you want covered. 

EC- ~goodfites~

Average day in EC (check the Naga fit)

From my corpmate's POV as I was dying.....

I have the best corpmates :S

And yes, this happened a few months ago. Corpmate only annotated his screenshot a few days ago...

What's in my Hangar?

My ships in Hevrice, have more elsewhere though

Starting from the top left corner, with memorable fights in them..

Portent #2

Portent

Stay tuned.

Tusker Heavy Assault Gang

RL is getting busy again, so my playtime has gone down and soon will be non existent, at least for the next few months. However, recently we've been trying out more gang compositions in order to mix it up from just kiting around all day and I've been mostly FCing those roams.

Fleet composition is fast armor HACs. On paper it seems similar to Agony's TWEED gang due to quite a few ships featuring in both (Deimoses, Oneiroses, Zealots etc.) but in reality it's different when you've flying them - it's a skirmish fleet setup, designed to skirt around the enemy and pick off tackle etc. rather than dive balls in for every engagement. Of course, this causes problems, for example it means it's more vulnerable to Battleship gangs due to having difficulties getting under the guns, but it's alot more flexible and has the ability to engage gangs that outnumber you without requiring a ton of Logi.

We've frapsed a few of the fights, such as the one below which a member uploaded to YouTube. His piloting was poor as you'll see...

The Horror of Null Sec

So, what have I been up to recently? Beyond chain running plexes in Caldari & Gallente space to earn some ISK, I've been roaming Syndicate, that region of 0.0 situated closest to Hevrice with a few corpmates. No Logi, no ECM, so no handholding, just DPS & tackle, the way things should be done. So what have I killed? Well......read on

WARNING: This piece clocks up at 4500+ words and is over 11 pages long so I suggest grabbing a drink. I also suggest opening a map of Syndicate from the ever useful Dotlan maps in order to track our movements if you're not familiar with Syndicate.

Titan Down

On Superbowl Sunday (not that I follow the sport) a Titan died. Not just any Titan - a ratting Titan, confident in his security. He was ratting in a dead end system, with the only entrance bubbled to hell - almost 300km of bubbles to traverse to even enter the system. Combined with his alliance mates sharing intel channels, reporting any movement around him, neutral or red. He thought he was untouchable. He was wrong.


Why am I discussing it? Well, I was the one who made it happen.

I've already written a Battle Report about this kill, posting it on our internal forums as well as Failheap Challenge. Fellow corpmember Marc Scaurus blogged about it here.

After some poking, I submitted the BR as an article for EveNews 24. It went up a few hours ago.

Enjoy!

Drake OP

And this is why.......

http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=12163768

P.S. Recruitment for The Tuskers has re-opened, for AUZ/US timezone pilots only. Instead of an SP requirement, we now have a list of minimium core skills, as well as the ability to T2 fit a Shield Battlecruiser to within 80+% of "max performance". Good luck!

Alt-Truisms

This post is about using one or more characters to support your "main" character in PvP directly, thus I will neglect to consider market alts and the like. Instead, the categories of alts I will be considering are:

i) Boosting Alts
ii) Neutral Logistics Alts
iii) Scooping Alts
iv) Falcon Alts

I am aware that some people PvP on more than one character separately, but in my eyes those are also "mains" in that they are used to PvP separately and not together.

In no way do this post suggest that everyone trains an alt to assist them in PvP. Some pilots such as Wensley, Miura Bull truly do fly solo with no alts of any kind and do great things. Personally, I prefer to be able to engage any gangs I run into within reason and there is no doubt that using an alt will increase the amount of gangs you can engage, both in terms of ship types available as well as in sheer numbers.