Assault Frigate Love #2 - Expanded!

At this time, I have received 9 entrance fees. With the Tournament still being quite a while off (13 days and counting), I estimate that there will be at least 16 participants due to several people telling me that they will attend but not sending me the entrance fee..yet anyway.

Anyway, here are the Expanded Rules of the Assault Frigate Tournament!

General Rules about the Tournament

Before the fight:

- In order to participate in the tournament, you must have sent me your entrance fee of 10M no later than midnight Eve Time on Wednesday 15th of September.
 
- You must be docked in Hevrice V station at 19:00 Eve Time on Saturday 18th of September.
 
- You must be logged into Tusker Ventrilo at 19:00 Eve Time on Saturday 18th of September as instructions will be given verbally. Having your microphone plugged in and switched on is not a necessity, but is a big plus. Ventrilo details are given towards the end of this post.

- Your assault frigate must be combat ready by 19:00 Eve Time on Saturday 18th of September. Your AF must abide to the rules listed below.

- You must be in my fleet by 19:00 Eve Time on Saturday 18th of September.

- When your name is called out, you must proceed to undock, warp to a random celestial of your choice and then warp to the referee at a range of your choice, up to 50km. Once you land, you must not move until the match is underway.

- If the station is being camped, an instant-undock will be provided to you. Warp to it, then warp to a random celestial of your choice and then warp to the referee at a range of your choice, up to 50km. Once you land, you must not move until the match is underway.

- A countdown to the match will be given both verbally over Ventrilo as well as in Fleet chat. Once the countdown finishes, the match is underway!

During the Fight:

- The match lasts 10 minutes.

- You must stay within 50km of the referee at all times otherwise you will be disqualified and considered KO'd.

- Dropping a jetcan during the fight is not allowed.

- If a winner has not been decided by the 10th minute, the radius of the arena will shrink by 10km every minute beyond the 9th minute. A warning will be given, both verbally on Ventrilo and also in Fleet chat.

- If a winner still has not been decided by the 14th minute, both pilots will be knocked out.

- You are not permitted to podkill your opponent.

After the Fight: 
 
- Once the match is over, the winner is declared, who is allowed to loot the loser's wreck.

- Immediately afterwards, the winner must dock back at Hevrice V station until his name is called out again. This time allows you to restock up on ammunition, cap boosters and drones as well as use the station repair service.

- Please note that this is a single-elimination tournament so if you lose one match, you are knocked out of the tournament.

- The loser must also dock up in Hevrice V station.

Rules about Fitting your Assault Frigates

- Meta 0 to Meta 5 modules are allowed to be fitted to your Assault Frigate. Typically, Meta 5 modules are T2 versions so T2 guns etc. are allowed.

- This means that Deadspace and Faction modules are not allowed.

- T2 rigs are allowed but an additional 5M per T2 rig fitted to your ship must be sent to Suleiman Shouaa as part of your entrance fee. 

- Combat Boosters are not allowed. 

- Hardwirings are allowed, as well as any pirate implants.

- Faction ammunition is allowed, as well as faction cap booster charges. T2 ammunition is also allowed.

- ECM is not allowed, including but not limited to ECM Drones.

- You must use the same vessel for each of your fights, with no chances to fitting between each match.

- You are allowed to change your drones between each match as they are not considered part of your "fitting".

Ventrilo Details and Rules:

Details:

Hostname IP: texas.ventriloservers.biz
Port Number: 3840
Password: walrus
 
Ventrilo Rules:

There will be a special Ventrilo channel for the Assault Frigate tournament. Guests should be able to move themselves to this channel, if not tell Suleiman Shouaa ingame and I will move you myself.

You are free to talk amongst yourselves, but when I speak everyone else will be muted. I will go over the rules before the Tournament starts.

During each match, the referee will attempt to commentate on the match.

Banter is allowed and encouraged!

Prizes:

1st Place - 100M cash prize + faction Cruiser of your choice. Choice may be limited depending on how many people sign up (more people -> Navy/Pirate Cruisers, less people -> Navy Cruisers only)

2nd Place - 50M cash prize + faction Frigate of your choice. Choice may be limited depending on how many people sign up (more people -> Navy/Pirate Frigate, less people -> Navy Frigates only)

3rd Place - 20M cash prize + you can salvage the field.

Misc.

The referee's decision is final. Backchat will not be tolerated.

Each match will be recorded. Once suitably edited, each match will be uploaded to Youtube.com and links to the channel given to each participant.

If you need to pull out of the Tournament, in order for your entrance fee to be refunded you must give me 24 hours notice prior to the Tournament beginning.
  
Spread the word! The more people we have participating, the better the prizes and the better the atmosphere!

Donations to the prize pot will always be welcome!

Disclaimer: If you break any of the rules listed above or conduct yourself in an inappropriate way, I reserve the right to remove you from the Tournament fixture and not refund you your entrance fee. 

Have fun guys!

Assault Frigate Love!

Been planning an Frigate tournament for some time, and I finally have the time to set it up etc. To make it more interesting, this will be an Assault Frigate tournament.

Details:

Location: Hevrice

Date: 18th September 2010 

Time: 19:00 Eve Time

Ships: Assault Frigates

This will be a single-elimination tournament where each match will have a 1v1 between two players, both of them in assault frigates. The winner of each match gets to loot the loser's wreck.

Entry fee -> 10M per player sent to Suleiman Shouaa. Set reason to "Assault Frigate Tournament"

NO FACTION OR DEADSPACE MODS ALLOWED. T2 rigs are allowed but you must sent me an additional 5M per T2 rig fitted to your ship.

You must use the same vessel throughout the entire tournament.

Faction ammo is allowed, but not faction cap boosters.

All pilots will be in the same fleet to prevent gangboosting alts etc.

You must remain within 50km of the stationary referee otherwise you will be disqualified. If you warp off, you will (obviously) be disqualified.

Podding someone is not allowed.

If the match takes longer than 10 minutes, I will shrink the arena size by 10km for every minute beyond the 10th. If there is no clear winner by the 14th minute then both pilots will be knocked out.

ECM drones and modules are not allowed.

Boosters are not allowed, but pirate implants are allowed, as well as any hardwirings.

Instructions will be given verbally, over Tusker Ventrilo where there will be a special Ventrilo channel for the tournament.


Ventrilo Details:

Hostname IP: texas.ventriloservers.biz

Port Number: 3840

Password: walrus

Note: Ventrilo details may be changed due to a possible Ventrilo server change. If they are, new Ventrilo details will be posted.

Prizes:

1st Place - 100M cash prize + faction Cruiser of your choice. Choice may be limited depending on how many people sign up (more people -> Navy/Pirate Cruisers, less people -> Navy Cruisers only)

2nd Place - 50M cash prize + faction Frigate of your choice. Choice may be limited depending on how many people sign up (more people -> Navy/Pirate Frigate, less people -> Navy Frigates only)

3rd Place - 20M cash prize + you can salvage the field.

Feel free to enter guys! More people -> more fun! Also, donations to the prizes will be appreciated. If you wish to donate, send me an email to the address below and I'll get back to you.

Prizes will be contracted to the winners in either Dodixie or Jita.

If you need help setting up your frigate in Hevrice, I can purchase it for you in Dodixie and haul it to Hevrice if you sent me the ISK before I purchase it. Cost will be that of lowest sell orders.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email at terminal.exodus@gmail.com as I will be unable to log onto Eve for the next two weeks. If you don't mind asking it publicly, reply to this blogpost and I'll get back to you ASAP. 

Alternatively you can register an account on the Tusker Forums here and send me an Private Message (Username - Suleiman Shouaa).

Slicer Fun - Part 1

I have recently taken to flying more nano-ships, retiring my larger ships and instead focusing my efforts on my Imperial Navy Slicer as well as my Omen Navy Issue. The following two blogposts will contain my adventures one night in my Slicer.

Whilst on a brief tour of systems near Hevrice in my Slicer, I spotted an Ishkur on directional scan in the system of Adirian. Narrowing it down manually, it was clear the ship was in a asteroid belt. An Ishkur is a state of the art Assault Frigate, armed with fearsome hybrid weaponry as well as flights of light drones, both of which could be lethal to my ship if left alone.

Warping to the Asteroid Belt at range in order to ensure that I did not land on the Ishkur, the assault frigate was a mere 30km from me. The pilot was unknown to me, but his allegiance was as plain as day, being a member of the Rough Neck Alliance, famous around these parts as the de facto overlords of Adirian and neighboring low sec systems, meaning reinforcements were likely.

The Ishkur, renowned as an excellent and versatile assault frigate

Keeping this in mind, I overheated my warp disruptor and settled into an tight orbit of 25km around his ship with my microwarpdrive on, staying well out of his range to see what his response would be. He released a flight of drones, whilst at the same time a Sleipnir pilotted by his corpmate landed, another state of the art ship, this one however of a much larger size and capable of shredding me to pieces if he got within 30km of me, which was a problem as my range of my lasers is only 24km.

A plan formed: judging by their velocities, the Ishkur was fitted with a MWD, allowing him extreme speed but at the penalty of his capacitor. Even with the MWD fitted however, I still had a speed advantage on him which I could exploit.

I began drawing the Ishkur away from his corpmate. Slowly, I inticed him towards me, keeping his mind away from sticking with his buddy. At the same time, I called for help over comms in order to deal with the Sleipnir once the Ishkur was brought down. Two corpmates responded, Commoner in another Slicer was first on the scene. When he entered local, the Sleipnir disengaged to our regret.

With both of us firing on the Ishkur, he began burning away at full speed hoping to get away. We gave pursuit, and took him down just as my second corpmate Kishin Hattori landed in his throwaway Rifter designed to suicide tackle.

In our haste to keep up with the Ishkur, both me and Commoner forgot to stop moving, and the pod made it to safety. As the loot was in the process of being collected, a Jaguar flown by the Sleipnir pilot landed in the belt. The Jaguar is a very fearsome Assault Frigate, another close range brawler.

However, with all three of us in the belt his fate was clear. Held in place by Kishin's Rifter, the long range lasers from the Slicers chewed through him in no time and he exploded also.
At this point, we went out seperate ways, with me checking out Lisbaetanne, home of Hellfleet, a fairly well known pirate alliance founded by Mynxee. Once nomadic and actively roaming, nowadays they prefer to gatecamp a high security entrance stargate, picking off those who enter their domain.

Typically, there are two possible scenarios when you enter Lisbaetanne, either there are large ships on scan capable of tanking sentry guns camping the stargate, or there is nothing on scan at all, with everyone being docked.

However, this time was different and several frigates were on scan, as well as a Blackbird and Rupture. Attempting to narrow them down took several seconds, but I quickly determined that they were in a safespot. What's more, there were several frigate wrecks there also. Judging by their names, Hellfleet were having a frigate tournament and the Tuskers weren't invited!

The Blackbird, capable of neutralizing several threats at the same time through the use of its jammers

 This would not stand, so a quick chat on comms later, we were ready to rock and roll. Kishin had reshipped to his own Slicer so we had 3 Slicers vs 2 Cruisers + 3-4 Frigates. This would be interesting, especially given their Ewar superiority with the Blackbird. Scouting out their location with my Covert Ops alt, I determined the Blackbird was roughly 50km away from the pack who were clustered around a jetcan, obviously using it as their arena marker.

As this was going on, the following broke out in local:

[ 20:32:41 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Lisbaetanne Local Channel
[ 20:33:22 ] arcyaxiom > [20:33:04] eviwyn > hey ***** you dirthy lurker!! whats up!!?
[ 20:33:30 ] arcyaxiom > ^^^ she can't talk in local, so asked me to tell you this
[ 20:35:23 ] arcyaxiom > and you're a dirthy prober too
[ 20:41:14 ] Xeross155 > even go as far to use sisters probes, hmm determination
[ 20:42:11 ] Xeross155 > cant touch this

Immediately followed by this. As we shredded their Blackbird to pieces, the rest of their fleet just docked up. We also managed to pod the fellow also. As we gathered the loot from the untouched wrecks on the field, we hoped they would come back to avenge their corpmate. Unfortunately, they remained docked, in awe of the sheer power of 3 Slicers.

Frigate tournament winners - Imperial Navy Slicers

 On our way out, a Megathron appeared on D-scan and was narrowed down to the cosmic beacon, ratting away. Warping in as one, we dispatched him fairly quickly and then podded him for good measure. Funny enough, during the fight we saw Hellfleet members undocking and then re-docking. Again, we prepared for a rematch but the majority of them stayed docked.

[ 20:54:00 ] Suleiman Shouaa > gf
[ 20:54:02 ] Commoner > gf
[ 20:54:03 ] Kishin Hattori > gf
[ 20:54:12 ] Xeross155 > who'd you kill
[ 20:54:43 ] Commoner > IBaz
[ 20:54:47 ] Commoner > in a mega =)
[ 20:54:58 ] Commoner > very n00b fit
[ 20:55:50 ] Suleiman Shouaa > http://tuskers.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=7391556
[ 20:55:52 ] Suleiman Shouaa > Take care.
[ 20:56:52 ] Montague Summers > omg
[ 20:57:05 ] Montague Summers > what is that a speed tank?
[ 20:57:08 ] Montague Summers > lol

We split it up once again, with me nabbing a Faction Warfare Manticore attempting to do a mission on the way back to Hevrice. Interesting choice of cloak.

After entering Hevrice, I docked in my station and went afk for an hour or so. The second part of my tale continues on from this point at another time.

My Dream Ships

It seems that fellow blogger Astrid Dominix has asked his fellow bloggers what their dream ships are in New Eden. Now before I reveal my two choices, I feel an honorary mention must go to my favorite ship, the dreaded Curse:

Many have fallen to this ship, their capacitor shattered as flights of drones work their magic

Whilst this would normally be on the list, I already own one and have it lying around in my Hangar waiting until my Spaceship Command and support skills can do the ship justice!
Now, onto my real dream ships.

#2 - The fearsome Ashimmu. Having recently sold one, I had a chance to see the ship ingame. Very sleek indeed! With a bonus to stasis webifier effectiveness and energy neutraliser, this ship is a formidable "lock down" ship, limiting what the enemy fleet is capable of doing.

Feared by both children and capsuleers, the bringer of things worse than death itself

#1 - Armageddon Navy Issue. Having flown the Tier 1 hull varient, I have come to appreciate the sheer damage it can put down.

 Commanding one is among the greatest honors one can attain in the Amarr Empire, and suffering the fury of its turret batteries is surely the fastest way to reunite with the void.

My only problems with the Armageddon are:

• The restrictive Dronebay. You can go either with a full set of Heavy or Sentry Drones for maximum damage, however then you have no drones that can chase down interceptors.
• The incredibly tight fittings on the ship, forcing you to have to make compromises with the utility high and medium slots.
• The lack of medium slots, 3 is pushing it with a Battleship in low sec. 

Thankfully, the Armageddon Navy Issue solves all three of these problems making it in my eyes, my dream ship.