Exile

....aaaaand I'm back.

2012 was a year with little to offer for me, a torrent of RL crap ruining my life in New Eden. But it's behind me now. Thank goodness for that. Because I can return to New Eden with a fresh perspective.

I kind of returned about November and got back in touch with my best-est space friends the [R1DER] alliance. It was great to catch up with the old guys and all of the new faces. I spent my time in the Black Dragon Fighting Society not with the Black Rebels as I was way out of touch PvP-wise and I just wanted to do my bit for the corp and show some brotherly love to our new up and comings. Plus I am shit at PvP so it's probably where I should be. Not with those cut throat REAL PvP'ers.

I have only just left [R1DER] to go wander the dark parts of New Eden on my own. I miss everyone already and I really really miss the [R1DER] Forums. Nothing quite like them in Eve I assure you, I might not miss all the ponies so much...but maybe I do :P

My reasons for leaving are pretty simple, it's not them' it's me.  Becoming an alliance, and adding a drafting corp, along with a couple of other corps now starting to specialize in different areas of the Eve spectrum of violence, I have fallen out of my place, or the place I had imagined I occupied within the Black Rebels. I also feel that I need to go it alone for a while, and toughen my self up and "earn my patch". I cannot hold a candle to many, well most, of the other pilots. I don't think I ever will. I had become so intimidated buy the size of the corporation, and the growing alliance that I was putting myself through a whole lot of stress due to some sort of performance anxiety. I simply felt like I did not deserve to be flying with these guys. If you Know [R1DER] you know just how stupid I was being. It's pretty much a do what ever the heck you like kind of place with a great bunch of people more interested in having fun than obsessing over KB stats or comms, fleet doctrines, yadda yadda yadda. You know the kind of stuff that is the death of fun in a game like this and makes you feel like it's your second job.

So TL/DR I was having stupid imagined issues and needed to step out for a bit, grad some fresh vacuum and get my head sorted.

I now fly truly solo, in shit fit T1 frigates [most of the time away] that I love. Under my own selfish private banner. Nothing but my ammo to keep me company. It's quiet, but gives me a lot of room to think and play.

My current thoughts on my play experience is to fly T1 Stuff, with no implants, no boosters [which I have never used], no drugs [not used them either] and try to spend the lowest amount of isk I can on fittings. I read in a few very successful PvP pilots blogs that meta is ok as far as modules go, you can compensate with player skill. There's a challenge, Challenge accepted :)

Your average T2 fit T1 frigate will set you back between 10 and 20 or so million isk. I intend to spend around 3 to 5 mil per frigate. I will try to pick my fits and ships accordingly. I am a brawler, I suck at kiting, so I will be picking tanky ships with bonus to damage or resistance maybe, or both if I can. I see this giving me trouble in many scenarios but I will try a few non-standard modules and tactics for low sec frigate stuff and see how I go.

So the plan is, take out my Junk Yard Dogs, an die in a fire until I acquire some of this ephemeral "player skill" people keep talking about.


I have also begun recording my fights as a learning tool, as recommended by my space buds in [R1DER]. I cannot tell you how helpful this is, esp now I have a computer that can do it at a decent frame rate.

From time to time I'll put them up here.

Like the one below.

As time goes on I might add some commentary, but that will be after I manage to say something other than, "Oh Crap! Oh Crap! Oh Crap!"

I learned quite a few things from this fight;

1. Thrasher is still and awesome ship, and a great equaliser
2. Pilot age is not necessarily an indication of how the fight will go
3. I need to work on my micro management of modules more
4. Nuets really ruin your day on an active tanking ship
5. How to embed videos from you tube

I flew up to The Bleak Lands FW Amarr area as I had heard form many [R1DER] pilots that it was a fur ball of small gang and solo PvP. Sounding just like my cup of tea I grabbed a dual rep incursus and hit the warp button.

I aplogise for the warrior II info box on the screen, was a result of some frenzied miss-clicking. Better vids to come, promise :)