First days in the North *continued* "BFF"

Just around the time I start getting used to the typical routes between TVN, to H-W to UMI etc, a CTA goes out, and its a big one apparently. Corps were spammed for numbers particularly for Stealth bombers Dreads Titans, the works. I could've taken out my mega but the idea of a stealth bomber fleet intrigued me and has been something I wanted to do since I was able to fly the ship. Yet again learning to fly in a SB fleet was a completely new experience and I was learning on the fly.

As I would find out later, destination on many NC operations are "unknown" and "need to know". If you ask where you get the standard "spy" rhetoric so its best to just go with the flow and hope whatever you go after is juicy.

Started getting suspicious when I lost count of how many jumps we made. I think I stopped counting after 30. Even got stranger when we encountered a Goon fleet of 200 something odd drakes that joined up with the main fleet.

Before I continue when I first started playing EVE I heard snippets of null sec happenings, of the evil Northern Coalition, the bastards of Goonswarm, the might of Atlas and the Big brother BOB that swooped in to save the day. Boy how things change when you actually get into Null sec and see things for yourself.
That said, meeting with a Goonfleet for the first time was a experience unto it self. Reminded me of the few times I visited 4chans /b/ board just x200. If goons power ran on lcl spam. They would be unstopable. I tip my hat to the goons. They know how to put on a good fight from what Ive seen.

So yeah Goons joined up with the main fleet and I knew something big was going down. The SB fleet starts pulling ahead of the main group and before I now it we're in Delve and told we're en route to Querious (however you spell it) to kill a baby titan in production.

Our SB fleet lands in the system first and scouts out various points to warp in and initiate bombing runs and what not. Flying in a SB fleet you have to listen to the Bomber FC explicitly. Warp exactly when he tells you to because in a SB fleet you cannot see where your wingmates are and if you bump into one of them, odds are you have just killed you and your wingmate.
After we scope out several spots over the Reinforced POS we were told that the enemy is probably going to bring alot to save their baby Titan.

Main fleet arrives and starts blobing the POS, Enemy fleet never shows. IT spindoctors would go on to say "We didnt need that anyhow" or "It was junk parts no Titan was being made in it" riiiiiight.

Oh and right after get started Pandemic Legion hotdrops some caps into the field to help bring the pain to IT. First time I've ever seen Titans in combat \o/

Since enemy fleet was confirmed as a no show FC gave orders for us to approach decloak and get on some kill mails.

Some screenshots of said op








Note that I took damage in that fight because I was stupid and didnt have overview settings right and a few Pandemic legions members were netural to me, so I assumed they were enemy dreads and opened fire to get on some KM, they were kind enough to show me the errors of my ways by almost blowing me up =x. Welp!

I barely survived and continued on blowing up the tower and killing the baby Erebus.
It was in this fleet (I think) the FC had a contest to see who could come up with the best fastest B.F.F. banner that went with BRO FIST FORMATION as opposed to the old Best Friends Forever. I think the prize was like 20 mil but I went and made one up real quick. Some of you guys might have already seen it as I spam it every time BFF spam is called for and it actually got passed around a bit ^_^



It didnt get noticed at first but the attention its getting now is sufficient. I'm a child of the 80s and had a second hand Power glove when I was little. It was crap but awesome at the same time. I loved it when I saw it return to glory with the Angry Video game nerd.
The 80s nostalgia mixed with EVE made for a good combination I guess.

This fleet easily became the second best time I've ever had in a fleet to date. The best time comes up next when H-W gets seiged. o/ Thats all for now.

"Hello, I'm a schizophrenic, and so am I." My first days in the NC

A while back when I had just helped get my old corp SOTD off the ground, I decided that Caldari was the route to go it had everything I liked in space ships, Missiles, and shields. So I stopped my Galante Cruiser V skill learning while it was at 43% and started up training for Caldari ships particularly Force Recon. Around the time I joined Reliables I was into topping off my E-War skills. By then I could also fly stealth bombers very effectively just never had enough SB wingmates to ever do any serious damage.

Sadly I learned quickly that caldari are not the PVP ships of choice in null sec particularly the NC (debatable to some peoples) I had always wanted to go the Carrier route eventually which would get me into the Chimera and eventually a Wyvern.This all leads to what I changed my skill plans to but Ill get to that again in a bit.

First day I spent bookmarking Jump bridges using a seemingly out of date map. Learning new lingo from FCs and furiously taking down notes as fast as I could. I had moved down a PVP Rook, Falcon, Nemesis, Raven, Scorpion and 2 drakes with me with enough ammo and fittings to last me about 20 ish fits for said ships.

Day 2 I tried to catch up to a already gone fleet from H-W and learned the first mistake of traveling in 0.0. Never use gates when you can use Jump bridges. Ran smack into a enemy gate camp in D-7 (which is almost always camped \o/ )-1 ship.

I think I made it to another fleet later in my scorpion and I had trouble finding the primary (didn't think to use "history" for designated targets) Jammed 2 random drakes a Mega and a Oneros then got primaried. -1 ship again.

This was around the time I talked to one of our directors and had a very long conversation about pvp ships and while the caldari had a handful of epic ships (Falcon, Onyx, Scorpion, Tengu) overall they're better suited for care-bearing then pvp. It was at that time I adopted a philosophy to go down a skill route that was 50% for myself and 50% to be useful. I had just finished the majority of EWAR skills so I immediate trained up for logistical ships. Because EVERYONE <3's logi's.

It would take me about 12 days to get the pre-req skills for logistics since I already had Caldari Cruisers to V. The director I had talked to recommended I take the Amarr route and get into their BS, Carriers, logistics and while that would have been awesome. Sadly it would've taken twice as long if not longer then my current skill plan. I opted to fall back on my Gallatne roots since I already had quite a amount of skill points there. This meant building up Megathrons, Brutixs and whatnot.

I bought what I could in our home system but the market even in Tribute was low at the time and I couldn't get everything. So I had the brilliant idea to take my falcon up to high sec and buy the supplies I needed.As I mentioned in my last post when I first joined Reliables we were in 3 war decs between AAA, -A- (I think) and some other corp I cant remember COW maybe. I knew that we were in a war dec but I have dodged station campers in falcons before just never in Jita. I figured if I spotted WTs on overview I could burn down away from station with MWD on quickly cloak and warp off. This was quite possibly my dumbest moment in EVE. I actually make it to Jita spend 20 minutes buying guns for my megas, skill books and I think a spare set of +3 implants click the undock button...

blackscreen...

loaded back home in my clone station...

Yes I was instapopped and podded before I even loaded outside.

Was out 200 mill not including the ship loss. Oh and since I didnt have forum access it turns out I broke a important rule "NO LOSS MAILS IN JITA DURING WAR DEC'S" >_<. Was forgiven then given I didnt have access at the time. Still was a stupid mistake. Swore it would never happen again. And to this date, it hasn't. -1 ship. I forget what the other 2 were but at the end of day 5. Here I am in Null sec out 5 ships and little to show for it. Not looking good so far. I hoped my superiors didn't notice either.

I mine on my alt account like crazy and get some isk to make up for the loss's build me a mega with 2 back up BC's for CTAs with NC fittings. Its a Friday night and I hear about "Friday night lights" or something like that. It was apparently a drunk roam where you flew cheap crap under 10 mil or less and blobbed w/e you could to death. So using the best of the cheap stuff I could fly I fit up a 3 million isk blackbird using existing parts I had to keep the cost down insure it and head off to join these guys.

I forget where the roam took us but halfway into it I hear the FC call over TS; "Uh looks like things are pretty hectic in **-*** (I forget where) so we're getting pulled into a reinforcement fleet in H-W"

Well crap, I thought to myself. At the time all my PVP ships were in the home system in Vale so there was no time to grab em. Screw it I thought and charged forth with the fleet.

Some screenshots from said fleet





I consider this my first true NC fleet because I went throughout the entire fight didn't die and got on a handful of killmails. It was the most fun I had playin EVE since I started. It was also the first time Ive ever seen a Titan in person.
(was used as a Jump Bridge) Was exciting and a sign of things to come. By my 10th day my kills were tied with my loss's on battle clinic. And a few days after went above and beyond it. I was on the route to Logistics with the basilisk and decided to Finish Galante cruiser to V since it was already at 43% and have the option to fly the Onereos or the Basilisk. I flew megas whenever LR BS calls were issued and Ferox's whenever I lost the BS's.

I think that'll be all for now. Almost caught up to present day Shenanigans.

o7 until then

My EVE story part 2

For those who have not seen the Dominion trailer for EVE online I highly recommend it. Though it does not accurately reflect typical Null sec fleet PVP it is interesting spin on how a actual fight went down.

My first thought of Null sec before this trailer was that it was a wasteland of destruction where only the best survived similar to PVP only areas in Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies. The Dominion trailer (regardless of how it in-accurately depicted typical fleet battles) got me highly motivated to go to Null sec.

When Shepards of the dead were formed it was basically me, Jimmynooo, Crigga (CEO) and Avermaki. Shortly after the wormhole exodus and the dissolution of the old alliance several members that were good friends of Crigga's who were in other corps at the time came to join us. After some talk we formed up and discussed plans to go to Null sec.

In order for us as a corp to go down there, there was basically two ways.

1:Become pets
2:Form a alliance and force our way into 0.0 space

Option 1 was out of the question, pets have to pay rent, almost never get to go out on invasion fleets. Typically all they ever do is rat to afford the ridiculous prices they have to pay for rent and home defense when the masters call for it.

That left option 2. We decided that even with option 2 we would need strong financial backing to afford ships , skill books modules and w/e we needed so we could keep our PVPers well stocked. To that end we began plans for setting up a high sec POS and worked on getting standings up.

Not too long after that we join a alliance which was apart of a small coalition of alliances with the aim to join with Gentlemens club as partners not pets. However due to the crap politics that went on with this coalition we had to move our bases of operations from Mimmnitar space to Caldari and back about 3 times.

To put it bluntly we were fed up. It was around this time, the alliance we were in broke off from the small coalition yet retained its focus for 0.0 space. Led by "Jerseys Best Dancers" aka JBD and "Black Tower Syndicate" aka BTS who were a null sec corp for a short period of time. They brought in two more corps to our alliance and we constructed a high sec pos in a system called Steggete which was surrounded by two low sec systems which acted as a double edged sword.

On the one hand it was a buffer keeping most griefers and would be spys away on the other hand a fair amount of PVPers would come heading to neighboring systems making it a risky base of operations.

Around this time Crigga's computer suffers complications and dies. After about 2 weeks of leadership void I step up to become the defacto CEO and try to get operations underway, mining ops, WH ops, and continue our plans to Null sec.

Meanwhile our alliance takes on a new corp named "Virgina Company".
By taking them in this earned our alliance 2 war decs. Which with some effort were fought off and eventually dropped. I never did confirm how they got the war decs but if VC's behavior in alliance chat was anything of a indicator its no surprise that they did and that we would get more because of the behavior of their players.

After the 5th War dec me along with the alliance leadership determined enough was enough and decided to fight against our enemies as they were active in hunting us. (particularly VC members). We organize 11-20 man fleets and station camp them to which they play station games with us and score kills every now and then.

BTS, and SOTD (our corp) commit the majority of the forces but either get turned back or disband due to logoffski's. VC formed up for one fleet but was for the most part no shows for CTA's.

After a meeting with alliance leadership we decided to fall back to steggete if the enemy logged on and forced them to fight on the gates, on our terms where station games couldnt help them. It worked and they're attacks were practically non existent for a few days. Sadly several VC members got complacent started traveling to Dodixie with war targets online and got camped ganked or worse. Dont get me started on the idiocy that was their corp leaders.

Fed up with VC the war decs and the inaction of the founders of the alliance SOTD pulls out on my command.

The war targets threat to re'dec us unless a ransom is paid which I told them to "put their money where their mouth was" and went back to the drawing board to get to Null sec. They never carried out their threats.
BTS one of the main corps who fought and died with us in the last war decided to continue our working together in the name of eventually getting to null sec. No official alliance was formed but we set each other to blue +10 and continued to operate as usual. Plans were formed and we started research and production to get capital up to afford the various things a Null sec corp would eventually need. The foundation of logistics and ship production were essential.

After a very long talk with a friend of mine in Project Nemesis we discovered and enacted a plan for a 3rd option to get into Null sec.

A Mega corp.

A mega corp isn't anything like a alliance or a standard corporation. It is a corporation merger into a new entity. A new larger corporation. The plan was to combine BTS's and SOTD's industrial players and PVPers to become strong and more productive as a single entity, eventually get more corps to merge with us and join yes join not become pets with a Major Null sec alliance.

At first the plan met with resistance from BTS leadership who wanted to take offers to join with a already established Null sec corp. I argued that neither corp was ready for the move to Null sec yet as we needed more players and our current players to become more skilled. There was also offers for us to join Systematic Chaos but again the same argument was made, We simply were not ready as a whole.

Ultimately after several meetings it was decided by all involved that the most logical way for both corps to make it into Null sec would be the Mega corp. Egos would have to be set aside, leadership would be restructured and agreed on by all party's involved and above all patience and dedication to work towards the common goal.

This did not come to pass. One of the directors in our corp attempted a coup once he discovered he would not retain his director status in the new corp (which failed horribly as he is a idiot). BTS also showed signs of not wanting to commit even after agreeing that they would. And our official CEO was still MIA.

Eventually BTS's impatience and eagerness to return to null sec proved to be the undoing of the Mega corp. They had secretly taken the offer to join a null sec corp who owned 1 sov system and had backed out of their agreement with SOTD. They had also secretly recruited several SOTD members into joining them.

Patience was not a virtue for them.

SOTD was left a broken mess. CEO still missing, several key players leaving to join BTS and some to join Systematic Chaos. All the work that I and several others had been putting into getting SOTD to null sec were laid to waste.

I resigned my director position and left the corp.

I spent the next few days contemplating what I was going to do. I still wanted to go to null sec so I contacted my friend from PRONs who got me in touch with a friend of his in Majesta Empire in a corp called Reliables INC. aka 23-7.

I wasnt even sure if i was ready for null sec but after talking to both my friend from PRONs and the recruiter in 23-7 they were confident that I was qualified. Which isnt saying much imo.

In retrospect I really wished I had moved things down there before I joined wouldve had a few less loss's. At the time I joined 23-7 they were involved in 3 war decs not to mention Max 2 was in full swing (NC vs SC) I was able to get the majority of my PVP ships and modules to the corps logistics system to be jumped down to our home system.
I knew things in this corp was going to go well when I had packed up my gear to the letter where the carrier pilot who helped me haul my stuff down said "This is the easiest move Ive ever had to do for a new guy...I like you already"...

Before I continue Ill say this
Visiting Null sec
and living in it are two very very very different things.

I knew this before even coming up to the North. But I never pictured how right I ended up being. I basically relearned how to play the game. Bought a note book and pen. Took tons of notes. (which is really helpful to new null sec pilots I highly recommend it)
But that is the end of my EVE story thus far.
Ill start my Null sec story next time. Or at least The story thus far.

Let the good times roll