Blog Banter: Home

Home is...complicated.

For the past few years, my home in EvE has been everywhere. Wherever there was can mining, I would be there.

Where there were stupid people doing plexes in 0.0 with an obvious wartarget or at least a neutral in local. I was there.

Was I terribly effective? Heck no. There's only so much time I could devote to my pass time of punishing the stupid. Did I make someone's day bad..Yes. But I always made myself as much at home as was possible. A cache of ships as near as I could get. Probes, a hauler, various tools of punishment. My inventory list is awesome. Enough combat and hauling to start a megacorporation. Over 250 stations with a pvp capable ship and a hauler. Over 90% of empire covered and visited at least once.

Home was everywhere. And then I went into retirement. And I've anchored myself to a new 'home'.

It isn't a bad home. I've already found neighbors who don't like me and are also stupid so they are easy to take advantage of. I can mission and mine. I've even got corpmates now who mission and mine, and we've done it together. For the first time in a long while (Probably since home was Dodixie, and Suddenly Ninjas was young and being bothersome) I've got folks of like minds to do something with on a continuing basis.

And that my friends, is where home is really. I suppose Home is where you can fulfill your purpose. Be it a doggerel scoundrel existence or something more puritanical. Your home is where you can *do* that thing. Is your thing tilting at windmills? Taking over deep space? Being a foot soldier? A scammer? Your home is where you can *do* that, in your own space and time. Log in, do your thing, get closer towards your goal in your own place. You may be sharing with 2000 people (Looking at you Jita Scammers and Traders right here) or 20 people (My new home) But, it is *yours* because that is where you can fulfill your needs, the *why* of your eve existence.

Hm..the stuffing's been kicked out here and there.

Well, it looks like the recent war with the goons have gone and pretty well wrecked the snot out of the Honda Accord and the Tadakastu-Obata Corporation. Seeing as all that's been logging in lately have been six people...

WHICH MEANS IT IS TIME TO RECRUIT!

Do you need somewhere to relax with other vets and folks who are so new they squeak?

Do you feel the need to go and blow someone up (even your corpmates) in brand new pre-fit rifters? (Coming soon as part of our pvp 'get used to dying' training regimen.)

Bantam Ball Tournament (Coming Soon as part of our situational awareness training regimen with PRIZES!)

Mining ops with equal splits and Orca Support until you get into your own barge/exhumer! (Yes,that's right, come on down in your mining cruiser..there's room!)

Be Big, Be STRONG, Be SHINY. Tada-O!

http://space-llamas.net for our official site. Our in-game channel is TADA-O. Come on in and have a warm cup of SHINY!

The IEEE Rides into the sunset.

There are no more standards to properly enforce. The arrival of the new mining barges and exhumers have put a nail into the can mining coffin. And it is pretty well gone for good.

It takes the most new of the new about a week to get into a Retriever. And they don't bother with cans any more. They either have an orca or just shuttle back and fort to station now.

Without folks mining into cans and being generally bad mining operators, the IEEE no longer has a way to make the meager income required to stock the photocopier with paper, the coffee maker with coffee, and pay the Gallente secretary.

So with a heavy heart, I have mothballed the IEEE.

I was expecting the crimewatch changes to be the actual final nail, but it is the lack of folks operating their corporations so badly as to be noticed.

It has been a while coming. The IEEE will be out there, holding its name and ticker and a storage place for the stories. But the heart and soul behind it are gone.

Your intrepid Chief Librarian is going into semi retirement (aka: Going Full Bear(tm)) and have joined up with an industrial alliance. Currently at war with goons and others. And will be pulling the bears (kicking and screaming if need be) into some semblance of being able to work together and spit in the goons' eyes instead of hunkering down and turtling.

I don't expect that any thing we do will actually effect the goons as a whole, but you never know.

The blog will be updated as fun things happen. Or as I figure out this 'Production' thing I keep hearing about (I'll finish PE 5 at some point)

Zed

A return of the itty of doom.

I'm in empire for a while, quite possibly a long while due to helping a few friends of mine, which involves an awful lot of down time unfortunately. And what does an IEEE agent do when faced with nothing else to do? He goes out and looks for miners mining against the book.

The iteron is just as I remembered it being the last time I took it out. Stately and slow. Still loaded and waiting for the return of its pilot. They have an incredible cpu capacity, greater than most battleships, but nothing on the hull usually requires anything even remotely that powerful. The current iteration is an armor tanker. Ever since webs stopped working very well and nosferatu changed, the shield versions have become interesting but ultimately less capable.

Unfortunately everyone mining is doing so in approved manners. Orca pilots riding herd or solo miners flying off when their holds were filled. But then I ran across some wreckage. Some unfortunate pilot has been ganked. His retreiver wreck sitting full next to a thrasher wreck colored blue. Putting two and two together, I picture what happened. A low skilled pilot toiling away with his barge, and someone just wandered up and suicide ganked him.

I light up the burner and see what is left in the wreck. Taking everything as another retreiver wanders in. Oh goodness it is the unfortunate pilot who just lost his retreiver. And a thrasher shows up. The same pilot who ganked him. And I'm waiting for the flash and desperately trying to target both of them. While the cpu is great in an iteron, the sensors are unmitigated pieces of crap.

But the thrasher yellow boxes me, and the retreiver flies off. How odd... I hear the tell-tale sound of a scanner go off...I think the thrasher might be scratching his head when the retreiver pilot shows back up. In a thorax. I take a look, and see at least three different gun types, at least two rails, and one thing that isn't a hybrid at all and decide that it should be do-able. Willing the sensors to lock faster, I start looking like I'm running away.

I'm waiting for the thorax to lock me up, and it isn't happening. No yellow box. I almost give up on him when the love taps arrive. Ungrouped 200mm rails and a light 250mm artillery pieces? And way out of range neutron blasters. I turn the itty around, mash the burners, he's out of tackle range but I can charge him..at a stately 350m/sec. Damage signals going off as the thin shields on the iteron evaporate and the deck twitches as the blasters get their range. But now he's in my range and targetting actually comes online. Cranking up the blaster I flip a couple small armor repairers on and the secret weapon against all hybrid boats, the energy neutralizer. I can smell smoke from the iterons electronics. Duct taped modifications on the hull making the reppers work extra hard, and the capacitor feed lines have that arcid smell of over use. Especially when the small cap boosters are pumping out twice their normal output to keep things going. The navy boosters are great but play hell with everything. Prayer is involved when shunting this much power through every system in what is essentially a converted hauler, but things seem to be holding together. The trip through the shield is taking forever because it is hardened and boosting? Everything is quiet in local. Just the gentle noise of my blaster, and the larger noises of his blasters and rails and projectiles and drones. Until all but one of his guns goes silent. Capped out. The pilot disconnects, helpless. The crackling ozone smell that the energy neutralizer always sends streaming through the access ways adding further strain to the capacitor feeds. I start playing games staggering my reps to try and stop swallowing the navy cap boosters.

Finally...http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=17153320 (Or, just for EnderCapitalG: http://ieee.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14246280)

The pod e-warps off. The thrasher having stayed the whole time to watch. And suddenly the thrasher goes red as he tries to volley the iteron of doom. It hurt worse than anything the thorax came up with and being unsure of possible friends I kick all three reppers up, slamming the overheat and dump both cap boosters at once. Going from half armor to full in practically no time. Willing the lock to come through before concord arrives to at least get on the kill report. But no dice.

I collect everything and wander off. The station nearby offering expensive repairs for all the overheated and damaged modules. There being no point in offering assistance in local or a pointer to the IEEE sites for a disconnected pilot. And somewhat pleased with the iteron again. It has been a very long time since I pulled it out of the hangar. And as I pulled it in, I knew it would sit there waiting for me again to take it on a crusade against the stupid.