A little Ishkur lovin'

Ah my beloved Ishkur. Three ion blasters, two flights of Warrior IIs. Long pointy-thing that no one can explain the purpose of. Sexy green paint job. (/emote starts drooling)

I've had some fun in this ship, tackling as part of a large(ish) gang, baiting larger ships to engage me on gates, 2vs2 alongside eviwyn against another af+frig pair and as part of AF roams.

Fitting-wise, I follow Turelles's excellent fitting which can be found here. On occasion, for example if I'm flying as tackler, I'll drop the tracking disruptor for a web. I've heard people make the argument for using a MWD instead of an AB, but frankly I can't see a benefit: gimps your cap and makes you vulnerable to scrams.

Yesterday, I fought a 1vs1 against another Ishkur pilot. We fleeted up and he warped to my safe. Observing the velocity of his ship, and using the handy 'look at' function, allowed me to deduce that he was mwd and rail fit.

I had no way of catching him, however his hobgoblins were no match for my blasters and flight of warriors so his main bulk of dps was quickly eliminated. I'd love to be able to post a tasty km here, but when I turned my drones on him he quickly warped away. For me, this is the main argument against the nano-ishkur, while its speed and added mobility give advantages in many situations it simply cannot put anywhere near the dps down that a blaster build can.

However, I'm a believer that strength comes from flexibility so I do fly a range of urrm.. other assault frigates. Namely, the Amarrian Vengeance and Retribution. I fit my veng as a dual-repped tackler and my retribution for AF-gang dps support. Neither of them can replace the ishkur as my main ship though: the Veng is slow with poor damage output; the retribution only has one mid slot.

All-in-all, I love my Ishkurs. I'm currently finishing up my training for T2 medium pulses (allowing me to fly my harbinger more often on fleet actions), then I plan on taking a detour to pick up interceptors. Its between the Taranis and the Crusader for me at the moment, with the ranis slightly taking the lead. After that, its onto t2 large pulses and maybe, dare I say it, the long road towards carriers and dreads.

Until next time, when CCP FINALLY GET THE DAMNED SERVER BACK UP

o/

Herr Direktor*

As you may be able to tell from the title, I got made a full director of Hellhounds earlier this week. Cyber Ten's still showing me some of the ropes, and there's still a load of menus that I have no idea what they do (if anything).

Last week I FINALLY topped the KB for kills (this week I'm joint top with the awesome Eviwyn check her blog out, its far more interesting than mine and has PICTURES :D). I know its not a big thing, but I've been trying to top the KB since I joined up, and pretty much every week I lead until Friday: where upon someone else logs in and leaves me in the dust.

Its been an interesting week on the piracy front. I was 'democratically' chosen to FC a couple of roams out of our base in Brin. Now, I've FCed before but that was back in my old corp where I was the most experienced at low sec piracy and so felt more confident in that role. Its a bit different for me over in HellFleet, where I frequently fly alongside people have been playing for years (some of them since beta).

Regardless, it was a quiet roam. Only action we had was when a thorax engaged Kaal on a gate. Could've gone worse I guess, considering what happened the next day.

Lesson learnt: Do NOT warp to the top belt in Amamake. It was a fun roam though.

Today my ishkur exploded against a rupture, I was doing fine until he managed to neut me so hard that I couldn't even fire my blasters or keep point. However, Evi and Jayde managed to bring him down so it was all ok I guess.

Next, we teamed up with a few guys from Devious Decorum to hit the Roughnecks. I was a little bit apprehensive about this as I was that my usual mixture of frigate variants wouldn't work, as they don't pack enough buffer to last until the carrier could get reps on it. Looking through my hanger, I settled on my old bait/camping maller: 22k in raw armour, with all resists over 75%. Cyber ten baited in his Abaddon and it wasn't long until the Roughnecks took the bait.

We only managed to net two of them:

http://www.eve-hellfleet.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=72027

http://www.eve-hellfleet.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=72026

Annoyingly, I'd fitted a short range point instead of a long range one so their Claymore was able to escape :(, alongside their harbinger and another ship that I forget.

From local, they weren't too happy about that :D

It was nice to be out blobbing the Roughnecks for once and having capitals backing us up. We got invited on a battlecrusier roam with the DVDC guys but we had to turn down: RL was catching up with us (plus, personally I don't typically keep one in hanger).

"LOL" kill of the week:

http://www.eve-hellfleet.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=72017

None of the others could keep point, except my Keres (which does terrible dps, but was able to keep point at 25km and damp him out of lock range). Eventually, we got our act together and managed to get webs and additional points on him.

Things are getting interesting round Essence and I'll keep you updated as to events.

Until next time, fly safe o/

(* Kaal did a hilarioius German Accent on vent calling me this)

Breaking Even

Yaarr?

Anyhoo, today I was stupid and got my gate camp busted by two Bastards. They graciously offered to let me go for 25m, far below even the cost of my harbinger's hull. If there's one thing I've learnt its that sometimes you're better off to swallow your pride and pay then have to go get a new ship.

Smarting from that I set course back to our holiday home in Brin. My scout (urrm.. myself) had probed down a hurricane who was missioning. Hungry for some action I warped to the acceleration gate. Disaster! The bumbling covert ops had decloaked and my target had escaped.

But then again, missioners often come back. And come back he did, to find 'Vidi vici veni!' (Translate it) sitting there waiting for him. Now a proper pvp fit hurricane spells death for pretty much any frig outside of a dram, lucky me he's a missioner eh?

I lock him up, scramble his warp drive, disrupt tracking on his guns (medium guns can hurt) and we both launch a flight of warrior drones. My guns and drones make short work of his drones, allowing me to focus fire on breaking his tank. From the looks of it, he's fitting an active shield tank with a booster. At this juncture I open comms:

[23:46:51] von Diel > 50m

[23:47:03] Chel MocTran > Haha my shi[p isnt worth that fool

[23:47:09] von Diel > ok

[23:47:19] Chel MocTran > Try 20 and youve got a deal

[23:47:32] von Diel > 30

[23:47:41] Chel MocTran > Again, more than its worth

[23:47:54] Chel MocTran > 20 only saves me 5

[23:47:58] von Diel > mate, I want to know where you're buying your canes from lol

[23:47:59] Chel MocTran > including insurance

[23:48:06] von Diel > ah good point insurance

[23:48:09] Chel MocTran > Make em

[23:48:12] Chel MocTran > :P

Well, I don't think he's taking me seriously.

[23:48:15] von Diel > aH

[23:48:17] von Diel > well

[23:48:18] von Diel > I dunno

[23:48:24] von Diel > 20 is fairly low for a bc

[23:48:28] von Diel > no deal sorry

[23:48:31] Chel MocTran > Meh your choice

I open fire again, ripping through his armour and into the structure.

[23:49:00] von Diel > ok

[23:49:06] von Diel > 25?

[23:49:15] Chel MocTran > Haha, alright

[23:49:23] Chel MocTran > give me a sec gotta transfer funds from alt

[23:49:32] von Diel > you got 30 seconds

At this point, as seems a trend when I'm ransoming people, a couple of new people enter local. Fearing its a trap, and as the dictated 30 seconds are up I resume fire. Suddenly wallet flash:

[23:50:11] Chel MocTran > Transfered

[23:50:22] von Diel > lol just in time

[23:50:32] von Diel > have a nice day :)

[23:50:36] Chel MocTran > i wanna know where you get your clocks

[23:50:40] Chel MocTran > :p

[23:50:45] von Diel > lol

[23:50:52] von Diel > it was 49:32

[23:50:57] von Diel > and it turned 50 :P

[23:50:58] Chel MocTran > gw, saw youre probes

[23:51:05] Chel MocTran > Not sure why I warped back in

[23:51:10] Chel MocTran > : /

[23:51:17] von Diel > lol I was sure I'd missed you

[23:51:25] von Diel > cov ops hit the acc gate XD

[23:51:36] Chel MocTran > I saw

[23:51:53] von Diel > yeah, I gotta work on that lol

[23:52:11] Chel MocTran > Ah well, good hunting

[23:52:18] von Diel > fly safe o/

So it ends on relatively amicable terms. Kinda wish I'd got more, but overall it means I broke even today.

In other news I've been playing with my vengeance a bit. Had some fun duelling with the aforementioned Kaal Redum and his new Rupture. Once again, a nasty opponent for a frigate pilot. Round one I conclusively hammered him. Round 2, he was having coaching from ceo Cyber Ten and had learnt a few things from our last fight. There was a few moments where I was close to structure, but in the end I broke his tank. Then burnt my guns out 'cus I was paying more attension to micromanaging my reps and booster. But that was ok because he ran out of ammo.

I'm chalking that up as a win, despite not actually winning (if that makes sense?). The Veng isn't meant to be a solo boat, the fit I use is designed to hold down a ship and tank it until backup arrives. However, I will give that Kaal gave me a real run for my money and that he would have ripped my beloved Ishkur to shreds.

In other Ishkur related news, I finally finished Assault Ships V. I'm tempted to buy and pimp out an ishkur to celebrate... treat the old girl with some faction and complex modules. Who knows.

Also, after running some numbers whilst bored and camping I decided to buy a Dominix BPO and get back in the manufacturing game. Assuming prices hold, it should provide some reasonable income in addition to whatever else PI brings next week.

Until next time o/