Tuesday, February 26, 2013

New Alliance, New Home, Same Business


alli logo

On the 22nd of February the stockholders of Dee Void Merc Syndicate joined Villore Accords ticker [GMVA]. So far the move has felt good. The reason for the move out of a the general Gallente Militia Federal Defense Union was that we were already flying in GMVA fleets and we liked the FCs and guys there. After talking with the leaders more and being in even more fleets we felt that Villore Accords supports the type of culture that we wanted to grow in Deep Void.  GMVA started in late January of 2012. As in their mission statement they wanted to provide a place for Gallente Militia pilots to find fleets and better prepare for the forever war against the Calidari State. I have since talked with Julianus Soter the current CEO of Moria. and Villore Accords


Julianus Soter GMVA CEO

How long have you been playing EVE and been involved in Faction Warfare?
I've been playing since October of 2007. I have done faction warfare on and off since faction warfare began. 

What keeps you playing EVE?
The intense action, friendships I've made in the corporation and elsewhere in game, and the awesome fun I've had with them in and outside of the game.

Why was Villore Accords founded, and who were the line members? Whats its history?
Villore Accords was a standings bloc and wardec shield created several years ago before alliances could join the militia. The main contributors to the original coalition were QCATS and SOTF, along with Genstar

What are the goals of the Alliance?
The Alliance's primary objectives is to be a motivational engine in the Gallente Militia to counter and punish Caldari plexing and PVP operations throughout all of lowsec. 

What is the greatest moment in New Eden you have had?
Wormhole operations in Moira., we found a Hydra Reloaded control tower in w-space on directional scan, in class six space.
This wasn't very unusual, they had a few in several systems we had scouted already. However when I checked the scan output. . . I didn't see a force field. The tower was offline.
Over the course of the night, Moira 'evacuated' the assets of the tower, fending off a Hydra emergency respose Orca and Pilgrim, gaining around 3 billion isk in various faction modules. Was a good night.

What is the plan for the future of the Alliance?
The Alliance seeks to grow and expand our pvp and plexing operations, increasing in effectiveness to rise to the challenge Ev0ke poses in the Gallente/Caldari front of Faction Warfare.


Several squids read my blog, do you have any word for them?
To the Caldari: stop taking credit for the Ev0ke successes and perhaps try to fight us more often, instead of running away ;).

As for DV-MS the move to Villore Accords home system has been done quickly. Most members are current there and simply a waiting orders. Here is Julianus for answering my questions and here is to Villore Accords.  Finally Deep Void has a home, now just in your Comets its time to get back to work.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Fly Safe #15

Rule of three.  
When stacking the same module on your ships it best to follow the rule of three. As the effectiveness os the modula decreases with the more of the same type of module then after three of them you are at under 50% making the 4th one useless. 
1st Module = 100% effectiveness 
2nd Module = 87.0% effectiveness
3rd Module = 57.1% effectiveness
4th Module = 28.3% effectiveness

Saturday, February 23, 2013

"New Eden Superstar" February ~ Adriel Malakai

Pilot Note
In New Eden there are many many different pilots and many different ways to play. It is the greatest sandbox, where your dreams come true as well have you watch as they are crushed into thousand pieces. New Eden superstar is a look at a different capsuleer that Phox has encountered in New Eden and their take on EVE Online. I do not fully support them, but I feel that their views of the game are important to get a greater grasp of the New Eden Universe. New Eden Superstar are those chosen players that play EVE their way 

New Eden Superstar 
Adriel Malakai

There are thousands way to play EVE Online, no way is right and no way is wrong (unless you put small guns on a battleships then you are very very wrong).  Late in fall of 2010 I was still budding in New Eden and trying to become more focused player. I had my first taste of PVP a fail fit Brutix in a Wormhole fight with Noir. Mercancary group and I wanted to more. 

To educate me in the art of PvP in New Eden was Adriel Malakai although it was not in a way that I would have wanted. After a nearly 50 day wardec, I had lost a few ships to is corp, but I gained a huge amount experience and a drive to learn how to PvP. From talking in chats and watch how Shoulda Checked Local [OOPS] set up fleets I gained better understanding of PvP and knew that I didn't want to be a carebear anymore. So for the month of February I give you Adriel Malakai a New Eden Superstar. 
   How long have you been playing EVE? What got you playing?
I've been playing consistently for about three years (since May 2010), but first played as part of Goonswarm on my original character in 2006-2007. Adriel has been my main for about two-and-a-half years (since October 2010).

   What role do you play in EVE, Pirate, Griefer, Education officer, Etc...What job did you start out with?
   I currently play a combination of a Merc and a Griefer. Some of what I do is griefing for hire, though a lot of our contracts are actually defensive decs, where we are paid to come in and shut down the aggressor quickly and efficiently.
   When I first started playing on my original character, I was just a random grunt in Goonswarm dying in merlins. I only played for about nine months between 2006-2007, and came back in May 2010. When I came back, I actually started a HS mining/missioning corp with some RL friends and did that for a while before getting utterly bored and decided to start killing people. About that time (October 2010) I founded Shoulda Checked Local with four of my in-game buddies to be a pvp corp. We all used brand new alts (Adriel was a few months old and just had learning skills at the time) and started killing people after about three weeks, teaching ourselves along the way. This was hands down the best decision of my EVE career.
   What makes you keep playing EVE?

   The part that keeps me coming back to EVE is the fact that I can truly play the mean, terrible person who ruins people's days and absolutely crushes everything people have worked for. In most games, it is expected that all of the players are relatively friendly, helpful, and working to make the game a fun time for everyone. In EVE, I get to absolutely ruin someone's game - and it's both expected and encouraged. It's a fun place to let loose and just be someone completely different to how I normally am. Then you add in the adrenaline rushes from big fights, and you've got quite the addicting game.

   As a Wardec corp what is your favorite war and why?

   My favorite war is probably the one we had against Axiom Alliance. It was our first major war and we kept getting fight after fight. In the end, we destroyed well over two hundred ships (close to three hundred if you count an alt corp we used in the beginning) and had several very memorable fights. I'm sure some of my recollection is through rose-colored glasses, but it's definitely the war that we compare all other "great" wars against. A link for our campaign can be found here.

  Favorite kill you have had in EVE?

   I have quite a few favorite kills from the last few years, many of which were rather cheap, but caused a very large number of tears. But, I have to say one of the most profitable kills, that happens to be one of my favorite is Kill: Brooksy2005 (Bhaalgorn), accompanied by this Kill: Brooksy2005 (Capsule).
   Brooksy was actually a guy we were interested in recruiting, who claimed to have massive PVP experience, and was coming to HS to try out decs/mercing for a while. His previous character was ~5k/500 in LS/NS, many of which were small gang/solo kills, so we were quite interested. He claimed that he sold his previous character and bought this one due to the incredibly low standing with the Gallente and Minmatar (both -10.0)
   Once we got him on comms, we began to realize that he was absolutely retarded, didn't understand anything regarding PVP, and was somewhat annoying. So, being the assholes that we are, we convinced him to jump in his retardedly expensive slave set (originally meant for an Avatar by the previous owner) and to fit out that incredibly expensive bhaalgorn. As a final test to determine whether we would kill him or boot him, we instructed him to put the second MWD on the ship to "Dual prop to ridiculous speeds." He enthusiastically fitted it to the ship, and his fate was sealed.

   Once we had him safely moved to our staging system at the time, we brought him into an alt corp in the alliance for his 30 day probation, so that he couldn't AWOX anyone. Once in, I asked him to duel my Vindi to test how good his Bhaalgorn was. Since this was pre-Retribution 1.1, I convinced him to go suspect so we could legally shoot each other. Once he went yellow, we locked him down, kicked his corp from the alliance, killed him, and caught his pod. We then proceeded to ransom him for 1b ISK before podding him. he then went to join The Ghost Army, before they kicked him for being terrible and losing expensive ships.
   Everyone has a favorite time in EVE either a roam, op, or just a certain place in the game, what was yours?

   My favorite time in EVE is whenever I'm FCing a fight - the bigger, the better. I get a real thrill from fleet fights, and love fighting outnumbered, and still pulling off a win. There's nothing quite like the adrenaline from taking a fight you're sure you're going to lose.
  Last one, what advice do you have new players or new pvpers?

  The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to fight smart and to pay attention to what's going on around you. Many players get super focused on the one dude they're shooting and get themselves killed because they weren't watching local, their overview, and d-scan. Part of fighting smart is knowing when to run, and what not to engage.
  The next biggest thing is to pick a ship and fully train it. Once it's fully trained, then move to another ship. Jumping all over the place ends with you having a bunch of terrible ships instead of a few good ones. Other than that, you should never stop PVPing. =)




Though it started out as a rocky one at gun point, I consider Adriel to be on of my good friend in New Eden. As a member of Axiom Alliance I saw first had what a well trained and organized group could do using small numbers. In the best way I could, I tried to follow her example and continued late night chats about fitting and tactics. And after nearly two years of asking question and seeking help. I finally made it into a Shoulda Check Local Fleet.  


Friday, February 22, 2013

Late night Flights...

"The Piranha Brutix" 
"There's a man going round taking names..." opens up a Johnny Cash classic "The Man Comes Around", an old world favorite. With that tone in the back of our minds we set out to create a Low Sec Gank ship, that in the gang could take names. We looked to the "Wolf Pack" Talos of null with its speed and high DPS, what we wanted was a cheaper ship with higher tank, and could be thought of as a light weight brawler.  Enter what we call the "Piranha" Brutix fitting code HEB-ASB-MSF-VI. Un-boosted it has 30k EHP with okay shield resistances for an armor hull, and with Null ammo and Hammerhead II hits for 640 DPS, with the booster the EHP hits 40k with a 1500 shield recharge.

I know that I will hear that we are not fitting the ship right and that we need to use the armor bonus, and while most of the time I will agree with you, what we were going for is a bit of speed and gank. For long 26 jump roams we want to be able to get to gates quickly. With the armor ship we are not able to catch cruisers class ships and or burn back to gates before we are webbed and bumped off gates.

The Man Comes Around....
So we began our roam from Nisuwa, 26 jumps through Black Rise, Placid, and Essence.  There were three of us with a Tengu Booster scout.  Six jumps out in Aivonen our scout comes across a Myrmidon that is looking for a fight, we send the booster and two "Piranhas" into the system next door Pavanakka while the "bait" waits at the stargate on the other side.  The Myrmidon lands on the gate and our bait jumps into Pavanakka with the Myrmidon following where we are ready. The Myrmidon pilot is thinking this will be a easy kill Myrmidon vs Brutix, but when he finds three of us there now he is not as excited. With 3v1 he holds his cloak and sends an message of help to his alliance. Being at 0km on the gate we wait for him to uncloak, once he does he becomes the primary. As we apply DPS and move to bump him away form the gate, he has a Loki booster and two Tornado Attack Battle-cruisers jump in. We are unable to make it the Tornadoes as they pull range to apply their high Alpha Damage nearly 13k a volley. 

Quickly we switch back to the Myrmidon hoping that at least we get him down before the High Alpha eats through our low tanks. We are successful killing the Myrmidon usually fast for a hull of its class.  Myrmidon down we began to burn away from the Tornadoes hoping to get out of warp scram range, but with the Loki on the field and their Warp Disruptors over heated they manage to grab one of us before we get out. 

 Minmatar Attack Battle-Cruiser Tornado  
        Caldari Tengu Strategic Cruiser      
 Minmatar Loki Strategic Cruiser
                         

20 more jumps...
The downed pilot reships to a "Piranha" Thorax and we continue our tour of Black Rise. The rest of the flight we don't meet any more pilots that want to fight our small gang even in one case where they had 14 pilots in system to our 3.  Ending the roam, we finally look at the kill mails to see how we fared. Our Burtix lost was 80mil isk while their Myrmidon netted 90mil so the isk war was won. But looking Myrmidon I start shaking my head as I see why it died so fast to our gang. Only two reps and no Ancillary Armor Repairer this ship was lost before the fight started. If it would have dual repped and ARR it would have been much harder to kill and could have killed at list one of us before going down.

I like flying the "Piranha" Brutix and want to do more of them in the future. They lay out nasty DPS and in larger gangs can really ruin peoples days. Here is hoping for more of these gangs. 

Thursday, February 21, 2013

You Never Know How Strong you Are....

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.~Unknown

While on evegate (Yes, people post on evegate) and looking at what some of my contacts post I came across this. It was the second time that I had read it in a couple weeks the first being on facebook.  I thought about it and make sense in some ways. Then I thought about EVE and forever war between the Gallente Federation and the Caldari State.



After 6 months of owning the battlefield, we began to believe in our strength  We had became the Kings and Knights of Black Rise and Placid. Our immortality was sealed we would never die.  We conquered all the fleets we saw. Our Armada sweep through the stars, bring death on swift wings. As the numbers of Star Systems crept up and we began to own it all we saw that had arrived. We achieved that greatness that few have tasted, not as a single alliance or corporation, but as a coalition of free pilots that sought to spread the glory of the Federation. But we wrong, we not who we thought we were. We were not the Kings of our Destiny, we were in fact pawns, on an ever growing board. 

Slowly the State began to take systems back as we looked in the mirror of our greatness. Their horde from the depths of 0.0 roared. Yet we still did not wake from our apathy. We still believed that we were there, we were unstoppable, not seeing that we stopped ourselves.  The tides of the war turned. 

With the flood of Caldari State Plexers and Combat Systems invading our systems, we have no choice, but to stay strong  

Stay Strong Gallente Militia, Fight on.