Tuesday 18 December 2012

Christmas is coming. It's campaign time and new ships discussion

Well while alot of us will be getting drunk, eating mince pies or getting the contents of Santa's sack unloaded on to us, Enslave. and allies are forming up a plan to make the holiday's in EVE go with a theme.

We have more or less decided on a campaign but this year won't be a road trip half way across eve to kill TEST like last year (although I almost up routed to do that. it was mighty fine last year) I won't go into specifics but it will be closer to home and against a known advisory of ours.

We've been sending out our collective scouts to present us which what I believe will be a easy going but balanced game plan to last us into the new year.

In the meantime I have been trying to learn how to make eve video's so I can upload corp propaganda. I am a real noob at it at this point but I plan to spin out a basic Corp video sometime soon in the new year. I will let you know.

The expansion has been out a short time now but at the very least I've managed to test some of the new changes to ships stats and also test some of the new ships.

The new ships while welcome are not in the way a game changer like the tier 3 battlecruisers were (Talos, Tornado) in fact the changes I thought would happen I have not seen any significant instances of people using them in any decent meaningful way on my side of the universe anyway. I am talking about mostly the newer logistic frigates and cruiser balances in particular esp the logi side. I expected to see much more mass logi frigate gangs and also much more t1 crusier gangs but as of yet even my corp and allies have not ran many crusier gangs as of  yet.

I hated the Talwar right off the bat. But today I ran it through Pyfa and came up with 2 fits I would like to try out. The Corax is ok but damn slow ass. I have not tried the others in real fights but I really should.

Overall the last week has not been fantastic pvp gang wise. But last night did Improve and we now have a new FC running structured gangs so all's good.

Oh yeah in other news I saw kil2 in low sec last night with my alt. I wanted to wave but I would have felt like a fanboy then so I didn't.


Thursday 29 November 2012

The Lion, The Witch and the Russian POS

Do you need a control tower for your corp? Are level 4's just not cutting it for you to fund one? Then maybe you should just loot one from the local friendly vodka drinking Russians.

I say friendly but they only today declared themselves new owners of our system and gave us 7 days to leave or we will be evicted. this is strange because we are in NPC space with NPC station which makes it an impossibility.

Now being bitter vets we've seen it all before so I say to my new Russian friends, bring it. Enslave. needs the fun and are ready for you.

Now back to the main bulk of the story, we were scouting our home and we happened to notice that there  was a Legion of Death Prowler slow-boating looking very afk away from the pos which had a titan logging in earlier. Not only that but the POS was mysteriously un-anchuring with 30 mins left to go. This was their error. If they had not threatened us in local and if they had not logged in a titan earlier. we would have not been alerted to their activity and would have almost certainly missed this.

Having spent a minute scratching our heads in disbelief we probed out the apparent afk capsular and within a minute he was probably awake back in empire. We waited out the timer, looted the large caldari tower and looked both ways and ran.

We couldn't believe what kind of random happen-stance had happened. This is why we play eve, it is a sandbox and you just don't know what's going to happen next.




Friday 16 November 2012

Being Stubborn for Stubborn's Sake

The other day we reinforced a local POS. We had our own reasons for doing so and the outcome was not set in stone. We tried many times to open negotiations with the owner of the pos to come to an amicable arrangement. What I mean is we offered the owner full blues including protection to the best of our abilities and to leave his towers alone for a small fee per month which was a flexible amount.

The Capsular refused at every opportunity  The pos set up was probably worth as much as the fee we wanted and the protection for him to do as he pleased was priceless in my opinion. With heavy breath we decided we'd give him ample time to agree to our terms. after a number of days we began to blow up his assets.

There were many attempts by 3rd party alliances and corps to disrupt us. But no one should underestimate Enslave. We pride ourselves in our efficiency, will and determination to see things through. We countered all attempts to disrupt us and after repeated attempts to again resolve the issue with the owner he refused to talk terms.

The pos was eventually destroyed. this was no ordinary pos, it was a faction medium tower which are not seeded anymore and there probably will be none ever again in game apart from the ones left. I do not pride myself in destroying this tower but business is business...


All I can add is sometimes I wish people took us seriously... A heed to any other entity who thinks we are a pushover corp.

Saturday 10 November 2012

Don't Feed The Trolls

I have noticed in the last few months local talk in EVE has been degrading in a downward trend. It seems the trolls are taking over the game. Unfortunately our corp seems to like feeding them trolls.

Yes, our home system is host to a said troll. When he's online he spends all the day saying how good he is and how bad we are and continues to attempt to snipe frigates. He apparently loves to talk in caps. This guy has serious personality issues. Mostly likely he is a narcissist or some kind of sociopath. I used to work in the field of mental health and I supported more people who had been sectioned who were more balanced and fit to be in the community and than this guy. 

Now I never normally out people by name on my blog but this guy is special. his name is Jerrry Rin. Now Jerry is an alt to someone who is also in Black Legion.

I say he's special as he's the only person I've met who's been temp banned from eve and also Flagged as an exploiter on Battleclinc's killboards. Don't believe me? take a look at this link and look at the comments section.

Summery. If you're good why are you trying to cheat your way to the top.. mmm.

He's also one of the few people in eve I've ever blocked. (I can count my blocked on one hand). I am so glad this guy isn't in my corp/alliance. he gives pvpers a bad name and that's bad giving how most pvp is viewed negatively by some  in eve.

I will leave this with one final note:


Friday 9 November 2012

Search and Destroy

Never underestimate an underdog, the underdogs keep saying, especially ones listening to a cover of 'Search and Destroy' by Skunk Anansie. (original by iggy 'fing' pop's stooges) it's not a bad cover really honestly. But that's not important right now, internet spaceships is.

There's nothing more soothing than a mail in the inbox asking to be blued because someone or some entity is worried about losing what they value. I won't name names and I won't say what. Let's just say capsular x got his zero sec assets trashed by vandals and capsular x didn't take it seriously enough and brought in his boys (alts) under the guise of a has-been alliance and corp.

Capsular x came into the trashed system with very expensive weaponry most likely to deter the locals from taking all the cables (moons) They/he mustered an ensemble of recons and t3 ships fitted for small scale anti-nano engagements.

I have to say Enslave. is not a balls to the wind in your face corp. We will hit you on our terms or not at all. If we're attacking you, Enslave. is 95% sure of success or survival. We dictate and not get dictated to. But on the other hand yes, we are yarr pvpers and we see every neutral as potential targets being pvpers and all. it's all about balance I guess.

We will though blue any corp for a fee of 1 Billion ISK per month, per corp. (with flexible exceptions) We don't care for sov and we care for millions of blues even less, So we have to be compensated for the trouble.

Back to the main story. The neutrals who we had targeted became very lax and very brave, they decided to field 2 carriers with little to no support. Enslave. has links in the game to factions with sizeable assets so, we decided to batphone our long time friends in suddenly Spaceships. They were more than eager to help out and bash some easy cap kills. The trap was set..



A budding pilot HarlequinZepa volunteered the task of heavy tackle and fielded a cyno equipped Arazu for the job. being the ships role is all about points and damps, even with the fact harlequin briefly goes on scan in the system this does not deter the neutrals from staying out the POS shields and not moving. Within 5 mins the cyno was lit and out pours a legion of death even XXlegion of deathXX would have been proud of in their peak.

The result 2 happy parties with an archon and thanatos kill with the thanatoes being worth 5.5 billion isk.

job done. Within hours the neutrals started mailing us asking for peace. I don't think they understand the mentality of PVP corps eh.


Tuesday 30 October 2012

Overloading guide

With a pretty uneventful day apart from things I'd rather forget about I thought I'd talk about an important element to PVP some people don't even think about or is underrated. This is Overloading whilst in PVP engagements.

The only time apart from the rarest of occasions you will use overloading is during PVP combat. This can give you a major edge which can lead to a swing to victory or losing a fight.

Overloading/overheating. Increases a stat on a given module.



To use Overloading you need a buy a skill called Themodynamics. This skill enables heat damage and gives a reduction of heat damge by 5 per cent per level. Get this to level 4 priority. I cannot underestimate this skills value as a pvper.

When to use it and when not to use it is personal preference. Some overload all the time (until you nearly blow up your module rack) some use it in even fights or because of quick gank is needed. like if someone is burning to a gate to escape. Or you are being primaried.

Overloading guns usually increases damage.Warp Scrams/Webs increases range, Microwarps/afterburners increase speed., Damage resistance modules increase the amount of resists and shield boosters and armour repairers get an increase in amount repped.

Nanite repair paste. is a item which you can repair your damaged modules on the fly in space after a fight. Very recommended if your in hostile space or no stations around to always carry some. Different modules use different amount of repair paste.

Check out this youtube video which is essentually a 20 minute guide on overheating found Here

Sunday 28 October 2012

Sniper Tornado's/Ships

There's nothing more a opportunist sniper likes to do more than insta pop frigates, - even cruiser sized ships. Well that's what I like to do.

Snipers generally operate with a minimal tank and sensor boosters to hell so locking is extremely fast, and the volley damage equally as deadly. The sniper usually also fits as many range boosting and tracking modules as possible. Tornado's are a popular ship of choice at the moment.

The sniper pilot usually displays his prowess by moving around various perches. warping the slightest chance of being caught and is found smacking in local about how good he is.

If your standing still in a frigate or moving towards the sniper (which negates ANGULAR VELOCITY) meaning if your within the snipers gun fall off and your far away your angular velocity is low and you have a high chance of being blown up quickly.

To avoid this keep moving with limited use microwarp drives (afterburner frigates) unless your a 'ceptor or know what you are doing with it. you need to be warping in and out like a ninja. you ideally need to warp out of his sniper range and come in via warp-ins.

Snipers have major flaws. this is two fold

1, they have no tank
2, they cannot hit for shit (turret ships) at close range.
3, tier 3 battlecruisers generally also have a frigate vulnerability which if a frigate can  successfully get under his guns and orbit around 500m the battlecruiser will die.

This means you need your corp friends to provide the warp-ins and you can then tackle the guy - apply dps/warp in and that's the end of the sniper. Don't let snipers intimidate you, or make the rules only engage when your the one with the advantage.


Whilst blogging this post I missed intel on a neutral jumping into our camp. but it was only a Heron which of course went to Heron heaven.

Also, whilst writing this blog only one Moa, Heron and Drake were harmed. We also got called assholes by nexus Fleet - bonus points.

Saturday 27 October 2012

To Roam or not to roam that is the question...

Today has been a mixed bag or losses and kills. whilst most of the losses have been with t1 cyno frigates. we did get one 'real' loss of a Tornado.

This was during a roam we had with some of our new friends. The roam was unfortunately uneventful with only one or two kills. And I got on none as I was logi for the duration. We went through Curse and providence. We did see the usual provi blob unfortunately.

Anyway, after the roam we decided to make our planned move to fdz4-a which we'd been planning all week. We anticipated resistance from the local natives but we have factored that into our fun time. NPC space you cannot get kicked out of. The locals either need to accept we have moved in or look forward to fun fights. either way I don't mind. It keeps us on our toes.

First loss went to us due to the fact cheap cyno frigates are easily insta-popped my many different ways. Our little cyno-tormentor is no different. We intend to level the kills in due course.

Over the course of the next few weeks we intend to pacify the threat in fdz and do what we're good at... More pvp roams.

Des also turned me Raven Castro. Mainly because of my political rants.

Low Sec Plexing is Worth It

I had a spare hour or so to play eve, having spent most of the day yesterday ill in bed I was up early, I I fired up the PC (backs up as heater in cold weather) and no one was really active due to being early so I decided to go scan for low sec plexes.

I had no idea I was going to get a lucky bunch of drops in the process, Just look at my hanger and cry. This took just over an hour I think. Nice work on my part.



Anyone even with low skills could have done these plexes, You just need a speed tank or perma tank and a  scout. Never once did anyone try to kill me during this isk making op.

Bio Breaks and leaving ships on a gate

I made the noobish mistake of forgetting my pilot was on a low sec gate. I was only gone about 30-40 seconds but when I got back the poor thing was in a pod. One Sabre ganked!!.. For nothing I may add. How stupid do I feel.

On the other hand Enwin better be careful I have kill rights now.

Small post today I'm afaid.


Wednesday 24 October 2012

Leaving the SOV Alliance

Enslave. have left the alliance known as Persona non Gratis. I have to say that our leaving has nothing to do with anyone or anything the alliance have done. We left purely by the fact that even though we tried to grin and bear it we did not like the CTA's. Most were boring and felt meaningless to our corp membership in general. We really consider ourselves a PVP corp first and SOV second. The alliance leadership wanted SOV first and PVP second. Just a difference of ideology that's all. We did not get kicked nor did we leave on bad terms. So that's out of the way I'll start writing about the day in general.

We are currently 'In between alliances' having a bit of fun and seeing where that leads us over the coming weeks. Any interested alliances need to contact Raven Hyperbollic or Priest Valton and they must be PVP Based and really we don't care for SOV at the moment at all as we don't want to do CTA upon CTA.

Our first day of freedom consisted of my scouting lxq for a easy kill. we was not actively looking for ex alliance members to kill just some solar and friends. well, anybody really. we are pvpers after all.

I managed to point a Drake in my Vagabond and had control of the whole engagement. I had a Talos backup who jumped in about 40 seconds later. An old alliance member called 0rnias decided he wanted to break the silent do not shoot code to ex corps out the window and uncloaked and jammed us so we lost point. Drake got away Raven was upset.

Before anyone said Enslave. fired first, this is wrong 0rnias did.

The main bulk of the day consisted of camping lxq-t due to the fact of proximity to our base and the gate was rape caged by our old alliance. Big mistake and home goal for the alliance. We stood virtually unopposed all night (there was a few times we have to bail from solar wing, and Nulli) and killed people flying through the bubbles Only resistance online were the usual smack in Local and Raven has a strict no smack policy so Raven ignored them.

When we did finally leave LXQ this strange event happened: (please click to see details, it explains all)


Frustrated by about 6 hours of total control loss of LXQ they decided to get the 'boys' out to blow up their own bubbles. I presume their flagship PNG PVP corp Capital Gents where to busy to unanchor or secretly enjoying the fact blues were murdered all over the place in friendly bubbles.

So, yes I'm outing 0rnias for destroying the bubbles of Capital Gents probably without their blessing and I have the screenshot to prove that.

Well, Tomorrow we will adapt or die so they say. What will we do??






Tuesday 23 October 2012

Tengu's Tengu's Everywhere

The last CTA we went on was at odds with what I traditionally call 'boring pos/sbu bashes purely for the fun of the inner circle of alliance leadership' with very little input going into the 'grunts' in the alliance making the whole CTA experience feel pointless for people not kept in the loop.

My corp was never involved in internal decision making in the alliance nor was it told anything any sooner than the rank and file. which when your telling your corp members to do boring things you struggle to give them meaning and justification for the operations.

However, the last CTA was quite good. If I had one of those Rooks and Kings hour-glasses I would have turned it and watched the sand roll down in glee for this one.

What started out as a standard POS bash against The Unthinkables alliance turned into a proper fleet vs fleet slug fest with both ethos's of cheap ships vs expensive ships thrown into serious question.

I have to add we lost the field on this one BUT we applied MUCH more damage (ISK) inflicted losses than we did by far. yes we won the isk war this time and must have but a dent into the alliances we engaged ability to fight well next time.

Back to the fight. We were moaning about the CTA in corp saying how boring they are when all of a sudden a neutral Falcon uncloaked right in front of my eyes at a range of 15km. Instincts took over and I targeted the falcon and burnt away in the opposite direction. There was a good 5-10 seconds before the fc called out the falcon but it was enough to prevent half the hostile fleet jumping in leaving maybe 15 Tengu class ships plus assortment come through the field.



Now, My alliance leader and FC does mass conga line tactics every time I've known him which I am dead against as leaves no room for the ability to escape if primaried. Nor do any of your alliance pilots learn how to survive as a single entity. Everyone must follow the lead of him and approach him. A no brainer actually. Being a rebel and in times of a fight I burn around how I damn please. (although this time it did not save me) The conga tactics did however prevail this time as tengu's were dieing left right and centre to the onslaught of our humble drakes and logi. Hostile reinforcements quickly arrived via jump bridges. and we found ourselves against equal numbers but against superior ships.

This did not stop the fact we destroyed 20 tengu's, 9 logi's, 2 hictors, 2 recons and 10 frigates. to our losses of 17 battlecrusiers (mostly drakes) 7 logi's and approx 6 frigates. ISk value of about approx half a  billion ISK per Tengu is a massive difference to a roughly a 70 mil drake.

It was a very fun fight and also for once I didn't mind losing my drake at all. Very nice killmails.

It almost makes me feel bad for hating politics in eve and CTA's.

Saturday 20 October 2012

CTA CTA CTA - Gypsy Band POS

Tonight wasn't a awesome weekend night the corp wanted. We was halfway to hostile space when our alliance leader broadcast on coms a CTA Form up. We refrained from pouring petrol on ourselves and throwing a match on it and decided instead to participate in what is our corp commitment to the alliance.
- The CTA, CTA's are a mandatory requirement in our alliance no if's or buts.

We as a Corp have always been a PVP entity and being in a sov alliance is an anomaly for us. We usually shoot the kind of corps/alliances who currently have blue standings with, it's a very frustrating state of affairs if you are a dedicated PVPer. But it's the chain we have to wear being part of a sov holding entity with it's commitments to other alliance's that it has blue status with.

We got a  few kills. Raven only tagged one however, but he laid the final blow to it and got the killmail. It was a solo Purifier which tried to bomb the tornado fleet into death. The pilot wasn't that versed in insta warp bombing so he met an end via 1400mm artillery and target painter. Larkhall and Ken got on a tornado kill on a gate I believe which was blindly chasing one of our blues.


Killmail is found here

All we had to to was reinforce a Gypsy Band Large POS. Very very very dull indead.

Raven was also neck and neck on the alliance killboard until yesterday then the other leader in kills went on one of the CTA's and Blew up multiple POS structures. I like killmails as much as the next guy but I don't believe POS structures should count for kills they hardly ever require any skill to do so.

Hopefully there is a rainbow up ahead with a pot of PVP gold waiting for us soon.. stay tuned.

Pro-Tip: CTA's are hit and miss if they produce fun fights or not. Sometimes its just about reinforcing a structure. other times its pos bashing either way you could be there sometime. My tip is bring standard ammo. don't waste good isk shooting structures with good ammo. and if you have an alt, do something with it at the same time like rat or isk make or something. But do listen to coms. and drop the second alt when action happens at the CTA.


Friday 19 October 2012

Migraines and Talos V's don't Mix

I've got a Migraine but now I have bigger headache. I've lost my precious 5th Talos and to Nexus Fleet of all people.

What happened is my forward scout spotted a lone talos with one more friend. Ship Unknown to me.

I decided I wanted to try to solo the talos due to it being only Nexus Fleet. and came unstuck due to a dodgy line out and over confidence I could kill said neutral Talos.

Props to the Rifter pilot Illyrio Erata who did everything wrong what I wrote about in my previous blog post about hero tackle and I insta popped him.

I went in for the kill on the talos, which was my mistake as about 20 seconds later a dozen or so Nexus Fleet jumped in when I was mwding towards the gate and not away so, it was my OMG 180 degree turn what killed me as the dps from Nexus wiped my fragile tank in about 2 volleys.



Oh well, now to welcome Talos VI

Pro Tip: Where I went wrong was to not leave a scout in the system before.
 If I had done so I'd probably still be alive Now and not in my POD STUCK IN LXQ due to my alliance thinking rape caging LXQ would be fun even when they aren't camping it!!

Hero Tackle - How not to

Yesterday we took out a roam into neutral space on my quest to syphon as much isk out of Priest Valton with his  Monthly Corp competitions and to make myself look good in front of my alliance peers.

We got some nice kills but we also took some avoidable losses, mostly in the frigate department.

When we call out to tackle someone the FC very often assumes everyone can read his mind and also know how to tackle without dieing fast. Leading the the infamous 'Hero Tackle' Award.

To survive especially against turret based ships like a Hurricane you need to know how something called ANGULAR VELOCITY works. I Highlighted ANGULAR VELOCITY because its IMPORTANT and every time I write ANGULAR VELOCITY I will do this in the annoying way I just did.

If you hit your microwarp drive when you head to tackle you make your liddle bitty frigate into a massive easy to hit target. Although I admit interceptors have a bonus to reduce microwarpdrive penalties (remember that) Being a massive target make every single shot hit you MUCH harder and hit you further than they normally would.

Ok, back to ANGULAR VELOCITY I'll make this as laymen as possible. Turrets Track you. if you go in a straight line towards your prey full speed blazing your little frigate will die. what you have to do is negate the hostiles tracking by approaching in a diagonal manor towards your target (don't forget to pre overload your warp disrupter to get that hero tackle till your in proper range) this somehow with the power of Maths reduces greatly the chance of being hit by your target. once in range set a nice orbit and do what frigates do. keep points.



There are many factors to be on the lookout these include frigate killing ships in the hostile fleet, A FC who is bordering insanity and neuts on ships like hurricanes (don't go close to a cane unless suicidal, keep over 12k plus)

PRO TIP: Oh yeah, you can add ANGULAR VELOCITY to your overview and I suggest you do. This helps both turret based ships and tacklers avoiding such disasters as 'where's my ship gone'

Hope This Helps.

2 Minutes To Midnight!!

Welcome to my first blog about myself and my Corp's EVE Online experience 


Raven Hyperbollic is my online alter ego in the ever persistent sandbox world of EVE Online.

Together with an ensemble of like-mined people from all over the (western) world we form the corporation called Enslave. We are part of a collection of corps called Persona Non Gratis which is latin (I want to sound intelligent) for Unwelcome Person or something along those lines. Which of course suits me fine.

In this Blog expect my daily eve intake of random PVP engagements, ISK making tips, PVP tactics, alliance drama bombs and stupid loss of the week award. Oh yeah I almost forgot the how to keep yourself unpopular amongst your peers bit.

Enjoy!!