is every fight "good"?

So my Rifter from the last fight is dead. Not surprising at all, but my most boring “fight” yet by far; a Wolf who had been sitting near me for some time decided he wanted an easy kill, warped to my ship and destroyed it with virtually no resistance. It probably would have helped if I'd been moving, or... doing anything besides looking at certificates and having them explained to me by my corp.

Oh well. It's not like I expected my ship to be safe while doing this, or for everyone in RvB to be about fighting rather than just killing. I don't even care particularly that he had the class to destroy my wreck and loot. It was certainly dull, though, and I hoped to write a bit more about how that fit died than “attacked by superior version of itself while motionless.”

There's no real lesson here, at least nothing I wasn't wilfully ignoring, so here's the killmail from last night:

2011.12.08 15:20:00

Victim: ***

Corp: Red Federation

Alliance: RvB - RED Federation

Faction: Unknown

Destroyed: Rifter

System: Autaris

Security: 0.5

Damage Taken: 2915

Involved parties:

Name: *** (laid the final blow)

Security: 2.30

Corp: Blue Republic

Alliance: RvB - BLUE Republic

Faction: None

Ship: Rifter

Weapon: 200mm AutoCannon II

Damage Done: 2915

Destroyed items:

1MN Afterburner II

Small Trimark Armor Pump I, Qty: 3

X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 280 (Cargo)

100mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Dropped items:

Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 360 (Cargo)

Small Capacitor Booster II

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 135

150mm Light AutoCannon II

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 2

Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 194

Small Armor Repairer II

Damage Control II

Cap Booster 75, Qty: 15 (Cargo)

Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Cap Booster 75

This is more of a footnote than an actual post, so I'll put it here.

I eventually got around to fitting out one of my remaining Merlins with a medium shield booster and a cap booster, as it seemed to be the last remaining hope I had of using its tank to its greatest potential. Sadly, while it did better than the MSE versions, it still wasn't enough to kill a Rifter even with tech 2 neutron blasters, rockets and faction ammo. It was also pretty expensive for a fit that didn't really gain me more than some extra fight time – the relatively cheaply fit Punishers did better.

Honestly, it's looking like I should put this hull on hold until I'm comfortable with flying Hawks and Harpies. On that note, I'm considering heading out to try exploration for a while. I want to know what it's like making more ISK while I can still afford to try different methods. I'll probably start with high-sec exploration, followed by either the same in lowsec or some ratting in nullsec.

Of Rifters and unusual ideas

So, two updates thus far. Firstly, I've lost a third Punisher to another stupid mistake. I had fit it out with more tank by upgrading my resist to an EANM II, but this meant dropping my nos for a neut. I hadn't tried them before, but it was all that would fit, so I put it on there figuring if I didn't need it I would just not switch it on. At least that was the idea.

Later on I met the same Rifter pilot featured in a few of my previous posts. I knew he had beaten me before, so he was at least a better pilot than I was, and I knew he liked to fight alone, so I wasn't likely to get swarmed. As it happened, we agreed to a 1v1 on a nearby planet, which we hadn't bothered with before but it probably made sense on his part as I recall a few other Blue ships around (one even came to watch) who might have felt like intervening in an unofficial match – something they tend not to do if you have an agreement.

We warped to the planet and engaged. I believe I overheated my guns at some point, and of course activated all my modules. I actually turned on my rep a little early, because I hadn't taken as much damage as I expected. I think I was just in the process of shutting off my AB when I realized my cap was sinking dramatically. Like, a lot more than usual. I had heard this guy mention he had a neuting fit before so this didn't surprise me much, but here is where I went horribly wrong:

It had been a few hours since I fit the ship. I didn't remember my exact plan for it and, in the heat of the moment, had activated my neut thinking it was a nos. With my cap drained horribly, I kept turning it back on without ever cluing in to the fact that I was effectively committing suicide – I'm not even sure a Rifter has enough cap to completely neut out a Punisher, but either way I was making its job easier. Everything but his web (I've determined for sure that he doesn't bother to scram) and neut was cap independent.

As it happens, what I had done was turn it into a DPS-v-Tank war, and with his ship actually being fit that way in the first place, he won. It was closer than I expected, but my failure was complete and fairly spectacular. He offered me my stuff back, but I was off to get a different ship, and suggested he sell it to recover some of his repair cost. My fits so far never seem to hit even 5 mil anyway.

My next ship, and the one that wouldn't be using those old modules, was a Rifter. Yes, I finally gave up wanting to be different (for a little while anyway) just to see if I could at least be adequate. Also, Minmatar does have most of my skills, and I flew Rifters enough that I'm comfortable with them.

On this Rifter I fit three of the biggest not-big guns I could find: 200mm AC II's. Its mid slots were the usual AB and Scram I've been using for ages, plus one tech 2 tracking computer with a tracking script. Here I'm probably going to get a few funny looks if anyone ever reads this, but there's a purpose to it and I'm getting there.

The lows were a 200mm tungsten plate, an EANM II, and a SAR II, which I'm not sure whether I'll include if I use this fit again. I guess it could have been more useful in another fight. My rigs were one to RoF, and two to tracking.

My ammo was entirely tech II, Hail and Barrage. I'm still not sure if that was a better idea than faction ammo, but it was cheaper, did a little more damage, and with all these tracking mods, plus skills and the ship's bonus to tracking, my tracking was 0.6-something even with it loaded. To compare, I think the new small blasters track at around 0.5 without mods or bonuses (but with my skills). I might have overdone it a little to be honest, but all the tracking disruptors had become annoying and I wanted to see if I could get revenge.

Before I even had a fight someone in my corp wanted people to shoot his Cyclone and test his tank. He asked for cruisers, and for battlecruisers, but there were no takers. After using bookmarks to tease someone who likes to kite in a Slicer, I fired at the BC for a while and did about as little damage as one would think. Still, maybe he got some idea out of it, and I always carry too much ammo anyway.

I then bounced around the system looking for things, and at things, because after downtime is always slow. I saw some people chasing that familiar Rifter pilot, but though I saw him warp out I avoided giving them pointers on where to find him since they seemed to want to ambush and attack with much superior ships. Good for them, but they could hunt for him on their own. I did relate to them that he tended to fight alone, though, as they seemed to think he was bait for some BC's they'd seen in a neighbouring system and that appeared to be encouraging them to use overwhelming force.

Later on, the BC threat and resulting paranoid defenders seeming to have both evaporated, I came across the same pilot again. We orbited for a while, locked, but in a bizarre twist nobody seemed to want to shoot first. He only looked around a bit more before coming back, and I offered to fight him again at the same planet as before. Someone else asked too, getting in a moment late. He accepted and off we warped.

I activated my tracking computer in warp, and overheated my guns (which I no longer group). Both landing at 0 (we knew we both had AC's fitted so this was the obvious choice) we immediately locked and engaged. Actually, I locked so immediately that one or both of us wasn't out of warp yet, and I had to try again, but no time was actually lost and we were soon tearing into each other.

I took a look at the EWAR he was using, even going so far as to mouse over it(!) and noticed that while I had a scram and no web, he had a web and no scram. Purely a RvB duelling fit, by the looks of it. He was also neuting me, something I became painfully aware of as my entire capacitor was eaten away before I even needed my SAR II. The rest of the fight, to me, was mostly trying to click fast enough to keep my scram and tracking disruptor on. Would have been a great time for my guns to catch fire...

That wasn't what happened though. They were about the only things that didn't catch fire, but they kept chattering away reliably. We were both down to armour, then at the end of armour. He entered hull first, but it looked like he had a DC fitted. I entered hull, and in a few hits I was at around 25%... and then with an odd sound and a puff of light, his ship exploded. I was actually surprised it wasn't mine, what with only a few seconds during the actual fight for it to sink in that for once he had less hitpoints remaining than me.

It was a VERY close fight. I had anticipated a different kind of opponent entirely, and had been unable to use an important part of my tank even once during the engagement. We may have had the same kind of plate, or his might have been bigger, but either way I'm certain he had higher resists (mainly because mine plain sucked with only one module). I could have checked his loot, but at this stage I was falling asleep and barely thinking. I did pick it up and gave it to him on BHQ before logging out, noticing an awful lot of cap booster charges in the process.

If I can find the killmail, I may edit this to show what he had.

Yriel

Yriel? I don't know what it means either, but it was the name of the Punisher pictured, who died gloriously in battle shortly afterwards. I found the ship in my Jita hangar, and while it had some terrible fit that looked like an attempt to extract every bit of range from a set of small beam lasers, I quickly adapted it to be something a bit more... battle worthy.

I don't know much about Punisher fits, admittedly, but I threw together what seemed decent:

3x Gatling Pulse Laser II, 1x E5 Prototype Energy Vampire

1x Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters, 1x J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler

1x DC II, 1x ANP II, 1x Small Inefficient Armour Repair Unit, 1x 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates

I don't believe this one had any rigs, since the only appropriate skills I had were for armour and the plate already made this poor thing as slow as my Merlins had been. Given it didn't even have the option of a web, I didn't want to make it crawl even more.

I seem to remember that I probably could have added bigger guns, but I was worried about the tracking, especially given how many Rifters I've faced. I've flown Rifters a long time ago, and I do recall they often fit Tracking Disruptors.

Funny enough, that's exactly what happened. I engaged a Rifter outside our HQ (yes... some kind of pattern may be emerging here) and had a sort of slow brawl in which my weapons were woefully inadequate despite being well within their optimal range even with navy multifreq loaded. Which, incidentally, is way too expensive for my liking. It's like being forced to buy and fit ammo in bulk even though I know I'll die before using much of it at all.

My tank held for a while – longer than I expected honestly – and I believe I just got the Rifter into armour before I died. Which is pretty sad given that with three mid slots and a TD (yes, I even managed to look this time!) it was probably armour tanked. Yikes.

Well, I sat around for a bit chatting idly in local. The Rifter pilot actually suggested AC's to me, which is what I was planning to try next anyway (still my highest skilled weapon as of this moment, small AC's. I have their specialization to V while small pulse and beam are at IV) so once I got back to Jita I began fitting a new AC punisher.

3x 125mm Gatling Autocannon II, 1x E5 Prototype Energy Vampire

1x Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters, 1x J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler

1x DC II, 1x ANP II, 1x 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates, 1x SAR II

and “ambit”, “collision” and “metastasis” projectile rigs, giving me some falloff, damage and tracking, respectively.

I went with the small guns again for the tracking benefit, and also because I don't think the upgrade to 150mm's would have given me much more damage output even when not affected by enemy modules. I wanted to stick an EANM II on there but it was either too expensive for the little extra gain, or didn't quite fit. I also have a few armour compensation skills, so an ANP II does more than advertised anyway.

My opponent this time was familiar to me: the same Rifter pilot from my first recorded fight here in Merlin I. I had warped to an... erm... vantage point outside our station, and after sitting there for a while to determine who was doing what, I warped to another one closer to his Rifter, sitting a few hundred km off the station. I sat there for a few moments, watching the distance between us shrink.

Satisfied that he wanted to fight, I hit orbit and kicked (well, more like gently prodded) my afterburner into gear. We closed fairly quickly, followed by the activating of modules and such. I know I saw a web he was using on me, and his ship was certainly armour tanked, but oddly enough in my brief glance at the overview I don't think I saw him scramming. Maybe he didn't expect people to flee, or want to stop them. I've actually considered that the module may not often be necessary in RvB, but I keep it around because this is practice for me after all. I don't want to become someone who learns to fit only for enemies who don't care to run.

I went into this with all three guns grouped and overheated. My armour rep was also overheated, although I changed this at various stages in the fight because my innocent low slot modules were getting singed, and I really kinda needed that damage control alive. It was actually an incredibly long fight, for me. My longest yet. The nos probably helped a bit, though I'm not sure how much or whether a neut would have helped more. He was active tanked, in armour, but of course his weapons would have kept on firing with no cap.

My own capacitor, owing to my armour rep being on nearly the whole fight, got very, very low. I had to switch the repper off at one point, but by then it was too late to win anyway. In all my micromanaging of the repair system and checking the overview for EWAR, I had burned out all my guns. To my credit, I had been checking them, but near the end my armour took all my attention, and it seemed like they took the last bits of damage very fast.

Now, some of this was just not being attentive enough, but it could also be a bad understanding of the mechanics. I don't actually know if the damage they take is random, or progressively worse as they get hotter (if they even get hotter). I also don't know if grouping them makes them take damage evenly, or just averages it out to one icon somehow. If that is the case, I might start keeping them separate.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait to die and speak in local. I gave him a “gf” and explained my failure for all the world to see, but didn't even try to escape with no cap, failing armour, and a slow webbed ship.

All in all, I was happy with this fight. I died because of my own stupidity, not because my ship let me down. In fact, while I didn't see the state of his cap, we were both in very low armour before I had to start pulsing my own repper (and the guns burned out), so it's possible this ship and fitting could have won if I'd flown it better. Or trained thermodynamics above three. I'm still getting to that.

Anyway, he politely gave me my surviving stuff back, and I'm looking forward to trying this or a similar fit again soon.

Merlin III and early reflections

This next fit is a near clone of my last one, but for two things: it sacrifices an EM rig for a speed rig, and it loses the web for a tracking disruptor (with a script for tracking). My first experience with it was simply roaming around our home system. I was in a fleet, but not actually with them. Ultimately I doubt it would have done me any good, but in case it gave me a chance to follow more experienced people around and learn the layout of the local systems I felt it was a decent idea to sit in it. When I logged out, though, they were mostly sitting around talking.

Where this involves my fit is that at some point, someone spotted a hostile in local. I had just come from one gate, and immediately warped to another one. Sure enough, I landed on an Incursus, and we promptly shot at one another.

Unlike my previous fights though, I didn't die. Nor did he. As it turns out, the game doesn't care much if you attack a war target (at least I assume that's how he jumped through so soon after shooting), which stands to reason I suppose. So as soon as he realized he was hardly scratching me, he high-tailed it through the gate that we were in range of. I didn't follow; I doubt I was fast enough to catch him if he didn't want to fight. While enemies fleeing is something I had been expecting with this setup, I hadn't expected it to happen like that.

I did overheat my guns, but I completely forgot to check for opposing EWAR. It was only a few seconds though, and the first fight I actually survived, so I'm considering this a positive outcome. Certainly, I think if I'd webbed him instead he would have killed me.

Later on, I engaged a Rifter (surprise!) outside our HQ. It was a short fight. He didn't seem to be hitting me as much as he might have, thanks to the disruptor I imagine, but at the same time he was doing much more damage than I was. Looking into the logs later (out of game, since in game showed me very little even though I caught it before session change) it seemed he was using tech 2 ammo, at least in his rocket launcher.

In this case, I don't think there was much I could have done. My ship was, in as much as it could be, fit to engage that kind of opponent. Replacing launchers with nos or neuts wouldn't have helped as he had capless weapons and what I think was a medium shield extender, webbing would have been even worse as he'd just have torn me to pieces sooner getting solid hits.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe the ship isn't better suited to kiting, but then I do run into an immediate problem: it's the slowest of all its racial counterparts. With an afterburner, all my navigation skills, and a speed rig it was going around 850ms. I could improve that by webbing and/or using a MWD, but suppose a Rifter got close enough that I had to web it... it would in a lot of cases web me right back. Then it would only be a matter of time before he caught up, and I died. I also lack any kind of tracking bonus, so I wonder if my own speed would render my weapons ineffective were I to mount a micro-warpdrive.

There is one more thing I haven't tried: a medium shield booster with a cap booster to power it. I'd let that well enough alone because, like the tracking disruptor, it had no way of holding people in my range. To counter this I would probably attempt to use railguns, or make use of my multiracial skills to mount autocannons or even lasers on it.

There is also the distinct possibility that the Merlin just isn't up to par with the other ships I'm facing when it comes to PVP. It seems as though its true calling is a shield tanked mission-running frigate with railguns and light missiles, relying on its enemies wanting to come to it and stay there, rather than keeping them up close or far away. Until I'm willing to fly Hawks and Harpies, perhaps it's time to test out some other races' frigates.

Merlin II

This time was a bit different. Instead of roaming around looking for someone to attack, I was heading back to Blue HQ from Jita with my new Merlin, fitted differently from the last. This time my guns were smaller, but tech 2. My rocket launchers were the same, as was my tackle. Instead of a small shield booster, which seems to be entirely useless, I fitted a named medium extender and two EM rigs along with one Thermal to bring my resists up to scratch. My low slots this time had only one magstab, since the other slot was taken by a micro auxiliary power core needed to fit that extender (even with the smaller guns). My ammo was upgraded to Caldari Navy antimatter and Foxfire rockets, bringing my DPS actually a bit higher than it had been with the cheaper ammo in bigger guns.

I had actually intended to land back at base, then sit around for a while as I did out of game things. On the way there I saw almost nobody at all, so I figured it was a slow time. There was a single Red in our home system, though – and as it turned out they were just the sort of person I was looking for. They appeared about 80km off station moments after I landed, in a Rifter (lots of these around). They were approaching me, probably with AB on. I pointed in their direction and idled along until we were nearly in locking range, then switched on my AB, overheated my guns(!) and activated my tackle.

After that, there wasn't much to do. I was cap stable, and my only active modules were tackling them or shooting at them already. My range was good, though they were a little further away than I hoped. I hit approach, and forgot to orbit again until we were a bit too close (well, maybe there wasn't really a too close for either of us in this). I tried to overheat my web, but accidentally turned it off, at which point we actually got closer. I turned it back on, overheated. I'm not actually sure if that even improves its effect or only range, but I knew the fight wasn't going to last until any modules burnt out.

That was about all I could do. We both seemed to be shield tanking, and I don't think I was webbed, but I honestly didn't check. Sadly now I've already flown away and my log is empty, but it would stand to reason that a Rifter with its three mids would have a shield extender, scram or disruptor, and afterburner. I lasted longer than my other fight, certainly, and probably did more damage before I died, but ultimately the Rifter took out my shields before I took out hers, and my ship seemed to explode before I even had time to see the armour drop.

There are a few lessons to take from this one:

*I need to check the logs before inadvertently clearing them.

*My situational awareness needs to expand to include the EWAR my enemy is using.

*So far, neither fight seems to have been improved much by my web. I may yet use that slot for more tank, either directly with a shield module of some kind or indirectly with a tracking disruptor or a cap booster.

*Clicking is an awful way to overheat modules during a fight, and I need to get used to keyboard shortcuts to avoid more of what I just did. I wouldn't have lasted any longer, and I managed to get my module working as intended anyway, but that time could have been spent doing something like paying attention to my distance, or looking at EWAR.

In addition to that, I think I was right about my first assessment of this ship. It's not going to simply out-DPS someone who has three damage-bonused turrets and probably another module and some rigs also augmenting their guns. It just won't. In keeping with this line of thought, I need to stop flying it like I'm catching people and beating them to death, and use more of what it has to keep them from beating me to death.

RvB and Merlin I

That ship you see there? That is an old industrial I found lazing about in my assets. It's there because the price of a Merlin on Jita 4-4 was at a little under half a million when I looked today. That's about... double what I would reasonably spend on a Merlin or any other T1 frigate. No doubt the fault of the patch rebalancing hybrid weapons and the ships made to use them. Luckily, I was able to buy 9 Merlins for almost 2.5 million ISK in total outside of Jita, and have the ability to haul them back to where I want them in only two runs. I would have liked 10, but maybe by the time I reach the 9^th Jita will be restocked.

Meanwhile, I've been looking at the two factions in RvB. Yes, I know, seriously considering which side to join in RvB seems kinda silly, but bear with me here. The Blue side, as of writing this, has 627 members to the Red's 788. No doubt because “Red Federation” just sounds more appealing than “Blue Republic”. I mean who even has republics, anyway? Those people in the new Star Wars had a republic, and what came of it? Exactly.

Federations on the other hand are much more awesome. Starship Troopers had a federation, and while both turned out more or less like parodies of Nazism, consider who had the more awesome uniforms and soldiers who could actually shoot things. I mean can you imagine that battle? What was left of the Storm Troopers after somebody said “Nuke 'em, Rico” would be firing wildly at everything but their targets until they were all finally shot full of holes. There's also the fact that red is just generally a better colour. Blue has its moments, but really, if you had to pick one or the other and you went with blue, you're a boring person.

Anyway, it's going to be slightly surprising then that it's actually Blue that I'm choosing here, considering I'm not a fan of their colour or political system. There are two main reasons for this: they're smaller, which means more enemies for me, and they have a neighbouring lowsec system. Like, directly neighbouring. So when I'm not engaged in meaningless savagery with the Red Feds, I can hop into lowsec and do violence to unsuspecting travellers (and more likely, suspecting pirates). As you can see, it's a happy situation.

The Life and Death of Merlin I

Well, my first fight as a member of the Blue Republic is done. There wasn't a great deal to it, but I feel I can take some things away from it. Backing up a bit though:

I signed in today after finding myself with mail on the EVE-O forums. It was about joining RvB, and had some information there like how to set up the overview, which I followed to some extent while floating in space outside Blue HQ in Autaris. There was battle going on there, but people seemed to sense from my afterburning in one direction that I didn't want to be involved. A Merlin probably wasn't worth chasing down anyway.

I spent some time on that, messed it up, then fixed it. Finally happy with it, I flew around the enemies and allies alike sitting outside that station, not locking anyone and only being locked once by an Ishtar. I think the pilot probably just locked me in case I was tackling for a small fleet forming there, and when I didn't attack his much too powerful ship he felt happy to ignore me.

Some people lost ships there, others fought and warped out. To be honest I was paying more attention to how well my ship responded to orders, because I'd had issues with that last time I played EVE. It didn't seem to cause any problems though.

At one point I saw a Rifter and started moving toward him, but a Caracal was already too close for me to beat, and they soon engaged. Surprisingly the Caracal's whole fleet then warped to it and annihilated the Rifter. Admittedly it was hardly the biggest fleet, just a handful of ships that happened to be outside the station, but a Caracal should already be more than enough to kill a Rifter. Hell, I'm surprised the Rifter even tried.

Not seeing much more in my difficulty range and not wanting to take on Destroyers yet, I wandered around for a bit, playing with the directional scanner and finding it a bit overpopulated in this system to make much use of. I was finding things, but too many of them to filter through. Admittedly, my distance might have been too long even though the cone of my scanner was only 90 degrees.

After bouncing from stargate to station to stargate, I came across the same Rifter pilot again (I've decided it's probably best not to name anyone in here for the moment). He had just come in the gate and warped off as soon as I arrived, either because he had already started to or he thought I was leading that fleet onto him I imagine. I had a feeling he'd be back though, given what happened when he tried to fight outside our HQ before.

Sure enough, he warped back and immediately locked and attacked. I hit orbit (set to 2200 meters) and activated my afterburner in case he was going to be out of my range, but it only ran one cycle because it became obvious he wasn't kiting or even orbiting far away. Turning that off and activating my web, scram and guns/rockets (followed almost immediately by small shield booster) I was happy to see that I was landing hits and getting through his shields. Unfortunately, he was also getting through mine just as fast, and I was shield tanking. Not at all surprised, I watched as his ship kicked mine to pieces with only scratched armour to show for it.

We each dropped a “gf” in local (mine along with a “lol”, which I felt my flying had earned. I didn't even remember to overheat my modules...) and he offered to give me back my stuff at the Blue HQ. Given that my ship cost less than 1 million all included, I told him not to worry about it. I'd be concerned about him trying to land with that fleet still sitting there anyway.

I think I've learned a few things here. Firstly... that I spent so much time watching displays and modules I don't even remember seeing my ship. I guess mental time management is something that comes later on.

Secondly, I've spent too much time fighting NPCs for overheating to even appear in my mind in a fight. That too will probably come with time, although I'm going to try just pre-heating some things next fight. I've heard that works, but I'm not sure exactly how. Anyway I should try it.

Thirdly... my fitting sucked. Maybe not the layout, exactly. It was two rocket launchers and two neutron blasters in the highs, an afterburner, shield repper, web and scram in the mids and two magnetic field stabilizers in the lows. I also had an EM and Thermal (I think) shield rig because they were just so cheap. I'm not yet sure that was a bad idea, but the quality of the modules and ammo certainly sucked because of how cheap I was.

This isn't so much a bad thing, given that I probably would have died anyway. I learned that I need to remember overheating for less than 1 million ISK. It does mean that once I'm out of cheap things to learn, I really need to put a tiny bit more money into this investment, however.

A choice is made

Having considered my options and consulted the forums, I've decided my best bet for starting out in PVP is to get into Red vs Blue. For those who haven't heard of it, this is essentially two corporations eternally at war for the sake of eternally being at war. There are some minimal rules, but the idea is basically just to skip the tricky parts and get straight into shooting at one another.

This may not be much of an end goal for me if I decide I like the tricky bits involved in finding targets otherwise, but as a way to get into things it seems perfect. Plus, there's no commitment whatsoever, one merely applies, is accepted, and fights. Simple. It doesn't even necessitate roaming in gangs, so I can experience solo fighting with ease against other solo pilots and gangs alike. If I want to move on, I can. If I want to come back, I can. There should in theory be a notable lack of fuss.

The one thing I'm unsure of is making money. Ideally I would loot and salvage from successful kills, but in highsec I imagine the wrecks would be picked clean long before I could fetch a salvage ship. Whether or not it's feasible to loot profitably I'm not sure; RvB isn't exactly a place people field the most expensive things ever made. It happens, but it's not the rule.

To that end, I've looked through my old stuff that was scattered around the universe and found the ship pictured above: an Arbitrator. With a bit of tweaking to its fit, and replacing my Heron (I sold it rather than leave it there so that I could clear my assets list a bit) I would be able to use this ship to run a few different plexes for ISK. It's also relatively inexpensive and not terribly involved (it uses drones to deal most of its damage) so if I lose it to RvB players it won't matter, and if I misjudge the difficulty of a plex it has a decent chance to escape alive.

On another note, I've been thinking of the best way to learn from my experiences in future fights. Obviously writing it down here will help to some extent so that I have a place to analyse what I did and look back over it later, but the way I go into battle is important too. A lot of people seem to favour the idea of buying 20 ships and just losing each of them in combat as a way of learning. This does seem like a good start, although I'm not sure on the number. I think most of them go with 20 because someone has already done it with Punishers (I don't have the link on me, but a search for “eve punisher plan” would probably find it and/or some weird exercise routines).

While 20 doesn't seem like a bad number, I'd be happier committing to something smaller. Not because I think I'll learn any faster than most people, but because after getting through something like 10 Merlins, I may well decide that Merlins just don't have the play style I'm looking for, and want to switch to something else (I did after all choose them because they look funny and remind me of watching Excalibur as a child). I believe the person who used 20 Punishers was using a new character with skills in Amarr and... Amarr. One problem I don't suffer from is lack of options in other races' ships, so for me the ability to swap makes sense.

With that in mind, I'll probably be getting a few of the relevant ships soon. I'm also leaving my old 2 person corp, Smoke Jaguars. Arvakr's inactive account will keep it alive should we ever want to revive it for the name and ticker (MIOW), so I'll be free to wander off into RvB as soon as I feel my skills (I had no Thermodynamics before now, which is vital in frigate fights and PvP in general) are sufficient.