Greetings all, and welcome. In this blog I intend to regale you all with my exploits in becoming competent in PVP. First, a little bit about myself and my experience. I have been playing Eve off and on since 2005. This is more off than on, but in my time in Eve I have explored many aspects of it. I have been a miner. Mining all day long and bring in the ore. I have been a mission runner, shooting rats, looting them and bringing in the ISK. I have even lived in 0.0 space from time to time, which has been my most enjoyable times. One thing that I have never really gotten into alot is PVP.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy PVP, love it even. I have read forum post upon forum post on PVP tactics and fittings. I know how to fit a ship out properly for PVP even. However, for one reason or another, whenever I go out and attempt PVP it rarely ends with me killing someone. More often than not it ends with me back in my station analyzing what I have done wrong.
One of my issues is that I really like to play with the expensive ships. As a for instance, I have recently fallen quite hopelessly in love with the Daredevil. It is a wonderful faction frigate, speedy, lethal. I recently had an opportunity to take one in to battle.
I had decided to change the fitting on my daredevil and there were no fittings in the 0.0 station that I base out of to complete what I wanted. Nothing fancy, I just wanted to change out the speed fit for something a little tankier as my sparring with corp members had convinced me that the fit wasn't really what I wanted. So, I took a stroll down to empire in order to pick out what I wanted and fit it out. Unfortunately for me I had forgotten that there was an empire wardec going on. I know what you are all thinking, and no, I didn't get smashed by a gate camp autopiloting in empire. In fact I made it to my chosen station without seeing anyone.
I happily set about fitting my new modules and rigs to the ship. I wanted a setup that I could take behind enemy lines and have some ability to recover from any damages in battle. So, I fit a nice 200mm buffer plate on the lows, a small repper for fixing the damage I took and a few rigs to complement. All I was lacking was an explosive resist rig to complete my setup. The only explosive resist rigs were in the nearby station so I contentedly undocked and waited for my screen to show up.
No sooner had I undocked than I realized my mistake. Now I remembered that there was an empire war going on as I spied the red blinky jaguar heading towards me. Frantically I hit warp as I knew I had a huge explosive hole in my armor. Too late, I was caught. No problem I think to myself, time to give this lovely new ship a test. I hit orbit at 50 m, turned on my scram, web, small armor repper, and nos and hit F1 which is where I usually keep my guns. About 5 seconds later I realized my damage control wasn't on. No big deal, I hadn't had much armor damage running, and my armor repper started kicking over, keeping me up as I started to slowly bleed damage down. I was trying to figure out why I wasn't doing much damage when I looked down and finally noticed that I had changed out my weapons systems, they weren't grouped and I was only running one gun. Embarrassed I turned my gun on and satisfactorily watched his armor start falling more quickly. The only problem is that I didn't catch my mistake quick enough. Still circling I watched my poor Daredevil vanish in a flash as I spammed warp and got away.
It was only after I docked up that I realized my biggest mistake. I'm sure the savy reader is shouting at their screens that I should have used the best trick that a Daredevil has. I should have burned straight away from him when I realized I couldn't take him. A Daredevil's 90% web would have meant the jaguar couldn't have kept a point on me as I ran out of his scram range and warped out.
Defeated, I should have known that now was the time to dock up and log off. In fact I DID know that that is what I should do. SHOULD is the operative word here. I determined that I was going to replace my Daredevil and then head back home. Of course the only place that I could think to find Daredevils a plenty is in Jita. Yes, with an empire war going on I headed in to Jita. As I warped into Jita I noticed a camp on the station. I paid it not much mind and flew into Jita to fit out my shiny new daredevil. Assuming that the same small number of ships that I saw flying in were out there, I undocked. Imagine my shock when I undocked (without looking at local again) and saw quite a few ships. I noticed at least a Bhalgorn and Hyperion sitting there. And, being the absolutely brilliant strategist I am, I panicked. I picked my gate and hit warp. Immediately the damage started raining down on me, shields gone, armor gone, structure going.... and I see myself warp away through the lag. YES I told myself, I made it! My shiny new Daredevil is safe. I kept telling myself that until the screen went back and I found myself back in my home station in a pod.
Definately not having a good day, I should have logged. I just couldn't though. A call went out over alliance for pilots to take out a roving red gang. Somewhat having my senses I picked a safe ship to go out. A nice little drake. Unfortunately, all was not well for me. Our fleet roved out to meet the red gang, but Eve was not cooperating with me. Gate after gate it took forever for me to jump. Still two jumps back I listen as my victorious alliance trampled the enemy fleet and sent it home with its tale between its legs. Finally defeated, I warped to a safe spot and logged off.
This all occurred two days ago, in that time I have been thinking about what I want to do now. I considered going back to empire with my tail between my legs. But I just can't do that. I need to come up with a training regimen to get the basics drilled into me. I KNOW how to fight, intellectually at least. Now lets see if I can put all of my theory and book knowledge into practice. Over the next couple weeks I am going to start heading out into the deep black, trying my hand at PVP, probably with some cheap ships that I haven't decided upon yet. T1 frigates are kind of out. Yes I know they are cheap, but the T1 ships don't really appeal to me that much, and about the only thing a T1 frigate can take out rapidly is another T1 frigate. So not much of an option in null sec space.
Stay tuned here to find out what ship I select and what sort of fights I get into. I sense blood, I sense a slaughter. Hopefully, it isn't my own.
P.S. If anyone has suggestions for a ship I could use I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. I can currently fly Gallente and Caldari ships up to Battleship. I can also fly Assault frigate. And if someone can talk me into it, I DO have some skill to fly T1 Minmatar and Amarr ships as well.
