Just a quickie

I know I should write more, but the problem is that there is nothing going on worth writing about.
Currently I am more or less only saving up ISK for buying a carrier. I finally decided that Trebron needs one of his own, for transportation mainly. It is 20 days until he can sit in one and maybe 40 or 50 days until he can competently fly a Thanatos.
What I need are ISK. A billion for the skillbooks and 2.5 billion for the ship with fittings.
Other than that I am testing the new or revamped T1 cruiser hulls. Amazing! I really love those. Yesterday I chickened out in a shield tanked Thorax...I should have thought.
When jumping into a low sec system from Hisec, a Stiletto and a Cynabal waited on the other side. They both pointed me and drew sentry gun fire. I reapproached the gate, while the Stiletto warped clean, probably to come back afterwards, without sentry aggro. I should have pointed him. Maybe I could have taken them with the sentry guns as help. But I jumped back to Hisec like a coward.

World of Tanks - what is in my garage

~Five weeks ago I started to play World of Tanks. I would have done so earlier, but three things stopped me:

1. EVE was too much fun.
2. WoT refused to run properly on Linux
3. Gevlon Goblin convinced me that it is rigged.

EVE is still fun, but WoT is too. And as it is  in the nature of EVE that sometimes there really is nothing to do except ship spinning, it is good to have a backup game.
WoT is running on (my) Linux now. FPS is a bit lower than on Windows (strangely so). So I sometimes do boot Windows to play. But it runs.
That leaves the last point. Is hit chance and armor penetration rigged? I am not sure. Probably yes. There are definitely games where you hit every snapshot and penetrate with every hit. In the next game the opposite is true. But that is statistically not an uncommon thing to happen. So I really don't know.  As my "winning" condition is having fun (I already have a job in realtime, don't need one in a game) it is not so important for me. Because the game actually IS fun. Gevlon's winning condition is winning, even if this means grinding, being top ranked in win-percentage, owning all Nullsec etc. This is not for me for one simple reason:
If a game is won, the game is usually over. Finito.
I don't want the games I have fun in to be over. Simple as that.

But I digress :)

On starting with WoT I decided to stick with Russian and German for the beginning. This was quite funny, because right at that time the British tree started and everyone seemed to start with those. But I had a hard time against them, because they were not really new players. Anyway I had fun immediately and played far more hours than I usually do.
Now after 5 weeks I own the following vehicles (all fully upgraded):
Heavy Tank:
up to IS-3, Tier 8
Artillery:
up to Hummel, Tier 5
Scout (light tank):
VK2801, Tier 5
Tank Destroyer:
up to StugIII, Tier 5
Medium Tank:
up to Pz4, Tier 5
Premium Tank:
Super Pershing, Tier 8

The Pz4, Stug3 and the Hummel will all soon be ready for the next tier. I have done around 1600 matches in those 5 weeks, which is an awful lot for me.
The best fun of them all is the VK2801. The tech tree ends with it, there is no upgrade. And you don't need any. You will often end in matches with Tier10 tanks, but it does not matter. The VK2801 can really contribute there as a passive or active scout and/or Arty killer.
Don't ever underestimate his 10,5cm gun, loaded with HE shells. It can oneshot a Tier5 heavy tank if lucky and cause serious damage to the Tier 9 and 10 tanks. You can actually solo Tier 9 tank destoyers in it. Absolutely awesome machine, I am often sitting in my chair, laughing like a madman while driving this tank.
But it is good to play the other types too. So you can better understand how to battle each type of tank and also because each type has unique and entertaining gameplay. Sniping with Tank Destroyers (My Stug and Pz4 have the same derpgun mounted as the VK), wolfpack hunting with the Mediums, Brawling with heavies or raining destruction with Arty, all is unique and entertaining.
The Super Pershing is somehow a class of its own. Slower than a heavy tank, more front armor than most, a rather accurate and fast loading gun with medium penetration and low damage make it hard to learn. In the beginning I considered it to be totally crappy and had below 40% wins (I know I know...), but as I get used to it my winrate increases and the fun too. I actually enjoy to drive it by now and also already got my "Ace Tanker" mastery badge in it.

I am curious: what are your favorite tanks? And secondly: what do you think about the Super Pershing? Balanced? Sub par? Overpowered?

Be careful what you ask for

...in my last entry I complained about my empty killboard. Well, I managed to change that. Sadly in the wrong direction, by losing more ships.
On the weekend I attended two CTAs. They went like this:

• 45 minutes formup
• 60 minutes sitting on Titan.
• 40 minutes without action
• 20 minutes travel home

The second CTA almost got exciting. We wanted to shoot an SBU, but the enemy brought superior forces (Tengu fleet and Battleship fleet). Local was at 800.
We retreated to a safe POS. Some newcomer to the fleet asks for the POS password and some people gave it to him. 30 seconds later the Tengu fleet warps into the POS. As we were in Hurricanes, they did not manage to bump someone out. One has to simpy orbit the tower and nothing bad can happen.
Way to burn a spy. Good that he is gone.
After some fruitless dancing in the POS the enemy warped away, leaving a Tengu just outside the forcefield. Bait of course. We burned out anyway and killed him, barely making it back in before the enemy arrived yet again. Sadly I did not get on the mail. the thing exploded just as my lock resolved.
Thanks and props to our FC, who organised a Titan bridge to get us safely home.

Other than that I participated in some gatecamping that also netted no kills.

In the lowsec pipe to our Nullsec corner a "pirate" corp has set up their home, going by the name "Inglorious Squirrels". They make a habit of killing our Cyno ships. So we decicded to pay them a visit. We formed up in Hyperion, Drake, Crow, Loki, 2 ships I forgot, and me in a Deimos.
We wanted to teach them a lesson.
Of course they did not fight (they never do except they have the megablob on their side) and only did some station games. What we did not know: they batphoned some people not in their corp.
So when I aggressed a Tengu on station half a dozen battleships undocked and exploded me and our Drake. So we ended up being the ones learning a lesson.
And my last loss was a Hurricane battlecruiser. My friend Zak asked me if I wanted to help with a 5/10 Plex (escalation), 2 BCs should be enough. I agreed and came with a Cane (he was in a Tengu). I entered the Plex with him- did not really see how many rats there are because lots of structures cluttered my overview- MWDed to the rats and started shooting. And dropped into armor. And got stuck on some structure trying to warp out. And exploded :)
What happened? Well, it was a 10/10 Plex, not a 5/10. They seem to have the same name. Drone region...you still hold surprises.
Thankfully the Tengu was able to clear the first room  (but not more) and loot some of my modules.
I was too pissed afterwards to come back in proper ships and do the Plex. In Sansha space I did 8/10 and 10/10 "alone"(dualboxing) and got some pricey loot (e.g. a Nightmare blueprint). But I fear the drones would not drop any loot anyway. They never seem to do, not even the faction spawns.

I hope "my" EVE will be more fun soon, because recently bad luck and bad decisions seem to ruin my gameplay. Fun is different to be honest.

Shooting towers

Nothing much happened yesterday. We jumped ~170 T3 Batlecruisers halfway across the universe to shoot 2 POS towers into reinforce.
Well, it must have been important I guess :)
Hopefully I won't have to work overtime today, or I won't make it to today's CTA. My killboard is much too empty this month.

Patchday

Rollout of the new patch went surprisingly well. No issues whatsoever. This is definitely a first for me. I am playing EVE on Linux (and sometimes a Mac) and there were no issues with wine either. Launcher, Updating and the game itself work without changing anything in the configuration.
Up to now I can only comment on a few of the changes:
Hurricane Nerf: not really bothers me. I just ripped out one of the T2 neuts and all else is just like before. Maybe I will install a Powercore in the lows instead of a tracking enhancer and keep the two Neuts. Time will tell.

• Target circles and the new damage texts: very cool. I like this one a lot.
• NPC AIs: as I am ratting with sentry guns, I was a bit afraid of this change. But it turns out it is a non issue. No problems. In fact it has become easier, because rat Battleships will always target me instead of my drones. I don't even recall them anymore when new waves spawn. Awesome.
• New ships: I don't know yet. But I will probably use the Tristan as an AFK salvage boat (drones) in my alt. It can clean up the drone rat wrecks of my finished anomalies haha :) The new logis look interesting for roams. I was always hesitant to fly the expensive Scimitar, because I am not exactly space rich. The new logi T1 cruisers really look promising. I will have to buy a bunch I guess. Also I like the buff of the Vexor and Thorax, as I like flying those.

I am looking forward to testing all the other game improvements and new ships. The Retribution expansion is the best expansion since I play EVE. The trailer is awesome too. Speaking of which: the new aggression mechanics and the bounty system look very promising. Especially Highsec space could benefit a lot from this. We will probably see a lot more PvP there in the future.
Well done CCP!

Where I lay my head is home

It is good to have a helpful corp, special thanks to Archmedia (and his alt), who helped me greatly in jumping my ships to my new home with his carrier. It is greatly appreciated.
I did some ratting to replenish my funds and I must say that the Drone regions could really need a buff. Or I have to get used to the drone anomalies, somehow I liked the Sansha better. Well, on Tuesday there will be faction and officer spawns I heard. Good thing.
Also I was on my short first alliance roam and had a good time. I even managed to get the final blow on an Absolution and got on the mail for a Rupture cruiser.
But the best thing last: my friend Zaknafein Hinken resubbed and joined us. I am really happy about this and looking forward to more fleets with him.