Ships1

I had an inspiration whilst hopping up and down on my right foot, clutching my left foot and cursing the day I was born; I should take a light hearted look at some of the ships I fly.

The inspiration came to me this way. On my way to the bedroom to go to bed the other night, after having turned out the kitchen light and walking up the hallway in the dark; my left foot was suicide ganked by some work materials I had left on the floor. These materials were black, which coincidentally is the exact same colour as darkness; said darkness thus rendering them into a cloaked condition, perfectly positioned for a gank at the bedroom door.

We shall not dwell on where the blame lies for this incident because then we’d have to look at who put those work materials there and it’s all a bit tiresome ….

Anyway, in Eve ganking is carried out using ships, thus leading me quite logically to consider doing some fun posts on ships.

It was logical to my brain anyway, which is what matters (scary, huh?).

So first up I thought we might have a quick look at what may be colloquially termed “The Rusty Frog”, quite appropriate, it being a blend of Minmatar and Gallente design. It is also my favourite PVE ship – the Machariel.

There are rumours floating around that the Angel Cartel somehow purloined some Jovian design for this thing. If so, all I can say is Jovians must be big buggers; ‘cos this ship is HUGE.

Couple of my corpies fly these things too, so the others who fly Golems, Nightmares, Rattlesnakes and the suchlike tend to complain and moan about “big arsed ships always in the bloody way …”

I can hear all the hi sec war deccers sharpening their ganking boats already, so I should take a quick detour here to mention that while yes, we are currently in high sec running missions in shiny boats until null sec becomes interesting again, I would not recommend war deccing us to nab said shinies because the last poor sod who war decced us found out the hard way that the shinies immediately get parked and out with the PVP ships to camp WT’s into their home stations while we play other games and ensure their money is completely wasted. We are Aussies, and we’re very good at being assholes.

Back to the Mach – The Gallente side of the design shows up in the rounded shapes used and the quite generous drone bay, while the Minmatar side is betrayed by the way this thing is best used; fly in at zero, sit there and kill everything.

Really quickly. It’s also very fast for a ship one kilometre long – more Minmatar design philosophy.

But the dead giveaway to its Minmatar heritage is the fifth engine up on top, a spare in case one of the other four falls off.

The first thing I thought to do when I got my first Mach was to armour tank it. Well, seven low slots made that obvious, didn’t it?

My CEO at the time gave me a very quick verbal smack upside the head for even suggesting such a thing. I was foolish enough to ask why, to which came the tactful reply, “because you will die, you dumb arse.”

See, the Mach may be big, but when it comes to tank it would seem the Angels used a very large amount of newspaper to build it. So most Mach pilots go with what could be considered a DPS tank. Active shield tank with hardeners in the mids and fill up all those low slots with tracking enhancers and gyrostabilisers, with maybe a cap mod in the seventh low slot. The idea is that everything will be dead way before the tank melts, making even boring old level fours somewhat interesting.

My own fit has a drone link augmentor in the spare high slot, as I use 4 of  T2 sentry drones (with a flight of light combat drones for the pesky frigates that get under the guns).

How hard does it hit rats? like using a sledgehammer on cockroaches. I favour the 800mm repeating artillery (autocannons), although one of my corpies prefers 1400mm arties. Either way, PVE pays very well with one of these things.

I know some guys PVP in Machs, I don’t have the bankroll for that kind of shenanigans. One of my mates uses a snipe Mach in null sec and loves it. I prefer to use battlecruisers for the odd bit of PVP, as I suck at it and can’t afford to lose shinies to stupidity – something I have a lot more of than ISKies.

Sad to say there are rumours the Rusty Frog is going under the nerf bat. If that is to be, it will be a sad Blastie indeed that says goodbye to his big arsed boat that’s always in the way.

Next post we’ll have a look at the ship I love to lose the most in PVP …

It’s all in the mind, you know.

Absentia

Let’s get something established straight up. I’m not dead. Least I’m pretty sure, hang on … nope, definitely not dead. That should stop those nasty rumours circulating anyway.

Now, where have I been? Let’s see … sick, work, tired, stressed, more sick, more tired, exhausted, worn out, knackered. like most Australians, I have reached the conclusion that work is a bad idea. Dunno who invented the damn thing, but mister, whoever you were; BAD IDEA.

Now, on to Eve related material before I get distracted whining about work (which, as mentioned before, is a bad idea – already noted, but worth repeating).

I have to ask; is it true? Is it really, really, honest to goodness with cherries on top cross your heart and hope to die true? They are going to nerf supers? Is it possible that CCP has realised that salesman and accountants make God awful management personnel? Are we seeing some (I almost can’t believe I’m saying this) SENSE?!!!

Could old Blastie move back to null sec with his lunatic corpies and NOT have to learn Russian? Could me and my mates return to null and (brace yourselves) – HAVE FUN?!!!!

So have they come to realise that letting Ivan turn null into another nuclear powered tractor factory is not a good idea? (same as work is not a good idea, think I mentioned that before, but repetition for emphasis and all that rot)

I have not been this excited since I first joined Eve and undocked. I had truly come to the conclusion that my favourite MMO was dying; the tests had come back and the results were not looking good, the family was gathering round, the candles were lit and the mood was sombre.

Then our favourite ginger kid released an incredible piece of humility and promised to “do something”. At this point most bittervets were mumbling things about boys and wolves and I was admittedly skeptical myself.

However further devblogs have given firm details that will be impossible to back down from, without biomassing CCP that is.

So, I’m not packing yet. But with battlecruiser 5 under his belt, I reckon Blastie might get a ‘Cane to last four and a half seconds (up from three) in his next encounter with a 21 man gate camp.

Unless CCP doesn’t deliver. Again. Which would be a really BAD IDEA. Like work is a bad idea. Although I think I mentioned that before … that work is a bad idea … well, … it is …

It’s all in the mind, you know.