Klow's Kollection

Tapping My Inner Fisher

While on EvE Online today, I refitted my Myrmidon-class battlecruiser with advanced weapons: tech 2 artillery cannons.

 

Obviously, my brain thought of Admiral Fisher and his ideas of battlecruisers. During the dreadnought race, they were designed with battleship armaments but traded armor protection for speed. They were meant to combat cruisers and engage in fast raids but not meant to engage battleships. British battlecruisers in particular suffered from a lack of armor particularly on the top deck where the ship's magazines could be detonated with one shot from plunging fire.

 HMS Repulse from U-boat website. This ship was refitted with better top deck armor following the Battle of Jutland.

 In EvE, battlecruisers are in the class of medium ships like cruisers, not large ships like battleships. So these ships are in fact heavy cruisers. They are effective against other cruisers but would be hard-pressed against battleships unless in a large group.

I always preferred flying battlecruisers in EvE. Good combat power at a reasonable cost. And because of my intrest in WW 1 naval history, I tend to name my ships after those of the period. That Myrmidon above I named Repulse.

 And this is Von Der Tann, named after a German WW1 battlecruiser.

 

Mira's New Look (EvE Online Update)

 Out with the old...

 In with the new!

Yes the new character creator for EvE Online has been implemented, giving our avatars a more realistic look as you can see. I wanted to maintain Mira's red-haired girl looks but give her a more serious demeanor. Maybe seasoned is the better term.

I'll had this character for just over a year now. In that time, I played in zero-level security space where it's lawless. It didn't last long as I felt she wasn't ready for such a dangerous area, having three ships shot from under her in a month. So I'm still in high-security space but started my own Corporation. This one, the 357th Gallente Peacekeepers, will deal in faction combat (against Gallente's enemy the Caldari) as I build it up gradually. Plus having your own Corp, you set your own hours.

Not much else to report here. We're getting close to the big move to Evanston, IL just north of Chicago. We got the apartment lined up; we just need to keep at the moving efforts.

Until later Space cadets...

EvE Online: After Action Report from Mira Teslee

Mostly disciplined and went well but there were a couple of disappointing moments...one being the lack of a major fleet action! The enemy did not come out to play save for a few stealth bombers and an interceptor or two. With our allied fleet totaling twenty-four ships, I guess most of the enemy didn't have the stones for a real fight. 

At least one of our screening ships went down, and there were two confirmed enemy kills. I nearly got my first kill: an enemy interceptor but he escaped. I'm not sure of the status of the enemy's station which was under siege for over an hour, but when I had to disengage its shields were down sixty percent. And it was those shields (a force field projector) that prevented our drones from attacking the station. Noted for future reference...

Observations: Rather ad hoc and we started late but we quickly got it together. Despite over half the fleet composed of battleships, heavier ships (dreadnoughts) were needed to inflict more damage to the station. Fleet discipline was good overall considering our Corporations never worked together in a major fleet op. Then the fleet commander ordered a tactical retreat to a nearby planet when two enemy stealth bombers returned and tried to bombard the fleet. At that point, fleet cohesiveness broke down for a few seconds (not to mention my internet connection). But such is online war. Our fleet commander admitted squadron coordination needed to improve a bit but was pleased with the operation.

Note to self: Next time, bring nothing smaller than a battleship! My battlecruiser was useless since its weapons couldn't hit the station effectively. (My battleship is now docked in the war zone, ready to go)

End of line...

EvE Newsflash!

Something is about to happen involving our Corporation on EvE Online. After action report to follow tonight...

More EvE updates

Before I begin, I just wanted to say: The world's still frakked up.

Now on to the blog...

I believe my EvE character is ready to take her new assault frigate on the up coming wolfpack mission. Yes, my character's a she and nothing wrong with that. So there!

Mira Teslee: Gallente combat pilot

This Saturday our EvE Corporation (read guild) is going to engage in a wolfpack exercise in 0.0 SEC space. That means a group of powerful frigates will roam unsecured space and just mess around, mainly to get some player vs player (PvP) experience.

Yes folks. My brain has been thinking of naval warfare, but not in the way you expect. When I mentioned wolfpack, images of WW2 U-boat groups come to mind. But that is just one thing I was pondering. I was also thinking of surface raiders in the two World Wars. Single ships or groups of ships would roam the seas, hitting targets of opportunity like we are doing or at least that's what I think we are doing. Details on the operation are still forthcoming.

But unlike the unrestricted warfare that was sometimes exercised (in WW 1 German ships were sometimes restricted to giving warnings to merchant ships), our Corp will not engage industrial or transport ships as we are not in a state of war with any Corporation at the moment. Our Corp leader has specific rules of engagement we follow, one important is when we are not in a state of war with another Corp, we do not target industrial ship or other non-combat targets.

OK, I can hear you now: But roaming space and knocking off ships could cause a war, right Steve? Well...that's the beauty of null-sec space. That's where players play in the sandbox and test their skills against one another. Honestly, it's hard to explain to people who don't play MMOs. It's on of those things you need to experience in order to understand.

So my newly fitted ship will be an small escort drone carrier with powerful but light railguns for defense. The firepower is in the drones. Well see how it goes. Hopefully we can get some practice maneuvers before the big op. In the past, I used battlecruisers and battleships for PvP so this will be a new experience for me. I'm actually excited about this.

KGS Jaguar: Ishkur-class assault frigate

KGS Jaguar

Here she is! My first Tech 2 ship, an Ishkur-class assault frigate.

 

She is built to bring a small number of light advanced drones into battle. Combined with a microwarp drive which can propel it five times its top speed (rated at 2530 m/s) and three sets of short-ranged but powerful blasters, she can ruin anyone's day when used in a balanced fleet. Now this is not meant to be used as a mission ship. It's too small. Granted its speed can make it difficult to hit.

But if she is hit with a couple of well-placed shots, game over. The ship, along with most frigates, is built for fast strikes, not slug matches like battlecruisers or battleships. The ship has no armor modules: speed is armor! (Adm. Jackie Fisher would be proud :P) I probably would be a strike ship along side other assault ships, our guns and my drones harassing enemy forces while the big guns get into position.

I still need about a week or two to fully train in the right skills to make it really deadly.

More to come on how KGS Jaguar fares.

Fly safe :)

Back on EvE Online

On a brighter note, I'm back playing EvE after a nearly a month, though I did log on from time to time to update my skills. One thing I really like is your character is training even when you are logged off. There are some skills that can take a long time to train: a week or two, sometimes thirty to forty days! Some people like to start training on a long skill and go away for a while. There is one drawback: you don't earn money when away.

So I spent yesterday putting my new battleship through its paces on hard but profitable missions. It has better gun capabilities compared to my older battleship, though its drone capabilities are more limited but still effective.

Gallente Megathron-class battleship K.G.S Otto Von Bismark

(K.G.S.=Khanid Guard Ship) Based on the name of my corporation

  

 

 

 

 

The rewards were more than enough to buy my first Tech 2 ship: a frigate drone-carrier that I will be able to fly tomorrow morning. Not sure of the name I like. That will be in tomorrow's post. :)

Until later. Fly safe, but not too safe!

Computer gaming and my history interests...

Whenever I play EvE, I look at the various ships and my mind sometimes wonders to naval history. In particular, my battlecruiser I posted a short time back. Battlecruisers in EvE are more like heavy cruisers than mini battleships in that they use medium instead of large weapons and modules.

So I was thinking of WW 1 naval warfare and the battlecruisers of the day: large fast ships with the hitting power of dreadnoughts. Yet their firepower and speed came at the cost of armor protection. Their function was to take out screening cruisers to leave the dreadnoughts free to battle the enemies own dreadnoughts. Admirals nevertheless placed battlecruisers at the line-of-battle with catastrophic results.

Sometimes, I just think of this while playing. Keeps the mind active. :)

My battlecruiser on EvE

A Gallente Myrmidon-class battlecruiser. A hybrid carrier/gunship. Named after Thor's Hammer.

More EvE stuff...

I decided to create an alternate character foe EvE. You can have up to three characters for one account. This one's a Gallente (the only democratic government in the EvE universe). I felt I made my Aleh character too much a jack-of-all-trades. So he will become my dedicated miner while Mira Teslee (yes it's a she) will be my combat pilot. So far she's been flying this destroyer, Diana:

As my other character named ships after Imperial German ships, Mira names hers based on various mythology. The cruisers she'll get will be named after Norse figures while the smaller ships Greek. The forthcoming battleship? We shall see.

Until later...