A blog dedicated to my experiences in EVE Online, played mostly on the weekends.

This ship can basically withstand any small part operation better than any other Caldari frigate. It’s shields are though, the armaments are strong, and most importantly for a small ship, it is a speedy little guy!

The Merlin is my trusty little ship whenever I need to go behind enemy lines. It will go super fast and have an incredible damage output. Fitted with 2 rocket launchers and 2 light neutron blasters, it can turn almost any other frigate into dust. The shield capacity isn’t too bad either. The ship can take quiet the beating from other ships while still standing to send out it’s lethal weaponry.

But who can really hit it when it is flying at speeds of 2000 meters per second? I really enjoy this frigate as a fast and cheap tackler, but the problem with it is that the powergrid is just a tiny bit small to get the whole thing fitted to your desires. A few skills like engineering and such should help get that extra one or two megawatts you might need.

The ship should always be fully fitted with weapons and for PvP purposes, it should have some speed boosters, for example, an afterburner, microwarpdrive, overdrive injector, nanofiber, or inertia stabilizer. And if you are a PvE monkey, fit your weapons, a small shield booster, and 2 shield boost amplifiers. If you need that extra power to get those squeezed in, throw on two power diagnostic systems in the low slots.

Now this frigate can match whatever its foes throw at it!

[expand title=Technical Information:]

• 5% bonus to shield resistances
• 10% bonus to small hybrid turret optimal range
• Default targeting range is 30 km with 4 locked targets
• Velocity is 230 m/sec with 0 m3 of drone capacity
• Shield hit points is 469 and recharges in 625 seconds
• Power grid is at 35MW, 175ft of CPU, and 400 calibration points
• There are 4 high slots, 4 medium slots, 2 low slots, and 3 rig slots
• 2 slots for launchers and 2 for turrets[/expand]

[expand title=Close-Orbiting Merlin:]

• 2 Light Neutron Blaster
• 2 Rocket Launcher

• 1 1mn MicroWarpdrive
• 2 Cap Recharger

• 2 Overdrive Injector[/expand]

[ratings]

Pew pew goes the mighty Ferox!

So you thinking about a Ferox eh? To me, this ship looks sexy, sleek, and shiny; sparking something in you every time it glides across the sky.

It is the hybrid platform of the battlecruiser family, the brother of the Drake. It’s 6 guns hurtling Antimatter ammo like there is no tomorrow while it’s passive tank absorbs the incoming missiles and bullets.

Damage output might seem a bit low in the beginning, but since this whole game revolves around training skills, time will take your DPS higher and higher.

Some people say this ship is ugly as hell, I say, “WTF?” It looks a lot better than the Drake, which is just an upside down flatbed truck. The high poly-count on the ship’s exterior with the Trinity graphics turned on makes it look amazing and shiny! It actually looks like a spacecraft!

The ship can also be used to mine Veldspar or whatever your heart desires by equipping 6 mining turrets and quad-expanded cargohold. Even though the Drake has a better tank, who cares when your foe can’t even hit you at 80 or 90 kilometers away?

Anyways, be unique. Fly the Ferox and amaze your friends with its potential. He (or she) who flies this ship will be the on who pilots the ever powerful Rokh. Just keep at it with those gunnery skills!

[expand title=Technical Information:]

• 10% bonus to medium hybrid turret optimal range
• 5% bonus to all shield resistances
• Default targeting range is 60 km with 8 locked targets
• Velocity is 140 m/sec with 25 m3 of drone capacity
• Shield hit points is 4883 and recharges in 1400 seconds
• Power grid is at 1075MW, 475ft of CPU, and 400 calibration points
• There are 7 high slots, 5 medium slots, 4 low slots, and 3 rig slots
• 5 slots for launchers and 6 for turrets[/expand]

[expand title=Railgun Setup:]

• 6 200mm Railgun
• 1 Drone Link Augmentor

• 1 Shield Hardener
• 1 Tracking Computer
• 1 Cap Recharger
• 2 Large Shield Extender II

• 1 Power Diagnostic System
• 1 Heat Sink
• 2 Shield Power Relay

• 5 Hobgoblin[/expand]

[ratings]

The Caracal is the only cruiser class ship that is symmetrical in the navy. The good thing about this ship is its 5 heavy missile capabilities; 5 on a cruiser isn’t bad I would say.

The ship isn’t the toughest ship either, but still a rigorous tank for those level 3 missions and can provide an adequate amount of firepower when those missile skills are developed and refined.

The ship’s bonus to kinetic damage is often overlooked. If the bonus is 5% per level, then at level 4 it has a 20% extra damage boost. When it’s that situation, don’t use explosive or em missiles. Comparing when both of them hit, the damage from the kinetic will out do the other by it’s bonus, even if the target ship is weaker to that damage.

This ship is like the Drake, and I guess it could be called it’s little brother. A step between the Kestrel and the Drake. A lot of these are flying around and if you just started to play the game, I would suggest you skip buying a destroyer and save up for this ship.

The punch power alone makes it the better cruiser and later on when you have done enough missions for the Navy, you can trade in all those hours you have spent as a slave to get your Caracal upgraded.

And this is a pretty speedy ship too when you are picking up the loot!

Now in a fleet, you will almost always see a few of these ships as they are good assets to the team. Dishing out large amounts of damage while remaining relatively cheap. And to pilot this ship, not a lot of skills are demanded either. Just some missile skills and shield skills; that’s about it.

The bonuses fit the intended purpose and the ship is cheap and effective. Simple as that and that’s how I like it.

[expand title=Technical Information:]

• 5% bonus kinetic missile damage per skill level
• 10% bonus to missile velocity per level
• Default targeting range is 57 km with 6 locked targets
• Velocity is 187 m/sec with 10 m3 of drone capacity
• Shield hit points is 1563 and recharges in 1250 seconds
• Power grid is at 530MW, 2350ft of CPU, and 400 calibration points
• There are 5 high slots, 5 medium slots, 2 low slots, and 3 rig slots
• 5 slots for launchers and 0 for turrets[/expand]

[expand title=Heavy Missile Setup:]

• 5 Heavy Missile Launcher

• I Medium Shield Booster
• 1 Shield Hardener
• 1 Cap Recharger
• 2 Shield Boost Amplifier

• 1 Power Diagnostic System
• 1 Capacitor Flux Coil

• 2 Hobgoblin[/expand]

[ratings]

A Rokh in a rock.  Hehe.

Remember the day when 7 capital ships, 7 carriers, were lost by Quam Singulari?

Those 7 capitals went down with the help of 80 to 90 hostile ships. If you tried to go get a glimpse of the action, that would have been all you got; a glimpse, before you were sent back to your clone.

The lag at the time was utterly terrible. Just for me to jump into the Tama system meant waiting 5 minutes on the Nourvukaiken side of the gate for it to hurl my ship into the action. When my screen became interactable again, i found myself about 10,000km away from the so-epic-battle.

So I war to 0 on the gate in case I had to make a dashing escape from any flashing reds shooting at me. The screen stutters and lags as we move closer to the star gate. In a few quick seconds, just enough time for 2 screen shots, I find myself back in Todaki where my clone is installed. Well that was fun, I guess?

Didn’t really see much, but that’s okay. The 2 screen shots aren’t bad after some detailed examining.

Later on that day I joined another fleet of 70 ships, ranging from shuttles to battleships. Our objective was to engage a group of gate campers that was about 30 ships big. But when we got there, the intel changed.

About 10 more ships arrived. Thinking that it was no biggie, we engaged and managed to destroy a few Dominixes and Megathrons before 3 carriers managed to cyno in. We couldn’t dent their shields very much so it was time to retreat and move to another system and regroup. Now if they wanted to cyno in again, we would know and they would have needed to use about 80% of their capacitor, rendering them vulnerable.

At this time, I needed to go, so I left the fleet and headed back to Nourvukaiken with my Merlin. As I safely dock back into my station, I thought about the days’ encounters and realized I saw about 10 capital ships. Not bad.

But seriously, Tranquility really needs some upgrades.

This is a guide for all those of you who absolutely love to flip cans get free minerals that took ages for someone else to extract. But beware, this tutorial is filled with some humor!

First of all, these are the stuff you need:

1. Hauler ship
2. Quick small ship
3. One or two giant secure containers or even a general freight container
4. 0.8 or lower system with lots of jetcan miners
5. Safespot that only you know in that system
6. Guts (I really hope you have guts, or you should go see a doctor)

Instructions:

1. Go to your safespot, drop off and anchor your cans and containers. Make sure this spot is your own and no one else knows of it.
2. Bookmark this spot, never delete it!
3. Fly your hauler ship to the safespot, eject, and fly back to your other small ship.
4. Go fly your small ship and look for jetcaned cans of mineral.
5. Once you spot your can, go to it and flip it so it’s contents now belong to you.
6. To do this, you fly up to the can really quick, jettison something, like a mineral you stole previously or a piece of ammo, or even better yet, your bookmark for your safespot (no, I’m just joking, don’t do that).
7. Now bookmark your can.
8. Open up the other person’s jetcan and grab everything into your own can.
9. Run away!
10. Warp to your safespot and sit tight for a few minutes, preferably until the aggression countdown wears off.
11. Get out of your small ship and hop into your hauler.
12. Warp back to that can and pickup it’s contents.
13. Warp back to your safespot, drop everything into your container.
14. Wash, rinse, repeat…

That’s how it’s done, follow those easy… 14 steps and you can steal ore faster than you can say, Badger Mark II, well not literally of course.

When I try to explain this concept to some people at first, they don’t understand why we setup a safespot and not go into a station. Well person-who-asked-this, it’s so we can shave off about 10 minutes waiting to dock and undock (again, sarcasm).

I hope you have fun and aren’t warp scrambled by some nano’ed mining interceptor.

[ratings]

Just finished editing this little paragraph of funny. Feel free to put it into your biography if you want.

2006.04.24 08:49:54

Combat

Your 1154985mm Uber-Killing-Thing perfectly strikes Angel Gurista Battle-Frigate-Naught, wrecking for some obscene amount of damage that tries to boost your ego, self-esteem, personal worth, and lets everyone else know what sort of a loser you are.

On 23:13:00 EVE time, a fleet of about 60 State Protectorate pilots engaged an enemy fleet of about 50 pilots, or so we had thought. Once we got there, about another 30 to 50 ships jumped in through and lagged us up.

This is what the fleet started out like, about 90 people.

Our plan was to go around back door from the Caldari high security space into Tama. There was hostiles in the only Tama station and we wanted to trap them inside and snipe/kill them off. 10 minutes later and we arrive. Things didn’t go so well because there was a neutral spy following us and another spy in our fleet. Most of the people inside that station escaped. We started to chased them down and was able to pick off one or two.

Later, we reach Heydieles and our recon says a fleet is parked on the Old Man Star to Villore. We decide to go after these guys and got the fleet ready. By that time when we got to the destination, we only had a little above half of the people remaining.

The battle was not the best I have ever had. It lagged like hell! I did not appreciate it because you would always target the wrong thing or shoot at something that wasn’t there anymore. Everyone zoomed out to try to reduce the lag, but more reinforcement ships just keep jumping in from the Gallente side. Now we were just trying to get those that we could.

Our fleet commander was still calling the primary targets, and we were able to successfully take some ships down. In the end, I helped to kill these guys:

• Victim: Kadean
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Elite Underworld Special Forces
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

• Victim:Parmenides Elea
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Wrath of Fenris
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

• Victim:Lucas Avignon
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Avignon Associates Inc.
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

If you want to see my full kill board, please visit here.

Here is to the cool people that stuck it to the end, I salute you!

Corewin, CRUSH BOSS, Cuthbert Drake, Ecky Ptang, Kazabet, Lord Erebos, Marcuz Griffin, Ray Rosny, sakura okami, Splunk jamma, Tzu Wu, and Xanath Fireheart

Gallery, enjoy!

I took a journey with a few fleets over the past week and so far I would say they have been successful. We would jump 7 or 8 jumps and try to kill any war targets we could find on the way. Once we reach our destination, we would then sit on top of the gate for 20 to 30 minutes, waiting for prey to fall into our traps.

The fleets I was with starts out with about 60 to 70 guys, but on the way there, we would always lose about 10 or so people. Most of the time due to lag or them not following the fleet.

As I have also learned over these past experiences, our fleet commanders need to be smart and energetic. They needed to know how to asses the situation.

Yesterday, we sneaked deep behind enemy lines to capture about 20 complexes. It was one of the best times I have ever had in low security systems. In the end, we ended up with just about 20 people in the fleet after most of the people had to leave. I was able to rank up my State Protectorate status to a Second Lieutenant.

Among our fleet, we had 20 frigates, 30 or so cruisers, and 10 other sized ships. The few Raven pilots were our clubs to fend off and scare off any major enemies.

The whole time during these operations I flew my trusty Kestrel bomber. Fit it for going as fast as possible and doing as much damage as possible, I could blast any NPC pirates guarding inside the complexes. The FC was very determined and had a goal, to capture every complex we came to. He would send the frigates to the minor complexes, the cruisers to the standard complexes, and the battleships to the major installations.

In just 2 hours, we had captured 20 of these rooms for our faction.

But in the end, I had to stop my journey and retire for the night. I bid farewell to the rest of my gang and headed for my safe spot for the night.

May my journey continue tomorrow.

This is a feature of a video of comedy, epic battles, and ships of huge proportions.

I mean, the name just says it all; EVE From a Newbie’s View.

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