A Busy Day Kicking Sansha Ass

It all started with decoding node 09 of Sansha relay. Which gave us Hakeri (4 populated planets), Horir (4 populated planets) and Huttaken (3 populated planets). H-systems. Sounds like porn.

Saturday we set up a vigil, waited for some time and went back home.

No idea who came up with times – 20:00 to 21:00 Eve time. Then there was evacuation when I got my Fenrir and even picked up a few thousands of refugees in Horir.

The next part is when I hopped into my ECM Blackbird and went to Horir. We're sitting, waiting for those freaks to come and taste our guns and the next thing I know is that we're heading to Afkanat. Horir wings go to Afkanat, Hakeri wings head to Odatrik.

In Afkanat there was some intense action which finished with Citisen Astur losing her (its!) Chimera. In few minutes it reappears in Odatrik in another Chimera and loses it too. And then there are reports of yet another incursion in Amamake. Our fleet is split into two halves across the universe, there are reports of RED fleet engaging Sanshas in Amamake and our FC decides that we don't go in there.

Then that CONCORD officer, Dorgiers or what was his name says that we should keep watching those H-systems and also keep an eye on Antem for some obscure reason known only to him. So I fly to Horir, then to Huttaken, then back to Horir and suddenly I see Sansha hole appearing right in front of me. We have a fight and close two holes (same shit goes on in other systems as well) then strange stuff begins — spikey ships appear, fly around, then disappear. And totally no Sansha dropships. They aren't here for humans.

Then Dorgiers says that Citizen Astur is haxoring something secret in Antem. And shouting in Antem local about "50 minutes left until I get all the secret porn decrypted and downloaded." Of two ways to Antem everyone picks longer but safer. We hug Antem gate and when about 10 minutes left until Astur got all the porn downloaded we jump into system and warp to our scout who has probed Astur's Wyvers. Local pirates flee from our combined fleet of about 20-30 ships of all sorts. And then we help Dorgiers' Nyx punch that Wyvern, switching our fire towards local pirates when those show up. When Wyvern goes down, one of those crazy Sansha loyalists comes in Archon. And we whack that one too.

So far it was ok as I felt being in a fleet and having a support and even if our equipment wasn't top-notch, we weren't really afraid of pirates. But then I wave goodbye to everyone and attempt to go back to Pen myself. Through low-sec. It all goes smooth until I jump into Atarli. That's when I see half a dozen pilots in local and a moment later I see them all around me hugging the gate.

I have already learned that if I'm in a quick frigate, I should burn back to the gate. But I'm in slow-ass Blackbird which is totally unfitted for a fight. 6 ECMs, 3 missile launchers and ECM-boosting stuff. No way I can survive if they engage me. But then I think — What the hell? This ship is designed to be cheap, I'm ready to lose it, and in I jump I will be in high-sec already and I even have a spare ship there!

So I initiate the warp. They start locking me but I warp before I'm scrambled. Either those guys were slow or they didn't feel like killing a single Blackbird. Both are unlikely actually. So I warp to a planet, then warp to a safespot, then warp out to high-sec. And head home.

Now that I'm thinking about why they let me go, I'm suspecting that either they didn't want to aggress as they were on their way somewhere or they were suspecting I'm just a scout or bait for a larger fleet. These cases make me feel better, but back then it was really heart-pumping situation for me.

Yeah, running alone through gate camp is indeed a lot more intense then fighting in a group. Even in a small group.

Brain Jam

Totally no idea what could have happened to my brain in the last days. At first it started with a totally uncontrolled slumber – the REM timer went haywire and I woke up in about 16 hours totally un-refreshed. My head felt like a total mess. I do blame sleep-learning the "Advanced fleet armor management." Still these things never caused issues like this.

Next night wasn't much better — this time REM timer didn't even register ANY sleep at all. So when the alarm went off and I wandered to my office and it all was really strange (broken ATM flashing yellow screen, suddenly withered plant on an empty reception desk) I wouldn't be much surprised to see a real ghost. While it all felt real, the seeming was too irreal (turned out that ATM was really broken and plant was withered some time ago, I never noticed that before).

And now, when my brain is no longer responsible for any rational thinking, a totally different body part jumps in. I've spent last hour discussing where to get proper rubber toys to arm a dozen of exotic dancers or which issue of CreoDron catalogue listed a fully-autonomous 10-limbed fucking drone. Which would hunt dancers and do what it is designed for. And send the real-time projection of the process onto my holodesk.

Screw it all. Off to bed. And no REMs this time. Just plain old rest.

Moar Piracy and Some Consequences

My irregular planetside shift schedule prevents me from attending most of our small yarr-sessions. But the good side is that "most" is not "all".

Anyway, tonight I tasted the blood of battlecruisers. First we aggressed a blinky-red Brutix. Little we knew about how strong his tank was. The tree of us (my Rifter, our leader's Slicer and one Merlin) were not enough to overcome his armour repairers. By the time we decided to disengage our leader got caught by his drones and ripped before he managed to warp away. Anyway, that was a nice fight. A little blood-pumping.

And then we proceeded to find softer targets and in the end we saw a pair of Hurricane and Apocalypse. In a belt. Killing bloods. With a loud "Yarr" we engaged that Hurricane and reduced it into bits. Totally non-combat fit. It was a plain salvage ship which backed the Apocalypse.

After little pause (and loud warnings about us, evil pirates, in the local chat channel) we decided to proceed and our leader in a different Slicer .. got caught by a properly equipped Hurricane. And smashed.

Without the lead we decide to leave the place and get back to our bases. So I jump through a gate and see two more BCs. And the moment I try to warp to safety, I'm caught. Two more seconds and my Rifter is torn by yet another Hurricane's autocannons. They didn't get my escape pod luckily.

So... As usual, my loss happened when I said to myself "I'll just get there and then take a break." Another thing to note is that I should not try to warp if I managed to jump into a camp. Even if I'm in a nimble frigate.

Adrenaline is still high and I need some relaxation now. Docking permission granted, and I've already ordered a couple of sweet-ass nurses for me to ease the pain of losing my ship and not getting high enough insurance to cover the loss of all the guns and shields on it.

Docking now.

Small Scale Piracy

So I got in touch with a gang of aggressive newbies led by a low-sec veteran, assembled a Rifter, armed it up and joined them for some illegal action. Last week we just ran around searching for a target of opportunity, but seen noone other then a huge gate camp. Not our target I say.

Yesterday the run was much more organized. I showed up early enough and even got me enough ammo. First we found a Maller. I warped into belt, saw that Maller, asked our commander if it is ok to engage, then approached and scrambled that poor newbie. He didn't last long and with that setup he had no chance even against me alone — a mix of short-range lasers and artillery, coupled with shield booster and hull repairer on a ship of amarrian design is not the greatest idea.

Then we traveled a bit more looking for someone else (and losing one of our caracals to a gate camp on the way). There was some Coercer jumping between belts and we decided to lay a trap. One of our guys, piloting an Incursus, went to a belt and got attacked by a Hawk. Our team jumps in, then we tear that Hawk into bits. Incursus did not survive the encounter though.

In the end it's two kills.

Yarr I say.

Manage the Stuff!

I've rewired my brain yet again recently. This time I'm focused towards social interaction and manipulation. Which is handy when you're dealing with market brokers, station authorities, fleet mates or corporation members.

As an attempt to get used to my newly acquired powers, I've tried a small market manipulation. Nothing fancy, just artificial price increase for a certain module in a certain region. That worked but not as smooth as I expected. When I already decided to just sell everything I got, more competitors arrived. The usual 0.01-isk war began and I thought I had to make even more investment just to keep my projected profit.

Then some guy comes, buys everything off market and relists it with a huge additional price. I jump the train and throw everything I acquired just below him. Again, more competitors arrive (right now it does seem a lot more profitable then when I did the same thing, which lures lots of traders) and it's 0.01-isk war again, but this time I'm going to follow it and sell my stock of those modules.

The projected income would be a bit over 100 millions. Which is not that much considering it took over 2 weeks already. Still better then keeping my isk stale.

Industry Cogs in Action

So it is working. Not yet sexy enough but at least it does its function.

Since the moment I started using it, I discovered two bugs already. Those were fixed immediately.

Now gotta find someone who wants to check the Planner as well. I've already contacted a friendly 0.0 industry monger, but that guy seems to be quite forgetful.

P.S. It's hard to express how interested I am in ORE Primea or what is the name of that ship.

P.P.S. Note to self: think twice before posting when sleepy. My missive makes little sense even to me.

Think Before You Act

It was like 2 or 3 weeks of not doing anything in the space. Except some Sansha action. Still I needed a way to put my industrial skills to work. So I run some calculations, check some numbers and realize I could try inventing Devoters for a nice profit. 4 runs – 4 fails. Yeah, fine. Need more. Bought more stuff, started some research. And then I find out that I'm not actually that good at building such complex ships. Currently I possess no skill to build a Devoter. And not in any foreseeable future.

So... Gotta find someone who will build those for a share of profit.

Seems like that military-aimed augmentation does interfere with my industrial mindset. I wonder how will the social neural mapping work. About a month and a half till remap.

Told Ya!

13.5.112 Calls Rise for Ardishapur to Be Given More Authority

....many have suggested that Ardishapur be given judiciary powers across the Empire.

Should I wave goodbye to Empress already?

As Much As I Hate Sansha....

....I wasn't there to make them suffer.
13.5.112 Sansha Invasion Underway

New Eden – Over the last two days, Sansha incursions have been reported in multiple systems across New Eden. On 12.05.112, four more raids took place, with True Slave transports apparently abducting people from the planets below.

Niarja, Balle, Tama and Kamela systems were attacked by Sansha's Nation today.

<...>

Pilots deployed in systems around the Minmatar Republic after the attack in Kamela, attempting to anticipate the next target, but no further attacks have occurred at the time of writing. Six systems - Kaaputenen, Frarn, Renyn, Ashab, Eystur and Urlen - were reported by capsuleers as having been attacked on the 11th, with another four systems - Niarja, Balle, Tama and Kamela - being invaded on the 12th, when over 200,000 people were abducted in a continuing series of apparently unprovoked attacks by the Sansha. A possible seventh attack on the 11.05.112 in the 3-CE1R of the Jovian Empire, remains unconfirmed.

Marked systems are within my reach – Ashab is just a jump away from me. But being planetside prevents me from effectively reacting to such news.

Also, the references to some CONCORD classified data seem disturbing.

I've Gut That Feeling...

04.3.112 Ardishapur to Begin Empire-wide Speaking Tour

The Ardishapur Family announced that Yonis Ardishapur will tour the Empire over the coming weeks. The royal heir, whose recent success within the Ammatar Mandate has led to high popularity in that domain, is planning on speaking engagements in a variety of venues and locations.

Now that reminds me of an old RPG-like game I've played while in University – in some ancient society in order to get promoted to a higher rank you have to be the most honored of all candidates AND the current holder of that rank has to leave his position. Or just die. The easiest way was to be all-honored guy who kills bandits and saves innocent then just get a mask and assassinate the current holder. Voila, you've been promoted!

I'm not saying Yonis goes to assassinate Empress. I'm saying I've got that gut feeling.

Managing Stuff

De-obfuscating the app in my earlier post.

When I was building Orca, I had to keep track of all the various components a and blueprints and minerals. In the end I've made a spreadsheet that could automatically calculate what blueprints I had, how much minerals I needed to build stuff from those I got etc. That was a success and Baldachine proves it.

On the other hand some of the data I had to put in myself before I could actually use the sheet. It was also closely tied to Orcas and everything else would require some changes.

That's when the idea of specialized app had first emerged.

The design was simple at first: 4 lists – what you have to buy, what you are going to build, what you already got and what you what to have in the end. There are ways to transfer stuff between first 3 lists triggering various events: if you move some of your Capital Cargo Bays from "to buy" to "to build", you'll get tons of minerals and blueprints in your "to buy" list. When those are in "acquired" list, you have an option to "manufacture" those bays.

Later 5th list appeared – "Spent" – which contains whatever you have spent to get what you currently have in "Acquired".

Currently I'm working on saving and loading projects, as well as exporting them to external files. Short-term plans also include adding more options for moving records around and fixing few bugs (anyone else can't see Capital Ship Maintenance Bay Blueprint in the "To buy" list? That kind of bugs).

And, of course, making it all sexier is high-priority as well. Such as replacing the red bar with a nice-looking arrow pointing up – it's used to collapse the upper part to see more in the rest of lists. Maybe images of items in the list.

Orca's Ready

While it was quite a time to cook it in the end, I was too air-headed to think a name for it in advance. The idea was to name it after something that is slow and huge but still moves even if lubberly.

The image appearing in my mind was of something like a flying elephant. Not an agile little elephant who can flap its ears and do nifty air tricks. Something that can hardly control its movement.

The name is Baldachine. Ask me if you don't know who is that.

Waving Around

I'd say wave is really a good tool for both communication and organizing stuff. While its communication format isn't something I've never seen before, the organizing part is really good. Until now I had options of either keeping my notes and papers and docs in a single place, or putting it to online access but spread between different service providers. Now, using wave gadgets, I can keep my notes both online, in one place and nicely arranged between waves. That's good.

So what would I use waves for? That's easy – I need some feedback on my app during early design stages. It's better to have opinions gathered before I finalized everything.

Speaking of design: I've got a concept and UI design and now I got to program the transitions between states. It's going to be like 3 states and 4 possible transitions. 2 of those are done. Also crucial is save/load feature. For now I can feed the app some hard-coded test data and play around with it making nice screenshots and posting them to wave for feedback.

You say I've obfuscated the part on my app, I say – not just it.

Manufacturing, Research and Planetside Data

Browsing through online libraries looking for the specification of the interface which is required for all real-time operating systems used on all flying stuff. Yeah, it's a lot more complex with neural stuff in our pod-fitted ships, somewhat simpler for other spacecraft, but I'm interested in basics – the stuff that works on simple aerial craft.

Now that I think of it, it could be also in Drones and Fighters and Fighter-Bombers section, yeah.
And if I manage to get some data on drones... Gotta check CreoDron bases, maybe I'll find some clues to build those Ogres II.

Anyway, I'm really not much online lately, managing some manufacturing jobs in the factory next door, then going back to my apartments. Memory implant is slowly digesting theory on remote mining equipment management (this is said to be requirement to pilot an Orca even if I don't know if I can afford one). Perception implant is producing a mellow music humming in my brain (gotta visit some live show, I wonder if smooth jazz bands ever come to Amarr space). Willpower implant is forcing me to stay awake.

Few push-ups, a shower, a cup of strong tea and back to terminal.

Should I order a full-surround audio system from Gallente space? Or a smooth jazz band? Or just few chicks?