My first corp drama!

Remember how I posted a few weeks back, about how being in a corp is like being in a RL relationship?

Well, this is my scenario at the moment:

I fall in love with my new corp, Mad Bombers. Everything seems peachy. I spend a week moving lots of my stuff to my new home in 0.0. I make bookmarks everywhere, I get to know the neighbours, I sign up to the Mad Bombers forum and even post my RL pic there. I'm thinking, yeah this is going to be a very long-term relationship!

And then I find out that my new partner is a heroin addict.
And by heroin I mean FALCONS.

I couldn't believe it. I saw them using falcons in some of our random gangs and at first I thought, oh it's ok they're just using a few falcons for fun here and there, no big deal. Surely it's not a habit. Everyone dabbles in ECM every now and then right?

Then serious warning signs started showing. Someone posted a Falcon ship fitting thread in the forums, and then I see this:

Check the 5th most ship used in kills. FALCONS.

I panic. What could this mean? Would you leave someone you love because of a drug addiction? Or would you stay there and help them overcome it, and if they can't then just accept and love them and stay with them anyways?

Well, I pretty much did the worst possible thing I could do so early in the relationship. I posted my views on the corp forums.

Of course, I happened to pick a particularly bad day to try the INTERVENTION, as I was feeling rather emotional, edgy, and in a trolling mood.

It started off as a post in the offensive falcon ship fitting thread, with a small rant about my disappointment in them and that I thought they were better than this (typical relationship manipulation crap). Then the forum discussion descended into outright e-peen waving (linking km's) and sarcastic thread derailments, while some members white-knighted me and others were FURIOUS and threatened to kick me from corp.

Ahhh... The first lover's tiff.

It all ended later in the day, with the offending posts/threads being deleted, and me sending an apology email to the senior members.

I don't want to start a fresh discussion/drama about FALCONS here, so I'll suffice to say I think they are the bane of solo (and small gang) pvp'ers in EVE, and wouldn't mind if ECM was completely deleted from the game. Most of the people I admire and look up to in EVE think the same way too.

The fact remains that I have made a commitment to my corp for now, and I have to accept them for who they are. It doesn't mean I need approve of it or to fly in a gang with falcons in it, but I'll live with it and still do my own thing and play the game how I want it.

I feel like I'm writing to an Agony Aunt for some advice here:

Anyone have any suggestions or care to share experiences on how to deal with a beloved Corp's destructive addictions?

Many thanks

Laedy

Shiny happy people holding hands

Skill point Milestone

Today I've reached the big "Five-O". That is, Laedy is now at 50 million skill points!
The skill I'm currently training (Shield Compensation lvl 4) is not very exciting in itself, but it is indicative of a new direction I plan to be taking in EVE soon.

You see, for most of my EVE career I've been a Gallente armor tanker. This year I've cross trained into Minmatar and have flown some shield Hurricanes and Ruptures, but I have never flown an actively shield tanked ship.

Well, I've been inspired by some of my friends that have been flying Cyclones and Maelstroms lately, and so I decided it was about time for me to train up my shield skills better and to try these ships out.

I don't yet have the skills for large T2 projectiles, but I can already do a mean Cyclone so I'll be trying it out soon. Any suggestions on other cool active shield ships I should try, please let me know. I can't wait!

Mad Bombers

Is my brand new corporation !!!

Actually, those big exclamation marks there are an attempt at me trying to be very positive and happy about finding and settling into my new home. The truth is, I'm still quite sad about leaving my former corp, Bi-Polar Bears.

As you may have read in my last few posts, I've been hanging out in Amamake a lot in the last couple of months. This meant that I was often shooting at Minmatar militia and also fleeting up with random friends. The Bi-Po guys were always very tolerant and let me do my own thing, considering I'm Australian and in a different TZ to most of them and all. In the last week though, things became a bit awkward, as I found myself fleeting up with the enemy, and shooting some semi-friendlies. Oops. So, since I'm quite stubborn and was not likely to change my behaviour, I thought it was best to leave before I caused any real trouble.

It's weird you know, whenever I leave a corp I always feel like I'm breaking up a relationship or something. I left on good terms though, so that's a good thing. I love the Bi-Po guys a lot, but for now we'll have to remain "just friends". Just a shout out to my buddies Loren Gallen (one of the most scary and best pilots in EVE), Eddie Valvetino, Ashenshugar, Grom, Calderus Rex, Sirah and others. Much love, thanks for all the roams. I learnt a lot from you guys ♥

The GOOD news is that I have a lot of friends in Mad Bombers already. People I have known in the game for quite a while, and some of them (Azi and Zamone) I have actually met irl. There are lots of Aussies in there too, so we have a lot in common and play in the same Timezone. They are a great bunch of guys and girls, and I know I will call this corp "home" for quite some time.

Mad Bombers - So awesome, we RP as ourselves.

I'm already starting to settle in, and trying to overcome my 0.0 fears (we live in Venal). I even got some nice solo kills in my Taranis yesterday!

The kindness of strangers

(The post below is an account of my latest thoughts and experiences on the generosity of people in EVE)

Upon making the decision to change corps, I realized that I would no longer have my income source available to me. That is, the very easy and lucrative Factional Warfare missions (which on average, I can make 100million ISK per hour running those lvl 4's).

I came up with a cunning plan to grind up a skill-less alt into the Gallente militia just to pick up the lvl 4 missions for me. I spent 4 hours running about 15 missions. When it came to my very last mission I terribly messed up. I got distracted, and my speed-tanking dramiel alt died. Seriously, I'm so bad at PVE.

That was me ^ emo-bear

I was pretty emo about this, so I decided to dock up and go and hand in all the missions (about 14) and get the standings for my new alt. Well guess what? Apparently you can't get standings for Factional warfare missions unless you are already in the militia as well. My new alt was not in the militia, and there was no way she could get in because she didn't have the 0.5 standings required. So it was a catch 22.

I was idling in system, feeling sorry for myself when I saw a fellow blogger in local. He was flying a Tengu, and I asked him to come and help me tank that last mission so I could complete it and then go to bed. Understandably, he declines because we are in low sec and I think he feared it could be a trap to gank him. He then tells me he's a fan of my blog, and gives me 50 million isk to help cover my Dramiel loss! How nice is that? I did feel a lot better. I don't know if I should say his name publicly here, but I thought it was really sweet.

The next day I get into Mad Bombers corp, and I tell them in corp chat my story at being emo about the dramiel and also of losing my income supply. I was saying how I'm  not sure how I'm going to go about making isk now etc... Next thing I know, my wallet flashes and I have 100 million isk in there! One of my new corpies, Jason Marshall, decided to give me isk just to help me feel welcome. Well, it sure helped, thanks Jason! (I think he might have been drunk though, not sure).

I've had a lot of people be generous to me in this game. Last Christmas, a complete stranger gave me 50mil isk as well. I had actually just killed his ship in Old Man Star, and he was still jovial enough to give me a present (he may also have been drunk).

I'm not sure about Karma or whatever, but I do often try and be nice to people. Pay it forward, that type of thing. I often find myself replacing ships of noobs I just pirated, or just giving them isk and advice on how to defend themselves in the future. Most of my pirate friends think I'm weird and a complete bleeding-heart. Don't get me wrong, tears can be fun too (I love reading hate mails etc) but sometimes the satisfaction of helping others is even better don't you think?

Women, Russians and Drakes

The Women

(This is a pretty cool movie btw)

 I'm very very excited about a couple of things lately.

My friend Azi logged in tonight and excitedly exclaimed that she had found 2 more girls that play EVE  Online that also live in the same city as us (Melbourne, Australia)!
As you may know, an estimate of only 5% of EVE's population are female, and of that 5% it's even more rare to find a girl that is Australian, AND that lives in the same city!
We immediately all had to meet up on Teamspeak for a chat.

We were introduced to them by Shota Cypher (he blogs about this here) and we decided to all go for a roam around Amamake tonight.

Slowly the gang grew and grew to about 8-9 people in T1 and T2 frigs. It was chaotic as usual, but we had a blast, killed some stuff and died some too.

I later had a roam with another Aussie bloke I just met, Margaret Shrike. We had some luck at first, killing a wolf and daredevil. We then roamed for nearly 1 whole hour without finding anything to shoot at. We finally found a Vagabond as I was in warp to a gate. Shrike informs me that I am about to land on top of him, and then my screen freezes up! I couldn't do anything or even quit EVE. I had to shutdown my laptop. By the time I restarted it and logged in, I was in a pod :( How seriously unlucky is that?  I would've loved a proper fight with that Vaga...

Anyways, us four Aussie girls should be meeting up for lunch some time in the next couple of weeks, should be fun!

Another thing I'm really excited about is the next WGOE roam I've been planning in 2 weeks' time. I don't really want to say much about it just yet, but it should be lots of fun and also a new challenge for me as a still relatively new FC. I've made a mailing list for details about the ops, and so far there are 23 lady subscribers to the mailing list! I'm not sure exactly how many of those will turn up on the night, but should be huge.

It's weird you know... For over 2 years in EVE I hardly ever came across women in EVE (maybe, like 2  or 3, but didn't speak to them much). I didn't even think about it much at all. All of a sudden, in the last few months, they're everywhere! It's crazy.

The Russians


OH. I have to give another mention to my EVE white-knight, CHED again (he likes it when I mention him in this blog) since he helped me with some cool kills this week.

Just yesterday I was roaming in Bosboger Solar System in my rifter, when I came across a Myrmidon. I took a gamble and decided to engage him, thinking I could try and kill drones quickly, and if things went too bad I could hopefully make an escape.

Things did go wonderfully according to plan. His 425mm AutoCannon II's couldn't track me, he had a scram, but no web or neuts, and I managed to kill nearly all his drones one by one. Only one problem: after about 5 minutes or so of working on his tank, I realized I wasn't breaking him and I was running out of ammo. He starts getting mad and insulting me in Russian in local, calling me a bitch!

~~~ As a side note, why do Russians always talk to you in their Russian language in local? I am SURE they can speak English. Can't they? It's like, they are so arrogant that they make you go to the effort of having to google translate their insults. It's very annoying. ~~~

Anyways. I ran out of R.F. Fusion ammo. Time to call in the Calvary. I asked my friend CHED and he came over from Amamake in his Drake and helped me finish him off. Russian man was not happy. He even called us "Piratey pancakes" in local. Well, that's what google translate says anyways.

Confessions of a Drake Pilot

Is a new blog by Elise Randolph. I've been reading and enjoying this blog immensely lately. Elise started this blog as part of the "Try It" Competition over at Podlogs. He entertainingly chronicles his adventures of trying out something new to him in EVE, which happens to be "Spying".
His goals are: "To plant a spy using no isk, no money, no old characters, and very little effort."

Do check it out, comment, and encourage him to keep it up!