Black Ops Part 2

Some real action now. Fleet started with 9 BO pilots, that turned into 12 at the end. Very good show up, thank you guys for that :)

The Op started a bit slow: I had a target system in mind; Istrodard, that was supposed to have a lot of nice little targets flying around. Took me an odd 30 jumps to get there with my Cyno Loki. But to reach it, we had to use a midpoint first. To ease the jumping, we took a Viator-Blockade Runner with us to carry some fuel and pick up the PvP loot.

Meanwhile, Corina was dealing with some more pressing matters, and was trying to figure out how to best clean his keyboard.

Again, fleet started a bit slow. The actual lvl 5 mission pocket was rather dead, only some lone pilot in local, either docked or running for his life at first sight of a Combat Probe. I probed a Machariel, and later a Tengu to 80%, but they were either cloaked or docked before I got the final scan cycle on it. Can't blame their paranoia. :-)

I was giving my hopes up on getting targets just when I spotted a Harbinger and a Hurricane sitting on a Sun. I tried to re-warp on top of them, but they were already gone to the next system. I followed them, just to find them in a Belt fighting a bounce other guys.

Seems an Ishtar, Harbinger and the Hurricane were fighting a Cynabal (armor fit, mind you!) and 2 Talos' at a belt. When I lit the cyno, the 2 Talos already died, but the 4 remaining were left for us to kill.

Again, the Viator gave us a lot of mobility, and only a few minutes later I found a Megathron ratting in a belt. Please take a moment of your time to look at this fit. 

At this point, Swirve did an attempt cleaning his keyboard as well, pulling off all his keys, losing the button 'S'.

At this point I was gonna call it a night, and headed back to Dal, when a few systems later I found 2 Hurricanes camping a Gate. Sometimes, life is just too easy.

The state of Corina's keyboard is still largely unknown, but we can confirm Swirve's keyboard is fully operational again. Op success.

PS, needless to say I forgot to Fraps any of that ... DarkTV episode will have to wait again ...

Black Ops

You may or may not know it, but I love the Black Ops ships, and the whole concept of it. The ship class has been watered down a bit over the years, being it rather unpractical ships and all.
But, thank goodness, EVE Onlines latest expansion blew some new life into them.

So what has been changed?
Black Ops fuelbay has been increased by 25%
Black Ops fuel requirements have been decreased by 25%
Black Ops jumprange has been increased to 3.5 ly (Titan range)
Black Ops Covert Jump Portal fuel requirements have been decreased by 25%

In short, its jumpdrive received a much needed boost.
BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!
New ships can fit Covert Cynos now. Previously, only the Force Recons, Covert Ops-Frigates and the Black Ops itself could give Covert Cynos. But now also Covert T3 Strategic Cruiser and Blockade Runners can give them.
This opens a big new window for BO fleets. Recons like the Rapier tend to be a bit light on defenses, but using a Loki or even Proteus can tripple your EHP. There is a certain disadvantage compared to Recon though. That is, the E-War bonus on Recons is significally higher than that of a T3. The Cyno wil also run for a full 60 seconds, instead of the 30 sec Recon.

So what have I been doing lately? Nothing much exciting though. I've not had the ability to use BO for a couple of months, and so I just started again. I threw out my old Cyno Rapier and got myself a new Loki.
Meanwhile I've tried to promote the ships in corp a bit, and I think we got about 8 or so BO in corp now. Not bad at all.

My personal flavor of the month in the Sin. It being Gallente (Blasters and Drones), you can either go full tank, or your typical Glasscannon. Needless to say I pick the later. In fact, I shield tanked my Sin with its lowslots fully dedicated to DPS.
The Sin only had 7 highslots, but interesting enough only 4 gunslots. Add a Cloaking Device to that you still got 2 free slots. I decided to put a set of Smartbombs in there. Great for splashing some little pods!

I made a little compilation video of some Black Ops PvP a few months ago, can be seen here: