Due to some of my activities earlier in the day, my sec status had dropped down to a -4.0. I normally ignore my sec status and attempt to passively raise it through my normal isk making abilities. This is why I hover about -3.5 and sit there most of the time.
At -4.0 I start to get a bit uncomfortable. I'm only a handful of fights away from going to -4.5 and the land of the flashy red pirate. I don't care about my high sec access. I've debated it before and I am sure that I will again but I am not yet ready to go that route. A non flashy red sec status gives me a bit of backup on the gates and stations. Just as the gateguns shoot me the gate guns will shoot others and that is tied into my actions and decisions. I'm still happily leaning on that support.
The Moros that was killed earlier in the day had dropped me to -4.0. I was going to have to go out and have some time with Belt rats for a few hours. Not my idea of fun or enjoyment. I need to go out to null to do that more but I am still having 'meh, bubbles,' issues.
I managed to completely forget I needed to out and rat (rat = kill pirate npcs for positive sec status gain). I was chatting in our public chat and spinning my ship when word of a fleet of local anti-pirates came up. Razor of course wanted to go after them. Ender said that they wouldn't fight us. They were hanging around anyway, so we undocked and loosely set up.
We jumped a drake in and to our surprise, they were still on the gate. Then they locked up our drake and then, to our surprise started to shoot it. We waited till they entire group was shooting the drake and had GCC before the rest of the fleet was ordered in.
Then ren disconnected on jump. They had a sleipnir and two hurricanes. As we jumped in a blackbird warped in. The order went out to get it off the field. I called out that I'd take care of it. When I decloaked the blackbird was 45 away from me. I started to burn for it. To my surprise it just burned right into range of my guns. I guess he was focused on someone else.
As I got into range, Razer said he was jammed. I was shooting the blackbird who had corp aggression due to shooting Razor. No GCC for me. I sent my drones to the sleipnir and chewed through the blackbird. For a while I was wondering why it wasn't dying. Later, I saw its 1600 plate fit and understood.
The blackbird went down. I went to point the hurricane while pewpewing at the Sleipnir as I passed. They had taken down the other hurricane as I worked on hte blackbird. We lost our drake as well. Then the sleipnir went down. Point was called on the cane. I transferred the drones to him and he also went down.
That was when I noticed I did not have GCC. Shock. Shock. Shock. We cleaned up the field and hopped back home. I had not dropped any sec during the fight. Yay!
I switched over to my jag and began to do my ratting loops while chatting in our public chat. We've gotten a little bit of traffic and meeting people has been fun. I'm cheerfully chewing away at a battleship when someone red shows up in my overview. I'd not noticed the neut in local. The burst of adrenaline was so hard and I got the shakes so badly that I misclicked my warp out. Somewhere in the back of my mind I took a breath, noticed that he was 34k off of me. He wasn't going to be able to point me before I took off. He was in a Caldari Navy Hookbill.
Faction ship. Frig? I think? Assault frig? I'm a frig... My mind churned through my little handful of immediate ship knowledge. Not sure... gotta bounce and not get caught on the asteroids of by rat damage... I have time hes not yellow boxed me... wtf am I warping to... ahhhh......
I bounced. He followed, but I had enough time to focus, get some control of myself and drop into a safe while I informed people that I had gotten jumped got advice about the ship type.
"Kill him," was Ender's response.
"Can I?" Not as in, do I have permission to, but is my Jag capable of.
"Yes. Kill him."
"Uhh..." My personal confidence level in doing things on my own is pretty much zero. I ran in full and complete flight mode. My mind had cleared a little bit but now I was in a self doubt loop. I've not done 1v1 stuff or much frigate fighting. One side of me is making plans and decisions and the other is like 'EEEEEEEEKKKKK'.
"What is the worst that can happen? You die in a fire? Go kill him."
Mental meltdown. One side wants to obey Ender and offer up a 1v1. The other side is reminding me that I am a clueless noob and I have no right to try to go out and act like I have a clue. I'm in a complete feedback loop of confusion. I want to obey Ender but I'm having a confidence meltdown thats leaving my decision making process a puddle of goo.
The other pilot decided to leave system when Dher undocked in an Ishkur. I messaged him to chat him up a bit. He said he wasn't interested in the Ishkur. I had a nice chat with him and then wound up fleeted with him fifteen minutes later for a possible fight that wound up not going anywhere.
Later, after that same Caldari Navy Hookbill pilot killed one of the TEXN guys in an assault frig, another TEXN guy that fights with him was saying that he loves killing other frigs. He does a web and neut combo. It explains why he didn't want to fight the Ishkur. He'd be fighting drone DPS as well as ship DPS.
Could I have taken him? Perhaps. I don't know. It would have depended on if I could have stayed out of web range or not. There are lots of thoughts and my mind is going to solve them. But the weirdest part to me about the entire thing is Ender's reaction.
I seem to have graduated out of raw noobhood. This, coupled with making me work on the recruitment stuff and the entire "Sugar needs to start scouting" conversation, which he actually wrote an Eve mail to Diz about, makes me feel as if I am being kicked out of the nest some.
They are not getting rid of me, but damn it they are trying to make me fly on my own some. I prefer a nice, long leisurely learning curve and as I get comfortable with something I move on to new things. At some point, some decision was made that I was ready to be kicked into random situations.
Woe is me.
It is nice that they have the confidence in me to let me off leash. But that leash is rather familiar and feels safe. Perhaps I should go on about what a badass I am and how lame everyone else is. I've always been a bit thoughtful about the entire pewpew process. Dipping my toes into things voluntarily is a much slower process for me then when I just deal with things.
I've said that I am not even the tiniest bit a fan of going out an getting blown up without a clue as to what I am doing. The chances are that I have something of a clue these days. Still. Comfort level is not there.
Will it ever be there if I keep waiting?
Maybe, maybe not. I think at my 'age' in game I'm doing all right. If I run out and attempt to do things I am uncomfortable with and do not want to do I'll not have fun. If I do it just because other people who would have fun and/or enjoy that play style tell me to do it, I'll not have fun harder. I don't mind pushing myself but I also don't get anything from throwing myself into situations with a 'hope for the best lulz' attitude. It's not for me.
Now I'm defending myself for being myself. Chuckle. Ahh well. I sat and chewed on the situation for a while. I need to figure out where I am now a bit more, I think. I still see myself as a brand new player with very little understanding of the game. If the people that I know and respect say that I can do things, I need to try to pull some confidence from them and work into doing those things.
The boys have said I'm fine and given me reign to go out and try to expand myself with a general confidence level that I'm not going to derp into anything and everything.
Blah. When did I become an Eve Teenager? So much angst :P
I started off scouting... first for Pax Romana (back when it was based in Murethand and a decent lolsex alliance), now for En Garde, and on the side fly with the ILF... but I honestly find more fun and adventure in solo and small-gang stuff. Not too enamored of the 200+ blobs that we often field in null.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think anyone can be a "DPS drone" in any gang bigger than say, 10 people. That takes virtually zero skill, and perhaps 4 working brain cells (depending upon quality, one can sometimes get by with 3) ... but take those people out of that environment and expect them to operate on their own, or in a true small gang where individual pilot skill and initiative matters, and :loltastic fail: ensues.
You definitely should learn to strike out on your own and work either solo or well out ahead of the fleet. :-) It'll make you a MUCH better PvPer and EVE player in general, I promise.
I don't think I've ever run around roaring about my plans to be the most awesome solo PvP pilot. I'd like to be competent solo sure but I know that it does not come instantly. I'm not battering at the full potential or even partial of being a fleet member. I've only just barely moved into the area where I am sometimes thinking during a fight and not just reacting.
DeleteA lot rolls down to me not being a rusher. I'll deal, learn and adapt. I'm also happy puttering along and learning as I go. Automatically I balk but situationally I'll adapt.
But my well trained GTFO instinct is its own hurdle.
If you want I can train 1vs1 with you, so this way we both learn something. I will get blown up I am sure, but for now I can afford to lose some ships.
DeleteI admit PVP always get my hearth pumping really fast, and the shakes and sweat ohh boy.
Security is what we always want to have and feel, to have someone always ready to come, that we can ask for help anytime, but we also want to be able to stand up for ourself, but it takes guts to take the first step, witch I consider the hardest part to do.
This is a game in witch I know we need to know the maximum possible number of information we possible can, to survive. So even bad experiences are a lesson.