Suddenly Giveaway - No. 1 (updated)

The first of our series of live events "Suddenly Giveaway" will take place on Dec 21st. at 17:30 EVE time somewhere in Jita. One lucky pilot will receive a free ship! If you are interested you better join the "suddenlygiveaway" ingame channel at least an hour early, and you better start training Caldari battleships, just in case...



UPDATE

The first giveaway is over. ZENO116 is now the lucky owner of a Scorpion battleship, along with everything he needs for a nice christmas party like some spiced wine, tobacco, and a damsel (among other things Aiden had in his hangar). This lady alone is worth 20million (or more) on contracts should he ever decide to sell her. Slightly more than 20 people showed up in our giveaway channel "suddenlygiveaway", but many suspected a trap and didn't dare to join.

The prize

The first participants show up. They have to catch the ship in a pod and try to board it as soon as Aiden ejects.

The winner. Congratulations man!

Suddenly Giveaway

Wow, it has been some time since my last update. First of all I'd like to give a shout-out to Garheade and Chainer Cygnus from the EVE Commune podcast. They mentioned my latest entry because of the conversation with SEA Elder1 some time ago. Well, the story about this guy is STILL not over yet. Ninjas are persistent. Because a lot of people asked for it I am going to update the whole story once we are done with him.
EVE-Commune is a very interesting podcast about EVE blogs, and Garheade and Chainer are doing a great job on keeping their listeners up-to-date about what's going on in the blogosphere.

What really keeps my fellow directors and me busy is a lot of paperwork behind the scenes. There might be some radical changes for TEARS on the horizon (hint: it might have something to do with Incursions), and major changes to the forums, a new website, and new alliance logo need attention. Hopefully we're done with it some time during January and I can focus more on actually playing the game.

But wait, there are some ingame activities, too. Suddenly Ninjas Live Events! In order to advertise our alliance (we might need new pilots next year), and to stroke our e-peens we are going to give away FREE SHIPS. Our CEO Aiden goes into detail about how it works in his blog, and in the EVE-O forum.

That's it for now. Short entry is short. Expect more about our Live Events soon!

Suddenly Ninjas

Since Suddenly Ninjas (SN) is currently recruiting it might be a good idea to write a bit about who we are and what we do.

SN is a highsec based corporation for thieves, racketeers, and ne'er-do-wells. Ore floating in space, unpiloted Orcas in mining OPs, highsec POS structures, mission loot and salvage... if it isn't nailed down, we take it and (quoting a former alliance mate) if we can pry it up, it’s not nailed down!

Although there are all kinds of areas of operation the main activity is to pillage missions. Many ninjas are experts on scanning down several level 4 missions in a few minutes and while it may take a missionrunner an hour or longer to kill all the NPC in a high level mission, it sometimes only takes minutes for a bunch of ninjas to swoop in, grab everything, and rush out again. Bonus points if the missionrunner decides to shoot at us since some ninjas have teeth and may decide to shoot back. Sometimes at a good profit!

Salvaging and looting of other people's mission is easy. It provides a very good income, especially for young pilots. All you need is a cheap ship and some skills everyone is able to acquire within a day or two.

Suddenly Ninjas is also the founder of the Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service [TEARS] alliance. There is even a new industrial wing to support our shenanigans, for more information contact Sal Pheebu ingame. The main base of operations is Dodixie, a popular mission hub in Gallente space, but some members also work in Amarr, Caldari, and Minmatar space, spreading the love all over New Eden.

If you're interested or just want to say "hi", join "The Ninja Alliance" channel ingame.
Recruitment applications go here.









Finally, there are several other Ninja blogs out there:
VelociLogic by our CEO Velocity Prime

Finders and Keepers by Aiden Mourn

Clockwork Scream by Bass Indy

Random Drivel by Rana Marrello

Suddenly News by Max Hatter

My loot, your tears by Paul clavet and Khalia Nestune

Hands Off, My Loot by Cyberin (discontinued)

Suddenly update!

"At least this break helps me to finish those skills with 30+ days training times. I'll definitively hop back into the pilot's seat. I just need to make up my mind where to go..."

And back I am! \o/

-Ahem-

Right. I had a long break but as you probably know, you cannot really stop making up your mind about EVE. I had another look at that game but after a while I realized I missed the sandbox style. Go wherever I want, do whatever I want. No "LFG DM, need healer and tank!oneone", no "You cannot do this!". Just "Deal with the consequences".

So what's the plan? I didn't feel comfortable with the solo pirate thingy so I looked for company. I made some friends, lost a good chunk of sec status but I didn't like it that much either. Aside from some new players, macrohaulers, or rare missionrunners I almost only met people in lowsec who were looking for fights. To some degree it reminds me of battlegrounds in other games: People go there to fight. If they don't want to fight they don't go there.

I wanted to be the mean guy. I want to steal from those who want to be save. I want to be able to go wherever I want, regardless of the system's sec status. If you want to kill the innocent and steal from the rich, there is hardly another place to go but



Here is a recruitment video made by our CEO Velocity Prime with some recommendations from happy customers:




More to come...

Consecration

Final preparations

Reallife has been a bit busy lately, so I was eager to finally set up my base and blow something up. My trusted readers made me aware of several problems the pirate-to-be should think of, so I double checked my strategy:

Money
Piracy is a money sink. Experts might actually earn money by looting wrecks or ransoming customers, but a solo noob like me is likely to loose more isk than he earns. How do I fund my adventures?

-Fly cheap ships: Frigates, T1 cruisers, and battlecruisers are relatively cheap. I'll stick with those when flying solo until I am audacious enough to use their more expensive T2 counterparts.

-Wormholes: Some friends set up a pos in a wormhole system and they are killing sleepers regularly. Whenever an entrance to the system is within reach of my new home I can join them for easy cash.

-Missions: In case I really have to use him I have a mission runner alt ready to go.

Logistics
-To keep the supply of ships and modules up and running I have a freighter alt in training at the moment. In two weeks he'll be able to hop into a Providence. I will try and set up my base in range of one of the major trade hubs to keep flight times low.

"Seriously dude, that's way too complicated! Go and join a true pirate corp!"
-Nope. It will be tricky and there is a risk I'll totally mess it up but I'll go and try to be solo for some time. I am still in my corp so there is the corp chat for those lonely nights, but I will be far away from most of them for some weeks at least. I want to learn how much of a challenge it is to make allies and foes, deal with logistics, and fight on my own.
Me likes challenges! :)


Conquest of the promised land

With my hauler alt still in training, it took me some hours to move all equipment to my new base. Buying modules for half a dozen different ships is a pain. I always list all mods from EFT in a textfile, copy it to the ingame notepad, and start shopping but it's an annoying task. Why isn't there an option to buy all mods you need for a predefined ship setup at lowest price automatically?

Two battlecruisers, one heavy assault ship, four assault frigates, and a huge load of t2 drones, ammo, and cap boosters later I was ready to go. Undocking from "my" station in a 0.5 system in Metropolis I set course for the lowsec gate and began my quest for glory and plunder.



Lacking customers I jumped into the Heimatar region. The systems around Eifer used to be busy and full of targets last time I crossed them but tonight, fortune didn't smile on me. Some systems were empty, some full of macro haulers I couldn't take on with my Jaguar, and some were busy with large gangs. I zipped around, dodged a gate camp or two, scanned belt after belt but without success.
A few jumps later I entered Molden Heath. Teonusude and Oddelulf are highsec mission hubs and a lot of mission runners enter the bordering lowsec systems to do a mission or kill a few rats. Unfortunately not tonight. A battleship gang roamed the area and scared away most pilots. When I noticed the first flight of combat scanner probes aproaching my savespot, I decided to dock and call it a night.


First blood

The next morning I couldn't resist and logged in an hour before I had to go to work. Only a few pilotes were in local and none of them belonged to the same corp. Quickly I noticed a Thrasher on scan but when I tried to pin him down I realized he was way off any celestial object, probably in a mission. (Note to self: Go and buy a covops ship with a probe launcher next time you're in Rens!)
Cursing my bad luck I read some intel channels for a while, randomly scanning for targets when suddenly the Thrasher disappeared from scan. "Done with the mission, are we?" I muttered, but for some reason the pilot didn't leave the system. Rather bored I set my Jaguar in motion and entered the coordinates for another scanning spot.
Even before the warp bubble collapsed I had the Minmatar destroyer on scan again, this time in the direction of some asteroid belts. Usually I warp to a planet first to confirm the exact position of a victim but this time I had a feeling I should hurry. I quickly warped to the last belt in the system and only seconds later the Thrasher landed directly on top of me.

Granted, a young pilot in a destroyer isn't a particularly tough opponent but a kill is a kill. This poor guy has been the consecration of my new career. May there be many who follow him!

Status report

Before I really start with the present, I need to bore you with a short sketch of my past. As I wrote in the previous post, I have been wandering around aimlessly for some time now. My first timid approaches into piracy took place in empire some time ago. I flipped cans, helped industrious miners haul their ore to my hangar (Masta420kush: "oh so its like that u fuckin dumb nub"), I even went so low and baited other thieves into flipping my cans.
Another approach into being a villain was ninja salvaging, and i quickly managed to acquire some happy customers:

Fayde Ayur: "it's so sad that your mother never told you the difference between "yours" and "not yours", but strange people with weird convictions...sigh. Get some skill, some friends, (that could be more difficult) and go and have fun and stop bothering people just for your sake.."

Although these endeavours helped me understand basic mechanics like aggression timers, using the directional scanner or how to probe out mission runners, annoying people in highsec isn't much of a challenge. You can only be attacked if you want to, but those totally predictable fights aren't fun anymore - at least for me. A lot of pirates frown upon those who bait pilots into fighting them in high security space, and to some degree I can see their point.
At this stage I was very close to leaving the security of highsec and join a small pirate corp, but unfortunately my real life prevented me from doing so. Instead, I joined a bunch of nice relaxed people I could fly with and even more so chat to.

A lot of their activities however involved missions, industry or ratting, which just doesn't appeal to me. So after some time of relaxed flying and some approaches into solo piracy in lowsec, I am now dead certain I want to leave the safety behind once and for all.


With this in mind, I am pondering on how to start my new career:

-Stay with my corp and convince them to become full time outlaws. I don't think this is going to happen. They are great people and it is fun to fly with them, but although their willingness to shoot people grew during the last few weeks, we will never be a true pirate corp. On the other hand, being an outlaw in a mixed corp that is doing a bit of everything in highsec, lowsec and 0.0 will limit my options since I might have a hard time accessing regions of space they might call home.

-Join a true pirate corp. This would throw me into business right away and I'd probably learn a lot. I am sure this is an option I am looking forward to in the long run, but for now, I have a feeling I need to try it on my own first, leading to:

-Set up a base at the border of lowsec and be a solo pirate. Several well known pirates started on their own (or still are) and while they had a hard time doing so, they are now famous like rockstars and probably bathing in exotic dancers, wine and gold. Being solo also means I don't need to wait for anyone. In case my corp decides to become a lowsec corp I can still join them, but in case they settle somewhere else, I am free to mind my own business without the need to grind my sec status up again after every fight.

An introduction

Ahoy stranger! Take a seat, help yourself with a mug of grog and enjoy your stay. Is this yet another Eve-Online pirate blog you ask? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Only time will tell.
Of course I am going to write about the incredible adventures Scopique is going to hurl himself into, hopefully with a lot of pew pew. On the other hand, I am going to use this log as some kind of golden thread for my career in this great game. My life as a pilot has been bumpy at times. A bit of this, a bit of that. I tried a mining alt (for a very short while!), did some missions, have been in pve corps, we joined an alliance and so forth.

Ever since I started playing Eve however, I have been attracted to the life of piracy. Maybe it's the audacious and dangerous atmosphere that's linked to it. Maybe the number of highly entertaining pirate blogs I stumbled upon caught my attention. For various reasons, I have often been distracted from my goals, but this time of struggle is coming to an end now. By writing down my ideas, my plans, my musings and the outcomes, I will hopefully be able to focus on my goals.

Last but not least the world of Eve is a harsh one. Being solo without any rules and responsibilities is tempting, but it can be tricky also and it might be a good idea to have some likeminded friends. I hope to meet such pilots in space, either inside or outside of all the well established pirate corps. Usually pirates don't love each other. Every wreck is a source of income and there is nothing to give away for free. But there also seems to be some camaraderie among pilots even though they are not linked by a corp or alliance. On one day they shoot eachother, another day they are good friends. Writing about my interweb spaceship experiences will hopefully help me establish some contacts.

Edit: Hurray for my first post! \o/
I just noticed I created a blog that is pronounced "scopslog-dot-blogspot-dot.com". What a tongue twister! A good start? Oh well! :)