In the communal ship array
16th April 2010 – 5.39 pmAs others have done, please allow me to share with you the ships I have put in the communal hangar in w-space, and like to call my own.
Drake—Non-sentient Ship
The passive shield tanked battlecruiser has been my staple combat ship for longer than I can remember. As soon as I was able to afford one I bought and fit a Drake. Although as a mission runner I aspired to progress to pilot a Raven battleship I never did quite earn the ISK at the time, and now I find myself more in a supporting role than DPS. The Drake still gets used occasionally, for clearing minor Sleeper presences in mining sites, but I tend to fly ships with more specific roles at the moment. The name comes from wanting to incite the alien Sleepers.
Crane—Tigress III
A relatively early training goal of mine when moving in to industry was to get my pod in to a Crane transport ship. The ability to fit a cloak—although I didn't train to use covert operation cloaks until months afterwards—and the highly agile nature of the ship makes it ideal to blast through the more dangerous systems where the pedestrian Badger would get caught. And the Kaalakiota hulls are simply beautiful. I was hoping to make use of the lesser-used low-sec research centres, but the Crane has remained my general-purpose hauler for relatively safe and quick passage through w-space. The original Tigress met an untimely destruction in a green cloud of impending doom, and her replacement was ambushed during a w-space mining operation.
Retriever—Fido
Oh, right, I have a Retriever. When there was little else to do in w-space I used to mine, preferably with good company. Now in the same circumstances we camp wormholes, or I roam in my Manticore. It's called Fido because I didn't know what else a Retriever would be called.
Guardian—You Cowards!
On my way to training for the Damnation field command ship I found I could also pilot a Guardian logistics ship, which turns out to be more useful for fleet operations than the Damnation. Or, rather, our limited fleet numbers means I find myself in the Guardian more often than not, but I certainly enjoy the level of involvement of the logistics role in a fleet. Paired with a second Guardian, the ship can effect more armour repairs and feed capacitor-hungry battleships than should be physically possible, making our fleet a more adaptable force than by adding more DPS ships. The name is due to the pairing with Fin's Guardian called Stop Dying, and is a reference to Futurama.
Damnation—Bad Badtz Maru
My training in leadership skills to fit a warfare link on a Drake, and the buxom appeal of the Amarr field command ship, led me to be convinced that spending over two months training for the Damnation would be worthwhile. It is a gorgeous beast, the Khanid Innovation hulls equalling the looks of those from Kaalakiota. Slow and bulky, but determined and almost impenetrable, the Damnation can significantly boost the entire fleet with its warfare links. It can maintain a long range and provide covering missile fire, but is not overly vulnerable if caught in close combat. I need more excuses to take it out of the hangar. Its name comes from the character in Hello Kitty, because the ship looks somewhat like a crow to me.
Buzzard—wut?
It is impossible to survive in w-space without a scanning boat, at least not without going stir crazy sitting at a tower unable to go anywhere. I think I borrowed a basic frigate for a while until I trained for covert operations boats, and then I borrowed Fin's Buzzard after that. I eventually realised that I ought to rely on my own boat if I want to go out exploring regularly, and bought a Buzzard for myself. My first Buzzard was called Negotiations and was destroyed by a tower that should have been allied to our corporation. wut? is my second, and shows that I struggle to come up with decent ship names. The name is a friendly poke at the dialect of a colleague. Although wut? was fitted with a standard scanning boat fit initially, the discovery that it has a launcher hardpoint made me add a rocket launcher, web, and warp disruptor to it, to more quickly attack lone targets I may find without needing to swap to my Manticore or Onyx.
Manticore—Hold This
Training in covert operation boats opened up the opportunity to pilot stealth bombers. A little more training in the use of bombs made the Manticore an attractive purchase to sate my bloodlust against innocent miners. Being able to move around undetected with a several launchers of heavy firepower is thrilling, and stalking wormholes and gravimetric sites waiting for the right opportunity is quite addictive. It takes a while to get used to sighting bombs and engaging different classes of targets, but the Manticore is my ideal ship for solo roams, particularly when the navigational systems have plenty of sites bookmarked from a previous Buzzard scanning trip. My first Manticore was named Shhhhhh, although I forget—strictly, I never knew—how many Hs I added, because I couldn't think of anything better. It was destroyed after blowing up a Nighthawk, which sadly had nothing to do with me, and replaced by Hold This, a better name that was chosen by someone else.
Onyx—Ro-Jaws
I'm not quite sure what motivated me to train for heavy interdictors. I know our w-space presence was moving slowly towards engaging hostile ships more than retreating and that we needed to be able to remove their control of the battlespace, but I forget precisely why I wanted an Onyx. It is possible that my training for another ship put me only a few days away from learning heavy interdictors, but I don't honestly remember. However, it has been the best training I have completed and the best ship I own for w-space PvP, and all in a Kaalakiota hull. The HIC's warp bubble can capture any ship within a 20 km sphere and prevent them from warping, including the pods ejected from destroyed ships. There is no need to gain a lock, or a limit to the number of ships it can disrupt. Drop the Onyx in to the middle of a cluster of miners and they are all at our mercy. Sit on a wormhole with my bubble up and anything coming through has to negotiate with me, diplomatically or with weapons. And the Onyx can be an effective defensive measure, preventing ships from warping directly to a wormhole, or simply acting as an effective deterrent against smaller gangs. Although I still cannot deliver much damage, and I can't be stealthy, I feel most powerful when in Ro-Jaws, named after the ABC Warrior.
Malediction—unnamed
My latest skill training is about to put me in to an interceptor. I took time to complete my training in Amarr frigates so that I could pilot a Malediction instead of a Caldari equivalent. The Crow uses missiles but has no bonuses to warp scrambling modules, whereas the Raptor gets the scrambling bonus but uses guns. It was quicker to train for the Amarr interceptor that reverses these attributes than radically improve my gunnery skills. The Malediction also looks really mean, being a Khanid Innovations design. I will have to learn how to pilot interceptors to get the most out of them and am likely to lose a few before I get the hang of the role. And although the interceptor is still more of a controlling ship than DPS, the addition of a new class will hopefully make our fleet more adaptable. I have yet to think of a name for my first interceptor.
Catalyst—I Lost It
Even though I get a perverse satisfaction out of salvaging, I don't have a dedicated salvager boat out in w-space. Instead, I borrow a colleague's Catalyst as much as possible. In my more innocent days, I curiously trained in Gallente ships as my third racial choice instead of Minmatar, which allows me to use the Catalyst, but whether it is the ship's style or the just the fact that it has salvaging rigs I have grown quite fond of I Lost It. This is the only ship I still need to borrow occasionally.
I have other ships, all docked in stations in k-space, including a couple of Drakes, several Badgers, probably some Caracals, and numerous frigates, but my pod hasn't been near them for months. I also find it interesting that nearly all of my ships I pilot are Tech II. Where I once thought I'd struggle to afford a Crane, now I appreciate the specialisation that comes with Tech II hardware.
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed.