A Quest for Excellence

I've been called a comms bully... a chat hog, a soldier of words. When I start chatting in comms I am always initially respectful and courteous. I'm honest and playful, sometimes callous and blunt. Above all else, I am very critical of my fellow pirates. My opinion is all I truly care about, when I go into a debate or rant in comms. This offends some people.

This is not a difficult game. It requires patience and temper, concentration at times, and a strong sense of self-preservation. You gather resources to upgrade your ships and research technology. It's only a matter of time before everyone has the ability to build what everyone else has. No one is better than anyone else, but sometimes... because more effort (or money) is invested into the game, a player has a strong lead on power.

When I insult someone in comms, it is typically because they have proven to me that they care more about impressing other players than they do about actually playing the game. I find this trivial and stupid. I don't login to the game to make friends (that's what real life is for). I login to the game to be a mean pirate, but I reserve the right to be helpful and friendly.

Typically, people get really offended when I attack them... but their reaction is what sets the tone for the ensuing week of gametime for me. If a player whines and cries like a bleeding carebear.. I'll keep poking fun and hitting their fleets when I login. If a player hits me back and shares my weaknesses in comms, whether insulting or not, I respect that. I don't like losing, but I don't mind learning from my mistakes and can appreciate a loss just as much as a win. I choose my battles carefully and usually don't engage a target till I know whether I can beat them.

My fleets haven't been difficult to design and my base design is an original, but resembles other high level bases... what works, works. I know my gamestyle and I'm pretty good at keeping the game fun for myself. When someone goads me into attacking their fleet or their base, I decide whether to actually attack them based on facts, not emotion.

LOD alliance has moved out of the sector, after half a dozen days of non-stop ridicule and trash talking. They've finally moved on, and took their massive egos and facebook credit balances with them. I have no respect for their alliance, and I made that absolutely clear. I've been called jealous and spiteful because I make fun of coiners. They don't understand at all, but that is not surprising.

Spending money here and there, to enjoy the game a little more is perfectly acceptable to me. But spending thousands of dollars to gain the upper hand is absolutely ridiculous and I cannot and will not respect a level 35 player that acts big and bad in front of his friends after taking my base apart... when his power is derived from buying enough credits to speed up all his ship builds and researches.

If I was to indulge a big coiner in a game of chess, I would expect them to cheat and make up rules in their favor. That is what spending money does for you. It gives you an unfair advantage, and the majority of web-based games offer this incentive so they can make money. It takes away some of the fun of gaming, but I understand the premise. Those that abuse the system by spending more than their opponents in order to win... they deserve no respect and get none from me. I laugh at them while they pretend not to care... maybe they don't, that is fine with me too.

I want to master the game mechanics and excel in combat because excellence feels good, especially when it is difficult to attain. That is a personal paradigm.. a way of seeing things and doing things that is totally mine. I don't expect anyone else to believe or care about my opinions, but I share them whether they like it or not. Read or don't read, believe or don't believe. I enjoy freedom of speech as well as freedom of gameplay.

It's almost time to move away from 356... strangely enough, now that LOD has left the sector, and unforsaken is all but gone, the players that I enjoy talking to and playing with have started chatting again and I'm a peaceful Bondai in sector 356. I'm going to detach myself from exile but keep whatever friendships I've made along the way. Alliances really aren't my thing anyways; I'm on a quest for excellence.

356 and Exile

I came to sector 356 several days ago in the hopes of having some good combat and good times. What I found was a handful of unforsaken alliance players sitting there, doing nothing but hitting salvage, and making smart comments from time to time. I was disappointed.

After a few days of trashing them in comms and smashing their fleets when they tried to hit salvage, stealing their loot when they weren't looking and giving their bases nice rimjobs, most of them left the sector. Before I pat myself on the back, I notice that most of exile had left their home sector. wtf, where'd they go?

LOD alliance landed in most of their places. I don't know them, and now that I'm in a sector full of friends I act like a nice fella, and discuss battle pirates techniques and opinions on things. I got very bored, very quickly and before too long I hit a few random people for extra resources to start my last scorpion build.

Sector 356 is one of the sectors that doesn't pretend to have 'no-hit' rules. You can attack people there, and folks don't freak out, they just hit you back and/or discuss what went wrong and such. The more I looked around, the more I realized, LOD was eating all the level 8 and 9 salvage within 5 minutes of my base, and their level 35 top tech mass-spender had an attitude with me. I hit one of the LOD fleets, killed a nice siege mortar HH fleet while he hit salvage. He got all kinds of mad at me, and then the fun began.

I was half tuned out of the game for several days, but this level 35 guy kept waltzing thru my base with half damage. I'd like to see him hit my base, to see how he's getting thru with such little problem. He has superior hammerheads, won in the first or second raid event. His fleet is sufficient to beat most bases and it doesn't bother me that he has flattened mine, but I make fun of him relentlessly anyway. I never ask for help from anyone, but I often ask folks to come along to have some fun with me. I don't invite anyone to 356, and Sloaney left with the other friends a few days ago.

I stayed extra days to repay a favor to Bassman, and go to a sector with him when his friends are ready to move out. Playing with LOD has turned out to be the best thing I've done in weeks. These jokers are hilarious, and though I did enjoy this sector a while ago... it's nothing like what it used to be. There's nothing but carebears and politicians here now. I'm thru with exile, and their bastardized little carebear alliance Deep 6. Now I'm hitting wherever and whatever I want, since none of them want to stand up and defend their ideals of having a free sector anymore.

So, The-Cleaner (level 35 top coiner) takes 25 mil from me every 36 hours, and I steal all of that back from fleets that are either mining or hitting salvage within hours of him hitting me. Now I spend my hours, waiting to leave... hitting fleets at random to see who whines the loudest. So far its Joe_W on the top whine list. Dreadfullness (LOD alliance) is a close second.

Bring it, sheeple. I'm just getting warmed up.

Dont Feed the Monkeys

I lick a finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. It was a bad choice to come bunk with EXILE for a week. I run with a gang of pirate scumbags and we enjoy a game where we land somewhere new, and lay waste to as many as we can, while belittling their efforts to stop us. This sector 356 is full of people that would rather be great friends. The UNFORSAKEN and UNFORGIVING alliances are pretty much gone, to sector 358... even further from us than their old home in 357. Suits me.

I gave my friends the list of exile players in sector and said- everyone else is fair game, but don't mess with exile. Sloaney and I are members in the alliance, but we haven't done anything with them in quite a while. Our show goes on, and we are headed to a sector we've been thru before. Possibly a salvage week, since the crew was pretty well fed up this past week... while living in a cage. Somebody actually hit YellowDevil in the face with a peanut. He slung some poo at the snot-nosed punks.

Angles and Dangles

I had 2 Sea Scorpions, vs 3 dreadnaughts and 2 Hammereads. The hammers were using D55 siege missiles, and at max range are far less than mine, even if he's using rocket booster3. The dreadnaughts are faster and are using strike missiles. That means I have the range advantage. Unfortunately, this prey is online... I'm gonna have to work for it!

We both turn our fleets to starboard, and while I stack my 2 scorpions, he sends his fleets off to a few random positions behind them, and aims a dreadnaught at me. My four assault missile D53-Rs on each scorpion pack a good punch at 96 range. The highest range weapon on the game. The three Cutlass2 missiles on each scorpion have a slighly less range, but still outrange the strike missiles and siege missiles. His strike missile dreadnaught dies without firing, but I didn't notice that other dreadnaught rushing to get me within his range while I'm busy finishing the other.

I lose one of my two scorpions. They're big on firepower, low on armor.

As I gently and patiently maneuver my scorpion to where his half dead dreadnaught is, his third dreadnaught is aimed directly at me. I see his game now. He drags my attention away with a decoy, then sends the backup on a collision course to get into my range. I click on the port side with my fleet, then I send them all starboard. When he sees me click port side, he adjusted the path of his intercept ship to my new angle (angle of convergence). After he adjusts his intercept, then his main fleet (that I'm plucking missiles at), I click my fleets to starboard side, and watch as he forgets to retarget the intercept ship. I keep the second dread in my sights long enough to nearly kill it, then he moved a hammerhead into intercept position, and launches it at me while I'm trying to damage his third dreadnaught. It nearly got me in range too, but I was paying close attention. I'm watching his intercept ship's angle of approach now.

It was a constant game of cat and mouse, where he'd lure me into angling my ship toward his flee'ing ship, just to find myself in a head-on angle with a heavily armored dreadnaught or hammerhead .. barely enough time to aim the other direction before he's within firing range. I watch and listen for the assault missiles to fire, then impatiently watch the cutlass missile launchers... if they start firing I need to correct my angle immediately... for 5 minutes I kept my fleet safe, and when the battle timed out I sent the lone survivor home.

I tell him, "It was nice to fight someone that really puts some thought into piloting, well done wackdan." I do a similar technique when fighting fleets that outrange me, the attacker has to pay close attention and react to your movements correctly, every time, or it gets hit.

I'll have my fourth booster3 assault missile scorpions in 5 days. Then I start building my base fleets.