Apr 302014
 

Hi guys!

Your friendly neighbourhood FC here.

It came to my notice while sorting the setup for Ganked 115 out, that many of you are HAC capable, or very close to it, and this lead to me remembering a brief chat I had with Jayne from Spectre Fleet (and the guest FC for Ganked 109) about such things. Jayne actually asked his FCs about HAC usage and had a positive response.

So here I am with a poll for you all to complete too. So if you would love to bring serious ships like HACs (Shield or Armour depending on your skills/the theme) to Ganked, or just want to sway me from this course then vote in the poll below:

[poll=”7″]

For those concerned that this may see Ganked become more serious in future, do not worry, despite all the changes over the last year we have not – I may have but I am special – and we will continue to not take things too seriously as long as we get some epic fights doing what we do. We will continue to fly inclusive open roams with inclusive setups, its just that from time to time, the theme will lend itself well to HACs and other specialised hulls being flown in large numbers, while supported by t1 variants and tackle and all the toys you normally bring to Ganked.

Apr 302014
 

Back in late 2012, a MMOFPS launched that I decided that I wanted to play, that game was Planetside 2.

I took many of you along with me on that wild ride.  Then we got sidetracked by things in EVE and I ran for CSM and so on and so we stopped playing.  We tried again a while ago, but SOE had the bright idea to turn our regular play day into patch day. Which sucked all the fun out of that given other days are reserved for other things.

However, SOE finally did something right.  The forerunner to PS2, Planetside, was opened up as Free 2 Play yesterday.  And the best F2P of all. One with NO cash shop and no cash advantages over others. Admittedly PS1 is as old as EVE, looks like ass, has some broken aspects that SOE wont touch however compared to PS2 is a veritable feast of features and meaningful combat opportunities.

So for the first few weeks of the newly reprised PS nights, we will be playing Planetside 1.  Get it here: https://launch.soe.com/installer/PS_setup.exe  It is a small 1.8gb download. You can use your existing SOE accts to log in I think (Not ProSeiben).

We will be playing Planetside every other Wednesday starting today April 30th from around 18.00 UTC. And every other Tuesday starting on May 6th.  Obviously if the wider community interest in PS1 dies, we’ll switch back to PS2 on those nights, but for now old school fun times are a go.

And in a small change from our PS2 faction choice, in PS1 we play as New Conglomerate (NC.).  As thats the faction I have played in PS1 for ever. I can be found on one of the following characters:

Mangala, Eaglestalker, Thevir, VirMax, Walkindude, EnginVir, Tiberian3

Some useful tips can be found here – the DO THE VR TRAINING one is like the most important:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=42566

https://forums.station.sony.com/soe/index.php?threads/for-new-players.11500063743/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/24bpz1/planetside_1_is_really_confusing/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/24btqu/new_player_ps1_tip_use_the_vr/

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=55203

 

And here are a few videos:

Mar 252014
 

Way back in the dawn of time – well 2006 – a forum was setup by a small group of EVE players called Scrapheap Challenge, which was to grow into one of the premier “fan” sites for EVE.

A number of members of this forum, started flying on roams together, roams that often had a theme and only 1 rule, if it is not in fleet – it dies; Eventually these roams grew in to the popular SHC Ganknights, which saw over several years hundreds of pilots attend them, and thousands of kills gained usually at the expense of some null alliance or another.

Then one day, Scrapheap was gone.

And with it the hope of hundreds that Ganknights would continue to happen.

However Failheap Challenge was created very quickly, and Ganknights continued, as nearly as popular as ever, until one day most of a Ganknight fleet found itself wiped out by the Terminus Stream, as a “joke” by its FC (not me by the way). Suddenly, these nights just were not as popular anymore, and attendance dropped off to nearly nothing, although other actions by certain developer parties could be to blame here.

At this point, a former RVB director had an idea that we in RvB would take the Ganknight idea and use it for ourselves, and thus RVB Ganked nights were born. Since our inaugural night back in August 2011, we have run over 100 successful nights that often see fleets of over 150 people, each following the given themes and each getting a silly number of kills, while the fleet has been entertained by itself and the local chats of those we go and visit.

To date we have over 10,000 kills with a value of over 1 trillion isk.  

If you want to be a part of these, then just keep an eye on the channel RvB Ganked in game, or the RvB forums, Failheap, EVE-O and of course my twitter feed.

Mar 132014
 

gankedsponsor23

 

After a small issue with our sponsors – basically my guy there vanished from EVE for a short while, we are now back on track.  He got in touch recently and informed me that he has paid out all the outstanding prizes from roams 103, 104 and 105.  I never submitted requests for 106 and 107 due to my guy going awol.

 

The prizes & winners for roams 103, 104 & 105 were:

103:

Spots: Fleet Scythe – Lilith Ves, Angelus Infirim, Tical Davis, snowman1, Silent Cyborg, DECE GOO’BA
Distinction: Fleet Hurricane – Melkor Valor, Velkar Funaila
Excellence: Fleet Tempest – Verse Askold

104:

Spots: Navy Exeq – Fishysquirrel, LAPS3D P4CIFIST, Sick Artley, Araneatrox, Joe Ionan
Distinction: Navy Brutix – kiemai, House2twist
Excellence: Navy Megathron – Pew Terror

105:

Spots: Dramiel – Lord Shevan, Lodavier, AMON ARDAILLES, TheParadine, Yngvarr Khshayarsha
Distinction: Cynabal – Bobinu, Jena Jamson
Excellence: Machariel – Shemmy

As said these should all be paid out by now or are in the process of being paid out, congratulations to all.

Mar 082014
 

During Fanfest 2014, CCP will be unveiling a monument to all EVE players past & present. 

In addition to engraving all our character names upon it, CCP will be sealing a time capsule beneath the monument that will contain messages from the playerbase. And I would like to give one of you the opportunity to write a message on behalf of the Ganked community to the people who will open the time capsule in 25 years. Feel to talk about Ganked, what you think of Ganked, notable things Ganked has gotten itself involved in and so on.

As an incentive, I am offering a hard copy of EVE Source (not the limited editions as I thought this up too late to snag any of those for this), to the entry I deem the winner.

So if this competition interests you then please get writing! 

 

Things to note include:

1) Must be no more than 1000 words.

2) Must be submitted to me via evemail, or shared google doc, or posted in the comments to this post by downtime on 25th April. I will then chose my winner and start the submission ball rolling.

3) Follow CCP’s small print at all costs

All texts, videos, and other submissions for the monument must comply with the EVE Online End User License Agreement and Terms of Service. Players may not submit texts, videos, or other materials that include harmful, threatening or obscene language or content that may infringe on a third-party’s intellectual property rights. CCP reserves the right not to include any texts, videos, or other submissions we deem inappropriate. No refund will be given for inappropriate submissions.

4) If I can swing it, the prize MAY even be signed by members of the Dev team & CSM 8.

5) I will cover all submission & postage costs personally.

Feb 102014
 

Ganked has been doing its thing for over 2 & a half years now, with this website not far behind it, and while Ganked has evolved the website itself really has not. Its still mostly a blog portal with an attached killboard. However I fancy a change round these parts and so over the next few months I want to make several improvements to both how the site looks and how we all interact with it.

My current thoughts on what to do are many and varied but include:

  • Unified theme across the site;
  • Easier access to Fleetup;
  • Some form of chat/out of game communication;
  • Directory of all groups & individuals running public roams;

If you can help out with anything on that list, or have suggestions for other things I may have missed, use the comments!

The last item on the above list is something I want to get going sooner rather than later, so if you run, or know of people who do run public roams & public event fleets then please use the comments to get me their details or have them get in touch so I can get something up & running.  

 

Feb 052014
 

RVBGANKED

Ganked 100 was a few weeks ago, and since then I have been to the CSM 8 Winter Summit in Iceland, and had the Ganked 100 write up to do. However I finally got all of that out of the way and so I have had some time to commit to the prizes – its what you can came for right? Not the hours upon hours of pure combat.

Given that my lossmail did not appear I had to do some alterations on the prizes – some got removed, criteria for others got changed. However I have still managed to award over 40 billion isk in prizes between the donations made by many of you & the support of Somerblink. If you disagree with a certain award, suck it up.  Those who have won Blink sponsored prizes, will receive those in the coming days, everyone else should have either had their prize or are yet to accept it off contracts.

To take a look at the prize winners, check out this spreadsheet.  It has two tabs, one for the Blink prizes, and the other for the donated prizes. Keen observers will note that three are marked TBA, those results are coming they are just taking a little more time than I am willing to spend right now. Looking at killboards is making my eyes bleed.

Thanks again to everyone who donated prizes, to everyone who helped in the planning of Ganked 100 and of course to all of you who came along and made it such a great event.

Dec 182013
 

Ganked 100 was publicly announced yesterday, and keen readers will have noticed that there will be prizes for taking part in this event – with everyone who shows up on kills in the target system having the opportunity to win.  However, I cannot possibly fund all this on my own, so I am looking for people & organisations willing to donate prizes to the cause.  All individuals & groups who do donate will get full recognition in this post, in my eveo thread and in any further publicity we undertake between now & the day of Ganked 100.

 

What do we have so far?

2 Billion isk bounty on the corp of the pilot with the final blow on my Carrier – Donated by Mangala Solaris

1 Astarte – Pilot of a battlecruiser on the most killmails – Donated by Mangala Solaris

50 Firetails – To the Militia Pilot on the highest number of killmails in a frigate – Donated by Mangala Solaris

1 Billion ISK – RvB Member on Most Kills – Donated by RvB

1 Billion ISK – Pilot on the most RvB Kills – Donated by RvB

1 Rattlesnake – Logistics pilot whoring the most killmails – Donated by RvB

1 Dominix Navy Issue – Most Kills in a Drone Boat – Donated by RvB

1 Stratios – Pilot in a T1 Frigate using T1 guns on the most killmails – Donated by Apachekills

Gila – Most Kills in a Caldari Cruiser -Donated by Bully B
Daredevil – Most Kills in a Gallente Frigate – Donated by Bully B
Cynabal – Most Kills in a Minmatar Cruiser – Donated by Bully B
Cruor – Most Kills in a Amarr Frigate – Donated by Bully B

5 Mystery Containers containing AWESOME Prizes – Just take part in the event and you are in with a chance at winning one of these – Donated by Tyrendian Biohazard

100 Firetails – Split between the top 3 pilots with the most solo kills in cruiser & down – Donated by Crynsos Cealion

100 Tristan Hulls – Pilot Loses the Most Gallente Ships – Donated by Bunniy
100 Rifter Hulls – Pilot Loses the Most Minmatar Ships – Donated by Bunniy
100 Punisher Hulls – Pilot Loses the Most Amarr Ships – Donated by Bunniy
100 Merlin Hulls – Pilot Loses the Most Caldari Ships – Donated by Bunniy

2000 Battle Ready Bantams – Corporation or Alliance on the most Capital killmails using Capitals – Donated by Patrick Kasper

1 Nagalfar – Most Expensive Lossmail – Donated by Darius Caliente / Certified.

Cynabal, Phantasm, Fleet Stabber, Stratios, Vigilant, 2 Dramiels, Firetail, Succubus, Worm, 84 Rifters – Donated by a mystery “Ganked” Carrier pilot to be awarded to random pilots on his lossmail. SURPRISE GIFTS!

1 Orca – Most Kills in a Mining Barge, Exhumer or Venture – Donated by Dekiranu

2 ‘Boss’ Remote Sensor Booster – Most Pod Kills in a BS or Capital – Donated by Dekiranu

Navy Exequeror, Navy Osprey, Fleet Scythe & Navy Augoror – Subcap that takes the most damage before succumbing – Donated by mikeshaw911

 

 

Somerblink has generously provided the following prize lists:

For all pilots taking part:

On Most Kills in the event with a sub battleship: Dread of Pilots Choice
Final Blow on the carrier of Mangala Solaris by a none capital ship: Raven Navy Issue
Highest Damage on Mangala Solaris carrier by a none capital ship: 1 Plex
On most kills using a frigate: All Pirate & Navy Faction Frigates
On most Capital kills using a subcapital in system from start time to Mangala’s capital dieing + 60 minutes: Carrier of Pilots Choice
Spot Prizes awarded for saying a particular keyword in local: 2 of each Pirate & Navy Faction Cruiser – it will be 1 ship per winner based on RNG magic using my local logs. keyword to be announced on the day.
Most Pods killed with a destroyer or smaller: Nefantar Thrasher x2

For those attending as part of the Ganked fleet:

First Capital to die that isnt Mangala: Machariel
Logistic hull – t1 or t2 – on the most killmails: 1 of each t2 logistics hull
Ganked Capital on the most kills in system from start time to Mangala’s capital dieing + 60 minutes: Rattlesnake
Ganked Sub-Capital on the most kills in system from start time to Mangala’s capital dieing + 60 minutes: 2 Navy BC matching winners race.
Spot Prizes awarded for saying a different keyword/phrase in local: 1 of each Navy Cruiser – 1 ship per winner as per RNG. Word announced on the day.

1 Stratios – T1 frig that has the highest damage on the first enemy (non-ganked) capital ship of the night. – Donated by Magenta Blue

Pilots in the Ganked Fleet are as eligible for all prizes not just those specifically for them.

 

How can I donate?

Simply contract ships or send isk donations directly to Mangala Solaris. Please also send me a mail to tell me that you have done this, as well as set out any criteria you may have for a prize. 

Dec 132013
 

December 7th, a fateful day in history.  And for Ganked, a day to take Navy hulls out to play in the wilds of space. And so the order “Niitaka yama nobore” was given.  CCP also had chosen this day to have a telethon of sorts to raise funds for the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, with many many fun events arranged as part of that.  

We formed up in Black rise while watching the live stream, getting some interesting kills & waiting for a rumoured Dev roam to happen. Around 20.00 just as we were to set off, CCP Bro, CCP Dolan & CCP Guard appeared in Heydelies. So off we went moving as quickly as we could to that system to take those Devs down! Fast as we could got slower & slower the closer we got due to ever increasing TIDI, however we did get there in end. When we landed we started clearing out the grid the Devs had called home before burning towards Bro & Dolan (Sadly we missed out on Guard exploding) wherein they eventually exploded. We lost like 3 frigs during that whole thing – obviously the Ganked killboard doesnt show that, and no other board even with some doctoring will ever display Heydelies correctly – for nearly 100 kills.

Following this we moved onwards for we had a fight between TEST (& some RvBers) & BNI to interrupt. However we got word that BNI had left their reinforced target system and were moving toward Heydelies, so we setup in Melmaniel and waited. And waited.

Until local shot up by 400+ and in came the BNI hordes – a horde that had more Thorax in fleet than I had fleet members!  And yet we fought. And it was slow, very slow. TIDI shot down to 10% very quickly. And still we fought, until Suddenly Spaceships & Shadow Cartel appeared on field in HACs & Tech 3’s, and we moved off the field allowing BNI to play with them.  Surprisingly we had not lost that many – I had died though – and so TGL3 took over the fleet and moved them into Murethand to ambush the TEST/RvB fleet, which had been fighting a Provi residents fleet in Heydelies.  However BNI also came in on that fight, as did CVA, an RvB Null Roaming Talwar gang run by Alphastarpilot & even Suddenly & Shadow. It was a mess, and you could feel the TIDI a region away, however some kills were gotten! While this fight was raging the Ganked fleet broke off and moved over to Hysera where we had been asked to kill a carrier belonging to Ganked regular Darius Caliente (Certified are recruiting by the way!) and we did kill it, plus other things, including Alpha’s talwar fleet!!! 

After the fun with the carrier, I realised it was coming up hard on midnight, the time I understood to be the deadline for PLEX donations to the cause, and so TGL3 took the roam out for a second round. He had this to say about it:

We set out for the illustrious destination of VFK, with a brave 30 pilots in tow. A quick brawl with a few TEST ships in EC- gave us some early kills but null-bears and elite bubble campers alike scattered ahead of us for the rest of the initial journey. Upon reaching VFK our scouts went to work. Our first major kill was a Vargur, who jumped into our scout. Despite calling in local for help, the Vargur died without assistance. Our scouts then went into overdrive in the surrounding systems. An Ishtar, Vexor Navy and a second Ishtar all died in 3 seperate systems within 15 minutes. A Tengu then evaded a scout thanks to some lucky Gurista Jams from the rats, but he then undocked from his Caldari Research Station into our fleet. He was bumped and killed. A hulk followed shortly a couple of jumps away.
We had no further fun with VFK, the local goons refusing to undock anything, so we trekked back through Cloud Ring towards Kinakka. A hostile camp on the high-sec exit gate were surprised when our hero frigates went in and tackled the lot of them, giving us a half dozen more kills to end the night on.

10/10 for Green Gambit, ScummyB, Angelus Infirim and Nuos Ono, the scouts who got us those kills.

All in all a spectacular evening of fights & fun times – with the night easily making it into our Top 5 roams in terms of kills and isk destroyed!

You guys donated enough for me to purchase 35 PLEX and of course ensure that Ping Wu & myself had take a large hit when upholding our individual pledges, resulting in over 50 PLEX being donated on behalf of RvB Ganked. This may not have been as many as Somer Blink donated, or as many as what Chribba & Amarr Citizen 155 raised ISK for, but it all helps.  CCP eventually announced that some $190,000 had been raised for the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, which is an amazing sum and makes me very proud to be both a part of & a representative for the EVE Community. Check out the devblog on this here.

gankedsponsor23

We did have sponsorship for the roam from our sponsors at Somer Blink and these are my chosen winners, you guys will be receiving your prizes soon:

Dramiel: Elenor Kharne, Melkor Valor, Amera Khan, Swornn, Edward Tivruskii, Xearo001

Cynabal: Nuos Ono, Ilik Tankalot, Jorel Antonius

Machariel: Andrew Hoffman (this kill he was FB on: http://rvbganked.co.uk/kills/index.php/kill_detail/15014/ was our 10,000th kill – if we had held a ccp member longer ccp bro would have been it, but oh wells!)

 

Videos: