Rifters, Grifters & Shitters

This is a Rifter.

For most of us serious about the PvP-related activities in this game, this is THE ship to start out in. It's tank is reasonable, it's firepower (with T2 autocannons) is acceptable, and its quick. The number of people in the Eve Community who have espoused the virtues and useful ways to fit this little frigate are numerous and legion (just google "how to fly a Rifter"), so I won't be bothered in enumerating the technical aspects of it. For my part, I still use these a lot, partly because I have stacks (20 or so) of them sitting in my hangars, but also because, to offer a critical opinion of myself, I'm still a little shit at PvP. Maybe a lot shit. However, the point I'm trying to make, for the benefit of those new to Eve (there are always a lot you), you really do need to go out and just lose these ships. Buy 50 of them. ASSUME at that point that they're already destroyed, you just don't know it yet, and proceed to undertake every way you could engage an enemy ship that you can imagine. On Stations. On Gates. In Asteroid Belts. In plexes, 200km off a planet, in high-sec (if you're like me), in low-sec and null. By the time you watch the bright light explode off the 50th ship, if you haven't learned anything about PvP in Eve Online, either A)stop. Uninstall the game and walk away. or B)Take up mining. At this juncture, I've lost about 30, and I like to think that if nothing else, I know how to NOT die by this point.

In other news, the Elections of the 7th Council of Interstellar Management are underway. For those of you that don't know/haven't got a clue, the CSM is effectively the representatives of the Eve's player base to CCP, the game's developer. They are effectively a focus group for the developers. Now, because I am in Faction Warfare, and I am never impartial. If yohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifu are reading this, and live in high security or low security space, vote for Hans Jagerblitzen. He is something a local celebrity in the faction warfare space that I frequent near Rens, and whether or not you know anything about him, the issue at stake here is that we, those of us who do not live in null-sec, need to have a voice on the Council, and quite frankly Hans' ideas are easily the most coherent and concise of any candidate claim to represent us, and we need to combat the hegemony of the null-sec interest groups, whose ideas tend to dominate the CSM and Eve generally. If you want to know more about what he's about, look here. If you are already a paying account member of Eve, and have yet to vote, go here. Do it. Do it now. And hope to God/the Celestial Spaghetti Monster, that he wins. A win for Hans is a win for all of us (who aren't fetishistic about null-sec).

Signing off,

Ed