Log 047

Log 047

-Author: Rinas Rylos
-Rank: C.E.O.
-Corporation: Rinas' Raiders (R.R.A.S.)
-Date: 115.08.11

Snipers. Snipers everywhere, or at least that's what it seems to be like lately. Sniper battles are the most exciting things to watch, and the pay isn't half as good as loading up for anti-armor duties, but there's a certain pleasure in seeing my own K/D ratio rise above the poor newbies, so full of bluster and bravado as they imagine themselves to be some kind of sniping ace. Admittedly, I'm not sure if it's because of all the time I've put in to using them, or if splurging on some nicer ones has given me a leg up, but either way I'm not gonna bitch about doing better than others, particularly when some of them came close to edging out my own scores. Besides, perhaps seeing a chick whip their asses in the aftermath will motivate some of their sorry asses to actually, y'know, do better. It probably won't, honestly, but a gal can always dream.

Speaking of dreams, the flying space bastards seem to be hatching some bigger schemes than usual lately. A mixture of reports and gossip on the electronic vine seem to indicate that they're branching outside of what the four empires are happy with them doing. Not that they give a rat's ass outside of their own territory, but these anomalies called "Ghost Sites" are popping up everywhere, both high sec and null, and while they keep blaring out propaganda saying that they're forbidden to deal with them, five minutes going over the daily schedule of most capsuleers will tell you exactly how many of them will heed such an proclamation.

Now, I only continue to reside in space because by now I could bankrupt a city with how much goddamned ISK I've got, so I'm probably not the best person to go to when it comes to intergalactic politics or drama. I know exactly enough about the system that governs the whole clusterfuck to know that I don't really like it, but changing it would require..well, it'd require capsuleers to quit being a bunch of flying space bastards on occasion, so it doesn't really matter exactly what else such a shift would need. New Eden is a big place. Like, really big. As in, I seriously doubt most of us realize the enormity of the whole cluster, and given the perpetual warring, battles, espionage, etc., that we bring upon ourselves, it's difficult to imagine any major change taking place at all.

Bleh, perhaps I'm just rambling. It's hard to describe New Eden without remembering that for every capsuleer I generalize, every merc I shoot, and every planet I fight on, there's countless more out there; Each one struggling just as hard as I do -if not more- to eke out an existance amongst each other. To stereotype the entirety of any one group is a process that doesn't just cast an assumption on a group of people, it leads to cliches surrounding entire planets, galaxies, and just seems like a bit of a stupid idea in the overall scheme of things. People might have similar ideals at some points, but the sheer, shifting nature of not only ourselves but the world around us only ensures that taking such a crude approach to life is a surefire way to see your fortune plummet, robbed and tricked by people with a more easily adapting perspective in a cluster where you -need- to adapt to survive.

I guess the long and short of what I'm trying to say is that the empires don't seem to understand the world that they themselves created, and if they keep this bullshit up they're likely to wind up being swept away by the very force they all helped to create.

Also, I should probably quit stereotyping capsuleers. I'm sure there's good ones out there. Somewhere.

-End Log.

Log 035

Log 035

-Author: Rinas Rylos
-Rank: C.E.O.
-Corporation: Rinas' Raiders (R.R.A.S.)
-Date: 115.06.23

Had some odd battles today. Seemed as though they'd take their sweet little time getting started, with nearly minutes passing before a shot is fired. Not that it doesn't take a while for the opposing teams to find each other, but several consecutive contracts in you begin to wonder, shit, maybe the battlefields are getting a little too big? Not that I'd mind if they were bigger, personally. A bit more space and sniping would get a hell of a lot easier, though they'd have to change the fucking scopes so we could actually see a decent distance away first. Out of all the complaints I always hear and read, the one about what shit scopes the sniper rifles are fitted with doesn't ever seem to enter into anyone's head. I suppose I go against the grain when it comes to sniping though, given how often I do hear bitching about snipers in the hills and whatnot, but that's less due to how overly powerful they are and more with how everyone and their fucking mother decides to grab an SR and head for the boundaries when the going gets tough. Protip guys; Picking an extremely situation weapon and leaving yourself alone in an easily visible position while you fail to hit every person you aim for is not productive to the team!

Heh...Reading that back to myself, I guess I sound a little bitter about the whole sniping situation, but it's a legitimate grievance; Too many idiots decide that, regardless of the rest of the situation on the battlefield, it's time to switch over to their shitty little sniping dropsuit and begin uselessly pissing away ammo as shot after shot manages to somehow miss the people climbing up the hills after them. Now, look: I'm all for taking the head off some idiot five hundred meters away with a miraculous shot that manages to splatter their insides all over the murdertaxi they're currently driving around in, that's just plain fun, but there's a time and place for it, and even then there shouldn't be any more than a few snipers per team. Ideally, you've got one looking out for the others on the opposing side while leaving the other duo free to thin out the ground troops. In practice, you've got about five or six all either clustered about, ripe for the picking, or you've got them spread around uselessly about the larger battlegrounds, utterly failing to do anything besides make easy targets for people willing to make a quick trek up to whatever perch this “expert” sniper has decided they will decimate the other side from.

Now, I think it's fair to mention that I'm guilty of a good bit of this myself, or at least I used to be. Even after the government's "training", I was such a fucking clutz with one of them that you couldn't tell my ass from my elbows from the fucked up form I'd take with one. Thankfully after a few impromptu lessons with a more seasoned merc I was able to get the hang of it. Still, sniping is a bit more...situational, than I think most newbies believe it is, and I doubt that the battle academy lasts long enough for those of them that could be decent snipers to really get a feel for when it's the right time to bust out the rifle and head for a tall place.

TL;DR: Sniping. What a clusterfuck.

-End Log

Log 015

Log 015

-Author: Rinas Rylos

-Rank: Soldier

-Corporation: Hostile Acquisitions Inc. (H.A.I.)

-Date: 115.05.07

Today was....an interesting affair, to put it mildly. It's not every day I learn all of my assets have been refunded, leaving me with millions more ISK than I'd had. It wasn't...bad, exactly, but still somewhat confusing. Turns out there was a recall as they whipped out new versions of all sorts of shit to be compliant with the new TACCOM software. In addition to finally fixing my fucking starmap, they implemented six people squad capability and a less eye-searing user interface. Seems like the whole thing was a bit of waste of good equipment, but fuck it.

Rather than my usual walk, I spent the better part of my morning reordering my usual shit. Breach shotguns, sniper rifles, Gek 38s, etc. Turns out there were a bunch of new suits as well, so I gave what ones I had training for a purchase. Must've burned through three giant mugs of my favorite black brew as I scrolled through all the new menus and shit. It all certainly looked prettier, but truth be told it was about as intuitive as the last version, if perhaps even less so. Still, at least I had all my dropsuits and old shit reordered, and it was back to the killing fields like normal, right?

In a word? No. Two? Hell no. If you held a gun to my head and I didn't feel like going through the trouble of fixing my hair again, I'd probably say that the majority of the weapons seem to fucking shoot spitballs now. HMG? Fuck you. Sniper rifle? Psh, more like shitter rifle. And I've seen goddamned laser pens that hurt more than the new models of rifle. About the only thing that didn't seem to suck was the assault rifle, which was repeatedly used to lay my ass out. I'd call it disconcerting, but that'd be a huge fucking lie. It was infuriating in more ways than one, particularly since I knew complaints about the HMG had reached the manufacturers before.  That's fucking weapons devs for you, though. They see something being complained about being too shitty, make it shittier, than fail to understand why no one is using them.

That said, I will admit that the helmet's graphic interface has gotten way prettier in outdoor areas. A little...techno-ish, perhaps, but there's still a shitload more color and vibrancy than there was in the last version. They also introduced a tab where I can see exactly what I've been pissing away my ISK on, so that was somewhat handy as well. On the whole, this new update fixed a few things, but really broke way more than it actually helped. Here's hoping the devs for the next version get their head on straight, and that the goddamned weapons manufacturers pull their heads out of their asses, though I'm insanely doubtful of either.

-End Log.