fun

I admit it, I have an issue with Shiny Ships. A problem in that I ignore all EVE conventional wisdom and train for, buy, and fly ships that just look pretty even if I have no real use planned for them. Some of them do have actual utility – like the Sacrilege, which is just a joy to fly in small group PVP (the five whole times I’ve been involved in that, mind you). And the Pilgrim, which, though often derided is at least handy for sneaking precious cargo through 0.0.

Or the Nighthawk I just bought for my alt run level 4 missions. Yeah, the Raven was doing just fine, but why run missions the smart, sensible, and fully-insurable way when you can fly a sleek black ship with high resists and lots of blinky lights? Oh yes…it’s a sweet ride. Load up a permatank and some Fury heavy missiles, grab a beer, and enjoy the light show of bad NPC guys going “boom”.

However, more often than not, I spend loads of ISK on something shiny that has no real value to my current playstyle. I kit it out, rig it up, and fly it around for a while showing off to the local residents of my home systems like I’m cruising the El in a tricked out Impala. After a while the novelty wears off, buyers remorse sets in, and up on contract it goes.

The Falcon I bought for my high-sec mission-running alt is a great example. As is the Zealot I once flew around Amarr for a couple of weeks, running level 3 missions just to see the shiny laser lights in action (even though my Harbinger or Drake were a fraction of the cost and more than effective at the task). Or even just skills and time – I spent the past few months training my alt to fly the full set of Minmatar ships just so I could one day hop in a Sleipnir. You know, just in case.

But nothing is quite as representative of my obsession with all things bright and shiny as the purchase of a Damnation. Coming from a lover of the whole line of Amarr ships, I’d have to say the Damnation is the best damn looking bird of prey traversing the skies of EVE. It’s black. It’s got loads of blinky lights. It’s got an unGodly monstrous tank. And it does the damage of a moderately wet noodle.

Now it IS quite useful – tank it up, install some armor-boosting gang modules and a pilot with the Armored Mindlink, and drop it in the middle of a large gang or fleet, and the Damnation is a powerful asset to any group. I’m just saying it’s not particularly useful for my needs at the moment, which largely involves mission running. Nevertheless, it’s a Shiny Ship. 250M ISK or so later, I had one up and running and tagging along with my alt’s equally shiny Nighthawk on level 4 missions.

It tanked like a monster, taking full aggro in several missions, which was nice. But the Nighthawk can basically take full aggro on its own, so what I needed was a companion ship to do some damage. As I mentioned, that just isn’t the Damnation, by *any* stretch of the imagination.

So, a few missions in, and the Damnation is parked in my hanger awaiting my someday return to PVP. For now, I sprung on a well-equipped Apocalypse with Mega Pulse’s to churn out some nasty damage and compliment the mean tank already on my Nighthawk. So far, so good – the two split aggro enough to be virtually worry free when it comes to tanking. And the Nighthawk’s solid damage output combined with the monster damage from the Apoc’s pulse lasers rip through NPC battleships like there’s no tomorrow. So at least I can keep using one bright and shiny ship when I log on now, even if that beautiful Damnation has to wait out her time in the hanger until I can find something useful for her to do.

Now my main is almost trained up to fly Gallente command ships….more shiny please!

Screencap by empeekay on Flickr

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