When you don't have docking rights...

So some of us have experienced this inconvenience, and some of us have not. The Mavs recently experienced the inconvenience when we were leaving Atlas. Came home from work and BAM! Bobby Atlas in his emo rage (and false claims he wasn't notified of Mavs departure) had reset Mavs to shoot on sight. We only lost a few ships to undocking. The worst part of undocking is the inability to re dock once you click that undock button.

Goons last night experienced that in NOL. One was an unfit Rokh most likely looking for insurance money. The other was a fully T2 fleet fit Apoc. The Rokh just died at the undock... the Apoc warped to the Pr- gate and jumped. I had called in Casebolt and Sir Kerry, who were in Pr-, to the gate. I jumped through and we sat there. Casebolt was doubting me me "So was it a Buzzard scouting or the Apoc that jumped through?" "It was the Apoc" "Are you sure??" "Yes I'm sure!" Sure enough that Apoc held cloak as long as possible, but that glorious moment came when it dropped and we lit him up. Down he went, and Case was very happy with the loot. We discussed why he didn't have on even one stab when the obvious occured. He didn't have fitting rights in NOL. Another reason not having docking rights sucks. Had he had one stab on that Apoc he would have escaped.

I also got Case a solo mail. The 0-1 system is next door to Nol, and on my way over to NOL I was creating an off gate of NOL in the 0-1 system. A Goon Zealot jumped through and cloaked up of all things. So I got Casebolt in his pulse Harbinger next door on the 0-1 gate in NOL. When he was in position I dropped cloak and waited. Nothing. So I warped to the gate and waited. A few seconds later this Zealot drops cloak and locks me up. The moment he aggressed I jumped and reapproached. Case jumped through and punished this guy. If I had known A. How he was fit. B. That his first (and only volley) would only do 8% damage to a Falcon's shields (which are pitiful). I would have simply stayed in the fight and jammed him up. As it was by the time I reapproached and jumped the guy was dead. This Zealot was... either fail fit or just an idiot for trying to hit a Falcon at 5km on a gate. For various reasons. I mean he could barely hit me with his beams because his tracking sucked. I could also have jumped through at anytime regardless of the fact I was in a Falcon. I could also jam him up at anytime. He also had no scout on the other side (which is why he died). Casebolt was happy with the loot though, since the Domination and Dark Blood hardeners dropped.

I'm hoping to start flying my Tengu within a week. I don't want to take it out until I can fly it right. I hope most people follow that doctrine, whether it be correct fitting or skills high enough. If you are flying a ship out of your capabilities, its going to die. This is something I believe in... I ride an R6 in RL. For those who don't know what that is:


Those that ride these bikes within their limitations live. Those that try and go outside those limitations die. It's simple.

On a side not Rebellion Alliance handed over all TCUs, Station, equipment in Delve. In exchange they get 1 week of blue status. You know whats frustrating? Watching hauler after hauler undock from NOL filled with stuff. Much of which is Goon stuff. Goon ships. I wanted to shoot them badly but politics are... well, politics. I'm just happy I bought my Tengu from a Rebellion Alliance member on firesale before we gave them blue status. He probably would have kept it.

To be honest I am a little saddened that things are dying down in Delve. Right now we are in the lull. The time between the massive fights with Goons and the time at which we have Delve controlled and can take roams to fun areas of Eve. I have a few in mind...

More fun in Delve

Last night started out bad but ended good. To elaborate, I had clone jumped to a pod in Y-2 to grab another stealth bomber to bring to the fight. On the way to NOL I saw an SOT Viator. I watched him warp off, so I hit his gate first and jumped through. I didn't expect to take him out, but I could try, right? Well somehow I get this guy locked before he cloaks (note, this should have been my first warning bell). So I started lobbing torps at him and man, what a tank (note, this should have been my second warning bell). Then local jumps by 3 SOT and I see gate fire (at this point my warning bell went off). I tried to warp off but the Claw that jumped through had me scrammed and webbed. I managed to damp the Claw but the Heretic that came through dropped a bubble about the same time. Sighing I watched my Manticore pop and took my free ride back to Y-2 (which was 2j away). Upgrading my clone fitting my ship, I dropped a "nice bait Viator" in Y-2 local as the SOT gang passed through.

I grabbed a shuttle and headed down to a station system in Delve to pick up a Falcon (fully fitted and rigged) I bought on firesale for 120 mill. Bringing that back to Y-2 I grabbed a Crow and met up with a small Mav gang roaming around lower Delve. We didn't really find any targets, Goons must have been busy elsewhere (imagine that). So we headed to NOL and joined up with the main fleet. Thats when the fun began.

The fleet we had going on was mainly it with -A- and others also in the mix. It was spread over NOL, Pr-, FW, IDH, YZ9, 319-, and various other systems in the area. It was a giant party, with targets getting tackled and people just moving around to hit them. Being in a fast locker was a definite win last night.

The first kill of the night was a Drake that was tackled a few jumps out of Pr-. It was tanking the light support that had it locked down and was aggressed on a gate. I burned to the target and locked him down with a point and web. The three ceptors and Vaga were tankable.. the Anzac Drake that joined up was not. He was aggressed right up to the end, why he didn't de aggro and jump through to at least attempt to leave... I do not know.

The second kill was simple. "Megathron landing on Pr- gate in NOL.... He jumped!!" I was already in warp halfway through that sentence, along with 14 other people. We landed on gate and waited for him to drop cloak. His oh sh** moment. Finally he dropped cloaked and man, even with two plates and a DCII that Megathron melted.

It got quiet for a little while, so I jumped into FW and down to YZ9 where it was a little less blue. I was sitting on the 319 gate in YZ9 when a Rifter jumped through. We had a dictor on the gate who dropped a bubble. The Rifter burned like crazy but my Crow can go 5k/sec and kept up. I got him webbed, along with another friendly web and he dropped in a heartbeat. The dictor dropped another bubble as he went down, so we got his pod too.

Conveniently enough as I waited for aggression to drop, the call of "Sac in 319 landing on gate." "WHICH GATE!!!?" "He jumped YZ9!!". Well who was there waiting for him? Gate fire... then more gate fire as blues came pouring in. The Sac held cloak for a bit then dropped it and tried to burn to the gate. He was scrammed and triple webbed and dropped rather quickly.

We nailed a Tempest in 319, but the win that night was a Huginn. The Huginn had been zipping around to off gate bookmarks and smacking in local. This Huginn was piloted by Von Kleist, who happens to be in the MN channel. I had tried to burn him out twice but failed, which promted him smacking even more in local. Eventually he tried to jump through a gate that appeared clear, but landed in a camp on the other side. Down went the Huginn.

At this point the Euro boys started a POS bash and I was getting extremely tired. I hit the sack feeling quite content with the day, despite the SOT bait gang.

For a good idea of how things went in Delve overall from non-IT perspectives, here is some recommended reading.

Rifter Drifter flies with -A- and helped us out in Delve as well as dealing with CVA in D-GTMI.

Korath Kodachi flies from the CVA point of view. So far he hasn't given me any useful intel to take down CVA :(((

On a side note I bought my first T3 ship from a Rebellion Alliance member firesaling in NOL. I would like to thank all those selling their ships/items for insane prices in the Delve area. Firesales ftw.

Bloody Night in Delve

So last night I logged in eagerly after work. I landed next to NOL station (where I had logged off) and sat there for a minute. I was about to watch a movie with someone who doesn't appreciate EVE the way I do so my time was limited. Imagine my surprise when a Rokh undocks from the heavily bubbled undock.

I was in a Manticore at the moment, so I approached to within 65km and decloaked, lighting him up. He started going down quickly, and had for some reason aggressed a different stealth bomber even though the Rokh had no chance to hit him with his rails.

As the Rokh started melting a Purifier zips out of the undock and tries to get out of station range so he can cloak up. I happened to be along his line of travel so I lock him up, point him and spank my MWD so I can keep up. Rokh drops and I turn my torps on him, which of course do little damage. Lucky for me I keep the point active and the Zealot in the gang chewed him to pieces.

At this point I was starting to take RL aggro so I logged off. Three hours later I logged back in and there is a Brick Squad gang outside NOL station. I being an idiot, was not paying attention on login so I cloaked up after landing. I immediately started moving and a Brick Squad Dramiel passed 7,000m away from me in a decloaking attempt. Pucker moment.

Mavs are FCing two gangs at this time, and as the Brick Squad gang moves off I join up with one in J-l led by Casebolt. This turns out to be a dying party and so I move back to a camp led by Sobic, who is turning in the for the night. I switch out for a Crow and take over the camp in Pr- Then begun the feast on Delve.

Its started off slow, with a couple capsules and noobships getting caught in the bubble on the gate. I have one of my dictors sitting in FW cloaked off the gate. He reports a Raven on scan, but not on grid with him. We have covert ops jump in system who dropped probes... nothing. Then I hear "Raven 200km off PR gate!" Immediately the cov ops pilot moved his probes and dropped range... he got it. "Warp to me, go go go" I order everyone to jump, and we warp to the Raven who by this time is bubbled by our FW dictor. He pops, and that fat lady started singing.

Shortly thereafter we had a Tempest land on the PR- gate and attempt to warp out, but our Dictor got him and we came through and dropped him cold. We had foon with what I thought was an interesting fit jump through completely unscouted. With no buffer he instapopped. Perhaps one of the nicest kills of this evening was this Dramiel, which had some very nice loot. He just warped to 0 on the FW gate in PR- and got caught in the bubble. I had him scrammed as soon as he was lockable and the poor guy didn't have a chance. I got the internal force field array... 11 mill by itself. Then there was this Apoc, followed by a Zealot. Then another Typhoon, whos Russian pilot started spamming local after we popped him. He actually had a tank so I didn't do anything but give him the -MVN- Penis in local.

At this point DT hit, and since we had a Scorpion jump in and hold cloak long enough for DT I figured I had to stay awake to pop him. So I slip in and out of sleep during DT and awaken to yelling "The servers coming up!!". Logging on we re form fleet and wait. Scorpion appears on scan but never lands on gate.

At this point the Euro boys are doing an op, in PR- of all places. The POS bash starts and me being light support, well I figure I'll just keep camping the gate. With 150 in system traffic slows so I zip down to 319- and get my Rokh out, which had been stuck there since last week. I get back in system in time to see 20 or so BCs mainly Drakes undock from the PR- station. The bs fleet warps in on them and I got on 3 Drake killmails in my Rokh. Yummy. I switch back to my Crow, about the same time my alt sees a Mega off gate in FW. I undock and book it to the FW gate in PR-. Sure enough he drops down on gate and jumps through. That Mega didn't last long.

At this point its 7am and I am beat. Snowboarding is looking less and less likely since I should have been waking up at this point. I crash with a smile at 23 confirmed kills in a few hours time. There are several more that have yet to appear on killboards (one of which is a Raven). Not bad for a nights work.

For those of you out of touch of reality or the general loop of information, the Goons dropped sov, thought that CCP would reinstate it and got hammered when that didn't happen. Always make sure to pay your bills ladies and gents. If you have auto bill pay make sure your account has sufficent funds. IT now has SOV in every station system Goons dropped (including NOL) and are running wild in the area. Goons have relocated as much of their assets as possible but (appear) to be pulling out.

Update: Killmails from Battleclinic include that Raven, as well as a Tempest and some other ships that weren't on IT Killboard this morning. With all of these added, happy time last night netted 36 kills.

Payback's a biatch, and she ain't effing for free

Last night Goons dropped sov in approximately 20 systems. Apparently there wasn't enough of a balance in the wallet to keep Sov on all those systems. Goons, believing it would be reversed after downtime one can only assume, did nothing and we steamrolled last night. This steamroller continues today, I just received a notification:

18:36:19 Notify FinFleet has claimed sovereignty in 1-SMEB on behalf of IT Alliance

We can only believe that this is the first in a failcascade of Delve. I can only encourage you to all eat your hearts out on this thread in COAD.

NOL is burning...

Updated as I left for work IT TCU was onlining in NOL, with 10 min left on the timer.

PVP FTW

This weekend the Mavs rolled out one of our oldest traditions, dusted it off and fired it up. Sneaky deaky operations aka Black Ops. I'll give you a general sense of what we do, without compromising operational security. After alliance decided to move us to Y-2 we have had issues with lots of different things. Ratting/mission running is difficult due to our close proximity to Delve, we are far from our current AO (Sakht) and our numbers don't necessarily allow us to frontal assualt Delve because we will just get blobbed. So naturally it was time for us to get things done Mav style.

Forming up in Y-2 we gathered our forces, which were some Black Ops ships, a couple recons and quite a few stealth bombers with one t3 frig. We staged out of a system in Delve, recons searching for targets. When they found a target (which was a few BCs and a couple BSs), they would pop a covert cyno and the lot of us would bridge in and pop the target. This is how Black Ops ships are supposed to be used. Sometimes we bring them in, sometimes we leave them safely behind due to a particularly hostile environment. Too many times people buy expensive Black Ops and it sits in a hangar gathering dust. On the opposite side of the spectrum is those who decide to frontline their Black Ops for whatever reason. It is not a battleship nor should it be used like one. Your are risking almost a bill in hull alone, forget how much you are paying for mods. The choice to bring the Black Ops ship into a combat situation should never be made with haste. They are slow and large. Much better to bring in T3 cruisers which can cloak and move around with great speed.

Our operations were quite effective, with the exception of one of our newer pilots trying to loot the wreck of a Drake with hostiles in the system. This Drake popped quite quickly but due to our close proximity to NOL we scattered and cloaked up immediately. I watched as a Sabre warped in, bubbled him and popped him. He failed for 3 reasons. 1. He was not aligned at all. 2. He was not watching scanner and reacted too slow as Sabre warped in. 3. He was at 0 on the wreck, when he should have been at 2000m or more, allowing him to cloak up immediately. I considered warning him before it all went down, but I figured his lesson would be burned into him with the loss should he get gangked, which he did. Baptism by fire. After a few hours of successful gangking we called it and closed up shop. We will be continuing these types of operations as they are very effective for our time zone and our tactics as a corporation.

Our success was offset by the loss of a Drake and Harbinger (Drake was mine) to a nice little gank setup this guy was running near core in Fountain later that night. We were running a small mixed gang with a couple bcs and some smaller tackle. This guy set up a triple plated Domi on gate, which our scout promptly tackled. Unbeknownst to us, he had a Legion in system which then came in while his domi neuted our Harbinger to death. The neuting, intense tank of the Domi and our light ship types combined with the fact that my Drake arrived after the Harbinger popped made it fail. We didn't kill the Domi and had to bail. To get our revenge we killed the Domi later on, this time running heavier. Didn't get the Legion though, guessing this was one guy dual boxing. We were able to check the killmail of the Domi and man, what a tank. Dominix Well we figure we will get the Legion sooner or later (he has been reported in the area still), and maybe if we are lucky he will buy another Dominix for us to kill.

Providence & Friends

This weekend saw quite a few engagements, from skirmishes to full scale battles. First off, I would like to congratulate our -A- brethren and allies on their success against CVA & Pets in D-GTMI. Isoruku Yamamato, who is remembered for many things, wrote a letter on January 9, 1942 which said "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack". I'm not implying that CVA attacking SV5-8N, HED-GP and UX3-N2 were sneaky by any means. I'm just saying that they pissed off the wrong crowd.

CVA is one of the oldest alliances (if not the oldest) in the game. This is due to a few reasons, one of which is that people like having them around. Carebears love them because they are like CONCORD (with a 15-30 min delay). Killers like -A- and company, or us (The Mavs) love to have them around because they give all those carebears a false sense of security. This creates a target rich environment that we can all love and appreciate. Just a few months ago CVA was disbanded, and CCP actually decided to back them up (imagine that!) -A- actually helped CVA hold its space until their Alliance was reinstated. Why? Its good hunting in Providence. But CVA had to ally themselves and become a Goon pet. This is just stupid. CVA and pets are not capable of the kind of warfare that they now find themselves involved in. When we were in Atlas, we would vacation to a system called Yong, which was two jumps out of Mamet (a CVA low sec hub). We pirated to our hearts content; it was a vacation spot of sorts that we could unwind and have fun in after massive fleet ops. After leaving Atlas and in our transition to IT Alliance we based out of Yong. CVA would respond time and time again using the same crappy tactic. A bait Abbadon would come into Yong, we would tackle it and start killing it. He would point one of our ships and pop a cyno, titan bridge in a 20-3o man fleet of random ships and a few carriers. They would (usually) kill the one ship pointed and the rest would get out. Bear in mind we usually were camping with 3-15 RR bs (with a hictor or sensor boosted Drake). Hot dropping made CVA and pets feel good, but after 20 min in system they would leave and we were back to our usual stuff. This type of combat doesn't require any skills.

In contrast, 0.0 fleet warfare takes lots of skill (especially on the part of the FC), as well as street smarts (knowing when to warp out, and how to react in laggy situations). It also requires some degree of standardization as far as shiptypes and fitting. As we have seen in the killmails, CVA and company brought random ships to the fights... and as posted by many of the other bloggers, they got steamrolled. Standard fleet BS snipe range is anywhere from 100-150km. You bring bc's and HAC's to these fights and you are going to get smoked. No tank, oftentimes out of range, and not entirely coordinated. Battleships, with T2 Guns will out range, out damage and out last anything but another BS fleet of similar size. Ironically this article about T2 Guns is by Kirith Kodachi, a Provi dweller (though he knows what he is talking about). The lack of effective ships, the lack of training/experience in 0.0 warfare and the fitting of their ships leads me to believe this could be a very bad outlook for CVA. To that I say... oh well.

Escape and Evade Part 2

After docking up in 319 with my Rokh, I decided it was time to have some fun. I have a +4 Clone which had been left behind in Omist (Atlas Space) when we pulled out. Due to Bobby Atlas' Emo Rage and setting IT Alliance Neut, I had left him there. I assumed after Bobby got over his rage he would set us blue. Months later with no blue status, time to have some fun. I clone jumped to QSF and bought a Caracal and some T1 equipment. Not having rights to fitting tool, I undocked and made 5 jumps to Red Overlord Space and fitted up my Caracal. I then started the long trek through Atlas Space, assuming I would die but at least I would have fun and smack some Atlas members in local.

With Atlas deployed further north it was quite lonely for 7 or 8 jumps. I ran into a Dominix, who left me alone (and I left him alone). Other than that it was smooth sailing with a few waves from more moderate Atlas members (not everyone in Atlas is a douche canoe) I headed into Curse, still sailing along. Several jumps out of low sec I ran into a no station system with 40 in local, part of a corp I had never heard of. I quickly decided to reapproach and jump back through. Seeking alternative routes to Empire I decided to go through Doril. With members of the 40 man gang chasing me I started burning to my new destination. The pursuit eventually vanished and once again I was burning through empty 0.0. Is it just me or does no one like Angel Space (I didn't, the rats sucked).

Just a few jumps out of Doril I jumped into a gate camp. They had a Rapier, Dramiel, and random other ships camping a drag bubble 90 off gate. I immediately warped to a random planet at range, and from there to the outbound. Sure enough the Dramiel was waiting for me. I jumped on contact, Dramiel jumped with me. I loaded grid... Dramiel 24 off me. Yeah baby! (for those who are confused, Dramiel usually fits Scram) Sure enough the yellow grid showed up, I had been locked. But no red, I was out of range. I warped to the outbound and didn't look back. Surprisingly, the Doril gate wasn't bubbled or camped. By this time I was seeing AAA Citizens in local, so I was feeling a little better. Due to my massive ratting campaigns I can now venture into some of high sec. I dropped off my caracal, sold it and all the fittings and traveled in my pod to a system one of my RL friends had been running missions in (hes a noob). I was surprised that I actually made it all the way to empire. No kills, but still alive. I bought a Drake, fitted it and ran a couple missions (LVL1, ughhhh). It was strange, I haven't run missions in months. I felt a little bad not being in Fountain for an op, but when I heard the fail scouting dropped 1/4 of our 200 man BS fleet to a drag bubble camped by bombers I felt lucky. I look forward to running a few more missions before clone jumping back to 0.0 and taking out some roams. Several of my corp mates have been getting itchy for some good sporting fights. Me included.

Escape and Evade Part 1

So being in the USTZ has its disadvantages. One of which is that when you sign on in a hostile system (49-U) at a friendly POS its in the middle of Goon Prime Time. So there I was, floating in a Finfleet POS in 49-u with 200 Goons in local and very, very few blues. I'm sitting there thinking to myself what a waste it is to have my main in a Rokh in this system. The POS is in reinforce and all the guns have been uncapped. Then a Goon Drake shows up on grid. He warps to the POS and sits there, staring at me. I'm just sitting there staring at him. Then, all of a sudden, his engines flare and his speed jumps. Aligned right at me he continues burning. I watch, waiting for the crazy bounce off the POS shields. To my amazement he burns right through the shields and continues coming straight at me. Good old spies gave up the password. I spank my microwarp drive and move out of the way of the Drake that is now burning at me well over 1k/second. I hop on command and get one of my corpmates to contact Finfleet so they can reset the password. Meanwhile, I want out of 49-U so I can go run roams up in Fountain.

A corpmate and myself get our ships ready and I deftly get a scout in position, burning down from Fountain (some 30j). After the scout arrives we warp to outbound and start burning home. Eight jumps out of 49-U I notice a Goon in local who was in a rupture on my way in and followed our scout for a couple jumps. We had passed him two jumps out of 49-U, so the only way he could be in this system was using jump bridges. Which means he was on to us. Sure enough, there he was waiting on the outgate. Our scout jumps through as my Rokh and Kushman's Megathron are landing. The Rupture waited, watching, studying. We jumped through, and so did he. The system was clear except for the Goon Rupture, our scout waiting on the outgate. We dropped cloak and he tackled Kush in his mega. Drones out, short range ammo already loaded, tracking scripts in we locked him up and unloaded. Somewhere a fat lady started singing because local went up by 1, then 2, then 3. I glanced at my laptop and saw the scout pop from an Abbadon on our outgate. Not good. Not knowing what the other ships were in, scout sitting in station I focused on the Rupture which was taking awhile to go down due to small sig radius and transversal. Well into structure he warped off (fleet fit battleships = no tackle) the moment his point dropped of Kush I warped to a planet. Kushman, for some reason unbeknowst to me, warped to the out gate. I started bouncing around the system, which was thankfully quite large. Setting up multiple safes I started bouncing to wait out my aggro timer. Goons, being Goons, started their usual smack in local with "fresh meat" and such spewing prematurely. Kushman landed on gate and jumped through into waiting hostiles which tackled him immediately. Cursing over comms he tried to reapproach but was webbed and scrammed. With his impending destruction I focused on my own survival, boucing safes non stop, while checking for probes. All of a sudden Kush pops up in local. "I made it out in 2% armor baby" I hear. Then some more obscenities relating to a certain Rupture which had apparently been waiting in system for him. "If he's sensor boosted I'm effed" Kush said. Then some cheering, as the the Rupture failed to tackle him. He started bouncing with me bookmarking my safes.

Goons stopped smacking in local (imagine that). After 15 min we both logged, leaving behind our farewells in local. On a side note, Goons didn't have probes out until right before we logged. We were 5 jumps from NOL and it took almost fifteen minutes to get probes out. I logged on the next day and Kush had jumped through to 319, which was NPC Blood Raider space and docked up. He reported intel in system, while I waited patiently in my alt cloaked off the outbound gate. A Heretic sat on gate for over 45 min... I waited patiently. All of a sudden he warped off. I logged in my main, warped and jumped gate and docked up. Whew.

Spectre Departing

Longtime poster on the EVE Online Blog Pack Spectre http://evenewb.blogspot.com/ is leaving eve... Indefinately. I first started reading his blog on iPhone's Capsuleer program as he was one of the more experienced players to post on there. His humor was also quite entertaining. I am sad that he is leaving the game, not because I ever fought with or against him but because his stories were quite entertaining. Being a 0.0 player with lots of pirating in my background (after two months in fountain ratting my -9.9 is now at -3) it was always nice to hear about spots to go find targets in, and some of his tactics, while ruthless, are extremely amusing. Once our campaing in Delve is finished, I plan on continuing to pirate (vacationing) and excercise his tactics.
In farewell I have decided to write a poem about Spectre and his adventures.

Spectre, Spectre, where will you go
Away from Eve? We will miss you so
No more newbs shall you kill
I guarantee you will miss the thrill
Such stories you told, shall never fade
Is it because you need to get laid?
Whatever the reasons, you'll be back
We all know in local, how much you smack
I'm thinking about starting a pool,
to see how long you'll act a fool
but if you really are done, done and done
we won't shun, even though its a stun
in sorts you won, second to none.
hope you have fun, you'll always be number one

CCP Failing... Still

"I waited two hours to load grid. Two hours. Barely over 1000 in local and can't handle it. I'm amazed my ship wasn't blown up. You guys need to fix whatever it is that is causing this post Dominion lag. We lost the advantage against the Goons today because of your failures. We moved out of Euro prime time and into US waiting for the stupid system to load and reboot.
Fix your shat.
PK"

Thats the petition I sent to CCP during our sort of fight with Goonswarm in 49-U6U. Do I expect anything to happen? No. Just the same old "we will look into it and apologize for inconvenience" bla bla bla. The problem is this is actually jeapordizing some of the opportunities we have. The biggest fight, biggest battle raging in Eve right now and CCP cannot make it doable. If this was how it has always been I would be silent, maybe find another game. But I remember a time called Apocrypha, a time when battles like this were manageable. Yes we reinforced the I-hub, but at what price? Certainly it didn't need to be as high nor take as long as it did. I sat on my character selection screen for 2 hrs, with the bar fully loaded. I even saw the new message indicator pop up with two new messages. I of course assumed that these were my insurance and clone activation messages. When grid loaded and I was still in my Rokh I have to admit to sighing with relief. But it wasn't enough to keep me from cursing CCP for their fail.

After loading grid I managed to participate in the fleet for a short period of time, but at the time I am writing this Goons have (finally) massed a decent fleet and are destroying the Sov Blockade units in system. So our fleet is on standby (for now).

On a happier note Mavs now have our own system fully upgraded. Let the carebearing begin! I don't mind running the plexes myself, but I don't mine. Ever. All carebearing aside though, its nice that we have a place to call home, deep in Fountain. This of course is a temporary residence of sorts; we plan on setting up permanent housing in Delve :)

Standings Fail

Went on a nice little roam this evening. Since I needed to travel 11 jumps to form up unscouted I hopped into my trusty little stealth bomber. Arriving safely in YZ I joined up with gang. Our group was FCed by a Blast member, and we headed up to play in Outer Ring.

I was scouting for the gang and arrived in 4C. Seeing 17 in local and nothing on scan from the gate I warped to top station at range. Outside was a neutral Claw and Tempest. Shortly after I started watching a Megathron undocked and was immediately aggressed by the two neuts. Shortly thereafter several more neuts showed up on station and together they killed the mega. Seeing a Zealot on field I reported to FC that despite reps from a carrier that had just undocked we could certainly take the Zealot down with alpha. So fleet jumped in and warped to station. I was calling the primary when I heard cursing and confusion. Turns out the primary was blue to everyone in BLAST. Since they made up half the gang this just wouldn't do. So we all disengaged and exited system. Unfortunately for one of my fellow IT Members they popped his Ares. Fail standings. Why BLAST has Vanguard blue... I do not know. Needless to say I passed a message from my CEO to Vanguard in local reminding them of a past carrier they sold to one of our Alts for $600,00 isk. This caused emo raging and some resetting back in the day. Oh well. Gang set destination for Fountain Core and started rolling.

I suppose at this time a BLAST member should have been scouting but as it so happens I was in the point position once again. Half way back to Fountain I saw a neut in system. Since it was a pipe we had a 50/50 shot at getting him on exit. Instructing fleet to hold I held my cloak and waited. It was a 90 AU warp to the outbound gate and I didn't really feel like scanning the system for this guy. After 10 or so seconds I see a new blip on scan... Astarte. Jackpot. A few seconds later this guy lands on gate and jumps. Our dictor has already dropped a bubble and this guy is hosed... right? Wrong. Turns out he is blue to half the camp. FC orders us through and to disengage. Well us IT guys are a little trigger happy at this point so we locked him down and popped him anyways. NBSI. This guy deserved it anyways. Unscouted command ship through 0.0 space with this fit--> Astarte.

So with this little "incident" under our belts FC orders us back to Fountain Core. Reports of hostile Loki camping the gate in KVN with a Sabre are reported in intel so we set up shop next door. Not two min into that camp they both jump in system. Lucky day... or not. Loki has interdiction nullifier and Cov Ops cloak, so he gets out. Sabre burns back to gate and jumps, his armor already toasted from some other battle. At that point we called it quits and turned in for the evening.

Lesson for me next time I FC: make sure your scout links everything in fleet when leading multiple alliances on a roam. Otherwise you may be in for an aggravating outing.

Dominion, Lag and You Part 2

Grid did finally load. Somehow I didn't die. Maybe its because I was in a ceptor that aligns and warps quickly. Whatever the reasons may be, many of my brothers in arms weren't so lucky. It appears that all parts are not equal in massive fleet fights that overload nodes... the party in system is much better off than the party entering system. In this case the forces jumping into 49- were picked off one by one as they loaded grid by the hostile forces that were already in system.

Goons ended up losing the fight in the end, but IT Alliance got the shaft trying to help out. This is a game mechanic issue, and one that really sucks. It's forcing changes in the way warfare in 0.0 is conducted; basically, whoever holds the field prior to the battle will hold the field. This sucks for everyone involved, if you are there first great. You will want to turn on SG-1 because you're going to wait a long time, or indefinately since the attackers are either a long way off still or just plain not coming (due to fleet lag issues). I guess what I am trying to say is that 0.0 warfare is going to slow down in all aspects. For a good portion of the population of Eve, this is not cool. I certainly don't pay $15x2 a month to run plexes. I like the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline of a massive fleet fight. Right now I would rather watch TV then sit intently staring at a blank starfield until waking up in a station with no implants, no ship and an un-upgraded clone.

CCP.
Fix your problem.

Dominion, Lag and You

Tonight we attempted to help out our AAA brethren in 49-U. With over 1000 in local pre-Dominion, it was taxing on the nerves but manageable. Now the grid won't load. The game simply stops working. I sure hope CCP digging through the code will fix this, because fleet battles can be crazy fun. Right now I'm going to go make a pizza, maybe it will load by the time I get back :)

Delve

The invasion of Delve kicked off at 18:00 GMT today, Thursday the 14th. Bridging from the remnants of PL space in Fountain to Core, and from there to Hobhib. Moving through low sec we penetrated Delve in 1-SMEB. Approximately 250 Battleships and large numbers of support participated in the initial strikes. I was in a Crow (support is so much more fun) and participated in several kills of enemy support. Sadly these were lemming kills, nothing that got the juices flowing.

I had to go to work (damn the US timezone) but Sir Molle's intentions were clear. "We are going to run ops not for one day, not for two or three days, but until further notice. We don't care about stations or sov in Delve. We are here to hit their (Goons) high end moons. We will hit them all." Tactically speaking it makes sense; Goons have to pay for their numerous (useless) station systems, pay for their sov, and we hit them in the wallet. Sadly I had to head to work, but I am eager to hit up our new Area of Operations tonight and get some kills.

The low sec pipe we headed through to hit 1-SMEB made me salivate a bit... back to my pirating days in Mamet. Gives me some ideas for vacationing once we take Delve. *Grin*

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

After many months of reading blogs of EVE players, I have decided to start my own. Some of those bloggers have been most enlightening, while others are somewhat monotonous and repetitive. As a member of one of the more active Corps in a more active alliance involved in the largest war in New Eden, I figured I had some good stuff to share with the EVE community.
For those who aren't familiar with nullsec politics, Fountain is on fire. Well maybe not so much at this point, as Sons of Tangra and Pandemic Legion have thrown in the towel. But the past couple months have seen some of the most prolific and costly battles to ever grace the game that is EVE. I'm just a cog in the machine that is IT Alliance, but I take pride in my position and in my corp. We are the Mavericks, a mainly US based corporation in an overwhelming EU Time Zone IT Alliance. I rather like the position we hold in IT, as our operations have to be smart and quick. During the EU prime time we have overwhelming numbers, during US Time Zone the Goons generally have the numerical advantage.

My position is one of PVP orientation. Since my clone was created in New Eden 8 months ago I have been trained for one thing. To kill. Now thats not to say that I was much of a killer early on, I certainly seemed to die more often than kill at the beginning. Moving to 0.0 within 2 weeks of starting this game was a true baptism by fire. I lost quite a bit as I learned the harsh realities of living in a nullsec environment. I joined eve with X.E.N.O. They played Homeworld 2 during its prime, and that is where I joined up with them. After HW2 died I switched to various other games, including Company of Heroes. As that died I looked for a new game, and tried the 2 week trial of EVE. Within those two weeks I was hooked.

We started out in Venal, Deklein as a pet corp of Mostly Harmless and De4iant. OWN Alliance, as it was called, lost favor in the region and was expelled to NPC Space several weeks after my move to 0.0. There OWN slowly died, as corps left and losses mounted. X.E.N.O. ended up leaving and moving to Gallente High Sec looking for a fresh start. Unfotunately it took us a couple months to find a new home. During this time I had trained up to fly battlecruisers quite effectively and found my love for piracy. Unfortunately X.E.N.O. had too many carebears and not enough PVPers. We eventually got a start in Insmother with Veritas Immortalis, a pet alliance of Atlas. Basing out of N7-BIY, we saw moderate action. Then the turning point arrived in my Eve life. A friend of one of X.E.N.O.'s Directors invited us to join the Mavs. A corp of Atlas at the time, it was an opportunity of a life time. I immediately dropped my roles and joined up. Shortly thereafter Veritas was destroyed by Red Alliance, but that was all in the past. I had found my PVP paradise. Between the action with Red Alliance and our vacationing terrorizing CVA and all neutrals in Emsmek and Domain Regions. This was all fine and dandy, but once RA was gone Atlas was... boring. Then we held a vote and made a decision that put Mavs on the line once again. We joined IT.

Sir Molle invited our corp to bolster the weak US Time Zone of IT Alliance. We held a vote and the vast majority of Mavs wished to join that fight. Contrary to Atlas Reports, we gave notice to Bobby Atlas that we were leaving. This didn't stop him from going emo when we did leave, and we have yet to be set blue again. Low even for Bobby Atlas, he trapped quite a bit of assets in Insmother. Thanks to those members of Atlas who helped us get our stuff out. We staged out of Syndicate and hit PLs moons, then launched the full scale invasion of Fountain. It was awesome to take the PNQ system shortly before dominion launched, as it gave us a foothold on the region. I still remember the taunts "you've only got one station, one system". Well as of the time I am writing this we just took our 5th station I belive, in PXF. I can't even count how many systems we have sov in now. I am a little sad at the lessening of targets, but just south of Y-2 lies Delve, and venturing down there generally proves fruitful.

My intetions for this blog are simple, to share the heart pounding moments that make eve what it is. From massive fleet engagements with caps (manage to replace those 4 titans PL?) to small skirmishes to solo PVP, and maybe even the occasional carebearing moment, I want to share those good times with you.