Tonight was just not a good night (in EVE). I joined Sohos gang. The first fight was in J-C, which went very much in our favor. Seven kills to one loss. We just burned off the gate in snipe HACs and the NC gang burned after us... and died. They ended up warping off, and word of heavier support for the NC on the way had us bail out. We re shipped in X-7 to Dramiel/Inty gang.
That lasted all of five minutes for me.
A hostile NC HAC gang was poking around X-7. So we all jumped into KLY where they were. The order was to warp to the G95 gate at 0.
No one mentioned there was a bubble.
I found out halfway through warp.
As I landed, sure enough there it was. The majority of the ceptors and Dramiels burned out, made it to safety.
The two falcons, myself being one of them, died. We had no chance. We also ended up losing a Daredevil and one Dramiel.
I was pissed. Very angry. Not only am I running low on funds (haven't ratted since the war started), its just a sad way to lose an expensive recon. Not during a good fight, jamming and going down in a blaze of glory.
I warped into a damn bubble.
This being said I was being yelled at to get home and organize our indy guys into a defense gang. Delve has been getting moons hit by PL the past few days. Apparently the NC is paying PL. Its a pretty simple strategy.
So they had hit one of our moons in KEE-. I podded down there and started setting up the gang. We hit a tower in 4X0 that a different corp in alliance had left undefended (no one really knew about it) and PL had anchored a small tower on. PL hot dropped us while we were doing so and nailed a few battleships, but most got out. I warped to a planet and a Harpy landed on me.
First thought was oh no, I'm gonna get tackled and die.
But my senses took over and I locked him up, burned towards a celestial and lit him up. He was tanking so so... but my Harbinger is a beast. Then he burned within scram range... bad idea. That meant he was in my web range. My web grabbed him and what little transversal he had went bye bye. Pop went the Harpy.
We soon got more and more in fleet, and the ball was rolling. I ended up heading out to get some R & R with friends RL. I came back late and the op had gone smoothly. KEE- tower was saved and PL didn't show up for a fight. We almost killed Phreeze in his Falcon but he managed to get 2km from the gate cloaked and got through. Sall good. PL only takes fights they know they can win these days, and with their limited budget it doesn't surprise me. At least we have some good fights at home now too.
That is all.
PS: If this post seems a little fragmented, I am half asleep and its 3am :)
April 30, 2010
You win some, you lose some.
So my 1 week vacation from work is... well not quite happening. Vegas plans have been scrapped. So in addition to riding my bike, mackin da ladies and sleeping.... yeah thats right, EVE.
Yesterday had its up and downs.
I woke up and joined Soho's gang. Why? Cuz his gangs are hella fun. The inexperienced die, the experienced get uber kills. We had interceptors and dictors as usual, I was in a Falcon. We got a few kills in and around H-W, and reports of a large NC fleet with capitals was reported in H-W.
Time to go.
We burned back to X-7. On the X47 gate in KQK we held, as a Hurricane and Deimos were landing. The elements of our gang who were already through pushed them through. We bubbled up in X47 and waited as they held cloak. We assumed they would burn back to gate... but they didn't. The Deimos and Hurricane both burned off the gate as fast as possible... which against an interceptor/Dramiel gang is a bad idea. Very bad.
Both ships were tackled instantly. As well as scrammed and webbed. Also jammed to hell (courtesy of PK). The Hurricane died first, then the Deimos.
We moved on to X-7 to join the fight. Since the station was camped all the interceptors went to a friendly POS. I warped to a safe outside station to see a camping BC/HAC gang with a Titan on the field. We got everyone organized and did a mass undock. Within a minute the titan decloaked (he had been hiding) and cyno'd out. There fleet starting taking massive casualties, and tried to bail. Problem was, most of them were bubbled. We Then warped to the POS they had been hitting. We managed to tackle several carriers and dreads, and started taking them down. The majority of the NC fleet (largely composed of LODRA aka Goons aka NC pets) managed to cyno out. 20-30 dreads and a couple Titans. LODRA brought in a gang to try and save their caps. All in subcaps, we killed the majority of them on the POS before the leftovers bailed. Final battle report here... needless to say it was a decisive victory.
At this point I went to get food. I had been on for hours and was starving when I started playing. I went for groceries and when I came home... not good. First thing I heard was "we need a cyno X-7 now!!".
I promptly logged on my Falcon and popped a cyno on station. Lots of hectic things going on in ROIR- was the story. I found out later the story...
Our defense fleet FC had taken the gang to ROIR- to reinforce an NC pos. NC responded with a conventional fleet that outnumbered us by around 60. Our FC (not in IT) decided to drop them with 20 carriers.
Bad idea.
Very bad.
I suppose it seems natural to me to realize that LODRA had just jumped out a massive gang including dreads and titans and they were in the middle of prime time. Its not like they would just sign off. Intel had said the NC were re shipping to conventional bs... but I'm sure that intel was for normal NC, not LODRA or PL.
And Lodra and PL made up the majority of the enemy gang.
So we dropped the NC fleet with the carriers and LODRA counter dropped our carriers. We took heavy losses, and the morale boost we had from the decisive victory in X-7 was completely lost.
Fail.
We made some changes to how caps are used as a result of this incident. They should never have been dropped, and even when they were, there should have been assets waiting to bring them back asap. It was a dumb mistake, and will not be repeated.
Momentum is important in a war like this. Its as psychological as anything else. When things are good, things are good. People will log in for the fights and will be fighting happily. When things are bad, people stop logging in. They lose the will to show up for internet spaceships. It is the silent killer. Pray that its on your side.
That is all.
Yesterday had its up and downs.
I woke up and joined Soho's gang. Why? Cuz his gangs are hella fun. The inexperienced die, the experienced get uber kills. We had interceptors and dictors as usual, I was in a Falcon. We got a few kills in and around H-W, and reports of a large NC fleet with capitals was reported in H-W.
Time to go.
We burned back to X-7. On the X47 gate in KQK we held, as a Hurricane and Deimos were landing. The elements of our gang who were already through pushed them through. We bubbled up in X47 and waited as they held cloak. We assumed they would burn back to gate... but they didn't. The Deimos and Hurricane both burned off the gate as fast as possible... which against an interceptor/Dramiel gang is a bad idea. Very bad.
Both ships were tackled instantly. As well as scrammed and webbed. Also jammed to hell (courtesy of PK). The Hurricane died first, then the Deimos.
We moved on to X-7 to join the fight. Since the station was camped all the interceptors went to a friendly POS. I warped to a safe outside station to see a camping BC/HAC gang with a Titan on the field. We got everyone organized and did a mass undock. Within a minute the titan decloaked (he had been hiding) and cyno'd out. There fleet starting taking massive casualties, and tried to bail. Problem was, most of them were bubbled. We Then warped to the POS they had been hitting. We managed to tackle several carriers and dreads, and started taking them down. The majority of the NC fleet (largely composed of LODRA aka Goons aka NC pets) managed to cyno out. 20-30 dreads and a couple Titans. LODRA brought in a gang to try and save their caps. All in subcaps, we killed the majority of them on the POS before the leftovers bailed. Final battle report here... needless to say it was a decisive victory.
At this point I went to get food. I had been on for hours and was starving when I started playing. I went for groceries and when I came home... not good. First thing I heard was "we need a cyno X-7 now!!".
I promptly logged on my Falcon and popped a cyno on station. Lots of hectic things going on in ROIR- was the story. I found out later the story...
Our defense fleet FC had taken the gang to ROIR- to reinforce an NC pos. NC responded with a conventional fleet that outnumbered us by around 60. Our FC (not in IT) decided to drop them with 20 carriers.
Bad idea.
Very bad.
I suppose it seems natural to me to realize that LODRA had just jumped out a massive gang including dreads and titans and they were in the middle of prime time. Its not like they would just sign off. Intel had said the NC were re shipping to conventional bs... but I'm sure that intel was for normal NC, not LODRA or PL.
And Lodra and PL made up the majority of the enemy gang.
So we dropped the NC fleet with the carriers and LODRA counter dropped our carriers. We took heavy losses, and the morale boost we had from the decisive victory in X-7 was completely lost.
Fail.
We made some changes to how caps are used as a result of this incident. They should never have been dropped, and even when they were, there should have been assets waiting to bring them back asap. It was a dumb mistake, and will not be repeated.
Momentum is important in a war like this. Its as psychological as anything else. When things are good, things are good. People will log in for the fights and will be fighting happily. When things are bad, people stop logging in. They lose the will to show up for internet spaceships. It is the silent killer. Pray that its on your side.
That is all.
April 27, 2010
Roams. Blobs. Caps. Lag.
Last night I hopped on to find a small multi-alliance roam of cloaky/fast. We roamed around UC3H and that dead end constellation in Pure Blind.
First kill was this Rifter. He managed to pop our Crusader pilot, and then held the Crusader pilot's pod for ransom in local.
Bad move.
There were 5 of us in local, all related. He killed our Crusader because he got a scram on him... but we dropped on him and killed his Rifter quickly. Funny enough my painter and first volley of torps is what finished him off.
Next we killed a Maelstrom who jumped into our scout. He aggressed the dictor and we all came in. Down the Maelstrom went.
After the Maelstrom died, we watied for more targets. We didn't wait long. One jump away our dictor bubbled a Blackbird which had him aggressed (jams). Dictor couldn't shoot but kept the Blackbird bubbled, and Blackbird couldn't take him down. The Blackbird pilot was laughing in local and making fun of the fact that this was a pointless fight.
He stopped laughing when local bumped with a few flashes of gate fire.
He started crying when we all broke cloak and blew his Blackbird up. For the record, don't fit your Blackbird like that. I remember awhile back I explained that you need to fit your ships with their bonuses in mind. Trying to tank a Blackbird is a dumb idea. Its a cheap ship and it serves one purpose: to jam. Screw the tank. Your tank is being able to jam people shooting you and to warp off.
We then headed up to X47, UR, 2D area. A gang of about 40 people tried to camp us in/bait us/kill us. We did lose a Dramiel to stupidity. Seems to always happen. That was about it, however, and we ninja'd a few kills of stragglers and the like. I didn't get on any of the mails, being in stealth bomber. Lower scan resolution and not wanting to die. Stealth bombers need to be selective in the engagements they take on or they will die. We hot dropped the NC gang with a Gentlemans Club bs gang, but the bubbles failed epically and almost all of their gang got out.
We moved on towards X-7 to form up for a fight that was brewing... and found a few carriers in X47 repping a pos. One of them was over 9k off the shields. The POS only had small guns.
Juicy.
In we went and tackled the carrier. His buddies moved into the shields, and we bumped him off further. The GC gang which had lemminged into the system while we were getting a warp in landed on grid and started pounding the Thanatos. I launched volley after volley of torps, until I was forced off field by one of the small turrets. The other carriers got smart and tried to move out of the shields to rep their failing comrade, and were promptly bumped back inside the shields. Local spiked, as the NC gang we had been playing around with came charging in to rescue their comrade.
Too late. The Thanatos died as the NC gang was landing on the POS.
Most of our guys got out and safed. The GC gang... well... they safed initially I think. But then they warped to the J-C gate and jumped. Straight into the bubbles of the waiting NC gang that had warped straight to the J-C gate and camped both sides.
They first tried to get back to the gate to jump back into X47. It took them 20-30 seconds to realize it was futile and they were going to die... then they started shooting. Should have engaged immediately. A few of them actually did make it back but many died with very few kills.
I was cloaked in X47, quite content with killing a Thanny that was way outside the shields. After the NC gang moved on I plodded home.
As we arrived in X-7 word of Atlas Capitals tackled came through. I formed up a small skirmish gang consisting of Easley, myself, Altair, Leykk and Thorgore. Cane, Harbinger, Taranis, Falcon and Drake. Not a bad little gang. The first reinforcement gang from IT burned the 21 jumps to the engagement in Vale of the Silent. They were annihilated. Lots of ships jumping into NCGR- never loaded grid, never had a chance.
We burned through Tribute, chasing a Hurricane 4j before we finally caught up with it. He escaped our tackler somehow and warped next gate. We all jumped through to follow. Local had 15-20 reds in it and they were all landing on the gate when I loaded grid.
Damn.
I instructed everyone to hold cloak... as it appeared some of the hostike gang were jumping out. I figured we may actually be able to get out of this one alive. Thorgore didn't listen and started shooting one of them. They all jumped anyways. I was certainly confused but figured we should try and kill that Hurricane. On we went to the out gate and jumped into MC6O. The Cane was already dead and 40 blues greeted us on the in gate. At least I knew why that red came didn't stop to engage us. We had met up with a blue bc gang camping MC6O run by GC. MC6O is next door to NCGR-. We joined their camp and killed a few ships trying to reinforce the fight or escape from it.
My only kill from that camp was a Myrmidon that jumped out of NCGR-. He was in a bubble, and I started buring to point him when... he cloaked!
There were only a 2 other ships with me at this point, the Sabre that had bubbled and a Brutix. We all burned to where he had dissapeared... the Brutix flew by and got nothing. Sabre had already made his attempt and flew off into space. I had my bearing right on (habit to always approach the target straightaways) and my trimarked and plated Harbinger slowboated towards where I thought he was, Warrior IIs out and flying. I had been watching him when he cloaked and had seen no jump in velocity. I assumed he hadn't spanked his MWD before cloaking so he should be ver close to his original position with a max speed of 20-30 m/s.
Just when I thought I had passed by him, BAM he appread right in fron of me, square on. I locked him, webbed him pointed him and lit into his shields. Those dissapeared instantly and into his armor I went. Boom, Myrmidon down. In retrospect, he should have waited session timer and reapproached gate. Cloaking when enemies have eyes on you as you engage the cloak is basically worthless unless you are using a Covert Ops cloak and can warp or move quickly with it on.
Shortly after the Myrmidon died word came down that the last Atlas caps had died. We booked out of the system as local spiked with approximately 100 NC coming down on us. I took our small gang out through low sec into empire rather than risking the trip back through Tribute. I figured the NC gang would use jump bridges to get ahead of us. Whether their FC was smart enough to do that I don't know, but we got out just fine.
We started burning through empire when Easley reported a hostile Phobos, Brutix and Drake on the in gate in Alikara. He toyed with them for a minute before reapproaching and bailing out. We were a few jumps behind and I looped around to come into the system from a different direction with Thorgore.
The Phobos jumped into Easley after his aggro wore off and was promptly tackled by Altair in the Ranis. Easley also shot him, in retrospect he shouldn't have but they both aggressed. The Phobos burned backed to gate and jumped through. Thorgore and I had jumped through into Alikara and were in warp when he popped back into local. I landed and saw the Phobos engaged and the Drake warping off. The Brutix was nowhere to be seen. I looked to see who was hitting the Phobos and there was -A-, doing their thing. The Phobos disengaged the moment Thorgore and I landed on grid with him. Habit turned my ship around and burned straight at the Phobos with my MWD lit from 0 on the gate for the bump. My Scorch was hitting him decently, and as soon as the 20km closed to 10km I loaded Imperial Navy Multis and hit him real hard. I webbed his ship and slammed into his hull, bouncing him off the gate. My multis pounded on him as I settle into a tight orbit making sure the web stayed on him. Warrior IIs were flying around him and pules lasers hummed. Finally his tank started to break. Easley jumped in as he entered low armor and hit him with 425s. Boom! Phobos down.
Local chirped from the Phobos pilot:
"I almost got back"
Pause.
"You can thank your Harbinger pilot"
Indeed. Looking at his fit he had an afterburner II. No scram was keeping him from getting back. The sole web from my Harbinger slowed him down just enough. He was around 1km from jump range when he died.
We left and burned to Torrinos and then to X-7. Despite the Atlas cap losses I had had a good night.
That is all.
First kill was this Rifter. He managed to pop our Crusader pilot, and then held the Crusader pilot's pod for ransom in local.
Bad move.
There were 5 of us in local, all related. He killed our Crusader because he got a scram on him... but we dropped on him and killed his Rifter quickly. Funny enough my painter and first volley of torps is what finished him off.
Next we killed a Maelstrom who jumped into our scout. He aggressed the dictor and we all came in. Down the Maelstrom went.
After the Maelstrom died, we watied for more targets. We didn't wait long. One jump away our dictor bubbled a Blackbird which had him aggressed (jams). Dictor couldn't shoot but kept the Blackbird bubbled, and Blackbird couldn't take him down. The Blackbird pilot was laughing in local and making fun of the fact that this was a pointless fight.
He stopped laughing when local bumped with a few flashes of gate fire.
He started crying when we all broke cloak and blew his Blackbird up. For the record, don't fit your Blackbird like that. I remember awhile back I explained that you need to fit your ships with their bonuses in mind. Trying to tank a Blackbird is a dumb idea. Its a cheap ship and it serves one purpose: to jam. Screw the tank. Your tank is being able to jam people shooting you and to warp off.
We then headed up to X47, UR, 2D area. A gang of about 40 people tried to camp us in/bait us/kill us. We did lose a Dramiel to stupidity. Seems to always happen. That was about it, however, and we ninja'd a few kills of stragglers and the like. I didn't get on any of the mails, being in stealth bomber. Lower scan resolution and not wanting to die. Stealth bombers need to be selective in the engagements they take on or they will die. We hot dropped the NC gang with a Gentlemans Club bs gang, but the bubbles failed epically and almost all of their gang got out.
We moved on towards X-7 to form up for a fight that was brewing... and found a few carriers in X47 repping a pos. One of them was over 9k off the shields. The POS only had small guns.
Juicy.
In we went and tackled the carrier. His buddies moved into the shields, and we bumped him off further. The GC gang which had lemminged into the system while we were getting a warp in landed on grid and started pounding the Thanatos. I launched volley after volley of torps, until I was forced off field by one of the small turrets. The other carriers got smart and tried to move out of the shields to rep their failing comrade, and were promptly bumped back inside the shields. Local spiked, as the NC gang we had been playing around with came charging in to rescue their comrade.
Too late. The Thanatos died as the NC gang was landing on the POS.
Most of our guys got out and safed. The GC gang... well... they safed initially I think. But then they warped to the J-C gate and jumped. Straight into the bubbles of the waiting NC gang that had warped straight to the J-C gate and camped both sides.
They first tried to get back to the gate to jump back into X47. It took them 20-30 seconds to realize it was futile and they were going to die... then they started shooting. Should have engaged immediately. A few of them actually did make it back but many died with very few kills.
I was cloaked in X47, quite content with killing a Thanny that was way outside the shields. After the NC gang moved on I plodded home.
As we arrived in X-7 word of Atlas Capitals tackled came through. I formed up a small skirmish gang consisting of Easley, myself, Altair, Leykk and Thorgore. Cane, Harbinger, Taranis, Falcon and Drake. Not a bad little gang. The first reinforcement gang from IT burned the 21 jumps to the engagement in Vale of the Silent. They were annihilated. Lots of ships jumping into NCGR- never loaded grid, never had a chance.
We burned through Tribute, chasing a Hurricane 4j before we finally caught up with it. He escaped our tackler somehow and warped next gate. We all jumped through to follow. Local had 15-20 reds in it and they were all landing on the gate when I loaded grid.
Damn.
I instructed everyone to hold cloak... as it appeared some of the hostike gang were jumping out. I figured we may actually be able to get out of this one alive. Thorgore didn't listen and started shooting one of them. They all jumped anyways. I was certainly confused but figured we should try and kill that Hurricane. On we went to the out gate and jumped into MC6O. The Cane was already dead and 40 blues greeted us on the in gate. At least I knew why that red came didn't stop to engage us. We had met up with a blue bc gang camping MC6O run by GC. MC6O is next door to NCGR-. We joined their camp and killed a few ships trying to reinforce the fight or escape from it.
My only kill from that camp was a Myrmidon that jumped out of NCGR-. He was in a bubble, and I started buring to point him when... he cloaked!
There were only a 2 other ships with me at this point, the Sabre that had bubbled and a Brutix. We all burned to where he had dissapeared... the Brutix flew by and got nothing. Sabre had already made his attempt and flew off into space. I had my bearing right on (habit to always approach the target straightaways) and my trimarked and plated Harbinger slowboated towards where I thought he was, Warrior IIs out and flying. I had been watching him when he cloaked and had seen no jump in velocity. I assumed he hadn't spanked his MWD before cloaking so he should be ver close to his original position with a max speed of 20-30 m/s.
Just when I thought I had passed by him, BAM he appread right in fron of me, square on. I locked him, webbed him pointed him and lit into his shields. Those dissapeared instantly and into his armor I went. Boom, Myrmidon down. In retrospect, he should have waited session timer and reapproached gate. Cloaking when enemies have eyes on you as you engage the cloak is basically worthless unless you are using a Covert Ops cloak and can warp or move quickly with it on.
Shortly after the Myrmidon died word came down that the last Atlas caps had died. We booked out of the system as local spiked with approximately 100 NC coming down on us. I took our small gang out through low sec into empire rather than risking the trip back through Tribute. I figured the NC gang would use jump bridges to get ahead of us. Whether their FC was smart enough to do that I don't know, but we got out just fine.
We started burning through empire when Easley reported a hostile Phobos, Brutix and Drake on the in gate in Alikara. He toyed with them for a minute before reapproaching and bailing out. We were a few jumps behind and I looped around to come into the system from a different direction with Thorgore.
The Phobos jumped into Easley after his aggro wore off and was promptly tackled by Altair in the Ranis. Easley also shot him, in retrospect he shouldn't have but they both aggressed. The Phobos burned backed to gate and jumped through. Thorgore and I had jumped through into Alikara and were in warp when he popped back into local. I landed and saw the Phobos engaged and the Drake warping off. The Brutix was nowhere to be seen. I looked to see who was hitting the Phobos and there was -A-, doing their thing. The Phobos disengaged the moment Thorgore and I landed on grid with him. Habit turned my ship around and burned straight at the Phobos with my MWD lit from 0 on the gate for the bump. My Scorch was hitting him decently, and as soon as the 20km closed to 10km I loaded Imperial Navy Multis and hit him real hard. I webbed his ship and slammed into his hull, bouncing him off the gate. My multis pounded on him as I settle into a tight orbit making sure the web stayed on him. Warrior IIs were flying around him and pules lasers hummed. Finally his tank started to break. Easley jumped in as he entered low armor and hit him with 425s. Boom! Phobos down.
Local chirped from the Phobos pilot:
"I almost got back"
Pause.
"You can thank your Harbinger pilot"
Indeed. Looking at his fit he had an afterburner II. No scram was keeping him from getting back. The sole web from my Harbinger slowed him down just enough. He was around 1km from jump range when he died.
We left and burned to Torrinos and then to X-7. Despite the Atlas cap losses I had had a good night.
That is all.
April 26, 2010
Stupid Loss Leads to Emo Log Off
Yesterday I spent most of the day riding my motorcycle around. It was warm and my bike has a new exhaust and HIDs. Its hot.
So I took that around town and to my sisters and back. My goal is for no speeding tickets this year, last summer I got 3. I'm pretty sure my insurance company loves me.
Anyways.
I hopped on and joined a POS bashing op. We had just finished hitting a POS in EWOK- (jump bridge pos baby) and were getting ready to attempt an assault on the EC- POS. NC had bridged into EC- and were defending that POS. They left us alone (except for bombers) in EWOK. I hopped in a double S-Bo'd (Sensor Boosted) Harbinger to help nail the stealth bombers. Since I had just hopped on comms I wasn't aware that the ever usual permacamp of cloaky fags was in O-N even with a giant fleet next door in EWOK. So burning to catch up with the fleet I jumped into 0-N.
Damn.
On the gate was a Sabre, Falcon, Rapier, Curse.... with a few more UFOs in local. Drones out, they were waiting for me. I sat and waited for session timer to wear off. My plan was to reapproach put drones on Falcon and hit the Rapier. Maybe, just maybe I could get away. I also dropped a line in fleet for support that were in EWOK- to come help. Of course none would come. Twenty seconds passed and my session change was over... so I reapproached gate and spanked MWD. I started locking the Falcon when he got his first jam off on me. Damn. Rapier double webbed me. Damn. Second Falcon de cloaked. Damn. Proteus/Stealth bomber decloaked and started hitting me. Shit. My speed dropped to 60 m/s. Deep shit.
I popped.
I sat in the bubble in my pod... waiting as all of them pointed me to whore on my podmail. Pop. Waking up in Torrinos, angry as hell, I updated my clone and logged off.
It was my own fault really. I should have assumed that having our big fleet next door would, if anything, mean that the cloaky fag guys in O-N would be having a field day. All late comers to the op would be traveling through to get to EWOK-. If local spiked the hostile gang would cloak up and watch it pass by. I failed. It was only a Harbinger you say? Yeah, but I died without reason. I couldn't even get a kill due to the perma jams (I still think Falcons are fine and anyone who wants them nerfed more can suck one). Sure insurance gave me money, but its the principle of a stupid death that irks me.
Twenty minutes later (and a few slices of pizza) I signed back on. My clone was in Torrinos, so I got in a Drake I had there and joined fleet which was now in EC- skirmishing with NC. Jumping in, I almost tackled an enemy Thorax who probably re shipped himself. He was 40 off of me after jump in, however, and I couldn't catch him in time (regional gate = huge). I warped to gang and found them hitting the hostile tower. The bombers of NC had taken a huge hit when they warped into a bubble on an attempted bombing run ten minutes earlier and got massacred. Soho was running this op, and although his experience with large gangs is limited (he does the small/medium thing more often) he was doing an excellent job. The NC fleet was mainly HACs/BCs and kept warping in and off the field. We got a warp in on their gang, but upon landing we only popped three before they warped to their POS. Back to the POS we went, and hit their gang again. I am happy to report we did primary and kill Kula Kain's Tempest yet again. Gotta love the 4 plates. His gang was in disarray after he went down and we had a chance to annihilate the rest of their gang bubbled to hell on the POS... Then the bombers hit again. We popped 8 bombers on that fail run where they were bubbled... but being next door to Torrinos meant cheap replacements were available. Thats our theory at least. Anyways in they came and bam, they hit the BS hard. We lost several on that run, even my Drake with its smaller sig radius, 75%-80% resists almost went into armor with the hits I took. We were forced off the field, and Soho made the call to roll home. I agree completely with his decision.
What went wrong?
What went wrong is that too many of the IT gang were using snipe fit battleships, with little to no buffer at all. Half the ships weren't rigged, and many didn't even have a plate in the lows. The -MVN- boys were taking 70,000-80,000 hitpoints to die (for the most part). Die they did, eight bombers will kill even a plated battleship. For instance, Yasumoto's Lossmail. Those trimarks will give you so much more armor and with the engagements we are in the velocity and agility aren't as essential as the Euro boys and their supersnipe fits. Going down with eight bombs on your lossmail is one thing, but the ships that were dying to just a few bombs were the ones Soho was disgusted with. For instance, this Apoc Lossmail. 29,900 hitpoints is less than my Drake takes. This is asking to get popped. Soho told fleet that if they wanted to continue being succesful in USTZ ops to fit a tank on their snipe bs for survivability. I also refer to my last post in which I described the things pilots need to do and be aware of while shooting a hostile POS. We'll see what happens.
Regardless of the outcome the engagement was fairly even with losses, and we killed the EWOK- POS. Thats two nights in a row during USTZ we achieved objectives. New tactics FTW.
Easley and myself took out a small gang to finish off the night. Only kill was a Drake Easley caught in a belt. By the time we got there he was already at 50% shield due to the rats. Down he went, and we bubbled his pod too. After another half hour or so we went home and disbanded fleet.
That is all.
Anyways.
I hopped on and joined a POS bashing op. We had just finished hitting a POS in EWOK- (jump bridge pos baby) and were getting ready to attempt an assault on the EC- POS. NC had bridged into EC- and were defending that POS. They left us alone (except for bombers) in EWOK. I hopped in a double S-Bo'd (Sensor Boosted) Harbinger to help nail the stealth bombers. Since I had just hopped on comms I wasn't aware that the ever usual permacamp of cloaky fags was in O-N even with a giant fleet next door in EWOK. So burning to catch up with the fleet I jumped into 0-N. Damn.
On the gate was a Sabre, Falcon, Rapier, Curse.... with a few more UFOs in local. Drones out, they were waiting for me. I sat and waited for session timer to wear off. My plan was to reapproach put drones on Falcon and hit the Rapier. Maybe, just maybe I could get away. I also dropped a line in fleet for support that were in EWOK- to come help. Of course none would come. Twenty seconds passed and my session change was over... so I reapproached gate and spanked MWD. I started locking the Falcon when he got his first jam off on me. Damn. Rapier double webbed me. Damn. Second Falcon de cloaked. Damn. Proteus/Stealth bomber decloaked and started hitting me. Shit. My speed dropped to 60 m/s. Deep shit.
I popped.
I sat in the bubble in my pod... waiting as all of them pointed me to whore on my podmail. Pop. Waking up in Torrinos, angry as hell, I updated my clone and logged off.
It was my own fault really. I should have assumed that having our big fleet next door would, if anything, mean that the cloaky fag guys in O-N would be having a field day. All late comers to the op would be traveling through to get to EWOK-. If local spiked the hostile gang would cloak up and watch it pass by. I failed. It was only a Harbinger you say? Yeah, but I died without reason. I couldn't even get a kill due to the perma jams (I still think Falcons are fine and anyone who wants them nerfed more can suck one). Sure insurance gave me money, but its the principle of a stupid death that irks me.
Twenty minutes later (and a few slices of pizza) I signed back on. My clone was in Torrinos, so I got in a Drake I had there and joined fleet which was now in EC- skirmishing with NC. Jumping in, I almost tackled an enemy Thorax who probably re shipped himself. He was 40 off of me after jump in, however, and I couldn't catch him in time (regional gate = huge). I warped to gang and found them hitting the hostile tower. The bombers of NC had taken a huge hit when they warped into a bubble on an attempted bombing run ten minutes earlier and got massacred. Soho was running this op, and although his experience with large gangs is limited (he does the small/medium thing more often) he was doing an excellent job. The NC fleet was mainly HACs/BCs and kept warping in and off the field. We got a warp in on their gang, but upon landing we only popped three before they warped to their POS. Back to the POS we went, and hit their gang again. I am happy to report we did primary and kill Kula Kain's Tempest yet again. Gotta love the 4 plates. His gang was in disarray after he went down and we had a chance to annihilate the rest of their gang bubbled to hell on the POS... Then the bombers hit again. We popped 8 bombers on that fail run where they were bubbled... but being next door to Torrinos meant cheap replacements were available. Thats our theory at least. Anyways in they came and bam, they hit the BS hard. We lost several on that run, even my Drake with its smaller sig radius, 75%-80% resists almost went into armor with the hits I took. We were forced off the field, and Soho made the call to roll home. I agree completely with his decision.
What went wrong?
What went wrong is that too many of the IT gang were using snipe fit battleships, with little to no buffer at all. Half the ships weren't rigged, and many didn't even have a plate in the lows. The -MVN- boys were taking 70,000-80,000 hitpoints to die (for the most part). Die they did, eight bombers will kill even a plated battleship. For instance, Yasumoto's Lossmail. Those trimarks will give you so much more armor and with the engagements we are in the velocity and agility aren't as essential as the Euro boys and their supersnipe fits. Going down with eight bombs on your lossmail is one thing, but the ships that were dying to just a few bombs were the ones Soho was disgusted with. For instance, this Apoc Lossmail. 29,900 hitpoints is less than my Drake takes. This is asking to get popped. Soho told fleet that if they wanted to continue being succesful in USTZ ops to fit a tank on their snipe bs for survivability. I also refer to my last post in which I described the things pilots need to do and be aware of while shooting a hostile POS. We'll see what happens.
Regardless of the outcome the engagement was fairly even with losses, and we killed the EWOK- POS. Thats two nights in a row during USTZ we achieved objectives. New tactics FTW.
Easley and myself took out a small gang to finish off the night. Only kill was a Drake Easley caught in a belt. By the time we got there he was already at 50% shield due to the rats. Down he went, and we bubbled his pod too. After another half hour or so we went home and disbanded fleet.
That is all.
Who wants a carrier... kill?
Saturday night was not long in terms of time spent roaming, but I felt pretty good about it anyways.
I signed on and saw that there was a small -A- gang up, and joined their gang and hopped on their comms. We roamed around H-W in anything fast and/or cloaky. We messed around in H-W for a few minutes, before burning 3j out to hit a carrier one of our scouts found in an anom. Yes, a carrier, who was in an anom and didn't warp out when reds entered local. We held him in TRKN- for about 15 minutes before more people (ROL & -A-) showed up. His cap started to run dry and we could tell he was feathering his shield booster. Finally he started to break, and he knew it too. He started his self destruct... but around the same time 7 bombers that had been burning to the system arrived. Their DPS brought the Chimera down before his self destruct timer could finish.
The sad part is that we were only 3j from their main staging system. Only one bomber came to help the carrier out, and all he did was bomb our drones.
The next hour was uneventful and I signed off for the night.
I suppose the lesson to remember is that even when running anomalies, never feel safe in local with a red. You don't know where he is or what he is in (most of the time). I can tell you, when I jump in as scout and find a ship on scan and not towards any belts the first thing I do is scan for anomalies. Within 35 seconds I could be warping to your location. And FFS if you are in a carrier and are ballsy enough to be running anoms in it, don't stick around or at least full speed align. He was in a station system... there was no reason he couldn't have gotten out other than his own negligence.
Even if you are in a super cap (titan/supercarrier) you have to be aware of whats going on. I know pilots with Titans/Supercarriers that run anomalies with them. The reality is, if they have a dictor and/or cyno recon they can light that cyno and hot drop you. Sure they can't point you but that hictor coming through the bridge can. My theory is to assume the worst yet hope for the best. So assume that red in local is in a cyno Arazu/Falcon/Rapier and he is going to find you and hot drop you. Sure you miss out on the rest of that anomalie's bounty but you won't lose your 100million-1.5 billion ship.
That is all.
I signed on and saw that there was a small -A- gang up, and joined their gang and hopped on their comms. We roamed around H-W in anything fast and/or cloaky. We messed around in H-W for a few minutes, before burning 3j out to hit a carrier one of our scouts found in an anom. Yes, a carrier, who was in an anom and didn't warp out when reds entered local. We held him in TRKN- for about 15 minutes before more people (ROL & -A-) showed up. His cap started to run dry and we could tell he was feathering his shield booster. Finally he started to break, and he knew it too. He started his self destruct... but around the same time 7 bombers that had been burning to the system arrived. Their DPS brought the Chimera down before his self destruct timer could finish.
The sad part is that we were only 3j from their main staging system. Only one bomber came to help the carrier out, and all he did was bomb our drones.
The next hour was uneventful and I signed off for the night.
I suppose the lesson to remember is that even when running anomalies, never feel safe in local with a red. You don't know where he is or what he is in (most of the time). I can tell you, when I jump in as scout and find a ship on scan and not towards any belts the first thing I do is scan for anomalies. Within 35 seconds I could be warping to your location. And FFS if you are in a carrier and are ballsy enough to be running anoms in it, don't stick around or at least full speed align. He was in a station system... there was no reason he couldn't have gotten out other than his own negligence.
Even if you are in a super cap (titan/supercarrier) you have to be aware of whats going on. I know pilots with Titans/Supercarriers that run anomalies with them. The reality is, if they have a dictor and/or cyno recon they can light that cyno and hot drop you. Sure they can't point you but that hictor coming through the bridge can. My theory is to assume the worst yet hope for the best. So assume that red in local is in a cyno Arazu/Falcon/Rapier and he is going to find you and hot drop you. Sure you miss out on the rest of that anomalie's bounty but you won't lose your 100million-1.5 billion ship.
That is all.
April 24, 2010
**You Can Change the Future**
I appreciate all of you that have voted on my blog. We shall see where the logoffski tallies take us, its been neck and neck so far.
I am here to talk about a more important vote. The CSM vote. Its funny, because last year I didn't really care about the CSM vote. Things were good, the game was fun. This year, I am concerned with EVE. Dominion gave me pretty looking planets and the fleet finder. For that I am grateful. I would give it up in a heartbeat if I could have the lag free days back. The days of 1000 in local are gone. In come the black screens, the insane grid loading times (even with nobody in local it can take 20-30 seconds sometimes). My favorite is when the load on jump in (to an empty local) finally hits and I have already E warped off the gate. I used to say oh damn my internet must have dumped on me, but these days I am talking on vent the entire time while loading system with no lag. CCP fail. Yet I hear no thoughts from CCP on fixes for these problems, merely talk of Tyrannis and EVE gate. These are great new add ons for the game... but seriously, priorities? You need to finish construction of your house before you can start moving in the furniture.
These reasons have me taking the CSM voting seriously this year. My CEO, Avicenna Sarfaraz, is running for CSM for the above described reasons and more. You can find his thread here, in which he describes the reasons he is running. Now, logically I will vote for Avicenna, as I know him well and trust him to be a great advocate for my personal views of EVE and how I want it to be improved. He is a dual major at University of Minnesota, emphasizing in psychology and business. He loves the game very much, and is very concerned (as you can read in his post) with where EVE is heading. He will not give up on the issues that we as players are experiencing. If you are unsure or not too concerned with voting or candidates, please just take a couple minutes and vote for Avicenna Sarfaraz once the polls open. The CSM link can be found here http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting. Please feel free to in game message Avi with any questions you may have. He will be more than happy to answer.
For those who haven't really been interested but want to vote and research the candidates, please do so. Convo or message these candidates and ask them how they plan to go about the issues. Reply to their threads on EVE Online Forums. I still encourage Avicenna for CSM, but whoever you decide to vote for, at least vote. This year is so important due to the ongoing issues in game, and the future of EVE.
That is all.
I am here to talk about a more important vote. The CSM vote. Its funny, because last year I didn't really care about the CSM vote. Things were good, the game was fun. This year, I am concerned with EVE. Dominion gave me pretty looking planets and the fleet finder. For that I am grateful. I would give it up in a heartbeat if I could have the lag free days back. The days of 1000 in local are gone. In come the black screens, the insane grid loading times (even with nobody in local it can take 20-30 seconds sometimes). My favorite is when the load on jump in (to an empty local) finally hits and I have already E warped off the gate. I used to say oh damn my internet must have dumped on me, but these days I am talking on vent the entire time while loading system with no lag. CCP fail. Yet I hear no thoughts from CCP on fixes for these problems, merely talk of Tyrannis and EVE gate. These are great new add ons for the game... but seriously, priorities? You need to finish construction of your house before you can start moving in the furniture.
These reasons have me taking the CSM voting seriously this year. My CEO, Avicenna Sarfaraz, is running for CSM for the above described reasons and more. You can find his thread here, in which he describes the reasons he is running. Now, logically I will vote for Avicenna, as I know him well and trust him to be a great advocate for my personal views of EVE and how I want it to be improved. He is a dual major at University of Minnesota, emphasizing in psychology and business. He loves the game very much, and is very concerned (as you can read in his post) with where EVE is heading. He will not give up on the issues that we as players are experiencing. If you are unsure or not too concerned with voting or candidates, please just take a couple minutes and vote for Avicenna Sarfaraz once the polls open. The CSM link can be found here http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting. Please feel free to in game message Avi with any questions you may have. He will be more than happy to answer.
For those who haven't really been interested but want to vote and research the candidates, please do so. Convo or message these candidates and ask them how they plan to go about the issues. Reply to their threads on EVE Online Forums. I still encourage Avicenna for CSM, but whoever you decide to vote for, at least vote. This year is so important due to the ongoing issues in game, and the future of EVE.
That is all.
Shooting towers sucks.
Last night I got home and had about an hour before Friday night festivites were kicking off. I hopped on EVE to find us hitting a pos. We had decent numbers with no NC response except for a bomber gang. That bomber gang was getting mad kills... why?
First was the warp ins. The fleet was using the same warp in on the POS repeatedly, even after a bombing run. Not good. I eventually gave the FC another warp in on the pos, which helped. If you are hitting a POS and you are FC you need to have a moving warp in. Even better you have a moving warp in (covert ops alt) with multiple warp in points around the tower. When you know the bombers have your spot bookmarked they will continue to use it and hit you effectively. So stop using it. Or rotate points and come back to it later.
Second was the pilots fault mostly. When you land on a pos, especially one with guns and bombers active in system, you spread the hell out. Now the FC told people to land at 10/20/30. I usually am more specific, seperating alphabetically by name, or by ship race. This makes sure they aren't clumped. Having your cov ops moving also helps spread them out. This is hugely important as the largest clump of battleships will get bombed, and it can really hurt your fleet when several of them die each time a bombing run is made. Call them in at ranges, have your warp in moving and have them spank their MWDs to spread out. Remember that to some of you this is common sense. But there are always idiots. So spell it out for them and make it easy. Unless you like to see massive deaths from a single bombing run.
Third was the pilots fault entirely. Upon landing pilots were taking considerable time to align off. FC clearly instructed fleet to align to a celestial upon landing. When you land on POS in a bs the FIRST thing you should do is align. Lock the target and shoot it after aligning. To not align out as fast as possible is bad, due to bombers and POS guns. This pos was being manned by two pos gunners. They were hitting the battleships without any transversal, and hitting for massive damage. Don't ever sit still on a POS with online guns.
NC finally brought in a fleet of superior numbers about 15 min after I arrived in system. Our fleet bailed out of system using a fleet warp. I suggested this due to the known spy issues. It worked, and fleet landed on the outgate and was through over a minute before the bomber fleet warped in. I watched the entire thing cloaked, smiling. The bombers didn't land at 0 either. They landed 30km off gate... too late!
Our fleet started reinforcing another POS a few jumps away. I kept eyes on the NC fleet and chit chatted in local with them. They whined about no fights... so when they finally started moving out 20 min later I commented that it was about time they got intel and moved out. It wasn't like our fleet went to bed. But of course, as soon as they started moving, our fleet got ready to bail out. Without numbers we just couldn't take their gang on.
This has happened on and off the past week, but certainly not every night. Reading back on the prior posts we have had superior numbers on several USTZ nights this week and inflicted heavy casualties on the NC. The pendulum of numbers and therefore success swings back and forth these days. What is consistent is during Euro TZ we bring the hammer.
At this point my chica had arrived and I had other things to do.
Hopefully more success tonight than last night!
That is all.
First was the warp ins. The fleet was using the same warp in on the POS repeatedly, even after a bombing run. Not good. I eventually gave the FC another warp in on the pos, which helped. If you are hitting a POS and you are FC you need to have a moving warp in. Even better you have a moving warp in (covert ops alt) with multiple warp in points around the tower. When you know the bombers have your spot bookmarked they will continue to use it and hit you effectively. So stop using it. Or rotate points and come back to it later.
Second was the pilots fault mostly. When you land on a pos, especially one with guns and bombers active in system, you spread the hell out. Now the FC told people to land at 10/20/30. I usually am more specific, seperating alphabetically by name, or by ship race. This makes sure they aren't clumped. Having your cov ops moving also helps spread them out. This is hugely important as the largest clump of battleships will get bombed, and it can really hurt your fleet when several of them die each time a bombing run is made. Call them in at ranges, have your warp in moving and have them spank their MWDs to spread out. Remember that to some of you this is common sense. But there are always idiots. So spell it out for them and make it easy. Unless you like to see massive deaths from a single bombing run.
Third was the pilots fault entirely. Upon landing pilots were taking considerable time to align off. FC clearly instructed fleet to align to a celestial upon landing. When you land on POS in a bs the FIRST thing you should do is align. Lock the target and shoot it after aligning. To not align out as fast as possible is bad, due to bombers and POS guns. This pos was being manned by two pos gunners. They were hitting the battleships without any transversal, and hitting for massive damage. Don't ever sit still on a POS with online guns.
NC finally brought in a fleet of superior numbers about 15 min after I arrived in system. Our fleet bailed out of system using a fleet warp. I suggested this due to the known spy issues. It worked, and fleet landed on the outgate and was through over a minute before the bomber fleet warped in. I watched the entire thing cloaked, smiling. The bombers didn't land at 0 either. They landed 30km off gate... too late!
Our fleet started reinforcing another POS a few jumps away. I kept eyes on the NC fleet and chit chatted in local with them. They whined about no fights... so when they finally started moving out 20 min later I commented that it was about time they got intel and moved out. It wasn't like our fleet went to bed. But of course, as soon as they started moving, our fleet got ready to bail out. Without numbers we just couldn't take their gang on.
This has happened on and off the past week, but certainly not every night. Reading back on the prior posts we have had superior numbers on several USTZ nights this week and inflicted heavy casualties on the NC. The pendulum of numbers and therefore success swings back and forth these days. What is consistent is during Euro TZ we bring the hammer.
At this point my chica had arrived and I had other things to do.
Hopefully more success tonight than last night!
That is all.
April 23, 2010
Logoffski Vote
So for kicks I put a vote on whether you logoffski ever on my blog. I encourage all to vote. Those on iPhone and RSS will actually have to go to the page http://aggten.blogspot.com/. I know its hard. Do it anyways. Please :)
That is all.
That is all.
How to Defeat an Interceptor Gang.
Last night we took out the Dramiel gang again. Again, we went to straight to H-W. Again we got several kills. Shortly after entering Tribute we found a Typhoon off gate. Suspicious, we approached and tackled. Sure enough, smarbomb fit. Then local spiked by like 70. Everyone warped off or burned off except one Ares... he died. Darwin's Theory in full effect. We played around and almost popped a Ferox before his buddies showed up. Bored, we plodded onwards. The NC gang moved on towards Pure Blind. They eventually showed up in X-7.
On the way we caught a Cruor. He reapproached and jumped through, but was too slow and was tackled by us on the other side. First time I have ever seen one of those in combat. Interesting little ships, with bonuses to neuts and such. He didn't really get a chance to do much.
When we finally got to the station in H-W, we saw was a Deimos outside the station getting reps from a Thanatos. He aggressed... and our Falcon jammed the Thanatos. Ooops. Bye bye went his reps and down the Deimos went.
Next on the docket was a Rook. He warped in to an off station spot 200km below the station. The moment he landed... instead of warping off he cloaked. Usually I would say ok, that works. Not with 10 Dramiels and 16 Interceptors burning at you. We decloaked the Rook and popped him. Then this Cerberus got caught in our pull bubble. He also melted quite rapidly. We killed a couple bombers in the pull bubble as well. The first was a Hound that tried to bomb.Oops. When hitting a target with high scan res, you have to have a warp out directly behind target. Any aligning delay will get you killed. The second bomber was hilariously decloaked by a Velator in our pull bubble. He may have just warped in our been sitting there, but a Velator was pulled into our bubble and whewp! there the Purifier was too. They both died.
Then we had a Drake land in the pull bubble. We were having fun with that thing, everyone held onto him. Almost completely T1 fit, the Drake went pop when we turned on the damage. Not a bad fit, but I would drop one of the SBos for another resist or LSE. Not that it would have mattered in this case, he would still have died.
It was at this point the NC gang that had camped our station (while we were camping theirs) came home. We were doing fine dancing around the station with them until 3 idiots in Dramiels tried to loot a wreck. With 100 or so NC on field. With probes out. Derka Derka Doo. They got warped in on and bubbled before they could warp out. All three died. Soho was pissed. I was pissed. Everyone who wasn't eating paint chips was pissed. So home we went.
After we got back to X-7 word came in that the NC had formed up a gang to copycat ours. Lotsa ceptors, some destroyers, etc. We set up a drag bubble on their route with smarbomb bs.
interesting....
Oh, you want to know what happened?
Check out this battle report. 19 Kills - 0 Losses. Including Kula Kain, my new favorite NC FC. Also Narwa, who has been notorious for smacking local with Looney Toon lore. Last night on our way to H-W Narwa informed all of us in local he was the most elite PVPer in the NC. Maybe joking? I don't know, but I doubt many in the NC would agree with that. I certainly don't.
We also popped 2 more trying to run for home after the intital smarbombing engagement, a Rupture and a Raptor as well as their pods.
This trap was perfectly well laid out, and is the one thing we worry about when traveling. Scouting is key. The NC tried the smarbombing trick... but the one without a bubble just doesn't cut it. You have to make them come to you without choice (bubble) not depending on them to fly around you at 5k.
I guess the lesson of todays little report is intelligence is invaluable. I really mean that. It can give you the upper hand in any engagement. The knowledge of the NC gang and their composition allowed for the perfect counter.
I ran a short op with Easley to get some assets out of Torrinos. By the end of that sleep was overtaking me... my eyes were heavy. Off went my computers and lights and I was sleeping before my head hit the pillow even.
That is all.
On the way we caught a Cruor. He reapproached and jumped through, but was too slow and was tackled by us on the other side. First time I have ever seen one of those in combat. Interesting little ships, with bonuses to neuts and such. He didn't really get a chance to do much.
When we finally got to the station in H-W, we saw was a Deimos outside the station getting reps from a Thanatos. He aggressed... and our Falcon jammed the Thanatos. Ooops. Bye bye went his reps and down the Deimos went.
Next on the docket was a Rook. He warped in to an off station spot 200km below the station. The moment he landed... instead of warping off he cloaked. Usually I would say ok, that works. Not with 10 Dramiels and 16 Interceptors burning at you. We decloaked the Rook and popped him. Then this Cerberus got caught in our pull bubble. He also melted quite rapidly. We killed a couple bombers in the pull bubble as well. The first was a Hound that tried to bomb.Oops. When hitting a target with high scan res, you have to have a warp out directly behind target. Any aligning delay will get you killed. The second bomber was hilariously decloaked by a Velator in our pull bubble. He may have just warped in our been sitting there, but a Velator was pulled into our bubble and whewp! there the Purifier was too. They both died.
Then we had a Drake land in the pull bubble. We were having fun with that thing, everyone held onto him. Almost completely T1 fit, the Drake went pop when we turned on the damage. Not a bad fit, but I would drop one of the SBos for another resist or LSE. Not that it would have mattered in this case, he would still have died.
It was at this point the NC gang that had camped our station (while we were camping theirs) came home. We were doing fine dancing around the station with them until 3 idiots in Dramiels tried to loot a wreck. With 100 or so NC on field. With probes out. Derka Derka Doo. They got warped in on and bubbled before they could warp out. All three died. Soho was pissed. I was pissed. Everyone who wasn't eating paint chips was pissed. So home we went.
After we got back to X-7 word came in that the NC had formed up a gang to copycat ours. Lotsa ceptors, some destroyers, etc. We set up a drag bubble on their route with smarbomb bs.
interesting....
Oh, you want to know what happened?
Check out this battle report. 19 Kills - 0 Losses. Including Kula Kain, my new favorite NC FC. Also Narwa, who has been notorious for smacking local with Looney Toon lore. Last night on our way to H-W Narwa informed all of us in local he was the most elite PVPer in the NC. Maybe joking? I don't know, but I doubt many in the NC would agree with that. I certainly don't.
We also popped 2 more trying to run for home after the intital smarbombing engagement, a Rupture and a Raptor as well as their pods.
This trap was perfectly well laid out, and is the one thing we worry about when traveling. Scouting is key. The NC tried the smarbombing trick... but the one without a bubble just doesn't cut it. You have to make them come to you without choice (bubble) not depending on them to fly around you at 5k.
I guess the lesson of todays little report is intelligence is invaluable. I really mean that. It can give you the upper hand in any engagement. The knowledge of the NC gang and their composition allowed for the perfect counter.
I ran a short op with Easley to get some assets out of Torrinos. By the end of that sleep was overtaking me... my eyes were heavy. Off went my computers and lights and I was sleeping before my head hit the pillow even.
That is all.
April 22, 2010
Chica's making pew pew?
Welcome to the seventeenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Members to the right of this post!
What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?
--
I don't have much to write on the subject. As the game stands today, I don't think it has much to offer to the general female player base. IT Alliance has quite a few female pilots... in relation to the rest of EVE. That being said we are still talking about a dozen tops.
As others have commented, the games that women generally (GENERALLY) seem to enjoy are those that involve creation and construction. Genetic? Perhaps. SIMS, Myst, etc.
So maybe CCP will take a step in that direction with Tyrannis. With DUST... who knows.
Until EVE is less about pew pew (or mining/production/hauling) I don't think that ratio of guys to girls is going to change much.
That is all.
PS: Don't enter me into the contest.
What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?
--
I don't have much to write on the subject. As the game stands today, I don't think it has much to offer to the general female player base. IT Alliance has quite a few female pilots... in relation to the rest of EVE. That being said we are still talking about a dozen tops.
As others have commented, the games that women generally (GENERALLY) seem to enjoy are those that involve creation and construction. Genetic? Perhaps. SIMS, Myst, etc.
So maybe CCP will take a step in that direction with Tyrannis. With DUST... who knows.
Until EVE is less about pew pew (or mining/production/hauling) I don't think that ratio of guys to girls is going to change much.
That is all.
PS: Don't enter me into the contest.
Holy EVE Man! Part 3 (The Finale)
The last bit of the evening is about bombers.
Bombers are great tools when used correctly and competently. When careless or incompetent, however, they are laughable. Why am I saying this? Let me tell you.
After the Dramiel gang returned last night, I ran some errands and grabbed some dinner. Upon returning I started a gang to kill a tower that was coming out of reinforce. NC had not yet shown a response.
We only got about 60 in gang and word came in that the NC had formed over 100 people to save their tower. I was scouting in the system and watched local start to climb, and 17 carriers cyno in on the pos. Not much to do at this point.
I disbanded fleet and formed a bomber gang. As we were getting people sorted in X-7... I somehow decloaked off the enemy POS. I figured this out when I heard the locked signal from my main computer and looked over from my laptop to see the first hit from the pos take me into low armor.
Damn.
I tried to warp but the second volley blew me up. Embarassing, I know. NC laughed in local. They stopped laughing when I asked "anyone seen a Dramiel?".
:)
I took my pod back to X-7 in time to get to the station as hostiles were landing. Yeah, the same gang that had formed up to protect their POS was bored. So my bombers were all formed up and the FC was stuck in station. Fail.
I coordinated a first bombing run on the station from inside the station. It was weird and I hated it. It was mildly succesful, they kiled one ship. It happened to be an Eagle. I found this out about 2 min ago when I looked to see what they had actually killed. Last night all I heard over comms was "I think we killed something".
The next bombing run was on the gate. Enemy fleet warped to J-C gate and I instructed all the bombers to warp to the gate at 30 and 50 and drop bombs. This is to maximize the hits as all the ships are trying to jump through and experience lag. I landed on field late (finally able to undock) and saw 4 friendly wrecks and no enemy wrecks.
Ouch.
Not sure what happened but partly my fault and partly the fault of the pilots themselves. I never did get an explanation as two what happned, as their was no bubble on gate no one should have died. But we took losses. Still worth it with that Eagle kill, but disheartening to the pilots. I disbanded fleet and went to bed.
Bombers are great tools that when used effectively by skilled pilots can cause havoc. Goons were especially good with them, as were PL. Mavericks are very skilled using them as well, due to our need for sneaky deaky USTZ capability. Precise warp ins, warp outs, dropping of bombs and other precision actions are key. Sloppiness will kill you and possibly kill those around you. Last night we had experienced and noobish pilots in the fleet. I do not know how they died, as I was not on field. I asked others to step up and FC... and got no response. I do NOT recommend trying to command a fleet off the field. EVER. If I was to guess, however, I would think that the experience curve got more killed than needed.
I recommend taking your people out before and practicing with bombers before going into combat. I know it sounds silly, but it can actually help. Also, make sure you have bomb points and safe spots all over the areas you are operating in. I asked over comms (as I was docked) for someone to warp to their off gate of J-C in X-7. No one had one. I don't care if you are in a Kestrel you should have off gates. Along with a million other points for bombers. These will help you get in a bombing position immediately, instead of slow boating into position. Have them off stations, off gates, off jump bridges, and off any other points you will want to bomb. Make sure you know the people in your bomber gangs. Keep them small.
That is all.
Bombers are great tools when used correctly and competently. When careless or incompetent, however, they are laughable. Why am I saying this? Let me tell you.
After the Dramiel gang returned last night, I ran some errands and grabbed some dinner. Upon returning I started a gang to kill a tower that was coming out of reinforce. NC had not yet shown a response.
We only got about 60 in gang and word came in that the NC had formed over 100 people to save their tower. I was scouting in the system and watched local start to climb, and 17 carriers cyno in on the pos. Not much to do at this point.
I disbanded fleet and formed a bomber gang. As we were getting people sorted in X-7... I somehow decloaked off the enemy POS. I figured this out when I heard the locked signal from my main computer and looked over from my laptop to see the first hit from the pos take me into low armor.
Damn.
I tried to warp but the second volley blew me up. Embarassing, I know. NC laughed in local. They stopped laughing when I asked "anyone seen a Dramiel?".
:)
I took my pod back to X-7 in time to get to the station as hostiles were landing. Yeah, the same gang that had formed up to protect their POS was bored. So my bombers were all formed up and the FC was stuck in station. Fail.
I coordinated a first bombing run on the station from inside the station. It was weird and I hated it. It was mildly succesful, they kiled one ship. It happened to be an Eagle. I found this out about 2 min ago when I looked to see what they had actually killed. Last night all I heard over comms was "I think we killed something".
The next bombing run was on the gate. Enemy fleet warped to J-C gate and I instructed all the bombers to warp to the gate at 30 and 50 and drop bombs. This is to maximize the hits as all the ships are trying to jump through and experience lag. I landed on field late (finally able to undock) and saw 4 friendly wrecks and no enemy wrecks.
Ouch.
Not sure what happened but partly my fault and partly the fault of the pilots themselves. I never did get an explanation as two what happned, as their was no bubble on gate no one should have died. But we took losses. Still worth it with that Eagle kill, but disheartening to the pilots. I disbanded fleet and went to bed.
Bombers are great tools that when used effectively by skilled pilots can cause havoc. Goons were especially good with them, as were PL. Mavericks are very skilled using them as well, due to our need for sneaky deaky USTZ capability. Precise warp ins, warp outs, dropping of bombs and other precision actions are key. Sloppiness will kill you and possibly kill those around you. Last night we had experienced and noobish pilots in the fleet. I do not know how they died, as I was not on field. I asked others to step up and FC... and got no response. I do NOT recommend trying to command a fleet off the field. EVER. If I was to guess, however, I would think that the experience curve got more killed than needed.
I recommend taking your people out before and practicing with bombers before going into combat. I know it sounds silly, but it can actually help. Also, make sure you have bomb points and safe spots all over the areas you are operating in. I asked over comms (as I was docked) for someone to warp to their off gate of J-C in X-7. No one had one. I don't care if you are in a Kestrel you should have off gates. Along with a million other points for bombers. These will help you get in a bombing position immediately, instead of slow boating into position. Have them off stations, off gates, off jump bridges, and off any other points you will want to bomb. Make sure you know the people in your bomber gangs. Keep them small.
That is all.
Holy EVE Man! Part 2
Yesterday after our venture around the block, I took a bio and joined Sohos fleet. Composition? Dramiels, Interceptors and Stealth Bombers. We also had a couple dictors.
Yeah man. Dramiels.
We got like 30 Dramiels, a buncha interceptors and around 6 bombers. Total in fleet was about 80. Where did we go?
H-W.
Soho seems to love going straight into the lions den. So off we went. Entering system we immediately camped the station. We killed a few ships, including this Maelstrom. The NC in system (approximately 200-300 during this whole fiasco) had no counter. Word of a small incoming gang came in and we moved into 15W to intercept. The result was disastrous. Here is the after action report. I have to say that this gang was one of the most fun gangs I have ever been in. I never had to leave the field during the engagement. All it would have taken was a yellow box but it never happened. To be fair I'm pretty sure the NC gang was in a state of chaos. Having 80 interceptors and Dramiels on you is demoralizing I'm sure.
We moved back into H-W and camped the station for another hour-hour and a half. I got on several battleship kills. They tried to use smartbombing battleships... except you can't smart bomb on a station. Scorpion and Dominix were two examples. Notice all the hardeners on the Dominix.. remember to always balance buffer and resists. All of one is fail.
Eventually they undocked all at once in really inexpensive T1 ships. We got a great bomb run off on them when they undocked, but after that it went downhill. They probed the Dramiel blob and caught a few ceptors. We were all (bombers) told to warp to the Dramiel blob as it was warping off, to bomb the T1 gang. Unfortanately my warp initiated late and I got caught in a bubble that was put up. I almost got out, but one Hurricane hit me with a a couple good shots and pop I went. :( I got my pod out, however.
Things started going downhill as people were getting sloppy and we lost a few more interceptors and bombers. Soho called it a night and we moved back to H-W. That was probably the best counter to our gang, hats off to them. Took em two hours but they figured it out.
The NC gang almost caught us using jump bridges, however. Jump bridges are always a friend to the residents, and they allow their forces to get ahead of hostile gangs very quickly. This is what we faced in Looney Toons land during our logoffski last week. Had we gone back or forward they would have bridged in front of or behind. Its always smart to know the bridge locations (for bomber runs) and to know the systems they come/go from/to when planning tactics.
Was the night finished? No, not yet. More to come.
That is all.
Yeah man. Dramiels.
We got like 30 Dramiels, a buncha interceptors and around 6 bombers. Total in fleet was about 80. Where did we go?
H-W.
Soho seems to love going straight into the lions den. So off we went. Entering system we immediately camped the station. We killed a few ships, including this Maelstrom. The NC in system (approximately 200-300 during this whole fiasco) had no counter. Word of a small incoming gang came in and we moved into 15W to intercept. The result was disastrous. Here is the after action report. I have to say that this gang was one of the most fun gangs I have ever been in. I never had to leave the field during the engagement. All it would have taken was a yellow box but it never happened. To be fair I'm pretty sure the NC gang was in a state of chaos. Having 80 interceptors and Dramiels on you is demoralizing I'm sure.
We moved back into H-W and camped the station for another hour-hour and a half. I got on several battleship kills. They tried to use smartbombing battleships... except you can't smart bomb on a station. Scorpion and Dominix were two examples. Notice all the hardeners on the Dominix.. remember to always balance buffer and resists. All of one is fail.
Eventually they undocked all at once in really inexpensive T1 ships. We got a great bomb run off on them when they undocked, but after that it went downhill. They probed the Dramiel blob and caught a few ceptors. We were all (bombers) told to warp to the Dramiel blob as it was warping off, to bomb the T1 gang. Unfortanately my warp initiated late and I got caught in a bubble that was put up. I almost got out, but one Hurricane hit me with a a couple good shots and pop I went. :( I got my pod out, however.
Things started going downhill as people were getting sloppy and we lost a few more interceptors and bombers. Soho called it a night and we moved back to H-W. That was probably the best counter to our gang, hats off to them. Took em two hours but they figured it out.
The NC gang almost caught us using jump bridges, however. Jump bridges are always a friend to the residents, and they allow their forces to get ahead of hostile gangs very quickly. This is what we faced in Looney Toons land during our logoffski last week. Had we gone back or forward they would have bridged in front of or behind. Its always smart to know the bridge locations (for bomber runs) and to know the systems they come/go from/to when planning tactics.
Was the night finished? No, not yet. More to come.
That is all.
Response to an angry man.
So after my Holy Eve part 1 post, I noticed a comment. I shall post it for all to read on RSS.
I found this post amusing on many levels. Let me first say that although he doesn't seen to think so, everyone that flies with me agrees with my competency being quite high. I trust them more than a random reader of my material. I give him credit for having the balls to write a huge emo rant. He must have felt quite strongly, I would guess a member of the NC. In the off chance he still reads this blog, or if anyone out there from the NC reads, please remember this: I am a member of IT Alliance. I try to keep things fairly non-political, but I am still a member of IT. This means I do have opinions. I'm sorry if these opinions bug you but its not going to change. That being said, apparently this gentleman missed the post where I commented on our own failures as an alliance. The Looney Toons in local (which is the post he commented on) certainly noticed this entry in my blog and described it as me "emo emo on IT FCs emo emo" or something to that extent. I guess DDH missed that one. Lastly, but not leastly, I stand by my conviction that logging off is appropriate in certain situations. Mr. DDH disagrees, which is fine. Ask any competent FC out there and they will agree that it is appropriate at times. When you're 10 man gang is facing 30 hostiles in a system with probes out you have two options. Either bounce safes for however long it takes for them to get bored, or log off. Running works up until their dictors/interceptors tackle your guys 1 by 1 and get them killed. Safing and then bouncing safes tends to keep the enemy more occupied, and less likely to leave the field. So logging off makes more sense. If that makes me a "limp dick" then so be it. If it keeps my guys alive then so be it. The safety and morale of my guys is a million times more important than worrying about being perceived as a "limp dick". I will note that more times than I can count, NC gangs and members have logoffskied the moment our scout enters system. Does that make them incompetent? Hell no. Or shall we generalize it and say that the cloaky gangs are "limp dicks"? The ones that only engage the one or two people they can kill and hide for the gangs that can kill them?
Hell NO.
Are they annoying, like the damn mosquito at the BBQ? Yes. Is it a valid tactic? ABSOLUTELY.
Why?
Because it gets results and minimizes your losses. I could give two shits about killboard stats. We are in a war, and war requires what? Money and manpower. When you die it tends to degrade both.
So, Mr. DDH. If you happen to be an FC, please, next time you face a gang with 3x numbers and heavier core composition, Hero prep your boys and suicide them on it. I ask this doubly if that 3x gang has me as FC :)
That is all.
- "I had recently started reading your blog to hear a little bit of what was going on in the NC/IT conflict. Then we come to today’s post. You've lost a reader, not that you care I'm sure. You're pretty critical of almost every other group but you're own. Some of it’s fairly accurate. Then we come to your loggoffski tactics, and your comments that any rational person understands that it’s a valid tactic. I'm sure, even if you allow this post on to the blog, that you'll say something like I just don't understand, or I'm one of those e-honor fanbois. The fact is, you just lost all credibility. Is running away from a fight the correct tactic when out numbered? Of course it is. Is logging off? Not only no, but hell no. You are trying to hold Maverick Navy out to be a superior PVP group, but everyone will just look at your killboards and say, "I wonder what the stats would look like if they weren't loggoffskis addicts? Probably pretty fail." How can you even criticize the tactics and strategies of others, when you won’t accept the consequences or your own failed decisions? You criticize a bunch of carebears who suck at baiting, but won’t take your lumps for being dumb enough to run a group deep into their home turf and being unable to figure a way out. If you’re in a position that the only way to save your fleet from serious loss is to loggoffski, then you failed at proper route planning and/or group composition. You stuck your head into an improperly scouted situation, and then you turned limp dick. Rationalize it however you want in your own mind, but don’t delude yourself into thinking you came across as a competent FC."
I found this post amusing on many levels. Let me first say that although he doesn't seen to think so, everyone that flies with me agrees with my competency being quite high. I trust them more than a random reader of my material. I give him credit for having the balls to write a huge emo rant. He must have felt quite strongly, I would guess a member of the NC. In the off chance he still reads this blog, or if anyone out there from the NC reads, please remember this: I am a member of IT Alliance. I try to keep things fairly non-political, but I am still a member of IT. This means I do have opinions. I'm sorry if these opinions bug you but its not going to change. That being said, apparently this gentleman missed the post where I commented on our own failures as an alliance. The Looney Toons in local (which is the post he commented on) certainly noticed this entry in my blog and described it as me "emo emo on IT FCs emo emo" or something to that extent. I guess DDH missed that one. Lastly, but not leastly, I stand by my conviction that logging off is appropriate in certain situations. Mr. DDH disagrees, which is fine. Ask any competent FC out there and they will agree that it is appropriate at times. When you're 10 man gang is facing 30 hostiles in a system with probes out you have two options. Either bounce safes for however long it takes for them to get bored, or log off. Running works up until their dictors/interceptors tackle your guys 1 by 1 and get them killed. Safing and then bouncing safes tends to keep the enemy more occupied, and less likely to leave the field. So logging off makes more sense. If that makes me a "limp dick" then so be it. If it keeps my guys alive then so be it. The safety and morale of my guys is a million times more important than worrying about being perceived as a "limp dick". I will note that more times than I can count, NC gangs and members have logoffskied the moment our scout enters system. Does that make them incompetent? Hell no. Or shall we generalize it and say that the cloaky gangs are "limp dicks"? The ones that only engage the one or two people they can kill and hide for the gangs that can kill them?
Hell NO.
Are they annoying, like the damn mosquito at the BBQ? Yes. Is it a valid tactic? ABSOLUTELY.
Why?
Because it gets results and minimizes your losses. I could give two shits about killboard stats. We are in a war, and war requires what? Money and manpower. When you die it tends to degrade both.
So, Mr. DDH. If you happen to be an FC, please, next time you face a gang with 3x numbers and heavier core composition, Hero prep your boys and suicide them on it. I ask this doubly if that 3x gang has me as FC :)
That is all.
Holy EVE Man! Pt 1
Yesterday was my day off from work (as I mentioned last post). It rained all day and I have no current chica, so what does that mean? Yes EVE.
I slept in till noon (USTZ) and hopped on. Apparently we had been hit hard in the morning, but were going to hit another tower shortly. On I went, and gave some eyes in H-W, which is a prime staging area of sorts for the NC. Our boys along with allies made some great moves and killed lots of NC. The NC came to the fight with BC/HACS. Against snipe BS of even odds thats a bad idea in the laggy Dominion era. The advantage of sig radius and speed is almost completely negated. Against a snipe BS gang with superior numbers its a horrible idea.
And so they came and died.
I missed the fight and am moving my cov ops alt into the theater of operations so I never have to do that again.
After that engagment we had 60-70 Euro members with nothing to do. So, I took them roaming! I do hate POS bashes and I do love fights. We fit into BC/Logistics with a couple dictors and a cloaky scout and off we went to Deklein. I won't go into details on the whole, but we moved up through Deklein and into Looney Toons land. Those same trash talkers didn't come to fight the 50 man IT gang... I suppose they only engage small corp gangs. We did kill one of one of their Ravens. Half the guys didn't even get on the kill and I couldn't figure out how he died so fast. Until we saw that mail. Drake anyone? I mean holy hell what a horrendous fit. Shield Core Defence Purger rigs, shield power relays in the lows and shield rechargers in the mids. The Heavy Missile Launchers in the highs were the cherry on top for that one. Who needs cruise missiles, amirite? If you can't fly it right don't fly it.
Anyways.
We moved on and popped a few more random ships. We had fun in DKUK- on our way home. Our longtime Goon friends have taken up residence their. They didn't want to come play, however, even with twice our numbers in local. In ROIR- we found a Cyno up. Our scout reported it next to a POS with a Phobos (bubble up) and a Hurricane sitting their waiting.
For those who are unfamiliar this is a honeypot trick. Unsuspecting ships warp to the the cyno at range to check it out and are pulled into the bubble to be killed by the Phobos, Cane and the battlestar POS its sitting at. For those who are familiar with POSs, they take a very long time to lock. So we warped the fleet in simultaneously and killed the Phobos and the Hurricane and bugged out. We lost all three interceptors... but it was a more than even trade.
I brought the chaps home at that point and called a bio. Soho was putting up a fleet shortly, and I instructed all those who wanted more pew pew to join up (seep Holy EVE Man! Pt 2)
Something I know and have always taken into account but never written about is the scout. Scouts are crucial on so many levels. Usually I have Easley Thames as scout in my USTZ gangs. Or Bigvix, or someone I know very well. This roam I had an alliance member, Tentpegg, scout for me. I got lucky. He is an FC himself, and is very competent. He can make calls on the scouting field, which I cannot see. To interpret what a scout is saying when he is a noob and then make decisions for the rest of fleet is difficult at best. To have a competent decision maker with experience in the scout slot is invaluable. Tentpegg was able to make calls on the field when I was not there (such as dictors bubbling station before main fleet jumps in) as well as make recommendations in a quick and direct manner over channel command without any of the Marco Polo crap you have to deal with when your scout is inexperienced. In small gangs its almost best to have FC as scout. In a large gang, however, this can be disastrous as your scout dies (it happens) and then the fleets FC is down as well. Good scouts will get you more kills, and keep your fleet from getting killed. Never ever ever ever put an inexperienced member as scout.
That is all.
I slept in till noon (USTZ) and hopped on. Apparently we had been hit hard in the morning, but were going to hit another tower shortly. On I went, and gave some eyes in H-W, which is a prime staging area of sorts for the NC. Our boys along with allies made some great moves and killed lots of NC. The NC came to the fight with BC/HACS. Against snipe BS of even odds thats a bad idea in the laggy Dominion era. The advantage of sig radius and speed is almost completely negated. Against a snipe BS gang with superior numbers its a horrible idea.
And so they came and died.
I missed the fight and am moving my cov ops alt into the theater of operations so I never have to do that again.
After that engagment we had 60-70 Euro members with nothing to do. So, I took them roaming! I do hate POS bashes and I do love fights. We fit into BC/Logistics with a couple dictors and a cloaky scout and off we went to Deklein. I won't go into details on the whole, but we moved up through Deklein and into Looney Toons land. Those same trash talkers didn't come to fight the 50 man IT gang... I suppose they only engage small corp gangs. We did kill one of one of their Ravens. Half the guys didn't even get on the kill and I couldn't figure out how he died so fast. Until we saw that mail. Drake anyone? I mean holy hell what a horrendous fit. Shield Core Defence Purger rigs, shield power relays in the lows and shield rechargers in the mids. The Heavy Missile Launchers in the highs were the cherry on top for that one. Who needs cruise missiles, amirite? If you can't fly it right don't fly it.
Anyways.
We moved on and popped a few more random ships. We had fun in DKUK- on our way home. Our longtime Goon friends have taken up residence their. They didn't want to come play, however, even with twice our numbers in local. In ROIR- we found a Cyno up. Our scout reported it next to a POS with a Phobos (bubble up) and a Hurricane sitting their waiting.
For those who are unfamiliar this is a honeypot trick. Unsuspecting ships warp to the the cyno at range to check it out and are pulled into the bubble to be killed by the Phobos, Cane and the battlestar POS its sitting at. For those who are familiar with POSs, they take a very long time to lock. So we warped the fleet in simultaneously and killed the Phobos and the Hurricane and bugged out. We lost all three interceptors... but it was a more than even trade.
I brought the chaps home at that point and called a bio. Soho was putting up a fleet shortly, and I instructed all those who wanted more pew pew to join up (seep Holy EVE Man! Pt 2)
Something I know and have always taken into account but never written about is the scout. Scouts are crucial on so many levels. Usually I have Easley Thames as scout in my USTZ gangs. Or Bigvix, or someone I know very well. This roam I had an alliance member, Tentpegg, scout for me. I got lucky. He is an FC himself, and is very competent. He can make calls on the scouting field, which I cannot see. To interpret what a scout is saying when he is a noob and then make decisions for the rest of fleet is difficult at best. To have a competent decision maker with experience in the scout slot is invaluable. Tentpegg was able to make calls on the field when I was not there (such as dictors bubbling station before main fleet jumps in) as well as make recommendations in a quick and direct manner over channel command without any of the Marco Polo crap you have to deal with when your scout is inexperienced. In small gangs its almost best to have FC as scout. In a large gang, however, this can be disastrous as your scout dies (it happens) and then the fleets FC is down as well. Good scouts will get you more kills, and keep your fleet from getting killed. Never ever ever ever put an inexperienced member as scout.
That is all.
Resurrection with a Vengeance
I find myself most able to blog at work during the slow times. Although it may take several hours to complete a post, it does get done. When I am home, however, I will not blog about EVE because I can play it. As I did not post yesterday, one can logicall assume I didn't work. Which I didn't. Back to work I am, and a few new posts I certainly am due for.
Two nights ago I got home from work later (03:00 EVE TIME) to find a tower coming out of reinforce and a fleet on the way. On I went to the Op in a gank fit Harbinger (shield buffer all damage/speed mods). Our bs started hitting the tower when reports of an NC gang came through.
Fun times... assuming no lag.
In they came to the system, and our waiting snipe bs fleet rained hell down on them until they could warp off. We had one problem, however, and that was a shortage of dictors. This shortage proved to be a problem when time and time again their fleet was able to bug out due to lack of bubbles. We ended up destroying many of their ships in system, and they dissapeared in local. I warped my Harbinger to the gate at range to get eyes. Bad idea.
As I initiated warp to the gate I heard the report over comms "they're landing on the gate... all of them".
Damn.
I landed 50 off the gate (my intention was to land and align out) and before I could align and warp off I was down. I couldn't even get my pod out. No bubbles, just massive lag.
A little disgusted I woke up in X-7 in a new pod, updated my med clone and grabbed a bomber. Back to GA-P6C I went. They engaged our forces on the gate shortly after I was podded, and when I jumped in were bubbled to hell between 20-60 off the gate in a line. I immediately made my first bombing run. Smashing success! Some popped, others took large damage. I warped out and back in and made another run. A few more popped. I bombed a third time before their fleet warped off (what was left) from the engagement. We caught a few at planets before the remnants hit the gate (GA- is a dead end system) and bugged out. Our forces followed for two jumps and killed a dozen more before returning to finish off the tower.
I had avenged my Harbinger. I also hit Sir Molles Cov Ops unwittingly. Twice. He didn't pop though, and just complained on command. I simply asked if he was huggin their fleet, and he was. Warp ins and such. That just meant my bombs were on target :)
I have more thoughts on bombers, and I will write about them in my next post.
That is all.
Two nights ago I got home from work later (03:00 EVE TIME) to find a tower coming out of reinforce and a fleet on the way. On I went to the Op in a gank fit Harbinger (shield buffer all damage/speed mods). Our bs started hitting the tower when reports of an NC gang came through.
Fun times... assuming no lag.
In they came to the system, and our waiting snipe bs fleet rained hell down on them until they could warp off. We had one problem, however, and that was a shortage of dictors. This shortage proved to be a problem when time and time again their fleet was able to bug out due to lack of bubbles. We ended up destroying many of their ships in system, and they dissapeared in local. I warped my Harbinger to the gate at range to get eyes. Bad idea.
As I initiated warp to the gate I heard the report over comms "they're landing on the gate... all of them".
Damn.
I landed 50 off the gate (my intention was to land and align out) and before I could align and warp off I was down. I couldn't even get my pod out. No bubbles, just massive lag.
A little disgusted I woke up in X-7 in a new pod, updated my med clone and grabbed a bomber. Back to GA-P6C I went. They engaged our forces on the gate shortly after I was podded, and when I jumped in were bubbled to hell between 20-60 off the gate in a line. I immediately made my first bombing run. Smashing success! Some popped, others took large damage. I warped out and back in and made another run. A few more popped. I bombed a third time before their fleet warped off (what was left) from the engagement. We caught a few at planets before the remnants hit the gate (GA- is a dead end system) and bugged out. Our forces followed for two jumps and killed a dozen more before returning to finish off the tower.
I had avenged my Harbinger. I also hit Sir Molles Cov Ops unwittingly. Twice. He didn't pop though, and just complained on command. I simply asked if he was huggin their fleet, and he was. Warp ins and such. That just meant my bombs were on target :)
I have more thoughts on bombers, and I will write about them in my next post.
That is all.
April 20, 2010
Smart Fights = Best Fights
Last night I hopped onto EVE after work and some errands. I got hammered in command immediately to get into a fast moving BC fleet that was just moving out from X-7. So I paid a couple bills online and jumped into a gank Harbinger and hurried to catch up with the gang.
I was about 2j behind when the gang jumped into O-Y from KQK. Easley was scouting for the gang and had reported one red in local with no visual and was moving on. As gang jumped in, that one red in local de-cloaked and lit a cyno. I listened to it go down on comms and frowned. Approximately 60-70 NC jumped in as well as their titan. We never did figure out if the titan was an accident or just showing off, but the reality is that a titan doesn't really do anything to a bc gang. The other guys that bridged through, however, were more than effective. We took heavy losses.
This was no coincidence... a cyno ship waiting in system on our intended route of travel. Our intel later reported that the formup on their titan started when our gang started forming. TS spies most certainly relayed our destination and allowed for the trap to be set and sprung. Our USTZ FC's, myself included, need to expect and plan for the presence of NC spies in our gangs. This isn't to say we don't have our own spies in NC, but with our time zone it can be utter devestation. Why were we in BC/HACs? To avoid the blobs and heavy manpower that NC can bring our way. When that advantage is negated we are in dire straights indeed. When we have their intel during USTZ, it can give us the perfect tool for hit and run. Their FCs are subpar and their fleets are hectic and disorgarnized. Problem is, this matters not at all when they have twice your numbers and a spy in your ts. During European spies suck and can be disastrous, but even numbers still favor the better FC and more disciplined fleet. You both know you have gangs and you are both doing the dance.
Anyways.
The remnants of our gang hobbled into X-7. I checked fleets and saw SoHo had an advert up for a Drake and Scimi gang.
Jackpot.
For those who aren't aware (as I wasn't until I checked in command channel) SoHo is a long time PVPer of EVE who is excellent in solo, small, and medium sized gang warfare. I immediately bought a Drake and after fitting undocked into his fleet. Our target was the gang that had just hot dropped the IT gang.
I am not one to heap praise on anyone or anything, but I was immediately impressed with SoHos no bullshit attitude. Very much in the same style as myself, he was quick, clear, and concise with what he wanted done and didn't tolerate chatter or disobedience. Throughout the events of the evening (which I will write about) I was impressed with his quick decisions and professional attitude.
So.
We undocked and headed into KLY, then 7RM to the F-N gate. The hostile fleet was in B-9 on the F-N gate. We waited a minute or so and jumped into F-N and aligned B-9. SoHo gave us the word to warp in to B-9 at 50 with our logistics at 90. The NC fleet must have had eyes on us because they jumped in as soon as we initiated warp.
Perfect.
As they jumped in and loaded grid we were landing 50km off of them with logstics out of harms way 90km off of them. We aligned off to the sun and as their fleet started de cloaking SoHo called primaries. It was pretty cool to see a massive volley of heavy missiles streak towards the respective targets each time a primary was called. I had my missile launchers grouped in 4 and 3. Fury (damage) loaded into the 4 and Precision (small targets) loaded into the 3. My Furies were volleyed into our primaries while my Precision's and Warrior IIs hit the small tackle and Blackbirds on the field. This tactic worked especially well (many of the Drakes were operating in a similar fashion, especially with the drones). Interceptor, assault frigs, ecm boats, dictors, and recons were all melting as they tried to get a warp in on us. After a bunch of their ships went down they warped off the gate. We skirmished with them in system a couple more times, inflicting heavy casualties while taking almost no losses. Then they bailed into B-9, and moved into P-2. We formed up on the B-9 gate while getting intel. SoHo was still as calm as can be, and a bit fired up (as was everyone else). We had just taken on a gang (that had just hot dropped/blobbed us) with twice our numbers and dominated due to good warp ins and logistics.
Beautiful.
After a minute or so we jumped into B-9 and warped straight to the P-2 gate. There we sat, at 0. SoHo repeated the command NOT to jump several times. Amazingly, no one jumped. Which was good as the entire NC gang (minus the 20-30 ships they had just lost) was sitting on the other side.
Who would blink?
We decided to and jumped straight into their gang. We held cloak until all members of our fleet had loaded grid, then broke cloak and started unloading. Primaries were called, primaries died, and it was slaughter. Gentleman's Club had a smaller bs gang running around and joined in towards the end of the fireworks. The engagement ended when the last bits of the NC Fleet (approximately 20) deaggressed and jumped out of P-2 back into B-9. Those that weren't caught warped off into safes. The engagement afteraction report was a decisive 35 kills to 0 losses. The state of their fleet was complete chaos, and it cost them. Had they been able to focus fire on one primary they would have at least made a few killls. Due to our excellent Scimitar pilots and the nature of the Drake, the unfocused and scattered fire from the NC gang was ineffective. Their FC was reported afterwards as calling his entire gang "fu%#@in nuggets", and that there was "nothing he could do, their gang was blobbed".
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If you say so. I would say that tactics were bad, and the FC was very much at fault. I'm not saying this as an insult to the NC, they have taken advantage of our FC screwups as well. But this FC was wrong. He got his gang killed due to lack of tactfulness and horrible target calling. This is never good, but sometimes happens even to the best FCs. What I find completely unacceptable is that he screamed at his fleetmembers using vulgar insults and flinging accusations. It was not their fault they died, they were just following orders (when orders were actually given). I may seem a bit emo-rantish here, and I am. I am disgusted with this kind of behavior from someone who is trusted to be responsible and lead fleets. I don't care if its the enemy. In the long run I can thank him if he gets more of his people killed but they don't deserve it. When you get your gang killed you should apologize and accept resonsibility for your actions, not blame them for your faults and scream at them. There is not a quicker way to see participation in your fleets drop and trust from your fleet members wane and dissapear. If you make a mistake, admit it. You don't need to dwell, but at least tell your fleet what went wrong. This shows you accept responsibility and understand what went wrong. Naturally this means that you will avoid that kind of mistake in the future. Belligerent bellowing points to the obvious conclusion that you will make the same mistake again and again.
Besides, who can trust an FC who fits his Tempest like this? :->
So, we looted field and moved back to X-7. After a short break SoHo reformed gang and after a small deliberation we stayed with the Drake/Logistics configuration.
Destination?
The Hornet's Nest.
So we set out to H-W in Tribute. Burning quickly we encountered absolutely no opposition. Popped a Drake on the way in, he was melted insanely fast. In H-W we parked above the station. The NC Defense fleet had formed and was sitting at a POS in system. They undocked some carriers, and we shot them. They docked in low shield (they were Chimeras).
This went on for a good ten minutes, and we did kill a few ships that warped in to the station and didn't dock in time. The moment of truth came when their gang warped to the station. We barely missed them with a pull bubble from our dictor. If we had caught them they would have been slaughtered (again), but luck was with them and they landed in docking range of the station.
We proceeded to play docking games for the next twenty minutes with them, which allowed us to kill a few idiots who decided to aggress. As soon as someone red boxed they were called primary and pop they went. The shield reps of the carriers (seven were outside the station) weren't enough to keep the armor tanking battleships alive. In fact its kind of stupid to do that, think of it like this. Shield repping carrier is a hose trying to fill a shot glass that is the Megathron's/Apoc's shield tank. That hose is much better suited filling the barrel that is Rokh/Raven's shield tank. The alpha from volley after volley would hit the ships right out of shields and eat armor and then structure. Not able to dock, POP!
These games got real boring, and even the local smack was starting to die down. Homo Erectus (those in IT or NC know who he is) kept it going as long as he could but one can only prop up a dead man for so long. So off we went to X-7 so the European boys could catch some Zzzzzs.
More action reports to come...
That is all.
I was about 2j behind when the gang jumped into O-Y from KQK. Easley was scouting for the gang and had reported one red in local with no visual and was moving on. As gang jumped in, that one red in local de-cloaked and lit a cyno. I listened to it go down on comms and frowned. Approximately 60-70 NC jumped in as well as their titan. We never did figure out if the titan was an accident or just showing off, but the reality is that a titan doesn't really do anything to a bc gang. The other guys that bridged through, however, were more than effective. We took heavy losses.
This was no coincidence... a cyno ship waiting in system on our intended route of travel. Our intel later reported that the formup on their titan started when our gang started forming. TS spies most certainly relayed our destination and allowed for the trap to be set and sprung. Our USTZ FC's, myself included, need to expect and plan for the presence of NC spies in our gangs. This isn't to say we don't have our own spies in NC, but with our time zone it can be utter devestation. Why were we in BC/HACs? To avoid the blobs and heavy manpower that NC can bring our way. When that advantage is negated we are in dire straights indeed. When we have their intel during USTZ, it can give us the perfect tool for hit and run. Their FCs are subpar and their fleets are hectic and disorgarnized. Problem is, this matters not at all when they have twice your numbers and a spy in your ts. During European spies suck and can be disastrous, but even numbers still favor the better FC and more disciplined fleet. You both know you have gangs and you are both doing the dance.
Anyways.
The remnants of our gang hobbled into X-7. I checked fleets and saw SoHo had an advert up for a Drake and Scimi gang.
Jackpot.
For those who aren't aware (as I wasn't until I checked in command channel) SoHo is a long time PVPer of EVE who is excellent in solo, small, and medium sized gang warfare. I immediately bought a Drake and after fitting undocked into his fleet. Our target was the gang that had just hot dropped the IT gang.
I am not one to heap praise on anyone or anything, but I was immediately impressed with SoHos no bullshit attitude. Very much in the same style as myself, he was quick, clear, and concise with what he wanted done and didn't tolerate chatter or disobedience. Throughout the events of the evening (which I will write about) I was impressed with his quick decisions and professional attitude.
So.
We undocked and headed into KLY, then 7RM to the F-N gate. The hostile fleet was in B-9 on the F-N gate. We waited a minute or so and jumped into F-N and aligned B-9. SoHo gave us the word to warp in to B-9 at 50 with our logistics at 90. The NC fleet must have had eyes on us because they jumped in as soon as we initiated warp.
Perfect.
As they jumped in and loaded grid we were landing 50km off of them with logstics out of harms way 90km off of them. We aligned off to the sun and as their fleet started de cloaking SoHo called primaries. It was pretty cool to see a massive volley of heavy missiles streak towards the respective targets each time a primary was called. I had my missile launchers grouped in 4 and 3. Fury (damage) loaded into the 4 and Precision (small targets) loaded into the 3. My Furies were volleyed into our primaries while my Precision's and Warrior IIs hit the small tackle and Blackbirds on the field. This tactic worked especially well (many of the Drakes were operating in a similar fashion, especially with the drones). Interceptor, assault frigs, ecm boats, dictors, and recons were all melting as they tried to get a warp in on us. After a bunch of their ships went down they warped off the gate. We skirmished with them in system a couple more times, inflicting heavy casualties while taking almost no losses. Then they bailed into B-9, and moved into P-2. We formed up on the B-9 gate while getting intel. SoHo was still as calm as can be, and a bit fired up (as was everyone else). We had just taken on a gang (that had just hot dropped/blobbed us) with twice our numbers and dominated due to good warp ins and logistics.
Beautiful.
After a minute or so we jumped into B-9 and warped straight to the P-2 gate. There we sat, at 0. SoHo repeated the command NOT to jump several times. Amazingly, no one jumped. Which was good as the entire NC gang (minus the 20-30 ships they had just lost) was sitting on the other side.
Who would blink?
We decided to and jumped straight into their gang. We held cloak until all members of our fleet had loaded grid, then broke cloak and started unloading. Primaries were called, primaries died, and it was slaughter. Gentleman's Club had a smaller bs gang running around and joined in towards the end of the fireworks. The engagement ended when the last bits of the NC Fleet (approximately 20) deaggressed and jumped out of P-2 back into B-9. Those that weren't caught warped off into safes. The engagement afteraction report was a decisive 35 kills to 0 losses. The state of their fleet was complete chaos, and it cost them. Had they been able to focus fire on one primary they would have at least made a few killls. Due to our excellent Scimitar pilots and the nature of the Drake, the unfocused and scattered fire from the NC gang was ineffective. Their FC was reported afterwards as calling his entire gang "fu%#@in nuggets", and that there was "nothing he could do, their gang was blobbed".
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If you say so. I would say that tactics were bad, and the FC was very much at fault. I'm not saying this as an insult to the NC, they have taken advantage of our FC screwups as well. But this FC was wrong. He got his gang killed due to lack of tactfulness and horrible target calling. This is never good, but sometimes happens even to the best FCs. What I find completely unacceptable is that he screamed at his fleetmembers using vulgar insults and flinging accusations. It was not their fault they died, they were just following orders (when orders were actually given). I may seem a bit emo-rantish here, and I am. I am disgusted with this kind of behavior from someone who is trusted to be responsible and lead fleets. I don't care if its the enemy. In the long run I can thank him if he gets more of his people killed but they don't deserve it. When you get your gang killed you should apologize and accept resonsibility for your actions, not blame them for your faults and scream at them. There is not a quicker way to see participation in your fleets drop and trust from your fleet members wane and dissapear. If you make a mistake, admit it. You don't need to dwell, but at least tell your fleet what went wrong. This shows you accept responsibility and understand what went wrong. Naturally this means that you will avoid that kind of mistake in the future. Belligerent bellowing points to the obvious conclusion that you will make the same mistake again and again.
Besides, who can trust an FC who fits his Tempest like this? :->
So, we looted field and moved back to X-7. After a short break SoHo reformed gang and after a small deliberation we stayed with the Drake/Logistics configuration.
Destination?
The Hornet's Nest.
So we set out to H-W in Tribute. Burning quickly we encountered absolutely no opposition. Popped a Drake on the way in, he was melted insanely fast. In H-W we parked above the station. The NC Defense fleet had formed and was sitting at a POS in system. They undocked some carriers, and we shot them. They docked in low shield (they were Chimeras).
This went on for a good ten minutes, and we did kill a few ships that warped in to the station and didn't dock in time. The moment of truth came when their gang warped to the station. We barely missed them with a pull bubble from our dictor. If we had caught them they would have been slaughtered (again), but luck was with them and they landed in docking range of the station.
We proceeded to play docking games for the next twenty minutes with them, which allowed us to kill a few idiots who decided to aggress. As soon as someone red boxed they were called primary and pop they went. The shield reps of the carriers (seven were outside the station) weren't enough to keep the armor tanking battleships alive. In fact its kind of stupid to do that, think of it like this. Shield repping carrier is a hose trying to fill a shot glass that is the Megathron's/Apoc's shield tank. That hose is much better suited filling the barrel that is Rokh/Raven's shield tank. The alpha from volley after volley would hit the ships right out of shields and eat armor and then structure. Not able to dock, POP!
These games got real boring, and even the local smack was starting to die down. Homo Erectus (those in IT or NC know who he is) kept it going as long as he could but one can only prop up a dead man for so long. So off we went to X-7 so the European boys could catch some Zzzzzs.
More action reports to come...
That is all.
April 19, 2010
Epic Fights and Epic Lag.
This weekend was very busy in all aspects both EVE and RL.
Saturday night was uneventful EVE-wise, I was only on for a half hour or so due to it being Saturday night.
Sunday was completely devoted to EVE. My high sec alt was running large quantities of crap for the corp, and required semi constant attention. For the record, freighters suck. Really suck. I hate them.
My main was a different story. First off, all morning and early afternoon we had running battles with the NC. Early on these engagements were very much in our favor. As the NC sounded the trumpet, however, we became badly outnumbered. NC had our outgate and their in gate camped heavily, but I scouted the third gate out of KQK and found it completely safe with some random blues on it in fact. I scouted in my pod the next few jumps and found it completely clear. We ended up getting most of our bs and support fleet out through that hole. Although a small, random camp of neuts popped my pod in 5ZXX, their 10x numbers safed up when the IT fleet jumped into local.
A small HAC and BC gang was camping the X-7 station (small being 100 or so) and moved out to intercept our incoming BS gang. Reporting this intel (as I had just been podded back to X-7) we moved in and hit that gang hard. Within a few minutes it was obvious they were stalling, as their gang was taking heavy losses but keeping us stationary. Intel came in that the massive blob we had recently left behind in KQK was on their way and very close. The order was given to disengage, but it wasn't relayed quickly enough and the hostile blob started jumping into JE-. The majority of our fleet was not bubbled on the gate and our FC gave the order to warp to a random moon he came up with. This order was also heard by TS spies (everyone has them) and the fleet landed at the moon (no pos, just a random moon) and as most of them were aligning off hostile dictors landed and bubbled them up. Ouch. We took heavy losses. I was killed at the gate but listened to the moon bubbling on comms. I find it amusing that partway through the fighting on the gate I was primaried... my killmail has LOTS of people on it. As I had lost my Apoc in KQK I was in a Drake. You never primary a Drake. Especially with HACs, Recons, BSs still on the field. Either NC doesn't shoot primaries or someone has a special place in their heart for me... maybe both.
Lag was pretty intense in both systems, but especially in KQK. Lots of our pilots died while on black load screen. This has been pretty typical in heavy combat. I had no problems, but was in the system from early on. In JE- though, I was unable to board my pod before I got podded. Ironic.
My thoughts are, that when -A- arrives and Atlas starts their push (whenever that is) NC are going to be seriously spread out. IT was on its own in KQK (for the most part)... Initiative and ROL fleets were wiped out trying to load KQK. Once NC numbers passed 500 we had to bail. NC had (from our best estimates) about 700-800 active in fleet.
Not enough to take on a full scale SC gang.
So we will see, with time, how it plays out.
As fleets stood down due to late Euro TZ and the losses we had taken, I started a corp roam. In retrospect I should have taken an alliance gang out, but I just wanted some guys that I know well and work well together. So off we went to Fade and Deklein. We had a brief run in with a Stabber and Viator. Stabber aggressed our scout (Easley Thames) and died. Viator jumped into our camp, was bubbled, and instead of burning out of the bubble (he was about 1km off the edge) he tried to reapproach. Ooops. He died.
We moved on to Fade with no event, and headed into Deklein. Almost made a few belt tackles, but almost doesn't get you kills. We moved into Looney Toons land and immediately were suspicious. After the Looney Toons' first station system we moved towards their man station system and their local bumped by 20 with our scout in local. We assumed they bridged in and were waiting, especially when they stuck a Megathron and Rupture in a belt with no rats. As if that wasn't enough of a giveaway, the Falcon that came in near the belt uncloaked wasn't too intelligent. So we logged off next door. After 10 minutes we logged back in and saw our in and out gates as clear. We jumped into their station system and as we were warping to the outgate, local bumped considerably.
Uh oh.
Now, there are those that will call you a pussy for running. Obviously these people are in two camps. Either they are completely idiotic and have never PVPed or they are in the gang with far superior numbers. In this case it may have been both. We hit the outgate as directional started filling with the Looney gang loggin in or jumping into system. BC heavy with lots of other random things. We burned for two more gates before I noticed a Crow catching up to our gang. Easley created a safe and we all jumped in and warped to him. One of our Hurricanes got caught in a bubble on the in gate though.... "I'm caught I'm caught!!". I frowned and listened intently... "I got out I got out". How he escaped from a dictor... I don't know.
Our fleet logged off with the exception of Easley, our Cane pilot with aggro (bubble) and myself. I stayed to populate local with conversation. Some of the Looney Toons were quick to respond. They had combat probes out (not Sister's Combat Probes) but in a system as large as the one we were in it is difficult to probe down moving targets. I wish I had recorded the whole conversation in local, but needless to say the Looney Toons were stretching with their trolls.All I managed to save was this bit (about 1/2 of our total interaction). Disclaimer: I told you readers I am a chronic smack talker... you've been warned
We had discussed, up until this point, how my gang had logged off and ran and were pussys for doing so. How we always would run, etc. etc. I commented that even farmers, with enough numbers, can hurt you with their pitchforks. They didn't like that line and made more comments about running. Bear in mind that the 28 man gang that chased us was their entire alliance. This 12 man gang was just Mavericks. Yet they always generalized IT Alliance in their attempted trolls, which was hilarious.
[01:35:49] Perseus Kallistratos > its funny listening to a pet try and troll local
[01:36:03] Perseus Kallistratos > as if you guys would engage with anything less than 2x numbers
[01:36:07] Perseus Kallistratos > but please....
[01:36:09] PsycheAnalyzer > my ball sac is older then you
[01:36:09] Perseus Kallistratos > keep it up
[01:36:19] Rat Salat > Sorry you are running out of ships and pilots
[01:36:22] Mistress Raven > wasnt 2x when we raped the zealot
[01:36:29] Narwa > IT war tactic, go into enemy space, run from fleet, talk trash.
[01:36:30] Rat Salat > And can't bring a well equipped gang
[01:36:32] Perseus Kallistratos > yes confirming IT plan
[01:36:35] Mistress Raven > was same numbers
[01:36:39] Perseus Kallistratos > 17 warped in on that station
[01:36:41] Mistress Raven > zealot tried to run too but was too slow
[01:36:43] Perseus Kallistratos > we had 8
[01:36:51] Perseus Kallistratos > zealot wasn't aligned... he wasn't moving
[01:36:58] Perseus Kallistratos > thats why he died in case you paid attention
[01:37:06] Mistress Raven > i was paying attention
[01:37:11] Mistress Raven > when i was shooting him
[01:37:19] Mistress Raven > ass lighting up like the fairy he was
[01:37:22] Perseus Kallistratos > ahhhh
[01:37:25] Perseus Kallistratos > the joy of noob smack
[01:37:30] Perseus Kallistratos > /emote munches more popcorn
[01:37:50] Perseus Kallistratos > moar plz
[01:38:04] Markis Silvairi > my hovercraft is full of eels
[01:38:08] Tatiyanous > http://aggten.blogspot.com/2010/04/roaming-and-more-roaming.html
[01:38:14] Perseus Kallistratos > YAY!
[01:38:17] Tatiyanous > ^^^^^ thanks for the intel
[01:38:18] Perseus Kallistratos > I'm E FAMOUS!
[01:38:28] Perseus Kallistratos > yeah keep reading
[01:38:31] Perseus Kallistratos > you may learn something
[01:38:32] Tatiyanous > you're an idoit rages about his own fcs
[01:39:11] Perseus Kallistratos > lol
[01:39:13] Tatiyanous > I bet all you say is warp to station so we can run away
[01:39:15] Perseus Kallistratos > nice try
[01:39:21] Perseus Kallistratos > ooo good one
[01:39:30] Perseus Kallistratos > from the mining foreman
[01:39:34] Perseus Kallistratos > zing
(the gentleman Tatiyanous had the role of mining foreman)
[01:39:40] Tatiyanous > who's hunting who?
[01:39:56] Mistress Raven > im flying a covetor right now matter of fact
[01:40:04] Mistress Raven > but i can sure blind you with this mining laser
[01:40:07] Mistress Raven > try me
[01:40:18] Perseus Kallistratos > we wanted you guys to have something exciting happen in your normal mundane eve carebear lives
[01:40:29] Arkyns > then fight us now
lol
[01:40:31] Mistress Raven > well thanks for the excitement
[01:40:35] Tatiyanous > ohhh logging off...
[01:40:38] Jake Maverick > thats very thoughtful of you
[01:40:39] Mistress Raven > getting used to seeing your tail between your legs
[01:40:39] Tatiyanous > i read about that one
[01:40:42] Col Casey > Baaaaaaaach Baaaaaaaaachhh
[01:40:46] Markis Silvairi > you interupted my bong packing
[01:40:47] Perseus Kallistratos > i'm sorry guys
[01:40:50] Jake Maverick > whgy dont we let them out the gate for beings so thoughtfull
[01:40:52] Perseus Kallistratos > i forget where are we?
[01:40:57] Perseus Kallistratos > OH SHIT YEAH THATS RIGHT
[01:41:03] Perseus Kallistratos > we're in YOUR SPACE
[01:41:12] Narwa > pay 15$, log off instead of play
[01:41:14] Perseus Kallistratos > and even when we "run"
[01:41:19] Perseus Kallistratos > we still run back to your space
[01:41:32] Tatiyanous > let me check... you roam in our space to log off.
[01:41:35] Tatiyanous > check
[01:41:41] Perseus Kallistratos > let me check... you don't roam our space in Delve
[01:41:41] Tatiyanous > you align to run at every stop
[01:41:42] Tatiyanous > check
[01:42:00] Perseus Kallistratos > do you even know how to run a small gang? I'm guessing no
[01:42:04] Tatiyanous > yeah. next you jsut have to rage about one of your own members and we have your blog trifacta
[01:42:16] Perseus Kallistratos > you already used that one
[01:42:25] Perseus Kallistratos > new material mining foreman
[01:42:47] Tatiyanous > rage rage rage i am perseus the strong... rage rage rage. how come our other fcs don't always run so much
[01:42:57] Perseus Kallistratos > lol
[01:43:05] Perseus Kallistratos > /emote popcorn
[01:43:06] Tatiyanous > god damn my fellow IT fcs
[01:43:10] Perseus Kallistratos > see
[01:43:14] Perseus Kallistratos > now you're generalizing
[01:43:16] Tatiyanous > they don't run fast enough and keep getting us caught
[01:43:20] Perseus Kallistratos > which is what people do when they have no material...
[01:43:25] Tatiyanous > and how come atlas doens't wave to us anymore in local
[01:43:37] Tatiyanous > are we not friends anymore
(at this point local dropped drastically)
[01:43:42] Perseus Kallistratos > cya carebear queens
Apparently they had heard of my blog. They read the article where I emo'd about one roam with an FC I was less than pleased with and tried to generalize that as me complaining about every FC. It was quite amusing. I have to say, I missed some of the best lines but I think you get the idea. These are the same guys who took 15-20 ships and fleet warped them on top of us when we were camping their station last week. They popped my Zealot pilot because he wasn't aligned off. But in their recounting, that 1x kill was actually 2x kills and their numbers dwindled to 10... meh whatever gets the chest beating morale up I guess.
For the record, even after this lashing of tongues, I stand by my recommendation that when you are in local with many enemies, be ready for a response. Even if they are inexperienced carebears they can still form up a mutt gang and come after you. With superior numbers they can still hurt you. If you are camping a station you can't dock at and are in a larger ship with slower align time, stay full speed aligned. The frusterated hostiles will call it all kinds of names, but its only because they are angry they couldn't kill you :)
Now I'm sure not all Looney Toons are like that, but these guys were just epic in their attempted local smack. Forming up 30 people (which was about 1/2 of their alliance population that was online in the area) and chasing with a hodgepodge of random ships. Needless to say, we'll be back. They said IT Allliance always run, yet I don't think they've seen many fights up in carebear land. At all. So I'll skip them on the next corp roam and bring an Alliance Gang their way. With even numbers, cuz thats what they wanted... and I'm taking bets on them not engaging :)
After about 15 minutes, just as our Hurricane's aggro was wearing off (so he could log and not get probed) they all left local. When you have a 12 man enemy gang nearby you don't give up after 15 min. Weak sauce. You wait and set a trap.
Generally.
Scouted next system, Check.
Checked online status of their gang. Check.
So we logged everyone on and left. End of story.
We moved on into Venal. Missed a couple close belt tackles on a Tempest and a Drake. We moved into Deklein through 4U90. On our way there we caught an OWN Alliance Dominix in a belt ratting.
Down the Dominix went, along with his pod. We moved on through a couple heavily populated OWN systems, but no response other than POS'ed up battleships and mining ops. On to TXME and YAO we caught a Rifter, his pod, and another random capsule. Best line ever of the night was from Ceekey.
Rifter enters local.
Ceekey > Welcome
pop Rifter, holding pod for whoring
Ceekey > Have fun on your express trip back to the station.
Rifter pod pops
2 minutes later in local:
Random Own Alliance Guy > There is no station in this system.
LOL
After that, we had a couple near misses but no more kills. The roam ended up being quite a long one, due to our two logoffskis. Yet no losses (Looney Toons fail), which is always a good thing. At this point I needed to hit the sack, long work day today. Looking forward to more good times this evening.
That is all.
Saturday night was uneventful EVE-wise, I was only on for a half hour or so due to it being Saturday night.
Sunday was completely devoted to EVE. My high sec alt was running large quantities of crap for the corp, and required semi constant attention. For the record, freighters suck. Really suck. I hate them.
My main was a different story. First off, all morning and early afternoon we had running battles with the NC. Early on these engagements were very much in our favor. As the NC sounded the trumpet, however, we became badly outnumbered. NC had our outgate and their in gate camped heavily, but I scouted the third gate out of KQK and found it completely safe with some random blues on it in fact. I scouted in my pod the next few jumps and found it completely clear. We ended up getting most of our bs and support fleet out through that hole. Although a small, random camp of neuts popped my pod in 5ZXX, their 10x numbers safed up when the IT fleet jumped into local.
A small HAC and BC gang was camping the X-7 station (small being 100 or so) and moved out to intercept our incoming BS gang. Reporting this intel (as I had just been podded back to X-7) we moved in and hit that gang hard. Within a few minutes it was obvious they were stalling, as their gang was taking heavy losses but keeping us stationary. Intel came in that the massive blob we had recently left behind in KQK was on their way and very close. The order was given to disengage, but it wasn't relayed quickly enough and the hostile blob started jumping into JE-. The majority of our fleet was not bubbled on the gate and our FC gave the order to warp to a random moon he came up with. This order was also heard by TS spies (everyone has them) and the fleet landed at the moon (no pos, just a random moon) and as most of them were aligning off hostile dictors landed and bubbled them up. Ouch. We took heavy losses. I was killed at the gate but listened to the moon bubbling on comms. I find it amusing that partway through the fighting on the gate I was primaried... my killmail has LOTS of people on it. As I had lost my Apoc in KQK I was in a Drake. You never primary a Drake. Especially with HACs, Recons, BSs still on the field. Either NC doesn't shoot primaries or someone has a special place in their heart for me... maybe both.
Lag was pretty intense in both systems, but especially in KQK. Lots of our pilots died while on black load screen. This has been pretty typical in heavy combat. I had no problems, but was in the system from early on. In JE- though, I was unable to board my pod before I got podded. Ironic.
My thoughts are, that when -A- arrives and Atlas starts their push (whenever that is) NC are going to be seriously spread out. IT was on its own in KQK (for the most part)... Initiative and ROL fleets were wiped out trying to load KQK. Once NC numbers passed 500 we had to bail. NC had (from our best estimates) about 700-800 active in fleet.
Not enough to take on a full scale SC gang.
So we will see, with time, how it plays out.
As fleets stood down due to late Euro TZ and the losses we had taken, I started a corp roam. In retrospect I should have taken an alliance gang out, but I just wanted some guys that I know well and work well together. So off we went to Fade and Deklein. We had a brief run in with a Stabber and Viator. Stabber aggressed our scout (Easley Thames) and died. Viator jumped into our camp, was bubbled, and instead of burning out of the bubble (he was about 1km off the edge) he tried to reapproach. Ooops. He died.
We moved on to Fade with no event, and headed into Deklein. Almost made a few belt tackles, but almost doesn't get you kills. We moved into Looney Toons land and immediately were suspicious. After the Looney Toons' first station system we moved towards their man station system and their local bumped by 20 with our scout in local. We assumed they bridged in and were waiting, especially when they stuck a Megathron and Rupture in a belt with no rats. As if that wasn't enough of a giveaway, the Falcon that came in near the belt uncloaked wasn't too intelligent. So we logged off next door. After 10 minutes we logged back in and saw our in and out gates as clear. We jumped into their station system and as we were warping to the outgate, local bumped considerably.
Uh oh.
Now, there are those that will call you a pussy for running. Obviously these people are in two camps. Either they are completely idiotic and have never PVPed or they are in the gang with far superior numbers. In this case it may have been both. We hit the outgate as directional started filling with the Looney gang loggin in or jumping into system. BC heavy with lots of other random things. We burned for two more gates before I noticed a Crow catching up to our gang. Easley created a safe and we all jumped in and warped to him. One of our Hurricanes got caught in a bubble on the in gate though.... "I'm caught I'm caught!!". I frowned and listened intently... "I got out I got out". How he escaped from a dictor... I don't know.
Our fleet logged off with the exception of Easley, our Cane pilot with aggro (bubble) and myself. I stayed to populate local with conversation. Some of the Looney Toons were quick to respond. They had combat probes out (not Sister's Combat Probes) but in a system as large as the one we were in it is difficult to probe down moving targets. I wish I had recorded the whole conversation in local, but needless to say the Looney Toons were stretching with their trolls.All I managed to save was this bit (about 1/2 of our total interaction). Disclaimer: I told you readers I am a chronic smack talker... you've been warned
We had discussed, up until this point, how my gang had logged off and ran and were pussys for doing so. How we always would run, etc. etc. I commented that even farmers, with enough numbers, can hurt you with their pitchforks. They didn't like that line and made more comments about running. Bear in mind that the 28 man gang that chased us was their entire alliance. This 12 man gang was just Mavericks. Yet they always generalized IT Alliance in their attempted trolls, which was hilarious.
[01:35:49] Perseus Kallistratos > its funny listening to a pet try and troll local
[01:36:03] Perseus Kallistratos > as if you guys would engage with anything less than 2x numbers
[01:36:07] Perseus Kallistratos > but please....
[01:36:09] PsycheAnalyzer > my ball sac is older then you
[01:36:09] Perseus Kallistratos > keep it up
[01:36:19] Rat Salat > Sorry you are running out of ships and pilots
[01:36:22] Mistress Raven > wasnt 2x when we raped the zealot
[01:36:29] Narwa > IT war tactic, go into enemy space, run from fleet, talk trash.
[01:36:30] Rat Salat > And can't bring a well equipped gang
[01:36:32] Perseus Kallistratos > yes confirming IT plan
[01:36:35] Mistress Raven > was same numbers
[01:36:39] Perseus Kallistratos > 17 warped in on that station
[01:36:41] Mistress Raven > zealot tried to run too but was too slow
[01:36:43] Perseus Kallistratos > we had 8
[01:36:51] Perseus Kallistratos > zealot wasn't aligned... he wasn't moving
[01:36:58] Perseus Kallistratos > thats why he died in case you paid attention
[01:37:06] Mistress Raven > i was paying attention
[01:37:11] Mistress Raven > when i was shooting him
[01:37:19] Mistress Raven > ass lighting up like the fairy he was
[01:37:22] Perseus Kallistratos > ahhhh
[01:37:25] Perseus Kallistratos > the joy of noob smack
[01:37:30] Perseus Kallistratos > /emote munches more popcorn
[01:37:50] Perseus Kallistratos > moar plz
[01:38:04] Markis Silvairi > my hovercraft is full of eels
[01:38:08] Tatiyanous > http://aggten.blogspot.com/2010/04/roaming-and-more-roaming.html
[01:38:14] Perseus Kallistratos > YAY!
[01:38:17] Tatiyanous > ^^^^^ thanks for the intel
[01:38:18] Perseus Kallistratos > I'm E FAMOUS!
[01:38:28] Perseus Kallistratos > yeah keep reading
[01:38:31] Perseus Kallistratos > you may learn something
[01:38:32] Tatiyanous > you're an idoit rages about his own fcs
[01:39:11] Perseus Kallistratos > lol
[01:39:13] Tatiyanous > I bet all you say is warp to station so we can run away
[01:39:15] Perseus Kallistratos > nice try
[01:39:21] Perseus Kallistratos > ooo good one
[01:39:30] Perseus Kallistratos > from the mining foreman
[01:39:34] Perseus Kallistratos > zing
(the gentleman Tatiyanous had the role of mining foreman)
[01:39:40] Tatiyanous > who's hunting who?
[01:39:56] Mistress Raven > im flying a covetor right now matter of fact
[01:40:04] Mistress Raven > but i can sure blind you with this mining laser
[01:40:07] Mistress Raven > try me
[01:40:18] Perseus Kallistratos > we wanted you guys to have something exciting happen in your normal mundane eve carebear lives
[01:40:29] Arkyns > then fight us now
lol
[01:40:31] Mistress Raven > well thanks for the excitement
[01:40:35] Tatiyanous > ohhh logging off...
[01:40:38] Jake Maverick > thats very thoughtful of you
[01:40:39] Mistress Raven > getting used to seeing your tail between your legs
[01:40:39] Tatiyanous > i read about that one
[01:40:42] Col Casey > Baaaaaaaach Baaaaaaaaachhh
[01:40:46] Markis Silvairi > you interupted my bong packing
[01:40:47] Perseus Kallistratos > i'm sorry guys
[01:40:50] Jake Maverick > whgy dont we let them out the gate for beings so thoughtfull
[01:40:52] Perseus Kallistratos > i forget where are we?
[01:40:57] Perseus Kallistratos > OH SHIT YEAH THATS RIGHT
[01:41:03] Perseus Kallistratos > we're in YOUR SPACE
[01:41:12] Narwa > pay 15$, log off instead of play
[01:41:14] Perseus Kallistratos > and even when we "run"
[01:41:19] Perseus Kallistratos > we still run back to your space
[01:41:32] Tatiyanous > let me check... you roam in our space to log off.
[01:41:35] Tatiyanous > check
[01:41:41] Perseus Kallistratos > let me check... you don't roam our space in Delve
[01:41:41] Tatiyanous > you align to run at every stop
[01:41:42] Tatiyanous > check
[01:42:00] Perseus Kallistratos > do you even know how to run a small gang? I'm guessing no
[01:42:04] Tatiyanous > yeah. next you jsut have to rage about one of your own members and we have your blog trifacta
[01:42:16] Perseus Kallistratos > you already used that one
[01:42:25] Perseus Kallistratos > new material mining foreman
[01:42:47] Tatiyanous > rage rage rage i am perseus the strong... rage rage rage. how come our other fcs don't always run so much
[01:42:57] Perseus Kallistratos > lol
[01:43:05] Perseus Kallistratos > /emote popcorn
[01:43:06] Tatiyanous > god damn my fellow IT fcs
[01:43:10] Perseus Kallistratos > see
[01:43:14] Perseus Kallistratos > now you're generalizing
[01:43:16] Tatiyanous > they don't run fast enough and keep getting us caught
[01:43:20] Perseus Kallistratos > which is what people do when they have no material...
[01:43:25] Tatiyanous > and how come atlas doens't wave to us anymore in local
[01:43:37] Tatiyanous > are we not friends anymore
(at this point local dropped drastically)
[01:43:42] Perseus Kallistratos > cya carebear queens
Apparently they had heard of my blog. They read the article where I emo'd about one roam with an FC I was less than pleased with and tried to generalize that as me complaining about every FC. It was quite amusing. I have to say, I missed some of the best lines but I think you get the idea. These are the same guys who took 15-20 ships and fleet warped them on top of us when we were camping their station last week. They popped my Zealot pilot because he wasn't aligned off. But in their recounting, that 1x kill was actually 2x kills and their numbers dwindled to 10... meh whatever gets the chest beating morale up I guess.
For the record, even after this lashing of tongues, I stand by my recommendation that when you are in local with many enemies, be ready for a response. Even if they are inexperienced carebears they can still form up a mutt gang and come after you. With superior numbers they can still hurt you. If you are camping a station you can't dock at and are in a larger ship with slower align time, stay full speed aligned. The frusterated hostiles will call it all kinds of names, but its only because they are angry they couldn't kill you :)
Now I'm sure not all Looney Toons are like that, but these guys were just epic in their attempted local smack. Forming up 30 people (which was about 1/2 of their alliance population that was online in the area) and chasing with a hodgepodge of random ships. Needless to say, we'll be back. They said IT Allliance always run, yet I don't think they've seen many fights up in carebear land. At all. So I'll skip them on the next corp roam and bring an Alliance Gang their way. With even numbers, cuz thats what they wanted... and I'm taking bets on them not engaging :)
After about 15 minutes, just as our Hurricane's aggro was wearing off (so he could log and not get probed) they all left local. When you have a 12 man enemy gang nearby you don't give up after 15 min. Weak sauce. You wait and set a trap.
Generally.
Scouted next system, Check.
Checked online status of their gang. Check.
So we logged everyone on and left. End of story.
We moved on into Venal. Missed a couple close belt tackles on a Tempest and a Drake. We moved into Deklein through 4U90. On our way there we caught an OWN Alliance Dominix in a belt ratting.
Down the Dominix went, along with his pod. We moved on through a couple heavily populated OWN systems, but no response other than POS'ed up battleships and mining ops. On to TXME and YAO we caught a Rifter, his pod, and another random capsule. Best line ever of the night was from Ceekey.
Rifter enters local.
Ceekey > Welcome
pop Rifter, holding pod for whoring
Ceekey > Have fun on your express trip back to the station.
Rifter pod pops
2 minutes later in local:
Random Own Alliance Guy > There is no station in this system.
LOL
After that, we had a couple near misses but no more kills. The roam ended up being quite a long one, due to our two logoffskis. Yet no losses (Looney Toons fail), which is always a good thing. At this point I needed to hit the sack, long work day today. Looking forward to more good times this evening.
That is all.
April 17, 2010
Baseball and Fireworks.
Last night I went to a home opener baseball game which had a wonderful fireworks show afterwards. The beautiful young lady I was with enjoyed the fireworks and I enjoyed her company.
Those fireworks, however, aren't what the title of this post is referring to. After finally getting home (traffic at 11pm was horrible due to quite a severe accident on the freeway, 3/5 lanes closed) I decided to log onto EVE for just a minute.
Yeah, I know. That doesn't happen.
First order of business was that apparently some dolt that had just joined corp (7 days in history) had been an idiot. Big time. See, about a week ago we picked up approximately 30 guys from Rage of Inferno. I have yet to fly with any of these pilots myself but so far my impression has been pretty bad. Firstly, we had one of them lose a deadspace and faction fit Ashimmu in Jita to Privateers. Embarassing was that he undocked during an active wardec in that crap. Second was that he lost it to Privateers. But that paled in comparison to what happened yesterday.
During an active op, another member of Rage (turned Maverick) decided to skip out of our Alliance Op and go roaming with neutral friends of his. This was pretty bad, but turned ugly when their gang engaged a blue gang. His name is on killmails for friendlies during an active Alliance Op. That he is roaming with neutrals instead of helping Corpmates and Alliance Members is unacceptable. That he killed blues while doing so is unforgiveable. So he was instantly kicked upon knowledge of these actions being relayed to Maverick Command. Apologies to those in Alliance and our Allies for this offensive behavior. It has been dealt with appropriately.
Yeah yeah ok on to the fireworks. So after discussing the idiot's actions Easley and I decided we were going to go on a duo roam in fast bcs. Why? Cuz the gate camp in Ec- was freaking fail. So we spend 20 minutes buying and fitting these battlecruisers (somewhat unorthodox fits I might add) and were ready to roll when FC IRC pinged and the word came down we had capitals in the open and were forming up to kill them.
OH HELL YEAH
I docked up grabbed my interceptor and burned from Torrinos to X-7 (my X-7 clone was killed in the cyno drop a few days ago). Switching out to an Apoc I cruised over to our POS and waited for Titan bridge. Word was a hostile Titan was in the open, as well as a Supercarrier and multiple capitals. The undock in X-7 was a traffic jam of friendly capitals hungry for a fight.
Immediately I started hitting Corp hard for participation. You would be amazed how many people got psyched when the word for Caps went out. Due to the lag we have been sitting on Caps more often than not (to avoid CCP fail losses). But not tonight.
First bridge went up and we bridged in. Caps appeared on field in large numbers. It was on.
Their Nyx and Avatar jumped out of system as our cyno went up. :(
Primaries were called, and the enemy Capitals started dying. Fast. With as many as we brought on field it was a turkey shoot. Yum yum yum. We had enough Dictors to keep all of their numbers bubbled. Down went 6 Carriers and 14 Dreadnaughts... ouch. Even more interesting is that after all the hostile Caps were bubbled and going down, the entire support fleet for NC warped in on our capital fleet. They were promtly bubbled and killed. All of them. Add another 44 kills of various types (from Frigates to Battleships).
Final battle report is here.
We lost a Dictor and a cyno Arazu. We had 18 Carriers, 71 Dreads, 8 Supercarriers and 3 Titans on field. I will post a couple screenshots this evening when I get home. For a very late USTZ and very early morning EUTZ we had excellent turnout and were able to deliver massive DPS. This is partly due to it being the weekend. For all those that whine about equal killboards, I totally agree. For those that claim one side or the other is deliberately skewing stats, go screw yourself. Neither NC nor SC intentionally does anything like that. Have some damn patience while everything syncs up.
I'm not claiming that this battle wins the war or even affects it in a huge manner. Certainly 36 bill in ISK is quite a bit to lose, but this is a long conflict and the NC coffers run deep. Over time battles like this coupled with loss of moon goo will take its toll. This battle will, however, give the forum warriors of Kugu (mainly retired and stagnant armchair generals who no longer matter) a bone to chew on for awhile. IT can chest beat for a few days, as we finally drop Caps on enemy Caps (and CCP didn't fail too epicly, but only 300 in system). The one thing I will say is that it was great for morale, which is very important. Morale is more powerful than taking moons, systems or stations. With it you can accomplish so much with so little. Without it the greatest fleets are doomed to failure. Whos tank of morale will run dry first.... only time will tell.
That is all.
Those fireworks, however, aren't what the title of this post is referring to. After finally getting home (traffic at 11pm was horrible due to quite a severe accident on the freeway, 3/5 lanes closed) I decided to log onto EVE for just a minute.
Yeah, I know. That doesn't happen.
First order of business was that apparently some dolt that had just joined corp (7 days in history) had been an idiot. Big time. See, about a week ago we picked up approximately 30 guys from Rage of Inferno. I have yet to fly with any of these pilots myself but so far my impression has been pretty bad. Firstly, we had one of them lose a deadspace and faction fit Ashimmu in Jita to Privateers. Embarassing was that he undocked during an active wardec in that crap. Second was that he lost it to Privateers. But that paled in comparison to what happened yesterday.
During an active op, another member of Rage (turned Maverick) decided to skip out of our Alliance Op and go roaming with neutral friends of his. This was pretty bad, but turned ugly when their gang engaged a blue gang. His name is on killmails for friendlies during an active Alliance Op. That he is roaming with neutrals instead of helping Corpmates and Alliance Members is unacceptable. That he killed blues while doing so is unforgiveable. So he was instantly kicked upon knowledge of these actions being relayed to Maverick Command. Apologies to those in Alliance and our Allies for this offensive behavior. It has been dealt with appropriately.
Yeah yeah ok on to the fireworks. So after discussing the idiot's actions Easley and I decided we were going to go on a duo roam in fast bcs. Why? Cuz the gate camp in Ec- was freaking fail. So we spend 20 minutes buying and fitting these battlecruisers (somewhat unorthodox fits I might add) and were ready to roll when FC IRC pinged and the word came down we had capitals in the open and were forming up to kill them.
OH HELL YEAH
I docked up grabbed my interceptor and burned from Torrinos to X-7 (my X-7 clone was killed in the cyno drop a few days ago). Switching out to an Apoc I cruised over to our POS and waited for Titan bridge. Word was a hostile Titan was in the open, as well as a Supercarrier and multiple capitals. The undock in X-7 was a traffic jam of friendly capitals hungry for a fight.
Immediately I started hitting Corp hard for participation. You would be amazed how many people got psyched when the word for Caps went out. Due to the lag we have been sitting on Caps more often than not (to avoid CCP fail losses). But not tonight.
First bridge went up and we bridged in. Caps appeared on field in large numbers. It was on.
Their Nyx and Avatar jumped out of system as our cyno went up. :(
Primaries were called, and the enemy Capitals started dying. Fast. With as many as we brought on field it was a turkey shoot. Yum yum yum. We had enough Dictors to keep all of their numbers bubbled. Down went 6 Carriers and 14 Dreadnaughts... ouch. Even more interesting is that after all the hostile Caps were bubbled and going down, the entire support fleet for NC warped in on our capital fleet. They were promtly bubbled and killed. All of them. Add another 44 kills of various types (from Frigates to Battleships).
Final battle report is here.
We lost a Dictor and a cyno Arazu. We had 18 Carriers, 71 Dreads, 8 Supercarriers and 3 Titans on field. I will post a couple screenshots this evening when I get home. For a very late USTZ and very early morning EUTZ we had excellent turnout and were able to deliver massive DPS. This is partly due to it being the weekend. For all those that whine about equal killboards, I totally agree. For those that claim one side or the other is deliberately skewing stats, go screw yourself. Neither NC nor SC intentionally does anything like that. Have some damn patience while everything syncs up.
I'm not claiming that this battle wins the war or even affects it in a huge manner. Certainly 36 bill in ISK is quite a bit to lose, but this is a long conflict and the NC coffers run deep. Over time battles like this coupled with loss of moon goo will take its toll. This battle will, however, give the forum warriors of Kugu (mainly retired and stagnant armchair generals who no longer matter) a bone to chew on for awhile. IT can chest beat for a few days, as we finally drop Caps on enemy Caps (and CCP didn't fail too epicly, but only 300 in system). The one thing I will say is that it was great for morale, which is very important. Morale is more powerful than taking moons, systems or stations. With it you can accomplish so much with so little. Without it the greatest fleets are doomed to failure. Whos tank of morale will run dry first.... only time will tell.
That is all.
April 16, 2010
A night of... no EVE? WTF?
Yeah the title says it. Last night was filled with taxes. I am the worst procrastinator. Ever. I bought TaxCut in January and still ended up filing taxes at 11:00pm last night. The good news is that I got them done succesfully, and am getting a nice big return. But I wasn't able to do much more than answer a few convos from people about random things during the evening hours. And I missed a really big birthday party. I'll be more proactive next time... uhh... yeah.
That being said, I did get in a little EVE time in the morning. hahaha yeah I know.
This 45 minute time on EVE (before work) was spent randomly messing around/probing around Torrinos. Until I found a Hulk way off the solar plane. I finished scanning him down and found him at a mission site mining an Omber asteroid. I bought a gank Geddon and proceeded to attempt a suicide on the Hulk... except the part where the 2 and 3rd shots from my mega pulse lasers were "barely scratched" and "lightly hits"... so the 2200 of damage I did wasn't enough. Four heat sinks... 20/20 hindsight and I probably should have put on one or two tracking computers. I thought 3k distance with web and scram would be enough but I was wrong. Oh well. I lost about 5 mill on the venture and scooped quite a bit of my own loot with an alt afterwards. Lesson learned. Next time I will be more succesful, and yes, there will be an next time. I'm still sitting at a +1.0 security status. Ugh.
That is all.
That being said, I did get in a little EVE time in the morning. hahaha yeah I know.
This 45 minute time on EVE (before work) was spent randomly messing around/probing around Torrinos. Until I found a Hulk way off the solar plane. I finished scanning him down and found him at a mission site mining an Omber asteroid. I bought a gank Geddon and proceeded to attempt a suicide on the Hulk... except the part where the 2 and 3rd shots from my mega pulse lasers were "barely scratched" and "lightly hits"... so the 2200 of damage I did wasn't enough. Four heat sinks... 20/20 hindsight and I probably should have put on one or two tracking computers. I thought 3k distance with web and scram would be enough but I was wrong. Oh well. I lost about 5 mill on the venture and scooped quite a bit of my own loot with an alt afterwards. Lesson learned. Next time I will be more succesful, and yes, there will be an next time. I'm still sitting at a +1.0 security status. Ugh.
That is all.
April 15, 2010
Success and Failure
Last night I took an alliance gang out with the prospect of a very boring or very exciting evening. Little did I know both would happen.
Our first order of business was to head through Tribute into Low Sec to help Atlas out. Ironic, isn't it? Despite the Maverick Navy's departure from Atlas and the political ramifications we are once again blue and working together with them. I don't mind this, as I still have many friends in Atlas.
So off we went, with a little over 40 in gang running BC heavy once more. Word on the street was NC had a fleet of around 100 with heavy BS composition... So my senses tingled with anticipation of a fight. We moved along at a quick pace, despite word of a neutral HAC gang behind us. I would have loved to halt and set up an ambush... but alas the timer on the Atlas tower was coming out and we needed to be there. So on we pushed.
Arriving in system we set up shop on the in gates and complemented Atlas' large battleship fleet. After 15 minutes I got word that it was very probable NC would not make an attempt on the tower. As sad as I was we wouldn't get a fight, I was happy that my guys wouldn't take any losses either.
We ended up popping a Sabre that jumped in from P3 (0.0 space) and getting a ratting Raven on our way out. The Sabre jumped in and when we aggressed he just.... sat there. As soon as he popped I was quick to yell at anyone with GCC to get off the gate... I'm sure some had forgotten we were in low sec. The Raven jumped into our last low sec system, and despite 40 in local he warped straight to the out gate. When he landed on gate he jumped straightaway... and so did we. He held cloak as long as possible and then died very quickly. On we went back to X-7 without event.
I took the opportunity to teach the people with no experience in low sec how it works. For those reading who are also noobs in low sec... here are some pointers.
1. If you are on a gate and can't tank gate guns don't shoot anything unless its flashy. If you do you will die very quickly.
2. Once you have engaged in aggression you have a Global Criminal Countdown (GCC). This means you show as flashy to everyone. Gate guns will shoot you. Station guns will shoot you. I will shoot you. You still have the 1 min aggro for gate travel, but after that you can still move from system to system. Remember that every time you get shot by a gate gun or station gun you reset the aggression timer to that faction, be it Amarr Navy or Civic Court or whatever. Your GCC will continue to decline. Remember that if you give reps to a GCC player, you will reset your GCC (or get GCC if you previously had none).
3. If you are in a small ship you can still kill non flashy targets on belts and such, just don't warp to a gate or dock at a station and hope to undock until your 15 minute GCC is gone and your aggression to the faction(s) is gone unless you want to lose your ship.
4. You will take a security status hit. One from aggressive actions, another for destruction or aid in the destruction of the ship. These aren't too bad in and of themselves. Remember, however, if you pod the guy (assuming hes dumb enough to leave his pod in space) the security status hit is much more significant.
0.5% loss per target for initiating aggression ( +-0.1 sec status)
2.0% loss for ship destruction (+-0.2 sec status)
12.5% loss for a pod kill (lose +-1.25 sec status)
5. Don't engage anyone in low sec without intel or a quick way to escape. I can't tell you how many people I've killed with my low sec gangs (YARRRRRR!) because they take the bait and get destroyed by a gang.
6. Usually the best course of action is to hit the target, in this case a Sabre, and then warp off gate to a planet or safe spot. Once there align to the gate and wait out your GCC. The reason for this is that although your GCC will wear off the aggression for the gate (Caldari Navy in last nights case) will continually be fifteen minutes... and trying to engage targets while tanking gate guns (especially another gang) is difficult at best.
7. Remember what your security status is at, and keep a close eye on it. Once you get low enough you will have travel penalties:
Players with -2.0 or worse will be attacked in 1.0 systems
Players with -2.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.9 systems
Players with -3.0 or worse will be attacked in 0.8 systems
Players with -3.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.7 systems
Players with -4.0 or worse will be attacked in 0.6 systems
Players with -4.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.5 systems
By attacked, it means faction police. If you are in a small enough ship you should be able to cruise through no problem. However, if you travel through CONCORD space (space that is CONCORD controlled) they will kick your ass. Remember that.
8. The player you kill will have kill rights on you for 30 days (or until they kill you). This means in high sec they have the right to kill you... I learned that lesson the hard way :)
So, enough of low sec. We returned to X-7 and after a short break head out to EC-. I fitted up an insanely tanked bait Drake to try and pick a fight with the usual cloaky fags in L-T. They didn't bite. So we moved on to EC-.
Once in EC- we all warped to the gate. As we were burning through the bubbles a Damnation warped to an off gate bookmark. As we burned him out, he warped to another. He then warped back to his original bookmark.. and then to the gate!!! We all started shooting at him...
Now I know what you are thinking. A. A great kill. B. Bait. The problem is that many of these NC pets warp command ships to the gates and such... but this time it was option B.
A Rapier decloaked 30km off and popped a cyno. "Deaggress and jump or warp off go go go!" I yelled. I was 12km off the gate and started slowboating it in... no mwd on bait ship. In bridged 70, about 60 battleships a few small ships and 4 carriers. They popped a couple blues not in gang on the gate and one of my Hurricane pilots. While he was going down I was yellow boxed. Knowing I was secondary I gritted my teeth and continued plodding towards the gate. Yellow boxes turned to red and in came the fire. I was doing quite well with my tanked Drake... up until fighters got on me. I ended up popping just under 3,500m from the gate. I was pissed. To add insult the lag was so bad I couldn't jump my pod through the gate... even though I was 2000m off. Second loss due to CCP fail this week. I did get my insurance so it wasn't all loss. I will still attack a command ship caught in bubbles, however. Why? Because there are more idiots than bait ships up where we are.
For those following or in the political situation up north, the spreading out factor is working. That 100 man NC gang decided to go reinforce towers in N-H in Pure Blind rather than engage the Atlas tower coming out. So... we buy a bit more strontium in USTZ and destroy their towers during EUTZ. They just don't have the participation in fleets to counter everywhere. Notice, I say participation and not numbers. This is because the amount of NC still carebearing/ratting/missioning is staggering. I don't believe the reality of the situation has yet sunk in. Only time will tell.
That is all.
Our first order of business was to head through Tribute into Low Sec to help Atlas out. Ironic, isn't it? Despite the Maverick Navy's departure from Atlas and the political ramifications we are once again blue and working together with them. I don't mind this, as I still have many friends in Atlas.
So off we went, with a little over 40 in gang running BC heavy once more. Word on the street was NC had a fleet of around 100 with heavy BS composition... So my senses tingled with anticipation of a fight. We moved along at a quick pace, despite word of a neutral HAC gang behind us. I would have loved to halt and set up an ambush... but alas the timer on the Atlas tower was coming out and we needed to be there. So on we pushed.
Arriving in system we set up shop on the in gates and complemented Atlas' large battleship fleet. After 15 minutes I got word that it was very probable NC would not make an attempt on the tower. As sad as I was we wouldn't get a fight, I was happy that my guys wouldn't take any losses either.
We ended up popping a Sabre that jumped in from P3 (0.0 space) and getting a ratting Raven on our way out. The Sabre jumped in and when we aggressed he just.... sat there. As soon as he popped I was quick to yell at anyone with GCC to get off the gate... I'm sure some had forgotten we were in low sec. The Raven jumped into our last low sec system, and despite 40 in local he warped straight to the out gate. When he landed on gate he jumped straightaway... and so did we. He held cloak as long as possible and then died very quickly. On we went back to X-7 without event.
I took the opportunity to teach the people with no experience in low sec how it works. For those reading who are also noobs in low sec... here are some pointers.
1. If you are on a gate and can't tank gate guns don't shoot anything unless its flashy. If you do you will die very quickly.
2. Once you have engaged in aggression you have a Global Criminal Countdown (GCC). This means you show as flashy to everyone. Gate guns will shoot you. Station guns will shoot you. I will shoot you. You still have the 1 min aggro for gate travel, but after that you can still move from system to system. Remember that every time you get shot by a gate gun or station gun you reset the aggression timer to that faction, be it Amarr Navy or Civic Court or whatever. Your GCC will continue to decline. Remember that if you give reps to a GCC player, you will reset your GCC (or get GCC if you previously had none).
3. If you are in a small ship you can still kill non flashy targets on belts and such, just don't warp to a gate or dock at a station and hope to undock until your 15 minute GCC is gone and your aggression to the faction(s) is gone unless you want to lose your ship.
4. You will take a security status hit. One from aggressive actions, another for destruction or aid in the destruction of the ship. These aren't too bad in and of themselves. Remember, however, if you pod the guy (assuming hes dumb enough to leave his pod in space) the security status hit is much more significant.
0.5% loss per target for initiating aggression ( +-0.1 sec status)
2.0% loss for ship destruction (+-0.2 sec status)
12.5% loss for a pod kill (lose +-1.25 sec status)
5. Don't engage anyone in low sec without intel or a quick way to escape. I can't tell you how many people I've killed with my low sec gangs (YARRRRRR!) because they take the bait and get destroyed by a gang.
6. Usually the best course of action is to hit the target, in this case a Sabre, and then warp off gate to a planet or safe spot. Once there align to the gate and wait out your GCC. The reason for this is that although your GCC will wear off the aggression for the gate (Caldari Navy in last nights case) will continually be fifteen minutes... and trying to engage targets while tanking gate guns (especially another gang) is difficult at best.
7. Remember what your security status is at, and keep a close eye on it. Once you get low enough you will have travel penalties:
Players with -2.0 or worse will be attacked in 1.0 systems
Players with -2.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.9 systems
Players with -3.0 or worse will be attacked in 0.8 systems
Players with -3.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.7 systems
Players with -4.0 or worse will be attacked in 0.6 systems
Players with -4.5 or worse will be attacked in 0.5 systems
By attacked, it means faction police. If you are in a small enough ship you should be able to cruise through no problem. However, if you travel through CONCORD space (space that is CONCORD controlled) they will kick your ass. Remember that.
8. The player you kill will have kill rights on you for 30 days (or until they kill you). This means in high sec they have the right to kill you... I learned that lesson the hard way :)
So, enough of low sec. We returned to X-7 and after a short break head out to EC-. I fitted up an insanely tanked bait Drake to try and pick a fight with the usual cloaky fags in L-T. They didn't bite. So we moved on to EC-.
Once in EC- we all warped to the gate. As we were burning through the bubbles a Damnation warped to an off gate bookmark. As we burned him out, he warped to another. He then warped back to his original bookmark.. and then to the gate!!! We all started shooting at him...
Now I know what you are thinking. A. A great kill. B. Bait. The problem is that many of these NC pets warp command ships to the gates and such... but this time it was option B.
A Rapier decloaked 30km off and popped a cyno. "Deaggress and jump or warp off go go go!" I yelled. I was 12km off the gate and started slowboating it in... no mwd on bait ship. In bridged 70, about 60 battleships a few small ships and 4 carriers. They popped a couple blues not in gang on the gate and one of my Hurricane pilots. While he was going down I was yellow boxed. Knowing I was secondary I gritted my teeth and continued plodding towards the gate. Yellow boxes turned to red and in came the fire. I was doing quite well with my tanked Drake... up until fighters got on me. I ended up popping just under 3,500m from the gate. I was pissed. To add insult the lag was so bad I couldn't jump my pod through the gate... even though I was 2000m off. Second loss due to CCP fail this week. I did get my insurance so it wasn't all loss. I will still attack a command ship caught in bubbles, however. Why? Because there are more idiots than bait ships up where we are.
For those following or in the political situation up north, the spreading out factor is working. That 100 man NC gang decided to go reinforce towers in N-H in Pure Blind rather than engage the Atlas tower coming out. So... we buy a bit more strontium in USTZ and destroy their towers during EUTZ. They just don't have the participation in fleets to counter everywhere. Notice, I say participation and not numbers. This is because the amount of NC still carebearing/ratting/missioning is staggering. I don't believe the reality of the situation has yet sunk in. Only time will tell.
That is all.
April 14, 2010
Making Tracks
Last night I felt an overwhelming desire to take a gang out. As I got home from work a fleet op was just finishing up. We got a fight with NC, killed some lost some and withdrew as their numbers grew to be far more than ours. We had a faster composition, and were able to move out quickly without being overtaken. This is becoming a theme for USTZ ops.
We left and headed up through ROIR, into Fade and then Deklein. It was pretty empty, so up we went to Venal. We ran into a bomber gang in Venal, but they came in through a different gate and had eyes on us instantly. Knowing they wouldn't fight we moved on. Into Tribute we went. In NJ4X we popped an Ares and an Ishtar. Unfortunately for me, I missed out on the Ishtar (DOTLAN) and had no chance of the Ares as I was in a Drake. But the gang got their first kills of the night, which was good considering we had gone some 30 jumps already.
We were just moving out when my scout reported in quite anxiously "Local spike W6VP uhmmm 10... 15.... 20... 30 I think!" The order had been for fleet to jump into IMK from NJ4X, and once in IMK to warp to the W6VP gate. Lucky for us only some had jumped and none had warped. "Fleet reapporach and re inter IMK warp NJ4X now go go go" was my order. Within 20 seconds fleet was all in NJ4X and moving quickly. Scanning DOTLAN I found a nice quiet constellation to move fleet to about 6j away in just a few minutes. My forward scout kept eyes on the hostile gang, and they only followed for a couple jumps before heading back home, which I assume was D7 or H-W. There was a brief moment when I considered engaging their gang, but my scout reported heavier BC composition. My fleet was lighter and quicker, making it unable to slug it out with theirs.
Enemy Fleet Screenshot:
After about ten minutes I felt the heat had passed and on we went. Our course took us back through Venal, moving very fast and stopping only for the occasional target. A few no goes until we hit paydirt.
Eyesu was scouting for me at the time when he reported Nighthawk on scan. We held fleet one out on the gate, and held our breath as we waited for the word. "Tackle on Nighthawk tackle on Nighthawk!!"
Everyone had him on watchlist already and in we went, warping to the Command Ship. "Call your points call your points!" he yelled. Apparently his Dramiel was taking quite the pounding and he warped off field as soon as we landed. I'm not usually a whore (ok yes I am) but this time I made sure our whole fleet was on the mail. The Nighthawk went poof.
Hold On...
It Gets Better...
In the belt this guy was at was... yeah you probably didn't guess it. An officer spawn. CHA CHING
No wonder he didn't warp out when he saw the Dramiel on scan. He was probably like biatch I can tank you this be my spawn. That was, until local spiked and he dropped a load in his shorts. Ahh, the spoils of war.
At this point my 1-2 hour roam was already past 2 hrs and it was time to head home. Our course took us into Deklein through the OWN Alliance constellation...
As we were about to enter Deklein BIGVIX, who was scouting, reported he had just cross jumped somebody. Not sure what it was, but we did get +1 in local. Our gang was landing on the gate and patiently we waited... DRAKE! Yeah, you know the drill. Pop. The unfortunate part of that kill was that he screamed to all his buddies in more expensive ships next door (around seven of them) and they were all POS'd up by the time the Drakes pod went poof. Now, one note. Please check the Drake mail out... I will link it again. DRAKE MAIL. FFS guys, this is an example of how NOT to fit a Drake. 400MM plate in the lows? 3 Shield rechargers? No LSEs whatsover? Bad bad bad.
For those that are just reading my blog for the first time, I have a special place in my heart for OWN Alliance. A bad special place. I first started EVE a year ago, and joined up with corpmembers I had played HW2 with for years. Somewhat relunctant, I was giving the two week trial a whirl. Within a few days I was in 0.0 in XENO Corp. which was in the pet alliance OWN. I learned fast (and died lots) until the time came upper leadership had a falling out and civil war between OWN and DE4IANT erupted. OWN got kicked to NPC Pure Blind where it rotted until the day XENO left. The rest of my story I can save for another day.
But yes, I said my hellos in local. Something along the lines of "Tell REDRUM PK and CrusaderXENO say hello". Nothing too confrontational... to which one of them responded "yeah I got on one of your capital kills last week". I laughed and asked him if he wanted a cookie. No response... and on we went to 2R- and YA0. Got a Jag kill in YA0... he aggressed BIGVIX on the gate and we jumped in and killed him. We also got a Rifter, Kestrel, and some other small things on the roam that aren't worth mentioning. By my tally 11 kills and no losses. A little on the short side for how long our roam was... but the Nighthawk/Officer Spawn kill made the night.
Things to remember: when you are fit for speed, use it. I was sorely tempted to take the fight but it would have ended badly. I used our speed and BAM we were gone. The faster you move the less chance there is of a response gang forming and catching you. Keep you scout relatively close in quick gangs. In larger, heavier gangs you need scout(s) further out, as it takes your gang more time to respond. Never ever assume the enemy is stupid. They may be, but you can't afford to be wrong. If the gang in Tribute had a bad FC or incompetent pilots I would have been able to kill them. But if I took that risk and they had good leadership or some good pilots, I would have lost my whole gang (almost). Better to live and fight another day. I mean, we pissed them off. That right there is worth it.
That is all.
We left and headed up through ROIR, into Fade and then Deklein. It was pretty empty, so up we went to Venal. We ran into a bomber gang in Venal, but they came in through a different gate and had eyes on us instantly. Knowing they wouldn't fight we moved on. Into Tribute we went. In NJ4X we popped an Ares and an Ishtar. Unfortunately for me, I missed out on the Ishtar (DOTLAN) and had no chance of the Ares as I was in a Drake. But the gang got their first kills of the night, which was good considering we had gone some 30 jumps already.
We were just moving out when my scout reported in quite anxiously "Local spike W6VP uhmmm 10... 15.... 20... 30 I think!" The order had been for fleet to jump into IMK from NJ4X, and once in IMK to warp to the W6VP gate. Lucky for us only some had jumped and none had warped. "Fleet reapporach and re inter IMK warp NJ4X now go go go" was my order. Within 20 seconds fleet was all in NJ4X and moving quickly. Scanning DOTLAN I found a nice quiet constellation to move fleet to about 6j away in just a few minutes. My forward scout kept eyes on the hostile gang, and they only followed for a couple jumps before heading back home, which I assume was D7 or H-W. There was a brief moment when I considered engaging their gang, but my scout reported heavier BC composition. My fleet was lighter and quicker, making it unable to slug it out with theirs.
Enemy Fleet Screenshot:
After about ten minutes I felt the heat had passed and on we went. Our course took us back through Venal, moving very fast and stopping only for the occasional target. A few no goes until we hit paydirt.
Eyesu was scouting for me at the time when he reported Nighthawk on scan. We held fleet one out on the gate, and held our breath as we waited for the word. "Tackle on Nighthawk tackle on Nighthawk!!"
Everyone had him on watchlist already and in we went, warping to the Command Ship. "Call your points call your points!" he yelled. Apparently his Dramiel was taking quite the pounding and he warped off field as soon as we landed. I'm not usually a whore (ok yes I am) but this time I made sure our whole fleet was on the mail. The Nighthawk went poof.
Hold On...
It Gets Better...
In the belt this guy was at was... yeah you probably didn't guess it. An officer spawn. CHA CHING
No wonder he didn't warp out when he saw the Dramiel on scan. He was probably like biatch I can tank you this be my spawn. That was, until local spiked and he dropped a load in his shorts. Ahh, the spoils of war.
At this point my 1-2 hour roam was already past 2 hrs and it was time to head home. Our course took us into Deklein through the OWN Alliance constellation...
As we were about to enter Deklein BIGVIX, who was scouting, reported he had just cross jumped somebody. Not sure what it was, but we did get +1 in local. Our gang was landing on the gate and patiently we waited... DRAKE! Yeah, you know the drill. Pop. The unfortunate part of that kill was that he screamed to all his buddies in more expensive ships next door (around seven of them) and they were all POS'd up by the time the Drakes pod went poof. Now, one note. Please check the Drake mail out... I will link it again. DRAKE MAIL. FFS guys, this is an example of how NOT to fit a Drake. 400MM plate in the lows? 3 Shield rechargers? No LSEs whatsover? Bad bad bad.
For those that are just reading my blog for the first time, I have a special place in my heart for OWN Alliance. A bad special place. I first started EVE a year ago, and joined up with corpmembers I had played HW2 with for years. Somewhat relunctant, I was giving the two week trial a whirl. Within a few days I was in 0.0 in XENO Corp. which was in the pet alliance OWN. I learned fast (and died lots) until the time came upper leadership had a falling out and civil war between OWN and DE4IANT erupted. OWN got kicked to NPC Pure Blind where it rotted until the day XENO left. The rest of my story I can save for another day.
But yes, I said my hellos in local. Something along the lines of "Tell REDRUM PK and CrusaderXENO say hello". Nothing too confrontational... to which one of them responded "yeah I got on one of your capital kills last week". I laughed and asked him if he wanted a cookie. No response... and on we went to 2R- and YA0. Got a Jag kill in YA0... he aggressed BIGVIX on the gate and we jumped in and killed him. We also got a Rifter, Kestrel, and some other small things on the roam that aren't worth mentioning. By my tally 11 kills and no losses. A little on the short side for how long our roam was... but the Nighthawk/Officer Spawn kill made the night.
Things to remember: when you are fit for speed, use it. I was sorely tempted to take the fight but it would have ended badly. I used our speed and BAM we were gone. The faster you move the less chance there is of a response gang forming and catching you. Keep you scout relatively close in quick gangs. In larger, heavier gangs you need scout(s) further out, as it takes your gang more time to respond. Never ever assume the enemy is stupid. They may be, but you can't afford to be wrong. If the gang in Tribute had a bad FC or incompetent pilots I would have been able to kill them. But if I took that risk and they had good leadership or some good pilots, I would have lost my whole gang (almost). Better to live and fight another day. I mean, we pissed them off. That right there is worth it.
That is all.
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