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.