Two nights ago, I was asked by Bitzan if I could lead an alliance rrbs op to hit a tower in a low sec system near our staging point in 6-C.
Checking the schedule, I realized I wouldn't be able to make it, due to school. I checked with Cardking and Easley, and Card was willing and able to take the fleet.
Yesterday while at work, I checked forums, and someone asked the question "what kind of bs". I simply replied "rrbs" and went back to work. In the 15 minute downtime I had at home after work and before class I logged onto IRC to find angry alliance directors. "We don't have RRBS!"
I simply replied thats what I had been told to FC, so I figured that was what was called for. I also mentioned how snipe bs in the day of BC/HAC with logistics was weak sauce. Not much time to say more than that and I went to school.
Hour and a half later and I come home from school to a mess. Card had taken the gang out in snipe bs (he didn't want to dissapoint alliance leadership) and Cry Havoc and shown up with an armor HAC gang and was stomping on the IT fleet. In large part due to not listening to orders (align points and warp outs) but its just so easy to probe down bs fleets these days.
The moment I had logged on he had opened a convo with me explaining how his gang was outmatched (although not outnumbered) and without probers he was getting slowly chewed up, and wanted to call it but was afraid a director wouldn't allow it. I just told him screw it, hes the fc. If he thinks things are bad, he takes it home. I also told him if they make him choose snipe bs, he should just refuse to take the gang out. Its his call.
Remember that.
Whether its a bad situation, or you aren't comfortable with FCing the kind of ships an op calls for... don't do it. Card can FC snipe bs... they were just a piss poor shiptype when thrown against a close range armor hac gang. Had this been in 0.0 one well placed bubble would have annihilated the fleet. Card was exremely frustrated at the situation (I would have been too). He asked on command if anyone else wanted to take the gang out, I decided to take it and give him a break.
We burned home and re shipped to shield bc with logistics. I refused to take out the gang with less than 5 scimitars. I got them. I also called for Drakes Drakes and more Drakes. Harbs were fine, Canes were fine, Brutix's... meh (we got one of those).
Why Drakes?
We were going back to shoot this pos. We were going to get a fight (obviously). Against armor HACs we were going to lose some ships. Key is... we kill an armor HAC they kill a Drake.... who loses more? Yup.
Drakes have great buffer and more importantly... for a T1 BC they have great resists. Balance between the two is key. Why is "the fist" so powerful? High resists mean incoming damage is light. They don't have the hugest of buffers, but they don't need them since incoming damage is minimal. The repping power of Guardians/Oneiros (or Scimitars/Basi) is still the same, but it goes a helluva lot further on a HAC/BC due to the high resists. Makes sense? So when I look at a Drake I see a cheap ship that can hang in there. High resists and good buffer for a fraction of the cost... and guess what else? That low sig radius from those armor hacs, which was keeping our bs from doing damage to them? Yeah, missiles don't care. They will hit hard, albeit taking 10-15 seconds flight time to do so. Also... for those that don't know... if a missile is fired BEFORE a ship enters the POS shields, it will follow the ship inside the pos and still do damage/kill.
Its a win win situation. We can tank about as good. Our weapons are hitting them. If we lose ships its 1/3-1/2 the isk loss.
So off we went.
I formed up fleet on titan, cyno'd into Bab (next door to target system of Hare). We hit Hare gate jumped and warped straight to POS. The Cry Havoc armor gang sat in the shields and didn't respond as our gang landed. We lit up the pos.
To be honest, POS bashing sucks. Only thing worse is shooting TCUs and Ihubs. With battlecruisers... it sucks even more. But with the potential for another fight with Cry Havoc it was a neccessary evil.
We shot the pos for a good 20 minutes, warping in and out every 5 minutes to keep Cry Havoc on their heels and screwing up any cloaked warp ins they were getting.
Then the Cry Havoc gang warped to a spot 300km or so off their pos. I got everyone ready...
and waited...
Cry Havoc sat there... and sat there. I didn't give two shits, as I was still shooting their pos.
They warped back into shields and that was that.
We continued business as usual... until about 15 minutes after that, as POS was hitting low shield. Cry Havoc gang warped out to a spot within range weapons range, and the fight started...
We engaged at moderate distances, 30-60km. With the gang bonuses the Cry Havoc fleet had Arazu's pointing at decent range... but our Scimmy repping power was awesome. Props to the Scimitar pilots. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, who broadcasted for reps got em. Despite the ability for most pilots to warp out, and the outstanding reps by our Scimitar pilots, we lost a few ships. Unacceptable, and I made sure they knew it. But the engagement ended with the Cry Havoc fleet disengaging, and leaving system shortly after.
Then the long, boring job of shooting a pos with battlecruisers continued. We had to rearm some of the missile boats, and I handed off fleet to Hom3grown, as I needed to hit the hot tub up with some friends... whom by this time were in my apartment staring at the EVE screens with blank expressions.
Props to Cry Havoc, who gave us a good fight, and made snipe bs look exactly as I think they function. Like shit.
Props to Cardking, who took out a snipe bs without really wanting too... and gave it a go. Despite the losses he took, he stayed calm and gave it his best. Card is an excellent FC, but much prefers smaller gang warfare (as do I, to be honest). I told him next time a situation looks bad, don't do it. Don't take gang out. Take gang home. If he gets flack, let him hand the reigns to someone else and let them suicide the fleet.
After a couple hours of relaxation to Bob Marley in the hot tub, I bid my friends farewell (and the one girl worth snagging a number from) and headed home. I was a bit tired, but logged on for a quick few and found a blue in intel clamoring about an Abaddon named Bait warping around F67E. Despite yelling for fleet for 5 minutes, Dienekes IV, Cjeff, Bigmajelpro and myself didn't get one... and the Abaddon got away by the time I jumped into system.
I got ready for bed when the same blue exclaimed "hes back in 8-8".
Almost in unison we exclaimed "TACKLE HIM". To our surprise he did... in his Nemesis
As I heard the shiptype I rolled my eyes, expecting the Abaddon to get away. To my surprise, he didn't, and in the IT randoms jumped and straight to the Abaddon. Within a short period of time his ships exploded... and his pod stuck around long enough to get locked and pointed (no bubble) as well. Checking out the Abaddon's fit I have no idea what his thought process was. Literally no clue. He safed on station when I was in local, but got ballsy with a non-IT in local... As for being bait... 0ok. His buddies were nowhere to be seen when he died.
Eyes droopy, I went to sleep. Sadly, when I closed my eyes all I could see was a big ass Amarr pos being shot by tons of battlecruisers... what a nightmare :)
That is all.
August 31, 2010
August 30, 2010
Ninja's Win Again
I also wanted to give a shout out to Paul Clavet, and his ninja buddies. They popped this ridiculous Paladin...
http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=11206514
Battleclinic puts it at just under 30 billion, but discussion and research puts it at closer to 40 billion, with all those officer fittings. Although Paul himself wasn't on the mail (maybe one of his alts?) it was Internet Jerks and Suddenly Ninjas that I recognized on the mail. Gets me thinking to the recent petitions pertaining to ninja activites.
With luck they got him without renewing the aggro timer and having CCP petitioned for a replacment. I still can't believe that bullshit... "I was dumb enough to shoot back and then forgot that aggro timer in the upper left corner please give me my ship back".
I mean, for real, they have stiffed me on much more sketch stuff in 0.0 that was their fault. To see someone petition in high sec with no lag or faulty game mechanics (did I mention large font aggression timers are hard to miss) makes my blood boil. How about you hold your fire instead of trying to swing your marauders proverbial ballsack around and let the ninjas go on about your business. The moment you take that potshot you asked for it (just reminding you, aggression timers are yellow or red and in the upper left hand corner of the screen, in case you didn't know). They can come back with any ship they want and unless you are in the habit of fitting a point on your missioning ship, they can engage and disengage at will. So if you don't like it, don't be a cheeky bastard and keep your guns off the ship. Petitioning afterwards makes you a whiny bitch.
That is all.
http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=11206514
Battleclinic puts it at just under 30 billion, but discussion and research puts it at closer to 40 billion, with all those officer fittings. Although Paul himself wasn't on the mail (maybe one of his alts?) it was Internet Jerks and Suddenly Ninjas that I recognized on the mail. Gets me thinking to the recent petitions pertaining to ninja activites.
With luck they got him without renewing the aggro timer and having CCP petitioned for a replacment. I still can't believe that bullshit... "I was dumb enough to shoot back and then forgot that aggro timer in the upper left corner please give me my ship back".
I mean, for real, they have stiffed me on much more sketch stuff in 0.0 that was their fault. To see someone petition in high sec with no lag or faulty game mechanics (did I mention large font aggression timers are hard to miss) makes my blood boil. How about you hold your fire instead of trying to swing your marauders proverbial ballsack around and let the ninjas go on about your business. The moment you take that potshot you asked for it (just reminding you, aggression timers are yellow or red and in the upper left hand corner of the screen, in case you didn't know). They can come back with any ship they want and unless you are in the habit of fitting a point on your missioning ship, they can engage and disengage at will. So if you don't like it, don't be a cheeky bastard and keep your guns off the ship. Petitioning afterwards makes you a whiny bitch.
That is all.
PS:
Theres a visual aid. No excuses.
EDIT: After reviewing the news and comments today, turns out they got the Paladin by suicide ganking him on a gate. Even more awesome.
"Im not an Alt. =) And this was no Ninja-Typical kill. We found this Paladin in his Mission, Ship-Scanned him and set up a suicide camp at a gate.
By Schmetterflug on Ninja's Win Again at 2:17 PM"
EDIT: After reviewing the news and comments today, turns out they got the Paladin by suicide ganking him on a gate. Even more awesome.
"Im not an Alt. =) And this was no Ninja-Typical kill. We found this Paladin in his Mission, Ship-Scanned him and set up a suicide camp at a gate.
By Schmetterflug on Ninja's Win Again at 2:17 PM"
Roams in Syndicate
Quite a bit yesterday in the land of EVE. First, I logged on in Syndicate and joined the gate camp from Reblier to 6-C. My intention was to work on homework while engaging in low brainpower PVP.
That lasted all of 5 minutes before someone dragged my name into fleet (making it that bold yellow color that grabs attention). It was followed by "you want to FC".
Whelp...
I turned on my headset and asked what was up. Apparently the guys (most of them at least) wanted to go hot drop something. So I put my schoolwork aside and formed a fleet.
At first we only got like 5 guys, but word spread quickly and soon enough, we had 25 guys sitting on Home's titan in 6-C, ready to go.
I was in my Dramiel, and MorbidAngel from Anzac was in an Onyx with the cyno fitted. We first headed down to TXW-. Didn't find anything... so I took our duo back towards 6-C and stopped by Pf-... which leads to Orvolle, a high sec system.
Low and behold, I found a Moa on the gate, and on a whim I jumped into Pf- from FD-. I made sure the Onyx was in warp to the gate when I jumped, making the Dramiel scouting Onyx gig complete. Sure enough, about 15-20 hostiles on the other side.
"Morbid, when you hit the gate jump asap". I held my cloak, but I didn't trust the reapproach jump gig after losing my Sabre a few days ago. Composition was mainly T1 Cruisers, with a couple battlecruisers and HACs mixed in. Onyx jumped in, bubbled up and popped cyno. I reapproached and jumped out, to avoid death and tackle anyone coming through into FD- to avoid death from us.
All those itchy toons waiting in 6-C right clicked titan and jumped...
Moa on the other side, I tackled and started shooting... but a Hurricane warped in 200 off the gate, and I decided to burn off, as Canes with 425's can hurt me, albeit slowly but surely, and I wasn't sure how the Moa was fit.
Listening to comms, I heard primaries called and a Deimos and Devoter went down. The rest of the camp had scattered the moment the cyno went up. I had started burning out the Hurricane (keeping a decent transversal in case he was arty fit) when a Prophecy came into FD- that he de aggressed. I was too far away to burn back quickly, but not far enough to warp, and the Prophecy warped off as I was landing on gate. A little more warning and I would have been waiting for him, and +1 BC kill. But all in all, we got the two most expensive kills to be had. Even though I got none, the gang was succesful and thats what matters. I kicked myself over the Prophecy getting away, but you can't win them all.
We roamed back towards 6-C, where Buxaroo of RKK had asked me to lead a gang to kill an Evoke POS. He had a family emergency come up and would be unable to take it out. So I got the details, CIS- system, Minmitar large, no guns reported as of 1 hr ago, etc. Bux had called for Drakes (because he "wasn't great at FCing" and didn't want to get a gang of expensive ships killed). Looking at the numbers in fleet, I decided Drakes would take forever and called for close range BS. We formed up on titan and off we went.
20/20 hindsight, I should have double checked gang composition. At first formup I had guardians, scimitars and seemed good to go.
What bridged in, however, was a lone Scimitar. Fail.
But this was an unarmed POS, so off we went. We were only able to bridge in 4 jumps from target system, so we moved the 4 jumps manually and entered targets system. I gave fleet their warp in, only one Evoke in system.
Unfortunately, full set up of medium artillery was online. No ECM (points, webs, neuts, etc.) though, so I decided to give it a go. It was slow but steady until a Drake warped into the POS and manned the guns. Never underestimate the value of a POS gunner. A POS, unmanned, is inherently stupid. Those guns are pretty deadly when manually told who to shoot though, as they don't cycle.
Within a very short period of time, only half of my gang was on the POS due to needing reps. Conferring on channel command, I decided that this was not a good situation. 4 more hostiles had entered system (3 in Drakes, 1 in an Onyx), and were creeping towards the bottom of the POS where we had been hitting the artillery.
So I called it.
Off we went towards home, which took us several jumps through a pipe. CIS- was at the very end of a dead end constellation, and looking at DOTLAN my sixth sense tingled. The hostiles followed, and one of them stayed up at the front, in a cov ops.
Sixth sense was literally on fire at this point. Next system had a neut in it, anticipating cloaked dictor and a cyno from the cov ops, I sent in scimi and Caldari ships only. Getting nothing after 20 seconds and with the report of the Drakes and Onyx landing on gate I had fleet come in. Hostiles jumped with, and I reacted quickly.
"Fleet jump in jump in, align sun spank MWDs GO GO GO". My fleet aligned and started burning as the Drakes and Onyx decloaked. Vampiress, and ex-MVN with authority (daddy) issues was in the Onyx and bubbled immediately. Unfortunately he was off from our gang and bubbled 2-3 battleships which promptly burned out. Only one Drake was within reasonable point range, I primaried him immediately and had all DPS on him.
I think this confused the enemy gang a bit, as the Drake popped I had everyone warp planet 1 at 100km. As we were warping I saw only 2 ships tackled on the gate (by the Drakes). As gang was in warp, I instructed them to warp to Planet 4 at 100km. At this point I was sitting in a safe, and the order was to warp to PK at 10km. We lost two battleships on the gate, and a third was tackled at Planet 1. Not sure if he was just slow or got unlucky. Given that there were 79 hostiles on our bs killmails... I'm quite happy with the results. Whether it was Soho Torres (DOOM) or another FC, they failed hard. As did Vampiress in his Onyx. One cycle of MWD towards the gate before bubbling up and it would have made it harder to disengage.
Later communication revealed that one of the Drakes had tackled one of our Scimitars; a poor decision given that the Scimitar was probably the fastest ship on the field, and he was able to escape easily.
We bounced safes, and scouted a couple jumps ahead. Having flown with many of the guys we were now shooting at (such as Doom, Evoke, and DT), I knew there was no way they had just given up, even though they had exited system and it looked to be "all clear".
Conferring with MVN Command we decided to evacuate unconventionally. Light-year wise, 6-C was close. Gate wise, we had a long ways to go with very little intel, except for a 20 man Cry Havoc gate camp. We got a couple carriers fitted for max cap transfer and brought in Psycho's titan two jumps from our safed up fleet. Watching local we moved the gang out as the titan was capping up with the help from the two carriers. Burning the two jumps, with an enemy scout 1 jump behind, we had gang jump and warp to titan. We bridged all but one Pilgrim (who was fine) and one battleship out (not sure why he was slow but he was way behind gang). With enemy scout in system, there was no time for a second bridge, and titan + carriers jumped back to 6-C.
The battleship tried to go home by himself... which was a bad idea. Syndicate is like the North's Curse... a free for all with camps and random gangs. He died instead of waiting to be scouted home. I take responsiblity for the 3 bs lost when we were hot dropped, and given the circumstances was quite happy thats all we lost. Major props to Homegrown, Psychogroupie (titan pilots) and Exoduss (cyno pilot) as well as Cardking (other cyno pilot). It was a pro evacuation, risky but worth it.
I took out a small, assult frig/interceptor/dramiel/dictor gang afterwords, and managed a Cyclone kill. Bounced him into the gang, who promptly killed him. Tackled a Geddon as well (as Cyclone was dying) but the Geddon was stabbed and off he went. We played around with some neutrals on the Orvolle gate in Pf-, but for too long and with no results. Another POS gang was going up, so I brought the roam back to 6-C and worked on homework.
I wanted to take that fast moving gang to Cloud Ring but time just ran away, so hopefully more good fights tonight. POS roam didn't sound all that engaging, and I had homework to do (that I had tried to start 5 hours before) so I called it a night and hit the books.
That is all.
That lasted all of 5 minutes before someone dragged my name into fleet (making it that bold yellow color that grabs attention). It was followed by "you want to FC".
Whelp...
I turned on my headset and asked what was up. Apparently the guys (most of them at least) wanted to go hot drop something. So I put my schoolwork aside and formed a fleet.
At first we only got like 5 guys, but word spread quickly and soon enough, we had 25 guys sitting on Home's titan in 6-C, ready to go.
I was in my Dramiel, and MorbidAngel from Anzac was in an Onyx with the cyno fitted. We first headed down to TXW-. Didn't find anything... so I took our duo back towards 6-C and stopped by Pf-... which leads to Orvolle, a high sec system.
Low and behold, I found a Moa on the gate, and on a whim I jumped into Pf- from FD-. I made sure the Onyx was in warp to the gate when I jumped, making the Dramiel scouting Onyx gig complete. Sure enough, about 15-20 hostiles on the other side.
"Morbid, when you hit the gate jump asap". I held my cloak, but I didn't trust the reapproach jump gig after losing my Sabre a few days ago. Composition was mainly T1 Cruisers, with a couple battlecruisers and HACs mixed in. Onyx jumped in, bubbled up and popped cyno. I reapproached and jumped out, to avoid death and tackle anyone coming through into FD- to avoid death from us.
All those itchy toons waiting in 6-C right clicked titan and jumped...
Moa on the other side, I tackled and started shooting... but a Hurricane warped in 200 off the gate, and I decided to burn off, as Canes with 425's can hurt me, albeit slowly but surely, and I wasn't sure how the Moa was fit.
Listening to comms, I heard primaries called and a Deimos and Devoter went down. The rest of the camp had scattered the moment the cyno went up. I had started burning out the Hurricane (keeping a decent transversal in case he was arty fit) when a Prophecy came into FD- that he de aggressed. I was too far away to burn back quickly, but not far enough to warp, and the Prophecy warped off as I was landing on gate. A little more warning and I would have been waiting for him, and +1 BC kill. But all in all, we got the two most expensive kills to be had. Even though I got none, the gang was succesful and thats what matters. I kicked myself over the Prophecy getting away, but you can't win them all.
We roamed back towards 6-C, where Buxaroo of RKK had asked me to lead a gang to kill an Evoke POS. He had a family emergency come up and would be unable to take it out. So I got the details, CIS- system, Minmitar large, no guns reported as of 1 hr ago, etc. Bux had called for Drakes (because he "wasn't great at FCing" and didn't want to get a gang of expensive ships killed). Looking at the numbers in fleet, I decided Drakes would take forever and called for close range BS. We formed up on titan and off we went.
20/20 hindsight, I should have double checked gang composition. At first formup I had guardians, scimitars and seemed good to go.
What bridged in, however, was a lone Scimitar. Fail.
But this was an unarmed POS, so off we went. We were only able to bridge in 4 jumps from target system, so we moved the 4 jumps manually and entered targets system. I gave fleet their warp in, only one Evoke in system.
Unfortunately, full set up of medium artillery was online. No ECM (points, webs, neuts, etc.) though, so I decided to give it a go. It was slow but steady until a Drake warped into the POS and manned the guns. Never underestimate the value of a POS gunner. A POS, unmanned, is inherently stupid. Those guns are pretty deadly when manually told who to shoot though, as they don't cycle.
Within a very short period of time, only half of my gang was on the POS due to needing reps. Conferring on channel command, I decided that this was not a good situation. 4 more hostiles had entered system (3 in Drakes, 1 in an Onyx), and were creeping towards the bottom of the POS where we had been hitting the artillery.
So I called it.
Off we went towards home, which took us several jumps through a pipe. CIS- was at the very end of a dead end constellation, and looking at DOTLAN my sixth sense tingled. The hostiles followed, and one of them stayed up at the front, in a cov ops.
Sixth sense was literally on fire at this point. Next system had a neut in it, anticipating cloaked dictor and a cyno from the cov ops, I sent in scimi and Caldari ships only. Getting nothing after 20 seconds and with the report of the Drakes and Onyx landing on gate I had fleet come in. Hostiles jumped with, and I reacted quickly.
"Fleet jump in jump in, align sun spank MWDs GO GO GO". My fleet aligned and started burning as the Drakes and Onyx decloaked. Vampiress, and ex-MVN with authority (daddy) issues was in the Onyx and bubbled immediately. Unfortunately he was off from our gang and bubbled 2-3 battleships which promptly burned out. Only one Drake was within reasonable point range, I primaried him immediately and had all DPS on him.
I think this confused the enemy gang a bit, as the Drake popped I had everyone warp planet 1 at 100km. As we were warping I saw only 2 ships tackled on the gate (by the Drakes). As gang was in warp, I instructed them to warp to Planet 4 at 100km. At this point I was sitting in a safe, and the order was to warp to PK at 10km. We lost two battleships on the gate, and a third was tackled at Planet 1. Not sure if he was just slow or got unlucky. Given that there were 79 hostiles on our bs killmails... I'm quite happy with the results. Whether it was Soho Torres (DOOM) or another FC, they failed hard. As did Vampiress in his Onyx. One cycle of MWD towards the gate before bubbling up and it would have made it harder to disengage.
Later communication revealed that one of the Drakes had tackled one of our Scimitars; a poor decision given that the Scimitar was probably the fastest ship on the field, and he was able to escape easily.
We bounced safes, and scouted a couple jumps ahead. Having flown with many of the guys we were now shooting at (such as Doom, Evoke, and DT), I knew there was no way they had just given up, even though they had exited system and it looked to be "all clear".
Conferring with MVN Command we decided to evacuate unconventionally. Light-year wise, 6-C was close. Gate wise, we had a long ways to go with very little intel, except for a 20 man Cry Havoc gate camp. We got a couple carriers fitted for max cap transfer and brought in Psycho's titan two jumps from our safed up fleet. Watching local we moved the gang out as the titan was capping up with the help from the two carriers. Burning the two jumps, with an enemy scout 1 jump behind, we had gang jump and warp to titan. We bridged all but one Pilgrim (who was fine) and one battleship out (not sure why he was slow but he was way behind gang). With enemy scout in system, there was no time for a second bridge, and titan + carriers jumped back to 6-C.
The battleship tried to go home by himself... which was a bad idea. Syndicate is like the North's Curse... a free for all with camps and random gangs. He died instead of waiting to be scouted home. I take responsiblity for the 3 bs lost when we were hot dropped, and given the circumstances was quite happy thats all we lost. Major props to Homegrown, Psychogroupie (titan pilots) and Exoduss (cyno pilot) as well as Cardking (other cyno pilot). It was a pro evacuation, risky but worth it.
I took out a small, assult frig/interceptor/dramiel/dictor gang afterwords, and managed a Cyclone kill. Bounced him into the gang, who promptly killed him. Tackled a Geddon as well (as Cyclone was dying) but the Geddon was stabbed and off he went. We played around with some neutrals on the Orvolle gate in Pf-, but for too long and with no results. Another POS gang was going up, so I brought the roam back to 6-C and worked on homework.
I wanted to take that fast moving gang to Cloud Ring but time just ran away, so hopefully more good fights tonight. POS roam didn't sound all that engaging, and I had homework to do (that I had tried to start 5 hours before) so I called it a night and hit the books.
That is all.
August 27, 2010
On the Brighter Side...
after my Sabre died last night, I yelled for the hictor to come through and bubble em (as my bubble launcher just didn't function along with everything else).
Didn't really see what happened, but the aggro combined with bubbles meant my Sabre was avenged in proper fashion,
I just didn't get on any of those mails :(
http://www.killboard.it/?a=kill_related&kll_id=197128
Easley was actually alive for the fight
http://couldhavetakenitsolo.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/gfs-to-be-had-in-new-providence/
That is all.
Didn't really see what happened, but the aggro combined with bubbles meant my Sabre was avenged in proper fashion,
I just didn't get on any of those mails :(
http://www.killboard.it/?a=kill_related&kll_id=197128
Easley was actually alive for the fight
http://couldhavetakenitsolo.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/gfs-to-be-had-in-new-providence/
That is all.
Thanks CCP
Tonight CardKing took a roam to Providence. I was scout.
After 2 hrs of roaming with no fights or kills, we found a bs gang.
I jumped through into them, (They were at 0, aligning off), waited session timer and reapproached.
Lag (with 14 in system) didnt' allow me to A. Drop bubble B. Jump through C. Warp my pod out after dying(no bubbles were present)
I love spending 2 hrs to lose my ship and miss the fight.
My internet, you say?
Fiber optic. 30 mbps down, 10 up.
Thanks CCP, I love you to.
After 2 hrs of roaming with no fights or kills, we found a bs gang.
I jumped through into them, (They were at 0, aligning off), waited session timer and reapproached.
Lag (with 14 in system) didnt' allow me to A. Drop bubble B. Jump through C. Warp my pod out after dying(no bubbles were present)
I love spending 2 hrs to lose my ship and miss the fight.
My internet, you say?
Fiber optic. 30 mbps down, 10 up.
Thanks CCP, I love you to.
August 26, 2010
If you like combat reports...
If you like combat reports, check out this one from Easley Thames. Him and CardKing took out a gang last night (I was at school and riding). They had some good times.
That is all.
That is all.
August 25, 2010
Vacation and School and EVE
Back from my vacation, start school this week. Life is busy, but I manage to find time to hop in EVE none the less.
A few days ago I took out a roam into Catch. With the -A- situation not looking too good, I figured I would see what kind of skirmishes/evacs we could find and kill. We moved into Catch from 49-U and couldn't find any targets...
We went out with mainly assault frigates, along with a couple dictors. I was scouting in my Dramiel, and as I jumped into Q-U and started warping out gate (calling gang in as I did so) the neut in system (who was in Raven) decided to land on our in gate as I was jumping gang into system.
"If you haven't jumped DON'T" I yelled over comms. "Reapproach if you have, Raven jumping throught right now".
I smiled when I heard "I got him" from one of the gang. This quickly turned to anger when I heard "Oh shit, how did he get away".
Fail.
After consulting our pilot, he said didn't bother to point him because he thought the Raven was out of range. I asked him how far he was... 20km. Well what about that warp disruptor he had on?
"It only has 10km range though".
WTFAIL
The gang quickly spoke up in various forms of "Thats a scram dude. Disruptor is 24km you fail thanks for letting the Raven go".
So glumly we pushed on. I jumped into next system, one neut in local. Fleet was holding in EX6 on the HY- gate, as I hit my scan while holding cloak. Too my surprise the neut landed on grid with me, at 0 on the EX6 gate.
In a Tengu!
"Fleet, Tengu landed on gate, I'm gonna push him through. Bubbles up when he appears, burn for declaok tactical overlays up!"
I broak cloak on my Dramiel and burned right at him, I didn't even get a chance to lock him up before he jumped. Into my gang.
I waited for the "he cloaked, didn't get him" interdiction nullifier crap. To my surprise, Easley called out web and point, followed by the majority of the gang. My excitement grew as his attempts to reapproach were completely failing due to multiple webs (good thing about an assult frig gang, no shortage of tackle/webs). I used my Dramiel's 6.1K speed to bump him 25km off gate.
We kept shooting, but I got a bit nervous when, after 2-3 minutes, he was out repping our DPS (wtb another bomber, and Homegrown in his Manticore failed for not having a target painter :-)). We kept on plugging, and eventually, he passed point of peak recharge and started feathering his shield booster. We started overheating, and he leaked armor. Then, all of a sudden, he just went boom. We dropped a bubble for his pod and thanked him in local.
I was extremely curious as to his fit, as his tank was quite good, and the DPS he put out was pretty damaging. Without Agro in his Falcon it would have been hard, maybe even impossible to take him down. He would have forced our AFs off field one at a time, making them spend valuable time warping in and out. With our obvious DPS difficulties he might have perma tanked until friends came to help. ECM = Win.
So, the Tengu fit... as I suspected he had accelerated ejection bay. No covert ops config; explained the heavy punch he was delivering. No interdiction nullifer of course... and, yeah. Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster. Just under a billion in Jita. Explained the insane repping. 2x Caldari navy BCU also dropped...
Needless to say we were happy, and the loot will be split among all those in gang.
The rest of the night proved somewhat uneventful. The plan was to head into Curse, which was halted a few jumps in by an Outbreak gate camp. I thought about either breaking through it or engaging... but I have learned to assume Outbreak has more. Ziggy Stardust and company are quite adept at PVP, and by that I mean they don't take fights they can't win and the fit their ships ridiculously expensive, yet effectively.
They also use out of corp toons frequently, as bait or repping or extra DPS. So while there may be 3 Outbreak in local-don't count out those other random neutrals. I learned that the hard way last week.
So instead of risking my gang and the 1.2 billion of loot we had with us, we turned around and headed home. Whining in fleet about the time of night also contributed to this decision. I was more than happy with that T3 kill, so off we went and returned home without incident.
Last night we had a black ops roam led by Homegrown. I was able to hop on and participate. We circumnavigated a Cry Havoc BC/Logi fleet and headed into Cloud Ring. Unforunately for us, we weren't able to find any targets. I wasn't scout or FC for this op, which was nice for a change. I also spent half the roam on the phone :-) I don't recommend doing that unless you're in a cloaky and you know your FC won't yell at you for it...
Will continue to write the stories as they happen. Being back at work is not the most fun, but it does give me time to write. School started today, however, and I do need to buckle down on studies as I start hitting the upper level classes for my major...
Riding has slowed down a bit, as a dear friend of mine was involved in a motorcycle accident. The gist was, at high RPMs he hit debris in the road, resulting in a twist on the throttle. Not prepared for the sudden acceleration he lost control of the bike and layed it down. He was fine, and had almost stopped rolling when an inattentive member of our gang (that we didn't really know, he just kind of tagged along) ran over his leg with his Honda CBR1000. My friend's leg was broken in 5 places with exposed bone, an injury which was complicated when the EMT in the ambulance allowed his foot to twist 180 degrees backwords on the way to the hospital. That destroyed muscle tissue as well as tendons/ligaments. He did have surgery, however, and is now at home with lots of drugs and a 6 month recovery time. A bit of an eye-opener, a friendly reminder that I am not invincible despite the adrenaline screaming in my head to the contrary.
That is all.
A few days ago I took out a roam into Catch. With the -A- situation not looking too good, I figured I would see what kind of skirmishes/evacs we could find and kill. We moved into Catch from 49-U and couldn't find any targets...
We went out with mainly assault frigates, along with a couple dictors. I was scouting in my Dramiel, and as I jumped into Q-U and started warping out gate (calling gang in as I did so) the neut in system (who was in Raven) decided to land on our in gate as I was jumping gang into system.
"If you haven't jumped DON'T" I yelled over comms. "Reapproach if you have, Raven jumping throught right now".
I smiled when I heard "I got him" from one of the gang. This quickly turned to anger when I heard "Oh shit, how did he get away".
Fail.
After consulting our pilot, he said didn't bother to point him because he thought the Raven was out of range. I asked him how far he was... 20km. Well what about that warp disruptor he had on?
"It only has 10km range though".
WTFAIL
The gang quickly spoke up in various forms of "Thats a scram dude. Disruptor is 24km you fail thanks for letting the Raven go".
So glumly we pushed on. I jumped into next system, one neut in local. Fleet was holding in EX6 on the HY- gate, as I hit my scan while holding cloak. Too my surprise the neut landed on grid with me, at 0 on the EX6 gate.
In a Tengu!
"Fleet, Tengu landed on gate, I'm gonna push him through. Bubbles up when he appears, burn for declaok tactical overlays up!"
I broak cloak on my Dramiel and burned right at him, I didn't even get a chance to lock him up before he jumped. Into my gang.
I waited for the "he cloaked, didn't get him" interdiction nullifier crap. To my surprise, Easley called out web and point, followed by the majority of the gang. My excitement grew as his attempts to reapproach were completely failing due to multiple webs (good thing about an assult frig gang, no shortage of tackle/webs). I used my Dramiel's 6.1K speed to bump him 25km off gate.
We kept shooting, but I got a bit nervous when, after 2-3 minutes, he was out repping our DPS (wtb another bomber, and Homegrown in his Manticore failed for not having a target painter :-)). We kept on plugging, and eventually, he passed point of peak recharge and started feathering his shield booster. We started overheating, and he leaked armor. Then, all of a sudden, he just went boom. We dropped a bubble for his pod and thanked him in local.
I was extremely curious as to his fit, as his tank was quite good, and the DPS he put out was pretty damaging. Without Agro in his Falcon it would have been hard, maybe even impossible to take him down. He would have forced our AFs off field one at a time, making them spend valuable time warping in and out. With our obvious DPS difficulties he might have perma tanked until friends came to help. ECM = Win.
So, the Tengu fit... as I suspected he had accelerated ejection bay. No covert ops config; explained the heavy punch he was delivering. No interdiction nullifer of course... and, yeah. Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster. Just under a billion in Jita. Explained the insane repping. 2x Caldari navy BCU also dropped...
Needless to say we were happy, and the loot will be split among all those in gang.
The rest of the night proved somewhat uneventful. The plan was to head into Curse, which was halted a few jumps in by an Outbreak gate camp. I thought about either breaking through it or engaging... but I have learned to assume Outbreak has more. Ziggy Stardust and company are quite adept at PVP, and by that I mean they don't take fights they can't win and the fit their ships ridiculously expensive, yet effectively.
They also use out of corp toons frequently, as bait or repping or extra DPS. So while there may be 3 Outbreak in local-don't count out those other random neutrals. I learned that the hard way last week.
So instead of risking my gang and the 1.2 billion of loot we had with us, we turned around and headed home. Whining in fleet about the time of night also contributed to this decision. I was more than happy with that T3 kill, so off we went and returned home without incident.
Last night we had a black ops roam led by Homegrown. I was able to hop on and participate. We circumnavigated a Cry Havoc BC/Logi fleet and headed into Cloud Ring. Unforunately for us, we weren't able to find any targets. I wasn't scout or FC for this op, which was nice for a change. I also spent half the roam on the phone :-) I don't recommend doing that unless you're in a cloaky and you know your FC won't yell at you for it...
Will continue to write the stories as they happen. Being back at work is not the most fun, but it does give me time to write. School started today, however, and I do need to buckle down on studies as I start hitting the upper level classes for my major...
Riding has slowed down a bit, as a dear friend of mine was involved in a motorcycle accident. The gist was, at high RPMs he hit debris in the road, resulting in a twist on the throttle. Not prepared for the sudden acceleration he lost control of the bike and layed it down. He was fine, and had almost stopped rolling when an inattentive member of our gang (that we didn't really know, he just kind of tagged along) ran over his leg with his Honda CBR1000. My friend's leg was broken in 5 places with exposed bone, an injury which was complicated when the EMT in the ambulance allowed his foot to twist 180 degrees backwords on the way to the hospital. That destroyed muscle tissue as well as tendons/ligaments. He did have surgery, however, and is now at home with lots of drugs and a 6 month recovery time. A bit of an eye-opener, a friendly reminder that I am not invincible despite the adrenaline screaming in my head to the contrary.
That is all.
August 20, 2010
Decorating our Station
Somebody decided to spruce up 5-Casa de Maverick station, in typical -MVN- style:
Hot Drops Gate Camps and Roams
The past few days have seen quite a bit of action. Unfortunately for me, I have been on vacation... which leaves me with a tethered iPhone and a laptop. This internet connection is decent... but leaves me with unexpected disconnects and lag... costing me a Dramiel this morning.
So, to pick up where I left off... On the 18th, we hot dropped a pos repping operation in Great Wildlands. R-ESG0. Battle report here. Basically, we popped a cyno right in the middle of their repping operation and tackled what we could. We had one Thanatos get away in low armor.. but the two Nids got popped and several battleships and other support went down. Eventually they got smart and got inside the POS shields as we reinforced it. After POS was reinforced, caps jumped out and we went home.
A couple days ago we relocated our PVP wing to Curse for pew pew. So far its been a mixed experience. I just started fly Sabres and have lost 2 in the last 4 days... not a great record. First one was suicide bubbling for a gang jumping into a gate camp... except the gay was recons and bombers and got owned. I couldn't figure out why they thought they could take that fight. Second was lack of situational awareness. I got a shuttle in a drag bubble in RMOC-, bubbled and killed. A Rupture that had been trying to kill me for the past hour, however, warped in on me at the same time and this time he fit a scram instead of a normal point. Without my MWD and stuck in my own bubble my Sabre went kaboom.
Then there was the gang that failed...
Last night I took a shield bc gang out with Scimmies. We went around Curse and into Catch. In GE- I warped to station with Jack Rockwell and killed a Manticore undocking. For some reason he didn't wait session timer and dock. He yellow boxed me, so I killed him with my Dramiel. I brought gang in, and they popped a Crow who moved early on undock. Other than that... pretty tame. we went through En Garde's constellation without a peep... and started towards Jamunda when I noticed local spiking in ZXIC-. I was in my Dramiel... and 20/20 hindsight says that with larger gangs I should be in cloaky with gang (following my own advice).
Anyways, about 10 En Garde are in local, appearing all around the gate. I called dictors in and had them initiate warp to the gate with instructions to bubble jump. I get put into low armor with a one volley from one of the Zealots and jump through in low armor.
Thats when I saw the rest of their gang, another 8 in F4R2. Still doable, but a tougher fight. With logistics I figure, hey, we can do this. Especially with some of those guys in F4R2 shooting at me, which means they would be unable to join the fight.
"Jump jump jump, warp to F4R2 gate, someone call primaries".
I was still drawing fire from some of their gang members... and would keep doing so to keep them split. But no one responded on comms. They started landing on the En Garde gang, and I raised my voice.
"Someone call targets dammit, NOW!"
Homegrown responded immediately... called a Harbinger primary. That lasted all of 3 seconds and then "I'm dead, someone else call".
So somebody (I honestly don't know who) called targets. Problem was, they switched to a different Harbinger.
Epic Fail.
So the entire gang has to lock up a new target and start from scratch. So at this point we have wasted time while someone got the balls to call targets. Then we have the idiocracy that is calling a new primary when the first isn't dead (and that Harbinger didn't die, either).
I get back in local to see a mess. The Rook that should have been primary was jamming away. A Falcon had decloaked and was not being forced off field. The battlecruisers left were sitting... not moving. This was ridiculous, because I specifically instructed the battlecruisers to be moving/orbiting. Sure, its not a huge difference, but it does help.
As for the Scimitars? Well, apparently one DC'D. He failed to speak up, until he logged back in on the gate and died.
Fail.
The other one had a cloak fitted. He was genuinely surprised that it gave him a targeting delay when we told him so.
Fail.
We had even numbers. They had no logistics. Had we had Rook primary, Zealot/Muninns secondary and when Falcon decloaked instaprimary... and functioning logistics with no delay in a target callers voice... we would have won the isk war and more than likely smashed the gang.
Didn't happen.
Props to En Garde for bringing the fight. Wish it could have been better played on our part.
I took the remants of our gang back to Curse the long way around. I ran over the bad things that had just happened with the gang, hoping that they would remember the experience and not let it happen again.
On our way back we found the CEO of an ex-Gentleman's Club corp running through Curse in a Hurricane. We narrowly missed him jumping into RMOC- from Hemen... and waited for him. He left local, but not through our gate, nor did he log. Obvious was YKE4 to K-Q. So into K-Q we went, and waited on the YKE4 gate.
Instruction was for Bonecaya to bubble up in his Broadsword, and no one was to aggro in case he reapproached, which I assumed he would given we were all fast movers.
Sure enough, in comes the Hurricane. Almost instantly he breaks cloak and starts burning out. Bad call, as his Cane got 15km before scram/web slapped on and he stopped moving. He popped drones and killed a Keres of ours (not even sure what good that ship is, but hey, its only a frig), but his Hurricane melted.
c
Best part was that this CEO was smacking in local the day before. His corp had just hot dropped some random people with carriers and I was snooping around in my Falcon, debating on a counter drop. DarthDeaconRage, the chill guy who makes propoganda posters and signature banners is part of the same corp. So naturally I was surprised when the attempted smack in local kicks in, and me being no stranger to the local chat window, was forced to respond.
[ 2010.08.19 04:33:33 ] Garst Tyrell > im gonna remember to keep a super on standby if I see an It cloaked off our cyno :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:33:50 ] Perseus Kallistratos > we have moar supers :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:02 ] Sailith > how much those missles cost?
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:07 ] DieZir > U used 2 be in fw..
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:12 ] DieZir > i remeber u..
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:53 ] Perseus Kallistratos > warping archons to gates with an IT falcon in local
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:59 ] Perseus Kallistratos > and I do have a cyno fitted :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:03 ] Garst Tyrell > dont think too highly of yourself no :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:11 ] Perseus Kallistratos > ditto
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:29 ] Garst Tyrell > im not the one smacking in local :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:34 ] Perseus Kallistratos > am I smacking?
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:38 ] Perseus Kallistratos > I thought I was sharing intel
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:54 ] Garst Tyrell > no youre just boring me, thank god deac isnt here or youd be having some faggy RP convo with him in local atm
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:59 ] Darinaaz Miles > I guess we didn't get the memo that all of eve should cower in fear and immediately dock if an IT dude is in local
I was laughing so hard when I was accused of faction warfare. I almost cried when DarthDeacon and I were accused of having "faggy rp conversations".
I blog. He does computer art stuff. At no time have I ever done faction warfare. Oh well. So having had that conversation the day before made killing Tyrell's unscouted Hurricane all the more fun.
Dirt Nap squad dropped us twice, and I almost threw my computer each time. The first time we knew it was his alt coming into us in an Arazu. I specifically instructed all larger ships to sit on gate at 0km and NOT to aggress. All small ships were to burn off if cyno was lit.
Guess what?
Yeah he lit cyno. All small ships got away just fine, all big ships jumped through gate... except one. I lost a Zealot who was off gate, but not very far. He died.
Then, 20 minutes later, same Arazu jumps into our gate camp in Hemen. I instruct fleet to scatter... which they do. We all come back to the gate at various off gate points. Instructions were to full speed align to station, As we figure that the Arazu will be working on a warp in.
Guess what?
Yeah he decloaked off one of my Drakes... who didn't warp and died. He blames lag. Regardless, he had a couple second window of targeting delay to get out and it didn't happen. So DNS Black grabbed another kill for no effort, and I flew off the handle. Losing a gang fight that shouldn't have been lost, losing a Zealot, and now a Drake due to carelessness. I emo logged.
Didn't last long. I logged back on 30 min later and took the Dramiel out. Found a Geddon in Utopia, pointed it, he popped Warrior IIs. I started shooting those and he pulled em. Put out EC-600s. Got one of them, but then they jammed me. He warped to Doril gate. I followed, got a point on him after he aggressed. Then my Dramiel got hung up on the gate and combined with the sluggish response time of my tethered iPhone connection... instapop went my Dramiel. Hurricane and Megathron arrived to kill said Geddon, but were too late. To add insult, Geddon got tackled by Easley and Bonecaya... but must have have been an out of corp alt for Outbreak, as they brought 2 Geddons and a Dominix to help it out, and it got out in structure, while Bone's Megathron got popped.
So.... one failure after another mounted up to the point that I am now on my way back to Delve for the next day or two. Need to make some isk to make up for the losses, and take a break from PVP to clear my head. That and I won't be home until Saturday night... and I don't want to risk any more ships on this unreliable tethering.
That is all.
So, to pick up where I left off... On the 18th, we hot dropped a pos repping operation in Great Wildlands. R-ESG0. Battle report here. Basically, we popped a cyno right in the middle of their repping operation and tackled what we could. We had one Thanatos get away in low armor.. but the two Nids got popped and several battleships and other support went down. Eventually they got smart and got inside the POS shields as we reinforced it. After POS was reinforced, caps jumped out and we went home.
A couple days ago we relocated our PVP wing to Curse for pew pew. So far its been a mixed experience. I just started fly Sabres and have lost 2 in the last 4 days... not a great record. First one was suicide bubbling for a gang jumping into a gate camp... except the gay was recons and bombers and got owned. I couldn't figure out why they thought they could take that fight. Second was lack of situational awareness. I got a shuttle in a drag bubble in RMOC-, bubbled and killed. A Rupture that had been trying to kill me for the past hour, however, warped in on me at the same time and this time he fit a scram instead of a normal point. Without my MWD and stuck in my own bubble my Sabre went kaboom.
Then there was the gang that failed...
Last night I took a shield bc gang out with Scimmies. We went around Curse and into Catch. In GE- I warped to station with Jack Rockwell and killed a Manticore undocking. For some reason he didn't wait session timer and dock. He yellow boxed me, so I killed him with my Dramiel. I brought gang in, and they popped a Crow who moved early on undock. Other than that... pretty tame. we went through En Garde's constellation without a peep... and started towards Jamunda when I noticed local spiking in ZXIC-. I was in my Dramiel... and 20/20 hindsight says that with larger gangs I should be in cloaky with gang (following my own advice).
Anyways, about 10 En Garde are in local, appearing all around the gate. I called dictors in and had them initiate warp to the gate with instructions to bubble jump. I get put into low armor with a one volley from one of the Zealots and jump through in low armor.
Thats when I saw the rest of their gang, another 8 in F4R2. Still doable, but a tougher fight. With logistics I figure, hey, we can do this. Especially with some of those guys in F4R2 shooting at me, which means they would be unable to join the fight.
"Jump jump jump, warp to F4R2 gate, someone call primaries".
I was still drawing fire from some of their gang members... and would keep doing so to keep them split. But no one responded on comms. They started landing on the En Garde gang, and I raised my voice.
"Someone call targets dammit, NOW!"
Homegrown responded immediately... called a Harbinger primary. That lasted all of 3 seconds and then "I'm dead, someone else call".
So somebody (I honestly don't know who) called targets. Problem was, they switched to a different Harbinger.
Epic Fail.
So the entire gang has to lock up a new target and start from scratch. So at this point we have wasted time while someone got the balls to call targets. Then we have the idiocracy that is calling a new primary when the first isn't dead (and that Harbinger didn't die, either).
I get back in local to see a mess. The Rook that should have been primary was jamming away. A Falcon had decloaked and was not being forced off field. The battlecruisers left were sitting... not moving. This was ridiculous, because I specifically instructed the battlecruisers to be moving/orbiting. Sure, its not a huge difference, but it does help.
As for the Scimitars? Well, apparently one DC'D. He failed to speak up, until he logged back in on the gate and died.
Fail.
The other one had a cloak fitted. He was genuinely surprised that it gave him a targeting delay when we told him so.
Fail.
We had even numbers. They had no logistics. Had we had Rook primary, Zealot/Muninns secondary and when Falcon decloaked instaprimary... and functioning logistics with no delay in a target callers voice... we would have won the isk war and more than likely smashed the gang.
Didn't happen.
Props to En Garde for bringing the fight. Wish it could have been better played on our part.
I took the remants of our gang back to Curse the long way around. I ran over the bad things that had just happened with the gang, hoping that they would remember the experience and not let it happen again.
On our way back we found the CEO of an ex-Gentleman's Club corp running through Curse in a Hurricane. We narrowly missed him jumping into RMOC- from Hemen... and waited for him. He left local, but not through our gate, nor did he log. Obvious was YKE4 to K-Q. So into K-Q we went, and waited on the YKE4 gate.
Instruction was for Bonecaya to bubble up in his Broadsword, and no one was to aggro in case he reapproached, which I assumed he would given we were all fast movers.
Sure enough, in comes the Hurricane. Almost instantly he breaks cloak and starts burning out. Bad call, as his Cane got 15km before scram/web slapped on and he stopped moving. He popped drones and killed a Keres of ours (not even sure what good that ship is, but hey, its only a frig), but his Hurricane melted.
c
Best part was that this CEO was smacking in local the day before. His corp had just hot dropped some random people with carriers and I was snooping around in my Falcon, debating on a counter drop. DarthDeaconRage, the chill guy who makes propoganda posters and signature banners is part of the same corp. So naturally I was surprised when the attempted smack in local kicks in, and me being no stranger to the local chat window, was forced to respond.
[ 2010.08.19 04:33:33 ] Garst Tyrell > im gonna remember to keep a super on standby if I see an It cloaked off our cyno :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:33:50 ] Perseus Kallistratos > we have moar supers :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:02 ] Sailith > how much those missles cost?
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:07 ] DieZir > U used 2 be in fw..
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:12 ] DieZir > i remeber u..
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:53 ] Perseus Kallistratos > warping archons to gates with an IT falcon in local
[ 2010.08.19 04:34:59 ] Perseus Kallistratos > and I do have a cyno fitted :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:03 ] Garst Tyrell > dont think too highly of yourself no :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:11 ] Perseus Kallistratos > ditto
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:29 ] Garst Tyrell > im not the one smacking in local :)
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:34 ] Perseus Kallistratos > am I smacking?
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:38 ] Perseus Kallistratos > I thought I was sharing intel
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:54 ] Garst Tyrell > no youre just boring me, thank god deac isnt here or youd be having some faggy RP convo with him in local atm
[ 2010.08.19 04:35:59 ] Darinaaz Miles > I guess we didn't get the memo that all of eve should cower in fear and immediately dock if an IT dude is in local
I was laughing so hard when I was accused of faction warfare. I almost cried when DarthDeacon and I were accused of having "faggy rp conversations".
I blog. He does computer art stuff. At no time have I ever done faction warfare. Oh well. So having had that conversation the day before made killing Tyrell's unscouted Hurricane all the more fun.
Dirt Nap squad dropped us twice, and I almost threw my computer each time. The first time we knew it was his alt coming into us in an Arazu. I specifically instructed all larger ships to sit on gate at 0km and NOT to aggress. All small ships were to burn off if cyno was lit.
Guess what?
Yeah he lit cyno. All small ships got away just fine, all big ships jumped through gate... except one. I lost a Zealot who was off gate, but not very far. He died.
Then, 20 minutes later, same Arazu jumps into our gate camp in Hemen. I instruct fleet to scatter... which they do. We all come back to the gate at various off gate points. Instructions were to full speed align to station, As we figure that the Arazu will be working on a warp in.
Guess what?
Yeah he decloaked off one of my Drakes... who didn't warp and died. He blames lag. Regardless, he had a couple second window of targeting delay to get out and it didn't happen. So DNS Black grabbed another kill for no effort, and I flew off the handle. Losing a gang fight that shouldn't have been lost, losing a Zealot, and now a Drake due to carelessness. I emo logged.
Didn't last long. I logged back on 30 min later and took the Dramiel out. Found a Geddon in Utopia, pointed it, he popped Warrior IIs. I started shooting those and he pulled em. Put out EC-600s. Got one of them, but then they jammed me. He warped to Doril gate. I followed, got a point on him after he aggressed. Then my Dramiel got hung up on the gate and combined with the sluggish response time of my tethered iPhone connection... instapop went my Dramiel. Hurricane and Megathron arrived to kill said Geddon, but were too late. To add insult, Geddon got tackled by Easley and Bonecaya... but must have have been an out of corp alt for Outbreak, as they brought 2 Geddons and a Dominix to help it out, and it got out in structure, while Bone's Megathron got popped.
So.... one failure after another mounted up to the point that I am now on my way back to Delve for the next day or two. Need to make some isk to make up for the losses, and take a break from PVP to clear my head. That and I won't be home until Saturday night... and I don't want to risk any more ships on this unreliable tethering.
That is all.
August 17, 2010
Super Dooper Long Roam.
Today I took control of a gang that was camping a nullsec entrance to Derelik. Lots of random ships, double and triple sensor boosted killmail whores. Told em to reship and get ready for a roam.
As we were reshipping... my alt happened upon two wartargets in local next door to our staging system. Turns out they were on the Arnola gate... I got gang on the Arnola gate in an adjacent system. Hostile was reported in Arnola... third member of their gang in a Scorpion. He jumped into another high sec system. I had two Canes jump into Arnola (since they were the best tanked ships currently in gang). Both went to the gate the Scorpion had jumped through. Since my alt was out of corp the wartargets had no idea we had them scouted. I had one Cane jump in and the other hold the gate. Sure enough, Scorpion aggressed the Cane that went through, and I had him reapproach. Second wartarget entered local... the Tempest! He warped straight to the gate my Cane was waiting at. At this point I was cloaked off the gate in a Falcon. He saw the Cane sitting there and opened up. By this time the Cane with the hostile Scorpion had reapproached and jumped back in. The Tempest was aggressed, the third neut in an Abaddon had entered local and was reported in warp to our gate, so I decloaked and jammed the Tempest.
Well at least thats the idea. But those damn dice rolls screwed me and all 4 racials and my 1 multi spec failed to jam him. This was made all the worse when he locked me up and my 10k distance from him seemed within touching distance. Yet... his point stayed on General Yurizan in his Hurricane, as did his drones. Curious, as he could have killed or forced me off field.
My second try jammed him with the Minmitar racial... and Yurizan's cries of impending death seemed to disappear. I called the gang in at this point, and in they came. Abaddon landed about the same time, and was off gate (he may have warped to the Tempest). I tried to jam up the Abaddon, but failed, so I instead focused on the Tempest. At this point the Scorpion jumped in, but he reapproached. My first try jammed him up... and he wisely stayed unaggressed and re-approached. He jumped back out and left his comrades to die. Tempest popped... but so did my Cane pilot!
"How the hell did you die!!" I yelled...
"I was pointed"
"Bullshit! I've gotten off 5 or so jam cycles on that Tempest, you should have been hammering warp!" I responded.
But now was not the time for a lecture, as we dropped the Tempest and started to work on the Abbadon... who made no efforts to reapproach. Finally he popped... in total I got off ONE jam cycle on his ass. Looking at his mail, however, and you can see why A. he didn't reapproach B. He lasted so long and C. why I couldn't jam him up.
Loot went to our downed Cane pilot, but I was happy we got two battleship kills. Would have liked the Scorpion... but 2/3 is good. Too many times FC's will go for the one kill... but with some patience and brains you can usually get a bit more.
After we finished reshipping, we left on our roam, heading to N-RAEL. We got there... nothing to kill. I was scouting in a Sabre and the closest we got to action was a Red Alliance Sacrilege who logged mid warp to the out gate. Unfortunately I wasn't there (3 gate system) and he dissapeared from scans. A few minutes later his alt shows up in local and despite a logon trap we aren't able to get him to bite. Oh, how did I know his alt was in local? It said in the guys bio "alt of thisguy".
So on we moved, heading back to Derelik so that a couple of the guys could logoff. One of the -MVN- guys was burning well ahead of the gang (I guess he really needed to get home) and reported a 3 man gang, Vaga Rapier and Heretic. They were traveling along the same pipe, heading towards us.
I had gang hold 2j out from their position when they left local with out "advance scout". I got ready to lay a trap when new neut came into local... same corp has this gang. Falcon decloaked... unexpected scout for their gang! I bubbled and burned right at his last known location before he cloaked. Sure enough, he was burning straight out of the bubble and I got him. Then he got one volleyed by a Cane in gang (who was more than likely sensor boosted to hell, despite his protests to the contrary). So, scratch one Falcon, but the rest of his gang bailed out.
Short break for the crew and we tried to bait some pirates a few jumps away... giant waste of time. Then we tried to engage some more wartargets near Rens... but due to miscommunication we lost a Gila Kill. So after wasting almost an hour on high sec shenanigans (once again, I hate high sec warfare... neutral alts for repping and eyes and all that crap) we headed to Curse.
Curse proved pretty empty, but we picked up some NEXE guys in Hemen and moved on into Catch. We went to go play with En Garde in GJO- but nobody wanted to play. So we went to GE- and caught this Typhoon jumping into us. I was scouting, jumped into Ge- in time to see him cross jump me. I prayed that the fast movers in gang would be landing quickly enough to point him... they were. He melted insanely fast, before I could even reapproach and get on the mail. PVP fit, but with 425 IIs.
Unfortunately that was it for GE-, so we went to HED-. In SV5 there was a ship, that, looking at Battleclinic, was in a stealth bomber and had just popped a ship recently with a gang. Assuming eyes for a gang in HED-, I jumped my Drakes only into SV5... and there were 8 Drakes, a bit more than I thought but oh well. I warped them to the HED- gate as I jumped in with my Dramiel. Loaded system and...
Jackpot.
Mixed gang on the gate at 0. I held cloak, and had Drakes hold. I ordered my two Scimmies in, anticipating a fight... but the moment the Scimmies jumped into SV5 the enemy gang started aligning.
"Jump jump Drakes in tackle what you can!" I yelled.
I had Scimmies jump on contact and as soon as the enemy gang was committed I jumped the reset of the fleet into SV5 and had them get into HED-. The warp from gate to gate in SV5 is very very short, so gang was there quickly. Most of the enemy gang managed to get away, but we scratched off a Myrm, another Myrm, Blackbird, Onyx, and 5k away from my cloaked Dramiel (from the gate jump) was a Nemesis. As soon as the shooting started I broke cloak and tackled/solo'd the Nemesis.
Please note the Nemesis killmail.... and never fly a bomber fit like that. EVER. Small nosferatu... 2x blasters... with 2x Ballistic Control units for... not sure. Combined with his double sensor boosters with point... he was fit to fight? The cherry on top was the improved cloaking device II. Don't know about you guys but I enjoy warping while cloaked while in a bomber... but whatever.
We camped HED- for a few minutes and moved into Providence. Thats when we ran into a -A- snipe HAC gang.
We danced with the -A- gang for a bit, but neither would engage. There was a couple pucker moments but I decided to bail based on the lack of intel in the area and the fact that a smart -A- fc could jump into us, take some losses but burn off rather quickly and start raining hell down on us if we were bubbled. We ended up at 0 with them on a gate a couple times, but both times they smartly jumped through and none of their guys lemming aggro'd us. Since they wouldn't play my game, I said eff it and off we burned.
Unfortunately we lost 2 Drakes and a Zealot on the warping around... all 3 which could have been avoided with better communication ("Help I'm tackled") or following orders.
We tussled with a few of the Providence locals but couldn't get anything solid... so back home we headed. I had to pack for the flight to visit home/family (I'm currently writing this from an airport) and we had been roaming for a few hours.
Gotta love the fights around Derelik though... shout out to Darthdeaconrage in his home region :) Except for the really lame pansy pirates in Ubtes who won't engage anything. And thanks to Snatch Victory, our high sec wardeccers... for the battleship kills and this Tengu we bagged yesterday. I bet he cried.
That is all.
As we were reshipping... my alt happened upon two wartargets in local next door to our staging system. Turns out they were on the Arnola gate... I got gang on the Arnola gate in an adjacent system. Hostile was reported in Arnola... third member of their gang in a Scorpion. He jumped into another high sec system. I had two Canes jump into Arnola (since they were the best tanked ships currently in gang). Both went to the gate the Scorpion had jumped through. Since my alt was out of corp the wartargets had no idea we had them scouted. I had one Cane jump in and the other hold the gate. Sure enough, Scorpion aggressed the Cane that went through, and I had him reapproach. Second wartarget entered local... the Tempest! He warped straight to the gate my Cane was waiting at. At this point I was cloaked off the gate in a Falcon. He saw the Cane sitting there and opened up. By this time the Cane with the hostile Scorpion had reapproached and jumped back in. The Tempest was aggressed, the third neut in an Abaddon had entered local and was reported in warp to our gate, so I decloaked and jammed the Tempest.
Well at least thats the idea. But those damn dice rolls screwed me and all 4 racials and my 1 multi spec failed to jam him. This was made all the worse when he locked me up and my 10k distance from him seemed within touching distance. Yet... his point stayed on General Yurizan in his Hurricane, as did his drones. Curious, as he could have killed or forced me off field.
My second try jammed him with the Minmitar racial... and Yurizan's cries of impending death seemed to disappear. I called the gang in at this point, and in they came. Abaddon landed about the same time, and was off gate (he may have warped to the Tempest). I tried to jam up the Abaddon, but failed, so I instead focused on the Tempest. At this point the Scorpion jumped in, but he reapproached. My first try jammed him up... and he wisely stayed unaggressed and re-approached. He jumped back out and left his comrades to die. Tempest popped... but so did my Cane pilot!
"How the hell did you die!!" I yelled...
"I was pointed"
"Bullshit! I've gotten off 5 or so jam cycles on that Tempest, you should have been hammering warp!" I responded.
But now was not the time for a lecture, as we dropped the Tempest and started to work on the Abbadon... who made no efforts to reapproach. Finally he popped... in total I got off ONE jam cycle on his ass. Looking at his mail, however, and you can see why A. he didn't reapproach B. He lasted so long and C. why I couldn't jam him up.
Loot went to our downed Cane pilot, but I was happy we got two battleship kills. Would have liked the Scorpion... but 2/3 is good. Too many times FC's will go for the one kill... but with some patience and brains you can usually get a bit more.
After we finished reshipping, we left on our roam, heading to N-RAEL. We got there... nothing to kill. I was scouting in a Sabre and the closest we got to action was a Red Alliance Sacrilege who logged mid warp to the out gate. Unfortunately I wasn't there (3 gate system) and he dissapeared from scans. A few minutes later his alt shows up in local and despite a logon trap we aren't able to get him to bite. Oh, how did I know his alt was in local? It said in the guys bio "alt of thisguy".
So on we moved, heading back to Derelik so that a couple of the guys could logoff. One of the -MVN- guys was burning well ahead of the gang (I guess he really needed to get home) and reported a 3 man gang, Vaga Rapier and Heretic. They were traveling along the same pipe, heading towards us.
I had gang hold 2j out from their position when they left local with out "advance scout". I got ready to lay a trap when new neut came into local... same corp has this gang. Falcon decloaked... unexpected scout for their gang! I bubbled and burned right at his last known location before he cloaked. Sure enough, he was burning straight out of the bubble and I got him. Then he got one volleyed by a Cane in gang (who was more than likely sensor boosted to hell, despite his protests to the contrary). So, scratch one Falcon, but the rest of his gang bailed out.
Short break for the crew and we tried to bait some pirates a few jumps away... giant waste of time. Then we tried to engage some more wartargets near Rens... but due to miscommunication we lost a Gila Kill. So after wasting almost an hour on high sec shenanigans (once again, I hate high sec warfare... neutral alts for repping and eyes and all that crap) we headed to Curse.
Curse proved pretty empty, but we picked up some NEXE guys in Hemen and moved on into Catch. We went to go play with En Garde in GJO- but nobody wanted to play. So we went to GE- and caught this Typhoon jumping into us. I was scouting, jumped into Ge- in time to see him cross jump me. I prayed that the fast movers in gang would be landing quickly enough to point him... they were. He melted insanely fast, before I could even reapproach and get on the mail. PVP fit, but with 425 IIs.
Unfortunately that was it for GE-, so we went to HED-. In SV5 there was a ship, that, looking at Battleclinic, was in a stealth bomber and had just popped a ship recently with a gang. Assuming eyes for a gang in HED-, I jumped my Drakes only into SV5... and there were 8 Drakes, a bit more than I thought but oh well. I warped them to the HED- gate as I jumped in with my Dramiel. Loaded system and...
Jackpot.
Mixed gang on the gate at 0. I held cloak, and had Drakes hold. I ordered my two Scimmies in, anticipating a fight... but the moment the Scimmies jumped into SV5 the enemy gang started aligning.
"Jump jump Drakes in tackle what you can!" I yelled.
I had Scimmies jump on contact and as soon as the enemy gang was committed I jumped the reset of the fleet into SV5 and had them get into HED-. The warp from gate to gate in SV5 is very very short, so gang was there quickly. Most of the enemy gang managed to get away, but we scratched off a Myrm, another Myrm, Blackbird, Onyx, and 5k away from my cloaked Dramiel (from the gate jump) was a Nemesis. As soon as the shooting started I broke cloak and tackled/solo'd the Nemesis.
Please note the Nemesis killmail.... and never fly a bomber fit like that. EVER. Small nosferatu... 2x blasters... with 2x Ballistic Control units for... not sure. Combined with his double sensor boosters with point... he was fit to fight? The cherry on top was the improved cloaking device II. Don't know about you guys but I enjoy warping while cloaked while in a bomber... but whatever.
We camped HED- for a few minutes and moved into Providence. Thats when we ran into a -A- snipe HAC gang.
We danced with the -A- gang for a bit, but neither would engage. There was a couple pucker moments but I decided to bail based on the lack of intel in the area and the fact that a smart -A- fc could jump into us, take some losses but burn off rather quickly and start raining hell down on us if we were bubbled. We ended up at 0 with them on a gate a couple times, but both times they smartly jumped through and none of their guys lemming aggro'd us. Since they wouldn't play my game, I said eff it and off we burned.
Unfortunately we lost 2 Drakes and a Zealot on the warping around... all 3 which could have been avoided with better communication ("Help I'm tackled") or following orders.
We tussled with a few of the Providence locals but couldn't get anything solid... so back home we headed. I had to pack for the flight to visit home/family (I'm currently writing this from an airport) and we had been roaming for a few hours.
Gotta love the fights around Derelik though... shout out to Darthdeaconrage in his home region :) Except for the really lame pansy pirates in Ubtes who won't engage anything. And thanks to Snatch Victory, our high sec wardeccers... for the battleship kills and this Tengu we bagged yesterday. I bet he cried.
That is all.
August 12, 2010
No Battle Stories... Well Sorta
I haven't played much EVE the past few days due to very nice weather and hours of riding. As it stands I just got to work (8:30AM) after going to bed at 4:00AM. No tickets, no accidents for anyone out riding in our group last night, so it was a good time.
I did lose an Onyx to CVA. I was embarassed. It went like this:
I logged into Yong after work. A trio of pirates we had tussled and talked with was docked, one with GCC. One CVA in local. Thinking nothing of the above, I undocked in my Onyx after the CVA guy undocked. He was in an Occator, and warped to Gemodi gate (Gemodi also being lowsec). I jumped through with the Occator, and waited on the other side, slowboating back to the Yong gate. Occator held cloak, then started a slowboating reapproach. Fair enough. He then started to align off, so I pointed and let loose.
First thing I noticed was that my missiles put his shields at 95%. Uh oh. Serious tank...
Second was the point and painter he turned on. Damn...
Third was about a minute later when local spiked with 7 CVA & Pets. I deaggressed on the Yong gate, jumped through in about 40% shield. Unfortunately for me, there was a Harbinger and Tempest on the other side. I aligned, hit my damage control and logged.
Kuzzi was in system and undocked, spamming scan. Unfortunately for me, my wreck showed up on scan shortly after loggin. Between the gate guns and the Harbinger/Tempest, they were able to finish me off. A for effort, but in the end the unexpected happened and I got caught.
Speaking with the pirates in local with me, it appears that they had stirred up CVA... and I happened to walk into a trap meant for them. Oh well, that Onyx got me plenty of kills :)
Couple things I read in the blog pak yesterday I wanted to touch upon. My Loot Your Tears had an article addressing some interesting feedback concerning angry-emo readers. "Paul and I were just discussing our different styles of posting stories on My Loot, Your Tears. In particular we are both highly amused that we often get people giving us grief in the comments section, because they don’t like the content of our stories."
Not much to say on that, except this: If you don't like reading it don't. Reading it then whining to the authors is retarded. Just shut the fuck up and go read something else. Its like whining about TV... change the damn channel. That being said, I find the tears and expensive carebear deaths on that blog to be extremely entertaining and have no desire for them to go away. I do believe there are quite a few ninja/pirating blogs, and not enough hardcore nullsec PVPers... but I can live with that.
Second was the Stealth Bomber Guide from a Merry Life and a Short One. He has some excellent ideas and fits from the torping side of things... but I am here to offer insights on the actual bombing part of the bomber.
As you can see from my stats (if you have ever looked) I have lost lots of bombers. You can also see I have killed shit tons of ships with bombers. In 0.0 bombers have the capability to wreak havoc on large numbers of enemies with relatively few resources (7-8 bombers and maybe a dictor).
Theres a few tactics, touched upon briefly in the guide. I'm going to go into a bit more detail. Depending on situations some of these will work better than others.
The POS shoot: Oftentimes you will have to engage an enemy force reinforcing/destroying one of your towers. Due to TZ differences or just who you are fighting, you are unable to go toe-to-toe with the engaging force. You need a cov ops alt or a volunteer stealth bomber to get into position anywhere from 15-45km from the enemy fleet. If the enemy fleet is aligned and moving towards a celesital (warp-out) then the scout needs to be near the largest clump of targets. Draw an imaginary line from the target area to the scout ship. Then continue that line in both directions. Behind the target should be a warp out point, or prerably multiple warp out poins. Behind the scout should be a celestial (often a moon) that has your fleet of bombers. On cue, all bombers should align towards the moon with the enemy ships full speed. If your gang is 8 or less, all will warp on the FC's command. If it is over 8, you should split into two or more waves. Although bombs have resistance to their same damage type, enough of them will cause the last launched bombs to be destroyed.
As the bombers warp in, they immediately align to the targets (should already be in position for the most part) drop bombs and warp out. Some will die if the enemy is on its toes, but properly executed a 20 mill bomber or two will die but several HACs or BSs will die.
Make sure to rotate warp in points... using the same spot more than once will get you all killed. Also be ready to hit the enemy fleet as it leaves system, have points set up on the gate and in the next system.
Second is the gate bombing. There are two ways to do this, on the jump in or the out gate. In a hurry, the jump in is the most effective. Have your bombers 35km off the gate wherever they want to be as long as they have a warp out point behind the gate. Make sure they aren't closer... bombs will impact on objects (gate) before detonation and will not detonate. The downside to this is that your bombs are hitting the majority but not all of the ships coming through. Overlap of damage will not be as substantial.
My favorite is the out gate. This requires a dictor (with cloak)at the out gate and a scout on the in gate. The key is timing...
All bombers (minus scout) need to be 30km off the dictor. Said dictor should be in a drag bubble position somewhere behind the gate (or pull bubble in front, I prefer sucker bubbles behind as it gives the prey the "oh shit" feeling as they zoom past the gate).
Dictor will allow scout to pass and report the outgate clear. As enemy fleet enters local and starts their warp, scout will instruct dictor to drop bubble. Dictor will GTFO (as he is on every mail at this point, and cannot survive the bombs or the enemy fleet). Once again, make sure you have the same bomb types loaded and if you're bomber composition is more than 8 break it into waves. One wave on initial fleet landing, the other afterwards (or if they are in a big clump hit them MWDing back to the gate, its awesome!)
The best is some alliances who feel that fleet warping every gate is super awesome. You can hit the entire fleet in one volley. Those gangs usually have scout in next system before they even initiate warp to the next gate... meaning they have no clue whats coming until they land in the gate and see bombs flying at them.
Make sure you launch bombs as soon as the enemy fleet appears on grid. The 10 second flight time means they will have landed and started turning/burning out of the bubble when bombs impact. Wait too long... they may be late. Too soon, you get nothing. The drag bubble pretty much is a win win scenario though.
Worst case... you didn't get them on the in gate and you have no dictor. Line up 35km from the out gate (aligned to the point of the gate the enemy fleet will land on). As soon as the lead elements appear on directional start the launching. It really only works with a medium to large fleet, where ships get caught due to jump lag. Small gangs are almost pointless to try this on.
These ships should not be fit expensive. Torp DPS doesn't matter. Some of the bombers I've used (and killed) won't even fit torp launchers. Speed and maneuverability are paramount on these ships. Expect
[Manticore, Brown Bomber]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
1MN Microwarp Drive II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Bomb Launcher - Shrapnel X2
Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing
2x Shrapnel in Cargo
Or, if you are looking for a hybrid of sorts, you can fit both tasks. Penalty will be torp range and the agility of the bomber will not be the same as the fit above. I don't believe in the tracking disruptor because it only works on a portion of the ships out there, whereas a sensor disruptor works on all. Two damps multiplied by X number of bombers means you can damp the hell out of whatever target(s) you're engaging. Most BCs will have lock range for only 10 or so kilometers, battleships 20-30. Very effective.
[Manticore, The Magician]
Power Diagnostic System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Target Painter II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Bomb Launcher - 2x Shrapnel
Low Friction Nozzle Joints
Warhead Calefaction Catalyst
2x Shrapnel
2x Scan Resolution Dampening Script
Caldari Navy Juggernaut (however many you can hold)
Then we have the standard torp only fit, often used in Black Ops gangs and such. I do enjoy the bombers range, however I value agility and speed over all else. Stock, I can hit out to 60km in my bomber. Thats more than enough for me. The ability to align and warp out quickly is paramount in a craft that is extremely slow in alignment. Arbalest are nice, but I only fit them on this type of craft. The point is for redundancy. I have seen hero tackles by bombers on many different occasions. Engaging at close range is dangerous, but holding a point for a few extra seconds can get you a kill, and these bombers overheating MWDs can hit 2.5k/second easily, and get out of range. Just make sure you keep your transversal up on egress. The Ballistic Control Unit increases damage and range, whereas the Calefaction Catalyst just increases damage. As I stated before, I don't believe in the tracking disruptor because it only works on a portion of the ships out there, whereas a sensor disruptor works on all. If the gang has several dedicated tacklers I will drop the point for a second Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor. For the record, this is my least favorite fit.
[Manticore, Gotcha Bitch]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Ballistic Control Unit II
Target Painter II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Warp Disruptor II
1MN Microwarp Drive II
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Salvager (Offline)
As was mentioned in the bomber guide, be careful of the shiptypes engaged. Zealots are death on wheels for bombers. Drakes, Sacrilege, other missile boats should be engaged with caution. Enough damps on them and you're on easy street. Otherwise, those missiles will eat you alive. A Drake loaded with Precision Scourge will two volley your ship. Even tech one missiles will drop you in a relatively short period of time. Remember to keep up orbit on any ship you are shooting, to avoid warp ins or an easy intercept vector. Against turret boats it will decrease damage to your ship. Don't spank your MWD unless you need to GTFO or make range on your target(s). When in doubt, warp out and back in. Make sure to drop a bookmark on field so you don't land in a bubble or on top of a target. Warp back in cloaked (especially against multiple targets). Never underestimate the power of bombers with painters... once upon a time I remember killing an interceptor with 5 bombers and painters... it took about 20 seconds.
Don't solo in a bomber, its retarded. Even dumber is launching a single bomb on a gate at a gang. Unless there is a MWDing frigate, you won't get any kills. Worst case, a fast locker or bubbler will get your ass and I can't tell you how many of those I've killed.
As with any engagement, there isn't a pre determined course of action (game plan) for the situation. Use your best judgement and remember the advantage of your shiptypes. In this case, its the ability to disengage and bug out on whim that makes your gang a survivable one. Don't try and get into a slugfest with any other gang... you will all die.
That is all.
PS: Feel free to comment. These fits... yeah they are just guidelines. I switch fits all the time, tweaking for a specific gang. I suggest you do the same. If you like these little guides, let me know. I usually write battle reports, but I have these little speeches with my corpmates all the time, and am happy to share with all of you. Makes for more worthy and fun opponents :-)
Middle: Blue bike is mine
Bottom: My bike is the blue one in the middle (with pink and blue helmets on the mirrors). I'm on the far right, holding a girl in the air :)
I did lose an Onyx to CVA. I was embarassed. It went like this:
I logged into Yong after work. A trio of pirates we had tussled and talked with was docked, one with GCC. One CVA in local. Thinking nothing of the above, I undocked in my Onyx after the CVA guy undocked. He was in an Occator, and warped to Gemodi gate (Gemodi also being lowsec). I jumped through with the Occator, and waited on the other side, slowboating back to the Yong gate. Occator held cloak, then started a slowboating reapproach. Fair enough. He then started to align off, so I pointed and let loose.
First thing I noticed was that my missiles put his shields at 95%. Uh oh. Serious tank...
Second was the point and painter he turned on. Damn...
Third was about a minute later when local spiked with 7 CVA & Pets. I deaggressed on the Yong gate, jumped through in about 40% shield. Unfortunately for me, there was a Harbinger and Tempest on the other side. I aligned, hit my damage control and logged.
Kuzzi was in system and undocked, spamming scan. Unfortunately for me, my wreck showed up on scan shortly after loggin. Between the gate guns and the Harbinger/Tempest, they were able to finish me off. A for effort, but in the end the unexpected happened and I got caught.
Speaking with the pirates in local with me, it appears that they had stirred up CVA... and I happened to walk into a trap meant for them. Oh well, that Onyx got me plenty of kills :)
Couple things I read in the blog pak yesterday I wanted to touch upon. My Loot Your Tears had an article addressing some interesting feedback concerning angry-emo readers. "Paul and I were just discussing our different styles of posting stories on My Loot, Your Tears. In particular we are both highly amused that we often get people giving us grief in the comments section, because they don’t like the content of our stories."
Not much to say on that, except this: If you don't like reading it don't. Reading it then whining to the authors is retarded. Just shut the fuck up and go read something else. Its like whining about TV... change the damn channel. That being said, I find the tears and expensive carebear deaths on that blog to be extremely entertaining and have no desire for them to go away. I do believe there are quite a few ninja/pirating blogs, and not enough hardcore nullsec PVPers... but I can live with that.
Second was the Stealth Bomber Guide from a Merry Life and a Short One. He has some excellent ideas and fits from the torping side of things... but I am here to offer insights on the actual bombing part of the bomber.
As you can see from my stats (if you have ever looked) I have lost lots of bombers. You can also see I have killed shit tons of ships with bombers. In 0.0 bombers have the capability to wreak havoc on large numbers of enemies with relatively few resources (7-8 bombers and maybe a dictor).
Theres a few tactics, touched upon briefly in the guide. I'm going to go into a bit more detail. Depending on situations some of these will work better than others.
The POS shoot: Oftentimes you will have to engage an enemy force reinforcing/destroying one of your towers. Due to TZ differences or just who you are fighting, you are unable to go toe-to-toe with the engaging force. You need a cov ops alt or a volunteer stealth bomber to get into position anywhere from 15-45km from the enemy fleet. If the enemy fleet is aligned and moving towards a celesital (warp-out) then the scout needs to be near the largest clump of targets. Draw an imaginary line from the target area to the scout ship. Then continue that line in both directions. Behind the target should be a warp out point, or prerably multiple warp out poins. Behind the scout should be a celestial (often a moon) that has your fleet of bombers. On cue, all bombers should align towards the moon with the enemy ships full speed. If your gang is 8 or less, all will warp on the FC's command. If it is over 8, you should split into two or more waves. Although bombs have resistance to their same damage type, enough of them will cause the last launched bombs to be destroyed.
As the bombers warp in, they immediately align to the targets (should already be in position for the most part) drop bombs and warp out. Some will die if the enemy is on its toes, but properly executed a 20 mill bomber or two will die but several HACs or BSs will die.
Make sure to rotate warp in points... using the same spot more than once will get you all killed. Also be ready to hit the enemy fleet as it leaves system, have points set up on the gate and in the next system.
Second is the gate bombing. There are two ways to do this, on the jump in or the out gate. In a hurry, the jump in is the most effective. Have your bombers 35km off the gate wherever they want to be as long as they have a warp out point behind the gate. Make sure they aren't closer... bombs will impact on objects (gate) before detonation and will not detonate. The downside to this is that your bombs are hitting the majority but not all of the ships coming through. Overlap of damage will not be as substantial.
My favorite is the out gate. This requires a dictor (with cloak)at the out gate and a scout on the in gate. The key is timing...
All bombers (minus scout) need to be 30km off the dictor. Said dictor should be in a drag bubble position somewhere behind the gate (or pull bubble in front, I prefer sucker bubbles behind as it gives the prey the "oh shit" feeling as they zoom past the gate).
Dictor will allow scout to pass and report the outgate clear. As enemy fleet enters local and starts their warp, scout will instruct dictor to drop bubble. Dictor will GTFO (as he is on every mail at this point, and cannot survive the bombs or the enemy fleet). Once again, make sure you have the same bomb types loaded and if you're bomber composition is more than 8 break it into waves. One wave on initial fleet landing, the other afterwards (or if they are in a big clump hit them MWDing back to the gate, its awesome!)
The best is some alliances who feel that fleet warping every gate is super awesome. You can hit the entire fleet in one volley. Those gangs usually have scout in next system before they even initiate warp to the next gate... meaning they have no clue whats coming until they land in the gate and see bombs flying at them.
Make sure you launch bombs as soon as the enemy fleet appears on grid. The 10 second flight time means they will have landed and started turning/burning out of the bubble when bombs impact. Wait too long... they may be late. Too soon, you get nothing. The drag bubble pretty much is a win win scenario though.
Worst case... you didn't get them on the in gate and you have no dictor. Line up 35km from the out gate (aligned to the point of the gate the enemy fleet will land on). As soon as the lead elements appear on directional start the launching. It really only works with a medium to large fleet, where ships get caught due to jump lag. Small gangs are almost pointless to try this on.
These ships should not be fit expensive. Torp DPS doesn't matter. Some of the bombers I've used (and killed) won't even fit torp launchers. Speed and maneuverability are paramount on these ships. Expect
[Manticore, Brown Bomber]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
1MN Microwarp Drive II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Bomb Launcher - Shrapnel X2
Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing
2x Shrapnel in Cargo
Or, if you are looking for a hybrid of sorts, you can fit both tasks. Penalty will be torp range and the agility of the bomber will not be the same as the fit above. I don't believe in the tracking disruptor because it only works on a portion of the ships out there, whereas a sensor disruptor works on all. Two damps multiplied by X number of bombers means you can damp the hell out of whatever target(s) you're engaging. Most BCs will have lock range for only 10 or so kilometers, battleships 20-30. Very effective.
[Manticore, The Magician]
Power Diagnostic System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Cold Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Target Painter II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Malkuth Siege Missile Launcher
Bomb Launcher - 2x Shrapnel
Low Friction Nozzle Joints
Warhead Calefaction Catalyst
2x Shrapnel
2x Scan Resolution Dampening Script
Caldari Navy Juggernaut (however many you can hold)
Then we have the standard torp only fit, often used in Black Ops gangs and such. I do enjoy the bombers range, however I value agility and speed over all else. Stock, I can hit out to 60km in my bomber. Thats more than enough for me. The ability to align and warp out quickly is paramount in a craft that is extremely slow in alignment. Arbalest are nice, but I only fit them on this type of craft. The point is for redundancy. I have seen hero tackles by bombers on many different occasions. Engaging at close range is dangerous, but holding a point for a few extra seconds can get you a kill, and these bombers overheating MWDs can hit 2.5k/second easily, and get out of range. Just make sure you keep your transversal up on egress. The Ballistic Control Unit increases damage and range, whereas the Calefaction Catalyst just increases damage. As I stated before, I don't believe in the tracking disruptor because it only works on a portion of the ships out there, whereas a sensor disruptor works on all. If the gang has several dedicated tacklers I will drop the point for a second Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor. For the record, this is my least favorite fit.
[Manticore, Gotcha Bitch]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Ballistic Control Unit II
Target Painter II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor - Dampening Range Script
Warp Disruptor II
1MN Microwarp Drive II
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Arbalest Siege Missile Launcher
Covert Ops Cloaking Device
Salvager (Offline)
As was mentioned in the bomber guide, be careful of the shiptypes engaged. Zealots are death on wheels for bombers. Drakes, Sacrilege, other missile boats should be engaged with caution. Enough damps on them and you're on easy street. Otherwise, those missiles will eat you alive. A Drake loaded with Precision Scourge will two volley your ship. Even tech one missiles will drop you in a relatively short period of time. Remember to keep up orbit on any ship you are shooting, to avoid warp ins or an easy intercept vector. Against turret boats it will decrease damage to your ship. Don't spank your MWD unless you need to GTFO or make range on your target(s). When in doubt, warp out and back in. Make sure to drop a bookmark on field so you don't land in a bubble or on top of a target. Warp back in cloaked (especially against multiple targets). Never underestimate the power of bombers with painters... once upon a time I remember killing an interceptor with 5 bombers and painters... it took about 20 seconds.
Don't solo in a bomber, its retarded. Even dumber is launching a single bomb on a gate at a gang. Unless there is a MWDing frigate, you won't get any kills. Worst case, a fast locker or bubbler will get your ass and I can't tell you how many of those I've killed.
As with any engagement, there isn't a pre determined course of action (game plan) for the situation. Use your best judgement and remember the advantage of your shiptypes. In this case, its the ability to disengage and bug out on whim that makes your gang a survivable one. Don't try and get into a slugfest with any other gang... you will all die.
That is all.
PS: Feel free to comment. These fits... yeah they are just guidelines. I switch fits all the time, tweaking for a specific gang. I suggest you do the same. If you like these little guides, let me know. I usually write battle reports, but I have these little speeches with my corpmates all the time, and am happy to share with all of you. Makes for more worthy and fun opponents :-)
Top: My bike is second from the left, and I'm the guy on the left.
Middle: Blue bike is mine
Bottom: My bike is the blue one in the middle (with pink and blue helmets on the mirrors). I'm on the far right, holding a girl in the air :)
August 9, 2010
Pirating, and anti-Pirating
Did some roaming yesterday through low sec. We snagged some fun kills, and some really dumb ones.
Easley took a couple of us out from Yong to find some targets. First was this Harbinger, who we tackled in a belt ratting. He convo'd Easley, asking for ransom... but started trying to burn out of range. Ishkur had no problem keeping him tackled but our Geddons were struggling to keep up. Figuring it was bullshit since he was running, we blew him up.
Next we found this Harbinger, sitting, afk on the high sec gate inside Rammi. Looked like he jumped Rammi and went afk. We jumped in and tackled him... and at about half armor he woke up and tried to make it back to gate. We overheated and sicked Ogres on him, and were able to pop his ship before he was able to jump high sec.
We roamed around for another 20 or so minutes before Easley found a small camp in Daran. They were camping our out gate. Easley was in an Ishkur, so as we got in position in Ami on the Daran gate, he warped to the Pananan gate and started burning off. The camp consisted of Drake, Armageddon and Gila (at this point). The Drake peeled off and gave chase, getting suckered further and further off. I wanted the Gila, however, and since Easley's kinetic resists were sky high we had him tank the Drake and tackle it 80km off gate.
The Gila started coming out to assist the Drake, and at that point I jumped myself in, holding Titus so as to not cause too much alarm. I warped to Easley, landing right on the Drake. As I was in warp the Gila reached Easley and Easley switched his scram/web combo to the Gila. We primaried the Drake, but he started burning off and I wasn't able to catch up to him in my Armageddon and Easley wasn't going to switch off the Gila, given that that kill was much more worthwhile.
Titus jumped in and joined the fight and the Gila started to go down. The Drake was burning off, but a second Drake landed on field. Neither Drake stuck around for long, which made it all the more odd when the Geddon warped out and back in right on top of us. It made sense when Easley's scram/web combo dissapeared and he hollered on comms "I'm getting neuted to hell by this Geddon, you guys have secondary points?"
"yeah" both Titus and I had it covered.
It was then that I realized my capacitor was dangerously low, as I was being neuted as well. A little puzzled, as the neuting power to cap out a battleship is pretty high, but I started injecting cap charges and cycling my guns to maintain point. As Gila started into armor I switched point to Geddon.
The Gila popped, as Titus wasn't being neuted at all and Easley cycled his cap boosters enough to keep it from burning away. Geddon was next, and he took a decent amount of time to die. Looking at his killmail, you can see why, with the 4x 1600MM Rolled Tungsten Plates. You can also see why he was neuting me so badly... a full rack of neuts in the highs. No guns, just neuts. Damn.
We offered good fights in local and moved on. I ended up logging in the first high sec system we entered to head out for fun times. Not a bad day for the life of a pirate, and that last tussle we didn't even have to GCC on since they tried to kill Easley. Anti-pirating FTW.
Easley's account:
Heading back towards Domain, we finally encountered another gang. Their composition was Drake, Gila and Armageddon. After attempting to get them to aggress me on-gate, I warped off and back to 70km where I defiantly aligned to a celestial that was slightly aligned to the gate. As I closed a few kilometers to the gate, I got the reaction I wanted: the drake was moving for me with his propulsion mod active!
Keeping my head about me, I waited for the drake to point me before doing anything hostile. As the drake went flashy, gate guns began to zap him and I finally made my move. I set a close orbit, activated my afterburner to reduce missile damage and scrambled the battle-cruiser. I launched drones and began chipping away at his shields with my blasters. Whenever he launched light drones, I would primary them immediately and he would recall them. I managed to pop 3 drones before he gave up on using them. At this stage my tank was holding easily and the drake was down to half-shields.
Then I got what I really wanted, the Gila. He had caught up to the drake and I immediately switched my tackle over to the faction cruiser. My backup was called-in at this point (2 close range BS and 1 Drake) and I only had to last a limited amount of time at this point to ensure some quality kills.
The Gila’s dps was a concern for me. Damage-boosted light drones could cause me serious harm (especially if the drake also deployed his remaining drones) and the potential missile damage was not easy to overlook.
However, this Gila made the WORST possible choices in this engagement. At less than 3km range from me, he deployed Wardens, the longest-range sentry drone with horrible tracking in close quarters. These are also kinetic-based (being Caldari) and my Gallente AF has excellent kinetic resists. That’s to say nothing of the radial velocity issues at that range with sentries firing upon an AB-fit AF.
With my gang landing, the drake was pointed and we primaried the Gila, who could not last long against our combined DPS. By this point, we were very comfortable. The Geddon who joined the fight late brought a full rack of heavy neuts, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from being tackled. There were simply too many of us and most of us had cap-injectors fit. The Drake warped off-field shortly after the Geddon went down."
http://couldhavetakenitsolo.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/sunday-slaughter/
That is all.
Easley took a couple of us out from Yong to find some targets. First was this Harbinger, who we tackled in a belt ratting. He convo'd Easley, asking for ransom... but started trying to burn out of range. Ishkur had no problem keeping him tackled but our Geddons were struggling to keep up. Figuring it was bullshit since he was running, we blew him up.
Next we found this Harbinger, sitting, afk on the high sec gate inside Rammi. Looked like he jumped Rammi and went afk. We jumped in and tackled him... and at about half armor he woke up and tried to make it back to gate. We overheated and sicked Ogres on him, and were able to pop his ship before he was able to jump high sec.
We roamed around for another 20 or so minutes before Easley found a small camp in Daran. They were camping our out gate. Easley was in an Ishkur, so as we got in position in Ami on the Daran gate, he warped to the Pananan gate and started burning off. The camp consisted of Drake, Armageddon and Gila (at this point). The Drake peeled off and gave chase, getting suckered further and further off. I wanted the Gila, however, and since Easley's kinetic resists were sky high we had him tank the Drake and tackle it 80km off gate.
The Gila started coming out to assist the Drake, and at that point I jumped myself in, holding Titus so as to not cause too much alarm. I warped to Easley, landing right on the Drake. As I was in warp the Gila reached Easley and Easley switched his scram/web combo to the Gila. We primaried the Drake, but he started burning off and I wasn't able to catch up to him in my Armageddon and Easley wasn't going to switch off the Gila, given that that kill was much more worthwhile.
Titus jumped in and joined the fight and the Gila started to go down. The Drake was burning off, but a second Drake landed on field. Neither Drake stuck around for long, which made it all the more odd when the Geddon warped out and back in right on top of us. It made sense when Easley's scram/web combo dissapeared and he hollered on comms "I'm getting neuted to hell by this Geddon, you guys have secondary points?"
"yeah" both Titus and I had it covered.
It was then that I realized my capacitor was dangerously low, as I was being neuted as well. A little puzzled, as the neuting power to cap out a battleship is pretty high, but I started injecting cap charges and cycling my guns to maintain point. As Gila started into armor I switched point to Geddon.
The Gila popped, as Titus wasn't being neuted at all and Easley cycled his cap boosters enough to keep it from burning away. Geddon was next, and he took a decent amount of time to die. Looking at his killmail, you can see why, with the 4x 1600MM Rolled Tungsten Plates. You can also see why he was neuting me so badly... a full rack of neuts in the highs. No guns, just neuts. Damn.
We offered good fights in local and moved on. I ended up logging in the first high sec system we entered to head out for fun times. Not a bad day for the life of a pirate, and that last tussle we didn't even have to GCC on since they tried to kill Easley. Anti-pirating FTW.
Easley's account:
Heading back towards Domain, we finally encountered another gang. Their composition was Drake, Gila and Armageddon. After attempting to get them to aggress me on-gate, I warped off and back to 70km where I defiantly aligned to a celestial that was slightly aligned to the gate. As I closed a few kilometers to the gate, I got the reaction I wanted: the drake was moving for me with his propulsion mod active!
Keeping my head about me, I waited for the drake to point me before doing anything hostile. As the drake went flashy, gate guns began to zap him and I finally made my move. I set a close orbit, activated my afterburner to reduce missile damage and scrambled the battle-cruiser. I launched drones and began chipping away at his shields with my blasters. Whenever he launched light drones, I would primary them immediately and he would recall them. I managed to pop 3 drones before he gave up on using them. At this stage my tank was holding easily and the drake was down to half-shields.
Then I got what I really wanted, the Gila. He had caught up to the drake and I immediately switched my tackle over to the faction cruiser. My backup was called-in at this point (2 close range BS and 1 Drake) and I only had to last a limited amount of time at this point to ensure some quality kills.
The Gila’s dps was a concern for me. Damage-boosted light drones could cause me serious harm (especially if the drake also deployed his remaining drones) and the potential missile damage was not easy to overlook.
However, this Gila made the WORST possible choices in this engagement. At less than 3km range from me, he deployed Wardens, the longest-range sentry drone with horrible tracking in close quarters. These are also kinetic-based (being Caldari) and my Gallente AF has excellent kinetic resists. That’s to say nothing of the radial velocity issues at that range with sentries firing upon an AB-fit AF.
With my gang landing, the drake was pointed and we primaried the Gila, who could not last long against our combined DPS. By this point, we were very comfortable. The Geddon who joined the fight late brought a full rack of heavy neuts, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from being tackled. There were simply too many of us and most of us had cap-injectors fit. The Drake warped off-field shortly after the Geddon went down."
http://couldhavetakenitsolo.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/sunday-slaughter/
That is all.
August 6, 2010
Lots and lots of EVE Pt 2
After our little tussle with -A-, I clone jumped up to Yong with Easley Thames, Bonecaya and Agro Cathaldus.
Yarrrrrrrrrrrr
Started off with the easy hauler kill. This one was empty, but hey... it was a warm up.
Then my cloaky alt found a Harbinger sitting in a belt... with no rats... at 0... not moving.
Yeah, I thought it too.
But we decided to snag the bait anyways. So in I went with the Onyx... except he was gone.
So I scanned for a good 20 seconds and found him at a different belt. Warped... landed... made the tackle. Harbinger just kinda sat there, local spiked but only with my guys. Harbinger aggresses me (crap damage but his neuts were annoying) and gang lands in belt. Harbinger starts dying really fast, local bumps 2 and his buddies in a Drake and Raven land on field. Drake is at range and GTFOs... Raven is in close and I switch infinipoint to him.
Harbinger dies, Raven warps.
What?
Yeah, Raven warps. Apparently the neuts from the Harbinger capped me out and I didn't notice, so my point cycled once and dropped. Fail.
We poked around Mamet area for a good 10 minutes with no luck, so off we went to Yong. As our gang jumped Biphi, however, a Vexor landed on the Biphi gate. We were already gone, so he didn't see us in front of him and in he jumped. He held cloak for a good 15 seconds and then broke. I immediately locked him (sensor booster + 2 remote sensor boosters FTW) but held the infinipoint until his speed started to accelerate... and then BAM! he stopped dead. Easley was already burning at him and got web + scram. He was screwed at this point and with little trouble his Vexor exploded.
Killed an Itty V shortly after the Vexor popped, then we returned to Yong.
A short while after we returned, an incoming Drake jumped into us in Yong. Same trick.. let him start to warp then drop the point on him. His Drake exploded without much trouble at all, and the fit explains it all. No buffer... ratting fit.
After that Agro logged, apparently his wife needed attention or something. We couldn't figure that one out... but hey :-)
Next to come through was a Cyclone. Same story... and he died really fast. The Cyclones fit was horribad. Always, balancing between resists and buffer is very important. Even active tanks need some amount of buffer to be succesful (unless ratting). At first glance Easley and I though missioning, up until you spot the warp disruptor. Extender rigs may have helped as well.
After the Cyclone died we played around for a bit longer, Bone logged off and we were about to call it a night. A Harbinger and Hurricane were playing around in Yong, but safed up near a planet and due to no probe ships, we couldn't get them. As we were docking up, local dropped the Hurricane...
"Lost a neut... hmm, I'm going to check Biphi"
"You think he went there...? hmm... yeah Shousran and Gemodi show clear"
"Makes sense... yeah hes in here" I said as my alt entered Biphi. The Hurricane was sitting at 0km on the gate. His Harbinger buddy was still floating around Yong.
"I'm gonna bait him with my alt" I said
I warped my Onyx to Biphi gate, and broke the cloak on my alt. Started slowboating back to the gate. Immediate yellow box from the Hurricane, and after about 5 seconds yellow box turned red.
"Aggressed agressed!" I yelled.
I jumped my Onyx in... prayed for a good spawn and sure enough, I was 22km off the Cane. Immediately I spammed approach and locked up the flashy red Hurricane. He didn't burn off... which was really surprising. I figured he would go for it and call his Harbinger buddy from next door. My alt was two volleyed, but waited out her session timer (somehow) and jumped through into Yong. The Hurricane was tanking the gate guns pretty well, but couldn't leave due to the infinipoint on him. Easley jumped in with his Megathron, and it was game over. The Hurricane's buffer evaporated and boom! he was gone.
Best part? No GCC. I glanced at my laptop and noticed his Harbinger buddy was sitting at 0km on the other side of the gate... I hammered my jump button but before my aggression timer expired he warped off. Sad panda... but the Hurricane kill was worth it. Tactics FTW.
We hunted the Harbinger for 5 minutes but got bored... and close to 5am I finally went to bed.
At 9am when I woke up for work I cursed my EVE addiction. Until I drank a large amount of Mountain Dew :)
That is all.
Yarrrrrrrrrrrr
Started off with the easy hauler kill. This one was empty, but hey... it was a warm up.
Then my cloaky alt found a Harbinger sitting in a belt... with no rats... at 0... not moving.
Yeah, I thought it too.
But we decided to snag the bait anyways. So in I went with the Onyx... except he was gone.
So I scanned for a good 20 seconds and found him at a different belt. Warped... landed... made the tackle. Harbinger just kinda sat there, local spiked but only with my guys. Harbinger aggresses me (crap damage but his neuts were annoying) and gang lands in belt. Harbinger starts dying really fast, local bumps 2 and his buddies in a Drake and Raven land on field. Drake is at range and GTFOs... Raven is in close and I switch infinipoint to him.
Harbinger dies, Raven warps.
What?
Yeah, Raven warps. Apparently the neuts from the Harbinger capped me out and I didn't notice, so my point cycled once and dropped. Fail.
We poked around Mamet area for a good 10 minutes with no luck, so off we went to Yong. As our gang jumped Biphi, however, a Vexor landed on the Biphi gate. We were already gone, so he didn't see us in front of him and in he jumped. He held cloak for a good 15 seconds and then broke. I immediately locked him (sensor booster + 2 remote sensor boosters FTW) but held the infinipoint until his speed started to accelerate... and then BAM! he stopped dead. Easley was already burning at him and got web + scram. He was screwed at this point and with little trouble his Vexor exploded.
Killed an Itty V shortly after the Vexor popped, then we returned to Yong.
A short while after we returned, an incoming Drake jumped into us in Yong. Same trick.. let him start to warp then drop the point on him. His Drake exploded without much trouble at all, and the fit explains it all. No buffer... ratting fit.
After that Agro logged, apparently his wife needed attention or something. We couldn't figure that one out... but hey :-)
Next to come through was a Cyclone. Same story... and he died really fast. The Cyclones fit was horribad. Always, balancing between resists and buffer is very important. Even active tanks need some amount of buffer to be succesful (unless ratting). At first glance Easley and I though missioning, up until you spot the warp disruptor. Extender rigs may have helped as well.
After the Cyclone died we played around for a bit longer, Bone logged off and we were about to call it a night. A Harbinger and Hurricane were playing around in Yong, but safed up near a planet and due to no probe ships, we couldn't get them. As we were docking up, local dropped the Hurricane...
"Lost a neut... hmm, I'm going to check Biphi"
"You think he went there...? hmm... yeah Shousran and Gemodi show clear"
"Makes sense... yeah hes in here" I said as my alt entered Biphi. The Hurricane was sitting at 0km on the gate. His Harbinger buddy was still floating around Yong.
"I'm gonna bait him with my alt" I said
I warped my Onyx to Biphi gate, and broke the cloak on my alt. Started slowboating back to the gate. Immediate yellow box from the Hurricane, and after about 5 seconds yellow box turned red.
"Aggressed agressed!" I yelled.
I jumped my Onyx in... prayed for a good spawn and sure enough, I was 22km off the Cane. Immediately I spammed approach and locked up the flashy red Hurricane. He didn't burn off... which was really surprising. I figured he would go for it and call his Harbinger buddy from next door. My alt was two volleyed, but waited out her session timer (somehow) and jumped through into Yong. The Hurricane was tanking the gate guns pretty well, but couldn't leave due to the infinipoint on him. Easley jumped in with his Megathron, and it was game over. The Hurricane's buffer evaporated and boom! he was gone.
Best part? No GCC. I glanced at my laptop and noticed his Harbinger buddy was sitting at 0km on the other side of the gate... I hammered my jump button but before my aggression timer expired he warped off. Sad panda... but the Hurricane kill was worth it. Tactics FTW.
We hunted the Harbinger for 5 minutes but got bored... and close to 5am I finally went to bed.
At 9am when I woke up for work I cursed my EVE addiction. Until I drank a large amount of Mountain Dew :)
That is all.
Lots and lots of EVE Pt 1
Last night was filled with much PVP.
Started out with a roam to Catch, FC'd by Homegrown. Assault frigs, ceptors, and a couple dictors. On our way in, we caught an Apoc who was... PVP fit? I guess, maybe bubble camping or something. Problem is, we caught him on a gate and he couldnt light of his smartbombs. He finally de agressed and jumped through in structure, but he didn't have enough hit points left on the other side to last. We actually had no idea he was smarbomb fit (as he wasn't lighting em off), so had we gotten in close after he jumped it might have been bad, but he died pretty fast. Sad day for the rest of the gang, who didn't get on the mail.
We moved on to GJO-, to visit En Garde. This has become a fun place to check out, as they always have Hulk mining ops and stuff going on. Unfortunately, this trip had no fruit, as the 2x Hulk and Rokh initiated warp to station before I popped my bubbles and landed at 0. I was a sad panda.
On our way out... Apoc on GJO- gate in A8! We tackled, got him into low armor and...
yup. He popped a cyno.
Expecting 3x carriers and support (like last week) I was surprised to see a lone Archon. We kept shooting, and got him to half structure before the Archon finally locked his failing comrade and gave him some armor love. Sad day. Given that we were all in AFs and Interceptors it was actually a little comical. En Garde better be careful pulling that stunt again; one carrier with a lone Apoc and mediocre support next door is easy pickings.
We moved on into Curse, taking a bio in D87E. I cloaked up in my dictor on our out gate, which is a moderately traveled pipe in Curse.
Sure enough, 5 minutes into the bio I got gate fire. I dropped cloak and waited...
Blackbird decloaks and starts aligning, which is the perfect time to pop the bubble. Which I did, and the Blackbird stopped dead in its tracks. I grabbed point on him, and he just stopped moving. The active fleet members were landing on field, and the Blackbird died quickly. He didn't even move, seemingly giving up. His fit was... unorthodox.
Moving on, we went through VOL- and down towards Jamunda. Stopping by the ever elusive Waterboard in YKE4, we found nobody. I thought it was a bit strange.
I jumped into Hemen along with our Crow scout and figured out where Waterboard was. 20 of them were on the RMOC- gate, in various shiptypes. It was a doable gang, as they were lots of light ships... but it would be tricky. I held session change along with our Crow, and then instructed him to break cloak and reapproach, followed quickly by me. The gang shot Crow first, who easily made it, allowing my Flycatcher to get back to gate and jump at half shield.
In an effort to make the fight more winnable, I had gang land on Hemen, jump, then all wait session timer. On Homegrown's mark, the gang all reapproached and jumped back RMOC-. Point was to seperate some of the Waterboard elements with aggression timers. Unfortunately, due to A. all of Waterboard aggressing our pilots or B. intelligence, none of them came through. I'm assuming A, since they lit up our assault frigs, taking some into deep armor.
So, fleet moved back to KQ- to repair in station, and Waterboard jumped into RMOC-. It was kind of a pucker moment, as I was cloaked 2.5k under the gate as their gang, now 25 or so in number decloaked all around me. Then they reapproached... but due to the large size of the constellation gate I stayed safe. After 30 seconds the Waterboard gang moved to KQ- gate and our fleet was stuck.
Homegrown was ready to engage, but examining their composition from my cloaked position I determined that this was not a good fight to take... their gang had added numbers and those numbers were mainly in recons. Falcon, Arazu, Rapier can all ruin a small, fast moving gangs advantage. So I warped YKE4- gate in RMOC-, aligned down to KQ- and burned 70km off. Gang jumped YKE4, burned RMOC- gate and jumped into RMOC-. This move bypassed the Waterboard camp, and the bubble I dropped 70km off the gate caught the few fast movers they sent to try and intercept or gang once they figured out what we were doing. Our fleet was in RMOC- warping Hemen gate when they started to react, but a second bubble in line with KQ- gate 70 off the Hemen gate kept those quick thinkers from getting us. Combined with our small composition we sailed smoothly out of Heaven Constellation and back into Catch. No logoffski's either, for all you emo raging e honor punks. But I did consider it :)
Moving on home, I attempted to find targets all around Catch, scouting for Homegrown, but got nothing. As we approached 49-U, however, a 4 man gang of -A- was camping the 4-07 gate. We engaged, dipping in and out and keeping them busy while screaming in intel for more firepower. Reason? Tengu/Apoc/Sacrilege/Eris. All formidable opponents for our gang composition. We split our forces on either side, keeping the bad guys interested enough but trying not to die. Despite some extremely close calls, nobody died.
The Tengu ended up bailing in 4-07 after awhile (he was smart). Eris kept playing around, was sitting in armor when a few blues showed up in 49-U and warped to an off gate and cloaked. Apoc and Sacrilege, however, deagressed in 49-U and jumped into 4-07 (Sacrilege had actually been bouncing back and forth for awhile). Problem was, Staticviolence (he was the other dictor) was off gate 50km and unable to bubble, and the two assault frigs in 4-07 had warped off field and were on the way back.
So I jumped into 4-07 with my double bubble Flycatcher, loaded grid and immediately dropped a bubble.
Gulp.
Sacrilege and Apoc immediately opened up. I couldn't jump as I was 14km off gate when I hero bubbled (Apoc was trying to warp) and got aggro. Immediately, drones from both ships were on me and neuts snaked across space and sucked my cap dry. My MWD deactivated and my shields started dropping. Disregarding transversal I held my course away from the neuts and drone range of the two ships... and in very low shield my cap started coming back. I kicked the MWD on and got out of range. Local started climbing as blues came in.
Apoc, already in low armor, died quickly. He tried to de agress and jump into 49-U (which would have still gotten him killed) but he just didn't have enough hit points left and boom went the Apocalypse. The Sacrilege had initially tried to burn off the gate it appeared, but as local spiked he tried to reapproach. It was a fatal mistake, as the numerous assault frigs had him scrammed and triple and quadruple webbed. With the combined DPS now on his ship, the Sacrilege didn't last long.
No losses to our side, and two more nice kills. To this point I re affirm what has been said before: playing around for too long will get your face smashed in. To this point, as our gang started heading back into 49-U, local spiked with around 15 -A- in heavier ships (HAC/BC/Recons). This was, no doubt, a fleet to come help their struggling brosefs. They were too late, but had we stuck around to play with the Eris who had broken his cloak and was doing the ping pong between the systems, we would have lost people to that gang. But we took our kills and called it, and were the obvious victors.
Great roam, executed well by Homegrown. Good scouting and smart tactics meant only 4 kills, but no losses. Had we engaged Waterboard (initially before they phoned everyone to come help) we would undoubtedly have taken losses... with the hope that we would have killed more than we lost. Smartly, we chose to evade and escape, which allowed for the -A- kills in 4-07.
I almost called it a night... but Easley Thames and I decided to have some more fun. Check out the next post for the story.
That is all.
Started out with a roam to Catch, FC'd by Homegrown. Assault frigs, ceptors, and a couple dictors. On our way in, we caught an Apoc who was... PVP fit? I guess, maybe bubble camping or something. Problem is, we caught him on a gate and he couldnt light of his smartbombs. He finally de agressed and jumped through in structure, but he didn't have enough hit points left on the other side to last. We actually had no idea he was smarbomb fit (as he wasn't lighting em off), so had we gotten in close after he jumped it might have been bad, but he died pretty fast. Sad day for the rest of the gang, who didn't get on the mail.
We moved on to GJO-, to visit En Garde. This has become a fun place to check out, as they always have Hulk mining ops and stuff going on. Unfortunately, this trip had no fruit, as the 2x Hulk and Rokh initiated warp to station before I popped my bubbles and landed at 0. I was a sad panda.
On our way out... Apoc on GJO- gate in A8! We tackled, got him into low armor and...
yup. He popped a cyno.
Expecting 3x carriers and support (like last week) I was surprised to see a lone Archon. We kept shooting, and got him to half structure before the Archon finally locked his failing comrade and gave him some armor love. Sad day. Given that we were all in AFs and Interceptors it was actually a little comical. En Garde better be careful pulling that stunt again; one carrier with a lone Apoc and mediocre support next door is easy pickings.
We moved on into Curse, taking a bio in D87E. I cloaked up in my dictor on our out gate, which is a moderately traveled pipe in Curse.
Sure enough, 5 minutes into the bio I got gate fire. I dropped cloak and waited...
Blackbird decloaks and starts aligning, which is the perfect time to pop the bubble. Which I did, and the Blackbird stopped dead in its tracks. I grabbed point on him, and he just stopped moving. The active fleet members were landing on field, and the Blackbird died quickly. He didn't even move, seemingly giving up. His fit was... unorthodox.
Moving on, we went through VOL- and down towards Jamunda. Stopping by the ever elusive Waterboard in YKE4, we found nobody. I thought it was a bit strange.
I jumped into Hemen along with our Crow scout and figured out where Waterboard was. 20 of them were on the RMOC- gate, in various shiptypes. It was a doable gang, as they were lots of light ships... but it would be tricky. I held session change along with our Crow, and then instructed him to break cloak and reapproach, followed quickly by me. The gang shot Crow first, who easily made it, allowing my Flycatcher to get back to gate and jump at half shield.
In an effort to make the fight more winnable, I had gang land on Hemen, jump, then all wait session timer. On Homegrown's mark, the gang all reapproached and jumped back RMOC-. Point was to seperate some of the Waterboard elements with aggression timers. Unfortunately, due to A. all of Waterboard aggressing our pilots or B. intelligence, none of them came through. I'm assuming A, since they lit up our assault frigs, taking some into deep armor.
So, fleet moved back to KQ- to repair in station, and Waterboard jumped into RMOC-. It was kind of a pucker moment, as I was cloaked 2.5k under the gate as their gang, now 25 or so in number decloaked all around me. Then they reapproached... but due to the large size of the constellation gate I stayed safe. After 30 seconds the Waterboard gang moved to KQ- gate and our fleet was stuck.
Homegrown was ready to engage, but examining their composition from my cloaked position I determined that this was not a good fight to take... their gang had added numbers and those numbers were mainly in recons. Falcon, Arazu, Rapier can all ruin a small, fast moving gangs advantage. So I warped YKE4- gate in RMOC-, aligned down to KQ- and burned 70km off. Gang jumped YKE4, burned RMOC- gate and jumped into RMOC-. This move bypassed the Waterboard camp, and the bubble I dropped 70km off the gate caught the few fast movers they sent to try and intercept or gang once they figured out what we were doing. Our fleet was in RMOC- warping Hemen gate when they started to react, but a second bubble in line with KQ- gate 70 off the Hemen gate kept those quick thinkers from getting us. Combined with our small composition we sailed smoothly out of Heaven Constellation and back into Catch. No logoffski's either, for all you emo raging e honor punks. But I did consider it :)
Moving on home, I attempted to find targets all around Catch, scouting for Homegrown, but got nothing. As we approached 49-U, however, a 4 man gang of -A- was camping the 4-07 gate. We engaged, dipping in and out and keeping them busy while screaming in intel for more firepower. Reason? Tengu/Apoc/Sacrilege/Eris. All formidable opponents for our gang composition. We split our forces on either side, keeping the bad guys interested enough but trying not to die. Despite some extremely close calls, nobody died.
The Tengu ended up bailing in 4-07 after awhile (he was smart). Eris kept playing around, was sitting in armor when a few blues showed up in 49-U and warped to an off gate and cloaked. Apoc and Sacrilege, however, deagressed in 49-U and jumped into 4-07 (Sacrilege had actually been bouncing back and forth for awhile). Problem was, Staticviolence (he was the other dictor) was off gate 50km and unable to bubble, and the two assault frigs in 4-07 had warped off field and were on the way back.
So I jumped into 4-07 with my double bubble Flycatcher, loaded grid and immediately dropped a bubble.
Gulp.
Sacrilege and Apoc immediately opened up. I couldn't jump as I was 14km off gate when I hero bubbled (Apoc was trying to warp) and got aggro. Immediately, drones from both ships were on me and neuts snaked across space and sucked my cap dry. My MWD deactivated and my shields started dropping. Disregarding transversal I held my course away from the neuts and drone range of the two ships... and in very low shield my cap started coming back. I kicked the MWD on and got out of range. Local started climbing as blues came in.
Apoc, already in low armor, died quickly. He tried to de agress and jump into 49-U (which would have still gotten him killed) but he just didn't have enough hit points left and boom went the Apocalypse. The Sacrilege had initially tried to burn off the gate it appeared, but as local spiked he tried to reapproach. It was a fatal mistake, as the numerous assault frigs had him scrammed and triple and quadruple webbed. With the combined DPS now on his ship, the Sacrilege didn't last long.
No losses to our side, and two more nice kills. To this point I re affirm what has been said before: playing around for too long will get your face smashed in. To this point, as our gang started heading back into 49-U, local spiked with around 15 -A- in heavier ships (HAC/BC/Recons). This was, no doubt, a fleet to come help their struggling brosefs. They were too late, but had we stuck around to play with the Eris who had broken his cloak and was doing the ping pong between the systems, we would have lost people to that gang. But we took our kills and called it, and were the obvious victors.
Great roam, executed well by Homegrown. Good scouting and smart tactics meant only 4 kills, but no losses. Had we engaged Waterboard (initially before they phoned everyone to come help) we would undoubtedly have taken losses... with the hope that we would have killed more than we lost. Smartly, we chose to evade and escape, which allowed for the -A- kills in 4-07.
I almost called it a night... but Easley Thames and I decided to have some more fun. Check out the next post for the story.
That is all.
August 5, 2010
Back at it. Winning and Losing.
Fiber optic is, for the record, freakin awesome.
I've taken a few gangs out, and not had much time to write about them simply due to increased business at work.
That being said we have netted some fun kills and some fun roams, but the one I shall talk about is a roam to Curse last night that ended in failure.
In retrospect, I can see small changes that could have been made that would have decreased the possibility of failure, but lack of intel is bad no matter what way you look at it. Also, the losses taken were enough to piss me off, but once again, could have been much worse.
So...
Snipe HAC gang to Catch; some guys tagging along in other ships. Dictors/Scimmies are ok.. but we had some BCs that I should have just kicked out of gang, but I wanted the firepower.
We first hit up En Garde in catch, who wouldn't give us a fight at all. Despite outnumbering us. We left that system and headed towards Curse... where we found 35 or so Razor in Doril. Scout started picking a fight with an Arazu 60km off station... reported 3 Apocs on station with the Arazu, the rest were docked (he had docked to verify this). Scout was in a Vagabond.
First problem was, Apocs. Apocs, even pulse fit (Pulsepocs) are ridiculous at range. 60km is cake for even a pulse fit Apoc (with the right crystals 100km optimal is easy). We were holding 2jumps out, and when I heard he was engaging I jumped fleet into Litom and warped them to Doril gate... with instructions to jump gate into Doril and warp to Easley, who was 60km off the Apocs on the station. I figured we may get a fight, and would dictate range and warp ins/outs like snipe hac gangs do.
Didn't work out that way. Scout died to Apocs, which scout was surprised at but I was not, due to 60km being happy time range for Pulsepocs.
This death meant two (2) things:
1. Half the fleet was in warp to the station, the other half had not yet initiated warp when scout died. This led to seperation in the fleet. Bad... very bad.
2. Razor woke up. The station dislodged the rest of their gang... which happened to be battleship heavy with support and logistics. Oh, and a dictor or two. Said dictor happened to pop a bubble on station before gang initiated warp. All things I didn't know about as I ordered us to warp to our scout...
This all ended with random gang members landing in a bubble 20km off of a 25ish man Razor gang. Including my Zealot, which was one shotted by an Apoc. I lost seven ships (including myself) on that fail warp in, the rest managed to bail out. Razor, fortunately enough, was content to hug the station. I got fleet out to Litom, in time to see our exit camped by En Garde in about 20 ships. A gang we would have gladly fought before, but with our current losses we were ill equipped to engage.
With eyes on the En Garde force, I was able to see when they bailed the gate and warped to the station we were sitting at in Litom. I had us all dock up for a 10 min bio, in the hopes En Garde would get bored.
After the 10 min bio, I came back to an empty (almost) system. Hurricane on the undock aggressed my scout, so we all undocked and killed him. Scout reported En Garde in Jomunda, but the in gate was clear. So we warped to Jamunda gate...
In time to see local spike with En Garding coming in from Jamunda, and reapporaching the gate. I ordered everyone through, and En Garde jumped with us, bubbling as well.
I suppose I should have asked the scout specifically if they were on short range scan from the gate. As a scout I would have done that naturally (specifically scanning down planets/moons/belts close to the gate) but as our primary scout was dead, I knew nothing about this guy except that he was in an interceptor. So En Garde, who had eyes on the gate (neutrals in system, can only assume eyes) was at a short warp point and got us. So we jumped into Jamunda, I instructed everyone to hold cloak. Fast movers burn out of bubbles and warp, slow movers reapproach. Late arrivals reported Jamunda gate in Litom clear... En Garde had left no tacklers behind.
Amazingly, it worked. No one died. Even me in my pod of glory managed to get out of bubble and warp off. How none of my guys got tackled amazes me, due to the light nature of the En Garde gang. Everyone safed up, En Garde went 1p- and left local, except for one Cov Ops.
I knew they were sitting next door, as Jomunda and 1p- are both pipes and we needed to get through 1p to get home (quickest). So we sat for 5 minutes, in an attempt to bore En Garde. I then sent the scout through...
they were gone!
We moved into 1p-, noting the Atlas in local. Scout jumped into F4R2... En Garde was sitting there. I immediately went next door to KOCN- which leads to VA6 which goes to F4R2 from another gate, albeit a short warp. KOCN- had En Garde eyes. Damn. So did VA6. Double damn. On a whim, I had fleet jump into KOCN- and reapproach. I had sent our scout into F4R2 using the side path, and he kept eyes. Sure enough, the moment gang entered KOCN- the entire En Garde gang warped off to cover the other entry point into F4R2. I jumped my pod through, and the gate was completely clear! They left no one! Fleet jumped back into 1p- and came to the gate... but as they were landing our ceptor reported them aligning and warping back... and with the 4AU distance... I called it off and had gang safe up. The faster ships would have made it but I wanted no more losses.
Unfortunately for me, I waited too long to warp my pod out, as I was issuing instructions and not paying attention. With a 9AU/Second warp speed, the En garde dictor landed first, and bubbled my pod. I immediately died.
I heaved a sigh of frusteration, as the entire evening had gone horribly wrong. I handed off fleet to Static and instructed him to take gang out through Sendaya, low sec. It took a good 45 minutes, but Static managed to bring the gang home safely. I apologized to gang, made sure reimbursements were in order and em logged.
Looking back at the defining moment, I replayed it over and over in my mind. Embarassed, disgusted, angered, I was still able to see what needed to happen/not happen next time.
First, our scout. Experienced, knowledgeable in tactics, and well versed over years of EVE experience. However, his style has and always will be picking a fight and bringing in a brawling gang.
Those are not tactics you use with a snipe hac gang. Snipe hac gangs are for fights. You don't belt blitz ratters, you find gangs twice your size and kill them while they try and kill you. When they get close, you bail out and come back in. Rinse repeat. Scout's primary job is to provide warp ins.
That being said, I should have sent in a stealth bomber to give us a silent warp in on station. Eyes=knowledge=knowledgeable decisions. I could have sent the Vagabond in after that, but pressure would have been off him as we had eyes, and his only job would have been to force the enemy to play their hand, which, last night, consisted of 20 or so active Razor guys docked in station. As things got hot he would have warped out. At that point, our bomber gives us a proper warp in off the bubble that was just deployed and in we come.
The moment my scout mentioned he might die, I should have held gang up until I had confirmation of what we were getting into. At that point I would have avoided bubbles and we would have warped in at range on the Razor gang. Their small shit would have died or docked or warped, and we would have managed the engagement, because thats what you do in snipe hacs. Hard to hit, fast, agile, they dominate with good warp ins and intel. Hell, if the entire gang had landed in the bubble we could have aligned sun and spanked MWDs and shot at them. But only half the gang landed. That was the fight we wanted and I botched it. En Garde would have been fun as well, they had small ships, recons/afs/ceptors... perfect munching for a snipe HAC gang. But our depleted forces were not enough to take them.
20/20 Hindsight. But, as Avicenna Sarfaraz, MVN CEO said to me in command when I was emo raging...
"what did you learn"
as long as the mistakes are not repeated again, I will chalk it up to experience.
Grats to En Garde for forming up... late... wish I could have given you a fight. Razor, well, I would have chased us down. You would have even gotten a fight with En Garde, and given the Razor composition I would put money on them smashing En Garde. But, they took their seven easy kills and stayed on the station.
Never give up, never go down. I'll be back out again tonight.
That is all.
I've taken a few gangs out, and not had much time to write about them simply due to increased business at work.
That being said we have netted some fun kills and some fun roams, but the one I shall talk about is a roam to Curse last night that ended in failure.
In retrospect, I can see small changes that could have been made that would have decreased the possibility of failure, but lack of intel is bad no matter what way you look at it. Also, the losses taken were enough to piss me off, but once again, could have been much worse.
So...
Snipe HAC gang to Catch; some guys tagging along in other ships. Dictors/Scimmies are ok.. but we had some BCs that I should have just kicked out of gang, but I wanted the firepower.
We first hit up En Garde in catch, who wouldn't give us a fight at all. Despite outnumbering us. We left that system and headed towards Curse... where we found 35 or so Razor in Doril. Scout started picking a fight with an Arazu 60km off station... reported 3 Apocs on station with the Arazu, the rest were docked (he had docked to verify this). Scout was in a Vagabond.
First problem was, Apocs. Apocs, even pulse fit (Pulsepocs) are ridiculous at range. 60km is cake for even a pulse fit Apoc (with the right crystals 100km optimal is easy). We were holding 2jumps out, and when I heard he was engaging I jumped fleet into Litom and warped them to Doril gate... with instructions to jump gate into Doril and warp to Easley, who was 60km off the Apocs on the station. I figured we may get a fight, and would dictate range and warp ins/outs like snipe hac gangs do.
Didn't work out that way. Scout died to Apocs, which scout was surprised at but I was not, due to 60km being happy time range for Pulsepocs.
This death meant two (2) things:
1. Half the fleet was in warp to the station, the other half had not yet initiated warp when scout died. This led to seperation in the fleet. Bad... very bad.
2. Razor woke up. The station dislodged the rest of their gang... which happened to be battleship heavy with support and logistics. Oh, and a dictor or two. Said dictor happened to pop a bubble on station before gang initiated warp. All things I didn't know about as I ordered us to warp to our scout...
This all ended with random gang members landing in a bubble 20km off of a 25ish man Razor gang. Including my Zealot, which was one shotted by an Apoc. I lost seven ships (including myself) on that fail warp in, the rest managed to bail out. Razor, fortunately enough, was content to hug the station. I got fleet out to Litom, in time to see our exit camped by En Garde in about 20 ships. A gang we would have gladly fought before, but with our current losses we were ill equipped to engage.
With eyes on the En Garde force, I was able to see when they bailed the gate and warped to the station we were sitting at in Litom. I had us all dock up for a 10 min bio, in the hopes En Garde would get bored.
After the 10 min bio, I came back to an empty (almost) system. Hurricane on the undock aggressed my scout, so we all undocked and killed him. Scout reported En Garde in Jomunda, but the in gate was clear. So we warped to Jamunda gate...
In time to see local spike with En Garding coming in from Jamunda, and reapporaching the gate. I ordered everyone through, and En Garde jumped with us, bubbling as well.
I suppose I should have asked the scout specifically if they were on short range scan from the gate. As a scout I would have done that naturally (specifically scanning down planets/moons/belts close to the gate) but as our primary scout was dead, I knew nothing about this guy except that he was in an interceptor. So En Garde, who had eyes on the gate (neutrals in system, can only assume eyes) was at a short warp point and got us. So we jumped into Jamunda, I instructed everyone to hold cloak. Fast movers burn out of bubbles and warp, slow movers reapproach. Late arrivals reported Jamunda gate in Litom clear... En Garde had left no tacklers behind.
Amazingly, it worked. No one died. Even me in my pod of glory managed to get out of bubble and warp off. How none of my guys got tackled amazes me, due to the light nature of the En Garde gang. Everyone safed up, En Garde went 1p- and left local, except for one Cov Ops.
I knew they were sitting next door, as Jomunda and 1p- are both pipes and we needed to get through 1p to get home (quickest). So we sat for 5 minutes, in an attempt to bore En Garde. I then sent the scout through...
they were gone!
We moved into 1p-, noting the Atlas in local. Scout jumped into F4R2... En Garde was sitting there. I immediately went next door to KOCN- which leads to VA6 which goes to F4R2 from another gate, albeit a short warp. KOCN- had En Garde eyes. Damn. So did VA6. Double damn. On a whim, I had fleet jump into KOCN- and reapproach. I had sent our scout into F4R2 using the side path, and he kept eyes. Sure enough, the moment gang entered KOCN- the entire En Garde gang warped off to cover the other entry point into F4R2. I jumped my pod through, and the gate was completely clear! They left no one! Fleet jumped back into 1p- and came to the gate... but as they were landing our ceptor reported them aligning and warping back... and with the 4AU distance... I called it off and had gang safe up. The faster ships would have made it but I wanted no more losses.
Unfortunately for me, I waited too long to warp my pod out, as I was issuing instructions and not paying attention. With a 9AU/Second warp speed, the En garde dictor landed first, and bubbled my pod. I immediately died.
I heaved a sigh of frusteration, as the entire evening had gone horribly wrong. I handed off fleet to Static and instructed him to take gang out through Sendaya, low sec. It took a good 45 minutes, but Static managed to bring the gang home safely. I apologized to gang, made sure reimbursements were in order and em logged.
Looking back at the defining moment, I replayed it over and over in my mind. Embarassed, disgusted, angered, I was still able to see what needed to happen/not happen next time.
First, our scout. Experienced, knowledgeable in tactics, and well versed over years of EVE experience. However, his style has and always will be picking a fight and bringing in a brawling gang.
Those are not tactics you use with a snipe hac gang. Snipe hac gangs are for fights. You don't belt blitz ratters, you find gangs twice your size and kill them while they try and kill you. When they get close, you bail out and come back in. Rinse repeat. Scout's primary job is to provide warp ins.
That being said, I should have sent in a stealth bomber to give us a silent warp in on station. Eyes=knowledge=knowledgeable decisions. I could have sent the Vagabond in after that, but pressure would have been off him as we had eyes, and his only job would have been to force the enemy to play their hand, which, last night, consisted of 20 or so active Razor guys docked in station. As things got hot he would have warped out. At that point, our bomber gives us a proper warp in off the bubble that was just deployed and in we come.
The moment my scout mentioned he might die, I should have held gang up until I had confirmation of what we were getting into. At that point I would have avoided bubbles and we would have warped in at range on the Razor gang. Their small shit would have died or docked or warped, and we would have managed the engagement, because thats what you do in snipe hacs. Hard to hit, fast, agile, they dominate with good warp ins and intel. Hell, if the entire gang had landed in the bubble we could have aligned sun and spanked MWDs and shot at them. But only half the gang landed. That was the fight we wanted and I botched it. En Garde would have been fun as well, they had small ships, recons/afs/ceptors... perfect munching for a snipe HAC gang. But our depleted forces were not enough to take them.
20/20 Hindsight. But, as Avicenna Sarfaraz, MVN CEO said to me in command when I was emo raging...
"what did you learn"
as long as the mistakes are not repeated again, I will chalk it up to experience.
Grats to En Garde for forming up... late... wish I could have given you a fight. Razor, well, I would have chased us down. You would have even gotten a fight with En Garde, and given the Razor composition I would put money on them smashing En Garde. But, they took their seven easy kills and stayed on the station.
Never give up, never go down. I'll be back out again tonight.
That is all.
August 2, 2010
Internet. Fail.
So after moving it was time to switch internet providers to something faster.
Unfortunately the transition has been anything but smooth. Hopefully when I get home from work today it will be working. The EVE withdrawals are already starting to set in...
Unfortunately the transition has been anything but smooth. Hopefully when I get home from work today it will be working. The EVE withdrawals are already starting to set in...
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