January 4, 2011

A Roam. SBUs. And why blueballing your fleets is bad.

Last night started with a fleet (fight?). I went to they gym while fleet was forming, came back to find fleet still forming. Joined up in time to bridge into 9R4 with the mission being kill the TEST TCU. We were outnumbered from the start, but instead of going on the offensive we hid in a POS. We got a password set up so Fountain Allies could go inside (as they didn't have a pos...) which is always a bad idea. It also took like 10 minutes to sort the pos situation (when we should have been fighting). Immediately NC got the password and started bumping guys out of the pos shields. We warped to a different POS without a password, leaving behind our allies to fend for themselves. As this waste of time was going on I went afk to get food as it was obvious we weren't going to do anything. I came back to hear channel command lighting up with "how do we get out of here" "what do we do" etc. I made a suggestion we fight, with some ideas. After immediately getting shot down (hard) I went and got some Mountain Dew. All this time more reinforcements from Cloud Ring were being bridged in from J5A making the situation more ridiculous (I had stated in fleet IRC that the longer we screwed around the worse it was going to get). When I got back from Mountain Dew run I found the same situation as before. I mentioned that if we weren't going to man up and fight (which I still thought we should do), an exit strategy was appropriate. Which I gave. Which was determined to be the best course of action.

Unfortunately Fountain allies weren't able to effectively use the exit strategy as they were in a different pos, and got hosed on the tuck and run. I felt bad but I wasn't happy about leaving as it was.

So, one more night of forming up a fleet and having them sit around and then standing it down (or running in this case). Not exactly the type of scenario that encourages people to even log on for the next fight, especially after several days of this type of behavior.

Camped with J5A pipe and snagged a few killmails. Then we took out the long range HAC gang. Easley grabbed a Drake in O-B... ratting. The Drake popped quick.

We snagged a Zealot in KU5R warping into the station. Unfortunately for him, it was already bubbled to hell. He popped so fast I didn't even get on the mail.

We moved up into the WI constellation, and got no fights. No kills. Nothing. Lots of talk about forming defence fleets from the NC but nothing ever materialized. Zammas moved ahead into Deklein, where in WUZ he found lots of things on scan.

Including an Archon.

Zammas scanned while we shot up OWXT-. Then, rather quietly, he spoke...

"Archon is in Sanctum... ... I have point on Archon, go go go go"

I burned fleet the two jumps to WUZ and everyone warped to Zammas. Apparently the guy was afk, as fighters were still on rats and no cries for help. We started into him, I held focus point at close range and his shields melted. We started on armor, which was slower going but dropping none the less. On this went until he hit very low armor. At this point he woke up and started yelling for help in local.

I had commanded no local chatter (which is unusual, I usual don't care). So while Test was smacking us about who knows what their Archon was dying. After his initial pleas for help (with no local response, although Test did have home defence fleet forming) he simply said one thing:

"I fell asleep :("

I laughed.

Archon had started repping (probably had 2x reps but only one active while afk) so we overheated. Within 1 min we broke his tank and his Archon went boom. Nice expensive fit for someone in TEST. At this point I pasted the lossmail in local, first thing we had said. I also had everyone right TY in local. We warped in on station, no kills. Then we left. The only thing that was said was some hurf blurf about "Thanks for cleaning up our stupid ratters" or something.

0ok.

We popped a Typhoon caught ratting in XZH- on the way home. But the carrier kill was the jewel of the night, as we got no fights.

Even waiting in P-2 for 15 minutes waiting for the "Home Defence Fleet" to come after us. They kind of did, but ran off when we turned around.

I dropped SBUs last night for alliance, since no one else seems to really want to do anything. Not that I expected our low EUTZ numbers to do anything with them but meh, someone needs to.

Unfortunately someone noticed in PNQ- and warped in on one that had 45seconds left anchoring. I was cloaked in a Rapier next to it. I ninja onlined it while the Anathema next to it was trying to figure out what to do, but a Malediction warping in on the Anathema buddy decloaked me as I was bailing. Tackled with Hurricane and several others landing on grid I almost made it off but even double webbed the Malediction held point. Seven guys whored on the lossmail :(

So I grabbed a Hurricane and came back, hoping for some nice action in system. Unfortunately for me, not only were the hostile in PNQ- waiting, they had a lot more guys this time and I died horribly in the Cane. I laughed though... their whining about shooting SBUs was worth it.

Zammas organized a hot drop and I went along for the ride (I should have been sleeping). Poor bubbling and target calling only netted us a couple kills though. Pro tip: You never primary a Drake. Ever. Period. Unless its the only thing on field.

All in all though, a fun night sandwhiched by not fun stuff.

We'll see what happens in the next month or so.

That is all.

1 comment:

Roman said...

Hey PK,

Not sure what to say about channel command's decisions. Interesting how they turned a deaf ear to you until your exit strategy.
Sounds like they're afraid to fight and lose. I can't imagine that's a good thing.

Funny contrast between Zammas' quietness about the Archon and that other FC you wrote about last year (forgot his name) who's voice would go up to little girl octaves when he got excited.

Congrats on the Archon kill!
What exactly did you mean by "focus point"?

The Stimutac and Knights of Kador guys you killed in your Dust Conglomerate post are (were?) neighbors of mine in Amarr. Funny seeing them on your kb.

As always, great post.