Hey guys, let's get rid of this dead stick in our new wormhole system! Ok. Should we put some scouts on the wormholes. Nah! We need all the DPS we can get on this tower. No one is awake in wormholes at this time of night. Ok! Heading to the dead stick with my shiny new Stratios! I want to see how it performs. Does this line of logic strike you as dumb? It should!
One of our scouts is down chain scouting and reports back that he was 2 Talos, 2 Naga, a Myrmidon and an Oracle. He gets little reaction since we often find ships floating. However, his next comment makes me sit up. These ships are a a planet with a tower but there is no force field. Scout, please confirm ship list and no force field. Confirmed, no force field. I have 2 Talos, 2 Naga, a Myrmidon and an Oracle plus a new Helios who is in a different location.
The rest of the group reships while he locates the tower and reports back that several of the ships are sitting in a group shooting a dead stick. I instruct him to move within 5 km of the group and we head down chain with a Devoter, 2 Proteus and an Oneiros. We move quickly to the entrance of the target system and figure out how to spread points as we are in route.
We land on the wormhole and since the ships were warped independently we wait the few seconds for everyone to arrive. As soon as we are all on grid, we jump the wormhole and initiate warp to our scout. The warp is 39.6 AU so they are not going to have much notice if they didn't have eyes on this incoming wormhole.
We land on grid with them and it is readily apparent that they did not have eyes on the incoming wormhole. They have not moved and as we land, a new pilot arrives in a Stratios. I quickly change my point from one of the Talos to the new Stratios. The first Talos and a Naga are dead before they even react to our presence. The Stratios is trying to burn away but I am faster and he cannot escape my 36 km point. I chase him down while the other Proteus is taking care of the pilots caught by the bubble.
The scout who found the tower bash in progress decloaks and tags the Stratios in his Buzzard before I kill it and then manages to catch the pod before it can warp off. Great job!
In total, we destroy 5 ships and 4 pods shown in the battle report. I thank the remaining members for contributing to my corpse collection since good fight does not make any sense. Poor security, poor reactions, poor target calling and poor DPS leads to a 1.1B loss. Of the seven ships on field, only 2 escaped. One was the Oracle who was sitting 40km from the rest of the group and the other was the Talos that I dropped point from in order to get the Stratios.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
End of Line
We have just opened a new chain and are spreading out looking for activity. It is approaching the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and the activity levels are low due to people traveling. I am scanning with my alt and find the static high sec and the static c4 for the new wormhole. A teammate jumps the C4 and reports back that an Iteron V lands and jumps going the other direction. He links the pilot name and doesn't think he was spotted as he held cloak while the other pilot landed and jumped.
So we have an Iteron V moving stuff from a C4 into a C2. I move over to the high sec and confirm that he exits to k-space at that location. On the theory that what goes out will usually return, we set a trap with a cloaked Flycatcher on the C4 and prepare to wait. Less than 30 seconds go by when the Flycatcher pilot reports back that he has an activation. I am sitting in a Sabre and a corp mate is sitting in an interceptor in our home system.
The Flycatcher pilot reports a Bustard has appeared and immediately decides to engage. We jump and warp to the C4 and land just as the Bustard jumps back and a Proteus decloaks. I jump on contact but there is no sight of the Bustard. He either cloaked or warped off. A Falcon has decloaked and is sitting about 30 km off the wormhole yellow boxing me. I fly around assuming the Bustard has probably cloaked since that ship is not the most agile ship in Eve. However, I am unable to decloak him and the Falcon has be permajammed at any rate so it wouldn't really matter.
The Falcon of Rall Mekin does not miss a single cycle so I finally decide to burn out and put a bubble on him. The Flycatcher pilot has headed home to reship while I decide to test the tanked Sabre and see how long I can survive. Surprisingly I manage to avoid making any mistakes that get me tackled by the Proteus for several minutes but my luck finally runs out and they shut down my MWD. Once they shut down my MWD, it is all over and since I had bubbled up the Falcon, I not only pay for the mistake with my ship, but was given the pod express to high sec as well. Oh well! That pod was getting a bit ripe anyway.
The Flycatcher pilot returns to the fight with an Absolution and an Oneiros, but the Falcon and Proteus are joined by another Proteus, Hurricane, Loki, Wolf, and Rupture. With more pilots appearing on the high sec wormhole, I call it off and tell everyone to get out. The Absolution is going down but while it burns, the other pilots manage to escape back home.
I tell everyone to return to our home system and prepare for an invasion force. Against this group, I expect for them to come looking for our home system. We flew with a couple of them in the past and have encountered them more than once. My alt is sitting on our home connection watching activity as we prepare for home defense. There are only 4 of us online at the moment so our options are somewhat limited. We know we will be fighting outnumbered but I am going to field a fight if they come looking for us. We put a couple of pilots in battleships on the wormhole to encourage the opposing force to engage when they find us and cloak a Falcon nearby.
It takes several minutes but finally probes appear in the C2S. A few passes with the probes and they are all within 1 AU of the wormhole. Now we wait for their scout. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes, Hapachu decloaks in a Proteus and jumps the wormhole. He immediately jumps back out and nothing else is seen for several minutes. In the meantime, we are joined by another corpmate bringing our total number of pilots to 5. We are beginning to think they left when I see a fleet coming on d-scan. Holy Crap! We may be getting more than we can handle.
I have logged in another character who is sitting out of d-scan range of the wormhole in a Bhaalghorn. One of our pilots has a Navy Armageddon at the wormhole and an Archon off d-scan. We have a pilot single boxing a Navy Megathron and another in a Tempest Fleet and the last pilot is triple boxing a sensor boosting Blackbird, a Scorpion and a Falcon.
The hostile fleet lands with a Navy Brutix, 2 Proteus, 2 Legions, 2 or 3 Lokis, a Hurricane, and a Vigilant. At this point, I stop watching and get the impressed Bhaalghorn pilot headed for the wormhole. They begin jumping and before everyone gets in, the wormhole crits. We engage and they immediately pop the Blackbird and the Falcon. I think the Falcon got too close to the wormhole while trying to manage multiple accounts at once.
The Archon and Bhaalghorn are in route, but their firepower overwhelms the Navy Armageddon before the Archon can land. While they are killing our Navy Geddon, we kill their Navy Brutix and once the Archon lands they start jumping out. I have locked 5 strategic cruisers and start applying neuts across the board as they begin jumping ships back out of the wormhole.
The wormhole collapes leaving six or seven of them in the wormhole. We spread our points and lock the Proteus of Hapachu, the Legion of Rall Mekin and the Legion of Clickless. The Bhaalghorn has all of them nueted out and while they have massive buffer tanks, they have no ability to do any meaningful damage. At this point, anyone who isn't pointed abandons the field. Hapachu initiates self destruct so we focus our limited firepower on him. Mindful who lost the Navy Mega is now back with a Devoter and puts the bubble up a few seconds before Hapachu's Proteus explodes. We return the favor he gave me and send him on the pod express to high sec.
Next up is Clickless in a brick Legion. When Rall sees the Devoter, he abandons ship and escapes in his pod while we are killing Clickless. We clean up the field and bring a pilot in to fly his legion back to our corp tower.
Part 1 shows the fight in our wormhole and the Legion abandoned by Mr. Mekin was fit identically to the one of Clickless. Part 2 shows the Absolution we lost in the C4. Part 3 shows the Sabre and pod that I lost in the C4.
In total, just over 2.5B ISK was destroyed in what I believe amounts to a draw. Regardless, the encounter was fun! We managed to leverage the mechanics of our static connection and field a fight while vastly outnumbered. Since they brought a good fight and were pretty good natured about the whole encounter, we scouted a route and helped the stranded pilots who escaped the field back to k-space.
Thanks for the fun guys! In the chatter after the fight, they revealed that the Bustard had cargo worth many billions of ISK. Therefore, the escort and the quick response once we engaged it. Their pilot told me that I came very close to decloaking him in the C4. Engaging them on that wormhole started a chain of events which made the evening interesting for both groups. Fly Dangerous!
So we have an Iteron V moving stuff from a C4 into a C2. I move over to the high sec and confirm that he exits to k-space at that location. On the theory that what goes out will usually return, we set a trap with a cloaked Flycatcher on the C4 and prepare to wait. Less than 30 seconds go by when the Flycatcher pilot reports back that he has an activation. I am sitting in a Sabre and a corp mate is sitting in an interceptor in our home system.
The Flycatcher pilot reports a Bustard has appeared and immediately decides to engage. We jump and warp to the C4 and land just as the Bustard jumps back and a Proteus decloaks. I jump on contact but there is no sight of the Bustard. He either cloaked or warped off. A Falcon has decloaked and is sitting about 30 km off the wormhole yellow boxing me. I fly around assuming the Bustard has probably cloaked since that ship is not the most agile ship in Eve. However, I am unable to decloak him and the Falcon has be permajammed at any rate so it wouldn't really matter.
The Falcon of Rall Mekin does not miss a single cycle so I finally decide to burn out and put a bubble on him. The Flycatcher pilot has headed home to reship while I decide to test the tanked Sabre and see how long I can survive. Surprisingly I manage to avoid making any mistakes that get me tackled by the Proteus for several minutes but my luck finally runs out and they shut down my MWD. Once they shut down my MWD, it is all over and since I had bubbled up the Falcon, I not only pay for the mistake with my ship, but was given the pod express to high sec as well. Oh well! That pod was getting a bit ripe anyway.
The Flycatcher pilot returns to the fight with an Absolution and an Oneiros, but the Falcon and Proteus are joined by another Proteus, Hurricane, Loki, Wolf, and Rupture. With more pilots appearing on the high sec wormhole, I call it off and tell everyone to get out. The Absolution is going down but while it burns, the other pilots manage to escape back home.
I tell everyone to return to our home system and prepare for an invasion force. Against this group, I expect for them to come looking for our home system. We flew with a couple of them in the past and have encountered them more than once. My alt is sitting on our home connection watching activity as we prepare for home defense. There are only 4 of us online at the moment so our options are somewhat limited. We know we will be fighting outnumbered but I am going to field a fight if they come looking for us. We put a couple of pilots in battleships on the wormhole to encourage the opposing force to engage when they find us and cloak a Falcon nearby.
It takes several minutes but finally probes appear in the C2S. A few passes with the probes and they are all within 1 AU of the wormhole. Now we wait for their scout. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes, Hapachu decloaks in a Proteus and jumps the wormhole. He immediately jumps back out and nothing else is seen for several minutes. In the meantime, we are joined by another corpmate bringing our total number of pilots to 5. We are beginning to think they left when I see a fleet coming on d-scan. Holy Crap! We may be getting more than we can handle.
I have logged in another character who is sitting out of d-scan range of the wormhole in a Bhaalghorn. One of our pilots has a Navy Armageddon at the wormhole and an Archon off d-scan. We have a pilot single boxing a Navy Megathron and another in a Tempest Fleet and the last pilot is triple boxing a sensor boosting Blackbird, a Scorpion and a Falcon.
The hostile fleet lands with a Navy Brutix, 2 Proteus, 2 Legions, 2 or 3 Lokis, a Hurricane, and a Vigilant. At this point, I stop watching and get the impressed Bhaalghorn pilot headed for the wormhole. They begin jumping and before everyone gets in, the wormhole crits. We engage and they immediately pop the Blackbird and the Falcon. I think the Falcon got too close to the wormhole while trying to manage multiple accounts at once.
The Archon and Bhaalghorn are in route, but their firepower overwhelms the Navy Armageddon before the Archon can land. While they are killing our Navy Geddon, we kill their Navy Brutix and once the Archon lands they start jumping out. I have locked 5 strategic cruisers and start applying neuts across the board as they begin jumping ships back out of the wormhole.
The wormhole collapes leaving six or seven of them in the wormhole. We spread our points and lock the Proteus of Hapachu, the Legion of Rall Mekin and the Legion of Clickless. The Bhaalghorn has all of them nueted out and while they have massive buffer tanks, they have no ability to do any meaningful damage. At this point, anyone who isn't pointed abandons the field. Hapachu initiates self destruct so we focus our limited firepower on him. Mindful who lost the Navy Mega is now back with a Devoter and puts the bubble up a few seconds before Hapachu's Proteus explodes. We return the favor he gave me and send him on the pod express to high sec.
Next up is Clickless in a brick Legion. When Rall sees the Devoter, he abandons ship and escapes in his pod while we are killing Clickless. We clean up the field and bring a pilot in to fly his legion back to our corp tower.
Part 1 shows the fight in our wormhole and the Legion abandoned by Mr. Mekin was fit identically to the one of Clickless. Part 2 shows the Absolution we lost in the C4. Part 3 shows the Sabre and pod that I lost in the C4.
In total, just over 2.5B ISK was destroyed in what I believe amounts to a draw. Regardless, the encounter was fun! We managed to leverage the mechanics of our static connection and field a fight while vastly outnumbered. Since they brought a good fight and were pretty good natured about the whole encounter, we scouted a route and helped the stranded pilots who escaped the field back to k-space.
Thanks for the fun guys! In the chatter after the fight, they revealed that the Bustard had cargo worth many billions of ISK. Therefore, the escort and the quick response once we engaged it. Their pilot told me that I came very close to decloaking him in the C4. Engaging them on that wormhole started a chain of events which made the evening interesting for both groups. Fly Dangerous!
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Low sec shenanigans
Let's have some fun! Ok. What should we do? We should roll the wormhole. That is not FUN! Maybe not, but anything is better than the current chain. Ok. But, what should we do after we roll the wormhole? Do you ever have those days? Looking for something exciting and feeling like it is just around the corner. You just cannot figure out which corner to turn.
The day had been pretty typical weekend day for us. People came and went throughout the day and we scouted a number of lengthy chains. We had a couple of kills to show for the day including a Navy Apoc, but nothing overly exciting.
This was the point where I decided to do a frigate roam. Everyone jump in a T1 frigate and we will go to Faction Warfare space and roam around and see something blow up. Probably ourselves! But that has it's own fun factor. After this announcement, the discussion on comms went something like this.
Player 1: I don't have any T1 frigates, will an assault frigate work?
Player 2: What about a blackbird? I don't have any frigates.
Player 3: Does anyone have a fit for a T1 frigate? Any race?
Player 4: Do you want logi or e-war?
Player 5: I think I might have a frigate in high sec somewhere.
Player 6: I will bring an interceptor, it is the only frigate I have.
Me: Oh dear god! I need something stronger to drink.
After I returned from getting some water, the only available beverage in my house at the moment, people had shipped into a mix of T1 and T2 frigates along with a single Blackbird. We were set and everyone headed for the Tama system a few jumps away from one of our high sec exits.
Let the fun begin! We head into Tama and proceed to look for targets of opportunity. Since we are in small ships, our plan is to find people running faction sites and avoid fights on the gates. On our first loop, we find several people running sites but did not manage to catch anyone.
As we circle back around, we have a couple of people dropping out and a couple of additional people joining us so we take a short break and head back for another round. This time, we find a little more action. Right off the bat, we catch a Caracal running a site in Tama.
From there, we catch a Kestrel in a site in Kedama. However, he has friends which included a Corax hitting me from nearly 100km. I would not have thought that was possible. But the sniping destroyers seemed to be effective. At this point, we lost one a Retribution in the ensuing brawl as he was tackled just moments before the command to warp out was given. Bad timing on that.
The rest of the group continued with one of our members yelling RP statements about Gallente terrorists in every local channel to the amusement of our entire group and even a few of the people we were passing. I finally located a station and docked to repair my ship just as the group tackled a Merlin which turned into a escalating brawl. We lost a Harpy here but everyone else got off and we regrouped to continue the roam.
We decide to head for Dodixie which isn't too far and let the guys in newb ships get another ship. We jump into Old Man Star and there is a flashing red Gnosis on the gate. After about 3 seconds of discussion we decide to engage and he is about 50% through armor when an entire fleet jumps on us. It was bait and we took it! LOL! http://fightingcarebears.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=20612491
Now everyone except me needs a new ship. My Merlin was not a big enough threat for them to waste a point on me so I warp off once I am the last one alive. There is some advantage to flying the cheapest ship in the group.
Several players head home and we have 3 left at this point. We undock in Dodixie and discover a flashing yellow Vexor about 20 km off the station. No reason to allow that kind of foolishness so we pop him before continuing back into low sec.
We make it back to Tama before finding the last and best fight of the evening. In Tama, we warp into a site and find a Thrasher who is quickly joined by another Thrasher and a Malediction. Our group consists of 2 Harpy's and my Merlin, so we have a straight 3v3 fight. We focus on the initial Trasher and basically trade ships. They kill one of our Harpy's while we kill the Thrasher. Not exactly winning an ISK war here. Next, we shift our focus to the other Thrasher, but our second Harpy goes down before he dies leaving the Merlin alone.
At this point, I am not scrammed and I have a decision to make. Do I stay and fight 1v2 or bug out? Is it really a decision if you didn't think of it? I was focused on making sure the Thrasher didn't get outside my point range. I finish him off but had to consume the charges in my ancillary shield booster to stay alive. The Malediction is out around 40km and it does cross my mind to bug out now. However, I decide it is all for one. I am not going to be the only pilot going back to high sec in a ship. I turn and charge toward the Malediction with my microwarp drive running. Evidently, he decided at the same time that he liked his odds 1v1 and charged toward me. My move caught him by surprise and he overshot and ended up within my scram range.
I scram him which shuts off his microwarp drive and apply webs for good measure. He points me and this battle is now fully engaged. We are wearing each other down (slowly I might add) and we are both about 30% into structure when my shield booster finishes the reload cycle. I can only imagine his frustration when he saw over a 1/3 of my shields regen instantly. A short time later, he explodes while I am at full shields although my armor and structure have taken a beating. Manu, one of the Thrasher pilots announces that the Merlin has cleaned house and we exchange good fights in local before I, once again, fly back to high sec alone. At least this time, I feel good about being the only survivor! That was a fun fight.
The day had been pretty typical weekend day for us. People came and went throughout the day and we scouted a number of lengthy chains. We had a couple of kills to show for the day including a Navy Apoc, but nothing overly exciting.
This was the point where I decided to do a frigate roam. Everyone jump in a T1 frigate and we will go to Faction Warfare space and roam around and see something blow up. Probably ourselves! But that has it's own fun factor. After this announcement, the discussion on comms went something like this.
Player 1: I don't have any T1 frigates, will an assault frigate work?
Player 2: What about a blackbird? I don't have any frigates.
Player 3: Does anyone have a fit for a T1 frigate? Any race?
Player 4: Do you want logi or e-war?
Player 5: I think I might have a frigate in high sec somewhere.
Player 6: I will bring an interceptor, it is the only frigate I have.
Me: Oh dear god! I need something stronger to drink.
After I returned from getting some water, the only available beverage in my house at the moment, people had shipped into a mix of T1 and T2 frigates along with a single Blackbird. We were set and everyone headed for the Tama system a few jumps away from one of our high sec exits.
Let the fun begin! We head into Tama and proceed to look for targets of opportunity. Since we are in small ships, our plan is to find people running faction sites and avoid fights on the gates. On our first loop, we find several people running sites but did not manage to catch anyone.
As we circle back around, we have a couple of people dropping out and a couple of additional people joining us so we take a short break and head back for another round. This time, we find a little more action. Right off the bat, we catch a Caracal running a site in Tama.
From there, we catch a Kestrel in a site in Kedama. However, he has friends which included a Corax hitting me from nearly 100km. I would not have thought that was possible. But the sniping destroyers seemed to be effective. At this point, we lost one a Retribution in the ensuing brawl as he was tackled just moments before the command to warp out was given. Bad timing on that.
The rest of the group continued with one of our members yelling RP statements about Gallente terrorists in every local channel to the amusement of our entire group and even a few of the people we were passing. I finally located a station and docked to repair my ship just as the group tackled a Merlin which turned into a escalating brawl. We lost a Harpy here but everyone else got off and we regrouped to continue the roam.
We decide to head for Dodixie which isn't too far and let the guys in newb ships get another ship. We jump into Old Man Star and there is a flashing red Gnosis on the gate. After about 3 seconds of discussion we decide to engage and he is about 50% through armor when an entire fleet jumps on us. It was bait and we took it! LOL! http://fightingcarebears.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=20612491
Now everyone except me needs a new ship. My Merlin was not a big enough threat for them to waste a point on me so I warp off once I am the last one alive. There is some advantage to flying the cheapest ship in the group.
Several players head home and we have 3 left at this point. We undock in Dodixie and discover a flashing yellow Vexor about 20 km off the station. No reason to allow that kind of foolishness so we pop him before continuing back into low sec.
We make it back to Tama before finding the last and best fight of the evening. In Tama, we warp into a site and find a Thrasher who is quickly joined by another Thrasher and a Malediction. Our group consists of 2 Harpy's and my Merlin, so we have a straight 3v3 fight. We focus on the initial Trasher and basically trade ships. They kill one of our Harpy's while we kill the Thrasher. Not exactly winning an ISK war here. Next, we shift our focus to the other Thrasher, but our second Harpy goes down before he dies leaving the Merlin alone.
At this point, I am not scrammed and I have a decision to make. Do I stay and fight 1v2 or bug out? Is it really a decision if you didn't think of it? I was focused on making sure the Thrasher didn't get outside my point range. I finish him off but had to consume the charges in my ancillary shield booster to stay alive. The Malediction is out around 40km and it does cross my mind to bug out now. However, I decide it is all for one. I am not going to be the only pilot going back to high sec in a ship. I turn and charge toward the Malediction with my microwarp drive running. Evidently, he decided at the same time that he liked his odds 1v1 and charged toward me. My move caught him by surprise and he overshot and ended up within my scram range.
I scram him which shuts off his microwarp drive and apply webs for good measure. He points me and this battle is now fully engaged. We are wearing each other down (slowly I might add) and we are both about 30% into structure when my shield booster finishes the reload cycle. I can only imagine his frustration when he saw over a 1/3 of my shields regen instantly. A short time later, he explodes while I am at full shields although my armor and structure have taken a beating. Manu, one of the Thrasher pilots announces that the Merlin has cleaned house and we exchange good fights in local before I, once again, fly back to high sec alone. At least this time, I feel good about being the only survivor! That was a fun fight.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
An interesting evening
The month of the Orca is upon us. No REALLY, why do you seem to get activity of a certain type in cycles. We have confiscated 2 Orcas trying to collapse wormholes this month and killed 2 other Orcas. After zero Orca kills for several months, we suddenly get a whole fleet of them. Maybe wormhole inhabitants are getting more careless or maybe Bob has decided the Orca herd needs thinning a little. In either case, we have caught more than our share this month, including one that got away later in this story.
The first kill of the evening was a battleship that I found running a site in low sec. I actually feel bad about ganking this newbie. Tech 1 guns, tech 1 drones, and we drop seven pilots on him in an outright gank. I thought he was playing bait since there were 10 other people in local, however there was no response after I tackled him so we dropped the entire fleet on him.
The next kill was more entertaining and demonstrated the power of the new warp mechanics. One of our scouts jumped an EOL wormhole and found a retriever mining in an ore site. The guy spoke up in local as soon as we jumped in and ran back to his POS. He was nice enough and we chatted with him while We bookmarked the rock we think he was mining. We then said goodbye in local and left since the wormhole was EOL. At this point, we had every intention of going back and seeing if we could catch him in the site.
The key to our plan involves the new warp mechanics. If you haven't tested them out, you should get in a fleet with an Interceptor, a cruiser and a battleship. Then warp all of them independently (not fleet warp) at the same time to another object. We did this test with a 10 AU warp. I was in the interceptor and I had time to go get another beer while we waited for the battleship to arrive. That is only a slight exageration. The interceptor was 15-20 seconds ahead of the battleship and this was with us warping from full speed and aligned so that the only difference was the warp speed. An interceptor warps at 8 au/s while the battleship warps at 2 au/s. The difference is very noticable.
We finished scouting down the chain and then decided it was time to go back and see if we could catch the miner. I grabbed a Sabre which warps at 7.9 AU/s and everyone else grabbed some fast ships. We decided to make sure one of the scouts came along with probes since the wormhole was EOL. We meet up on the C2A wormhole and I explain the plan. We are going to jump and immediately warp to our bookmark. Any questions? Nope! GO! GO! GO!
I jump the wormhole and warp the Sabre to the bookmark. It is only a 1 AU jump and I nearly land before I left. It was quick! The Retriever is in the belt but he is mining a different rock and is 20 km from me and moving. He saw us jump in and is trying to warp out. I burn toward him and activate my scram making sure he cannot escape. I put a bubble out just seconds before he ejects and I lock and pop his pod as he yells NOOOOO in local. The new warp mechanics allow a small fast ship to get on someone before they have a chance to react. This guy was paying attention, it just didn't matter when I can warp and land on grid so fast.
After this little trap, we roll the static and hunt down another chain. The new static C2 had another C5 connected to it so I jump in with my scout and start poking around. This is the home system of Semper Ubi Sub Ubi. I have been here before and these guys have always been willing to give a fight so I scout their towers and find that they have 8-9 pilots online at the moment. Which is probably only 4-5 people. Our numbers are at 4 since it is now quite late in the evening. But we decide to engage them anyway. Complicating the matter slightly is the wolf-rayet effect on their wormhole.
While we are trying to decide how we want to bait them into a fight, an Orca appears on d-scan. We move cloaky T3s to their connection in the static in hopes that they will try to roll the wormhole with the Orca. Maybe Bob will smile on us and we can kill the Orca before they have a chance to overwhelm us with their superior numbers. We have just gotten into position, when the Orca lands on their static connection where my alt is sitting. We decloak and wait on the Orca and he doesn't disappoint us. He jumps and holds cloak. Our devoter pilot and my main jump the wormhole and prepare for incoming hostiles. The bubble goes up to slow down their response fleet at least a little.
As you would expect, the Orca pilot wastes no time in calling for help. He waits out his timer while they scramble a response fleet. Which basically consisted of whatever the pilot was sitting in at the time. The Absolution lands first and I engage him while the rest of their fleet is incoming. A cloaky proteus against an absolution in a wolf rayet! Hmmmm! That could have been a real interesting fight. But he is soon joined by others.
Meanwhile, the rest of our group (2 pilots) are pecking away at the Orca which we discover is hull tanked. Boo!! I was hoping to get a kill before they could save it. With the announcement that it is hull tanked, I immediately know that isn't going to happen. By this time, they have landed a sizeable fleet on the wormhole and he jumps back. Their fleet consists of an Absolution, a harbinger, a brutix, a vigilant, a really annoying falcon and a couple of other ships which didn't imprint on my memory in the heat of the moment. I think they had 8 combat ships and the Orca. We were fighting outgunned in their home system. We skirmish for a while on their wormhole but they neut my proteus dry (in spite of the cap booster), and they were almost perma jamming the other proteus and our tengu. At this point, we are applying almost zero DPS so I call off the fight and we escape back through their connection and disappear.
Several of them, including Longinius Spear followed us through the wormhole and we exchanged GF in the C2S. In a couple of minutes, they bring a Phobos to the wormhole and crit the wormhole on the way out. They ask if I want to get my eyes out of their wormhole and I take the opportunity to pull my scout out before they jump the Phobos back and close the wormhole.
Funny Quote from the Orca pilot, "my balls slammed into the roof of my mouth when you guys decloaked on me!". Overall, this was fun even though we didn't get a kill. The response fleet they brought was effective in saving their Orca. Bob was appeased in the fight they provided. Great fun!
You can check out Longinius Spear's blog at http://www.invadingyourhole.blogspot.com/. Given the name of our corp, I had to laugh at the animated banner gif for his site.
The first kill of the evening was a battleship that I found running a site in low sec. I actually feel bad about ganking this newbie. Tech 1 guns, tech 1 drones, and we drop seven pilots on him in an outright gank. I thought he was playing bait since there were 10 other people in local, however there was no response after I tackled him so we dropped the entire fleet on him.
The next kill was more entertaining and demonstrated the power of the new warp mechanics. One of our scouts jumped an EOL wormhole and found a retriever mining in an ore site. The guy spoke up in local as soon as we jumped in and ran back to his POS. He was nice enough and we chatted with him while We bookmarked the rock we think he was mining. We then said goodbye in local and left since the wormhole was EOL. At this point, we had every intention of going back and seeing if we could catch him in the site.
The key to our plan involves the new warp mechanics. If you haven't tested them out, you should get in a fleet with an Interceptor, a cruiser and a battleship. Then warp all of them independently (not fleet warp) at the same time to another object. We did this test with a 10 AU warp. I was in the interceptor and I had time to go get another beer while we waited for the battleship to arrive. That is only a slight exageration. The interceptor was 15-20 seconds ahead of the battleship and this was with us warping from full speed and aligned so that the only difference was the warp speed. An interceptor warps at 8 au/s while the battleship warps at 2 au/s. The difference is very noticable.
We finished scouting down the chain and then decided it was time to go back and see if we could catch the miner. I grabbed a Sabre which warps at 7.9 AU/s and everyone else grabbed some fast ships. We decided to make sure one of the scouts came along with probes since the wormhole was EOL. We meet up on the C2A wormhole and I explain the plan. We are going to jump and immediately warp to our bookmark. Any questions? Nope! GO! GO! GO!
I jump the wormhole and warp the Sabre to the bookmark. It is only a 1 AU jump and I nearly land before I left. It was quick! The Retriever is in the belt but he is mining a different rock and is 20 km from me and moving. He saw us jump in and is trying to warp out. I burn toward him and activate my scram making sure he cannot escape. I put a bubble out just seconds before he ejects and I lock and pop his pod as he yells NOOOOO in local. The new warp mechanics allow a small fast ship to get on someone before they have a chance to react. This guy was paying attention, it just didn't matter when I can warp and land on grid so fast.
After this little trap, we roll the static and hunt down another chain. The new static C2 had another C5 connected to it so I jump in with my scout and start poking around. This is the home system of Semper Ubi Sub Ubi. I have been here before and these guys have always been willing to give a fight so I scout their towers and find that they have 8-9 pilots online at the moment. Which is probably only 4-5 people. Our numbers are at 4 since it is now quite late in the evening. But we decide to engage them anyway. Complicating the matter slightly is the wolf-rayet effect on their wormhole.
While we are trying to decide how we want to bait them into a fight, an Orca appears on d-scan. We move cloaky T3s to their connection in the static in hopes that they will try to roll the wormhole with the Orca. Maybe Bob will smile on us and we can kill the Orca before they have a chance to overwhelm us with their superior numbers. We have just gotten into position, when the Orca lands on their static connection where my alt is sitting. We decloak and wait on the Orca and he doesn't disappoint us. He jumps and holds cloak. Our devoter pilot and my main jump the wormhole and prepare for incoming hostiles. The bubble goes up to slow down their response fleet at least a little.
As you would expect, the Orca pilot wastes no time in calling for help. He waits out his timer while they scramble a response fleet. Which basically consisted of whatever the pilot was sitting in at the time. The Absolution lands first and I engage him while the rest of their fleet is incoming. A cloaky proteus against an absolution in a wolf rayet! Hmmmm! That could have been a real interesting fight. But he is soon joined by others.
Meanwhile, the rest of our group (2 pilots) are pecking away at the Orca which we discover is hull tanked. Boo!! I was hoping to get a kill before they could save it. With the announcement that it is hull tanked, I immediately know that isn't going to happen. By this time, they have landed a sizeable fleet on the wormhole and he jumps back. Their fleet consists of an Absolution, a harbinger, a brutix, a vigilant, a really annoying falcon and a couple of other ships which didn't imprint on my memory in the heat of the moment. I think they had 8 combat ships and the Orca. We were fighting outgunned in their home system. We skirmish for a while on their wormhole but they neut my proteus dry (in spite of the cap booster), and they were almost perma jamming the other proteus and our tengu. At this point, we are applying almost zero DPS so I call off the fight and we escape back through their connection and disappear.
Several of them, including Longinius Spear followed us through the wormhole and we exchanged GF in the C2S. In a couple of minutes, they bring a Phobos to the wormhole and crit the wormhole on the way out. They ask if I want to get my eyes out of their wormhole and I take the opportunity to pull my scout out before they jump the Phobos back and close the wormhole.
Funny Quote from the Orca pilot, "my balls slammed into the roof of my mouth when you guys decloaked on me!". Overall, this was fun even though we didn't get a kill. The response fleet they brought was effective in saving their Orca. Bob was appeased in the fight they provided. Great fun!
You can check out Longinius Spear's blog at http://www.invadingyourhole.blogspot.com/. Given the name of our corp, I had to laugh at the animated banner gif for his site.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Target Breakers, Stolen Orca and Trash Talking
What makes a kill satisfying? It can be a variety of things; a well laid trap, an expensive fit, or basic trash talk in local. Nothing in my opinion is more satisfying than killing someone who spouts off in local. This is a story about trash talk. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against trash talk and have engaged in it quite often. But it can be a double-edged sword.
The day has been fairly uneventful. We found a Scorpion rolling a wormhole earlier in the afternoon and discovered the absolute annoyance factor of a target breaker. (Kill Link) I cannot even remember how many times I had to retarget the Scorpion during this engagement. I would get 2 shots off and then have to re-target. Between the bubbles of the flycatcher and the number of people with scrams, we managed to keep him from using the micro jump drive or warping off.
We head back to our wormhole and notice that the C2 pilots have woken up. They suddenly have 10 pilots online. Two Armageddons, a Dominix, a Hurricane Fleet Issue, an Orca and 2 Guardians along with a variety of scanning ships. Is this a combat fleet or a rolling fleet. In a few minutes, the entire group warps to our wormhole.
We scramble ships to the wormhole to engage them as they jump the Orca through the wormhole, then swap pilots and make the first half of the second trip. Umm guys! You should probably investigate the mass on wormholes before jumping Orca's through them. The Orca finds itself trapped in the middle of our landing fleet. I tell the pilot in local that we will help get his pod back to high sec safely if he jumps out of the Orca. I have never seen someone abandon a ship so quickly! It makes me wonder what the guy has plugged into his head.
We grab the Orca and take it back to our tower and then go to find the new wormhole. Hmmm.... The wormhole has multiplied. There are now two of them. One is an incoming C5 with a group wanting to kill Kalseth. Unfortunately, he isn't around and we are down to 3 pilots online. So we continue scouting to get our Orca friend back out. The C5 groups curses us for being no fun and rolls the wormhole away.
We find a low sec which is only 2 jumps from high sec and after some negotiation we convince the Orca pilot that he has no options but to trust us and join our fleet. With much reluctance and moaning about it, he joins our fleet, warps to me on the C2, jumps and immediately warps off while dropping fleet. My curiosity about his implants is very high but we roll our wormhole and head out looking for more targets. We did leave him a can of bookmarks to all the wormholes and the name of the low sec system.
Things were quite for a while after the Scorpion kill. We rolled several wormholes and scouted a few chains without finding anyone to shoot at. Pilots in POS shields and cloaky scouts dominated our afternoon. Unt
We have rolled into a new C2 and not seeing any ships on d-scan, we drop probes and start scanning. There is a high sec, a low sec and 2 C2 connections. I have jumped the high sec wormhole to see where it goes as one of the other scouts lands on one of the C2 wormholes. As he lands a Dominix appears on the wormhole.
GO! GO! GO! With absolutely no idea what may be on the other side, I make a snap decision to engage. The Dominix is probably trying to roll the wormhole. Our scout makes the tackle and the rest of the fleet scrambles to join him on what we designate as C2B. As I am landing, Walton Simons jumps through the wormhole in a Proteus. As our fleet is landing, he makes the following announcement in local.
[01:59:57] Walton Simons > pussys need logi
We have an mixed fleet based on the quick decision to engage and most of us are in cloaky ships so our DPS is not what I would call stellar. But the numbers are in our favor. The Dominix and Proteus jump back through the wormhole and we follow and tackle. At this point, they bring a Thorax, Brutix Navy, Exequror, Talos, and an Oracle. Ships came and went at times so I am not completely sure which pilot was in what ship. Especially since a couple of them reshipped during the fight.
The Proteus had a very large buffer tank so we were focusing on the other ships and keeping him pointed. The kill order was the Thorax (who may have been an alt or a 3rd party). The Brutix Navy went next. Then the Exequror. What? They make fun of us for bringing logi and then bring their own. Of course, we have quite a few armor ships and our logi pilot brought a Scimitar. When I say GO! GO! GO!, the pilots brought whatever they happened to be sitting in at that moment. Good job!
Next we kill the Dominix and then lose an Enyo. The Enyo pilot is giving the Scimitar pilot grief for not keeping him alive but he heads back to get another ship. Next we kill a second Exequror, once again flown by Layla Eryn. Maybe she has another and can keep bringing them. The Oracle goes down next, while the Talos has burned out of range. Layla brings a Hurricane next so maybe she ran out of Exequrors. Of course, the Hurricane fairs no better than the logi ships. It dies in a ball of fire. However, the last warp in by the Hurricane allowed the Proteus of Walton Simmons to jump the wormhole yet again and this time he manages to evade us and warp off.
Next up is yet more trask talk in local along with a couple of gf's.
[02:14:59] Layla Eryn > and 2 logi?
[02:15:01] tellmewhen Yvormes > gf
[02:15:07] Holznar'ar Eoner > gf
[02:15:28] Kalseth > learn to count .. that would be one logi
[02:15:34] Kalseth > to your 2
[02:15:35] tellmewhen Yvormes > you know we would have kicked your ass in a fair fight
[02:15:38] Resilan Bearcat > gf
[02:15:39] Layla Eryn > to my one
[02:15:40] Layla Eryn > dumb f**k
[02:15:44] Layla Eryn > t1 logi aswell
[02:15:52] Davion Thule > <url=showinfo:1373//90432996>Holznar'ar Eoner</url> i hate you lol
We are now chasing the Proteus pilot around the C2 with combat probes. He manages to elude us and eventually logs out. However, we had combat probes on him and have his last location. We warp a phobos and a couple of tackle ships to that location and begin the wait. The Proteus only has 10% armor left and after his opening comment, I want that ship badly.
It takes a while, but he eventually he logs his alt back in who lands 70km from our trap. He scouts a bit and then disappears. A neutral pilot in a buzzard drops probes, scans out the low sec but immediately comes back into the wormhole, cloaks up and is never seen again even though we have scouts sitting on all the wormholes.
It takes 2 hours and 15 minutes before Walton Simmons logs back in. What remains of our fleet immediately scrambles for the C2. He lands within 3km of our Phobos who immediately uncloaks and bubbles him. The tackle ships decloak and apply webs and points. The rest of the fleet lands and we destroy his Proteus and pod him back to k-space.
He moans about our persistence in waiting the 2+ hours and congratulates us on killing his cheap fit Proteus. His opening remarks and then the moaning about the lack of a fair fight from his group, made this kill extremely gratifying. The 2 battle reports are shown below.
Battle Report - Part A
Battle Report - Part B
Some kills are more rewarding than others. I must admit, killing Walton Simmons was worth every minute. Why do people complain about not getting a fair fight. You got a fight and made a good showing against a superior force. Instead of calling people names and thumping your chest, exchange good fights and you will find that people are much less likely to wait around 2+ hours to kill you.
The day has been fairly uneventful. We found a Scorpion rolling a wormhole earlier in the afternoon and discovered the absolute annoyance factor of a target breaker. (Kill Link) I cannot even remember how many times I had to retarget the Scorpion during this engagement. I would get 2 shots off and then have to re-target. Between the bubbles of the flycatcher and the number of people with scrams, we managed to keep him from using the micro jump drive or warping off.
We head back to our wormhole and notice that the C2 pilots have woken up. They suddenly have 10 pilots online. Two Armageddons, a Dominix, a Hurricane Fleet Issue, an Orca and 2 Guardians along with a variety of scanning ships. Is this a combat fleet or a rolling fleet. In a few minutes, the entire group warps to our wormhole.
We scramble ships to the wormhole to engage them as they jump the Orca through the wormhole, then swap pilots and make the first half of the second trip. Umm guys! You should probably investigate the mass on wormholes before jumping Orca's through them. The Orca finds itself trapped in the middle of our landing fleet. I tell the pilot in local that we will help get his pod back to high sec safely if he jumps out of the Orca. I have never seen someone abandon a ship so quickly! It makes me wonder what the guy has plugged into his head.
We grab the Orca and take it back to our tower and then go to find the new wormhole. Hmmm.... The wormhole has multiplied. There are now two of them. One is an incoming C5 with a group wanting to kill Kalseth. Unfortunately, he isn't around and we are down to 3 pilots online. So we continue scouting to get our Orca friend back out. The C5 groups curses us for being no fun and rolls the wormhole away.
We find a low sec which is only 2 jumps from high sec and after some negotiation we convince the Orca pilot that he has no options but to trust us and join our fleet. With much reluctance and moaning about it, he joins our fleet, warps to me on the C2, jumps and immediately warps off while dropping fleet. My curiosity about his implants is very high but we roll our wormhole and head out looking for more targets. We did leave him a can of bookmarks to all the wormholes and the name of the low sec system.
Things were quite for a while after the Scorpion kill. We rolled several wormholes and scouted a few chains without finding anyone to shoot at. Pilots in POS shields and cloaky scouts dominated our afternoon. Unt
We have rolled into a new C2 and not seeing any ships on d-scan, we drop probes and start scanning. There is a high sec, a low sec and 2 C2 connections. I have jumped the high sec wormhole to see where it goes as one of the other scouts lands on one of the C2 wormholes. As he lands a Dominix appears on the wormhole.
GO! GO! GO! With absolutely no idea what may be on the other side, I make a snap decision to engage. The Dominix is probably trying to roll the wormhole. Our scout makes the tackle and the rest of the fleet scrambles to join him on what we designate as C2B. As I am landing, Walton Simons jumps through the wormhole in a Proteus. As our fleet is landing, he makes the following announcement in local.
[01:59:57] Walton Simons > pussys need logi
We have an mixed fleet based on the quick decision to engage and most of us are in cloaky ships so our DPS is not what I would call stellar. But the numbers are in our favor. The Dominix and Proteus jump back through the wormhole and we follow and tackle. At this point, they bring a Thorax, Brutix Navy, Exequror, Talos, and an Oracle. Ships came and went at times so I am not completely sure which pilot was in what ship. Especially since a couple of them reshipped during the fight.
The Proteus had a very large buffer tank so we were focusing on the other ships and keeping him pointed. The kill order was the Thorax (who may have been an alt or a 3rd party). The Brutix Navy went next. Then the Exequror. What? They make fun of us for bringing logi and then bring their own. Of course, we have quite a few armor ships and our logi pilot brought a Scimitar. When I say GO! GO! GO!, the pilots brought whatever they happened to be sitting in at that moment. Good job!
Next we kill the Dominix and then lose an Enyo. The Enyo pilot is giving the Scimitar pilot grief for not keeping him alive but he heads back to get another ship. Next we kill a second Exequror, once again flown by Layla Eryn. Maybe she has another and can keep bringing them. The Oracle goes down next, while the Talos has burned out of range. Layla brings a Hurricane next so maybe she ran out of Exequrors. Of course, the Hurricane fairs no better than the logi ships. It dies in a ball of fire. However, the last warp in by the Hurricane allowed the Proteus of Walton Simmons to jump the wormhole yet again and this time he manages to evade us and warp off.
Next up is yet more trask talk in local along with a couple of gf's.
[02:14:59] Layla Eryn > and 2 logi?
[02:15:01] tellmewhen Yvormes > gf
[02:15:07] Holznar'ar Eoner > gf
[02:15:28] Kalseth > learn to count .. that would be one logi
[02:15:34] Kalseth > to your 2
[02:15:35] tellmewhen Yvormes > you know we would have kicked your ass in a fair fight
[02:15:38] Resilan Bearcat > gf
[02:15:39] Layla Eryn > to my one
[02:15:40] Layla Eryn > dumb f**k
[02:15:44] Layla Eryn > t1 logi aswell
[02:15:52] Davion Thule > <url=showinfo:1373//90432996>Holznar'ar Eoner</url> i hate you lol
We are now chasing the Proteus pilot around the C2 with combat probes. He manages to elude us and eventually logs out. However, we had combat probes on him and have his last location. We warp a phobos and a couple of tackle ships to that location and begin the wait. The Proteus only has 10% armor left and after his opening comment, I want that ship badly.
It takes a while, but he eventually he logs his alt back in who lands 70km from our trap. He scouts a bit and then disappears. A neutral pilot in a buzzard drops probes, scans out the low sec but immediately comes back into the wormhole, cloaks up and is never seen again even though we have scouts sitting on all the wormholes.
It takes 2 hours and 15 minutes before Walton Simmons logs back in. What remains of our fleet immediately scrambles for the C2. He lands within 3km of our Phobos who immediately uncloaks and bubbles him. The tackle ships decloak and apply webs and points. The rest of the fleet lands and we destroy his Proteus and pod him back to k-space.
He moans about our persistence in waiting the 2+ hours and congratulates us on killing his cheap fit Proteus. His opening remarks and then the moaning about the lack of a fair fight from his group, made this kill extremely gratifying. The 2 battle reports are shown below.
Battle Report - Part A
Battle Report - Part B
Some kills are more rewarding than others. I must admit, killing Walton Simmons was worth every minute. Why do people complain about not getting a fair fight. You got a fight and made a good showing against a superior force. Instead of calling people names and thumping your chest, exchange good fights and you will find that people are much less likely to wait around 2+ hours to kill you.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Baiting a Trap
We open a new static and the scout reads off the list of ships on d-scan. This has become standard operating procedure for us as we roll a lot of wormholes. However, the list of ships the scout reads off is anything but standard. Guardian x3, Vindicator x5, Dominix x2, Armageddon, Abaddon, Tayra, Iteron V. Followed by an observation that nearly all the POCOs are reinforced. Hmmmm!
The scout bookmarks the back side of the wormhole and goes to find the fleet. It takes a couple of minutes since the fleet is not bashing the POCOs as expected. Instead, we have found Last Chancers bashing a Tower. Evidently, the locals had decided to move in and remove the POCOs which provided an excuse for Last Chancers to stir up a fight. LOL!
The POS bashing fleet has not noticed the new signature in system, so we decide to set a trap. We quickly mass down the wormhole and put a cloaked Scorpion in the static as the cage door for the trap. Once we are ready, everyone moves off the wormhole and we leave a lone pilot (Wolwen) sitting on the static in a Hyperion as bait.
The next step is to get their attention since it is obvious they are not paying attention to new signatures. It is likely that they will notice a hostile tag on d-scan and scanner probes. Sure enough, that gets their attention. While our scout finds the high sec connection, their scout probes down our K162. A few seconds later, a Proteus appears on the K162 and jumps into our home system.
He immediately engages the Hyperion and puts out the call to his fleet that he has a target. They warp 4 Vindicators, a Scorpion, 2 Guardians, a Sabre, a Legion and an Abaddon to our wormhole. The 2 Guardians, 1 Vindicator, Legion, Sabre and Abaddon make it through the wormhole before it collapses.
Our cage door Scorpion pilot (Seercher Visteen) is unnecessary and dies stranded on the wrong side of the wormhole to the ships that did not make it through.
As soon as we have confirmation that their fleet is jumping, we warp the rest of our fleet to the wormhole. This includes an Oneiros, a Dominix, a Proteus, a Megathron Navy Issue, a Bhaalghorn, and an Archon. The trap has been sprung!
The Oneiros pilot has to overheat the reppers to keep our Hyperion alive until the Archon can land. Meanwhile, the rest of us spread our points. With the Bhaalghorn nueting the Guardians are completed taken out of the fight. The Guardian of Orrin Danestar goes down first. Followed quickly by the Guardian of SiTodd. Due to the Sabre's bubble, Orrin Danestar is trapped in the bubble and gets podded before he can escape the field.
Next up is the Vindicator of Niborina, followed by the Legion of onthewagon. The Proteus pilot manages to burn out of our point range and escape and points were never applied to the Sabre or the Abaddon which also manage to warp off the field.
The Proteus pilot is their scanner and the remaining pilots bounce around while both groups drop probes and locate the new static exit. We strike up a conversation with the remaining members of their fleet and agree to let the rest of their fleet escape without pursuit. However, the new static has a null sec / c5 static. Once we realize this, we invite them back into the wormhole and roll it looking for a better connection. The next static is a C3 / High Sec and conveniently, the high sec is only 5 jumps from Jita.
They head off to rejoin their group and reship, while we roll our connection and continuing looking for targets.
The scout bookmarks the back side of the wormhole and goes to find the fleet. It takes a couple of minutes since the fleet is not bashing the POCOs as expected. Instead, we have found Last Chancers bashing a Tower. Evidently, the locals had decided to move in and remove the POCOs which provided an excuse for Last Chancers to stir up a fight. LOL!
The POS bashing fleet has not noticed the new signature in system, so we decide to set a trap. We quickly mass down the wormhole and put a cloaked Scorpion in the static as the cage door for the trap. Once we are ready, everyone moves off the wormhole and we leave a lone pilot (Wolwen) sitting on the static in a Hyperion as bait.
The next step is to get their attention since it is obvious they are not paying attention to new signatures. It is likely that they will notice a hostile tag on d-scan and scanner probes. Sure enough, that gets their attention. While our scout finds the high sec connection, their scout probes down our K162. A few seconds later, a Proteus appears on the K162 and jumps into our home system.
He immediately engages the Hyperion and puts out the call to his fleet that he has a target. They warp 4 Vindicators, a Scorpion, 2 Guardians, a Sabre, a Legion and an Abaddon to our wormhole. The 2 Guardians, 1 Vindicator, Legion, Sabre and Abaddon make it through the wormhole before it collapses.
Our cage door Scorpion pilot (Seercher Visteen) is unnecessary and dies stranded on the wrong side of the wormhole to the ships that did not make it through.
As soon as we have confirmation that their fleet is jumping, we warp the rest of our fleet to the wormhole. This includes an Oneiros, a Dominix, a Proteus, a Megathron Navy Issue, a Bhaalghorn, and an Archon. The trap has been sprung!
The Oneiros pilot has to overheat the reppers to keep our Hyperion alive until the Archon can land. Meanwhile, the rest of us spread our points. With the Bhaalghorn nueting the Guardians are completed taken out of the fight. The Guardian of Orrin Danestar goes down first. Followed quickly by the Guardian of SiTodd. Due to the Sabre's bubble, Orrin Danestar is trapped in the bubble and gets podded before he can escape the field.
Next up is the Vindicator of Niborina, followed by the Legion of onthewagon. The Proteus pilot manages to burn out of our point range and escape and points were never applied to the Sabre or the Abaddon which also manage to warp off the field.
The Proteus pilot is their scanner and the remaining pilots bounce around while both groups drop probes and locate the new static exit. We strike up a conversation with the remaining members of their fleet and agree to let the rest of their fleet escape without pursuit. However, the new static has a null sec / c5 static. Once we realize this, we invite them back into the wormhole and roll it looking for a better connection. The next static is a C3 / High Sec and conveniently, the high sec is only 5 jumps from Jita.
They head off to rejoin their group and reship, while we roll our connection and continuing looking for targets.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
A Capital Engagement
Have you ever had that feeling that you just grabbed a tiger by the tail? Letting go is not an option, but holding on might be even more dangerous.
Last night we rolled into a new static connection looking for some pew. There was nothing in the static so we continued down the chain and soon found some guys moving around in a C5. We put a couple of scouts in there watching the activity.
Based on d-scan and tower observations, we deduced that they were rolling a wormhole using an Orca. It made a couple of trips out into space, disappeared off d-scan for a minute and then returned to the tower. Evidently, we caught the tail end of this process as a battleship made the trip on the third pass. The Orca then warped to yet another point in space and repeated the process while another pilot jumped into a Revelation.
While there were no pilots on d-scan in the immediate vicinity, we deployed probes and found the null sec connection the Orca had jumped last. The scanning scout pulls probes and warps just as the other scout sitting on their tower announces that the Revelation has warped to the wormhole. Sure enough, he lands and jumps. Then jumps back and crits the wormhole.
Our scout sitting on that wormhole returns to the static connection we entered thinking they will attempt to close it next. We are expecting an Orca or a couple of battleships at the static connection. However, one of their pilots jumps in a battleship (Dominix) I think and warps to the null sec. A few seconds later, the signature disappears but the pilot does not show back up on d-scan or at the tower. We assume he was trapped outside the wormhole. Pro tip: Jump the battleship and Orca before the Revelation!
Will they roll the wormhole we are sitting on? Evidently not, they ship into Archons, Lokis and Revelations for site running. Really! They are going to run sites without closing their static? Yes sir! Bob is going to be happy tonight!
At this point, we make a bat phone call. Our band of pilots is ready and able to make the tackle, but we are going to need more firepower to take down a C5 escalation fleet. Several people answer the call and we get the expected "absolutely" we will come for a capital kill. Followed by the unexpected announcement that they are only 7 jumps out! Sweet! Bob must really be anxious for some blood to be spilled this evening.
Their fleet comes rolling in and is sitting on the high sec of the targets static connection as they finish the first site and warp back to their tower. One of the pilots jumps in an Anathema and we scramble the fleet off the wormhole quickly in case he heads toward high sec. Sure enough, he warps straight to the static and then straight to the high sec. Another pilot warps to him in high sec and they both burn back to the targets home system to start the next site.
At this point, they have 2 Archons, 1 Loki, 1 cloaked Falcon, 2 Revelations and 1 Moros in their escalation fleet. We regroup on the high sec and assign points as they near completion of the site. With 2 Guardian sleepers left, we jump the wormhole and warp the entire fleet on top of them.
All ships are immediately locked and pointed except the Loki who flees the field. That is certainly Ok with us since he was the biggest threat to us anyway. However, we are now at that moment when I realize that my plan worked perfectly. But now what? I am certainly no expert on capital fleet fights.
And thus the grind begins. We pick a carrier and apply both nuets and dps. It is immediately apparent to all involved that this is not going to be a short fight. The carrier pilot is well skilled and their group is not panicking. They are working together and trying various things to thin us out.
The first option they employ is snipers but our heavy interdictor quickly makes them back off this strategy. The second option is Falcons, but the swarm of hostile drones coupled with some very eager T3 pilots at various ranges from the celestials scuttles this option after a couple of attempts as well.
The static wormhole is a 1B wormhole and is only stage 2 after we jump our fleet in. Therefore, we send a couple of our pilots back home for higher DPS ships and a bunch of ammo. We are in the process of bringing another pilot in with an Armaggedon when the targets decide to roll the wormhole. One of them jumps in a hole rolling Dominix and jumps the static both ways killing it before we can get the Armegeddon into the battle.
The race is on for the next wormhole. We get it first and land several ships, the Dominix lands 100km off then warps away and back. We have 3 people now on the hole to catch him when he comes back, but he still gets away with 7 points of disruption on him. However, we partially accomplished our goal as he gave up after this attempt.
We send a scout into the c2 and find a route to k-space. The new high sec connection is 18 jumps from the last location and we get several more pilots in route.
Since we are having little luck breaking the tank of Lennah (Archon), we decide to push the carriers futher apart so that they cannot refit off each other. In addition, the targets decide to kill the trigger in the site and spawn a wave of battleships to put more pressure on us. While this is going on, several pilots (including myself) end up colliding with each other and get blapped by the dreads when our transversal drops. Oops! During the push operation, a couple of the dreads manage to drift out of range of their tackle and warp off. This actually helps us as it reduces the threats we are dealing with on the field.
In the meantime, the targets who escaped have reshipped to bombers and are making near constant bombing runs on us from a variety of positions. The damage isn't killing anyone, but it is forcing us to pay attention. Between the dread left on the field, the sleepers and the bomb damage, the Guarian pilots are being kept quite busy.
Finally, another nueting pilot arrives who also has a ship scanner and we confirm that we are nowhere near to draining Lennah so we swap our attention to the dread. He eventually sieges and we are able to take him down before he can get back out of the siege cycle. George Jetfather is the first to fall in the Revelation.
We now turn our attention back to Lennah in the carrier and the death of the dread seems to have taken the life out of him. At this point, we are waiting for him to run out of stront and it appears that we have successfully outlasted his supply. Lennah falls. Surprise, he still had lots of stront, evidently with the death of the dread, he decided to quit prolonging the agony.
With only Assault Force left on the field in an Archon, we manage to transfer a Hobgoblin to one of our Guardian pilots and the last kill rolls in pretty quickly.
We loot what we can carry and head back home happy with the 3 kills. I learned a lot from this engagement and would like to say a special thank you to the targets for running sites without securing their static connection! You gave us a great fight.
I am off to buy a couple of Bhaalgorns. It takes a lot of neuts to bring down a carrier!
Last night we rolled into a new static connection looking for some pew. There was nothing in the static so we continued down the chain and soon found some guys moving around in a C5. We put a couple of scouts in there watching the activity.
Based on d-scan and tower observations, we deduced that they were rolling a wormhole using an Orca. It made a couple of trips out into space, disappeared off d-scan for a minute and then returned to the tower. Evidently, we caught the tail end of this process as a battleship made the trip on the third pass. The Orca then warped to yet another point in space and repeated the process while another pilot jumped into a Revelation.
While there were no pilots on d-scan in the immediate vicinity, we deployed probes and found the null sec connection the Orca had jumped last. The scanning scout pulls probes and warps just as the other scout sitting on their tower announces that the Revelation has warped to the wormhole. Sure enough, he lands and jumps. Then jumps back and crits the wormhole.
Our scout sitting on that wormhole returns to the static connection we entered thinking they will attempt to close it next. We are expecting an Orca or a couple of battleships at the static connection. However, one of their pilots jumps in a battleship (Dominix) I think and warps to the null sec. A few seconds later, the signature disappears but the pilot does not show back up on d-scan or at the tower. We assume he was trapped outside the wormhole. Pro tip: Jump the battleship and Orca before the Revelation!
Will they roll the wormhole we are sitting on? Evidently not, they ship into Archons, Lokis and Revelations for site running. Really! They are going to run sites without closing their static? Yes sir! Bob is going to be happy tonight!
At this point, we make a bat phone call. Our band of pilots is ready and able to make the tackle, but we are going to need more firepower to take down a C5 escalation fleet. Several people answer the call and we get the expected "absolutely" we will come for a capital kill. Followed by the unexpected announcement that they are only 7 jumps out! Sweet! Bob must really be anxious for some blood to be spilled this evening.
Their fleet comes rolling in and is sitting on the high sec of the targets static connection as they finish the first site and warp back to their tower. One of the pilots jumps in an Anathema and we scramble the fleet off the wormhole quickly in case he heads toward high sec. Sure enough, he warps straight to the static and then straight to the high sec. Another pilot warps to him in high sec and they both burn back to the targets home system to start the next site.
At this point, they have 2 Archons, 1 Loki, 1 cloaked Falcon, 2 Revelations and 1 Moros in their escalation fleet. We regroup on the high sec and assign points as they near completion of the site. With 2 Guardian sleepers left, we jump the wormhole and warp the entire fleet on top of them.
All ships are immediately locked and pointed except the Loki who flees the field. That is certainly Ok with us since he was the biggest threat to us anyway. However, we are now at that moment when I realize that my plan worked perfectly. But now what? I am certainly no expert on capital fleet fights.
And thus the grind begins. We pick a carrier and apply both nuets and dps. It is immediately apparent to all involved that this is not going to be a short fight. The carrier pilot is well skilled and their group is not panicking. They are working together and trying various things to thin us out.
The first option they employ is snipers but our heavy interdictor quickly makes them back off this strategy. The second option is Falcons, but the swarm of hostile drones coupled with some very eager T3 pilots at various ranges from the celestials scuttles this option after a couple of attempts as well.
The static wormhole is a 1B wormhole and is only stage 2 after we jump our fleet in. Therefore, we send a couple of our pilots back home for higher DPS ships and a bunch of ammo. We are in the process of bringing another pilot in with an Armaggedon when the targets decide to roll the wormhole. One of them jumps in a hole rolling Dominix and jumps the static both ways killing it before we can get the Armegeddon into the battle.
The race is on for the next wormhole. We get it first and land several ships, the Dominix lands 100km off then warps away and back. We have 3 people now on the hole to catch him when he comes back, but he still gets away with 7 points of disruption on him. However, we partially accomplished our goal as he gave up after this attempt.
We send a scout into the c2 and find a route to k-space. The new high sec connection is 18 jumps from the last location and we get several more pilots in route.
Since we are having little luck breaking the tank of Lennah (Archon), we decide to push the carriers futher apart so that they cannot refit off each other. In addition, the targets decide to kill the trigger in the site and spawn a wave of battleships to put more pressure on us. While this is going on, several pilots (including myself) end up colliding with each other and get blapped by the dreads when our transversal drops. Oops! During the push operation, a couple of the dreads manage to drift out of range of their tackle and warp off. This actually helps us as it reduces the threats we are dealing with on the field.
In the meantime, the targets who escaped have reshipped to bombers and are making near constant bombing runs on us from a variety of positions. The damage isn't killing anyone, but it is forcing us to pay attention. Between the dread left on the field, the sleepers and the bomb damage, the Guarian pilots are being kept quite busy.
Finally, another nueting pilot arrives who also has a ship scanner and we confirm that we are nowhere near to draining Lennah so we swap our attention to the dread. He eventually sieges and we are able to take him down before he can get back out of the siege cycle. George Jetfather is the first to fall in the Revelation.
We now turn our attention back to Lennah in the carrier and the death of the dread seems to have taken the life out of him. At this point, we are waiting for him to run out of stront and it appears that we have successfully outlasted his supply. Lennah falls. Surprise, he still had lots of stront, evidently with the death of the dread, he decided to quit prolonging the agony.
With only Assault Force left on the field in an Archon, we manage to transfer a Hobgoblin to one of our Guardian pilots and the last kill rolls in pretty quickly.
We loot what we can carry and head back home happy with the 3 kills. I learned a lot from this engagement and would like to say a special thank you to the targets for running sites without securing their static connection! You gave us a great fight.
I am off to buy a couple of Bhaalgorns. It takes a lot of neuts to bring down a carrier!
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