After an extended break, I have returned to Eve. However, things are going to be very different this time around. I am not going back to wormholes until CCP delivers on their promise of a new or revised POS system and greatly improved corporate management systems. Those who have run a corporation living in wormholes will understand my frustration with the game systems involved. Therefore, I decided to check out factional warfare for a change of pace and to experience a different aspect of the game.
My first week back was spent consolidating assets from all the backwater systems I had dumped stuff into when I moved out of the wormhole. While I was moving stuff around all over high sec, I looked into a variety of corporations and decided to join the Caldari militia with a couple of friends.
Once my application was accepted, I moved a couple of small ships into the warzone and went on a couple of excursions with some of my new mates to learn about the area and simply get used to flying in a different type of environment. Gate guns? Stations? Local? What is this stuff? :P
The first couple of trips out were interesting but relatively tame. I had no expectations of last night being any different. A call went out to form up for a POCO bash with battleships and battlecruisers. BORING! However, I am new so I decided to play nice with others and go along. They wanted shield battleships and battlecruisers with various supporting ships. Since I wasn't all that interested in shooting at a stationary object, I decided to try my hand at logistics in a larger fleet and hope someone jumped us during the bash. I jumped into an Osprey and joined the fleet.
Once everyone formed up, we undocked and headed down the pipe. We were 8-9 jumps from our base when we had scouting reports of an enemy fleet in the next system and we setup in Abune on the Heydelies gate. The FC ordered all drones out and a re-position of the logistics team. It took a couple of minutes but the numbers in local spiked dramatically and shortly thereafter, my overview started filling with hostile war targets.
Target broadcasts, shield broadcasts and the occasional capacitor broadcasts started filling my broadcast window and I started sending reps out with a constant juggling of targets. The enemy had jamming ships which were constantly playing havoc with our logistics chains. After the fleet engagement, I discovered that I can filter the broadcasts to only show certain types (thanks Grythome for the lesson!). That would have made things easier.
Once things stabilized, the encounter escalated with capitals appearing on field. At this point, I was extremely busy and have no idea who committed capitals first or even which side committed what ships. Both sides had them on field and I was swapping targets and applying reps and very occasionally putting my ECM drones on something. Who knew ecm drones couldn't be assisted? Probably everyone but me but in my defense, I do not remember the last time I used ecm drones. I learn something everyday.
I eventually went down to an alpha strike by a third party Ishtar fleet, but I was on field for 30+ minutes and felt that I contributed significantly to the battle before losing my ship even though I had nothing to show for it on the killboards. That was a fun engagement!! The total ISK lost climbed over 13B by the time the engagement ended.
The full video of the encounter is available at http://www.factionwarfare.com/the-battle-of-abune-08102014/.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Boredom Strikes
It is a rainy Saturday afternoon and there are quite a few corp members online looking for trouble. We have been chasing chains for a while without seeing anyone moving when we finally roll into a new static with a pilot sitting in a force field. AFK pilots are not much better than logged off pilots.
Since the pilot in the tower is not doing anything, I drop probes and resolve the system. I find the outgoing B274 and the outgoing Z647 and a couple of gas sites. I need to refit one of my Sabres anyway and this looks like Amarr territory so I jump through in my Sabre and head to market.
I make it to Amarr (all of 5 jumps) refit my ship and head back to the wormhole. Before I jump back into the wormhole, I check d-scan with my alt and notice that the pilot in system has changed ships to a Loki and there is now a Noctis also in system.
A quick check with d-scan shows the Noctis at the tower where he is expected. However, the Loki is not at a tower. I click the controls to show anomalies and sure enough, the Loki is running a site. I warp into the site and land about 40km off the Loki.
There is only 1 other pilot online at the moment. Everyone else seems to have walked away from the computer. The other pilot grabs a Proteus and heads to the static wormhole, I land on the high sec and we prepare to coordinate our jumps. I maneuver my alt into position and we jump the wormholes and warp to the site.
Due to the differentials in warp distance, the Proteus lands before the Sabre and the Loki warps off a fraction of a second before I manage to deploy the bubble from the Sabre. Drat! We were close but there are no awards for being close.
Another corp mate has logged in by now and he warps to the tower in time to the Loki pilot log off. We offer the other pilot who is actually from a different corp a 2v2 at the sun but he claims to have insufficient assets for such an endeavor. Unacceptable!
Right about now is when the boredom factor kicks in. You know what, the Loki pilot's tower is completely undefended. Why don't we seige it? Ok! What type of tower is it? Large Minmatar. Sounds good, lets get some Gila's and have a POS bash. Maybe that will encourage them to locate some assets for a fight.
We start bashing the tower with all 4 of us who are online. This could take ALL night! Unfortunately, we have nothing better to do at the moment. It doesn't take long and our numbers have grown to 8 and then on up to 12. A couple of the additional people have brought battleships and the tower shields are starting to melt away. Although at a fairly slow rate.
The shields are at about 60% when the Loki pilot logs back in and starts taking ships out of this tower and moving them over to his friends tower. We offered a reward to the pilot in the other tower if he will offline the tower, but he declines to backstab his friend in such an underhanded manner. Of course, he doesn't appear to care that we are taking the tower down either.
We start putting drag bubbles up to catch the guy moving ships but it is pretty obvious that he has cloaky eyes on the tower as he keeps coming in from directions which aren't bubbled. He eventually takes a couple of ships to high sec and we park a Devoter on the high sec connection to prevent him from coming back.
Meanwhile, he keeps moving ships to the other tower and floating them in space. We finally get to the magical 25% shield point and the tower enters reinforced mode. Not sure why he moved all those ships, but it gave us something to watch while our drones were shooting the tower.
Not enough assets to engage! He must have moved over 20 ships to the other tower including battleships, battlecruisers, recons, a Loki and a command ship. Since the other pilot decided to give him a safe haven, we investigate his tower and discover that it is also a large tower with light defenses consisting of 8 Medium lasers and 2 Large lasers defending it.
The evening is still young. We grab a Scimitar and I fleet warp the group on top of the first group of guns with instructions for people to warp when they get low shield. I am targeted first and the reps start coming in. However, the guns are hitting me pretty hard and I end up warping off with 23% armor remaining. I let me shields regen about 1/2 way and then rejoin the fight. A couple of more people end up warping off before our second Scimitar gets on field and things stabilize.
In the meantime, I hear a warning buzzer. Then another and then yet another. About that time, it occurs to me that I have completely forgotten my hauling alt sitting in a badger. I ended up warping it in with the fleet when I did the fleet warp. Oops! So long Badger! LOL!
While we are taking out the guns, the local pilot decides to reload the ammo in one of the guns we are orbiting. He grabs an interceptor and burns straight into our group to place more ammo in one of the guns. He dies in the attempt but I think he manages to get crystals in the gun. It didn't accomplish a whole lot but I admire anyone who will fly a ship straight into a hostile group of 20 ships.
We finished incapacitating the guns and start burning the tower. Since we know it is stronted, we are not really in the mood to finish reinforcing it. The local pilot has been pretty cool throughout the afternoon so we offer him a deal. If he will get in one of the floating ships and pilot it into our group and eject, we will leave. One of my pilots insists that we ask for the Sarum Magnate which is floating. Never mind the Loki or the command ship, he wants the Sarum Magnate. Never one to pass up a good laugh, I offer the deal to the pilot in local. He increduously asks if we are serious, thinks about it for about .002 seconds and accepts the offer.
We stop shooting and the local pilot jumps in the Sarum Magnate and flies it straight into the middle of our group. He ejects and warps off. We recall our drones while Mindful Visteen, who wanted the ship, returns and picks up the abandoned trophy. He takes it to our corporate tower where it is floating on tower of the tower.
We rolled the wormhole away and spent the next half hour laughing about the whole deal. Oh well! The afternoon ended up being entertaining in an unexpected way. As a final gesture of goodwill, I offered some advice to the two guys on how to setup their tower defenses to discourage bored groups such as mine from attacking their towers.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Interrupting a tower bash
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.
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 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.
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