Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Flight of a Thousand Rifters: Cozmik's AAR

I know my blog post for this is late but oh well... blame Real Life and Skyrim! Last saturday was one of those special occasions that underline the fact that EVE Online is truly unique in the gaming world. Let's summarize the event quickly: capsuleer Marlona Sky had a Moros dreadnought parked in a station. The ship was collecting an insane amount of dust and he decided to sent it to the slaughterhouse in a very special way: Get as many frigates and destroyers on the killmail as possible! And it was done in a very intelligent fashion too: Marlona waited for his constellation to come under the control of Sansha Kuvakei and his hordes of cyber-zombie minions, making it impossible for assclowns like Goonswarm, Pandemic Legion, Test Alliance Please Ignore, and other fat entities toting supercap blobs to crash the party. The fight was also to happen right in the docking ring of the station so anyone firing on anyone who isn't an outlaw was going to get corrected by the station sentries. So plainly, the perfect setting for vast amounts of fun!

I logged in just over an hour before the start of the event, clone-jumped to my PvP base to get into my Mobile HQ Orca, and headed towards Gallente space. I made a stop in Dodixie to pick up a stack of Thrashers with 2 flavors fo fits: one long-range Tremor with a SeBo, and one shorter ranged but harder-hitting with RF EMP and a point; I wanted some Quake S but apparently Dodixie was all out, and flying the fat ship I didn't want to make extra detours. When everything was purchased I set sail for Vlillirier (I can pronounce it... can you?) where the fun was about to happen. No I didn't fly the fat bitch into Low-sec; I stopped in Orvolle where I wanted to set my medical clone anyway.

One of the things I really love about events like this is that there are always new people for whom it's their first experience of The PvP, of Low-sec, or seeing a capital ship. As I was idling in the event channel I tried to help some newer guys as best I could. Another thing that was funny was reading the people freaking out when they found out there were the obscene amount of Sansha rats on the gate. I think some people even died trying to take the rats down. Yeah, incursion Sanshas can be a pain in the ass! But the clocked ticked away and it was finally time to warp to the moon 13 station and kill a sieged dreadnought! And pop it did after 10 minutes of sustained fire, faster than everyone was expecting; apparently Marlona had managed to burn out his repair tank... OOOPS! The final tally was 153 pilots on the killmail and a hair over 200 people in Local. But with the Moros dead the event was far from over... in fact the fun was just starting :)

Seconds after Marlona's pod was squished people started a massive brawl. Those that had come in ships that could tank sentries started popping straggling frigs and destroyers. but with so many people being non-outlaws, as soon as someone turned red the ship was melted in record time, no matter the size. Some people warped to the system's asteroid belts only to die to waiting True Power rats, but most ships strated hopping planets looking for any kill opportunity, which is what I did for the next hour of so. The highlights of my PvP afternoon included participating in the killing of a ridiculously fail-fit SniggWaffe Hurricane with me popping its capsule (tomorrow's Wednesday of Fail for sure; it's Xmas time so I'll treat myself!), and a little 2v1 I had with 2 Coercers versus the wannabe-Vaga Stabber I had brought with me. That was fun! I pointed one of the ships and tore it up pretty fast, but the other stuck around because 2 lazor-fit destroyers versus a tiny shield tank meant they had a fighting chance. Unfortunately I killed the first one really quick and applied my point to the second one in time to score the double kill. My victory dance didn't last long though because I got attacked seconds after :)

The only down side of my afternoon was getting podded twice. With so many people flying fast locking ships this was worse that I thought it would be, even if I had planned on it. And at 13 million ISK per clone upgrade thanks to my 56m skill points I had to cut my little op short because I didn't want to be financially ruined. But all in all it was a good tally for a solo pilot: including the Moros and a n00bship that landed at a planet I was parked in, I killed 9 ships and 2 pods, and got 3 final blows, for the loss of 2 Thrashers and one Stabber. So my usually very quiet killboard suddenly looked all Christmas-y (or SCV-ish for drum corps fans) in its red and green :)

Yep, events like this one make EVE Online worth playing for me; the chaos created by cramming 200+ small ships was some of the most fun I've had in the game all year. I hear that Marlona wants to do it again so obviously I'll be keeping an eye on any future events. And the idea to hold it in incursion space? Simple brilliance! Thank you Marlona for making me believe in EVE again, and congratulations to all the winners!

Fly ganky!

o7

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