When the PvP becomes awesome

Today it all came together like it rarely does. Our sunday PvP op did start off rather normally and our small gang made up of a Hurricane, Harbinger, Vexor, Stabber and Caracal (an Ishkur joined us later) caught a Myrmidon in Caldari Low-sec. We had spotted him and a couple of his buddies flying around but they were making themselves a bit shy. At some point for reasons unknown, the Myrmidon warped to a tactical spot about 350km from the gate we were sitting on. At first we didn't do much but then I slowly notice that he's approaching us at low speed. Knowning there weren't too many people out in space who may be jumping us short of having a massive log-on trap, I announced my intention and start heading towards the Myrm. When it became clear that he was going to commit himself I turned on my Microwarp Drive and burned towards him Vaga style, half expecting him to warp off just before I lay a point on him. But he did not. Bad call on his part. Being now just under 200km away from the gate the gang can now warp to me and the Myrmidon got melted rather quickly. Just as we were about to finish him off his buddies had arrived at the gate, but too late to do anything but watch us loot the wreck. They made themselves scarce after that.

We continued a bit farther into Low-sec when at some point we see something funny. A train of a few capsules passed us in a very short time. Funny at first but things got serious fast. A few jumps later our scout spots a Tengu and two Drakes. We decided to go for the tasty Tengu, but it turned out to be a big mistake as litterally, Voltron formed on us! They had laid down the trap carefully, had a good idea of our fleet's composition because these were the capsuleers we had seen previously, and it was over quickly. My hat's off to them for not only catching us, but also for being very good sports about it. I don't know them that much, but We Form Voltron appears to be a class act. Cheers guys :)

But of course this made us want to keep on hunting so we made it back to HQ at best speed to reship, this time slightly cheaper, and much smaller in my case. The new fleet was composed of a Rupture, Caracal, Cyclone and my Taranis. Before we set off Havegun, our Rupture pilot, decides to go just on the edge of Low-sec to see if by any chance there is some action. There was. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gents, because this is where the fun starts!

As the other three ships are on their way to our rendez-vous point, Havegun gets tackled by a Phobos and a Zealot. The Rupture is holding it together though, and as we jump in we decide to go for the most expensive ship, the Phobos. And Lo and Behold, we pull it off! The Zealot warps off and a few seconds later, an Abaddon arrives on the scene. We all get on him right away and start laying on the pain, but a few seconds later a Megathron arrives (the Phobos pilot obviously) and starts to put the hurt on our larger ships. One thing we did do good: we got rid of all our opponent's drones. Therefore, when there's only my Taranis left, orbiting the Abaddon at 500-1000m, I'm slowly eating up the battleship's buffer tank, helped by the gate guns of course, and the Megathron just cannot hit me; the whole "hitting a fly with a baseball bat" thing. So the Mega warps off, and my fleet mates are frantically scrambling for replacement ships to finish the job. But it's looking very much like I will not need them... or am I?

With my heart pounding like mad over the potential solo kill from hell, my feeling sinks a bit when an Oneiros arrives on the field of battle and starts repairing the Abaddon, and sends a new flight of drones at me. I send my own two drones after the Oneiros', and in the nick of time Havegun returns with a Rifter and gets rid of the drones hurting me. The Oneiros sends a second flight of Warrior IIs but this flight lasts about 20 seconds. The Rifter is then free to start killing the logistics ship, and I can just do my thing and keep putting the pressure on the battleship. A probably shorter time than I think after that, the Oneiros blows up. The already very damaged Abaddon doesn't survive much longer. And about damn time too, because the only ammo I had left was 36 rounds of Federation Navy Anti-matter S in the cargo hold, and whatever was left in my blasters! The wrecks get looted real quick and Havegun and I get out of dodge; again in a timely fashion, my fleetmate Felix arrives on the field in his stealth bomber just in time to see, of all things, an Absolution and a Thanatos warping not to the gate (which would be fail enough) but to the wrecks, 40km away from it. I find this so funny that I asked in our Alliance chat if anyone was up to kill a carrier :)) They weren't but we didn't care. One of the best fights in our EVE careers had just happened.

We tried to go for a third trip but at this time some people were going to have to log off, and when one of our cruisers got caught pants down on a gate, we called off the op and went back to HQ. I have this feeling that this fight well be a tough one to be beat, especially in terms of what we killed with the ships we had. Our victim wasn't exactly happy about it though, predictably enough. But one thing I don't get... Mr WayCharles, you are a -10 pirate, therefore anyone is free to shoot at you. Getting offended over getting attacked by us... dude, just WTF?!?! Oh well, I hope you have a good ISK source :))

I'd like to thank the following pilots for making the small fleet that made a great afternoon: Havegun Willtravel, Felix Dcat, Gemorion, Bishopgwa, and special guest Sue AGPlant from Rionnag Alba. And WayCharles/Shiln... I guess we'll be seein' ya >:)

Fly hard, and never let go

o7

Baptism of fire

Some time last week, in a chain of event mention in my buddy Letrange's blog, one of my alliance's wormhole systems got co-occupied by a corp that was looking for nothing but some kills and LOLz. No need to repeat all of Let's blog here about the first assault on the enemy POS but all week long the only thing that I could contribute to the war effort was a few comments about tactics, ship fits and planning, and I could only hope that something was left for me to shoot at one way or another. So with the first op putting the tower in reinforced on Wednesday the action was expected to start again on Friday, and then we could put an end to the enemy's little party in our backyard. The timing could not have been better for me as I got back from my parental week, and I had a brand-spankin' new Tempest that was ready to fire VW-Bug sized ordnance into stationnary targets.

Shambler mkII

So after a bit of refitting (I had autocannons on and our system has certain "features" that affects ships) I make my way slowly to the K-space system that has the entrance wormhole while listening in to battle updates on comms, being careful not to intrude on Letrange's FCing. An obscene amount of jumps later, especially in something as slow as a battleship, I finally get to destination and Let gives me my first order: there's a Falcon messing with everyone at the tower and because I am arty fit, I will be arriving basically in my optimal so I'm to send him a good volley, with love of course :) So a single shot of my six guns and the Falcon loses all shields and its armor is dented and he warps off just before the guns are reloaded. Good decision on his part. Bad decision on our part though was trying to shoot the tower with its guns still shooting at us and many enemies in system. And then my Tempest is starting to be hit very hard and it's now clear that there is a POS gunner active. I try to warp away but then notice a dinky Crow holding me down with a point, so the only thing I can do is wait for the inevitable and then warp my pod back to K-space. A few other ships go down and then a retreat/regroup is called. End of Round 1.

At first I was disappointed at the market in the area where the wormhole system was in, but a quick check later fixed that as I noticed I was only 6 jumps away from Jita! Going on a shopping spree in the middle of a battle is weird but that's exactly what I did so in no time I was in another Tempest, but this time I had oodles of Warrior II drones so inty pilots would hate me. We also get more people in our gang while the enemy, who we know to be mostly EU timezone players, is less and less as it's getting really late/early morning over there. So once everybody is refit, present in system and ready to go Letrange once again grabs the reins of the AMC war machine and points the fleet towards the enemy tower, with a different tactic this time: kill the guns! A good thing is that there are now only 2 or 3 active enemy pilots now and there is basically nothing they can do but watch us incapacitate each gun one by one. By the time the last gun was out the enemy had lost a few ships to our lighter elements and then gave up and ran for it, leaving us with the slow but rewarding job of blowing their tower to smithereens :))

Kablooey !!!

My evening wasn't quite done though. After working my trade alt like the slave she used to be (poor Cassy!) I finally had the ISK to purchase my very first Broadsword heavy interdictor cruiser !!! So yeah, you could say I was rolling in ISK yesterday, but after the purchase I am now back to scrounging, but I will admit that if I lose the Broadsword it won't be too long before I go buy another one. Plus, I'd have to get massively ganked before I lose it because I'm using The Fit (tm). If you don't know the ship, it's basically a slow cruiser that out-tanks battleships, can survive a Doomsday or three, and will stop anyone in its bubble from warping away. Can't wait to fly it in anger :)

Fugu, the Puffer Fish of Death

In closing news I also showed a local pirate how bad his Taranis was fit by taking him to the cleaners with my own Taranis. Pro Tip: Tarani have 10m3 of drone bay space. Use it !!! I didn't collect the 9mil ISK bounty because I didn't catch his pod but where I blew his ship up he barely dented my shields :)

So there you have it, an awesome Friday night and Saturday morning to come back to the game after a break. Good Job to everyone who was a part of this, and word of advice to any other corp or alliance that would want to become our neighbors without permission, we have carebears that can turn into Kodiaks !!!

Fly dangerous,

o7

Dad Week

Yep, I'm at the beginning of one of those weeks when I have absolutely no access to EVE since Apocrypha came out because the second computer is short on memory, and the GeForce 4200Ti is very 2003 and will just not cut it; something in me wants to try the Lite version but typing this blog is activity enough while the boys watch "Go Diego Go" *shudder* Maybe tonight after they've gone to bed I'll try just to get the "Fail!" message.

So, what to do on a cold and rainy weekend with two young boys happily playing with their armada of toys? Here's a few ideas:

• Spend copious amounts of time on my alliance's forums and try to get news of what's happening in game, from awesome battleship kills to OMFGWTF battleship losses. I also try to get news from ops that may have happened, succesful or not, and make cunning plans (the kind you put tails on and call weasels) for future ops to keep the pilots on their toes and to look forward to my return in-game.
• Spend some time fiddling with EFT even though the app is now outdated. It's always fun to come up with a setup that's suddenly more tanky or more ganky or faster. In my Bozo days I was exposed to a bunch of guys who kept out-EFT-ing each other and coming up with extremely refined fits so I'm doing my best to keep up the good work. Can't wait for the Apocrypha version to come out!
• Read the EVE-O forums; this is about the only time that I really get up to date with what's going on in the Big Picture. Reading CAOD can be extremely funny at times (or a complete facepalm) . I also check out Alliance recruitment threads to bump some old friendlies, who may get to shoot at me now of course (!), and have a good laugh at some other ones, mostly from my knowledge of them in past encounters :)
• Watch videos and listen to podcasts; I do have to tell my boys to cover their ears at times, especially when listening to BOZOKast, which can now be considered the steadiest podcast in all of EVE... scary thought isn't it?! The boys and I really enjoy the videos found on YouTube. We spend pretty much the entire Alliance Tournament watching the 'puter screen and yesterday I showed 'em Day of Darkness II which they found really impressive, even if they call it "Star Wars"... I train my Padawans well !!! :)
• And of course read up on the various blogs from all my buddy bloggers! Special thanks go to Letrange for showing the industrial pilots' bad influence on a pure PvPer like me! Like Let said, have no fear, the Taranis is back to its normal painful configuration:

[Taranis, Rapist]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Warrior II x2

And there you go. A small sample of the things I do in between preparing meals, doing dishes, changing diapers, settling fights, and mending bruises. I have no clue if the Lite version will run even if this box is a little below the required specs. It would be way sweet if it does run because I'll be able to make ISK with the trade alt and I won't have to bug Letrange with skill changing; yes it does go against the EULA, but CCP thinks 24 hours is enough for a skill queue... my situation is the reason why I think it's not enough.

So until I can join up a gang in game, you guys fly hard and deadly...

o7