Oh Mai, Killing a Titan

So I went out for dinner last night, a last minute decision and it cost me a slice of 115 billion ISK kill...

I returned to be greeted with a killmail for a Against All Authorities (-A-) titan that my friends caught and killed in Mai.

George Takei approves (possibly)

What I said when I was shown the killmail I won't repeat but I did congratulate my friends for their good fortune. I have the privilege to know some very good players and the group whom ply their trade in Mai is both diverse, great group and amazingly skilled for what they do.

High Fives and Back Slapping

I've seen numerous capital ship kills, far too many Jump Freighters that had poor cyno's and I've even been involved in a few kills but this is by far their largest and most successful kill. Congratulations again all involved, it was a spectacular kill.

Honeypot Glaze gets a shout out for turning up in a Ibis and putting that Civilian Gatling Railgun to good use...

Face Palm

This morning I checked EVE News 24 and TheMittani.com and only EN24 had a story on the titan kill so I read it.

I'd like to just go on the record and say I have nothing personal against EN24 but I do at times cringe and shake my head at the poor reporting, writing and even worse spelling and grammar I see in their stories, but I still read them.

The story is just plain wrong. The whole timeline of events and the facts of how it went down is comically incorrect.  It's as if they didn't speak to anyone involved (which I believe they did not) and I'm going to set the record straight with the details as I was told them.

The Story

As usual the story starts with people being attentive and watching the comings and goings in a system. Pilots are cataloged, checked, cross-referenced, noted and information shared in a private channel.

The cyno character was initially believed to be that of a JF pilot who has previously lit cynos on gates so people were ready on Mai's only gate for this but instead the cyno went up near Planet 7. A Purifier, flown by Honeypot Glaze, warped to the cyno and seeing a titan aggressed it, he then attempted to bump it out of it's alignment.

We're going to need a bigger fleet

Unfortunately the titan was fit with a smart bomb and the purifier started taking significant damage so he had to get range at which point the titan warped to what was either the Sun or Planet 2. The purifier warped at range to Planet 2 but no titan could be seen. Fortunately for Honeypot Glaze someone was smiling on him and on his moving about he managed to get the decloak and this caused the titan to enter warp again.

Tackle

This is where the titan's luck ran out, it warped to Planet VII Asteroid Belt 6 where a HIC and two BS were in warp to, having used d-scan to narrow the titan location, on arriving the titan had already cloaked but then inexplicably "combat logged" revealing himself to the HIC that was only 15km off him.

Friends and friends of friends were woken up (quite literarly in one case) and told of the capture and the need for ships. Sev3rance were called upon as Against ALL Authorities is red to them and had ships available in system, as veteran member N00b FO0 explained it:

"Well, some of my friends poked me, saying 'N00b, we got an enemy titan of Provi-Block tackled, we need your help'. So I Jump Cloned over, and called over a few guys from the Alliance, some of which got there in time, and some of them didn't. I was just psyched when I saw that it was an -A- [Titan], Providence Victor man"

The pilot, Carinia, attempted to refit using mobile depots but the attacking fleet was wise to this and alpha'd any attempt to deploy one as soon as it appeared. This must have frustrated the pilot who logged off and as a result all his active modules went offline, making the task of killing him easier.

Reinforcements

Black Legion were not involved initially, up to now the work was done by a combination fleet of members of different alliances who work together in this one system. When the titan reached ~50% shield the call for help was made, because there was concern that a call for help had been put out and PL/-A- reinforcements would be arriving shortly.

BL reinforcements arrived, via a cyno on station which they used to jump carriers in with their sub-capitals inside, and then question no longer whether the titan would die but how quickly.

No Help

It's often said that Supercarrier and Titans should have a cyno fitted in order to be able to provide a way for people to come to their aid should something like this happen. Eagle eyed viewers will notice in this case the titan was fitted with a cyno but it wasn't used, the obvious reason being that there was no help available because there doesn't even seem to have been an attempt by -A- to even raise a rescue fleet.

Says It All

Had there been reinforcements and the titan gotten any help could it have been saved, chances would have been slim but it may have helped. Even a couple of carriers with remote repair modules might have made the difference.

The Story Continues

After the titan was killed (not before as EN24 has said) did the following come to light:

• the Titan was only purchased by Carinia no more than 24 hours before it was lost as shown in this EVE Forums post
• the infamous Chribba took part in the sale as the "trusted" 3rd Party as shown in this screenshot 
• Tempest Legion were 'sniffing' around having seen the sale too and in fact a interceptor was killed on the wreck

Outbreak and Black Legion both released videos shortly after the kill from their points of view and -A- have been silent on the whole thing.

Thanks

Thank you to FrEeSoUl5150, a55mu11e7 and Disposable Ensign for help in writing this. Big thanks to EVE Scribe for his version and his stellar job of translating what he was told by N00b FO0 into English.