He'll be back

Bex has lost his mojo (I could make a joke about marbles but why point out the obvious) and yesterday I was present in teamspeak as he was moving out of his wormhole.

 

It was a solom and quiet process.

 

He'll be back, there just is little to keep him active in EVE. I know what he means, all players go through this at one point or other (multiple times mostly). One less blog to read now :(

 

And don't think about asking him for his stuff, I already did and he said I could have it all.

 

He'll be back though, three months, six months or even a year from now. He'll be back....

 

EVE is a harsh Mistress, but she always wins.

Ambush!

Previously I detailed a POCO bash that under way in wormhole space, we'd picked up two easy kills and were bashing away at the remaining POCOs when on d-scan appeared a Sabre.

The Passive Scanning Fallacy

D-Scan provides a passive sense of security and a somewhat false sense of security as Covert Ops Cloaked equipped ships won't appear (and Combat Recon's in a patch or two will not either). But clicking d-scan will at least provide SOME form of early warning of approaching ships, especially tackle. If you live in a wormhole you very quickly learn that d-scan is something you need open and running. 

I'm safe if nothing appears here, right?

The fleet was continuing to shoot the remaining POCO and a few were using d-scan to monitor for incoming threats. We'd posted a cloaked scout to the other wormhole we knew of in system, to a C3, and expected any threat from BRAVE Newbies to come from this vector.

We were right that it would be Brave Newbies as the threat but the threat vector we didn't.

Misdirection

Instead of coming back through the C3 as we had expected the fleet that Brave Newbies assembled instead came via the high sec we had used. The same high sec that we did not have any eyes on as we (wrongly) believed to be safe.

I don't know why we didn't have eyes on the high sec connection but it probably was as simple as we didn't have enough characters to cover this hole.

When I saw a Sabre on d-scan I called out on Teamspeak.

"Sabre on scan"

No reaction.

"Sabre on scan"

Again no reaction.

"SABRE ON SCAN" (said with a little more volume and urgency).

At this point I heard someone else call it too (it was Bex I found out afterwards) and people then started to respond and react. Unfortunately the reaction was slow and ships only pulled drones and aligned to a celestial as the Sabre appeared on grid.

Don't Panic

The interdiction probe bubble covered me and I quickly looked for the closest edge that I could burn too before trying to warp out. I engaged my microwarpdrive and double clicked in space to the edge I was going for.

More targets appeared on grid and I locked up both the Sabre and a Crow that was within range and opened fire. The Sabre exploded before he could get out of his own bubble (he also lost his pod)whilst the Crow took a couple of hits but was well off the bubble but fortunately Scorch L didn't let him escape.

By this time I'd seen an Absolution appear on grid with a couple of other cruiser/battlecruiser class vessels so I locked no further targets and made a run for the high sec hole myself. This was a risk as it could be bubbled but I felt confident that they would not leave any bubblers on the hs hole as they had successfully caught our fleet at the POCO.

I made it and jumped successful back to the (relative) protection of high sec.

What About The Fleet

I'm quite proud of how I reacted, finally the training and guidance I'd been given over the years in-game had paid off. There was no panic, no newbie mistakes. I killed and successfully extracted. I do feel bad that I'd left my friends to die but we were all in no-tank ships and we would never survive this engagement so running was the only option.

The aftermath of the ambush was not as bad as I or others thought, four T3 battlecruisers were lost with another one being lost less than an hour later to the same gang in system. But it was far from being a rout.

Fitting 101

I'm not a fitting expert, I regularly ask for assistance with fits but experience and lots of yelling has taught me a lot about the basics that I remember to this day. This is my personal opinion.

The one thing that made me cringe and shake my head was a couple of our losses saying they didn't have a prop mod fitted. Always having a prop mod fitted is one of the rules that has been drilled into me since I was in Providence, afterburners are okay but ideally a microwarpdrive should be fitted to give you the GTFO capability should you be caught in a bubble. And here is an example of why, these two pilots were not able to burn out quickly and as a result were primary targets for the landing force.

We killed the Sabre (including pod) and the Crow and managed to bag a combat fit Kryos within the hour for five battlecruisers. 

The ISK war may have been lost but we had fun.

I certainly did, got my first kill in 177 days on my character and managed not to screw things up (noone has said I did so I'm taking that as a positive).

POCOcabana

A couple of days ago I had a evemail appear in my inbox from Bex. Mails from Bex usually are a request to come shoot some stuff and this was no different, there were POCOs in a WH system ripe for killing. He was hoping to stir the locals into action after he had evicted them in September.

A high sec system wasn't too far from my home system and I had little else to do so I visited Amarr and fit out a high dps Oracle to use.

Fit For Use

I spent 150m in total on the following fit and the ammo and nanite paste and left Amarr wit the following fit ship:

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Mega Pulse Laser II, Conflagration L

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script

Cap Recharger II

Damage Control II

Tracking Enhancer II

Heat Sink II

Heat Sink II

Heat Sink II

Heat Sink II

Medium Energy Locus Coordinator I

Medium Energy Locus Coordinator I

Medium Energy Burst Aerator I

With Conflag it provided 1100 dps, 750 with Scorch and 1000 with faction Multifrequency. It has no tank so at any sign of danger I need to be aligned and ready to warp off but it had one purpose, to be a fit I could use for maximum damage to shoot static emplacements.

Assemble!

The fleet formed up in the staging system that Bex provided and sat on the wormhole until all fleet members were assembled. Unfortunately on the wormhole with us was a shuttle belonging to a member of Brave Newbies who jumped in with us. He was fast enough to escape off and left via another wormhole in the system. We posted a cloaky ship to this to warn us of any possible attackers coming from this direction.

Bad Luck

We warped to the first POCO and opened fire... but a minute or so after we started started we were mildly surprised to see a Cheetah deloak at 0 on the POCO. Never one to turn down free stuff, the Cheetah was instantly vaporised.

We couldn't believe this, the whole system and the Cheetah appeared here. Turns out the pilot had warped at 100km to a POCO so he could scan but had ended up at 0 on our fleet location.

If At First...

We continued with the POCO shooting and 11 minutes after we first killed him the Cheetah pilot uncloaked again at 0 on the POCO we were shooting but this time in a Stealth Bomber. Again he was dispatched amidst a rainbow coloured light show.

He didn't even try to attack us so we weren't even sure why he returned, possible to loot his own wreck but we'll never know as just after his ship was killed we finished RF'ing the POCO and moved on to the next.

Back to Mission

With a fleet mix of different high dps ships, such as Talos, Oracles and a Harbinger, the POCOs were took about 15 minutes to enter reinforced mode. 

We kept ourselves entertained with humourous chat and jokes and we finished three POCOS in quick order. We then warped to our fourth target for the night and settled in, it wasn't long afterwards that a Sabre appeared on scan and we found out Brave Newbies assembled a fleet to come jump us...

Undocumented Feature

More Waaaagh!

I received another invite to join the POS Bash Crew from last time, they'd found a new C1 with a Dark Blood Tower that was full of modules and very little defensive modules.

There was a little change to the plan, a mid-week assault would hopefully result in the tower coming out of reinforcement on Saturday rather than Sunday. So we assembled again and Oracles, Ishtars and Navy Vexors started to dismantle the defences and then, in just under three hours, reinforce the tower.

Which had just over 14 hours of Stront in it. Oh we weren't expecting that and its during the day Australian time so I won't be able to be there but there were other, more committed, people who would.

Bugged

This morning I login to EVE and Bex sends me a message, turns out that overnight the POS owners have been able to deploy and online around 40 new guns. As Trinkets Friend puts it on his blog:

Suddenly a cakewalk turned into a fucking joke

I was in another POS bash some time ago where something similar happened but I can't remember what happened but I think we did have enough pilots to ignore the small number of new guns and obliterated the tower regardless.

But seriously, is this a bug or a feature because this royally pissed off not just me but every member that had wasted an evening reinforcing the tower. It's in a C1 so we cannot get battleships or cpaitals in there to assist,m any sub-capitals will be seriously under fire and we'll need far more logi than we have pilots to ensure we survive.

Read Trinkets blog post on it and I can't agree more with what he says. It's a fucking joke, CCP can add new features but will not fix obvious bugs within their own the code that are causing game-breaking issues. Hell I'd go so far as to say the POS owners are cheating by using a broken mechanic to defend a POS they should have properly setup in the first place (with more than 8 guns, 1 web and 1 warp disruptor).

Unfortunately due to this the POS bash is off and the defenders have been rewarded for their defensive stupidity thanks to bugs in code.

The Waaaagh fizzled out

This will be a depressingly short post.

The wormhole operation is complete, It was a one sided battle where the attackers overwhelmed the defenders with some loot recovered.

Reinforcement Time

Scouts had been watching the tower over the weekend and multiple T1 and T2 large bubbles were anchored ensuring the there could be no escape from the tower if anyone did login and think of making a run. 

A ransom, of 3 billion ISK, was formally demanded to stop the assault and for us to leave but no reply or parley was received from the defenders. 

But at some point during the wait for the reinforcement timer to expire someone did login and made the decision to self-destruct the following ships so as to prevent them being looted by our forces:

• Archon
• Moros
• Revelation
• Orca
• Sin
• Armageddon
• 2 x Legion
• Dominix
• 2 x Hulk
• Primae
• Numerous additional mining barges, industrials and T1 frigates.

Approximately 12 billion ISK in ships were destroyed with an unknown amount of modules/salvage/materials being put into a Rorqual that was then logged off within the POS.

Scouts will remain, watching for the Rorqual to log on...

The Final Assault

The operation started at 07:30 EVE time on Sunday and was complete by 08:15 EVE time, 12 million Armour and 8 million Structure HP was melted very quickly by a fleet comprised of:

• Ishtars
• Vexor Navy Issues
• Oracles

and it certainly helped that the fleet was four times the size of the one we used on Friday night to reinforce the tower.

The operation was over so quickly that I failed to take screenshots and the two pilots whom were logged in, one in a Manticore, did not attempt to interfere with the remainder of the operation.

*UPDATE* Trinket's Friend has posted a more detailed overview of the POS bash and its worth a read. I didn't think it was my place to release all this information so that's why I haven't gone into as much detail. That said, TF does a much better narrative about this than I would have so have a read.

Loot

All incapacitated POS modules bar the Domination Webifiers were killed and any that could be recovered were and about 2.3 billion ISK of loot dropped from the Corporate Hanger Arrays and a couple of ships (including a Nighthawk) were left to be collected.

It wasn't as profitable as recent bashes that have appeared on news sites but for a C1 it was pretty good and all parties were happy with the way things have ended. No word on how the loot will be divided but with only one loss for the whole operation there isn't much need for SRP.

The Final Word

Bex had the final word, typing in local (not the safe POS password as we expected) but a small barb for the defenders who didn't turn up:

12B isk self destructed in hulls
2.3B isk in hard earned stuffs dropping to the loot fairy
Calling your aggressors space rich in local.... priceless.

It was a good bash, lead well and I met some new pilots whom I liked. If there was a report card it would be full of A's with the final comment of "good fun, will work with again".

Waaaagh continues

Assembly

We were slow to assemble, the Avengers we are not.

There was some nice banter going on in teamspeak and it was very enjoyable hearing a mixture of Aussies and Brits as we were getting ready for the POS bash. There was quite a lot going on but the most amusing thing to happen pre-bash was listening to Trinket's Friend lose his Golem in a wormhole. 

Props to him he took the loss like a true Bitter Vet and "it's only pixels" was said a few times but he received a lot of laughter and friendly abuse for it. He was rechristened "Captain Lossmail" so as not to forget what had happened.

The Target

As I'd said before the Intel was excellent so we had bookmarks on each of the main defence arrangements and once we were assembled our rag tag fleet of Vexor Navy Issues, Oracles and Prophecy's supported by two Guardians were warped to a point outside of range of the guns of the tower.

True Sansha Control Tower, mixture of guns, webs/scrams and ECM

Bex called time on our preparations and we warped in at 75km from the nearest defence group and started firing on the warp disruptor battery. DPS wasn't too bad although the Warden II's I was using couldn't hit so I had to move in a bit closer and use Valkyrie II's.

We took, on average, five minutes to incapacitate a module so we focused on what was an immediate threat or in the case of ECM what was annoying the hell out of our logi. The Domination Webifiers had an effective 97.5% reduction in speed to any targeted vessel but as we were stationary most of the time it was not an issue.

Pilots Appear

Just after we had finished the second or third module we saw a pilot login and warp into the middle of the POS in an Anathema. Intel had found previously that this pilot could use POS guns so we weren't surprised when the sporadic fire we were receiving started getting more focused and ECM batteries were attacking our logi more frequently.

No C-Beams glittering in the dark here

Fortunately even with a POS gunner the small and medium guns on the POS were no match for our buffers and logi so no ship was ever in any danger but after a while we noticed that the guns were targeting our sentry drones and this was successful in disrupting our operation to the extent that we switched from using sentries to drones and killing whatever guns were closest so we could use sentries again.

One of the targets used a Nighthawk to try to kill drones for about 45 minutes and he'd exit the force field and fire a few missile volleys before retreating, rather fast, into the safety of the forcefield. Impact was negligible and after a while we ignored him enough that he stopped doing it.

Poking out of the force field to fire a volley or two

After Downtime

Downtime approached and we safed up after incapacitating over half of the defences that were present and the decision was made to attack the tower after DT from the hole we had created in the defences.

A number of pilots also took the opportunity to refit their ships for closer ranged damage and this would have the effect of nearly doubling the fleet DPS. All the better for taking down the tower, which has a mind numbing 48 million HP in shields. Armour is a little better at 12 million HP but at least that should take only a quarter of the time it took us (8 hours) to take the shields down.

We finished the reinforcement phase a little before 3pm EVE Time after having started at around 8am EVE Time. I left rather quickly due to really needing to sleep but I understand that the tower was covered in T1/T2 bubbles and noone has been seen since logging in.

Keeping Sane

POS bashes are mind numbing, they are about as much fun as having a colonoscapy is what I once heard someone say. Fortunately teamspeak with the fleet was both lively and enjoyable, several people were of a similar sense of humour to me and I had a great time listening and laughing at others expense.

Some of the things that made us laugh and passed the time:

• Architeuthis Rex using google translate to try to communicate with the targets (who were either Serbian, Russian or from Eastern Europe) resulting in quite a lot of banter and confusion, theirs and ours.
• I tried to ransom the tower for 2.5 billion ISK, promising that "I'd leave if I was paid". I was not paid.
• I also translated the Rolf Harris song "Tie Me Kangeroo Down Sport" into Serbian (Google Translate again) and spend 5 minutes copy/pasting this in local. The targets were not impressed, so I just linked them the youtube video at which point we didn't hear from them again.
• Weird Wally putting various comments and (bad) jokes into local and fleet in order to entertain, there were several space tumbleweeds seen
• Althanear finally having to face reality that his girlfriend could get work as a Chris Lillie lookalike

It was a fun night, I met a lot of great people and I'm considering putting an alt into this group so I can join in the fun on a more regular basis.

Special mention to our high sec eyes, a strange Aussie (with breasts) from Canberra, Johnno Ormand who did a fantastic job keeping our fleet safe from high sec visitors and keeping us awake with good questions.

357th Typing Pool Star of Derp

By far the funniest moment came from Bex, not content with forever being ribbed about bringing the "wrong sized crystals for his guns" when T3 battlecruisers were released he has been awarded a medal by his corp for:

Glorious service in typography disemination and cryptography.

The medal was awarded for typing our fleet safe POS forcefield password in Local when someone asked our targets what their POS password was.

Local is not for Passwords dear Bex

There was consideral mirth and laughter after that happened and Bex will never live that down.

Next Phase

The next phase is due Sunday night Australian time, there was a full stront bay so we have to now wait the 1 day 17 hours for the tower to exit reinforcement so we can continue the assault and kill it.

Unleash the Navy Vexor Issue of Waaaagh!

Bex asked and I said Yes. It is party time in wormhole space this weekend. There is an eviction operation and general "if not purple shoot it" event happening.

I'm not really a PvP person but in this case its been a while since I've taken part in a POS bash in wormhole space that I'm actually quite looking forward to it. 

Operation

I know more about the target than I do some family members because planning has been excellent. As usual Bex has done his research and we have lists of targets, activity information and details of what has been happening in the target wormhole.

Tower vulnerabilities have been identified and weaponry tailed to inflict maximum damage and spots around all towers have been bookmarked ready for use.

Cast

Two of my usual compatriots, Bex and Althanear, are once more involved but this time I get to fly with a few people I've not had the pleasure before. 

I am a regular reader of a blog called Localectomy by an Western Australian based EVE player called Trinket's Friend. He writes well and his content is excellent, I've spoken once before to him but this is the first time I'll be working in the same fleet as him and I'm looking forward to it.

New challenges mean more new people to meet in EVE. Gotta love that.

Shipping into Waaaagh Mode

I've decided not to use my "main" characters for this operation and instead I'll be using a former friends character who has 72m skillpoints and has excellent Projectile, Drone and Minmatar/Gallente ship skills. He's not done much for a few months but he's got the skills needed for this operation so out of stasis he comes.

Awake after a long sleep

My first choice for a POS Bashing ship would be an Oracle but he can't fly this so looking down the list of ships I see the Navy Vexor Issue using Sentry Drones. He can fly this and by luck this is the ship he used for PvE'ing in high sec when he was more active.

The fit needed some work but an outlay of 50m ISK has upgraded the ship and fit to match that for the operation. We're ready to roll.

Althanear found out the nearest high sec entry to the wormhole and we all met there on Thursday night. We moved in and located safe spots to idle in until called upon.

Waiting

We've been waiting, watching and readying ourselves for the attack. Just waiting for the order to assemble and attack.

Pictures and details to come after the operation has completed, of course based on previous experience we are hoping for a lack of stront in the towers...

Revenge. Served cold 25 Days Later

A kill right is defined as:

Kill Rights are your chance of retribution and are provided to you in those cases where you have been wronged by another player in the eyes of CONCORD.

It's simple to remember, if you attack someone and/or kill someone in high sec that is no flagged as suspect you receive the pointy end of the stick from CONCORD but also the pilot(s) you attack will get a kill right that they can either use or sell.

Remember, they last 30 days from the date and time that aggression occurred. Once a kill right expires thats it you cannot legally attack them in high sec without CONCORD intervention. 

Bex has today used this to good effect and got a nice kill on someone who attacked him in a DED site 25 days ago.

Wavy Lines, Time Travel

16th August 2014, the pilot VVS Solt was flying using his Vexor Navy Issue in a DED site in the Sivala system. Bex also probed then entered the site and proceeded to kill the faction rat that had spawned, ignoring the rest of the rats.

VVS Solt didn't like this and locked Bex up and attacked him. Only problem was Bex wasn't suspect nor had he attacked VVS Solt and as a result CONCORD appeared and killed the Vexor Navy Issue without so much as a "hello".

Bex, of course, landed a few good hits on his attacker and as a result received the kill and a kill right on the attacking pilot. He then finished the site and received some faction loot for his effort. VVS Solt received nothing.

More Wavy Lines, Return to Present

Bex always intended on using the kill right he had been gifted by VVS Solt but moving into a new wormhole he had been too busy to track him down. Until yesterday when he saw that he had 5 days left on his kill right and so ran a locate on VVS Solt and found he was undocked in a high sec system 32 jumps away...

Fuck it, what else am I doing?
                               - Apex Bex

The answer was nothing interesting; so Bex made the 32 jump trip to find a single station but no target in Local. A second locate found VVS Solt in a Low Sec system a couple of jumps away, Bex was wary of engaging in low sec as his target may have friends there or any engagement would be interfered with by other parties. So he decided to wait for him to return to high sec.

Even More Wavy... wait No, it was just 20 minutes later and Bex sees VVS Solt jump back into High sec and dock in station where he remains for 90 minutes before undocking in a Vexor Navy Issue and warping to an anomaly where he proceeds to shoot the NPC rats.

Oh No He Didn't

Yes, he did warp to an anomaly oblivious to the threat in local.

Apex Bex followed him to the anomaly, activating his kill right, and VVS Solt's Vexor Navy Issue soon become nothing more than a wreck. This wreck however was filled with a few nice deadspace modules that Bex can sell to replenish the ammunition he expended.

Lessons Learnt

There are many lessons that could be learnt from this, some of the most important I'd say are:

• Kill mails aren't for life, they're for 30 days and they can be redeemed ANYTIME in this period
• Apex Bex is an evil man whom you shoot at your own risk but whom will probably come back and haunt you when you least expect it
• Deadspace modules are dropping in price and some are depressingly low value now
• Patience can earn an excellent reward

Bex is an evil man but he seems to get more than his fair share of fun stuff happening to him, I hate him a little bit more when this stuff happens to him.

Purple Moros Down

[So they wanted to kill a purple carrier, but then they turned on you.]
I knew they would.
             - Apex Bex.

What follows is the After Action Report by Apex Bex, longtime friend and EVE compatriot, who has returned to living in a WH and also working with some people of "dubious honour". I post it here as its a great story about how people create content and how friends can turn on friends for fun.

Now, it’s important to identify what a ‘MATE’ roam is. Basically, its a group of Aussie corps/pilots who get together now and again for PvP roams and other shenanigans. There are affiliations within the group, but largely it’s a not purple, shoot it kind of arrangement and little love lost between many of the participants. 

The Story

It was getting late on Friday night and having made some ISK in my C2 Wormhole, I was jumping through high sec to Jita to unload some products. It’s at about this point that my CEO mentions one of the guys on his ‘MATE’ roam is busting out a Chimera, to what end I had no idea. 

Caldari carrier, makes a nice big explosion when killed

So Trinket gets it in his head that it’d be pretty funny to drop a Moros on the Chimera. There was apparently someone else of similar thinking bringing another Moros and he would be the secondary target. Since going back to W-Space I’ve barely even looked sideways at my cap fleet and the Blap Moros was definitely my favourite of the bunch. 

[Blap Moros]

3x Limited Mega Ion Siege Blaster I

1x Siege Module II

2x Heavy Capacitor Booster II

1x Sensor Booster II

2x Tracking Computer II

1x Damage Control II

1x Capital Inefficient Armor Repair Unit

3x Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

2x Capital Trimark Armor Pump I

1x Capital Hybrid Collision Accelerator II

I almost never use it, so I volunteered to be 'the guy', I could insta jump to my clone in Aurohunen anyway and did.

I should’ve checked the clone before I jumped to it, as I found out later it had a full LG crystal set in it. Less than ideal for an armour Moros, but what the hell. This was in LowSec anyway, only galactic stupidity would see me lose my clone too. 

As the moment to jump drew nearer the destination system was linked in private chat from Trinkets. Tama. Fucking Tama. OK, this was almost certain death then. I thought ‘fuck it – it’s just pixels’, spent half a billion on insurance and undocked the Moros in Aurohunen, waiting for the cyno to go up.

Jump, Jump, Jump

Moments later the cyno is lit and I clasp my balls firmly in my left hand and jumped into Tama, appearing at the sun no less. Sure enough, there was a swarm of purple that comprised the ‘MATE’ fleet and the Chimera was among them. I immediately sieged and let fly with Guristas Anti-Matter from about 15km’s. 

The poor Chimmy never had a chance. TeamSpeak was alive with hoots & wtf's as purple opened up on purple and the carrier exploded less than a minute into my siege cycle.

Kill: Bam Stroker (Chimera)

Suddenly, Oh Bugger, Surprise!

It was at this point that I learned just how loyal the ‘MATE’ fleet was =]. I was kicked from fleet and the 30 odd sub caps opened up on me. It was about now I was really pleased with myself for taking the insurance. My 3 Billion ISK Dread was fully covered now and I was just going to try to take as many with me as I could. 

I started locking up everything big enough to hit and not moving enough. Primary was of course going to be the Armageddon that was neuting my capacitor hard. It went down rapidly and I moved onto the Megathron. It too succumbed at point blank range in just two volleys. 

Kill: Ceadeus (Armageddon)

Kill: Kech Eistiras (Megathron)

Even a Drake that was silly enough to sit still for a minute went down. 

Kill: Kato's Pete (Drake)

I’m still behind on the ISK war but was having too much fun to give too much of a fuck at this point, so now with only cruisers on the field and no tackle to hold them still enough I dropped a depot and quickly refit for cap regen as I was almost out of boosters. 

Need to refit in space? The mobile depot is the "must have" deployable

Amazingly they let my depot deploy and I dropped the tracking computers for cap rechargers but that was as far as I got when the depot started taking fire. I scooped it up but the opportunity wouldn't present itself again to drop it on the field.

I still had at least 6 siege cycles worth of stront left so no trouble tanking this sub cap fleet now, but I was also made aware that there was a Snuff Box fleet en route. They wouldn't be 'kitchen sinking it' and their arrival would be the end of me, unless I could get the cap to jump out.

The Final Countdown

Under the sustained DPS and cap warfare I could never quite get enough cap to jump, the closest I got I was still about 5% short and moments later the Snuff Box fleet landed, comprised mostly of Command Ships with a Heavy Interdictor and a Neut Armageddon. 

The Armageddon maintained just enough transversal to be unhittable to my guns, especially without my tracking computers fitted, and he would soon have me neuted out and unable to operate either defensive or offensive modules let alone jump out.

If I was going to die I would do so trying to take as many of them as possible with me and I did notice that one of their Command Ships was sitting dead still about 3,000m off my starboard side, so I took the shot Hilariously, he popped on the second volley and now the ISK war had a half a billion ISK Command Ship on my side.

Kill: Tau AD (Absolution)

Then, eight minutes later, I finally succumbed to the incoming fire and exploded:

Kill: Apex Bex (Moros)

and notice the lack of pod killmail, yup he was a jammy bastard and managed to save his LG Crystal Clone equipped pod in the melee that developed.

R.I.P. Wrong Again, Bob

Second View

Trinkets Friend has posted a shorter write up of the "MATE" roam on his blog. Go have a read of it (and favourite it as he's got one of the better written blogs in EVE) and then laugh at Apex Bex just as I have been as I've been writing this.

Does this look like a trustworthy character?

Oh and save your ISK, I know full well Apex Bex is a Space Rich bastard and does not need any ISK donations.

It was a "wicked idea"

So Bex said:

"Let's max tank an transport ship loaded with "officer mods", with a high passive armour tank and a set of low-grade Slaves with an off-grid booster Damnation."

At the time I wasn't sure but after thinking about it and tinkering with fits I had to admit it was a interesting, verging on wicked, idea.

 

I'd provide the boosts whilst Bex would provide the transport, officer mods from a previous kill and the suitably equipped low-grade Slave clone.

 

Singularity

 

We retired during down-time one night to test and see if we could find any holes in the idea and getting to shoot Bex is something I'll never turn down :)

 

Cue the music...

 

Bex had already thought of a ship, the Impel, and fit that would work, he suggested that gankers will be scanning cargo not ships so we should be able to get away with a maximum passive tank. I couldn't see an issue with this logic and was really just wanting him to undock so I could start shooting him...

 

The Impel undocked and once boosts went active we were looking at a tank of 240,000 EHP. Yes, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND for a transport, and all for a couple of hundred million ISK.

 

We warped to a safe spot and then using gank-fit Tornado's I warped to optimal and opened fire.

 

The results were interesting... we found that gank tornados firing again a static ship really did do massive damage, the shields were stripped in four salvos and the armour was going down at the rate of 9% per salvo. However moving the target Impel really made a difference to the salvos and damaged lowered quite significantly.

 

Instead of two salvos to remove shields it was seven and each salvo did 6% armour damage, obviously this meant that for maximum survivability we needed to keep the Impel moving as it was ganked. This actually played nicely into the plan, which called for Bex to autopilot to each gate rather than warp to zero.

 

Bex calculated that it would take at least twenty gank-fit Tornado's to kill the Impel firing a single salvo each. This wasn't a situation we saw happening as most Deep Space Transports were killed by one or two ships who saw an easy untanked target, something this Impel was not going to be.

 

We retired for the night happy with the fit and setting the date for the coming Sunday.

 

Postponed, Due To War

 

Unfortunately the booster pilot was in an alliance that received a war dec the previous week, I was hopeful it would be over by the Saturday but I did not figure in the stupidity of some of my alliance, who lost rather expensive ships in high sec in the last days of the dec, and the war was extended by another week.

 

Undock, Autopilot, Profit!

 

Shoot Me, I'm a Piñata!

 



Sunday morning we undocked and started moving up and down the Amarr->Jita pipe with the boosting Damnation staying out of sight and off grid, but boosting, to the Impel.

 

Scanning was frequent at gates but nothing happened, at least at first but a couple more runs up/down and a few breaks we eventually got someone who took the bait.

 

It was only a lone Tornado and their attack only took a third of the Impel shields, we couldn't even lock the tornado in time to get on the KM however Bex did get a kill right which he was quite happy with (must be the pirate in him).

 

We did get one other Tornado just outside Amarr who tried but again failed to get through the shields but that was it.

 

Next Time, Maybe

 

Perhaps it was bad timing, it was a weekend and early morning in our time zone so night everywhere else or it may have been that pilot who scanned us a couple of times and started calling our idea out in local as we moved through.

 

It was a wicked idea and all we go was two Tornado's and kill rights but was fun and we can always do it again in the future :)