The Bringer of Dawn

The guys were up to their usual tricks when I logged in. They’d spotted some movement in a C4 and asked me to bring some dps in case it kicked off. And kick off it did. Oddic and Gab had caught an Unsettled Oracle and in response, they were massing a fleet while I moved a Loki and Legion down the chain. I was glad it was Unsettled. We’d happened across them a week or so before in a C4 chain, but one of the connections was a 1bil hole that was well into stage 2 mass, so we couldn’t meet them with a fleet. That, and the fact that Unsettled was Roime’s new home.

Before he quit Jay-Space, he made quite a lot of noise on the forums. Plus, I always took notice of corporations that bumped their recruitment ads at similar times as I did, and Shiva Furnace not only did that, but also had a particularly pretentious advert to boot. So, I happened to sneak an alt into his corp to see if they were any good. It didn’t take long to find out that they weren’t and the last straw was blaming a bad fleet loss on the lack of support from the now defunct Dead on Arrival alliance. He signed off from WH’s by cursing it on the forums as “cloaky proteus” online and boring, which predictably provoked much derision. Now he’s back, he cleverly posts on his alt, King Fu Hostile (a family friendly reference to Pantera’s classic - “Fucking Hostile”) instead.

Anyway, the fight was on, but it was looking like our fleet was on the small side and not fantastically balanced in terms of reps and EWAR. Halfway through the chain, I turned the Legion back for home. To their credit, Unsettled had formed up very quickly and in decent numbers. Our own guys were eager to get brawling with them. Perhaps a little too eager, though. We jumped in, with a few reinforcements still moving through the chain. Unsettled didn’t have too much in the way of logistics on grid. A couple of Onieros’ out at 60km from the hole, but what they did have was too much for our logi to handle. The jams and neuts told early and before we could drop any of their ships, our own logi was forced to jump out while we lost Utari’s Legion and Gab’s Stratios. The rest of the fleet executed a tactical withdrawal to the other side of the WH, where we were doubtful they would follow immediately since their logi were so far off the hole, giving us time to bring in the rest of the fleet.

I have always considered that you can break down PvP engagements into simple one-upmanship. In the most basic terms, if your enemy brings a frigate, bring a destroyer. If he brings two ships, bring three. Applying this literally is often impractical – and I tend not to look at things in the most basic terms anyway! In a fair, balance fight between two ships, the one-upmanship will likely manifest in a bit of module overheating or clever manoeuvring.

This still applies to fighting outnumbered – which I love to do. The trick if you’re outnumbered is not to be outgunned. There’s a reason some ships are known as force-multipliers, but adding these to a fleet is a real balancing act. Too many Logistics ships in lieu of dps will keep your fleet up, but you won’t be able to break anything either. My favoured force-multiplier for our WH engagements is the on-grid links Eos. Not only does the armour links boost the staying power of the fleet but can be set up to be as versatile as a Swiss army knife while still being able to apply a decent amount of damage.

I won’t rant on Greek mythology, but I think it’s quite apt that the Command Ship is named after the Titaness daughter of Hyperion, the Goddess of Dawn. A quick check of my killboard will show I lost something like this a little while back:    

[Eos – Bringer of Dawn]

Armored Warfare Link – Passive Defence II

Armored Warfare Link – Rapid Repair II

Skirmish Warfare Link – Interdiction Maneuvers II

Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I

Small Capacitor Booster II

Damage Control II

Armor Explosive Hardener II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump II

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Gecko x2

Valkyrie x2

Warrior x1

579 dps,

108k EHP, EM 75.1%/THERM 83.8%/KIN 91.9%/EXP 80.9%

I don’t think that’s too bad for something that doesn’t cost the Earth. Modules can be juggled around to suit. I initially flew this with a point and web, but as I pretty much always fly this on a second screen, those became largely redundant. My attention would be mainly focused on my Loki, so switching over to the second screen to point something afterwards was often slower than leaving it to other fleet members. The sensor dampeners are a handy, low maintenance alternative and has proved extremely useful as our fleets are generally light on this kind of EWAR. Switching in a second DDA brings it to 694dps and you can spend more money on the tank, if you like shiny.

I’ll usually have this orbiting a WH or anchored on a fleet member, with drones on assist. This way, the ship can make a huge difference to an engagement with very little piloting input. And in this instance, it’s what I had my Legion pilot fly home to get.

With extra logi and links on grid with the rest of the fleet, we ought to have had enough staying power for round 2. Galmas ordered the fleet to jump and called primary on a Vexor. Targetting the both of the Oneiros’ with the Eos, I set a damp on each while putting neuts on a nearby Proteus and setting the drones onto the Vexor, which just didn’t stand a chance. As Unsettled’s logi burned in closer, I dropped the damp I had on Roime’s Oneiros to put both on Squelch, forcing him to burn further in. With their logi impotent, we continued to down the softer targets, which in hindsight may have not been the best choice. A Brutix navy popped before I made the fleet aware the second Oneiros had burned in to point blank with the fleet. Galmas directed our fleets’ firepower in his direction before he could realize his mistake. Despite taking out those ships, as well as a cheap-ass Loki, we hardly seemed to be making a dent in their fleet.

Glancing around the field, I could see Unsettled still had a significant number of their own force multipliers on grid in the form of neuts and ECM. I may have neglected to mention that this was Unsettled’s home system. They were throwing everything they had at us. The guys who we popped reshipped as quick as they could and rejoined the fight. They even had a squad from Dracos Dozen (the fellas who helped give Barny a good sendoff - FYI a dozen is only meant to be 12) landed 100 clicks away in sniping Oracles and laying down additional fire – too far for the Eos to target and damp out.

Still, I had spotted another mistake from an Armageddon pilot who had drifted into close range. I knew ECM was directed towards our Guardians as well as my Eos and I knew we couldn’t hold under the combination of that EWAR and energy neuts. I recommended we hit the Geddon next as a second appeared on grid. By now, Roime’s Oneiros had approached close enough for us to apply damage. Not many people fight on once their logistics have been neutralized, but fair play to Unsettled. They stood their ground while their pilots went to get replacement ships, even if they were losing more ships in the process. A Prophecy and a Hurricane went down before they could field more logi, even if it was an Exequror and not an Oneiros.

Hanging in there paid off for them. Our Teamspeak had a minor hiccup, kicking half the fleet, but crucially, Utari. This meant no one understood how badly the cap chain was failing and that he had to warp away because polarization meant he couldn’t jump out. An incredulous Myst lost his own Guardian as a result, forcing the rest of the fleet to jump out. Utari rejoined comms to appraise us of the situation. And that his Guardian was in warp back to the hole. And that it was still polarized for another 30 seconds. 20 seconds. Down.

Surely a pod can’t last for 20 seconds amidst a hostile gang. Actually, if they are all trying to whore on the killmail, it can. He managed to jump out and head back home with the rest of the fleet. On the way back, Sherpa mentioned that he’d received a convo from one of them, thanking us for the fight. What did leave me with a certain feeling of self-satisfaction was their mention in particular of the EWAR that messed them up. Electronic warfare is a broad term in eve and does encompass things like target painting, weapon disruption and of course, sensor damping – which is why I chose to ignore the fact we had two Tengu’s in the fleet. That way, I was smug enough to ignore my annoyance at accidentally leaving my Geckos behind.

Thanks for the content, Unsettled.

Neither A Borrower, Nor a Lender Be

It had been a quiet weekend, and as one good idiom deserves another, the tranquillity had indeed proved that the devil makes work for idle hands. Having the time to reflect, I had invested heavily into some new industry projects to occupy my time during the quiet periods. Late on Sunday night, the plans started to come into fruition as I brought a fully laden Rhea into our C5 home and started unpacking like it was Christmas Day.

Monday looked like it was going to be another laid back evening with some sites on their final escalations and a brief look at siggy showed that the static had either not been opened, or had already been rolled as I logged in. The one discrepancy in that (ignoring the connection to a C2 via a Fozzie-hole) was a direct connection to Providence. My first thought was that it might well be a decent exit for the jump-freighter, which I corroborated shortly afterwards with a little assistance from dotlan.

My cohorts had different ideas. Given that there is always content in Providence, there wasn't a whole lot of arm twisting involved for them to convince me to bring a Cynabal out with them. First catches of the day were a Garmur, Dominix and a Loki. After that, it was slim pickings so we decided on trying a few riskier systems to pique the interest of the locals. Careful what you wish for...

Our 5 man fleet happened across a pair of Vargurs. We knew that even if they were fit for ratting, we'd have more than a handful but we were there to shoot stuff after all. The idea was to keep range and be ready to disengage if need be. If they were, as we suspected, and were there to bait us, we'd have no problem disengaging and getting clear, but the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. As their support started to arrive, both Odi and myself in  our eagerness to tackle the newcomers drifted too close the one of the Vargurs and we ended up exchanging a Cynabal and a Vagabond for a couple of destroyers - not a good trade.

Those of us that could got clear and headed back home to try and pretend nothing happened. Gina's Sleipnir was the only other ship to not make it home and the typical pod camping he was bemoaning of nullseccers beforehand prevented him from getting all the way back, and was held bouncing safes 2 jumps out.

On getting back to the hole, a quick d-scan showed that one of the locals had probes out. It looked like we had indeed piqued their interest. Jumping into my Stratios, I jumped back into null to see where this was all going. It didn't take them long at all and I was wary of my polarisation as a provi Loki and Proteus landed at 0 on the hole. Gina reported a much larger fleet from his unique vantage point, the mainstay of which was more Proteus'. This prompted Utari to ask if we could take them over comms. I answered him with a lackadaisical "Yeah, maybe", referring more to the two ships, now jumping into our home system, rather than the 20 man gang 2 jumps out. Sadly, that was all the affirmation he needed and without him realising, the 7 guys we had on comms did not translate to 7 pilots in-game

Utari> OK, I've got them tackled.

Myst> Hang on, I'm not even logged in yet.

With the Stratios still polarised, I logged in another toon and opted for the HAM/Neut Legion I'd used to successfully embarrass 3 BNI Proteus' a few days earlier over the usual links Eos - something I would come to regret later. Slowly, our ships arrived to back up Utari's intrepid Devoter and the Provi pilots were forced to jump back to null, where my Stratios was waiting to prevent their escape. Intel was reporting that the bulk of their fleet was now moving to reinforce and our low numbers meant we would need as much damage on the field as we could muster, so we called for a carrier. Utari was quick to volunteer dual-boxing his Archon and the Provi fleet was held on the null side as the carrier made the warp. I jumped the Stratios home in as low armour as I was willing to risk and warped clear to reship to a Loki as the Provi fleet poured into the WH. 

As they decloaked, I called primary on their Guardians and made sure they were webbed and neuted before they could pull range. The Armageddon and the Legion allowed us to make short work of the logi, which we anticipated would make the provi fleet quit the field. As their ships started to jump out, our own ships began to follow so that we might catch a few of them before it was over. Several of their ships stayed with our Archon, though and therefore some of our own ships remained also. Those in null started to notice their fleet was swelling to numbers you might consider to not be advantageous to us, as if fighting with the fleet on different sides on the hole wasn't disadvantage enough. 

The damage I was taking to the Loki was enough to convince me the fleet ought to be reunited, or at least, I ought to jump back to where the reps where. I held cloak and gave Utari fair warning I'd need the reps ASAP and when I decloaked to re-engage, it was evident he was not in triage any more. The Loki's already battered armour was fast approaching hull and I wasn't seeing any rep graphic coming from the carrier. I mentally prepared myself for the second lossmail of the evening but the Archon went back into triage and heroically kept me in the fight. This was bad news for Utari, as this directed the attention back into his carrier and the sheer number of ships jumping through the WH to join the fight brought it to the verge of collapse. 

As the fight went on, we managed to pick off a few cruisers and several interceptors who were reckless enough to get into range of my Loki's dual webs. All the while, we were unaware of the Archon's plight until Myst asked how it was holding up.

Utari> Erm..... 60% structure

They say the best teams can anticipate one another - yeah, I'll just leave that one there. 

Then the wormhole collapsed. At first glance, this seemed to be a good thing. Although the provi fleet outnumbered us several times over, they had no logi - until we realised what closed the hole. A Nidhoggur decloaked and joined the fight. Quickly, Myst volunteered a Dreadnought and disengaged to reship. It now because apparent that Utari's instructions to 'overheat all the things' would no longer cut the mustard as he announced he was going down. We all knew this meant things would be very grim for the subcaps we still had on the field. 40+ enemy ships vs 11 of ours with no logi didn't bear thinking about. Myst abandoned the dreadnought and grabbed the nearest Archon to hand. Gab offered a second but it still meant we would have to deal with the Nidhoggur, so I volunteered my dread - there was just the small matter of getting to it. My Loki was pointed by one of the Provi Proteus' but luckily, not scrammed. I burned the MWD out of the bubble, then out of point range and was clear.

That was when we lost the Archon. Myst announced he had taken warp and the next few seconds were agonising. Provi were bringing the prodigious dps of their fleet to bear on our stricken ships one after the other after the other. Each one watching the armour melting away but not ceasing the attack in hope of the carrier landing just in time. As the ships went down one by one, I started to wonder if what was left would be enough to continue the fight. The bubble meant a couple of pilots lost their pods and were out of the fight entirely, but Odi and Gina managed to get clear to reship. I'd lost my Legion on my second screen moments before we once again had Archon support. With a significant portion of our dps taken off the field, the carrier was under the same pressure as its predecessor, while our capability of relieving that pressure was lessened. Myst seemed to be able to hold the damage while applying heat to the reppers, but it meant that getting the dread on grid to neutralise the opposing carrier was critical for what was left of our fleet... if only POS modules allowed you right of way when you want to warp somewhere. Still, absence makes the heart grow fonder!

Arriving fashionably late, 'Rising Sun' did eventually join the party and Provi-bloc did not seem oblivious to a Naglfar on grid meant the death-knell for their Nidhoggur. In a last throw of the dice from their fleet, I once again found their attentions, in the form of all the neuts and dps they could command, switched back to me. We were still outnumbered by over 3 to 1 but all the Provi fleet's hopes rested on their carrier, now capped out and being donated ammunition from all of what our fleet had left. As they continued to test the Naglfar's shields, it was obvious that the 2500mm autocannons would win the race, and by some distance. The Provi FC cleverly switched to damage limitation and put everything they had onto our devoter. Both the Nidhoggur and the brave Devoter that started it all went down. Without the bubble, Provi had a means of escape and our pilots had to point what they could. With the siege cycle finished, I once again reshipped to a Loki to help finish off the stragglers, of which there wasn't enough to to claim an ISK victory, but with 7 real players multi-boxing for 15 ships against 47, you'll be damn sure I'll be claiming a moral one!

The Battle Report (thanks to the Provi fellas for providing this)

Thing is, whatever way you look at it, neither side denied it was a good, fun fight. The Provi guys had superior numbers, but they brought they fight to our home system, where we were always going to have the advantage of being able to tailor our fleet composition as required. The aftermath saw GF's cordially exchanged, they were Thanked for Content and I found a few convo's coming my way.

Atom Captain > GJ
Atom Captain > ii had no time to refit D=
Jay Joringer > Cheers. Thanks for a good fight
Atom Captain > XD wish yall handt warped a dread in
Atom Captain > my tank was holding fine vs them but holy hell 25k dmg on shield and 5k on armor
Atom Captain > kinda hurts with no self repps, and being nuted
Jay Joringer > If we had fought on the other side, we couldn't have done that
Atom Captain > WH collapsed when i went through

Jay Joringer > Shame that collapsed. I wanted to move my JF out through there :D

-----------------------------------------------

Fardendur > rly nice tanking
Fardendur > epic
Fardendur > now we need to get out somehow
Jay Joringer > It's a good ship for that
Jay Joringer > We've not opened the static yet, but we'll scan you guys a way out. It's only fair
Fardendur > thanks
Fardendur > would be epic
Fardendur > we found a wh that leads to j space again
Jay Joringer > There's a frigate hole, asides from the H296

Jay Joringer > Highsec through there, but no good for half your fleet

Truth be told, we were reluctant to open the static while we looted the spoils from the field. There was plenty there that could go into replacing Utari's Archon and the last thing we needed was from hostiles from the static chain to jump us while we cleaned it up. As that went on, I showed the pods and frigates out through the Fozzie-hole and Sherpa got onto scanning the rest of them out through the static, but being as slow and useless as he is at scanning, they found their way out to Fountain through the static without his help (only kidding Sherpa, you're not useless at scanning. Slow, for sure, but not useless).

In typical USYSC fashion, our pilots started to log in after that action was dead and gone.

Galmas > 'lo
Jay> Galmas! Don't look at the killboard
Galmas > What?.... Oh, that's a lot of red.
O'nira > It's OK. Your Bhaalgorn did well.
Galmas > You guys need to stop borrowing my ships.
Myst > Jay's Archon did ok as well

It was my turn to be incredulous. Myst's Archon is usually kept in the same hangar as mine, so I didn't mind him borrowing it so much. Especially as it was returned in more or less one piece, but he did mention that I might want to look at some of the heat damaged modules. I got into the carrier with a similar feeling to whenever I get into the car after my wife tells me "I think I hit something and now the steering doesn't feel right". 86% damage to the Capital Armor Repairers showed exactly how that fight was balanced on a knife edge. Thanks to Jin'taan and his fleet for the content. 

Lastly, I'll give mention to a couple of other sources for this one. Salivan Harrdin mentions this in his Eve Scribe Providence news and USYSC's very own Utari wrote this up on the forums, but I feel I have to mention one of realape's reddit posts that I think is very fair and brief summary of what happened (and does have a line that makes me feel slightly smug): 

"Story: a little provi hacs/t3 fleet was roaming in provi. They found a WH with some people in it who wanted to fight. Provi pinged for more people(this is how it went kitchensink). The fight started in 0.0 but moved to j-space. The wormholers brought an archon and we also tried to get an triage carrier but all we got was a shit fitted nidhogguer. When the nidoggur jumped into the wormhole it colapsed and we were all prepared to upgrade our clons. While we killed their archon they brought 2 others and a nag that killed our nidhoggur. We killed their bubbler and warped away. In the won iskwar but just because they wormholers were very honorable and let us go and didn't chased us. They even scanned a hs exit for our pods and frigates. But for some reason we needed to take another exit and they nearest we found was in Fountain.

The wormholers fought outnumbered but to be honest they were just better and brought they right ship(for example 1/5 of provi's fleet was interceptors). Since our nidhoggur was cheaper than the archon and we killed some expensive pods (which i feel now bad about it) we won iskwar but I'm pretty sure the wormholers could have won it if they really wanted. Was a really cool and great fight. 10/10 would do again."

Couldn't agree more.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Even for a Sunday night, comms were pretty quiet. It was a stark contrast to a couple of nights before which yielded retrospective comments about recording TS for CCP’s advert made up of player videos and comms sound-bites as well as remarks like “Jay, when are you taking your comedy show on the road?”. I got a slight feeling that Ari meant it with an air of facetiousness but I gladly took it at face value. Things were practically silent by comparison. The kind of lull that clearly indicated that people were scanning.

Sherpa> Anyone interested in some gas?

Time passes…

Sherpa> Anyone there?

Jay> Yeah, just no one interested in gas.

Gabriela> Guys, there’s a ton of wrecks on scan here

With only a couple of guys logged in, I wasn’t too worried about what might be ratting a C4 WH 6 jumps out of our home system, until Gab managed to get eyes on their fleet. It was a recently made alliance called Random Thinking and they were fielding 2 Rattlesnakes, a Raven Navy Issue, Hurricane and a Tengu with a Basilisk pair supporting. It certainly looked a hefty fleet that could dish out a lot of hurt and that was backed up by the speed they were rinsing through the anomalies. The pokes went out and the 4 guys who were on comms initially were joined on the static by a few others to resemble something that looked a bit like a fleet. 3 Proteus’, Loki, Armageddon, Phobos and Eos with our own Guardians to match the Basilisks.

I moved the fleet with best speed along the chain and got within 2 jumps of the target C4 when their fleet warped out of the uncompleted site and D-scan range of our scout. Despite the setback, the fleet continued to move and we waited on the WH to the C4. There was still no sign of Random Thinking except for a Harpy and a Noctis. The Noctis was salvaging a despawned site we had no bookmark to. The movements of the Harpy and the lack of a Random Thinking POS in the system suggested that they had come in from a K162. How focused their fleet was for clearing C4 sites suggested they were also from a C4, so I recommended to the scout that he probe for a C4 connection, allowing us to park the Phobos on the hole to interdict the Noctis. Sadly, the plan stumbled at the first hurdle as Oddic interjected his opinion about just scanning the Noctis, which just confused our poor scout, who dropped combat probes. Suddenly the Noctis wasn’t on Dscan anymore, but a few minutes later our scout had indeed found a K162 to a C4 that had reached mass stage 2 (possibly from having Battleships jumping in and out?).

While waiting in the C2, we caught an activation from the C4. A scanning frigate from I'm Stuck in here evaded us while we waited for the larger targets from Random Thinking. Quickly checking the pilot’s bio revealed a proudly displayed German flag and Random Thinking did seem at a glance, also German. It could have been a coincidence, but if it wasn’t, the game was up and we were sat in the middle of space with our arses hanging in the breeze. The fleet was moved to a highsec connected to the C2 and leaving the Phobos cloaked on the hole to their system while our scout got eyes on their ships. Scanning frigates and stealth bombers seemed to be warping in an out of their POS, but it confirmed that the second C4 was indeed their home system.

At about half an hour from when we first moved out, we were joined by Athanor’s Guardian and Utari’s Loki and Tengu as Random Thinking seemed to be logging in reinforcements in the shape of a Bhaalgorn and a Legion. The way I saw things, people buy ships like that in order to violence other people’s boats, so it would have been remiss of me to not provide them with boats to violence. I asked Sherpa how he felt about being bait. The response wasn’t hugely positive, but was an affirmation nonetheless! Once again Oddic piped up about not showing them our hand and not using a ship as scary as a Proteus, but was summarily ignored.

I joined Sherpa in dangling our ships on the end of a proverbial hook on the hole inside their system, conveniently in Dscan range from the Random Thinking POS. I could see Oddic’s reservations about my gambit, but backseat FC’s are a pet hate of mine. Step up from the get go or STFU. My assessment of the situation was that they would use their PvP ships given a favourable chance and that would be more enjoyable for all parties than ganking a single Noctis, which is all we would likely get if we continued to wait –and that was if we were lucky. At this point I was well aware that the fleet had been out for 45 minutes and not only would attention be waning, and so would willingness to stay.

Another 5 minutes passed and the armour ships had gone from Dscan to be replaced by Tengu’s and a couple of Basilisks.

Sherpa> They’re just going to warp in a range and shoot us from there. There won’t be a fight.

William> Yeah. We won’t be able to catch those Tengu’s

Jay> This is unacceptable. You guys need to stop with the negative waves. They are going to warp to zero on the wormhole where we can wipe the floor with them and that’ll be the end of it. Always bet on stupid!

It might have seemed an overly optimistic appraisal of the situation, but it did seem the likeliest scenario to me. I know even with heavy assault missiles Tengu’s have decent range, but engaging us at distance while we were on a WH would be a waste of effort. If it looked like they were gaining the upper hand, we could quit the field unmolested. Another 5 minutes and no fight was forthcoming. I said to the fleet we’d give these guys a couple more minutes and see if they respond to local.

Jay Joringer > No fight?
Phtal > we come 1 min

A few minutes of linking provocative gifs in local elapse before I am issued a reminder;

Oknos> It’s been more than 1 minute

The mainstay of the fleet was waiting on the other side of the C4. As the hour mark approached, Oknos joked about how making us wait might be part of their strategy, lulling us into boredom and complacency. To that end, it had worked and it showed when Stuck in here reappeared. A Cerberus appeared at the fleet location, which I noticed on my second screen. As it jumped into the C4, I barked orders for the fleet to jump and tackle it only to be met with replies of ‘huh?’. The slow locking Eos was on its own with no point, helplessly watching the Cerberus warp away – towards what looked like Random Thinking’s home C4. More Cerberi jumped through with an Onyx and this time my fleet followed them, but none could lock fast enough to get tackle.

As they warped, the scout called that Random Thinking were aligning. Dscan showed they had bolstered their fleet with more Tengu’s and a total of 4 Basilisks. They warped to where Sherpa and I were waiting along with Oknos’ Phobos which had deployed an interdiction bubble in anticipation of Stuck in here’s ships arriving from the connecting C4. Galmas logged in just as Random Thinking landed on grid and began to engage, where they were joined by Stuck in here. He announced he was bringing a Proteus and an Armageddon – a combination made all the more interesting by the fact that the USYSC fleet jumping in put the hole on the verge of collapse.

As predicted, the Tengu’s closed range on us, but despite being in optimal range, or even close falloff, they were always going to be tough to break without disrupting the Basilisks, some of which were out at 90km. Switching to the Cerberi proved far more fruitful. 2 of them went down before the Onyx and the remaining Cerberus retreated. Breaking the logi chain for long enough to put a Tengu down was proving difficult. Their own EWAR (courtesy of a Falcon) was causing havoc among our own Guardians. Not enough for them not to be able to keep our ships up, but their capacitor resevoirs  were teetering on the edge of ineffectiveness, meaning that there was none to spare for our neuting ships. The Falcon itself was hovering just outside of drone range from my Eos. I switched the damps from the Eos over the Falcon, hoping to entice him a little bit closer. I wasn’t disappointed and set a pair of Gecko’s to work. The fleet had noticed how close the Falcon was now, but its buffer tank was negligible and it looked like the Basilisks had their attention elsewhere.

The collapse of the wormhole heralded Galmas’ arrival, ending the Tengu’s being able to escape through the hole on low shields and adding more neuting and damping power to our fleet. The balance was beginning to tip in our favour and Random Thinking’s woes were compounded when we seized on the mistake that one of their Basilisks made by drifting too close.  Their fleet began their rout and we managed to hold 2 Tengus and a Basilisk from escaping. In my books, it was all worth waiting for and a fight is always going to be more fun than a gank. Well done to Random Thinking and co for showing some bottle. I’m sure WH space will be hearing more about those guys in the future.

Battle report

As for us – we were scanning ourselves an exit. Having waited around for an hour before the fight, people were eager to log off (got to love work days, eh?).

William> Where do you think they went wrong?

Jay>  I think it was all down to our FC in getting them to engage in the first place, and from there…

Sherpa>  You think all that smacktalk put them off, do you?

Jay> Well, that and our superior tactics also.

In truth, I think the mistake was trying to brawl a brawling fleet (and I was humble enough to concede this over comms). While I admire their willingness to try something different, they seem to have cut a lot of versatility from their fleet in lieu of advantages that were not exploited. But WH fleet compositions is something I could rant about until the cows come home, so perhaps another time.

While our dissecting of events continued, our scanner had found us a lowsec through a connecting C3. Derelik was an area I knew pretty well and wasn’t too worried about leading a fleet to somewhere that people could safely log off. Plotting a course, I could see the system adjacent to the one connected to the C3 was Jayneleb and couldn’t help but smile to myself.

Jay> Fantastic… Fleet jump and align J-A-Y

Bless me Barnacles!

In the happiest of circumstances, we lose another good pilot to the most dreaded and indefatigable of antagonists : real life.

I’d not flown with BarnacleBoy007 long, but as he was a two+ year veteran of USYSC, I was surprised at the response (or lack thereof) at his early goodbye mail. We’d known he was getting married for some time, but hadn't realised his marital love-nest would be devoid of such modern amenities as interwebs. At this point I don’t want to dwell on mawkish sentimentality, but aside from being a thoroughly decent bloke, Barny would always be up for getting stuck into any fight with anything close to hand which had guns and a point, so a farewell roam seemed the very least that we could do.

Then it occurred to me – I was certain that in our rare plexing events, Barny mentioned being able enough to fly a carrier to trigger and escalation wave, but couldn’t do much else. Not actually owning a carrier relegated him to either flying ECM or salvage, however. I decided to rectify this situation and gave him an early wedding present: a fully rigged/fitted Archon (with contributions from William Walsh, Utari Onzo, Alzuule the fool, Fiestyone and O’nira – maraming salamat, my friends). I offered the gift with a small condition; that he’d fly it on his final night in Eve. United Systems Commonwealth would provide a sub-cap escort and we’d go down in a blaze of glory. “That would be awesome!” was his eager reply.

There were a couple of problems though. Firstly, the idea never struck me until the day before he was due to move house, so organising antagonists so close to the event might be problematic (especially so given it was to be on a Thursday). The second may not have been a problem, given our intentions, but Barny had only trained carrier skills to 2, having never actually needed them before, giving me the feeling that this was going to be a short event. Not rating our fleet’s chances of survival, I asked USYSC to turn up in T1 hulls (for insurance purposes) and themed it ‘Golden’, so Amarr ships all round. The choice was partially to match the Archon, but also I had an Abaddon sat in highsec for what must have been two years that I wanted to use, since I had always found the hull had an aesthetic appeal.  

Given that the idea was to die horribly in a fire, I thought the turnout would be slim, but either in mains, alt-form or both, Gabriela Arch, Fiestyone, ImmortalisMyst, William Walsh, Utari Onzo, Athanor Ruthoren, Vincent Jardanian, Oddic, O’nira, Tuscor, Sherpa Tsi and even Galmas (after he had gotten over his aversion of K-space) turned up to see Barny off. Mostly everyone was in Amarr ships too. Abaddons, Armageddons, an Apocalypse. The Augorors had been upgraded to guardians, but in addition, there was a Scorpion, Dominix and a Machariel.

As the fleet made its way to Aunenen, the call went out on various channels inviting more people along in-case the local hotdroppers didn’t notice us. Dracos Dozen had already notified us that they’d turn up with a small fleet to initially support us, but then get in on the fun later. I accepted their proposition, given that they were a small group, but when they turned up at our fleet location, I did have trouble convincing the guys not to shoot at them. RvB had got the message that something was going on, but had been suspicious that it was a trap. A couple of frigates showed up to reconnoitre the situation and I was hopeful that it would escalate from there. The appearance of a Pasta Syndicate Ishtar fleet may have put them off, however.

We were, of course, prepared for the likes of Pasta Syndicate and had anchored a mobile cyno jammer nearby the Archon. Predictably, the Ishtar primaried the structure, but along with the Archon, our logi was up to the task of keeping it up. The Ishtars switched targets and in short order, the Dracos Dozen fleet was left a series of smouldering ruins. Pasta’s fleet was supported by several Interceptors, which darted into close range before burning back out to where the Ishtars and their support Basilisks were drifting. Our Armageddons soon got wise to this and hit them with long range neuts, leaving them as helpless targets for the other Battleships. This cycle repeated for the best part of an hour, in which we lost a Scorpion and one mobile cyno jammer (which was quickly replaced). Other than that, all the Ishtars succeeded in doing was to keep our logi on their toes.

As they quit the field, Pasta decried our ‘perma-capped triage Archon’ in local. Oh, if only they knew. We even had some nobody from Hard Knocks claiming we should thank him for facilitating the Ishtar fleet. He’d turned up to whore on the carrier mail but obviously didn’t care about it enough to bring anything bigger than an interceptor. And after we’d turned up with the intention of losing a carrier, having it warp off the field unscathed provoked some delicious tears.

After such a long fight, derps were likely to come in at some point. I just didn’t expect for them to happen once the perceived had gone and the fleet were proceeding to dock up. Sherpa was eager to log and proceeded to warp his Dominix back to highsec. At this point, it might be worth mentioning that over the hour long fight, we burned a lot of security status (especially for Gabriela who was was happily smartbombing pods). Pasta syndicate were still in the area and had intercepted Sherpa at the gate as his suspect tag made him fair game. Otherwise, I was joking about how much I wished I had an mobile tractor unit, given the number of wrecks on the field (and not counting the hundreds of millions worth of abandoned drones). O’nira  actually went ahead and warped back to deploy one while the rest of the fleet were taking a break or logging off. Barny was one of those that logged, trading back the Archon and thanking everyone for a brilliant last night in Eve.

That was when we found our lurking hotdroppers. An Arazu decloaked and pointed O’nira’s Machariel as it returned to the battlefield, prompting undock orders on comms. The subsequent cyno then prompted orders of “Don’t warp!”. Local spiked as The Bastion jumped in to get a faction Battleship kill.

On the plus side, all those people who brought the Golden ships that were asked for got out without a scratch. Sadly, this also meant I didn’t cash in on my ship’s insurance after the value had inflated nicely after 2 years of gathering dust. Either way, there was content. Many thanks to Draco’s Dozen, the USYSC guys who could make it and apologies to those that couldn’t. And last but not least, best of luck to Barny with the wedding. I'm sure we’ll see you back in Eve soon.

I accidentally got the whole things on fraps. It's an hour long and watching Ishtars warp in and out for that hour doesn't make brilliant viewing. However, I've pulled some of the more eventful parts of the fight in regard to the comms - some derping and getting titan-bridged on with some transcription:

No Content, Please. We're Funding SRP.

Chronologically, this all happened before “Three rounds with the champ” but it kind of got parked and forgotten about - probably because of posting 3 articles in 3 days, which made me take a bit of a break (plus I actually had some work to do). As fantastic as it is to have things to talk about that thick and fast, it was equally a relief to have things just slow down so people could chill. It sounds odd since we spend so much time in WH’s looking for PvP, that after a couple of days straight of it, that a lull would be most welcome – but probably only because of the intensity of what is now being referred to in United System’s Commonwealth as “Content Day”. The relief was pretty obvious logging into TS the next day:

Jay > Evening chaps

Alzuule > No

Jay > No?

Alzuule > No. No more content!

I’m not quite sure how I got the blame for all that, but there are worse things to be accused of! With things being less intense, we could worry about things like SRP. Normally, this is done from accumulating PvP loot and selling it to members or the market, which might not seem as robust a system as a lot of other people use (as well as being reliant on the members to loot wrecks and ensuring that said loot goes to the right place), but it seemed to be working out pretty well. ‘Content day’ did leave us with a few ships to be replaced, most notably an Archon. Apparently, we also lost a couple of Tengu’s from the pilot forgetting that he could jump through a wormhole. At the time, it was looking like there might be a bit of a hole in the SRP fund for all this.

This is where The Gorgon Spawn comes into things. It’s always interesting to see off-shoots of null entities jumping into WH space. We rolled into Gorgon Empire’s poorer cousins with an open mind. Could these guys be here to enhance the WH community and revel in the environment, using the convoluted chains of C5 space for PvP? No, they were there to farm. I seem to remember the Gorgons being Russian or at least eastern European, in the main, meaning their primetime was a couple of hours ahead of ours and indeed, it looked like we’d missed them ratting. Moros’ were sat at the POS’s, but what was interesting was that there were several mobile tractor units still in space. The sites were scouted and the MTU’s were there, but 300km off. Given that their dreads were fitted with rails, it looked like they were using the capitals at long range and leaving the MTU’s in the sites until the site despawned. We may have missed their fleet ratting, but we were in time to see one of their Loki’s emptying the MTU’s. A gank, for sure, but PvP loot all the same and enough to plug the gap in SRPing ‘Content day’. Thank you, Gorgon Spawn.

Then came Hyperion. Looking for content once more, scouts spotted a Lazerhawks tagged Vargur which must have been clearing a Gas site in a C5 magnetar, later confirmed by the appearance of 4 NPC wrecks and a pair of Lazerhawks prospects. That’s about where the confusion began. There were a lot of connections to that WH. What really didn’t help was that a significant number of them were the useless frigate wormholes that we can all thank CCP Fozzie for. 
“Isn’t Lazerhawks’ home a Pulsar?” 
“I thought it was a C6” 
“No, that C6 in here is a frigate hole.”

Galmas scouted the pulsar and found the Lazerhawks there with a few ships starting to assemble on the WH. I kept eyes in what would be their static, which was a magnetar. The rest of the fleet was moving through our static (which had a wolf-rayet effect) to the magnetar to try and catch some of the Lazerhawks and hope that things escalated. Galmas ordered the fleet to jump into the magnetar and align for the Lazerhawks hole when I spotted another fleet on D-scan. Viperfleet Inc’s tags alongside DE.NY’s distinctive [˄˅] and a special [Jez] tag for Disavowed’s resident special snowflake. It looked to be a small fleet of Gila’s and Ishtar’s and a Scimitar, but we had no idea where they were or where they came from. 
“They definitely live in a C6”,
“That one’s a Frigate hole…”
 “Null?”

By the time we checked out the null (which did have a connection to a C6 – but through a frigate hole), there was no sign of the Disavowed fleet and the Lazerhawks had moved from the WH and the prospects had also left. Apparently, Lazerhawks had caught a Disavowed scout amid the confusion and the [Jez] tag on D-scan was replaced by Jezza Avada’s Capsule. The Lazerhawks own scouts had obviously spotted our fleet before we moved it back into our static (the wolf-rayet) and started to form up for a fight. They looked like they had similar numbers, so Galmas made the call for him and I to switch our respective Proteus and Loki for Bhaalgorns. The Bhaals stayed in our home system with a couple of guys who just logged in as the Lazerhawks made their way to the Wolf-Rayet to engage the ships that waited there for them. The Lazerhawks jumped through to the fleet, de-cloaked and started to engage just as our reserve landed on grid - perfect timing . With two Bhaalgorns on grid, I knew Galmas would focus on their Guardians, so I put neuts on a couple of the Proteus’ and a Tengu to reduce pressure on our logi.

As far as numbers went, it was pretty even. The Bhaalgorns swung things heavily in our favor and it started to look like more of a gank than a fight. Lazerhawks, facing the prospect of capped out logistics, ECM and hybrid dps jumped back out of the wolf-rayet, into the magnetar. I still had my Legion scout on that side, which decloaked and attempted to catch something on their rout. A few ships warped, but some stayed to engage the Legion as my Bhaalgorn waited to finish off a guardian that had strayed out of jump range on the other side. As the rest of the USYSC fleet followed the Lazerhawks, more ships decided against staying around, leaving a Proteus engaged with my Legion. The fleet managed to tackle the remaining two guardians and a Tengu as they dithered.

In the end, it was not much of a fight at all, but I made sure to thank the Lazerhawks for content. Incidentally, TFC seems to be spreading. I had a bit of a dual-boxing error while engaging Hole Control. in their home system in what was, initially, a decently balanced fight, until the point where they upped the ante with a Bhaalgorn, an Archon and a Thanatos. Broadly speaking, we were ready for this and jumped out into their C4 static. This was when I noticed my error in that my Legion was 30km off the WH in some random direction. Needless to say, it didn’t make it back, but as I warped the pod away, they did drop a “Thanks for content” in local, so despite losing a Legion (and electronic subs 5 L), I still felt pretty smug.