Resistance is Futile

The fact that Waldemar Pawlak was hanging around in our pub channel was bugging Utari. I know what you're thinking -  the former prime minister of Poland hanging around in the public channel of an eve online wormhole corporation might bug a few people, but it wasn't actually him. It was his Hard Knocks Inc. recruiter namesake. He did eventually find a way of breaking the ice:

Waldemar Pawlak > so... whats going on in here?

Utari Onzo > Sharing fail fits

Jay Joringer > Nothing. Pub channel stuffs.

Utari Onzo > Wanna see my drake fit?

Waldemar Pawlak > nope, thanks

Jay Joringer > I do

Jay Joringer > Unless it's not armour/sensor damp fit

Utari Onzo > Aw damn

Waldemar Pawlak > well, i have my own

Waldemar Pawlak > i dont really need to play with others' drakes

Utari Onzo > RUSE is on sale on steam. Nostalgia time here I come

Waldemar Pawlak > i bought rise of nations last night

Waldemar Pawlak > ffs, i loved that game but now its so tiny on a 4k screen that it made its unplayable

Utari Onzo > Lol

Utari Onzo > I looked at playing stronghold crusader 2

Utari Onzo > Was bitterly dissaointed it's jsut a Stronghold Crusader 1 reskin

Utari Onzo > Anyone know if they fixed Assassin's creed Unity yet or is it still broken as fuck?

Waldemar Pawlak > dunno

Hemez PeYo > o/

Waldemar Pawlak > sry, slow to respond - carrier tackled

Waldemar Pawlak > so... you guys are c5-c5...

Waldemar Pawlak > and youre recruiting?

Jay Joringer > Aye

Waldemar Pawlak > if youre capable of c5-c5 wh how come i didnt see your application to HK?

Jay Joringer > Didn't realise you were recruiting

Waldemar Pawlak > we always are!

Jay Joringer > Actually, I do prefer the smaller gang fights.

Waldemar Pawlak > i see

Well, it was a small fib. I was well aware Hard Knocks were recruiting. I just didn't realise they considered it obligatory for C5 pilots to put in applications to them. But still, it's cute of them to try to absorb WH corporation while they are still new and trying to expand, rather than having another populated J-space system.

Another offer. This time it was an invitation to join an alliance. Enter Falconsfury via eve mail:

Hello!

After looking into your corp I wanted to extend an offer to join my alliance Vanguard of the Phoenix.

We are a WH C5 Alliance who does mainly PVE content with PVP when it comes our way.  We hope to expand both our PVE and PVP options with the addition of some new people.

If interested we can talk further about the Alliance to see if you would fit in.

Our posting can be found here.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5383174#post5383174

"PvP when it comes our way" That one killed any consideration stone dead. Not to mention any alliance whose name you could append to phrase "Harry Potter and the..." and have it legitimately sound like a rejected book title should perhaps be avoided. I ignored the mail.

Then another. This time a merge, and merge offers tend to come from people whose activity has dropped off or have been evicted so that larger alliances *cough*[KICK]*cough* can have a farming hole.

Hi Jay,

My alliance is looking for another WH group to merge with.  While we are trying to recruit new blood to our current alliance, we are certaintly open to joining up with another group.  The years and real life have cost us some valuble members that its been hard to replace.

We currently live in a C5 / C3 WH and are open to options for working together with another WH alliance (including moving / mergers etc).

We have about 15 active people throughout the week, with numerous alts etc.  Everyone is tech 3 / with numerous capital alts, Archons etc.

Our main problem is numbers, 15 people just isnt enough to keep the ball rolling every day with RL and such.

If this interests you, please send me a mail.

Thanks!

Once again, it was from Falconsfury. Scrutiny of their killboard looked like they'd be pretty hard to work with. Couple that with a leadership base in a different timezone, which in my experience is asking for trouble. And these guys looked suspiciously like Solus Blacksun all over again - someone who could talk the talk, but not walk the walk.

The next mail was my favourite. It was another merger offer from Henrick Toralen of Jaded.:

I'm contacting you in regards to your corp, in curiosity about a possible alliance merge, If you'd have any intrest in this let me know.

Here our the stats.
C5-C5 WH 
The Natural Order
Jaded: Currently 12 PoS's 89 Members. 
High Self Esteem: 9 Members fairly active. 

Both Corps live in the WH.

Yours truely,

Hendrick Toralen [Jaded]

This one even had pretty colours. I remember Billy Hardcore from RCC's invasion of Void Legion's home system and I had to wonder what the offer had cost him to make. Either way, I had no intention of flying with the guy, so I said no in the most diplomatic way I could administer:

o/ Hendrick

Thank you for your interest in our alliance. Enigma Project is not currently considering recruiting corporations, however 13. will look at applications from individual pilots who are active in the EU window. 

We are listed as 'newbro friendly', which is true of our recruitment doctrine, however I would be sceptical about recruiting rookies en masse at the moment. In the meantime, I would recommend Red Federation/ Blue Republic as well as Noir Academy to augment the skills of anyone in your alliance interested in PvP, and also this online course in spelling and grammar for yourself.

Kind Regards,

Jay Joringer

To his credit, he took it well and responded with a simple "lol".

But this wasn't the end of things. Perhaps spurred by the success of Utari's birthday roam in mining barges, to which he invited United System's Commonwealth, Galdur Trudaihnel made the same offer of a merger.

When me, Utari and Odi left USYSC, we all hoped things would carry on as normal and we'd have two active groups in C5 space instead of one. Obviously things hadn't panned out that way. The prospect of flying with the guys again was something we all thought would be a great thing, and to be honest, all the offers of merges an recruitment had worn me down. USYSC would still exist, but Enigma Project would be assimilating some good pilots into our collective.

Outnumbered, but not Outgunned

I've had a couple of complaints about this blog. Not quite to the degree that Red Coat Conspiracy (RIP) or indeed Brawls Deep (RIP) complained, but complaints nonetheless. To prove I take reader satisfaction very seriously I am now going to address those complaints.

The first complaint is from Thornir. Hewas bemoaning that fact that he hasn't been mentioned thus far. Which thereby resolves the complaint. And if no one knows who Thornir is, just try to imagine a window-licking, Danish AliG. Just less funny.

The other complaint is from Utari. Apparently, I don't update this enough. By virtue of mentioning this fact, I am now considering this complaint resolved. While waiting for any subsequent instalments, he's tried to fill the apparent blog-void by writing his own. I've been assured that there's no need to worry about there being crossover in what I'll be writing as it's 'in-character'. As soon as he'd said that I accused him of reading a certain Dussette's blog, to which he pleaded guilty. So far, no one believes that this very blog is all very much in-character. I'm not actually smug at all in real life. In any case, onceyou are done here, Utari's blog is certainly worth a read.

As for my lack of updates, it's not like things have been slow. Just real busy! While recruitment has dropped off, PvP content has picked up quite well. It's also inadvertently given us a new question to ask prospective recruits; "You've got 7 guys online - would you fleet up to provoke a 28 man fleet into a fight?"

Our scouts had been watching a C4 connected to the same static C5 we had. I've got to say, C4 space has become a lot more interesting lately. I'm sure the capital restrictions are a draw for some of the newer corporations and players as much as the dual statics. The way connections and population is at the moment, that's potentially a ridiculous number of systems to scout and keep tabs in the signatures in. They certainly hadn't checked the adjoining C5 thoroughly. Enough to be sending a Venture in to scoop gas while their PvP fleet roamed out of their other static, but not enough to bookmark or scout Lazarus, where we were lurking.

The reports on numbers were a bit sketchy with so many of the Unseen Wolves (the C4 residents) moving around, but it was in excess of 20. They were well equipped too. At least 4 guardians supporting their T3's. As things stood, we had 7 guys. If we had opted to bring a decent number of our own logistics, we wouldn't be able to field enough dps to cut the proverbial mustard. With options so limited, choices tend to make themselves, but choosing to roll to find something different wasn't on the cards - But making it look like we were rolling definitely was.

E'lone and myself logged in a second toon each as Utari did his best to do an impression of a beleaguered rolling Archon while our flotilla waited on the home side of the H296 while the carrier slowboated back to the K162, well within D-scan range of the Venture. The bait had the desired effect and almost instantly, a loki jumped from their C4 home and dropped combat probes.

Utari > This guy is taking ages. I'm almost at zero on the hole

Jay > Burn away for a little bit. When he warps, head back to the hole so it doesn't look too much like a trap.

The intrepid scanner did eventually manage to scan down our capital ship bait and was soon on grid to tackle it. A sabre arrived next, and as the rest of their fleet followed, our own fleet jumped through to meet them. The interdiction probes that the sabre dropped caused the guardians to land conveniently close to our ships and the combination of neuts and ecm made sure their guardians couldn't establish a cap chain effectively and we blitzed through three of them as a fourth scrambled for range. Aware of our range from the carrier, we did not pursue. The other thing I was aware of was that this was the first time most of our fleet had flown together in this kind of engagement. And for Zerolaws, it was the first time he'd ever been in fleet PvP.

It was something that showed. He was eager to prove he could cut it when it came down to a fight and had charged off after a Proteus, perhaps hoping his actions might help turn the tide in our favour. His enthusiasm took him outside of the carrier's rep range, losing him both the ship and his pod.

Utari's carrier was having no trouble keeping the rest of the fleet alive, and with their logi as good as negligible, we were laying down fire on the main body of their fleet, starting with their Armageddon. Their final guardian had put some distance between himself and our fleet, leaving the armageddon in dire straits. In desperation, the geddon's neuts switched to the tacklers and he managed to warp away in low armour. We switched to a Loki but our low numbers saw our tackle neuted away by Unseen Wolves' Legions and another of their ships escaped in the nick of time.

With the Archon feeding cap to the tacklers, we downed a Legion before the Wolves could land more Guardians. Another three joined the fight and far out of our range. We would have to be patient before we could break any of their ships again as the sensor damps forced their logi closer.

The Wolves noticed an error and switched dps to our own armageddon which had drifted out of the Archon's rep range. Solara drifted slowly back but neither fast nor far enough for his ship to make it. With ships down, breaking their fleet would be difficult if not impossible and I called the fleet to burn the 40 clicks back to the WH. As I did, the Unseen Wolves decided to target the Archon, while putting webs and scrams on our retreating ships. Each kilometre ticked by painfully slowly, and as the Archon's capacitor reservoir depleted, the Wolves started to target the Eos. With no reps available, the only choice was to jump home, depriving our fleet of armour links and therefore a big chunk or EHP. The Wolves turned their attention to the rest of the retreating ships who one by one crawled slowly back to jump range, with the exception of Thornir's Tengu (look at that - mentioned twice in one post).

The only remaining question was whether the Archon could last the triage cycle. Utari seemed confident, and none of their fleet had pursued our ships back into Lazarus, opting to focus on the Archon, but as the triage module deactivated, Utari jumped home, putting the wormhole on the verge of collapse and ending the fight.

The battle report suggests that Unseen Wolves won the ISK war, but at 9 vs. 28, I'll happily take the moral victory and the fact that we killed 4 ships while losing 3. All in all, a decent smash and grab but what was encouraging, our new guys enjoyed a good fight and were eager to learn from the experience.   

High Stakes

Recently, a lot of people have been asking me "So, the blog... Where's the new stuff?"

I have very aware that there hasn't been anything new on here for a little while. Of course, there's a couple of problems I have with this. Firstly, there's having the time to write about new stuff and then post it. It's real easy to use the holidays as an excuse here. Until recently, I had the luxury of having a boss who was utterly clueless as to what I actually did, so as a consequence, I did most of my blogging at work. I should probably clarify here that I have not just been sacked for not doing any work, but I have been looking for a new job that's more involved... better paid, better pension, more holidays - the usual stuff.

Secondly, and most importantly, new stuff needs to happen. Of course, things are always happening in Eve, but these thing aren't always worth passing the time with writing about while pretending to be working because your job is so dull you'd rather be playing spaceships.

So, what has happened? New year, new job, new eve corporation. Or more accurately, new-old eve corporation. I've noticed I do get a certain itch when I change jobs in real life to refresh things in game. This in no way whatsoever means that when I've changed corporations in Eve, I've got a new job. It's usually a bigger thing. A new, exciting challenge in real life that gives me new energy and enthusiasm inevitably filters through into the digital world.

There was nothing really wrong with United System's Commonwealth to give me a straight-up, black and white reason for leaving, but there was just a few things I couldn't help but think to myself 'I'd do that differently.' For example, pay people the ISK they're owed - Galmas, take note FFS [edit: thank you for the ISKies Galmas] !

It had been over a year and a half since I created 13. I had originally intended it to be a kind of PvP side-project. With the things you can do solo in high-end W-space being fairly limited, I wanted to use it as a fallback for when things got quiet in Blackstar - when people were still logging in or had logged off. It had worked out that way pretty well. Jano Prim had offered us a place in F.E.R.A.L. while they rented space in Detorid, which presented plenty of small gang opportunities for Setimalas, Odidi and myself AKA Doctor Skinner, Elina Evon and Keeley (before I sold the toon). Seti even set up a twitch stream for a while.

F.E.R.A.L. eventually ended up having to relocate to lowsec after The Unthinkables withdrew renter space. For better or worse, this happened at about the same sort of time that Blackstar got evicted from our C5 home. Blackstar could now work directly with F.E.R.A.L. while figuring out what to do. After Blackstar splintered from Enigma Project and joined Disavowed, relations with F.E.R.A.L. were ruined when Dizzy pointed one of their ratting carriers after they moved back into null, effectively leaving 13. redundant.

I thought we'd given it a decent start though, even if we never recruited more than a few extra members, so like the alliance, I kept hold of it.

For all intents and purposes it might well be a new incarnation of corporation and a resurrection of the alliance, but I see it as 13 version 2.0 - a chance to use what I've learned from the space in between to not repeat mistakes that were made in Blackstar. Bigger ambitions generally mean higher stakes, and not just financially. The spare billions that were padding my, Odi's and Utari's wallets were quickly depleted, but there were no complaints. To have people buying into the idea with the same commitment is awesome.

And whether we like it or not, people are watching how this hand plays out. Guys like Galmas and Moore McRay had been scrutinising the killboards from the get-go, with Moore eager to attempt some light provocation about a Naglfar mishap that involved Lazerhawks seeding in the system for POCO timers.

Jay Joringer > Since you guys are here, you wouldn't mind finishing this one off, would you?

ksig cook > 500mil for our poco removal services

pubway Shi > But link POCO KM if you get it?

Azerath > You have no idea how much trouble your death was :S

Hidden Fremen > ^ lol

No, no. I know how much trouble it must have been all too well! We suspected someone had seeded in. What we got wrong was who. We'd taken some precautions earlier, but a couple of hours later with fleet numbers dwindling they appeared as we were on the penultimate POCO. They'd waited for the golden opportunity and fair play to them. I don't think I'd have had the patience though and Moore left the conversation disappointed that it wasn't a sore point. By the way, if anyone feels like sending Moore a mail about how cute his toon is, it's something I would actively encourage.

We even had Hard Knocks' recruiter asking us why he hadn't seen applications from us instead of setting up our own corporation, which provided us with some amusement. As did ViscisBreeze's attempted goading over us recruiting Zerolaws. Zero had been flying solo for a few years and had lost several billion in a stratios to No Vacancies. Deciding that it was now time to stop flying solo, he asked No Vacancies about joining them, where he was sent packing. Viscis was still buzzing about ganking him while we had got Zero onto TS and were finding out he was actually a really cool guy, albeit with some things to learn about J-space. I straight up told Viscis we were recruiting him, to which he replied "Fuck you!"

Incidentally, this was all shortly before learning that he has a quote from my blog as his desktopbackground. A quote that does infer ever so slightly that he is a bit anal retentive when it comes to API keys and background checks. Only a capsuleer could be proud of that!

To round things off, I will say that I myself am not entirely satisfied with the tenuous link between the title and the content that is usually customary of a smug bastard post. That's because I'm going to finish off with a shameless plug that will reveal at least some duality of meaning. Me and few others have been holding regular poker tournaments for ISK. I think the biggest pot won has been just shy of 2 BillionISK (which sadly went to Zosius and not myself), so if we have any readers who want to join in with our game, send me a mail in-game and I'll invite you to the channel. Instructions on how to get involved as well as tournament timetables will be found there. 

Birds of a Feather

"What is it? Content Day again?" 

Things had been pretty lively throughout the day, but I couldn't agree with Galmas that it was once more what USYSC had lovingly dubbed "Content Day". For a frenetic few hours, Content Day was non-stop PvP. Today, we had opportunities in between the action to catch our collective breath. Plus, it had been an hour and a half since the fight with Unsettled and I had returned to the keyboard to find some scouts hunting down an Astero in order to provoke a fight with some people we'd never heard of. 

Eventually, the scouts decided that nothing was happening and the fleet was stood down and moved back through the connecting C5. Disappointed at the turn of events, a couple of guys logged off. I was more optimistic and not moving with any particular urgency, I loitered in the system before I jumped home, knowing that it wouldn't be long before Protean Concept’s own scouts discovered where we were moving around from. It wasn't long at all and soon I saw a Helios decloak at the wormhole I was waiting on and I jumped through, hopeful that I had left the impression that the Legion was piloted by some tardy straggler who had become separated from the fleet.

I had plenty of time to warp away from the hole before a second or two later, a subsequent activation signalled that the Helios had followed me through, and all but confirming my suspicions that the Helios was set up for more than just scanning. I used the time to light the micro-warpdrive and put some distance between the hole and myself as I aligned to my POS, but in the fashion of true hero-tackle, the Helios ignored this, perhaps thinking the Legion was slow to align and burned in to get scram. Anticipating this outcome, I had pre-loaded Navy HAMs and no doubt aided by the signature bloom of the Helios’ own MWD (along with the target painter and webs on the Legion), made short work of the intrepid tackler. Once again, I loitered. This time, as if scooping loot from the Helios wreckage which was at close to 30km from the K162. Seconds later, a brace of WH activations triggered my exultation; Protean Concept had bought it hook, line and sinker.

The trap may have lacked any real finesse, but it was elegant in its simplicity and the jaws were about to close on a Vigilant and a Proteus. I began to re-align to feign a willingness to escape and soon found myself pointed again. I was still moving away from the WH but the two ships sped after in the confidence that the 90% velocity web from Vigilant and the scram from the Proteus would seal my Legion’s fate, so far off the WH. As the web landed, I signalled our remaining pilots to warp to me and primary the Vigilant that my Legion was already spitting missiles at. On my second screen, I warped my Loki into the fight and was joined by Myst’s Loki and Tuscor’s Stratios. Protean Concept were also calling in reinforcements and an Arazu had joined in the skirmish by the time my backup had arrived on grid. Thanks to the efforts of the Legion, there wasn’t much left of the Vigilant and the Arazu pilot soon followed the Vigilant pilot in warping their pods to safety.

What I would have given to have been a fly on the wall of Protean Concept’s comms at this point. The rest of their fleet rushed into our home system to the aid of the stranded Proteus in what would have brought shame to a disorganised clusterfuck. We were further reinforced by Galmas, Seung and Fiesty in Proteus’ and some hastily dual-boxed logi, so, had all their ships arrived together, it would have been a reasonably balanced fight. As things were, it was a shooting gallery. The Proteus was soon dispatched, and was soon joined by a Legion, another Proteus and one of their Guardians. A few ships managed to retreat, seemingly with greater fervour and organisation than they had used to join the fight in the first place. As they did, one of their pilots left an ominous message in local:

Malcom Bilge > we will be back'

Chilling.

Galmas announced that he had to log in such a way that it left no doubt whatsoever. This changed things ever so slightly. We were down to 6 actual players, with Oddic returning to keyboard. A quick background check on Protean Concept showed that despite being of somewhat comparable size to USYSC (or at least not significantly larger), they tended to be more active. That only meant that our preparation needed to be better. Given how well they conducted themselves in the first skirmish, that wasn’t going to be too difficult. We placed a scout in the connecting C5 to give us warning of their fleet composition. As expected, they brought numbers. Not only that, carrier support landed 30km off the WH and they jumped a Dominix and a Megathron into our home to bait. Jumping smaller numbers into a Magnetar where they had an Archon waiting just wasn’t going to happen. As up for another fight as we were, we aren’t stupid – although chatter in local led me to believe that Protean Concept might well be.

Ilaister > come on pussies

Tuscor > bring your archon in

Ilaister > suck my veiny dick

Now, I’m all for a bit of smacktalk as a means to an end, but more as a battle of wits – something that most people who partake in smacktalk have a lamentable lack of. Ilaister was certainly no exception. Now, I have a feeling that he might try and mitigate his stupidity with some sort of comment like “I was very drunk”, which I would understand if I even had the slightest interest to ask. But I don’t. I confess that at this time of night, I myself had imbibed not an insignificant amount of rum, however the difference was I could still think coherently. Besides, I fly better when I've had a few!

Ilaister > you aint got shit :D

Jay Joringer > Kill: Ilaister (Vigilant) Got that ;)

Ilaister > 7-v-2 yarp

Ilaister > congrats

Let’s do a little recap. There were 4 guys on his killmail (two of which were me) and 4 guys on the Arazu a minute later (one of which was me, making 5) – The Arazu who jumped after the Proteus (making 3 of them at the time). I’m not disputing his numbers. After all:

Ilaister > I imagine that was the US public school system's fault. Producing retards like you is all they're good at I'm afraid.

Possibly drunk, but definitely casually racist, absurdly presumptuous and undoubtedly a little sore from the stupidity of the Vigilant loss. I had a good laugh about that one - probably for all the wrong reasons, though (but you'll have to do a lot better to get into my bio). I was desperately hoping this guy wasn't a fellow Brit when Tuscor announced that he was actually Australian (he is) which just seemed to blow his mind.

Ilaister > AUSSIES

Ilaister > IT ALL MAKES SENSE

Ilaister > you're up early..... hmmm.

As Ilaister carried on with a persistence of an old Jack Russell (for those ignorant of cynology, a Jack Russell is a small terrier, often characterised for its over-aggressive barking in proportion to the size of its teeth), I left them to it as I scanned Protean Concept’s killboards. Ilaister was actually their killboard leader in the month so far and I felt a slight pang of pity for them. It was then I noticed that D3m0n Sam had settled with them for the moment.

In all likelihood, he’s probably unaware that we've spoken before, but rewind a year or so, I was becoming disillusioned with Disavowed and was looking for a way out of Blackstar. I had a couple of possibilities on the radar, one of which was End-of-Line, which D3m0n Sam was recruiter for and who I spoke to via an alt. After a brief-ish chat on Teamspeak with them, I was able to comprehensively rule them out. He’d invited 3 potential recruits on after checking API’s and instead of giving the usual recruitment spiel, got distracted by a corpmate asking about POS rights. For over an hour, the other potentials and I had to listen to Sam struggle with some very simple POS management. It wasn’t that part that put me off so much, but wasting people’s time for that long is just plain retarded. And now he was flying alongside Ilaister. Well, as they say; birds of a feather flock together.

Galdur> What do you reckon about that, Jay?

Jay> ...Huh?

While I’d been distracted, the guys had been formulating a plan to counter Protean Concept. We’d been trying strafing runs in a Machariel on the bait ships, but these had been pointless with just one Mach and no Scimitar to offset the sentry drones the Dominix was dropping. It would have been two, but I asked for a bomber to deal with the drones. Galdur went through the plan again, and I have to be honest, I didn’t listen that time either. I interrupted to say “Yeah, just do it” in the hope that something would happen. What did happen was that Galdur warped his alt at range to the WH with a Moros. True to form, the Proteans didn't jump their Battleships out, despite the threat of Siege Blasters. Infact, they jumped their fleet in.

Knowing we couldn't field as many ships as them, we had our own Archon ready to go. As for myself, I had swapped out the Legion for a Vindicator. After the Moros finished off the Megathron and the Dominix, we set to work on the Absolution, hoping to take it out before the Protean Archon had a chance to warp back to zero on the hole and jump through to their fleet. 

From then, it was slow going and it seemed it was our turn to make mistakes. Two dreadnoughts were called for to get rid of their Archon. Oddic volunteered his Moros before I volunteered a Naglfar, but with Seung on grid in his Moros, the Nag wouldn’t be needed. That suited me fine as I had noticed after Rising Sun’s first outing in the fight against Provi-bloc’s Nidhoggur I’d somehow only managed to train capital shield operation to level one. At this point it was on the training queue to get this embarrassing situation fixed, but not for another couple of days. What I hadn't noticed, was that Seung had warped off. The scout reported two Protean Concept Moros’ warping through the connecting C5. The K162 collapsed behind the first Moros (piloted by the aforementioned D3m0n sam), which levelled its guns at our Archon. Protean Concept were not allowing Myst to deploy any mobile depots, which forced us to field another carrier so Myst could refit and not die. While distracted, we lost a Bhaalgorn and an Armageddon, but the Moros hadn't even yellowboxed my Vindicator from 42km away.

At any moment I expected that to change and see volleys of extra-large hybrid ammo tear into the hull, but it wasn't to be. With the Vindicator free to fly around the battlefield with impunity, I scanned around for soft targets. As the mainstay of Protean Concepts fleet closed the distance to our Dreadnought, I spotted a Rook between the two groups of capital ships. I warned the fleet I was closing on it and we lit it up as soon as I was in web range. Now halfway across the field, I manoeuvred the Vindicator to the relative safety of a close orbit with Sam’s Moros while I (belatedly) warped the Loki away to bring in a second Dreadnought. While this was going on, I spotted a Protean Ishtar drift close to their Dread and decided to take a couple of potshots, which paid off quicker than I expected.

Communication among our own fleet was a bit of a mess and we were riding our luck. If Protean Concept had been any good, they’d have stayed focused on our first Archon (which we would have lost) and I’d be short a Vindicator. As it was, they were all over the shop. I was having an easy ride as my Naglfar was set up to tank the kinetic and thermal damage of the Moros and the Legions they had neuting me barely made an impression. For some reason, more of the fleet reshipped to Dreadnoughts as Vince logged in. Then he decided to bring one as well. This didn't leave much tackle around for when the Moros and then the Archon were destroyed, although we did catch one of the Legions as the rest of their fleet decided they’d had enough. At least they took it well:

Ilaister > we pwn better corps than yours

Ilaister > and fuck you noobs!

Well, sort of.

But then again, there's nothing better than a good old fashioned tear-harvest to make you feel smug.

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.