New Alliance

My good friend and old corp mate (Ranger Omega) has formed a new alliance with his industrial group and asked me to bring the Spartan Guard into the alliance as a dedicated PVP wing. Well after giving it some thought I decided that was a good idea. After all having a whole group of industrial guys around to make ships and ammo is always a good thing, especially if they make it cheap. Bastards and their markups....ah well not like I wouldn't do the same thing in their place. As part of the effort to make the new alliance (University Of Thoth) better and more rounded I have offered to take any of their current industrial people into the Spartan Guard and train them for PVP. For the most part they are short on experience and know how to fit their ships for battle against other capsuleers, rather than those pathetic rats that are always abound in eve. I swear it is amazing with how many of them the capsuleers kill that those guys cans till find crews to man them. Ah well not like their isn't plenty of isk to be made doing whatever the hell it is that those guys do.


I am not sure how many of the industrial guys will come over but my guess is three maybe four of them. Already I have one that has transferred over and I took him out on a small low sec roam yesterday. Nothing major just doing a little Battlecruiser roam, in our second system (Parts) I noticed that their were a few people in local so I told him to hold on the gate and lets see what happens. I open Dscan and see a capsule on scan, well given that we are in low sec and podding people even they are stupid enough to travel in a pod doesn't do well for the security status I told my companion to hold his fire. A moment later the pod lands at the gate and he just sits there, I am confused for a sec not sure what he is doing. He isn't red and is of no threat to us so we ignore him, a moment later a drake lands at the gate as well. Now this drake is blood red, which is nice. Means we can shoot him without the gateguns engaging us nor take a security hit, but he is right on the gate and could simply jump through at any point.


The over our comms Martok tells me that the drake has locked him up and sure enough right as Martok is telling me that, the drake locks me up as well. Figuring he would actually fight us I give the orders to lock up the drake and open fire. Oddly enough the drake actually begins shooting at the pod and not at us, very strange. I knew it would be tough, drakes usually have pretty monster shield tanks but I figured we had a reasonable chance to get him. As it turns out Martoks brutix wasn't fitted all that well and was taking serious damage. I believe that the drake had also fired on me, but realizing that my tank was stronger he switched over to Martoks brutix, as I would have in his place.


The capsuleer pilot in the pod wasted no time in warping away once we had begun our full on slug match. I got so excited for some real PVP that I totally forgot to launch my drones, and Martok forgot his as well, such a noob mistake, but I guess that is what happens when you haven't had a real PVP fight in several months. As the drake hits about 2/3 shields I finally remember to launch my drones and order Martok to launch his as well. At this point I haven't taken any real damage, my shields are over 95% but Martoks brutix has lost his shields and his armor is taking serious damage. I knew his tank would be weak but it was failing nearly as fast as the drakes.


I gave Martok the order to warp away but the drake had him pined, either with a scram or a disruptor. Once I knew Martok couldn't warp away it was pure hold and fight, I had the drake pined with a disruptor myself so he wasn't going anywhere, plus I had two medium neuts on him hoping to cap him out and bring down his tank, and whatever point he had on Martok. The best part is according to him I did just that (see battle chatter below).


After what seems like hours go by, but couldn't have been more than 30 seconds, the drakes shields collapse and he starts taking armor damage. HAHA, now I know we have got him. Having flown and engaged enough shield tanked ships, and drakes are only shield tanked, I knew that once his shields went down he was ours. We only had to hold him for another 15 or 20 seconds and he would be done. I have Martok on my tactical watch list to keep an eye on his damage, his shields are long since gone but he is armor tanked so that is a given, but now his armor has been smashed and he is taking hull damage. Damn, it is going to be close but we both continue to pour fire into the drake, we have 10 drones hitting him as well....I watch as Martoks ship is bleeding structure, he is on fire and trailing smoke....I order him to keep aligned and prepare to warp his pod to safety....I am watching the area checking for backup from the drakes corp mates, who for all I know are about to jump on top of us and kill us both.....Martoks ship and the drakes icons are so close together on my tactical hud that I can't tell them apart...all of a sudden I see an explosion....damn Martoks ship didn't make it, but I knew that drake would join him in a second...but wait my guns have stopped firing and a red pod is on the hud....I try to lock up the pod but of course in a hurricane my locking time is too slow and I am still over a second away when the pod warps to safety. The drake has gone down in flames...the first kill of the new alliance.


The drake pilot congratulated us in local for a good fight and after confirming that Martok has managed to dock at a station to get repairs to his heavily damaged ship, we have a nice talk with the drake pilot in local in the Parts system. Good guy, turns out he ran out of his main ammo and had to switch to something else.


Computer Display Local Comm Channel Time index; 2011.12.24 18:39:03 to 2011.12.24 18:42:55 (thanks to Truen1ght for showing me this trick on these battle reports).


[ 2011.12.24 18:39:03 ] Bardowen > damn good fight
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:06 ] Ranger Gama > GF
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:14 ] Bardowen > i was trying really hard at the end
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:20 ] Bardowen > but damn cap got me down
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:21 ] Ranger Gama > yeah you almost got us
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:27 ] Ranger Gama > nciely done
[ 2011.12.24 18:39:28 ] Martok Mac > gf
[ 2011.12.24 18:40:40 ] Bardowen > i ran out of rage missiles halfway through the fight


This single thing cost him a kill, by my estimate Martok was no more than 10 seconds from going down in flames himself. Always amazing how the small things can make such a huge difference, but such is the way of things in New Eden.


[ 2011.12.24 18:40:46 ] Bardowen > my fault at the end
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:01 ] Bardowen > but you know how it is
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:06 ] Bardowen > you have to go for it
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:06 ] Ranger Gama > yep
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:40 ] Bardowen > how far did i get the brut
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:57 ] Martok Mac > nearly all the way
[ 2011.12.24 18:41:57 ] Ranger Gama > ddue like 10 sec and you would have had him
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:02 ] Bardowen > damn
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:03 ] Bardowen > lol
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:08 ] Bardowen > alright g/f and merry xmas
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:14 ] Ranger Gama > same to you
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:14 ] Martok Mac > yeah u 2
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:17 ] Bardowen > ill try to kill yall again if i get the change
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:25 ] Ranger Gama > as will we
[ 2011.12.24 18:42:55 ] Martok Mac > yep


This pilot who I have never met and may or may not ever see again was what a true capsuleer pilot should be. No smack talk in local, or threats, just a GF and some discussion of how close we all came to fiery death. Wished us well and said if he saw us again he would shoot us some more....I think I like this guy.


I loot the wreck of everything it has, pick up Martoks drones, destroy the wreck with a single salvo from my guns, and warp to a planet to wait out my aggression timer before I can dock up with Martok and deliver his drones to him.


We got some good loot off of the drake pilot, seems to me like he had either been killing rats himself or had killed some other capsuleer pilots and taken their stuff, he had an odd mix of ammo and modules in his cargobay for a drake.


The best part was during the fight the guy in the pod his is auto-pilot and came right back into the middle of our little battle. Funnest thing I have seen in a while.


Computer Display Local Comm Channel Time index; 2011.12.24 18:38:43


[ 2011.12.24 18:38:43 ] Sulpherix > damn auto pilot brought me right back to you


We finished the rest of our roam not seeing another sole in a low sec system to engage. I went back later to pick up the swag I had left at the random station Martok had docked up in and on my way back through almost got some noob in a frigate, but he got away. Ah well always next time.


Fly safe and shoot straight.


Ranger Gama
Spartan Guard