Battle Of 6-EQYE

I wake up to the screaming of the GQ alarm in my temporary quarters in the SAH-AD system.  Something is happening and I run down to my pod to find out what.  As I seal myself in the familiar sights and sounds of the “Real World” disappear and my mind becomes fully linked with my pod.  An emergency CTA has been called by a coalition FC, this isn’t good but it does tend to happen on a pretty frequent basis when you have an entire region basically under attack.

I don’t know what has happened but I send the command to get my pod linked with my Hurricane class battlecruiser and send have the GQ alarm sounded aboard it as well.  My crew knows that they have until I dock my pod to be ready for combat or their will be hell to pay.  Fortunately my XO’s are good men and women and they make sure that the ships are always ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I double check my ammo load and undock from the station, once out in space the FC has given orders for everyone to rally on the G-QTSD stargate and wait for orders.  I give the command and warp to the gate in jump range and wait.  The FC is giving orders for everyone to try and get more people active and into our current fleet, capsuleers are returning from other operations from several systems away as fast as they can.  Several more are currently planet side and have disconnected from their pods and our FLT communications networks.  There is no way to raise them and get them back until someone can physically find them and get a comm into their hands, for without our pods our neural receivers are useless.

We sit waiting on the gate and as people trickle in from other areas it is clear to me that whatever has sparked this emergency CTA is over by now.  Either the attackers have completed their task or the defenders have driven them off.  After over an hour the FC stands the fleet down.  He notes that in just over an hour we have a scheduled CTA and wants to make sure that the maximum number of pilots are available to come on that operation.  We later learn that the enemy had attack a cyno jammer in a system nearby but the fleet couldn’t get enough members quickly enough to help repel the attack, and the jammer was quickly destroyed.

I decide that I will simply dock back up and give my crew a rest before the scheduled CTA.  I give the order for them to stand down from GQ and send the ship back to the SAH-AD outpost.  I remain in my pod docked to my hurricane as I review the tactical situation and look over battle reports, get some new ammunition and decide that the losses we have seen in the area having another ship ready to go would be a good thing.  I buy and fit out a new hurricane class battlecruiser as a backup to the one I am currently flying.  These ships aren’t cheap but they aren’t horribly expensive either so it isn’t that big of a deal for me.  Getting a competent crew is by far more of an issue then getting modules and hulls, of course that is an issue that the HR people have well under control and I have never had to leave a station or outpost without a full crew.  I don’t know how they do it but I am sure the amount of isk they charge my corp for their services makes it easy for them to find new recruits, plus the salaries capsuleers pay to their crews mean that we can be very selective in who serves on board our starships.

The time for the CTA arrives and the fleet begins to fill up along with our comm channels as capsuleers prepare for battle.  Ship fittings are checked and rechecked, ammo loaded and combat drones are repaired from previous battle damage, all the thousand and one details that a good capsuleers and his/her crew have to do before battle.  I make sure that my medical clone is up to date, always have to check those before you undock.

As the fleet rapidly goes over 100 in number the FC gets on the fleet comms and asks how many capsuleers have experience with adjusting overview settings?  This seems like an odd question to me right before battle but I have done that before and it is something that you have to be careful with but isn’t terribly difficult.  The big risk is that if you turn off something that could easily get you killed as an enemy ship or defensive structure kills you and you can’t see it on your tactical overview.  With over 100 pilots in the fleet I respond that I know how to adjust those settings and several others state they are capable of adjusting them as well.  The grand total of those of us that can do it…..six…out of 100+ pilots.  The FC says that he can’t believe that only six of us know how to adjust these and that people shouldn’t be lazy, nearly a dozen more people volunteer that they can adjust them as well.

The FC picks me and several others to adjust our overview settings and refit our ships to specifically target stealth bombers with artillery.  Most of us refit to have at least one sensor booster and I load mine with a scan resolution script to increase my targeting speed against such small ships.  Our orders are simple, if any stealth bomber shows up on our grid we are to target them with everything we have.  While this makes sense to give us the better targeting speed against such small ships it also means that I have had to remove one of my shield extender which makes me more vulnerable to enemy fire, I don’t like this part of the plan but orders are orders.  We can still shoot the primary targets as designated by the FC but the SB’s are priority.  I undock to activate my full tactical systems and adjust my overview settings before docking back up to wait for the fleet.

The fleet finishes forming up and we head out after sitting at a jump bridge in a nearby system for what seems like forever we get orders to prepare to move out.  The enemy is on the way and the FC sends scouts into several nearby systems to monitor their movements and orders us into the 6-EQYE system.  We assemble on one of the stargates and deploy combat drones.  Our fleet numbers over 100 pilots and I am confident that we are in a good position to ambush and destroy the enemy as they return to their staging system.

The scout reports that hostiles have arrived two jumps out and gives the numbers; approximately 100 enemy ships are on the way.  Mostly battleships and their support, now our fleet is all battlecruisers so this is going to be tough but we can do it.  Battleships are stronger but slower and easier to hit.  With even numbers we might just take a good number of them out before one side breaks contact.  Everyone prepares for combat, they jump one system closer and we are warm up our weapons.

“FC BREAK FC BREAK” comes over the comms (never a good thing in a scout when you already have the enemy fleet under observation) and reports that a second enemy fleet is entering the system two jumps away.  The FC asks how many and the scout again reports over 100 enemy ships have entered the system and are headed our way.  We are now outnumbered two to one and the new fleet contains tech 3 cruisers along with support.

This is not good and I start to think that the FC will order the fleet to retreat rather than engage 200+ enemy ships that are all individually stronger than our own, but he doesn’t.  He orders us to keep our drones out and get into position to engage the enemy.  We now wait, ready to ambush the fleets that have now combined and are waiting just on the other side of the stargate from us.  The gate flashes as the hostile fleet begins to transit into the system and everyone waits for the first salvo of hostile fire.

The enemy fleet holds their jump cloaks but with so many of our own ships already in position on the gate proximity causes several to become visible to our tactical sensors sooner than the others.  The FC orders the fleet to open fire and begins to call and designate targets.  With so few targets and so many ships I have a hard time locking onto them before they are gone but I do manage to get shots in on the enemy.

The first kill is a maelstrom class battleship, followed quickly by a scimitar class logistics, a huginn class recon, and another scimitar.  By this time I have been called primary by the enemy fleet and am taking heavy fire, my shields fail and my armor melts.  I prepare to give the evacuation order to my crew as my hull starts to collapse when the fleets’ logistics pilots are able to pull me back from the brink of destruction (about 20% hull integrity).  They are able to hold me with my shields long enough to kill a nemesis class stealthbomber that decloaks in the middle of the insanity on the gate.  Another scimitar is called primary and my guns fire on him as well, I have lost track of my combat drones and have allowed them to simply find and shoot whatever they can.  Their onboard AI’s are more than enough to handle the combat surrounding me as I ever could.

The logistics pilots of the fleet have saved my ship twice by now but as the enemy scimitar goes down I have been called primary by the enemy fleet for the third time and with losses already mounting among the coalition fleet they are no longer able to keep my ship up and it goes down in a burst offlame.  With my hull already severely damaged by the first assault they didn’t have enough time to get reps on me this last time.  Fortunately I had enough time to sound the evacuation alarm and my crew manages to get to the escape pods in time.  The enemy fleet is using smartbombs but because I was fitted with artillery I was slightly out of the main fight and my crewmembers pods are not lost to the area effect weapons of the enemy battleships.  Nor do I lose my pod, after making my way out of the disruption bubbles that surrounded the gate I bounce around from safe spot to safe spot, celestial to celestial while I search for a way to escape from the system.

I eventually hook up with two survivors and we make our way back toward SAH-AD, two jumps out from SAH-AD we encounter another group of five or six survivors and we all jump back into the SAH-AD system together.

Over the next hour or so the survivors come in from the fleet, some in pods, some in new clones from the medical bays and some in combat ships that survived the battle.  I am not sure what the final loses look like coalition wide but from Str8nge Brew they came out as follows:

                                Ships     Pods      ISK

Enemy                  13           3              1.93 Billion

Brew                     15           5              1.17 Billion

Brew pilots lost more ships and pods but we cost the enemy by far more isk; in a battle outnumbered 2:1 that is about the best we could hope for.

Ranger Gama

-5CC-

Str8nge Brew

Covert Ops and Sleepers

Covert Ops
I am sitting in my ship firing away at sleepers with a corp mate. We are doing well, we have had to control the range and make sure that we are keeping our ships moving to avoid at least some of the incoming fire. We have managed to clear the anomaly were we detected the sleeper activity. Nothing but wrecks remain.

My corp mate warps away to grab a salvaging ship while I remain behind to watch for any intruders into our area. Nothing. It is very quiet, probably too quiet. He returns in the noctis and gets to work on tractoring the wrecks and getting them salvaged. It is going well when all of a sudden a Buzzard uncloaks approximately 80 km from me.

I sound the alarm that we have hostiles in our area and knowing that he would only have uncloaked if he was here for trouble, I begin the locking sequence for my guns. They have a terrible locking time against such a small target but it is all I can do, none of my weapons nor drones will do anything until I can get a lock on him. The targeting sequence counts down and I see no reaction from the buzzard, I am a little surprised but still he will get away before I can get a lock. And even if he doesn't he is outside my optimal range.

I arm my primary cannons and prepare them to fire the instant that my systems lock. 5....4....3....2....1....Lock...1400mm Artillery Cannons Firing...Target Destroyed. I send the command to begin locking onto his pod while my cannons cycle....9....8....7...6...5...Target Lock failed, the target is no longer within targeting range.

Crap, he warped away. I have my dscan open looking for additional targets but nothing appears on my screen. My corp mate goes back to salvaging and gets the area cleared of sleeper wrecks. He is headed to the buzzard wreck when my dscan picks up a megathron, I let my corp mate know we have incoming and he warps away to safety.

I lock onto the buzzard wreck and fire another salvo to destroy anything of value that we are not able to retrieve. I continue hitting the dscan but the mega has vanished and no other ships are on scan. We return to our base and call it a good night and we both order our crews to stand down for the evening to get some rest. I believe that the buzzard pilot made a mistake and ended up with his warp carrying him into an object that destabilized his cloak without him realizing that we could see him. By the time he realized it, his ship was down.

Ranger Gama

SPGU

Been A Long Time

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Been a little crazy for me. First I got laid off and was trying to find a new position but it didn't work out for me so I had to move over 1000 miles back home to stay with family while I look for a new position (I hope we all survive this one). Then (literally) the next morning after I get into town and get settled in we got word that my fathers mother had just died, so I was back on the road within 18 hours of arriving to drive another 1000+ miles to help my father and his brother and sister with everything. Of course we then get to drive back home after everything which adds another 1000+ miles, so in less then two weeks I drove over 4500 miles. Which I admit is nothing for a professional driver but for me that was more then I drive in a couple months and I did it in something like 13 days. Which is rough as hell on anyone, don't know how those long haul truckers do it. I get back and everything appears to be going well for a change (should have known) and about a week later my mother is diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. Really universe WTF??? So now we are all having to help her deal with that and get her surgery scheduled and the radiation treatments she will need afterward. My father and I had planned on a trip to Moab Utah to go ATVing with my aunt and my mother insisted that we go and have fun. Well got on the first trail and I had no real idea what I was doing and got tossed/jumped off and hurt my back, like 20 min into our ride. Finished going around with everyone, like 6 or 7 more hours on the trails, and I pretty much couldn't move all that well the next day. Saw some good stuff, very pretty view at the end of the day of the green river from some place on the canyon rim. So spent the rest of the trip drugged up and doing nothing, which isn't so bad I guess, but still. Needless to say it has been an interesting couple months, but I am hoping that I can be on eve more now and have some more stories of fun and general eveness excitement.

Shameless plug:

They picked up my mothers breast cancer on a routine mammogram and the cancer is only 7 to 9 mm in diameter, which is pretty damn small. Their has been a lot of talk about a year ago with some groups saying that routine mammograms should only be performed yearly on those women who are in a high risk group, well my family has never had a single case of breast cancer until now. So my mother was in the lowest risk group you could imagine, and I am glad she told those guys to fuck off she would get them every year no matter what those dumb asses said. I whole heartily recommend to every guy that actually reads this to encourage your mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, whoever female you have in your life that matters to you, to go in and get these mammograms done every year. I can't imagine how bad this would have been if she had waited two years or more, which is what was recommended by these guys in their brilliant press conference last year, between hers. As it stands they have caught my mothers so early that she has every option available to her, it looks like she will not have to do any chemo, the surgery and radiation will be enough.

Getting off my soap box.

Ranger Gama

Caldari Low Sec

Having failed to get any kills the day before I led a small group of cruisers into caldari low sec to see what is happening. One of our members has never been on a PVP roam before so we decide that cruisers are good thing to take. They are cheap and yet still should be able to do something, we have four of them. We go on about our jumps one system after another and see nothing.


Finally in Kubinen we find a good number of people around and I give the order to spread out and search the belts. See if we can find people mining or ratting. We warp to the top four belts and nothing, just a few rats here and there. So I give the order to warp to the bottom four belts, again for three people nothing. I find a single drake doing some ratting and order the others to warp to me. While I am waiting for them I engage the drake, knowing that he will probably crush me but should allow the others time to arrive....they land and engage. It isn't going well for me, he has 5 hobgoblin 2's on me and I can't tank their fire and his heavy missiles.


Not 60 seconds after I engaged him I go down in flames.....but right before I do I see a Talos and a Tornado warp into the belt at range on us. DAMN, that isn't good at all. I order the others to withdraw to the safespots I have been having them make during our trip. It is too late for one of my pilots and she is taken down next.  Apparently a stabber fleet issue arrived at some point and I missed it.


The other two manage to break contact and get to their safespots. I tell them to keep warping around the system as we have 15 minute GCC's to clear before they can jump back into high sec for the return trip to our base.


After 10 minutes of warping around one of my pilots makes a mistake and warps to one of the planets in the system. One of the hostile ships is waiting for him and he is tackled and killed.


He gets his pod out and we resume warping around the system. It has now been 17 minutes since we engaged and I order the other two pilots to jump into high sec and head back to base. Although my GCC has been cleared I remain behind with my final pilot. I refuse to leave one of my pilots behind when I have the ability to sit and remain with them. I have him warp to me and I squad warp us around the system using my safespots until his GCC clears.


After another 10 minutes of continuous warps his is clear and I order him to jump out of the system as well.


He warps to the gate and I follow him, we both jump clear of the system and head back to our base.


This roam has not gone well for us, three cruisers down and we killed nothing. However, not a single pod was lost and in every engagement you learn something new.


Turns out someone had a big op going in the system that I didn't realize when we engaged that drake. As we were all bouncing around safespots I did some dscans looking for probes and anything else when a cyno lites and we have not only a thantos and nidhoggur in the system with us but a wyvern. I think I am going crazy and clear my dscan and reset it....scan again and all three show up again. DAMN....ah well such is life in new eden.


Ranger Gama
-UOT-

Shiny

Got a new shiny toy last week and this was my first real chance to take it out and see how it works. After hearing rumors of operations going on between eveuni and RvB I decided to go and check out the location my source had mentioned. It wasn't too bad, just about 12 jumps or so from my main base. I arrive in the system feeling good about my new found nemesis and my loads of torpedoes that I could unleash onto unsuspecting foes.


I spent the next 90 minutes setting up watch positions on the gates and the belts in anticipation of getting in on a kill for someone doing mining, or even going up against the rats that are all over the place. Still amazes me that these guys can find crews, ah well that is their problem not mine.


I warp to a belt and set up my final observation point, seeing three rat battlecruisers in the belt and knowing there is nothing you can do about it is annoying to say the least. My little nemesis would be toast if they got a good solid hit in on it so I set up my bookmark and I am about to warp away when I pick up a new ship on scan.....I hold my position to see if I can find him....and what do you know he drops into the belt that I am at...excellent....he is in a rifter and that could be a problem for my nemesis but as I am cloaked he doesn't know I am in the belt watching him. My sensors detect weapons fire and signs of warp scramblers in the area in immediate proximity to the rifter and the three battlecruisers.


A sly grin crosses my face, he is engaged against those rat battlecruisers and thus presents an opportunity to take him while he is engaged with them. Their firepower and distraction could be all the opening I need to score my first kill with this nemesis.


I continue moving towards him, keeping an eye on the asteroids that are near my flight path to avoid being uncloaked by their proximity...the three rat ships are going at him with full intensity and I can see on my hud that he has an mwd drive. That shouln't be a problem, I am faster than the speed he has relieved so far but if I get within scram range I am in big trouble.


My tactical systems can provide me only limited information on how the battle is progressing, cloaks are so great for so many things but the lack of full scale tactical readouts is annoying. No matter I continue to close the distance and get ready to attack.


40km and closing.......


30km........I send the neural command to arm my torpedoes and begin the warm up sequence for my disruptor and target painters......


25km.....the rifter pilot and the rats are still going at each other full tilt......


20km nearly in attack range.....I prepare to uncloak and attack


19km....one of the rat battlecruisers explodes sending wreckage out in all directions....


17km...I am within attack range and I mentally reach out to my cloaking device to shut it down and begin the attack sequence....the rifter warps off....DAMN IT....so close.....I reverse course to head away from the site to clear anything that might decloak my ship.


Having never been able to get a full lock on with my targeting systems I assume that the rifter wasn't able to remain in combat with the other two battlecruisers because of battle damage, or capacitor drain.


I remain in the belt for several minutes but the rifter does not return......so I set course back into high sec and proceed to dock up for a few hours.


I need to rest and get some food.....I have heard about a new restaurant in a system nearby that serves something they call mexican food......no database I have searched has relieved what that name really means.....crazy people and their novel names for foods.....turns out it is pretty damn good.


Ranger
-UOT-

Open Commenting Enabled

As my good friend Truen1ght has done with his blog I have opened mine up for anyone to post a comment.  I will monitor it and if I have to will reset it back.

Ranger Gama
SPGU
-UOT-

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

High Sec War Dec

I get a text massage while having dinner with some of my colleagues celebrating a birthday. It is from my industrial corps CEO telling me we have been wardec'ed by some corp neither of us have ever heard of. The next day the war goes live and nothing happens, the enemy doesn't make any real effort to engage my corpmates. While this isn't a surprise the opening few hours of a wardec are often occupied with recon of targets and checking to see what your opposition is flying, how they are operating, what systems they are in, and how these patterns have changed from before the wardec was sent.

The next day (Sunday) I log in to find out that the ceo of the wardecing corp is in our home system and has one of my guys camped in a station, another of my guys is outside cloaked watching and reporting on what is happening. I come in and so do three others, for a total of six of us online now. We get the fleet up and the audio comm system going, and I sketch out a plan of action. Pretty simple, cloak guy get closer we warp to him, scram, disrupt, web and BOOM...seems simple enough but virtually none of my guys has any pvp experience and while the warp in is in a reasonable position the pilot doesn't realize that the target is in instadock range of the station. So of course we arrive they dock.

We all dock and the waiting begins, the wartarget undocks and I give the order to undock after her but we aren't fast enough and she jumps away into a neighboring system. Given her main base of operations I guess which system she is headed to and we pursue. I am partly right, she is going in the direction I thought she would but to a slightly closer system.

My little fleet (still just the six of us) jumps several systems after her but we loose her and I order the fleet to hold up as we attempt to figure out what direction she has actually jumped away in. As I warp the fleet to a gate, she arrives at the one we were just at. 10 more seconds and we would have had her, but she is through the gate and we miss her. By the time we get back to the gate she has cleared the other system and we totally missed her.

I give the order for my guys to set up a gatecamp along the route she has used to reach our base figuring she might just come back to see what happened, she has doubled back on us once already, hence the missed gate earlier. We sit and wait, eventually we find out through some allies that she has docking in a nearby system and we move out to try and get her on the undock. I warn my guys about the instadocking and that we need to watch her, but I fail to tell them about sitting right outside and bumping her away from the station.

We arrive and she plays undock/redocking games with us some more, I get annoyed at this and we move out a few systems to set up a new gatecamp and wait for her. We have some allies feeding us intel that she is sitting at the station but still in instadock range just waiting for us. We sit on the gate and wait for her to become bold enough to come out and jump into our trap. After maybe 15 minutes I notice that an geddon has dropped out of warp at the gate we are on and it is the ceo of a known associate of theirs. Out camp is now totally blown and I give the order to recover the drones and jump back into the system, I fleet warp us to a new spot and jump back out of the system trying to loose her spy. We succeed in loosing them but mostly because I set my destination wrong and wasn't paying enough attention and jumped us in the wrong direction. By the time I get us back to the main target system our allies have informed me that she has docked up yet again. I give the order for the fleet to dock at the stations in the system we are in, spread out to prevent her from camping us all and to log out for dinner.

We all agree to come back on about 2 hours later and to try another fleet to see about killing her. So after I have dinner I log back in and she isn't online, none of the targets are. My guys tell me they were but left a short while ago, never having seen the target undock and presume that she is still in that same station waiting. I move some stuff out to the markets for sale and log out after another hour of all the targets being offline.

So net result for the whole weekend with this wardec....nothing at all. The ceo of this griefing corp has refused to engage us and decided to play docking games with us instead.

Now having done high sec wardecs before with Gama I know that this happens but I have never seen the people that started the wardec go to so much trouble to do nothing. The ceo ran intel on us for over 2 weeks, my fault I thought she wanted to join us but she was just running intel, I should have seen it but wasn't paying enough attention.

So I have learned some valuable lessens for doing stuff and got reminded again about the rush of pvp combat in eve and how much fun it is to know that a real human intelligence is trying to destroy your ship and the rush of knowing that you can destroy theirs. I have to give credit to my guys they did an excellent job given their lack of pvp experience and followed my orders even when I jumped us in the wrong direction, a mistake that I don't intend to make again.  I am sure that my mistakes cost us that kill for the night, but eve has always been a game of learning and thus we will all learn and get better.

Gallente Militia

I walk into the nice outer office and past the receptionist, they don't ever really bother to try and stop a capsuleer, and wait near the inner office door for the man I am here to see. I have decided that it is time for me to put my skills to use defending the Minmatar people, and to that end I have decided to join the Gallente militia. Being based in Gallente space it makes more sense to join their militia than to join the Minmatar militia, and given their close working relationship it doesn't really matter anyways, I will be allies to the Minmatar militia members while serving in the Gallente militia.


The recruiter opens his door and sees me sitting waiting for him....he knows that I am a capsuleer, I can tell by the look on his face. His receptionist probably sent him a message that I was out here and that I was a capsuleer, oh well not like that really matters. He asks me to come into his office and I step through.


I tell him that I have come to join the Gallente militia and that my whole corp will be joining with me. He seems pleased to have additional capsuleers joining the militia, there are so few of us in New Eden that anytime one of us joins a group like this they are always happy to see us.


I step up and put my hand on the scanner for DNA verification of my identity......and the recruiting officer looks up at me and says that there is a problem. My standings and the standings of my corp are not high enough with the Gallente Federation for them to allow me into the ranks of the Gallente militia.


I stare at him in shock believing that this is a mistake and ask him to check it again. He runs another check and confirms that the standings are not high enough. Disappointed I turn to leave his office and as I walk out the door he informs me that I am close to meeting the requirements and that there are any number of agents that I can speak to about getting my reputation higher for the Gallente Federation itself.


So for now my wish to serve has to be put on hold until I can go and speak to some of these agents and get my reputation within the Gallente Federation higher to be allowed to join the militia and serve.


((Couldn't believe it, goes to show how few missions I have actually run with this guy when your faction standings are 0.2 and they need to be 0.5 to join the militia. Guess I will run some level 4 missions and that will be the end of that pretty quickly. I am hoping to have stories of PVP from the faction warfare in the near future.))


Ranger Gama
Spartan Guard

Roaming Low-Sec

Blackness......emptiness.....space....man how I have missed you...

After so many weeks trapped on planet it felt so good to be back into space again today. I am sure that my good friend Truen1ght had given up on me, that I would be trapped forever on SOLID ground, just like JR from “Clear Skies” ((awesome movies if you guys haven't seen them you should, very cool)). But like JR my crew decided they had had enough of me moping about and doing nothing with them, they were still getting paid but only their base saliary.  With me planetside they we haven't been doing any ops for anyone not even just going around killing those stupid pirates that think they can take on a capsuleer warship. I just don't know what those guys are thinking, no capsuleer to command them and yet they continue to come out of the 'wood works', stupid sayings from wherever.

Ah well, what was I saying.....yes that was it, so my crew decided to rescue me from my planetary exile and to reward them I figured hey lets go see if we can get into some trouble, and make some money. So I jumped into my ship and headed out to Hjoramold and crush some of those stupid pirates that are occupying the Minmatar Stronghold that is located in the system. I don't know why those guys even bother to keep coming, myself and some other non-aligned capsuleer commanders were just slaughtering them today and pretty much everyday. Good place to get some blood money from concord, just killing those rats is so easy.

Anyways so we made some cash fired some shells and my crew got to watch them shred some other ships, I am sure they are at least a little horrified to watch so many ships being destroyed, I mean those crewman get killed the same as any other, but that is the risk they take when they signed up so no need to loose any sleep over it. I have to worry about the hundreds of my own crew for all the ships that I have in commission right now, don't have time to worry about those people on board other peoples ships. After a little while talking to a couple of the other capsuleer commanders I decided that I had had enough of shooting these guys, it was no real challenge and concord doesn't pay all that well for the destruction of those ships anyways.

So I headed back to my main bases in the Essence region, and decided that what I needed and wanted was a challenge and the only one to be able to give it to me was another capsuleer. So I hoped into one of my small fleet of combat ready rifters and headed out. These ships have been sitting in high sec for months doing nothing, it is time they at least fire their weapons. I originally got them before leaving for null sec and never took them out, didn't seem to be much point, I could get my ships in null sec just as easy and so they got left behind to sit in storage.

I had actually forgotten how many of them I actually had sitting in Essence region stations waiting for combat that had never come. So I decided that I need to get back into practice of doing battle with capsuleers, they fight so much differently than the non-capsuleer rats and it has been so many months since I have done proper battle that I wanted to start out slow. I started off by jumping into some low-sec systems that are surrounded by high sec, figuring that I might get an easier challenge that way.

Man was I wrong or maybe I was right in so far as nothing is a pretty easy challenge. Tonight I spent almost 3 hours jumping in and out of over a dozen low-sec systems in and around the Essence region and what did I find? Nothing, zip, zero, nadda......so annoying. I even jumped into Old Mans Star...nothing nadda, zip, zero, zilch....couldn't believe it. Picked up people in local and no ships in space that I could engage.

Finally found another capsuleer commander in Obalyu sitting on the Parts gate in a thorax, so I went and got one of my wolf's and came back figuring that might actually be worthy of a challenge. I had left my rifter further up the chain with a jump clone to be able to get into low sec easier later. Anyways, get one of my wolf's and come back and he is gone....DAMN IT.....I get ready to jump back into high sec to give my crews some rest when on the Arant gate in Obalyu I find a rifter sitting with a female capsuleer commander. As I arrive at the gate and get ready to jump through she actually begins to target me, so I return the favor and target her ship. We are both hovering near the gate targeting each other but I know that if I fire first the gate guns will engage my ship and even though there are only two guns I am not sure if I can tank their fire and the rifters in just a wolf. Note to self: Need to run some simulations on that so I know for next time.

She than asks in the local channel why I haven't fired on her yet, so I ask her why she hasn't fired on me? Her response was classic, my guns are offline!!! Really you just admited in local that you can't shoot back and want to know why I haven't already destroyed your ship??? Can you say setup....she was playing me for a fool. I guess she was trying to get me to be the aggressor knowing that once I did the gate guns would fire on me, and I wouldn't be able to use the gate for a min or so, until it decided that I wasn't being a bastard and shooting at someone. This would give her friends, probably sitting one jump further up the chain time to jump in warp to me and that would be it.

So I declined her offer and we just sat there orbiting each other or the gate for several minutes until she warped away ((DC'd Hate it when that happens in low-sec)). So I figured that maybe someone else would come through and I could still have my chance to shoot someone and have some fun before needing to give my crew some rest.

I stayed on that gate for the next 30 minutes watching and waiting, she did return and we orbited each other again for a while and than wouldn't you know it several other members of her corp arrived, both of them piloting command ships, now two command ships, a rifter and gate guns against my wolf...those are some crappy odds so I decided that I would just go ahead and jump into high sec order my crew to stand down and get some rest for the rest of the night.

Just before I did I saw one of the absolution's move away and what I thought was warp speed to begin with, 33km/s, and arrive at a point approximately 300km from the gate. Than I thought maybe he was using something crazy, boosted MWD or something....as I jumped through the gate I realized he had simply warped to a tactical over watch spot on that gate.......just goes to show that I have been planet side for way to damn long. Overestimating the enemy can be just as deadly as underestimating him.

So the end to my grand adventer tonight into low sec....nothing....nadda....zip.....zilch....zero

But I still have my ships so I guess that is a win of sorts....and my crew performed their duties with the skill and determination that makes me proud to have them serve onboard my ships. I need to keep up with the bonuses for them, fine crews don't stick around for long without the bonuses....

Ranger Gama

Spartan Guard