Monthly Archives: April 2011
RvB: Best. Fleet. Ever.
Over yesterday evening, we killed an Omen Navy issue, almost got a Mimir, 4 AF, 3 Interceptors, 65-70 frigates, 4 cruisers and 6 destroyers.
Oh, and failed to suicide gank a Dramiel. And scrammed a stargate. And one guy lost 2 ships to CONCORD because he kept undocking before the GCC was up.
Also, we went out in noobships again, and managed to kill a vigil with them.
Right, from the top then.
Note: I was slightly tipsy and as such details may be slightly incorrect
Around 5PM (BST, so 4PM EVE Time), I jumped in-game and upon finding no fleets around, immediately set one up. Tech 1 frigates as usual. About 10 people joined up and off to hunt Blues we went.
Not long after, we end up in the Blue HQ system of Jurlesel. I warp the fleet to a spot 250km off their station, which normally leaves us on-grid of the undock, so we can keep aware of their movements. Not today! By some odd weird-ness, we had accidentally created a new grid and pushed the usual station grid to about 50km from their undock. This allowed us to remain off-grid whilst still observing them accurately with directional scan.
There’s an Omen navy issue out there. I send a scout and we confirm that it’s a character new to the Blue corp (less than one day in corp) and Sayyahdina observes on audio that we’re getting the guy before the day is done. I warp the fleet round a bit and we eventually land back on a small Blue force of a couple of frigates and an Assault Frigate.
Round 1: Red Mixed vs Blue Mixed
At this point we have about 5 people, so we engage and take them down, but more Blues are warping in! It’s a trap! A couple more frigates and another AF land so we shoot shoot shoot. A fellow Red has landed on us with a cruiser and all hell breaks loose. The Blues that we initially popped land with a Maller and a Rupture, so we pop the Maller.
Said Maller.
Another Rupture lands, which doesn’t concern me greatly. Then a Sacrilege and the Omen Navy issue warp to us.
Oh sod. Bail!
We run away to lick our wounds and reform the fleet. We now have about 12.
Scouts place the enemy fleet at similar numbers.
Rawr.
I take the fleet to Jurlesel again, where the Blue fleet appear to be assembling at a safespot. Not a lot we can do, so we go bump their station FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE.
Then the Omen navy issue from earlier undocks. We shoot it. It re-docks.
So I put into action the worst trap ever. I warp the fleet to the odd-grid from earlier and have 2 frigates wait on station for the Omen. The rest of us align back and wait.
He undocks.
He aggresses.
Round 2: Red Frigates vs Blue Omen Navy Issue
I yell over comms. ENGAGE. I warp the remainder of the fleet to the undock and we open fire in a blaze of glory. The Omen is tough but is going down. It looks like it’s trying to de-agress! We’re going to lose it!
Then it shoots again.
We crow with joy and I call for overheats. A large Blue fleet appears on the overview. INCOMING. The Omen is falling… falling…. GONE. Scratch one expensive ship!
The Blues are well and truly on our faces now with a massive advantage so I call for a burn and warp. A couple of us are caught (including me) but most make it out, so I call the next-door-system of Bereye as a regroup while I head to Halle for a new Rifter.
15 minutes later and we’re out in force to counter that Blue Fleet. We cross jump stargates a couple of times but never engaging. Our scout puts a Thorax with them. One of our pilots (Firewalker) offers to jump into a cruiser to counter it. I agree, and he shoots off to reship.
Our fleet is in Bereye, and their fleet is in Jurlesel. I warp the fleet to the Arnatele gate and within minutes their neutral scout (lol) relays them the information and their fleet jumps in. They land on our gate at 20km.
Round 3: Red Frigates + one cruiser vs Blue Frigates + reshipped cruisers
I ball our fleet in orbit round me and point my ship into theirs. Both sides meet with a clash of frigates. I’m already calling primaries, as is their FC, and frigates are falling fast on both sides.
Our Thorax pilot lands back with us and opens fire. Their cruiser does not appear to be on field, which potentially means we called one upship for no reason. The fight continues for another 5 minutes when the inevitable happens. Whilst both sides pods are reshipping to join the fight again, 4 of the Blues have come back in Cruisers in order “to match our cruiser”. Right.
I call it, since we simply don’t have the firepower to take 4 cruisers and the remainder of our fleet breaks and warps.
At this point a few members of my fleet open the possibility of a Low-sec roam with a combined purple fleet. I extend the offer to the Blue FCs but the enemy fleet is not up for such a venture. So we don’t bother. However it appears the Blues don’t want us going to low-sec on our own and have set up shop on our undock.
Still mildly annoyed with the cruiser situation (as well as the Sacrilege from earlier) I call BCs and below and undock to drive them off. They scatter. We give chase through to Bereye, where. Er. One of our guys scrams the stargate.
Round 4: Red Cruiser vs Stargate
OH HI CONCORD.
So with much laughing later we re-dock.
At this point several members of the fleet are drinking (some more than others) because it *is* Friday night! So I call a noobship fleet and initiate a drinking game.
If you die, you take a drink. if you get a kill, 2 drinks.
Right.
Go.
We undock into… nothing. Bah. We sit bemused on our undock for a few minutes while a couple Blues warp to various bookmarks off our station. One of them, in a vigil, decides to chance our noobships of doom.
For great justice!
Then something unthinkable happens. Something so incredibly odd, I thought I was drinking something stronger than the alcohol I *was* drinking.
A Blue Mimir undocked.
Then it got better.
It aggressed.
Round 5: Red Noobships vs Blue Mimir
Cries are all over comms. I order half our ships to engage and the other half to jump into a fucking alpha Battleship. We get him to 1/4 armor, and he docks (having waited out aggression)
Fuck.
More noobships are needed.
He undocks again and continues to flaunt his expensive ship. He even switches to an Adrestia at one point and tries it.
Eventually (after about half an hour of trying to shoot everything) a Blue fleet lands on us and kills our poor noobships. We desperately try to engage with whatever we have but to no avail. We reship into frigates and undock to be met with… nothing. They warped right off.
Dammit.
We spy a neutral Dramiel sat 200km off. At this point, a large number of the fleet were at the very least slightly tipsy. It wasn’t long before someone (Sayy…) suggested “Let’s gank ‘im”
Round 6: Red Frigates vs Neutral Dramiel and CONCORD
Sod it. Why not? The problem is, he’s 200km away. One of our fleet has a bookmark out there and warps to him. He’s about 50km ahead. I warp the wing to 50km from the original fleet mate and we practically land on him. However he proceeds to AB away like mad, so within seconds we’re out of our gun ranges. We shoot anyway.
Epic fail. We got about 5% of his shields before CONCORD show up.
Much hilarity is had by all.
[ 2011.04.29 21:20:31 ] EvilDead12 > dicks
Except the guy, obviously.
Blues are still about so I call a reship into T1 frigates. They catch a couple of people using
Oh the humanity!
an interceptor as a warp in, so I order a dock-up while we assemble. There’s a minor skirmish on the station with some of our noobships still involved
We undock the fleet. Blues are above us. 150km or so.
Final round: 18 Red Frigates vs 18 Blue frigates
The Blues drop a container. It’s called “Reds love boys”, which a number of my fleet then confirm in local to much laughter. We warp off the station and align back.
This will be good.
I warp the fleet in. All hell breaks loose. We establish preliminary targets and start up the points. I have to be very quick on the target calling as the targets melt as soon as they’re called. I order immediate reships into frigates if you get blown up, and the fight is quickly spreading out as the Blues chase a kestrel or two we fielded. It seems the Blues are also reshipping (most of them keep ships here in our HQ) and a destroyer or two starts appearing. Targets called first are now back on grid but so are we! We’re desperately fighting and some are now running out of ammo. At least 4 of us start searching wrecks for more rockets! More explosions rattle space as frigates on both sides melt. The fight is now a good five minutes in and it looks like we just have the upper hand.
Mid-fight
We take down an interceptor and an assault frigate which arrived on grid. Then a Blue cruiser lands. Two Blue Cruisers. We take down a Rupture as the other one moves to a large range. I call for cruisers as a Vexor lands. However, by the time our cruisers land the enemy cruisers have warped off and we mop up the few remaining Blue frigates.
We won.
Killmails. There's more off the top of the chat...
All of the Blues throw us a good fight in local and r-v-b and we throw them one back. Except for one Blue.
It is with great sadness I write that the Blue pilot Endeva was an absolute tit in both Local and the r-v-b channel.
Apparently, we can’t undock cruisers on our own HQ.
Here’s an excerpt.
[ 2011.04.29 22:24:46 ] Endeva > u reds give rvb a bad name [ 2011.04.29 22:24:48 ] tgl3 > We brought them as you brought them in [ 2011.04.29 22:24:58 ] Endeva > u sick of losing thats why u brought cruisers [ 2011.04.29 22:25:04 ] Endeva > pathetic [ 2011.04.29 22:25:08 ] tgl3 > umad [ 2011.04.29 22:25:10 ] Sayyahdina > umad [ 2011.04.29 22:25:10 ] TwiggyHazz > umad [ 2011.04.29 22:25:10 ] Dirkie Diggle > umad [ 2011.04.29 22:25:12 ] osoII > umad? [ 2011.04.29 22:25:14 ] Endeva > been kicking your ass whole week lol
Now there was some debate over who had a cruiser first on field. I remained adamant that the first cruiser fielded was by Blues but accept that it did not seem to remain long and likely warped off.
Now Endeva proceeded to start trolling both local and r-v-b and got shot down by his own fleet-mates for being an ass. His line of argument now consisted of “we lost because it was their HQ” to which the Blues replied “We chose to engage there”.
It saddens me that people like that are around. I mean, we got a HAC dropped on us at Blue HQ earlier and while we weren’t happy, we didn’t go and bitch in every available channel.
RvB is for fun, and this guy plainly does not grasp that.
We had a terrific fight, so thanks to those Blues that took the loss well. Whilst we held field, the fight was a big one and well worth the bitching that Endeva spewed afterwards.
Tired, I finally called it and logged out. An excellent day.
The rule of fun
Being in RvB for the past one and a half weeks has taught me something very valuable in EVE.
If you are not having fun, there is no point in playing
The enemy outnumber you? They outgun you? Fuck it. Come out in hilarious failfits and give the enemy a chuckle at the KillMails. Come out in noobships and try not to laugh your ass off too bad. Come out in the biggest damn things you have and watch the enemy scatter.
You outnumber the enemy? Same as before. They won’t find it fun at all if you camp them all day. Neither will you. Do something fun. Something stupid. Use noobships. Web the station. Bugger off and fight someone else. Fight each other! ISK is there to spend and ships there to be used.
Everyone has a different definition of “fun”, but go as general as you can and progress from there. You can’t please everyone, but try and make sure as many people enjoy the experience as possible.
There’s no point in playing this amazing game if you’re not having fun. I don’t find the idea of stupidly-big-mega-laggy battles fun. I don’t like the sound of sov-mechanics. I don’t like the lack of small-fleet advantages in nul. Therefore, I won’t go to nul.
I don’t find mining fun, so I won’t mine. I don’t care if it would make me ISK, because I’m having a fucking blast losing a rifter an hour to the enemy.
We play for fun. If you stop having fun and don’t change that, you might as well stop playing.
Noobships, fights and some more fights
Last night I logged on to find a Red frigate fleet coming up against difficulties. Apparently the Blues had acted on bad (or incomplete) intel and brought out some BattleCruisers and Cruisers against frigates.
So our FC hits upon a brilliant, brilliant plan. Rather than upship from Frigates into Cruisers or above, we decided…
To downship. From t1 frigates.
That’s right.
Noobships.
So with ride of the valkyries playing over comms, we undocked and off to Blue HQ we went!
And oh man. Was it fun.
98% of the Blues were damn good sports about it. The other 2% whined, seeming to think that RvB was srs bsns and not intended for fun at all. Meh.
Anyway we grabbed no kills and developed some hilarity from Blue pilots fleeing from our noobships. This was promptly followed by a <1 hour old alt alt coming into the r-v-b chat to troll us all about how we suck. Many laughs were had at this. We proceeded to swarm the Blue HQ and got beat back. We don’t know how, but they managed to break our awesome tanks. We promptly docked up in BHQ and grabbed MOAR NOOBSHIPS and proceeded to undock in a second wave. By this point the Blues were well and truly on board and one even undocked an Iteron Mk5 to shoot at us. Good times were had by all.
Suddenly Sunday
Today was a much better day for fleet fights. We had several big ones but being the noob I am, I forgot to record/screenshot in order to write most of them up.
One I do remember (without screenies) is one I FC’d in the morning. For the first time, I led a fleet to victory. Just. We had 2 left on field out of 10, if I recall right.
So anyway here’s the last two fights of my night.
We’re out in force. So are the Blues. This can and will only end one way. We have ~18 t1 frigates. They have ~18 t1 frigates. This should be fun. Both fleets are riled up after numerous engagements in the last couple of hours and we’re determined to hit them hard. We have an FC who is new to me this time: M4n1c M1n3r. He’s good.
Both fleets pass into Bereye. We’re on the Halle gate, they’re on the Arnatele gate. We warp to their gate. We pass them mid-warp.
Hah.
We warp back to the Halle gate. Guess who we pass mid-warp?
We miss each other for the second time.
Finally we warp again to the Arnatele gate and we engage.
Fight 1: Red T1 Frigates vs Blue T1 Frigates
I really need T2 autocannons
As usual we land on grid and proceed to lock up called targets. With so many on field targets melt damn quick and the same applies to us. Both fleets are losing people left and right. Rifters are hitting hard and being hit hard. Tanks be tanking as the Punishers manage to withstand some serious punishment. The Merlins are laughing as they unleash blasters and anything else is trying not to be noticed.
Eventually it looks like we’re pulling the fight into our favor. But then more Blues appear. They’ve reshipped.
Aaaah!
Getting there!
Our guys are reshipping but the Blues have had the logistical sense to put ships in the system rather than in their HQ a jump away, which allows easy reshipping. A few of ours have done the same but not as many as the Blues. This starts to show as our fleet begins to fray at the edges. We begin overheating on their heavier tanks and we appear to be winning once again. I go down in a blaze of fire as I’m primaried but we appear to hold the field with about 3 left!
Close one. Gfs are exchanged between both parties.
Both fleets reship and repair as well as grow in size. Half an hour later both fleets are in the 20s. The inevitable happens. We land on a gate with the Blue fleet lying in wait.
Fight 2: Red T1 Frigates vs Blue T1 Frigates and 2 cruisers
THIS. IS. ARNATELE!
They have two cruisers on field, a Maller and Vexor. We charge our nimble frigates into the enemy fleet and the world exploded in a maelstrom of carnage. Deft hands are needed to keep up with the ever-switching targets, ranges and e-war. I spy a web go up on me and proceed to burn away from the offender. One of the enemy Punishers is tanking us to absolute hell (turns out he’s slaved) and takes a while to go down. The enemy cruisers are slowly picking us apart with drones and we are running into serious issues. With a final cry of autocannons my Rifter explodes my pod out into the void and I warp back to Halle. We lose about 10 kils to 17 losses.
However we’re not done yet. Oh no. We reship and prepare to jump into the battleground. A scout reports a Blue Maller and a couple of frigates looting the field.
We jump in.
The Maller is a good 20km from the gate and is pointed within seconds. We web it and slowly whittle it down until it explodes. The frigates warp off. Foul play is called by the Maller pilot but we shrug it off. It was on field and therefore fair game…
And that was that.
Note: We took down a prophecy with a t1 frigate fleet last night. It was pretty cool and the pilot was a good sport about it.
A great start, this is not
I began FC’ing some Red fleets yesterday.
Here are the overall results:
Skirmish on a gate: lost 3 kills to 5 losses. Enemy FC: Kikkio
Pre-arranged 6v6 fight – draw – both remaining ships ran out of ammo. Enemy FC: Kikkio
Skirmish on gate: lost 1 kill to 7 losses. Enemy FC: Kikkio
Skirmish on gate: lost 2 kills to 7 losses. Enemy FC: Kikkio
Engagement on Blue HQ: lost 5 kills to 7 losses. Enemy FC: Roval (new to FC’ing) – Enemy reshipped resulting in being outnumbered.
All in all not a great start to the position. Kikkio’s fleet was superbly co-ordinated and employed some very clever tactics. Well done to them.
Maybe today will bring some better luck.
Red vs Blue: Fleet warfare
Fleet’s going up when I log in. Per usual, I jump in and undock in my latest Rifter. The FC, Dracoth Simertet instead of Melkor this time, is calling for a Rifter fleet, so it’s all good.
A Blue fleet is around and about so we’re going to try and wipe em out. They’re sporting primarily Punishers which tend to have a nasty tank so we’re bringing a DPS heavy fleet. That should do it.
Rifter fleet best fleet
We undock in our Rifters (and one Merlin) and proceed to head out. Jumping round for a bit gives us nothing but then we land on gate with the Blue fleet 15km away. Both fleets sit there for a few minutes. It’s an tense mexican standoff. Then we get bored and call the attack.
Round 1: Fight!
ROUND 1: Red Rifters vs Blue Punishers (with others)
Cheeeaaaaaaargeeeeeee! We point our Rifters into the thick of the enemy fleet and proceed to fire away. Our autocannons rattle the silence of space as the FC starts to call targets. The Blues respond in kind and soon the vicious battle is fully joined.
Boom baby!
The enemy DPS are called first and comply we do. The enemy Punishers lack the 3rd midslot for a web and our speed allows us to outmaneuver the much slower armor plated Blues. Blue frigate after blue frigate goes down to our guns.
The Punishers hold hard against our fleet but A sole frigate has little chance of tanking our combined DPS and they crumble. Before long only a scant few blues remain and they’re quickly picked off. The fight’s over. First round goes to Reds.
Good fights are exchanged in local and in the r-v-b channel and we head back to repair and reship. Stats put us at 3 lost to 9 of theirs. A solid victory.
10 minutes later and we suspect the Blues are out and about again. We undock and go a-looking. We’re still in our Rifters but this time we have the Merlin and a Punisher too. We’re mostly Rifters so we’re still happy.
After checking Arnatele and Bereye, only to find no Blues whatsoever, we jump into the Blue system of Jurlesel.
Oh
We have a problem here. There are two Assault Frigates on the grid. Along with an iteron. Ah.
It’s a tough choice for the FC. We have even numbers but those two AFs on field (and the ITERON!) are going to make life hard for us. This could go badly.
We orbit the FC at close range, and he charges us into the thicket of the enemy swarm.
ROUND 2: Red Rifters vs Blue Everything (with iteron)
Primary and secondary are the two Assault Frigates. If we die, we’re taking their ISK with
Come oooooon!
us. The Retribution is called first and we rip into it with our fleet.
The first AF melts pretty fast. Thank god for that. Our FC is called primary and he melts. Someone else takes up target calling.
Second AF is called as our primary and we proceed to whittle that down. We’re taking losses across the board here. My watchlist is rather harrowing for the squad under my command (yay leadership) and it doesn’t look good. Fortunately the second AF melts
Cue epic music on my jukebox
too.
Our target caller is down again, and a third person takes it up. Rifters are called as primary and secondary. We engage but there’s barely any of us on field. Their fleet had the advantage and it’s showing. Even the iteron has joined them on field, and it’s all gone downhill from that point!
Our 3rd target caller goes down and I take over. The primary goes down and I switch DPS
This is NOT looking good.
to the secondary. A quick check shows about 4 of us left on field. We’ve lost this one. I call for people to burn away and warp. Fortunately the lack of webs on their part is allowing us to do this. I’m primaried and I overheat my afterburner to break range. The remaining Reds manage to use this chance to GTFO. I pull range and proceed to warp faster than I’ve ever attempted to warp before. My little Rifter is saved, despite burning out the afterburner and guns.
So Round 2 went solidly to the Blues. Good fight!
We upshipped a couple of people into AFs for the next fight but at this point I had to log for the night.
I would link the Battle Reports but they’re a bit broken right now.
