Monthly Archives: January 2012
Ganked 14 – AFs and EAFs vs Rorquals and TEST
It’s Assault Frigate night, with some EAFs thrown in for good measure. Heading out earlier than usual, therefore confusing a lot of people, we left Rens in high spirits and with a good turnout.
Vagawolf is a go
We set out, only to find our first nullsec system in the process of a sov takeover. A CVA fleet is about, as well as a DarksideDOT fleet. We warp around a few times, the Darkside fleet following us a couple of times, till we warp to a gate and land in a bubble with the Darkside fleet at optimals.
We lose about a third of the fleet to only a Sabre kill, the hostile reps too much. We retreat, reship and strike out somewhere else in nullsec.
We progress along, achieving a few kills but nothing major, till one of our scouts ahead of us reports a cyno in space, and warps to it.
It’s a Rorqual. At a Customs office.
This scout doesn’t have a point (!) so we leeroy the whole fleet in in a desperate attempt to grab it. Fortunately…
Your ship name needs to be changed bro :/
The Rorqual melts within a minute to our guns, the pod escaping. GOOD FIGHT BRO.
Ganked is now a success. Anything else is just icing on the cake.
A daredevil tries to escape us but is snagged after a jump, and we head to a nearby lowsec entrance for a quick break, with most the fleet holding in an already-bubbled system next door. A Tornado and Vagabond both run into the second bubble set after evading our initial camo and both die as a result.
Next up, we find us a TEST system and say hi to the few locals there, killing a Drake on the gate too.
A cyno is reported ahead, with a Rorqual and Falcon on scan. Sadly, the Rorqual is in a POS 190km away, but we warp the fleet onto the Falcon, despite POS guns, and kill it and run away.
A small gang is ahead, and our scouts hero tackle as our fleet jumps in, and we catch an Astarte, Tornado and Ishkur.
Finally, we hit a TEST owned system and there’s quite a lot of them in local. The lowsec gate here is bubbled to hell, and there’s quite a few TEST around it. We land and engage everything.
BUBBLES EVERYWHERE
TEST are engaging and/or landing in the bubbles, so we obtain kill after kill, with our faster frigs (<3 my Keres) burning and snagging ships that land in the far sides of the bubbles.
Eventually, no more TEST decide to warp in, and so the smacking in local begins.
We get bored before long, and it’s been a long night, so Mangala warps us to the TEST station where TEST have brought out 2 carriers and a host of other ships. WELP.
We engage, but I explode to an Oracle (wut) within minutes, only to hear that a lot more TEST have warped in/undocked. It’s a hopeless fight, but they gave us a good brawl!
It isn’t long before we’re all in the bubble camp slowboating our pods. It was a slaughter.
OH GOD RUN
I slowboat 45km, only to be popped 5km from the gate. Nooooo 
Good fight TEST, we know where to go if we want a decent brawl after a Ganked roam.
Video of the night:
Ship of choice – the Myrmidon Battlecruiser
There’s a lot of ships in New Eden. All of them vary wildly in terms of speed, range, firepower and supporting abilities. This is further magnified by the sheer magnitude of possible fits, tailoring to almost every scenario.
However, if I had one go-to ship to fly, it would be the Myrmidon.
Isn't it a lovely hull?
Sporting a large drone bay of 150m3 and a versatile slot layout of 6/5/6, the Myrm is one of the most unpredictable Battlecruisers I’ve come across. If you’re fighting a Drake, you know it’s going to have a buffer tank with missiles. The Hurricane is slightly more unpredictable, often sporting shield fits or even artillery instead of the usual Autocannons. The Harbinger is laser fit, but it too can field a shield gank fit. Despite minor variations though, these 3 ships are usually seen with the same fit types.
The Myrm? Not so much. At least from what I’ve seen.
The ships’ bonus focuses on Drones and Armour repair effectiveness, compared to the other Battlecruisers which boast bonuses to guns or missiles. This gives the Myrm it’s greatest tool – it can fit whatever the hell it wants in the highs. Drones, whilst not amazing for DPS, do give good support and frigate protection and normally provide most of the Myrm’s firepower. This means the Myrm can get away with, say, filling the highs with a full rack of Energy Neuts. With 5 med slots for tackle, propulsion and even dual cap boosters, this is often seen.
On the other hand, the Myrmidon pilot may choose to mount Medium Autocannons, the lower fitting requirements allowing him to field a strong armour buffer or even an active armour tank, particularly if the pilot has Battlecruiser V and therefore a hefty 37.5% boost to armour repair amount. Another choice are Medium blasters, though the higher fitting requirements can cause the pilot to sacrifice elsewhere. The high amount of medslots, however, means the Myrm can also fit dual webs, allowing it to keep its target within blaster range whilst the Drones also attack with ease. Small guns are a popular choice too, especially when combined with the aforementioned dual webs. This allows the Myrm to shred frigates with relative ease whilst maintaining a strong tank.
In terms of Active tank, the Myrm can be seen with 1, 2 or 3 repair modules. The Triple Rep Myrm is vulnerable to neuting, but will also be fielding two cap boosters in return. The tank potential on such a fit is quite high and is a personal favourite. Dual reps are often combined with a 1600mm plate for extra buffer, and can also be a tough nut to crack.
Buffer tank Myrms can choose to field either a strong Armour tank or even a Shield tank, using shield relays to give it a very high shield recharge rate. Both are equally viable, though the shield tank offers no tackle or propulsion mods and can usually be ignored in a larger fight (assuming you know the Myrm is tanked as such!)
A result of this versatility means that people often struggle to figure out how to counter the Myrm. It could be a low-dps shield fit boat or a highly dangerous neuting battlecruiser. It could be a brick buffer tank or a high-repping triple repair fit. It could spout ECM drones everywhere or a mix of Ogres and Hammerheads. It could be fit to kill cruisers or fit to shred frigates.
And that’s why I choose the Myrm over other Battlecruisers. Plus, it’s fricking vertical.
Hunting with Blues
I have returned from High Security space! Our static from last night contains some Blues (who helped my corpmates slay a Loki it seems), and I borrowed their C1 static to get most of that POS Loot out. It’s out and selling, so now I can bug Wrathhammer to roll our C4 static. I want something to do.
Wrath complies, shoving 2 Orcas at the wormhole alongside my Apocalypse, and the hole collapses. Easy enough.
The new C4 is empty, and boasts a C4 static. Jumping into that reveals a Pulsar wormhole, with two towers. Both are Blue to us. Hrm.
This wormhole has a further C4 static, so I scan that and jump in, revealing a Tengu on scan with wrecks. AWW YEAH. Or not, it appears, as I’m quickly convo’d by a member of the alliance whose WH I just departed. It’s their Tengu. They havn’t opened the next C4 static yet, so there’s nothing for me to do here. I return home, let Wrath know what’s up and log for dinner.
Returning has Wrath yelling at me in chat. Something is afoot! A new wormhole has appeared into our static – it’s a C2 belonging to an alliance rather hostile to us – Transmission Lost. It’s game time – Wrath has scouted them moving haulers and we’ve notified our nearby Blue allies (all 2 of them, right now) and we mobilize a HIC with bombers into the C2 and plonk them all on the C2′s highsec static. 2 pilots from Chained Reactions heard the batphone too, and are en route with 2 bombers via the highsec to help. That makes 2 pilots from us (4 with alts), 2 from BRABODEN (3 with alts) and 2 from Chained Reactions. My my.
The bombers reach us, and an Enyo is on scan. Whilst the C4/High wormholes are within d-scan, the Transmission Lost POS is not. I warp my own Manticore to the planet cluster, revealing the Enyo swapping to a Dominix. That’s it. Nothing else on d-scan in the system. The Domi warps towards the sun cluster, and disappears from all of our scans.
That is, until 2 Dominixes, a Geddon, Tempest and Loki all land on our camp.
Our Onyx jumps out to high with everything else cloaking instantly. Hrm. Where the heck did that come from?
I jump to the C4 to see if any TL pilots are here, when the Chained Reactions pilots call for a warp to it – they don’t want to be stuck in the C2! I can hardly blame them – the Transmission Lost lot bug me. I jump back, polarising myself, and give both pilots a warp-in.
No sooner are the two pilots out, when some rather less friendly ships arrive in front of me.
Sorry chaps, no easy kills here right now
Our trapped-in-high Onyx pilot is reshipping to a Buzzard to come back, but he has the bookmarks, so I wait a moment to de-polarise and slowboat to the Wormhole – jumping in once I reach it.
No flare behind me means the Broadsword hasn’t followed. Probably doesn’t want to jump into a system where at least 2 bombers have fled. Neither do all the Battleships, it seems.
We get everyone back, our Buzzard sneaking past the now unguarded highsec hole. A Myrm jumps into us, and orbits the wormhole with Drones deployed, shortly followed by a Buzzard. I chase it to a planet, but land too far off to lock before he can cloak and run away again.
We weigh our options. TL have a BS heavy fleet, and that Myrm is screaming bait. The 2 Chained Reactions pilots only have their bombers, but the rest of us are not so easily constrained. The Myrm is getting desperate to attract kills now, moving further and further off the wormhole. Our scout puts a Broadsword, Harbinger and Brutix on the far side of the wormhole now. No battleships, TL? Of course, you might lose them on a C4 WH after all.
Right, we have a plan. I’ll grab a Falcon, Wrath will grab an Arazu with faction scram. One of the BRABODEN pilots will also grab a Tengu, whilst the rest field bombers.
We wait till the Myrm is about 30km off the wormhole on another pass and engage. With me still in warp.
FALCON Y U WARP SLOW
WH flares as the Broadsword, Brutix and Harb jump in, the Broadsword bubbling up.
30km away. Missing all of us and bubbling his own guys.
Awesome.
The Myrm explodes before I can even lock it, and his pod, now ensnared in a bubble, soon follows. I jam out the Harb and Brutix, allowing everyone else to cloak, and cloak myself.
We’re tempted to engage, but they could jump a whole fleet in! Well, you’d think they’d have done it by now?
The Brutix and Harb seem to read our minds and burn 30km off the wormhole to the Myrm wreck. DING DING ROUND 2 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
Our Tengu warps in at 50km from the wreck and opens fire early. This would usually mean trouble, but the 2 Transmission Lost BCs burn for the Tengu. The Brutix turns round after a few KM but the Harb keeps going.
We decloak and attack the Harb while I’m searching for my screenshot key
I too bubble everything except the enemy
The Brutix and Broadsword jump out as the Harb explodes, but the pod eludes us. Oh well.
We sit back and wait for the counter attack. And wait. And then wait more. Then we get bored, so we bid farewell to our allies and return home for now. A fun tussel, and nice to chat to some friendly allies!
- – - – - – -
Logging on after some Battlefield has Mick online. We roll the C4 again, revealing another empty C4 static. This is becoming a common theme. The C4 has a C5 static though, and this particular C5 has a Narwhal POS.
The defences are minimal and a piloted Anathema and Cheetah sit inside the shields, alongside an empty Hurricane. There’s core probes up and, surely enough, the Anathema warps off. Mick reports it landing on our C4 inbound, and it jumps in.
Not a minute later, Mick reports it returning and holding cloak. And holding cloak some more. And a bit more. And decloaked on the wormhole. Stationary. Polarised. Deploying probes.
The pod escapes, landing at the tower. In the meantime, Mick has scanned the static C6, scouting it as empty. An Archon has logged on at the POS, but he has a very similar name to the pilot we just shot. The Archon ejects an Anathema and logs off again.
Huh.
The capsule boards the new covert-ops ship, and burns out of their POS shields to drop more probes. Mick has anchored a bubble in the C4 now, and is reshipping to a Sabre Interdictor to sit with said bubble.
However, I point out to Mick that the Anathema wouldn’t be scanning for the C4 – he’s kind of been there. He’ll be looking for a less hostile route, namely the C6. Mick responds by jumping his Sabre into the C6 instead.
Before long, the Anathema warps towards the C6. Wrath has logged on too, and is bringing a Manticore to help snag this scout.
The Anathema jumps to Mick, holds cloak, and jumps back. Mick follows as myself and Wrath decloak. Mick deploys a bubble, but the Anathema cloaks! But not for long, as Mick has charged his Sabre at the spot, decloaking the hapless Anathema. Pop goes the second one.
The pod is now ensared in the bubble!
Getthepodgetthepod
That pops nicely too, revealing Low Grade Halos. Oooooh. Contrary to EVE-Kills prices, those rack up to 410 mill for the Halo set and almost 80 for the Mindlink. Couple that with 2 Anathema losses, both fit with Sister’s launchers, and that poor Narwhal. pilot is 720mill out of pocket.
The Cheetah logs off, so we head home. Time to call it a night.
Wallet Wednesday
It’s Wednesday. I want to post something. I’m also selling all that POS loot from yesterday, so I’m staring at my wallet a lot. A post on my ISK it is. Expect boringness.
When I left RvB, I had a little over 800 Million ISK. I’d achieved this through some Incursioning and Mission Running on the side during my time there. I was then gifted with an extra 1 Billion ISK from Kurzick, presumably for my time in RvB. I’m still grateful to this day.
Following this, I hit incursions till I hit 2 Bill ISK. I then bought a lot of stuff – mostly ships for WH space as I joined Wormhole Engineers. This dropped me to 1.6 Bill.
Over the next month I bought my first Tech 3 ship, dropping me to 1.1 Billion. Wormhole ISK propped me back up to 1.4 by November.
More Wormhole ISK in early November put me up to 1.7 again. Then the CCP Dev fleet hit, and I scored 3 PLEX and other loot. This put me up to 3.2 Billion. Easily my record in EVE to date.
Iskies nom nom
So I did what any normal man would. I bought things. Namely, the HMS Cloakstorm – a second Tengu fitted for WH scouting. Down to 2.6 Bill now. Hrm.
But then luck strikes, as we have a lucky day, finding an offline POS in Nullsec and getting a free Orca in a C4. Between this and some more WH Anoms, I’m up to 3.1 Billion.
Which is where I find myself today, setting up sell orders and contracts for yesterday’s haul. At current prices, we’re looking at about 2.5bill between myself and Konici, which should leave me at over 4 Billion.
Not bad for a 25 Million SP PvP pilot, I think.
Fuel block change results in a lot of loot
Warning – screenshot heavy post
It’s patch day! Along with many other changes, today brings the POS Fuel switchover. As such, we have a plan. It’s an amazing plan. It’s called “Find the POS that didn’t add the new fuel and are now offline”
We were actually kidding when we created the amazing plan, but hey who knows, right?
I’m on right as the server goes up from the patch downtime, finding myself alone. After messing with the new Neocom for some minutes, I decide to scan down our C4 static. It’s the only sig in system, so I’m jumping in within minutes.
D-scan shows a lone tower, with a Chimera, Cheetah and Dominix accompanying it. I modify my d-scan to show tower modules and Force Fields, and hit scan again. There’s no Force Field. This means the tower is probably offline.
Oh my.
Quick, TG, locate the tower! D-scan honing puts it at a moon, and it isn’t long before I’m in warp.
Oh my.
There's a distinct lack of a forcefield
OH GOD WHAT DO I DO IN THIS SITUATION. Brag about it on twitter of course, but that’s another story. I can’t fly a Chimera, but I can fly the Dominix. I yoink that first and move it home.
I do not appear to be able to use T2 large projectiles
I return in my Scangu, desperately messaging the two alliance mates who are also on twitter. I need some help with all this!
As I re-enter the C4, there’s a pod on scan! CURSES. FOILED. I warp to the tower at 10km, remaining cloaked, and see the pod board the Cheetah. WELP. I decloak and engage, shredding both ship and pod.
OH GOD HE'S LOCKING ME
"OH GOD WHY IS THERE A TENGU IN OUR POS"
Konici joins me on Vent having heard my plea for help and logs in his characters as I explain the current situation. They sure as hell know I’m here now, so we kinda have to move.
I start shooting the Corporate Hanger as Kon warps an Oracle and Manticore in. It melts under the combined firepower of all 3 ships, revealing a lot of cans…
This is can 1 of the 6 cans that dropped...
Whilst I’m browsing the new cans, Kon has just finished blowing up the Ship Maintenance array, revealing MOAR SHIPS
MOAR
Neither of us can fly an Orca, dilemma! Kon has a bright idea though – he’s moving 2 alts with industrial ships to loot the cans. Excellent.
Next up is the X-Large Assembly. It too melts within seconds, dropping 3 cans – all of which contain captial construction parts. whoops.
Subsystem Assembly Array is next, dropping some subsystem BPCs in one can and some sleeper loot in anothe- OH MY GOD.
AHAHAHA ISKIES
It’s like I’m 5 on Christmas morning all over again. This is amazing.
A pilot from the Tower’s corp has just convo’d me. It’s not the pilot I killed, either.
WELP THE JIG IS UP BEST LOG OUT
Er, ok. No. *Close window*
Another POS mod drops some datacores. Or maybe it was the subsystem array. I DON’T KNOW KONICI IS BLOWING THEM UP TOO FAST.
I have no idea what these do
Re-examining some earlier cans reveals some faction mods kicking about.
Another can from the hanger
Mick has logged on, but he’s in highsec. Bugger. He can’t help us out with the Orca yet.
But OH GOD. There’s a new ship with us. A Tengu has logged on at the tower!
Myself and Kon engage, both of our haulers warping home.
Curse Pulsar wormholes!
Neither of us are fit to slay a Tengu, but he has neither of us pointed. We both warp home.
Right. Reship time.
He’s logged on in the Tengu, and it wasn’t covert fit and didn’t point any of us. PvE fit – probably active tanked. I have the perfect ship for this.
I swap for a Curse whilst Kon swaps for a Geddon and Buffer Tengu. We jump back into the C4, warp to the tower and he’s still there.
Comeatmebro
The Tengu explodes, dropping a very shiny faction booster for us. YAY. We get the pod too, because why not.
Ok, we have DPS ships here now. We can’t exactly steal the Chimera. None of us can fly one and it won’t fit through the Wormhole home anyway. Time to shoot it!
The Chimera explodes, not leaving us a lot to loot. Oh well.
Kon has brought a hauler back again, and our glorious CEO Riyu has logged on for a few minutes. He comes in, jumps in the Orca, scoops all the ships bar the Iterons, the Drake and the Ferox and takes it home. I swap to a pod and grab the Drake (which is unfitted) and the Ferox, which is fitted for Gas. We’re done. Time to go home. We leave one of the Iterons, but that’s it.
We gather all the module loot together. Here’s the lot:
The Loot container is actually ours, so it’s empty.
On top of this, we also nabbed -
- Orca
- Griffon
- Buzzard x2
- Daredevil
- Drake
- Ferox
- Iteron Mk 5
Total estimated haul: Just over 1bill for Nano-ribbons alone. 2 bill+ easy for the lot.
Not bad at all.
