So we, Protean Concept, have been living in our C5>C5 no effect hole for approximately two and a half months maybe. Now a key component of many larger sized groups in such a system is what is considered 'rage rolling,' or consistently closing your static so a new one may spawn in a more favorable location for PvP action. This is how many capital ganks occur post kill data changes to Wormholes, you roll connections to hope to roll into a system with active ratting capitals. You also use this method to look for active PvP entities to fight, generally larger in size or similar to your own size. Its also the method utilized to look for a very specific system within a wormhole class, and is the method utilized by Rooks and Kings in Clarion Call 3. Being such an important part of our space culture, there was a substantial uproar to changes to jump range being based on mass. The citations were endless why the changes were bad, and a few had valid points (the most valid in my mind was the essential removal of quick combat rolling), but that is a discussion for another time. Now that you have seen how useful of a tool Rage Rolling can be in our little corner of the universe, you are probably surprised that Protean Concept has yet to do it, or even attempt to do it.
So I wanted us to try it out, see how we did. We form up a maybe 15 man mixed T3/HAC gang with an Armageddon in tow, and my Archon acting as our Logistics, and we set to work. After the jump changes Capitals used for closing spawn outside of jump range (5000m) and so either 1) have to slowboat back 2) slowboat back with a MWD fitted (which is costly for your capacitor) or 3) Make a bounce off the hole and web the Capital there and back to the hole. On average, we have found the third method the quickest, and this is the method we used to rage roll. So we have the method down, now we need to discus tactics. We decide on scanning two systems deep in the chain before we roll again, mainly knowing that we can cover that ground in fairly short time and we want to keep the fleet active and mobile moving around from new static to new static to keep them awake. We did not really need to do that though in our first session.
We get our fleet formed up nice and pretty on our static, we roll, open the new connection, holy shit we rolled into Isogen 5. Op success? We vomit out scouts and get the system scanned and mapped, but we find they appear to be inactive at the time. But we spot one of them derping around in a Proteus in their backdoor null connection, so we send a small portion of our fleet out to sit on the null and wait for his inevitable return. Luckily for him though he was fitted with a cloak, and was able to elude us. Now that they know we are here though, it wasn't long before they started coming back and forming up.
What follows is an interesting nipping game. We jump into them, they drop an Archon, we are forced back to rethink. We consider jumping into them with our own Archon, but the sudden appearance of a Naglfar on DScan according to our scouts convinces us that that is not a good idea. Going back to the drawing board we know we don't have the people to make a direct engagement in their home system, and Isogen 5 surely realizes this as well for the reverse: if they jump into us they are screwed. So we try something else that tries to exploit human greed. We jump into them again with our fleet, shoot them, get shot, lose a few ships, pull back into our home. The idea was that seeing they beat us back, and we were now polarized, they would try to rush to jump and follow to get more kills, knowing we were polarized. They were better than that though, and did not pursue us. So now we have a classic standoff of similar sized fleets waiting to press their advantage as soon as the other jumps into them. Now lets be clear that both sides wanted a fight, but no one ever wants to just welp their ships for the hell of it. You at least want a contest of some sort, not just a massive slaughter.
As a result both sides decide to stand down and instead regroup together and do a null sec roam. An interesting way to end the night. So I guess you could say our first rage roll op was a success, but then again we only rolled once.
Thanks for the showing and good sportsmanship Isogen 5.
Blöd
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