AAR: Knowledge Is Power

"Now, it may seem I am a hypocrite, as earlier I stated that I needed a contest of forces for something to be fun, and blobbing something with Bombers does not seem like much of a contest. I respond with this: a contest of forces is not always directly between two groups of spaceships. It can be a contest between the hunter and intel channels, a contest to not be caught by gate camps, a contest to patiently out last your opponent. Things do not simply boil down to which spaceship explodes first, but how you get and arrive at that point. It is why I was attracted to wormholes in the first place, not necessarily the PvP, but the hunt itself." (Exploitation and Counters - Null Sec Edition)

That was from a post on November 14th, 2014, and it still holds true today. Indeed, any conflict of forces is much more than just punches back and forth, or bullets flying, or any violent action. It always, at the end of the day, comes down to knowledge.

If you have ever played the excellent Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Within, you have a good idea what I am talking about, even if you haven't seen Eve necessarily from that perspective yet. The mod cranks the difficulty up to harsh amounts and gives you an expansive inventory of tools to help combat these new threats. Even Normal difficulty has a harsh learning curve to it (I failed my first two attempts).

But tools are nothing without the knowledge of how, where, and how much to use them. This is why intel is important. It lets you bring the right tools, warn you of future threats, execute the perfect door breach, a superb overwatch trap, or just position optimally.

While not all of these situations are applicable to Eve, the base concept is. The fact is, the more you know, the more effective you are. Just remember the 6 P's.

Proper
Preparation
Prevents
Piss
Poor
Performance

That knowledge becomes even more important when highly vulnerable and expensive assets are at risk. For Eve, this largely means Capital Ships, which can be very easy targets when caught alone without a supporting fleet. And, spoiler alert, I work alone at the moment, and rarely ask for backup from friends because they tend to not be close by.

So when I found a Raitaru anchoring in a close by C6 Wormhole with no noticeable backup or defending fleet, I figured I'd do something a little risky. I was going to solo-bash it down before it completed with one of my Dreadnoughts. Even with a cheap T1 fit I easily could exceed the 5000 DPS damage cap, which meant the bash would take about 16 minutes. 20 minutes in total because the Siege timer works on 5 minute intervals. Not too bad.

So, I go home, refit, and start jumping the Dread a few jumps over to get it ready to enter system. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying too much attention to my home system at the time as I was refitting, so I jumped my first gate with them in local. I noticed them while I was already in warp, and a quick DScan told me it was a Stratios with Core Probes out. I wasn't too concerned, I see that a lot in low sec, its a really good exploration ship. So I continue on and make my jumps to the appropriate system while I scout the wormhole in more detail with my alt before committing.

Imagine my surprise when I saw Darkani, the Stratios pilot, be in my local again. Not just passing through either for exploration, but hanging around.

This sent up a few red flags for me immediately. The first was easy: there was only one Signature to scan in system, which was the wormhole I was about to siege, which was practically worthless to her in that ship. It should have taken at most a minute to figure out what it was and moved on. The second was more about the region cosmology. See, in order to get to my home system of Partod (which is where she initially saw me), you had to pass through the system of Sharza, which is where my Dread and the wormhole was. Meaning that if she was exploring normally, she should have already scanned this system and should have just passed on through without a second glance.

She didn't though, she was sticking around, which meant she was no longer interested in exploration. She had another goal in mind now.

Being my usual paranoid self I immediately looked up her killboard history. Active with a wide range of different pilots. NPSI fleets tend to look like this, and it was this kill that gave it away for sure. I also happened to be an NPSI participant as well, or at least I was on occasion over two years ago. Now I just hang out in the Spectre Fleet and Bombers Bar channels. If she was connected to them and she was hanging around to see if she could get back up, then she would have to make contact with an FC before doing anything. Which she did...

darkani > any fc online ?
Xackattack Avianson > what's up
Xackattack Avianson > there's 10 online
darkani > plz accept private

I had all I needed to know I was in danger before, but that was the final bit that nailed it. And if that wasn't enough they sent out a rage form up for me. HVT stands for High Value Target if you don't know.

I like NPSI groups. I think they do a great service to the game. But I'm not going to roll over and give them a 3+ Billion ISK kill, but nor do I want them to waste their time. So I decided to have a little fun to let them know that I knew. 

Blodhgarm Dethahal > on a scale of 1 to Space Dust, how rusted does my Naglfar look darkani ?

That didn't get much of a reaction though judging by the talk in Spectre Fleet chat, so I had to go a bit more direct.

Xackattack Avianson > we're literally doing this 1 jump from amarr so get in here
Xackattack Avianson > it's going to be a 3b+ kill likely
Blodhgarm Dethahal > it won't
Blodhgarm Dethahal > sup people
Xackattack Avianson > hehe
Blodhgarm Dethahal > if you are interested there is a C6 in that system tho with an anchoring Ratairu
Xackattack Avianson > nevermind lol
Blodhgarm Dethahal > which I was going to bash until I noticed miss Darkani
Xackattack Avianson > do you think there will be defenders
Blodhgarm Dethahal > honestly probably not, I was going to solo bash it after all :P
Xackattack Avianson > if there's defenders we could help

It is a rather tempting offer, but I just stay silent and make preparations to move my Dread back home. Too much intel has already leaked out to public channels at this point, and I would rather not get involved in this situation anymore. So after a little more patience to let the locals clear, I pop a cyno, and jump home safely.

And that was that. A fight without a single shot fired, and a Dreadnought saved.

If I am allowed to get on my soapbox for a moment (which I am, its my blog so fuck off)...

In Eve there is this near obsession with killmails and 'fights' and particularly the fabled 'good' fight. That isn't wrong, its just another way to view and play the game. However, I find that vision extremely limiting. I can't tell you how many 'fights' I've turned down over the years simply because my scouts have reported a danger ahead of time, or because I knew that our fleet composition couldn't beat theirs, among many other reasons. A battle always begins with a fight for knowledge, whether it is to gain it yourself or prevent the enemy from acquiring it, it doesn't matter.

In this last instance, I won that fight, and it quite possibly saved my Dread. I think the Eve community would greatly benefit by expanding their definition of the word 'fight' and outright removing the term 'good' fight.

A recent forum post by CCP called 'The 8 Golden Rules of Eve Online' briefly talks about this as well. With quotes like "You consent to PvP when you click 'undock'." and "There is no such thing as 'a fair fight' or 'an unfair fight'. There's only a fight. Circumstances are irrelevant." With quotes like these you can get a reasonable idea of what Eve is all about.

It is all about PvP.

More so than even the developers themselves I think realize. PvP doesn't begin with clicking the undock button. Some have joked that 'Market PvP' is a thing (which it is to be honest). But it goes farther than that. No matter what you do, or where you are, you are part of this community, and it is by sheer presence that you are a PvPer. Even those ultra carebear Incursion runners PvP. They have to learn to defend their ultra-pimped out ships from being ganked. There is a conflict of forces there. The market trader has to learn to build spreadsheets, analyse data, look for trends, to stay competitive, or else they risk losing money, rather than making it. A scout has to battle intel channels, gate camps, and communicate effectively back to their FC. A Jump Freighter pilot has to keep an emergency cyno on standby for escaping dangers.

You are not a PvPer by clicking an arbitrary button. You are a PvPer because you are you. You, as a person, are a force. A power that has the ability to contest and be contested in turn. If I wanted to get really philosophical I could argue that you PvP in real life every second because you compete with others for a job, a degree, and on and on.

But I won't, this is about internet spaceships philosophy, not real life philosophy.

I have never seen a better description of the fabled 'good' fight.

So when you miss a kill, or die, or lose ISK to a misplaced market order, or not building a spreadsheet correctly, or failing to conceal your scout, or do anything that results in a failure... do not complain.

Nod your head, accept it, and ask... What could I have done better? It is the mindset and the knowledge that you take away from it all that can turn any fight, even a loss, into an actually good fight, and not just a 'good' fight.

But at the end of the day these are just my thoughts and viewpoints. You be you. You play your Eve. This is my Eve, and I love my Eve.

I suppose I should end this post off with a killmail, since this fight had none. Gota keep with some traditions I guess.

So here, have this guy who thought it was smart to mine ice in a low sec with active people... in an Orca.

AAR: Eve Capitalism At Its Finest

We all have things that we need to do in our lives. Buy food, go to work/school, piss and shit, clean, buy gas.

Eve isn't all that much different sometimes. When there are real assets that you have worked to earn on the line and at risk, it pays to do some very basic things to keep them safe. Sometimes people just don't know better. Other times its just straight up incompetence.

I live in Genesis. I've lived out here for perhaps 3-4 weeks now, mostly surviving off of scanning and exploration. Other, bigger entities than me make a living off of other things, like industry. Moon Mining and Moon Reactions are two of the big ones out here, both of which require POSes.

I hate POSes. I've had to set them up, manage them, tear them down. Then reset them up, manage them, and tear them down... again. Working with the damn things is tedious, labor intensive work. That being said, you only have to do three things to protect your POS, or more importantly the assets inside. One: fuel with Strontium. Two: anchor and online defensive turrets. Three: keep supplied with Fuel Blocks.

The first and second is do and forget. The third is a constant upkeep. And for the life of me, I can't understand why someone would forget to keep their Control Towers fueled when these things cost hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of ISK.

But in the relatively short time I've been out here, I've found two offline POSes. The first was a dud, the second netted me about 400 million ISK.

I really hated hauling this shit.

And that isn't all. Not only have a found offline POSes, but I have found online POSes with defensive modules that are not even anchored. For the uninitiated, if a POS module is unanchored, it is in an open free-for-all, and anyone can scoop it into their cargo and run. So far... I've found four POSes with this affliction. One of which had an entire Control Tower just sitting unanchored unattended at a moon.

Ok, so fuel can sometimes slip your mind. Maybe you are busy in real life and can't log in for 5 minutes and throw more fuel in the bay. Maybe your account lapsed. Maybe you got podded and can't make it back in time with more fuel. But forgetting to straight up anchor your modules? That is literately step one in setting up the POS.

Shit... I'm sitting outside a POS right now that has its defenses incapacitated and unable to function. As if the owners could care less about even the vague appearance of safety.

And then there is the icing on the cake: Mobile Siphon Units. See, I was bored one day and decided to dump 100 million on buying some Siphons to steal some moon materials from the local POSes. I found some that didn't have defenses online, and slapped them down, expecting them to live for at most two days.

It's two weeks later and they are still alive. Not only are they still alive, I have actually witnessed the owner of the POSes come online, warp to each of them in turn to collect the materials he had harvested, and go offline again. I don't know if he is blind, doesn't care, or is afraid of me retaliating against him if he tries to destroy my Siphons.

I just don't get it. They are simple, very simple steps you can do to secure your assets and hard earned ISK. And yet, here I am, profiting off of the backs of the stupid or lazy.

This entire region is crazy.

AAR: Executing Time... and People

I'm not dead! Well, I died a few times to get here but that's besides the point.

To be honest, my motivation for Eve severely dropped, and had been dwindling ever since the collapse of Protean Concept. When Isogen 5 collapsed I joined Semper Ubi Sub Uni and more or less just threw in the towel and quit for a while, occasionally subbing every now and then to do stupid things, like ganking with a Marauder.

Four months ago I founded my own corporation and just started doing my own thing, but I still didn't have the motivation to start back up again. So my accounts lapsed once again. But, here I am, in my second consecutive month subbed, for the first time in what feels like a year. So what happened?

In short, Ascension happened. The introduction of the Alpha clone let people log in and do basic things to help new people get used to the game. An infinite trial of sorts. Well, the Alpha status isn't just for new comers, but for old vets like myself as well. Because, to me, the most powerful, and wonderful thing about Eve, is its social aspect. And talking is free. Being able to talk with old friends without feeling obligated to pay was a nice feeling, though I suppose that's a moot point since I re-subbed anyway. That was mostly thanks to a real life friend of mine wanting to get into the game since he heard it was now 'free to play.' His newbro enthusiasm was quite warming to my cold bittervet heart.

People encourage people, and it is through our interactions that we can achieve something that is otherwise impossible.

Even if it is completely by accident.

When I went inactive, not all my friends did the same, and they have all gone their separate ways. We sometimes still call on each other for help. I, for instance, have started living in low sec, and taking the opportunities as they come to me, mainly through exploration and DED Complexes.

I had about 1.2 billion in loot I needed to sell, so like any old disgruntled W-Space bittervet, I wasn't going to take the commoner's route of stargates, I scanned for wormholes to Jita. In the middle of scanning I encountered a fleet sitting on a wormhole.

The fleet was of the corporation Tempest Legion.

On a whim I took a screenshot and posted in chat with my friends. Just on the off chance that one of them was nearby. Little did I know, a few of them were really close by.

Blodhgarm Dethahal > http://puu.sh/tcJsm/aaedbf69a9.jpg
Atomoxetine > where?
Atomoxetine > which wh?
Blodhgarm Dethahal > some random C2
Atomoxetine > jtag?
Blodhgarm Dethahal > J223853
Atomoxetine > 431?
{...}
Rottingham Joringer > Blodhgarm Dethahal wtf are you doing in our chain?
Blodhgarm Dethahal > they are gone off DScan now
Blodhgarm Dethahal > I was just diving... lol
{...}
Atomoxetine > from anara? middle of nowhere...
Blodhgarm Dethahal > I live there
350125GO > lol
350125GO > figures
Atomoxetine > small universe.
{...}
350125GO > you always wind up randomly in the middle of shit
Atomoxetine > happen to see where they went?
Blodhgarm Dethahal > BWB-K162-C4 in 853
Blodhgarm Dethahal > most likely, I was in the middle of scanning when they popped up
Rottingham Joringer > We were about to take their bait when you linked that picture

Now, regardless of where I go, I always carry a Mobile Small Warp Disruptor II with me in my cargo when I scan. It has been a habit of mine for many years. I love these things. No one expects a scan ship to bubble, and it doesn't have the kind of footprint on DScan that an Interdictor or Heavy Interdictor has. It came in handy to have for this fight.

I knew where my allies were, and I knew where the enemies were coming from. I had confidence in my friends that they could win on their own, so my job was to prevent them from escaping, and get them as many kills as possible. So I anchored my bubble on the enemy's wormhole, 70km off in the direction of my ally's wormhole. Knowing the fight was taking place inside my ally's system, if the enemy was going to retreat, they had to jump out, and warp back to their wormhole. If that happened, my bubble would intercept them and pull them out of warp 70km early, completely out of position and vulnerable. An easy clean up job to the pursuing ally fleet.

It didn't work out exactly that way, but it did play another purpose: scaring the enemy. This bubble anchors in exactly 1 minute and can seem to come out of no where. When the fight got under way, the enemy tried to bring in reinforcements, but the fear of the bubble (which got spotted by 2 reinforcing Guardians) prompted them to bounce off a nearby planet first and then warp to their destination, effectively delaying them and splitting the enemy fleet in half. For the two Bhaalgorns that I saw jump in, this was a painfully slow process of a measly 2 AU/sec warp speed, twice. In that time frame, my allies were able to kill most of the enemy and force them out of their system.

It was at this moment my bubble served its original purpose: pulling ships out of warp. Unfortunately, due to previous scouting, a vast majority of their pilots were able to avoid it. But a single Guardian missed the memo, which I ate gleefully.

And with that I tipped my hat, and left the bubble behind to be killed by my allies, who warped into it on accident.

Rottingham Joringer > rip drag bubble
Blodhgarm Dethahal > worth it, got me a Guardian kill
Atomoxetine > u indirectly and directly fucked their entire fleet
Blodhgarm Dethahal > hmm... yeah I guess so.. lol
Blodhgarm Dethahal > that timing tho
Atomoxetine > could not have planned it better
Rottingham Joringer > we're like dudes confessors
Rottingham Joringer > Blods like Hey guys look at this damn fleet
Blodhgarm Dethahal > I just thought it would be interesting to post, on the off chance you guys were close
Rottingham Joringer > as all 3 of us put 2 and 2 together that we're looking at teh same group
Blodhgarm Dethahal > I didn't realize you were that close... lol
Atomoxetine > i saw the tags and thought he was trolling somehow
Rottingham Joringer > same

I'm not going to take credit for the out come of the fight, as I wasn't there at it. At best I was a 3rd party ganker. And none of this would have worked out the way it did if SOUND had not been able to win that initial engagement. But, at the end of the day, what does it matter? It's just a moment between friends that left me grinning ear to ear.

And to top it off, I even found a high sec in that chain that accomplished my original goal of hauling loot.

It just shows that, no matter how prepared you think you are, you never know what's out there.

Battle Report C4 Side
Battle Report C2 Side

Total ISK Killed: 3.9 Billion
Total ISK Lost: 81.9 Million

Reformation

With summer coming up, it was decided by Absolutely Certain leadership to merge our corporation into Isogen-5, a C5>C5 group. Reason being is that activity drops a lot during summer, and that can mean death to a small group, as inactivity breeds inactivity. It was already happening to me, my finals came up, and I was not feeling an extraordinary motivation to log in every day to help PvP and find/provide content.

Since merging into Isogen-5 I have...

• Gotten them hooked to Blops
• Welped to Lazerhawks
• Dunked Low-Class
• Brawled BRAVE

Content is out there and loose, you just have to find it and have the people to exploit it. This is what I wanted Protean Concept to be when I was a Director in it, and it feels good to be part of an organized, good, fun group of guys to play with.

As for this blog, detailed battle reports will be rarer now. Unless a fight it is a very interesting / fun / funny / thought provoking it will not be posted. AARs about personal / corporate milestones will still be posted too.

Instead this will be mostly me being reflective on doctrines, fights, fits, and politics in wormhole space. I already did this to a degree, reflecting on a fight and how I could have done better, but now I will be focusing specifically on that aspect rather than just recollecting events happening in game.

This will mean posts in general will be less common, but hopefully the ones that are posted will be richer in content.

AAR: Hesitation vs Reward

A Battleship is slow, cumbersome, and tends to lack utility in a fight. It is also an excellent tool to project large amounts of damage over distance and soaking up large amounts of damage in return. Nothing exemplify these traits more than a Marauder, which while in Bastion gains range bonuses and tank bonuses, with the already natural 1000+ DPS capabilities. It also makes you completely immobile for the module's duration. What this means is you have to pick your fights carefully: know when to go, know when to stay put, and know what poses the most threat to you.

Ilaister had found 4 ratting Dominixes down the chain in a C4. We form up and move out with two Stratios, one Tengu, and a Paladin, and I guess Shaded's joke Lasergu is also with us too. A new bro follows a little ways behind in a Devoter. As Ilaister found the Dominixes they had warped off the site they were in, back to their home connection, which just so happened to be the connection we were sitting on. A Vexor jumped in and saw us sitting there, so we were spotted and the Dominixes would be warned not to jump in. All the little ships jumped in to prevent them from warping off, in our eagerness to land tackle everyone jumped, except for my Paladin, which I kept to stay for tackle, as most likely they would jump into me once they got tackled. Indeed they did, and two Dominixes jumped into my waiting arms, with some of our fleet coming back to spread tackle. The other two get away, but one was caught latter. Very simple gank.

Hesitating to jump initially with the rest of the gang netted us at least one more Domnix which we otherwise would have not gotten. So, maybe there is some reward to waiting and not jumping the gun in eagerness.

Not too long after that I was scouting on my alt, and I found a reduced C5 connection in a C3, inbound. I jump in and I'm greeted with a Slicer and a Legion sitting on the hole, part of the same group of this Venture we killed earlier in the C3. Pretty simple, form up small 3 man gang, and smack the shit out of them. I hold back with my main this time to put more attention on scout. The new bro comes up with a plan to use a passive shield bait Sigil to see if they have any more hidden somewhere. I've seen similar fitted Nereuses before, so I was expecting either a good bait or a total waste of a ship. It was good bait though, he warps off to Planet 6 and gets tackled by the Slicer. At this point the rest of the fleet was shown to us: three Navy Vexors, a Rook, and a Proteus.

At this point I do send my main down the chain to help, mindlessly grabbing my Paladin again. In the meantime we were in full scale brawl at Planet 6, over a dead Sigil, which tanked 66k damage, not bad. When I did finally arrive we had lost two Stratios, and in return killed two Navy Vexors, a Rook, a newly arrived Hawk, and the Slicer. We still had Guirdarr's Tengu tackled at the planet, and it was his expensive active tanked one too. That was a problem, as I had just realized that the C5 had a Cataclysmic effect, which nerfed local tanking, which was also what my Paladin was. I hesitated at jumping in because of it, but Ilaister eventually berated me into action and I jumped in to assist Gui, who was now breaking under the DPS pressure of a newly arrived Rattlesnake. He dies as I land on grid, but I do manage to finish off the Proteus. I MJD off and warp back home. A Heretic jumps out as if in attempt to bubble me once I jump out, but the hole is verge, as it was a very small mass hole. So I just jump out and close it, getting us a Heretic kill.

Could I have saved Guirdarr if I had jumped sooner? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so under that DPS and nerf to his tank. It is a shame we lost it, as it had been a very valuable baiting and ultra heavy tackle ship. For those interested in the stats, you can see them here. Stats are with Mid-Grade Crystals and Tengu Links, both of which he had. Also obviously outside of a Cataclysmic effected system. It was inspired by this fit, and I know he didn't seem to take much damage but that was because of him jumping a wormhole, so the session change reset it. They both can tank shit loads of damage, even under heavy neut pressure. RIP in pieces.

Was a good fight though, and it was nice to see Mr. Bait Hauler come back into play again. Thanks to our new bro for that bait Sigil, and here is to many more.

Battle Report

*Edit*

I did have a nice chat with one of their members just a few minutes ago about the fight. You can find the conversation here.



Blöd

AAR: More Meat to the Grinder

When in a fight it is important to fully process the information being thrown at you, and not be overwhelmed by it. Do not panic, do not overreact, do not jump to conclusions, do not needlessly throw away ships. However, that being said, it is hard to not overreact or not get excited when a Carrier lands on grid with your three guys.

Let us back up a bit first though. It was Ilaister, Guirdarr, and myself online on a lazy Monday afternoon. There was some solid null secs in the chain, so we were going to do some Black Ops (which we have been having some mild success with) after we eat and take care of some real life stuff. Ilaister and I are back, still waiting on Guirdarr when we notice there is a new signature in the static. After a quick probe, and a failed attempt at catching an Astero, they come back in force, catching Ilaister off guard with a Rapid Light Cerberus in the home hole, using our favorite home defense weapon against us. We reform up with kiting shield Ishtars and proceed to harass them away from our home, with the help of a newly arrived Guirdarr. We manage to push them all the way back to their home hole: a C5 Cataclysmic effect. We chase, as any respectable PvP group does when you have someone on the run, but it takes us headlong into a Nidhoggur. Now, I don't know how others feel about this, but I think dropping a Triage Carrier on three guys is extreme, to put it mildly, especially since a single Logistics Cruiser would have been more than enough to tank our DPS thanks to the system's effect. We are forced to jump out, after we loose a Gila that was caught off the hole.

Now it was us on the run, being chased all the way back into our home system by a Pilgrim, two Proteus, and a Tengu. Guirdarr holds in the junction system between our two home systems to keep them occupied while we wake a few people up and get a few more warm bodies on grid. We also send a ping to Absolute Damage Inc, with the hope we could take on a Carrier together once we clean this mess up. Eventually, we are able to get a Proteus, a 1.29 billion ISK Tengu, and a newly arrived Ishtar polarized and killed in the junction system, just as Absolute Damage show up. Together we once again push them back into their home system, and keep tackle on the Nidhoggur that was still there, with the help of my alt refitted into a Scimitar.

We tend to be a stubborn bunch when it comes to capitals, welping a staggering 4 billion ISK just to maintain tackle on two Carriers and a Dread over a year ago. So, once the Phoenix landed and started alpha'ing Drakes and Tempests, we naturally just threw more at them to keep their attention while another group caught up to help as well. We lost about two billion ISK before we finally settled into a stable position. That is when they escalated yet again, with another Dreadnought, this time a Naglfar at 50km from our fleet. We take a long spiral inwards towards the Naglfar and get into orbit around it, only loosing a Legion to Dread blapping as we moved in. We whittle his capacitor and tank down slowly, but we didn't have enough DPS to kill it before he exited Siege, and started receiving repairs from the Nidhoggur. He was just entering hull.

It was shortly after this when the Phoenix, which had been posing little threat to our small Cruiser based fleet, suddenly became relevant again, blasting two Curses off the field with a single volley each. That is when we decided to call it and extract, fleeing down the the new chain, (for the one we came from had collapsed during the fight) with nothing to show for our efforts. It was a good fight, but one that left a bitter taste in our mouths, and not just because we lost a total of nearly 3.5 billion total, but we brought friends along with us, and we don't like disappointing friends with a welp and no good kills.

In truth, we should have held back and reorganized before going into the C5, instead of throwing ISK blindly at them to maintain tackle by the skin of our teeth. We saw an opportunity but failed to capitalize on it, which was unfortunate. Regardless, a fight is still a fight, win or loose, and it was a fun fight. That is what we play the game for after all: to have fun.



Blöd

AAR: Death by Greed

When you have been hunting, PvPing, scouting, or really doing anything, for a long time, after a while it just sort of becomes instinctual. You don't even realize you are DScanning until you catch yourself doing it in high sec. You automatically start looking for a POS when you see a Force Field on DScan. You go straight to looking up killboards when you find someone ratting. There is a lot of things you do you don't realize you are doing, you are just listening to your gut and muscle memory.

It is when you go against your instincts is when shit hits the fan. You may want to gank him, you may want to try to get a good fight, you might want to rat in that system, but gut feeling tells you no. It is when you do it anyway is when you get killed.

See, when you are looking for a target to drop on with Blops, you tend to hunt in renter or ratter heavy systems, not PvP alliance's space. So, problem number one: choosing to hunt in Deklein, Goon central. Before any solo drop you look up the killboard of the target in question. This particular target had not lost a ship in a year and a half. Problem number two: droping on someone that clearly was either extremely lucky, or was saved every time he got in trouble.

So, here I am sitting on grid with my cyno, cloaked up, in the middle of a Goonswarm region, watching what I was 98% sure was a bait Ishtar. I sat there for what must have been 30 minutes debating back and forth in my mind weather or not to drop. Earlier in the day I had dropped on an Ishtar and killed him with little issue (thanks to Michael for scanning down his safe spot, even though he died like an idiot to Wasps). I had no concerns about breaking him, just what would follow if I bit. Perhaps that more than anything galvanized me into action, the excitement and prospect of a kill was a bit too great.

My Arazu can point up to 51km, so I cyno'd in around 40km off the Ishtar, to give myself plenty of breathing room if shit did hit the fan. The Ishtar just stayed there though, not moving at all. He did put drones on my Arazu, but at this point I am not sure if it was not just an auto-aggression from the drones. He had just gotten into armor when the Hound uncloaked and tackled me.

Now, I had a neut on my ship, so I easily turned off his point, but I stuck on grid anyway to kill the Ishtar which was now in hull. That is what killed me. I could have left, but I stuck around anyway, which brought down on my head three Panthers and a Proteus. I killed the Ishtar and his pod, and I even got the Hound, but there was no saving my Redeemer and Arazu. Greed and ignoring my gut instinct got me killed.

Ironic, as yesterday when I posted about EFTing Black Ops, latter that night I got killed. This has not curbed my enthusiasm though, as what happened was nothing more than a learning experience. If anything, it maintained it, as it just goes to show that the more you explore, and get out, and scout, and poke around in space, the more interesting things you will find.

Good fight Goonswarm, until next time.

Battle Report

Blöd

EFT: Sharing is Caring

Past two weeks or so have been interesting, a smattering of various low sec roams, a good fight, a Carrier gank, a total welp, and a heart pounding solo drop. Nothing particularly blog worthy though, in my opinion, there was not much that was special in any of those engagements. So instead I'm just going to vomit out ideas and share some thoughts and a video.

First up we have the video that inspired me to do solo droping with my Black Ops and launched me on an EFT project to build solo drop fits.

I came to the conclusion that the Widow and Redeemer are not suitable to be solo droping in comparison to the Sin and Panther. They can do it, just need to be careful with target selection. It is near impossible to active tank a Redeemer well enough to withstand punishment from multiple targets or in longer fights, so you are forced to buffer fit it, which means you have to kill the target in a set time frame. This limits target selection greatly. You have a similar issue with the Widow, except it is not the tank that's the issue its the damage application you get with Torpedoes is awful, even with Standard Crash and 2 TP's. You can kill Cruisers yes, but not near as effective as the others. It is also limited by fitting and can only fit a medium neut.

The Sin is good, but unfortunately my main character has mediocre drone skills at best, so once my Intel/Mem remap training is done I will train for a Panther instead. Ideally I would use the below fit, but there have been hints at a Black Ops rebalance soon™, so it is subject to change.

Sexy.

I have a feeling that overall though, no major changes will be happening to Blops. It is almost certain that the agility bonus of the Sin and the velocity bonus of the Panther will be rolled into the hull itself, just as they did to the old Stabber and Vagabond a few years ago. What bonuses they will be replaced with is uncertain. Perhaps an application bonus similar to the Redeemer's tracking speed, or just more raw damage. The major complaint of the player base has been two things though: Blops can't warp cloaked, and they are squishy.

Lets just say if they gave it a Covert Ops cloak my dick would be so hard it might explode. I would probably fly nothing else but that. I imagine this is what went through CCP's mind as well when they were designing the Nestor, as they could have followed the racial trend easily and given it a Covert cloak just like the Astero and Stratios, but they didn't. I imagine that we will have to be satisfied with the regular cloak on all our Black Ops. As for the squishy tank: first off, they are the only sub capital that has its own jump drive and can bridge, I will gladly trade some EHP for that; second, with mid grade slaves and crystals you can get very good armor buffer/active shield respectively. No you are not going to bring it to a fleet fight, but it is not designed to be in that environment anyway, no cloaky ships are. The tank you get is just enough for what it needs to do: get in, slaughter people, get out.

-----

Speaking of Battleship hulls, I've spent the last couple days thinking of how to use them effectively in a fleet doctrine in wormhole space. Now, in an environment that is dominated by mass limitations, Battleships tend to get shafted into a support role (ie. full neut Bhaalgorn or refit bitch Nestor). It does not help that they are easily countered by Dreadnoughts either, which is why when I lived in a C5 we never had a Battleship doctrine, where Dreads are easily on hand for almost any C5 organization. Perhaps things are different in lower class space and we can have some room to breath with them.

First we have to see what kind of hulls are popular and for what reasons. The most popular Battleships in wormhole space I would say are the Armageddon, Scorpion, Dominix, Nestor, Vindicator, Bhaalgorn, Rattlesnake, in no particular order. The Dominix and Rattlesnakes are mostly used for ratting, although both can hit extremely hard and bring a good amount of utility in a fleet fight. The Armageddon and Bhaalgorn are both neuting boats, excellent for killing Capitals and disrupting Laser/Hybrid DPS. The Scorpion fills a similar role, but uses ECM instead of neuts. Then we have the Vindicator, which is basically a battering ram in space, dishing out insane damage with near perfect application potential. Finally we come to the Nestor which is basically a big boy Guardian that lets near by ships refit off it.

Now for a doctrine, we need a ship that can hit hard, but flexible in multiple situations. This is why I like the Longbow doctrine so much, it had the DPS to fight in brawl range but also the range to engage kiters and force sniping EWar ships off grid (damn you Falcons!). Except the issue with a Battleship doctrine in wormhole space, is that you need to be able to fight out numbered, because you can't fit 20 Battleships plus support through a hole and expect to come back home. So, what are good force multipliers that you can fit on Battleships? The biggest one is obviously energy neutralizers, they can reduce incoming DPS from Hybrids and Lasers, break cap chains, turn off tackle and EWar mods, and turn off enemy tanks.

So, what ships have at least two utility high slots or main source of damage comes from drones? Armageddon, Dominix, Navy Dominix, Fleet Tempest, Fleet Typhoon, and Rattlesnake. Now lets add some parameters: must do at least 800 DPS. The Armageddon, Dominix, Navy Dominix, and Rattlesnake are all just shy of 800. Now you could easily fit Faction damage mods, but that gets expensive of T1 Battleships. The Navy Domi and Rattle also get a dual damage bonus, so we can just set aside two high slots for neuts and let the rest be guns/missiles, easily getting the 800+ DPS without pimp. So lets throw out the Armageddon and Dominix.

DPS means nothing if you do not have the means to apply it effectively, which is why Vindicators are so popular in wormholes, because they can apply their damage nearly perfectly to the numerous Cruisers you see in this space. If there is one weapon system in the game that is known for how terrible their application is to smaller targets, its Torpedoes. Yes, I can get near a 1000 paper DPS off of a Fleet Typhoon with Torps, but that doesn't mean I will actually get 1000 DPS. I could fit Cruise Missiles, but then I am sub 800 DPS now. You run into numerous fitting issues on the Typhoon as well, which brings up the cost a lot in order to compensate.

It works, but there are better options.

On the Rattlesnake though, we can switch to Cruise Missiles just fine, as most the DPS comes from drones, so we are breaking 1000 DPS with missiles and drones combined. Good application as well between Cruises and your Heavy Drone of choice.

It is cheap too

The Navy Dominix is basically an armor version of the Rattlesnake. It is more expensive and using Blasters significantly lowers its damage projection in comparison to Cruises, which have insane range.

Replace the RECCM with any utility EWar/Tackle needed.

Now finally we come to the Fleet Tempest, which is actually essentially identical to the one I lost a few weeks ago. Just has a slight upgrade to the Gyro's which are very cheap in comparison to other damage mods. Does just over a 1000 DPS with drones added (that is with Faction ammo, so as to have better tracking in comparison to Hail).

So much falloff, so little optimal :(

So for a Shield Battleship doctrine in wormhole space, I would almost definitely go with the Rattlesnake, it out performs the armor ones in multiple ways and is cheaper as well. Be thankful that Goons and Co. are so good at farming them. As for the Armor doctrine, I'd say its a fair tie between the Navy Dominix and Fleet Tempest. They both have the potential of over a 1000 DPS and one has extra utility mid slots and the other has slightly better projection.

Now this is not to say that Battleships are a practical doctrine in wormhole space. There are still many limitations and liabilities to the concept thanks to the environment of wormholes, but that can still hold their own I would say in lower class space. If I am lucky I might get the corp to buy a few of these so we can test them out.

This post has gone on longer than I expected, so I'll just end it here before I get off on another tangent about 10mn Worms. :)

All stats and values calculated in Pyfa.

Blöd

AAR: Sparking a Fire

As wormhole residents generally stay in wormhole space, with the exception of the mega Corporations and Alliance in higher class space which turn to null sec to keep a constant flow of content. You will rarely find one of us in K-Space, and if we are we are most likely hauling, or scanning for another wormhole. So when we go for actual fighting in K-Space, we tend to fail spectacularly or get very lucky. Sometimes a mixture of both.

Our high sec static was a mere three jumps from Jita, so most people were running logistics and buying things. The others were scouting the chain via our C4 static. I however, took interest in the null sec connection in our high static. Having a slight obsession with Black Ops Battleships I put my alt out poking around in a Covert Cyno Pilgrim and situated my Redeemer in the entrance system XD-JW7 and hunted with my Cyno alt. I decided to go into Catch and poke what I knew would be a hornet nest of HERO Coalition members. I eventually find a Mackinaw in an asteroid belt with an Ishtar guarding it. It doesn't faze me, but the 40+ in local does a bit. So I call for some backup.

I get a Stratios, a Rapier, and a Nemesis from my corp mates sitting on my Blops in no time. I soon have the Ishtar tackled and I bridge my fleet in on top of them. The Ishtar pops easily, but soon reinforcements arrive as expected, so I am glad I did not jump my Redeemer in as well. Only loss was the the Nemesis, a fair trade I say. As we attempt extracting from the system they attempt to chase us, and follow us about halfway back home. I keep my Pilgrim behind to keep eyes on the reinforcements streaming down towards us, and the others refit to actual combat ships, including me refitting my Redeemer. As I tab back to my alt though, he is decloaked and dying. I still have no idea how they managed to decloak me, as I was 128km off the gate in no particular alignment to anything. It is one of the shitiest but luckiest decloaks that has ever happened to me. Bye bye Pilgrim.

RIP in Pieces my Pilgrim

At this point we have refitted to heavier ships and are making our way back down the pipe. We hold two jumps out from their main staging system and send a scout on ahead. In the meantime we camp a gate, which yields two Vexors to us, plus a Sabre that we killwhored on. After sitting for several minutes waiting for a form up from them, we decide to head back home, mainly due to what they said in local.

[21:00:44] Abernie > FIGHT ME
[21:01:11] Frozenson > fight you or your hot drop friends?

Sad, as if they had done any kind of scouting they would notice we did not have the Redeemer out any longer, and even if we did, the initial drop only had a Stratios, a Recon, and a Bomber, hardly anything to be scared of when you have 40+ in local. That is somewhat pathetic. So we head back, but as we head back Tard and Abernie find a Navy Omen, the same pilot as the Ishtar from earlier, and kill him, but not before a 3rd party of 25 Interceptors came in and vaporized Abernie before he could safely extract. GG.

As we arrive back in the exit system we encounter an Ashinimu, Orthrus, and Garmur camping a null sec gate. Wary of a trap, Ilaister shoots them only, and as soon as that happens local spikes up to 15, we all get out except Ilaister's Svipul, a cheap loss compared to what have happened if we had all aggroed on gate. So we go home and refit, once again, to heavy armor and a Guardian pair for Logistics. From here, I'm going to let a video do the talking.

Yeah, they combat scanned our hole down and fought us. Then chased us into high sec thinking it was safe to engage, and got Concorded. It was a priceless experience, absolutely priceless. They thought they were jumping into a wormhole systems, but it was high sec. I could barely breath I was laughing so hard. To Concord they lost a Garmur, Ashinimu, and a Devoter, totaling 1.65 billion.

Thanks Concord!

Latter on we kind of ruined it by loosing a Stratios and a Sabre while attempting to prevent them from getting back to null sec.

Was an active day in null sec, which was painted with success, failure, derps, luck, and stupidity. Was a fun day and I would definitely welp a Pilgrim and Zealot again for a day like that.

Total Killed: 2.068 bill

Total Lost: 1.271 bill

Good Fights!

Blöd

AAR: Skynet's Final Hurrah

CCP has proposed (and will probably go through with) removing Skynet, that is, removing the ability for Carriers and Super Carriers to assign fighters to people remotely. This, in my opinion, is an excellent change. The entirety of Eve is based on risk vs reward, and when people can assign anywhere from 1-3k DPS from their Carrier without putting any actual risk to the Carrier itself, that is a broken mechanic. That being said, that patch has not hit yet, so assigned fighters are still a deadly threat.

We had found a wormhole connecting from high sec and into Fountain null sec and the local residents were aware of it. Tard wiped a Claw out from under them before a 9 man Battleship heavy gang forced him back into High Sec. Trying to get reinforcements over quickly I grab my Fleet Tempest and Rott grabs his Armageddon. We do eventually arrive but we were vastly out numbered and forced to jump back to safety.

So we waited for more of us to form up, Guirdarr even brought his Vargur along for the ride. Six strong we were when we were all ready, couldn't get any better at that hour so we jumped on in. We forced a Rapier of grid first and melted two Hurricanes next. At this point a good portion of their fleet had either warped off or jumped through to the safety of high sec. So, seeing as there was not much DPS left on grid I decided it was ok to burn off and tackle a Dominix 20km off the hole. As soon as I was out there tackling him I started suffering large chunks of armor damage, which was concerning since at this point all they had left was the Dominix, a Onyx, and a Rapier. I tried burning back to the hole, but the DPS was too great and I popped. Shame, I was quite fond of that ship for the short time I had it. It wasn't until after the fight was over when I realized that they had assigned fighters, not just from a regular Carrier either, but from an Aeon class Super Carrier. That has the potential for over an extra 5000 extra DPS on grid without even risking the ship that they are originating from.

It was a good fight nonetheless, even with the assigned fighters, but it does bug me that a ship that was not even on grid with us, at risk, was able to tip the scales so easily.

Battle Report



Blöd

AAR: Benefit of the Doubt

There are thousands of people, corporations, and alliances in Eve. So if you are one of the bigger groups, or better pilots, or more efficient teams, your name tends to get thrown around more. With that comes respect, but also wariness from others about your strength/skill.

So when a name like Sleeper Social Club comes across your chat window or passes by on comms you tend to be put on edge. Boasting a 401 man strong Alliance (at the time of writing), they are among the largest wormhole Alliance in the game. With that tends to come large fleets, which tend to ROFLstomp almost everything.

Note: I was not actually on grid for any of the fighting, I was listening on comms at the time of the first engagement and was told not to engage in the second.

The story starts with one of our best scouts finding a fight between a Confessor and an Astero on a hole. A short while latter Gui and Irohh were coming down the chain in two Svipuls to fight. After a brief skirmish and a dead Confessor more had come through and the fight was on. End result was a dead Astero on our side and 4 dead Confessors and a Svipul on theirs.

It was only after the skirmish we realized it was SSC. So since they had come with relatively little and in smaller sized ships than what they usually came with, we reshipped and prepared for a fight again. Gui was baiting in his Sleipnir and Tard and I were on the other side of the hole in our static with a Stratios and Zealot respectively. When they came back though, they came back with their customary heavy Armor and double Guardian gang. Tard and I got out fine, but Guirdarr was not as lucky, loosing a 1 bill Sleipnir and a Crystal set.

We gave them the benefit of the doubt that they would stay scaled down and smaller sized, but it was not so, and we paid the price.

Blöd

AAR: Follow me Boys!

Fighting is not just a contest of DPS, repair power, EWar, but also of positioning and leaning the fight towards your terms and not your enemies' terms. The center of this fight focused on this: choosing an environment to suit us and not them.

We were looking at Isogen 5, who we had fought before (in that instance we had again forced them to fight on our terms), and we attempted to gank a Phantasm of theirs that was running a gas site. We missed the kill so we warped back to the exit hole. As we landed though we hit bubbles that a Sabre had placed, which delayed our return to the hole. We made it through without incident as an 5 Ishtars, a Gila, a Cerberus and two Scimitars landed in pursuit. Now, they had 2 T2 Logistics ships while we only had a single T1, so we expected that the fight was basically over, and we would return to the high sec exit. Not so, the FC turned us elsewhere.

Follow me Boys!

The C3 was a Wolf-Rayet effect, which bonused us and nerfed them. They followed, itching for a fight. They were dropping so fast, being forced to jump quickly or getting vaporized before they had the chance to. We killed two Ishtars on the C3 side but loss a Curse and our Logistic and a Gila plus Sabre on C2 side.

It just goes to show you that environment plays an important part of a fight, especially in wormholes with the system effects. Good fight Isogen 5, better luck next time!

Total Killed: 882 mill
Total Lost: 365 mill



Blöd

AAR: Slowly Escalated

So there I was, sitting in the tower doing jack shit, while others go off to try to bait a Sleipnir out of his POS. On their trip out there though, they are caught unprepared by a different group, and loose an lol Drake, Pilgrim, and Sentinel. We regroup, and get an armor gang going, with my alt in an Onerios for Logistics. The system where the original skirmish took place was a Pulsar, so it was highly detrimental to our armor tanks. As a result our entire plan was getting them to jump into us and force them to fight on our terms. To do that, we had to regain their attention first, which was easy.

They did something that we did not expect though. Since one side of the wormhole we were fighting on was a Pulsar, and the fact that their last fleet was shield tanked, we expected them to return with shield ships. They refitted as we were were killing their Cerberus and returned with an armor gang, fully equipped with two Guardians, and jumped into us with no hesitation.

I had stationed my Logistic 50km off the hole while my fleet brawled the enemy fleet. I kept everyone alive, and could have done easily for quite a while if they did not have Ishtars shooting me with Sentries, and not have had an Astero decloak on me and tackle me. Regardless, I still held for some time with my Ancillary Armor Repairer, but I couldn't last forever so I did eventually pop.

As I warp off to refit into a Guardian (as well as another person), we also loose a Deimos. As soon as we return on grid we are instantly primaried by jams, but since we were still 50km out we easily survive through jamming cycles. We easily kept alive the rest of the fleet as well, excluding a Curse where both Guardians were jammed for a brief moment. As easily we kept the fleet alive though, it did nothing to break the enemy fleet's Logistics either, so eventually as their numbers kept steadily growing, ours stayed the same, so we extracted safely with no more losses.

Well played by Conquering Darkness, their steadily escalation and jams won them that fight and it was well deserved. It was a good fight, and its good to take a loss every now and then, as it tends to teach you more than a win.



Blöd

AAR: Shut Up and Take My Ships!

When most people fight, one side looses, one side wins. Usually the winner wants another go, and the looser wants to slink away and lick their wounds. Occasionally though, the looser just keeps on coming at you, and tries to constantly redeem themselves. That is what Absolute Zero tried to do for nearly 7 hours on Wednesday.

Note: For this first fight I was not present and the first paragraph is based on what I heard afterwords and battle reports. The rest of the night I was present.

It all started off with two Myrmidons baiting in a site in our home system, with two Guardians and misc DPS sitting inside their C4. We decide to engage the Myrms at the site and force their fleet to jump in and as they jump in we bubble them and split the fleet in half. A Myrm and Guardian die in the site. As we chase them back into their hole we kill a Myrm and Cane on the C4 side.

Two to three hours latter we see movement from them again, they are using our high sec static. So I grab an anchorable bubble and put it on their C4 in line with the high sec. Now, if anything warps from the high straight to the C4, it will be caught nearly 30km off the hole. After some time, a Vigilant and Harpy jump in from high sec, but they don't warp to the C4, instead opting to orbit the high sec, with the clear intention to fight on there. We don't want to play games with them jumping out to safety though, so we force them to make a decision: we warp a rapid light Cerberus at range from the high sec and try to blap the Harpy. Naturally, he tries to burn out and tackle our Cerberus, but he underestimates the rapid light DPS in a Wolf-Rayet effected system, so he panic warps off, straight to his home hole of the C4. As expected, he lands in the bubble, right next to my Pilgrim and he dies easily. Almost immediately after he dies a Helios decloaks next to the Harpy wreck. I am not sure why he did while I was sitting there, but it dies with a little prompting. A brief while later we do the same thing, but to an Arbitrator.

Such a pretty wreckage field

A half hour latter we are still staring at a Vigilant, which is still orbiting our high sec. We are in the middle of debating of trying to bump him off the hole but before we can make a move he bounces to a planet and warps to the C4, completely circumventing my bubble, and then jumps home. We have scouted their side before and we knew they had a cloaked Falcon and a Curse plus misc DPS in the POS, so we had no qualms at jumping after them with our gang. When we got to the other side though we found two Curses and two Falcons, which completely suppressed our entire fleet. Thankfully we only lost a Stratios.

After that small welp we resettle into kiting and sniping positions on the C4 and bottleneck them into their hole. We had most of the fleet cloaked all over the hole but we had a single Orthrus uncloaked nearly 50km off the hole. Another half hour after the last engagement a Daredevil jumps in and tackles our Orthrus, as well as a Cloak Proteus uncloaks and tries to kill it. the Daredevil underestimates, again, the rapid light DPS and melts, leaving a Proteus stranded off the hole alone, surrounded. He dies shortly afterwords.

After a three hour break, and hunting invisible Orcas we return to find them trying to roll the now verge C4 connection with a Hictor. Reacting quickly we get a Vigilant on the hole and use 90% webs and stop the Devoter they were using from getting back to the hole. Our Vigilant refits to a Phobos and bubbles up on the C4 waiting for the pod to come back. But now comes the icing on the cake: the pod jumps out to high sec, and returns 15 minutes latter in a Dominix. Without a second thought or a scout, he blind warps to the C4, straight into the bubble, and dies, and is podded.

After 7 hours of killing, we had destroyed 2.5 billion from one group, all thanks to their own over eagerness and bad scouting. All for the cost of a single 397 mill Stratios. It was a fun night, but kind of sad as well, as it was almost no contest.



Blöd

AAR: Back with a Bang

Its been quite a while since my last post. When I joined Snuffed Out I thought it was because I was burnt out on wormholes, I wasn't, I was burnt out on Eve in general. The final straw was ironically joining Snuffed Out which put me into a type of gameplay style I did not particularly enjoy. After some thought I put my characters into Absolutely Certain, a reformation of my old alliance Protean Concept which lives in a C2 with C4 and High sec statics. I moved in basic equipment and proceeded to go away for two months, logging in occasionally for small pings.

I've recently been back for about a week or so and I feel much better. I am not a director anymore, I am with people I know and trust. I am playing with friends. Best of all I am in my favorite area of space again.

So I am a few days into playing again and I am scanning the chain and looking for fights. As I am jumping some holes while scouting, a Loki attempts to tackle my alt's Buzzard. He wasn't going to catch such a nimble ship unless I was extremely unlucky, but he tried anyway, so I called some friends in nearby and jumped a C3 to see if he would go for me again. I sit on the other side for a bit to wait and give us a little more time to form up; as currently all we had was my cloaky Proteus and a Stratios, with a Sacrilege and Curse on the way. As I am sitting waiting to see if the Loki shows himself, a Nestor lands on grid. Now, I have no idea who he was, what he was doing, but that shit doesn't matter, you always go for tackle when something like that falls in your lap. I point it with my Buzzard and bring my main and the rest in.

In the time that elapsed for the main group to get there my Buzzard did die, but it did its job of holding it until we got there. The Nestor jumps through the hole and I try to chase it, the rest stay on the C3 side. When I load grid he was not on DScan or on grid at all though, so I sit, along with our newly arrived Tengu. I tell Athenaa to jump through, and I cloak up to make the hole appear safe. As soon as we do that the Nestor decloaks off the hole and warps before I can get past my targeting delay and tackle him.

[ 2015.03.02 01:40:54 ] Lily Savage > ha ha

I felt embarrassed that I let a 1+ billion ship get away, but this quickly turned to anger at the realization that he has to come back through the C3 hole to get back home, and I was determined to camp there for as long as possible to get him. A pointless emotion as he came back not 5 minutes latter, on the other side in the C3; however, he called a friend in with a Golem to help him escape.

As the Nestor jumps I hang back on our side of the connection, in case he decides to jump away and polarize himself, I wasn't going to let him get away this time. That was not necessary though, as the Nestor pops with little issue. The Golem was a bigger issue though, as it was still on grid and trying to kill our neuting ships: the Stratios and Curse. Nef has to jump his Sacrilege out when he hits structure, so I jump in to replace the DPS lost. After some warping in and out from Mighty and Sexy in the neuting ships to keep them alive, we finally wore down the Golem and popped him. At this point the Nestor pilot had come back with a Paladin in a vain attempt to help. We could have killed the Paladin, he could not hit me and I was still able to use a scram despite his neuts, but both of our own neuting ships did not have enough time to repair and come back before a Navy Raven lands 70km off and forces me to leave.

It was a good fight/gank, maybe more of a gank than fight since it was PvE ships we were facing, but kills are kills, and they did not need to sacrifice an extra Marauder to us. But in the end it didn't matter, Bob was pleased.

Battle Report



Blöd

AAR: Slaves Save Lives

Three days ago I participated in another Navpoc fleet, approximately 40 strong, with 4 Triage Archons as our Logistics. The target was a NPSI roam consisting of roughly 150 artillery battlecruisers (mostly Hurricanes). So we are outnumbered by about 1:3 ratio and they had insane amounts of volley damage. What advantage did we have? Well, in Snuffed Out its very strongly recommended, if not a requirement, to have a High-Grade Slave set in your skull. The extra armor buffer gained allows for insane tanks on ships (for an example, our Navpocs with links and double plate fit had a staggering 404k EHP). Our other advantage the other fleet gave to us, as the Hurricanes were double Invulnerability Field and double Extender and no Propulsion mod. The EM hole was not plugged (which is the main damage Navpocs do) and no Propulsion mod made sure that there was no way for them to get under our guns.

So we Titan bridge to a system to intercept their fleet, setup on the gate, and wait for them to come through. Right on schedule too. You could barely get locks in time to kill the Hurricanes they were dying so fast because of our damage profile. After 49 of their ships (5.7 billion) were reduced to dust they extract and get off grid. Snuffed Out in returned suffered 4 losses (2.7 billion). Our more expensive ships helped us win the fight but it burns when one goes down since its expensive, and its easier to have the Battle Report quickly dwindle from a win to a loss.

After the fight people talked about it as expected. It was alot closer of a fight than it felt while in it. As one person said, he was in full High-Grade Slaves and still got volleyed into 25% armor before Triage brought him back up. Without our Slave Sets, we would have most likely died in a fire.

#slavessavelives



Blöd

EFT: Beam Legion vs Rail Proteus

When I flew with Protean Concept, our go to ship was, big surprise, a Proteus. We kind of lived up to our name in that regard. Our main ship that we flew all the time was our trusty Rail Proteus, which offered the range (70km+) to give good flexibility in fights and still suitable DPS in order to break people's tanks. Some versions of the fit could get over 850 DPS unheated (including drone DPS), albeit at the cost of tracking speed.

Now that I fly with Snuffed Out, Beam Legions are the rave over here. We still have a Rail Proteus Doctorine, but I have yet to fly it. Most of the time Protei are delegated into a tackle roll in a fleet and not a main DPS component. I set out to discover why this was. The following are the two base fits I used for comparison, fits are altered as stated from the base fit throughout the following text.

[Legion, Beam Legion (610 DPS/124k EHP)]

Damage Control II
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

10MN Afterburner II
Warp Disruptor II
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M
Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M
Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M
Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M
Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M
Heavy Beam Laser II, Gleam M

Medium Anti-Thermic Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Legion Defensive - Augmented Plating
Legion Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Legion Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Legion Offensive - Liquid Crystal Magnifiers
Legion Propulsion - Fuel Catalyst

[Proteus, 250 Rail Proteus (705 DPS/137k EHP)]

Damage Control II
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Centii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

10MN Afterburner II
Warp Disruptor II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

250mm Railgun II, Javelin M
250mm Railgun II, Javelin M
250mm Railgun II, Javelin M
250mm Railgun II, Javelin M
250mm Railgun II, Javelin M
250mm Railgun II, Javelin M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Proteus Defensive - Augmented Plating
Proteus Electronics - Friction Extension Processor
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Proteus Offensive - Dissonic Encoding Platform
Proteus Propulsion - Localized Injectors

So lets get started with the comparison!

The most obvious difference was the change in damage type: Thermal and Kinetic to EM and Thermal. On the surface you might think that Legions just have a slight edge at cracking shield doctrines, and that is correct, but you have more advantages than just that. First, lets analyse whats the primary and secondary damage types to deal against targets.

VS Armor

• T1: Explosive then Kinetic
• T2
• Amarr: Thermal then EM
• Gallente: Explosive then EM
• Caldari: Explosive then EM
• Minmatar: Explosive then Kinetic

VS Shield

• T1: EM then Thermal
• T2
• Amarr: EM then Thermal
• Gallente: EM then Explosive
• Caldari: EM then Explosive
• Minmatar: Kinetic then Explosive

Damage Types Summary

• Primary
• 4 Explosive
• 1 Kinetic
• 1 Thermal
• 4 EM
• Secondary
• 3 Explosive
• 2 Kinetic
• 2 Thermal
• 3 EM

SUMMARY

• 7 Explosive
• 3 Kinetic
• 3 Thermal
• 7 EM

As you can see, resistance holes are most often either in one of the extremes. Even in armor tanks, EM is a secondary resist hole 3 out of 5 times, and since the primary hole is usually plugged (Amarr plugs their Thermal and Gallente plugs their Explosive), this leaves EM damage to be the best to deal actually against those ship types. So over all, Beam Legions have an advantage with damage types of EM and Thermal. On the downside of this, Rail Proteus over all do more paper DPS to make up for it.

The next obvious difference arose with damage projection and application. By far, the Legion out ranged the Proteus, before any module modifications it can touch 81km optimal and with two optimal enhanced Tracking Computers it can reach out to 105km optimal, far surpassing Railguns on the Proteus. Let us also note that in order to reach these ranges that the Proteus would need to fit a Dissolution Sequencer Subsystem (Electronic) in order to get the lock range plus two Tracking Computers and a Tracking Enhancer, and even then its only 91km optimal with 41km falloff. So by far the Legion out-projects the Proteus. How about application and tracking speed then? The majority of Rail Proteus fits use the Dissonic Encoding Platform (Offensive) for the tracking bonus. The occasional few use Hybrid Propulsion Armature (Offensive) for a drone bay and extra paper DPS, but most (including Snuffed Out's and Protean Concept's) don't use it because the lost DPS from the tracking nerf plus the fact that most drones get smartbombed by any competent fleet, makes the subsystem of little use. So now that we have our subsystem chosen, the tracking speeds that are spit back before tracking computers and enhancers are .0464 for the Legion and .0440 for the Proteus, a 5.3% difference favoring the Legion. Going off of the standardized fits above though, the Legion gets .0603 tracking pushing the difference to 31.2% in favor of the Legion.

At this point, we need to take a step back and ask why the Legion gets such better tracking. The answer lies in the two (arguably three) utility mid slots the Legion has. The Proteus has several options available to it to catch up in tracking. Probably the easiest is swap a Mag Stab to a Tracking Enhancer, you loose DPS for tracking and range. You still only acquire .0482 tracking, which is still unsatisfactory compared to a Legion. A more sacrificial solution is to unfit the Cap Booster and fit a Tracking Computer, but this is still less tracking than a single TC Legion and you sacrifice your cap booster opening you up to neut warfare. A similar solution involves fitting the Gravitational Propulsion (Propulsion) subsystem to gain a mid slot at the cost of a low slot. So you sacrifice raw DPS for more tracking. This final one still puts you at less tracking than a Legion, but you still retain the balance of having Cap Boosters.

Those utility mid slots that the Legion naturally has plus the already better base tracking speed allows it to get much better projection and application than the Rail Proteus without nearly any sacrifices. The utility mids add up to more than just projection and application though, they let utility EWar to be fitted at nearly no sacrifice. This ranges from Damps, Tracking Distruptors, Target Painters, Remote Sensor Boosters, and Remote ECCM. A Legion can easily fit a Cap Booster to protect itself from neuts plus two Damps to spread around on enemy ships, or two RECCMs to keep Logistics from getting jammed, or two ReSeBos to let Logistics lock and land reps quicker, possibilities are endless with utility mids and the Legion has that distinct advantage over the Proteus in that regard.

Now that we have the big heavy hitters out of the way, we can add up small differences they have.

• With the base fits above, the Beam Legion gets approximately double the Sensor Strength (The Proteus can exceed this but only if it sacrifices the point range bonus from its Electronic Subsystem)
• The Proteus has 13k more EHP (un-linked and un-implanted) but 110 less DPS Omni-Tank when being repaired by a Guardian
• Using the base fits above the Legion is 94m/sec faster
• Using the base fits above the Legion is 21m sig radius smaller
• Very minor point since markets are always in flux but currently the Legion is cheaper than the Proteus

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So what does this mean in conclusion?

• The Legion has a better Damage Profile
• The Legion has better Projection
• The Legion has better Application
• The Legion has more Utility Mid Slots
• The Legion has better Sensor Strength (with the exception listed above)
• The Proteus has more EHP
• The Legion has better Tank
• The Proteus has better Tackle Capabilities
• The Legion is Faster and Smaller

I sometimes don't know how to count, but I think that is more advantages to the Legion than the Proteus, placing it significantly higher on the list of being a better, what I like to call, Longbow. That is not to say the Rail Proteus is not good, but if someone asked me what to fly or train towards, a Beam Legion or Rail Proteus, I would choose a Beam Legion without hesitation.

Blöd