Hey everyone!
I know it's been a while since my last update, so bear with me. The 2 biggest items of news since last time are our Secret Atlas Hotdrop (tm) and grabbing Sov from WI. Lets start with the first.
So, roughly 3-4 weeks ago, Stealthfield and our good friends Origin. decided that it might be fun to shoot at the new Stella Polaris (read: Northern Coalition) tower in EOA, right next to where we lived. So, we killed it, with Stella Polaris incurring losses every time they attempted to defend it, or their other tower in TJM, which we reinforced 3 times before destroying. Stella Polaris didn't seem too unhappy about it, although this was probably because they were not often online at the same time. They did tell us that "you will all die later." Ha ha. Cute, right?
Well, seeing as pissing of Stella Polaris was fun, we wanted to go for the real deal. So Elo Knight of Origin. stuck up a Minmatar Medium control tower with some autocannons in QP0k. It took a while, but WI finally reinforced the thing with a large fleet. Excellent! That meant that they would have to come back! So, we repped up the guns and announced a bomber CTA. I think we ended up with something like 23 bombers in fleet, all loaded with Shrapnel bombs. WI brought considerably more.
The numbers ended up being something like 1 Interdictor, 23 Stealthbombers, and a few autocannon batters vs 45 RR BS. WI start shooting at the tower. Elo starts aiming the guns at WI, while we remain cloaked. He kills a Raven, Scorpion, and Rokh in short order. Whoops, there goes their emergency cyno, you know, just in case 45 battleships wasn't enough to take down a medium tower from a 16 man corporation.
The Stealthfield guys get ready for our bombing run, Elo runs outside and bubbles the fleet, and we warp in. Unfortunately, only one wing warped on time due to noobishness and bad comms, so we only killed 1 armageddon. The rest warped off in 70% structure, and didn't come back. As I listened to their teamspeak, I heard that they lost several hundred million ISK worth of tech II drones as well.
Well, we repped up the tower, and before too long, it was reinforced again. This time though, WI weren't taking any chances. Ya know, those small corporations are real dangerous. Better to be safe. Better to bring a capfleet. And so they did. They ended up bringing 30 capital ships and 31 battleships to the party. We attempted a bombing run, but the lag was so bad that it failed, and I died. It was entirely my fault though, I forgot to turn off effects.
Regardless, Elo and I were a little bit unhappy about this whole blobbing deal. And so we plotted our revenge. But that's later. Over the next few weeks, Stealthfield achieved a record 49.9 Billion ISK destroyed in Geminate in 88 Days. This was unprecedented. We began plotting to take space. (That's a story for later but, WI brought a mothership out to kill our small tower. Then they didn't come back for it when it came out of reinforced. We still have it.) But then something big happened; a large coalition consisting of a few dozen small alliances arrived in the region to attack WI, and so we ended up blueing them.
The first operation was the day after we joined the coalition, and on relatively short notice, we had 117 in Fleet. We formed up a capital/rrbs gang and reinforced a WI pos in AD-, as well as incapacitating a cynosural generator and a jump bridge. Thanks to awesome intel (read: me in WI ts) we managed to jump our capitals out seconds before WI hotdropped us, and got our BS fleet into lowsec. Unfortunately, WI tackled us and destroyed the BS fleet on the 0.0 gate in lowsec.
The interesting part, though, is when this tower in AD- came out of reinforced. Elo and I had contacted Atlas ahead of time, and they had staged 100 capitals within jump range of the system, with an additional 150 support. Our own fleet numbered 90. We were going to teach WI a lesson about blobbing. Without even telling the Coalition fleet about our reinforcements on standby, I convinced them to move in as bait. But first, some pre-bait bait. Elo and a corpmate of mine fit cynoes on their carriers, and jumped them in on the pos, pretending to attack some carriers that WI had stationed off of it. Of course, this was WI bait as well. Once our carriers were in, WI counterdropped their 50-or-so man capital fleet and bridged in support.
Oh no!, they must have thought, look at those helpless carriers. Then, as a pretend-trap, we warped in our 90-man Coalition support fleet. The numbers were still heavily in WI's favor, and we started to lose BS. We decloaked a dictor, bubbled WI, and for a few moments, nothing happened but losses on our side. Then the cyno on Elo's carrier opened, and over 200 Atlas jumped in. WI, according to their own killboard, lost 65 Billion ISK in one fell swoop, only killing ONE atlas dreadnought. Stealthfield got on maybe 20B of this, but of course, since we set up the trap, it wasn't just pointless whoring. It was a great way to start Dominion, suffice to say. The WI capitals were going down so fast I barely had time to lock them in my cyno covops before they died.
And then Dominion came, and our alliance, Ihatalo Cartel Navy, in conjunction with some other allies, took sov in Western Geminate, rendering it pretty much our own. We do not plan to become conventional sov holders, simply to use as a ratting/isk making base. To be honest we spend very little time actually in our systems; we spend much more time in WI's Sov 4 constellation. We are now the proud owners of 3 systems and the proud killers of a capfleet. So things are going well.
Have a great day,
Thanks,
Sec
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Geminate Continued and Vale (With Tears)
Well, it's been a while since my last post, mostly because medical school intervened in a disastrous way on my spare time. But now things are a little better.
Since our last contract, we've grown quite a bit, had some internal drama (oh my), and completed another contract. We've also tried other shiptypes and found that some of them work well for us, and some of them don't.
Alright, so first off, we continued our campaign against Wildly Inappropriate, eventually inflicting 9.3 Billion ISK in Damages, while only receiving 1.43, leaving us with an 86% efficiency. The top kill of all was a WI Tengu, who told us to "bring it" in local before dying horribly. After that, however, our efficiency started to go down hill due to carelessness on our part and decreasing corp activity. Thus, we pulled out after roughly a month and a half.
For a while, we returned to our base in Akkio and became the equivalent of a mediocre standard pvp corp: killing more than we lost with conventional ships, but not that much more. This was a time for us to recoup from our losses in the Geminate campaign. During this time, a former director who left to hostile corporation Star Frontiers returned to the corporation.
After a while of stagnation, I ordered a "Back To Basics" deployment to Vale of the Silent to resharpen our covert-ops skills. The effects on corp morale, recruitment, and simple effectiveness were astounding. We had 17 kills the first real day of deployment, killing 5 Majesta and RAGE battleships, a Hulk, and myriad other smaller vessels. Majesta, who had previously ignored us, began docking up the instant we came in system and even smacking heavily (more on this in a bit.)
The most fun kill of the entire day was the Hulk kill. I was the only pilot online in my entire corporation in a Nemesis at 20% armor with no means of repair. I found a Hulk alone (there was a skiff 160km away, but he had +2 warp strength) mining in a belt. There was a Hawk, Crow, and Onyx on scan as well. Obviously a trap. I didn't care. I wanted the kill.
I decloaked, pointed, and started firing my torps. He got to armor before the cavalry arrived. I warped out immediately, having taken no further damage. I waited a moment before cloaking and returning to the belt. There was the Hulk again! Sure enough, his friends were also on scan. I warped to the nearest planet to get a closer warpin and sure enough, the Hawk was sitting at 0 on the planet. Noob!
Against my better judgement and lusting for a kill, I returned to the belt, knowing I needed to do more damage, faster this time. So, I decloaked, fired a bomb, and then pointed and began to shoot. Sure enough, the Hulk was almost immediately in armor. Then the Hawk arrived, shortly followed by the crow. Panicking, I started microwarpdriving away from them, quickly leaving point range of the Hulk. He was now in structure and my shields were gone, and in that moment I knew I wouldn't make it out alive. So, I turned around, repointed him, and finished him off. I died 3 seconds later. To my delight, he was in fact faction-fitted and T2 Rigged. Yay!
Moving on. Majesta Empire liked to smack a LOT. Admittedly, one of my guys, El Liptonez, who was ex-Majesta actually, smacked back. Titus Novastar flew with us but was not part of my corporation or alliance. Liptonez was told off, but Majesta continued to smack almost from the day we deployed. Here is a few samples, including some bitter tears, for your consumption:
After a day or so:
Chris Sunstroke > all carebear pvp- dudes in sys^^ hi liptonez
santafee > how is it ?
santafee > guess its boring
Sperrzone > yep
santafee > camping the whole day cloaked
Sperrzone > vaginas on the run
Sperrzone > as usual
santafee >
After the loss of a hauler:
santafee > the boobs are back
Chris Sunstroke > the pussy-pvp- dudes in cloaking sucker ships^^
Titus Novastar > killed you didn't I?
Chris Sunstroke > yeah my heavy tanked iteron 4^^
santafee > lulz
Chris Sunstroke > that was a glorous kill
Chris Sunstroke > a epic one
santafee > that must be like an orgasm
santafee > or much more
Chris Sunstroke > lol
Genevieve Lecourtier > an epic one dude. learn english
El Liptonez > hah grammar natzee
Genevieve Lecourtier > sure, german
Chris Sunstroke > if u learn german^^
Titus Novastar > nah, im going to heaven when I die
Genevieve Lecourtier > Schon geschehen. Sorry, dachte das war von nem neut den wollt ich ankacken. Tut mir leid
Chris Sunstroke > all bombers meet at jb im coming with my iteron 4
Chris Sunstroke > egal^^
Genevieve Lecourtier > k
El Liptonez > lol idiot
santafee > ja?
Chris Sunstroke > oh i lost my scanner probe^^
Genevieve Lecourtier > uh, idiot is petitionable, ain´t it?
Random Smack:
hamon konakh > El Liptonez you always were a coward
hamon konakh > no balls
El Liptonez > go cut yourself emo
hamon konakh > you first
hamon konakh > piece of shit
El Liptonez > why so desperate
Baron Alladan > oh look a iteron on the t-z gate
Titus Novastar > omg
Titus Novastar > is it an iteron 5?
Old Corpmates Fighting:
El Liptonez > wow you almost decloaked me
El Liptonez > just 30km short
Elrock Storm > El Liptonez wow a hipercritical wanker talks
El Liptonez > is that what your great leader told you?
Elrock Storm > er no it what you said about AFK cloakers
Elrock Storm > you know how they are tossers and the like
Elrock Storm > ops you are one.
Elrock Storm > whne grow a apir i be waiting
Elrock Storm > when you grow a pair i'll be waiting.
El Liptonez > why so serious
Elrock Storm > why so hipercritcial
El Liptonez > u mad u didnt get that 50m few months ago?
Elrock Storm > No i pissed that you are so willing to act an arsesole to people who called you friend
El Liptonez > i didnt kick myself
El Liptonez > i dont even know what reb told you
Elrock Storm > nor did i did i?
Elrock Storm > i dom't ypu see you greifing Reb if you have an issue with him?
El Liptonez > tell me what did i do
iskies1 > you got too cocky
Shwabeul Shwabeul > Reb have more to do than talking about you for sure
Titus Novastar > haha you said 'cock'
El Liptonez > lol it's just so funny how mad you are about me and i still dont know why
Elrock Storm > me?
El Liptonez > all of you
iskies1 > not mad at you, but was getting annoyed with your attitude near the end before you left us
Elrock Storm > Well you are AFKing in a system, to piss people off, that once called you friend
Elrock Storm > that is enough for me tbh
iskies1 > ya, that is rather annoying aswell
El Liptonez > that's a different thing tho
El Liptonez > still not wanna tell me what you all are mad about
iskies1 > instead of floating around in your buzzard, why not just buzz off and bug someone else
Shwabeul Shwabeul > you talk , we respond , nothing to be mad's of
Elrock Storm > I just told you?
Elrock Storm > speak for yourself i am pissed at him
El Liptonez > nah i wanna know why everyone was mad about me even before i showed up here
Elrock Storm > i am not sure anyone was>?
iskies1 > forgot all about you tbh till you showed back up
Elrock Storm > i hd nothing but nice thoughts about you enjoying yourslef in eve.
Elrock Storm > then you came and decied the way forward was to grief some mates
El Liptonez > lol i didnt follow myself to shoot me the first day i appeared
El Liptonez > so what did reb tell you?
Elrock Storm > nothing
El Liptonez > i'm really curious
Elrock Storm > should he have?
El Liptonez > looks like
iskies1 > i have no problems with ya lip, but to come back and grief us over old news, no reason for it
El Liptonez > i know you won't believe me, but you remember how i laughed at ME when we joined, and i wasn't looking for you guys specifically
El Liptonez > there's just no other alliance with so many bears to make mad
Elrock Storm > EL lip yeah we all saw your ego in corp chat
El Liptonez > and the fact we were in the same corp is no reason to not shoot you
Elrock Storm > i don;t like people that are disloyal
Elrock Storm > in life as rule
El Liptonez > majesta is a fucking joke
benny1978 > and you are a fucked pussy
El Liptonez > you probably built your supercaps too long and you forgot about it
iskies1 > thanks benny, beat me to it
Philippe LaCroix > if you could you whould fit a cloak on you small pe....
Elrock Storm > cloaking AFKing is pure grieffing El Lip, you think anyone gives a toss what you think? lol
El Liptonez > oh really
benny1978 > 1 vs 1
El Liptonez > didn't know it was griefing
benny1978 > ???
Elrock Storm > You are nopt team player
Elrock Storm > you shit on your mates
El Liptonez > which mates
iskies1 > the ones u used to have
Elrock Storm > You the guys like that helped you sorry arse
benny1978 > i think he has no friends, no wife , no fun in live
benny1978 > that is fact
El Liptonez > true
El Liptonez > just funny how you call me hypocritical lol
Elrock Storm > i could find the copr chats if you like?
El Liptonez > yeah please
iskies1 > and on that note, gotta go and take my wife and kids out for supper, and you should soon hit the road lip before you accidentally get caught
El Liptonez > you should probably tell me what i did before calling me hypocritical, at least looks like i have not been the only hypocrat in that time
El Liptonez > i didnt kick myself from the corp and public chat for no obvious reasonjm
El Liptonez > i know the things i told reb when i left, in case you mean that things
A Fleeing Abbadon Dies:
EVE System > Channel changed to T-GCGL Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to V-NL3K Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to 1-GBBP Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to T-ZWA1 Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to QFF-O6 Local Channel
loopyliz > You keep coming this way i'm going to organize a trap for you : P
EVE System > Channel changed to 2CG-5V Local Channel
loopyliz > too slow
EVE System > Channel changed to Y5J-EU Local Channel
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836814
El Liptonez > nice trap you had there
Securitas Protector > gf?
A Ratting Hyperion Dies With 6 Of Us In Local:
(This guy was smacking us and telling us to "bring it" the day before, shooting at me off station, saying how boring we were, etc. I love karma.)
EVE System > Channel changed to TVN-FM Local Channel
bigpaxi > hey
bigpaxi > stop
bigpaxi > stop
bigpaxi > come on
bigpaxi > omg
StS ChaosEngine > gf
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836784
bigpaxi > ass holes
Captain Gardak > gf
El Liptonez > gf
bigpaxi > fucking fags
StS ChaosEngine > dont wine around gere watch local and intel
bigpaxi > omg i was just helping a friend
bigpaxi > i didnt even lock in u fucking fag
Securitas Protector > you were smacking us in local yesteday
Securitas Protector > /emote shrugs
bigpaxi > i mean
bigpaxi > dam
bigpaxi > i bet in a sb too
Tinker Rage > no talking in local please!
bigpaxi > dude u got neuts
bigpaxi > here
bigpaxi > wow
bigpaxi > just kill
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836789 [NOTE: His pod stayed in some belt, we found him, killed him, right in that moment his salvaging alt comes in in this kestrel, gets also killed and podded]
My, weren't some of those tears delicious?
However, things went a little downhill from there. Over time, less people showed up for ops as it was no longer the weekend, and it got to the point where we were trying to do things that we simply didn't have enough ships for, although our first ever covert cyno hotdrop was awesome. For various reasons, we started making elementary mistakes, people started going AFK at extremely inappropriate times, and we became less organized, causing me to lose a Pilgrim because I got cocky and engaged, thinking due to my own poor organization that we had more bombers than we did.
One pilot also started having awful luck. No joke, this guy had 2 one-in-a-million deaths happen within 24 hours. The first time, we were sitting on a gate 20k off watching a Hyperion, Cerberus, and Thorax wait for us. After a few minutes, the Hyperion warps off to a safespot in a completely random direction...except he happened to pass through Shokoti's Nemesis in warp, decloaking him. The sensor-boosted Cerberus instalocked and instapopped him. Then, less than a day later, he jumps through a gate right as a Nighthawk happens to come out of warp on the other side...directly on top of his jump-in spot. He was once again decloaked and popped.
I've got to hand it to Majesta though, they really upped their own organization. Although I'm sure it was an inconvenience to them (which was the point), they started getting gangs together to follow us around, and their miners and ratters started POSing up very quickly. They do have some very good PVPers, especially in Epiphyte Mining and Exploration and Metalworks.
Due to future plans and an ending of the contract, we are now pulling out, but I have to say to Majesta: good fight! We ended up with a 65% efficiency on our accurate killboard, which is much lower than any other previous contract.
Good Show!
Since our last contract, we've grown quite a bit, had some internal drama (oh my), and completed another contract. We've also tried other shiptypes and found that some of them work well for us, and some of them don't.
Alright, so first off, we continued our campaign against Wildly Inappropriate, eventually inflicting 9.3 Billion ISK in Damages, while only receiving 1.43, leaving us with an 86% efficiency. The top kill of all was a WI Tengu, who told us to "bring it" in local before dying horribly. After that, however, our efficiency started to go down hill due to carelessness on our part and decreasing corp activity. Thus, we pulled out after roughly a month and a half.
For a while, we returned to our base in Akkio and became the equivalent of a mediocre standard pvp corp: killing more than we lost with conventional ships, but not that much more. This was a time for us to recoup from our losses in the Geminate campaign. During this time, a former director who left to hostile corporation Star Frontiers returned to the corporation.
After a while of stagnation, I ordered a "Back To Basics" deployment to Vale of the Silent to resharpen our covert-ops skills. The effects on corp morale, recruitment, and simple effectiveness were astounding. We had 17 kills the first real day of deployment, killing 5 Majesta and RAGE battleships, a Hulk, and myriad other smaller vessels. Majesta, who had previously ignored us, began docking up the instant we came in system and even smacking heavily (more on this in a bit.)
The most fun kill of the entire day was the Hulk kill. I was the only pilot online in my entire corporation in a Nemesis at 20% armor with no means of repair. I found a Hulk alone (there was a skiff 160km away, but he had +2 warp strength) mining in a belt. There was a Hawk, Crow, and Onyx on scan as well. Obviously a trap. I didn't care. I wanted the kill.
I decloaked, pointed, and started firing my torps. He got to armor before the cavalry arrived. I warped out immediately, having taken no further damage. I waited a moment before cloaking and returning to the belt. There was the Hulk again! Sure enough, his friends were also on scan. I warped to the nearest planet to get a closer warpin and sure enough, the Hawk was sitting at 0 on the planet. Noob!
Against my better judgement and lusting for a kill, I returned to the belt, knowing I needed to do more damage, faster this time. So, I decloaked, fired a bomb, and then pointed and began to shoot. Sure enough, the Hulk was almost immediately in armor. Then the Hawk arrived, shortly followed by the crow. Panicking, I started microwarpdriving away from them, quickly leaving point range of the Hulk. He was now in structure and my shields were gone, and in that moment I knew I wouldn't make it out alive. So, I turned around, repointed him, and finished him off. I died 3 seconds later. To my delight, he was in fact faction-fitted and T2 Rigged. Yay!
Moving on. Majesta Empire liked to smack a LOT. Admittedly, one of my guys, El Liptonez, who was ex-Majesta actually, smacked back. Titus Novastar flew with us but was not part of my corporation or alliance. Liptonez was told off, but Majesta continued to smack almost from the day we deployed. Here is a few samples, including some bitter tears, for your consumption:
After a day or so:
Chris Sunstroke > all carebear pvp- dudes in sys^^ hi liptonez
santafee > how is it ?
santafee > guess its boring
Sperrzone > yep
santafee > camping the whole day cloaked
Sperrzone > vaginas on the run
Sperrzone > as usual
santafee >
After the loss of a hauler:
santafee > the boobs are back
Chris Sunstroke > the pussy-pvp- dudes in cloaking sucker ships^^
Titus Novastar > killed you didn't I?
Chris Sunstroke > yeah my heavy tanked iteron 4^^
santafee > lulz
Chris Sunstroke > that was a glorous kill
Chris Sunstroke > a epic one
santafee > that must be like an orgasm
santafee > or much more
Chris Sunstroke > lol
Genevieve Lecourtier > an epic one dude. learn english
El Liptonez > hah grammar natzee
Genevieve Lecourtier > sure, german
Chris Sunstroke > if u learn german^^
Titus Novastar > nah, im going to heaven when I die
Genevieve Lecourtier > Schon geschehen. Sorry, dachte das war von nem neut den wollt ich ankacken. Tut mir leid
Chris Sunstroke > all bombers meet at jb im coming with my iteron 4
Chris Sunstroke > egal^^
Genevieve Lecourtier > k
El Liptonez > lol idiot
santafee > ja?
Chris Sunstroke > oh i lost my scanner probe^^
Genevieve Lecourtier > uh, idiot is petitionable, ain´t it?
Random Smack:
hamon konakh > El Liptonez you always were a coward
hamon konakh > no balls
El Liptonez > go cut yourself emo
hamon konakh > you first
hamon konakh > piece of shit
El Liptonez > why so desperate
Baron Alladan > oh look a iteron on the t-z gate
Titus Novastar > omg
Titus Novastar > is it an iteron 5?
Old Corpmates Fighting:
El Liptonez > wow you almost decloaked me
El Liptonez > just 30km short
Elrock Storm > El Liptonez wow a hipercritical wanker talks
El Liptonez > is that what your great leader told you?
Elrock Storm > er no it what you said about AFK cloakers
Elrock Storm > you know how they are tossers and the like
Elrock Storm > ops you are one.
Elrock Storm > whne grow a apir i be waiting
Elrock Storm > when you grow a pair i'll be waiting.
El Liptonez > why so serious
Elrock Storm > why so hipercritcial
El Liptonez > u mad u didnt get that 50m few months ago?
Elrock Storm > No i pissed that you are so willing to act an arsesole to people who called you friend
El Liptonez > i didnt kick myself
El Liptonez > i dont even know what reb told you
Elrock Storm > nor did i did i?
Elrock Storm > i dom't ypu see you greifing Reb if you have an issue with him?
El Liptonez > tell me what did i do
iskies1 > you got too cocky
Shwabeul Shwabeul > Reb have more to do than talking about you for sure
Titus Novastar > haha you said 'cock'
El Liptonez > lol it's just so funny how mad you are about me and i still dont know why
Elrock Storm > me?
El Liptonez > all of you
iskies1 > not mad at you, but was getting annoyed with your attitude near the end before you left us
Elrock Storm > Well you are AFKing in a system, to piss people off, that once called you friend
Elrock Storm > that is enough for me tbh
iskies1 > ya, that is rather annoying aswell
El Liptonez > that's a different thing tho
El Liptonez > still not wanna tell me what you all are mad about
iskies1 > instead of floating around in your buzzard, why not just buzz off and bug someone else
Shwabeul Shwabeul > you talk , we respond , nothing to be mad's of
Elrock Storm > I just told you?
Elrock Storm > speak for yourself i am pissed at him
El Liptonez > nah i wanna know why everyone was mad about me even before i showed up here
Elrock Storm > i am not sure anyone was>?
iskies1 > forgot all about you tbh till you showed back up
Elrock Storm > i hd nothing but nice thoughts about you enjoying yourslef in eve.
Elrock Storm > then you came and decied the way forward was to grief some mates
El Liptonez > lol i didnt follow myself to shoot me the first day i appeared
El Liptonez > so what did reb tell you?
Elrock Storm > nothing
El Liptonez > i'm really curious
Elrock Storm > should he have?
El Liptonez > looks like
iskies1 > i have no problems with ya lip, but to come back and grief us over old news, no reason for it
El Liptonez > i know you won't believe me, but you remember how i laughed at ME when we joined, and i wasn't looking for you guys specifically
El Liptonez > there's just no other alliance with so many bears to make mad
Elrock Storm > EL lip yeah we all saw your ego in corp chat
El Liptonez > and the fact we were in the same corp is no reason to not shoot you
Elrock Storm > i don;t like people that are disloyal
Elrock Storm > in life as rule
El Liptonez > majesta is a fucking joke
benny1978 > and you are a fucked pussy
El Liptonez > you probably built your supercaps too long and you forgot about it
iskies1 > thanks benny, beat me to it
Philippe LaCroix > if you could you whould fit a cloak on you small pe....
Elrock Storm > cloaking AFKing is pure grieffing El Lip, you think anyone gives a toss what you think? lol
El Liptonez > oh really
benny1978 > 1 vs 1
El Liptonez > didn't know it was griefing
benny1978 > ???
Elrock Storm > You are nopt team player
Elrock Storm > you shit on your mates
El Liptonez > which mates
iskies1 > the ones u used to have
Elrock Storm > You the guys like that helped you sorry arse
benny1978 > i think he has no friends, no wife , no fun in live
benny1978 > that is fact
El Liptonez > true
El Liptonez > just funny how you call me hypocritical lol
Elrock Storm > i could find the copr chats if you like?
El Liptonez > yeah please
iskies1 > and on that note, gotta go and take my wife and kids out for supper, and you should soon hit the road lip before you accidentally get caught
El Liptonez > you should probably tell me what i did before calling me hypocritical, at least looks like i have not been the only hypocrat in that time
El Liptonez > i didnt kick myself from the corp and public chat for no obvious reasonjm
El Liptonez > i know the things i told reb when i left, in case you mean that things
A Fleeing Abbadon Dies:
EVE System > Channel changed to T-GCGL Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to V-NL3K Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to 1-GBBP Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to T-ZWA1 Local Channel
EVE System > Channel changed to QFF-O6 Local Channel
loopyliz > You keep coming this way i'm going to organize a trap for you : P
EVE System > Channel changed to 2CG-5V Local Channel
loopyliz > too slow
EVE System > Channel changed to Y5J-EU Local Channel
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836814
El Liptonez > nice trap you had there
Securitas Protector > gf?
A Ratting Hyperion Dies With 6 Of Us In Local:
(This guy was smacking us and telling us to "bring it" the day before, shooting at me off station, saying how boring we were, etc. I love karma.)
EVE System > Channel changed to TVN-FM Local Channel
bigpaxi > hey
bigpaxi > stop
bigpaxi > stop
bigpaxi > come on
bigpaxi > omg
StS ChaosEngine > gf
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836784
bigpaxi > ass holes
Captain Gardak > gf
El Liptonez > gf
bigpaxi > fucking fags
StS ChaosEngine > dont wine around gere watch local and intel
bigpaxi > omg i was just helping a friend
bigpaxi > i didnt even lock in u fucking fag
Securitas Protector > you were smacking us in local yesteday
Securitas Protector > /emote shrugs
bigpaxi > i mean
bigpaxi > dam
bigpaxi > i bet in a sb too
Tinker Rage > no talking in local please!
bigpaxi > dude u got neuts
bigpaxi > here
bigpaxi > wow
bigpaxi > just kill
http://stealthfield.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4836789 [NOTE: His pod stayed in some belt, we found him, killed him, right in that moment his salvaging alt comes in in this kestrel, gets also killed and podded]
My, weren't some of those tears delicious?
However, things went a little downhill from there. Over time, less people showed up for ops as it was no longer the weekend, and it got to the point where we were trying to do things that we simply didn't have enough ships for, although our first ever covert cyno hotdrop was awesome. For various reasons, we started making elementary mistakes, people started going AFK at extremely inappropriate times, and we became less organized, causing me to lose a Pilgrim because I got cocky and engaged, thinking due to my own poor organization that we had more bombers than we did.
One pilot also started having awful luck. No joke, this guy had 2 one-in-a-million deaths happen within 24 hours. The first time, we were sitting on a gate 20k off watching a Hyperion, Cerberus, and Thorax wait for us. After a few minutes, the Hyperion warps off to a safespot in a completely random direction...except he happened to pass through Shokoti's Nemesis in warp, decloaking him. The sensor-boosted Cerberus instalocked and instapopped him. Then, less than a day later, he jumps through a gate right as a Nighthawk happens to come out of warp on the other side...directly on top of his jump-in spot. He was once again decloaked and popped.
I've got to hand it to Majesta though, they really upped their own organization. Although I'm sure it was an inconvenience to them (which was the point), they started getting gangs together to follow us around, and their miners and ratters started POSing up very quickly. They do have some very good PVPers, especially in Epiphyte Mining and Exploration and Metalworks.
Due to future plans and an ending of the contract, we are now pulling out, but I have to say to Majesta: good fight! We ended up with a 65% efficiency on our accurate killboard, which is much lower than any other previous contract.
Good Show!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Stealthfield goes wildly inappropriate
Yeah. It was a boring Friday night and all of us were missioning in separate systems, trying to recoup from the last deployment to Branch. Suddenly I spy Jalak and Ruric(2 of my directors) alone in a ventrilo room together, their push-to-talk signals going green alternately. My interest piqued, I dropped down, silent as a stealth bomber.
Jalak: "Yeah, it's been so boring lately. I'm tired of flying one jump, killing some pirates, and making a meagre two million ISK every twenty minutes."
Ruric: "Yeah, I've been mining this fucking Veldspar 'roid for 5 hours straight. When I close my eyes, I can still see all of it's pits and crevasses."
Jalak: "Lets do something. Something fun. Something fabulous. Something...wildly inappropriate. Like a gay orgy."
Ruric: "Wow, we totally sho-"
Securitas: "Stop right there!"
THE REST OF THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DEEMED WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE AND IS CENSORED.
...okay not really.
We were bored in highsec, we weren't making much isk, and we also were itching for combat. So, we hit up our old friends in Ethereal Dawn and suddenly we had landed ourself a job in that most inappropriate of regions; Geminate.
With a click of our collective heels, we headed out to the nearest lowsec and proceeded to wreak havoc on the southern tip of Wildly Inappropriate's space.
If the previous sentence sounded at all impressive, I'm sorry. Most of that space is quite possibly the most empty I've ever seen, not counting those parts of Oasa where you jump 2 hours before downtime and are told that the system has not yet loaded. Thus, "wreaking havoc" has been limited to simply killing some various ratters with our ED friends, except for one notable and very fun instance.
But before we get to that, I want to briefly expand on the insane fun and craziness that has resulted in the recruitment of a certain pilot: Plavis. If you think you have ever met someone who is completely and totally addicted to bombs, Plavis was that person. Not only have I received multiple (and I mean MANY) complaints from our allies and corpmates about his completely crazy bombing behavior when "bombs were not necessary", but I've personally almost died twice as a result of it. And it's not the fact that he's not good at bombing. He is. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Good.
Speaking of bombs, on to the main show...
*the lights dim*
It was a dark night in Eurgrana, filled with Stealthers and ED'ers tired after a long day's work, drinking their weariness away. However, one man sits alone, away from all the others, writing crazy and half-brained plans on a piece of paper. Suddenly finishing, he walks over to the others.
Securitas: "Hey guys, lets try something fun."
Everyone: "Not again, Securitas. I have to log."
Securitas: "Seriously guys, this time is different. I want everyone in a stealth bomber in five minutes."
Everyone else moaned and groaned but finally 24 ships sat outside of the station, 16 of which were stealth bombers, loaded to the gills with concussion bombs. One Stealther, who later that night was to become a hero (for about 10 minutes), sat instead in his trusty Blackbird ECM cruiser.
The command came to go and the gang made their way around, ducking into FDZ and losing a bomber in exchange for a Destroyer. People grumbled. It was not an auspicious start to the night. Finally, the fleet commander ordered an advance from FDZ towards the station system of BWF- in hopes that they would get a kill.
Halfway there, the forward scout in an Ares sights a Myrmidon on a gate, and due to bad luck misses him. The chase begins, with the awe inspiring sight of 17(2 more bombers joined) bombers decloaking at every gate before jumping, as well as a Falcon. Finally, the Ares catches up one jump out of BWF, and the glorious FC Securitas orders the fleet to open fire. The ensuing damage only came from 4 bombers, but he still popped inside of 30 seconds.
Having immense foresight, Securitas orders the fleet to get on the BWF- gate in anticipation for the retaliation fleet. A throwaway newbie scout jumps in and reports that yes, indeed, a large, 20-man fleet is waiting on the other side.
FWOOSH!
The gate activates and a single Claw comes in. There is a brief pause before he decloaks and burns back to the gate, only seeing a Blackbird, Huginn, an Ares, and an Atron on the gate. The air is thick in anticipation.
And then...
FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWO-FWO-FW-FWWWWOOOOSH. The gate flashes like crazy and enemy's tacklers decloak. Our Huginn, so outnumbered, flees. I could practically hear the enemy tacklers giggling as they pointed the Blackbird.
Tackler 1: "Oh, lol, a blackbird all by itself. Lets shoot it!"
Tackler 2: "OMG yeah. I wonder where the other 20 reds in local are. They're not on scan and all celestials are on scan. That must mea-"
Enemy FC: "Who cares, there's a kill to be had! Fleet, jump jump jump!!!!"
The gate flashes a lot more times and some heavy-hitters decloak in a nice little cluster. By now our Blackbird is giggling in vent as he jams the tacklers on him, just waiting to die.
Suddenly, the command comes. Bomber squad 1 decloaks and bombs.
Enemy Zealot: "Lol, this blackbird is melting. Oh, what are those things. OH CRAP! BOMBOMBOBMOM!!!!!!"
Boosh.
My Nemesis enters warp, ponderously turning while I curse the fact I didn't have enough time to line up a celestial. 50% shields...30%....70% armor....20% armor....60% structure...
Warp drive active.
As I and a few other bombers whizz off into the distance, we see a pair of bright explosions. The rest of the bombers drop their loads and bug out as we tally our losses.
Enemy:
Curse down.
Arazu down. This guy had a faction point too.
Zealot down.
And the pods.
Us:
Nemesis down. (I was dumb and came back)
Manticore down.
Blackbird down. (YAAAY VALATH)
All in all, a successful night. Unfortunately, we didn't kill more (which I think we could have) because bomber waves 2 and 3 fired at the same spot that wave 1 fired at, which was already a 15km dead zone.
This was what the guys in Stealthfield were really waiting for, a demonstration of the power of stealthed ships against a conventional fleet using hit-and-run, baiting tactics, and other such trickery.
In all honesty, it was a really good fight and props to Wildly Inappropriate. for bringing it. The above was written semi-sarcastically, so don't think my head is that big or that WI are bad enemies...they're not and I respect them.
Till next week,
-Sec
Jalak: "Yeah, it's been so boring lately. I'm tired of flying one jump, killing some pirates, and making a meagre two million ISK every twenty minutes."
Ruric: "Yeah, I've been mining this fucking Veldspar 'roid for 5 hours straight. When I close my eyes, I can still see all of it's pits and crevasses."
Jalak: "Lets do something. Something fun. Something fabulous. Something...wildly inappropriate. Like a gay orgy."
Ruric: "Wow, we totally sho-"
Securitas: "Stop right there!"
THE REST OF THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DEEMED WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE AND IS CENSORED.
...okay not really.
We were bored in highsec, we weren't making much isk, and we also were itching for combat. So, we hit up our old friends in Ethereal Dawn and suddenly we had landed ourself a job in that most inappropriate of regions; Geminate.
With a click of our collective heels, we headed out to the nearest lowsec and proceeded to wreak havoc on the southern tip of Wildly Inappropriate's space.
If the previous sentence sounded at all impressive, I'm sorry. Most of that space is quite possibly the most empty I've ever seen, not counting those parts of Oasa where you jump 2 hours before downtime and are told that the system has not yet loaded. Thus, "wreaking havoc" has been limited to simply killing some various ratters with our ED friends, except for one notable and very fun instance.
But before we get to that, I want to briefly expand on the insane fun and craziness that has resulted in the recruitment of a certain pilot: Plavis. If you think you have ever met someone who is completely and totally addicted to bombs, Plavis was that person. Not only have I received multiple (and I mean MANY) complaints from our allies and corpmates about his completely crazy bombing behavior when "bombs were not necessary", but I've personally almost died twice as a result of it. And it's not the fact that he's not good at bombing. He is. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Good.
Speaking of bombs, on to the main show...
*the lights dim*
It was a dark night in Eurgrana, filled with Stealthers and ED'ers tired after a long day's work, drinking their weariness away. However, one man sits alone, away from all the others, writing crazy and half-brained plans on a piece of paper. Suddenly finishing, he walks over to the others.
Securitas: "Hey guys, lets try something fun."
Everyone: "Not again, Securitas. I have to log."
Securitas: "Seriously guys, this time is different. I want everyone in a stealth bomber in five minutes."
Everyone else moaned and groaned but finally 24 ships sat outside of the station, 16 of which were stealth bombers, loaded to the gills with concussion bombs. One Stealther, who later that night was to become a hero (for about 10 minutes), sat instead in his trusty Blackbird ECM cruiser.
The command came to go and the gang made their way around, ducking into FDZ and losing a bomber in exchange for a Destroyer. People grumbled. It was not an auspicious start to the night. Finally, the fleet commander ordered an advance from FDZ towards the station system of BWF- in hopes that they would get a kill.
Halfway there, the forward scout in an Ares sights a Myrmidon on a gate, and due to bad luck misses him. The chase begins, with the awe inspiring sight of 17(2 more bombers joined) bombers decloaking at every gate before jumping, as well as a Falcon. Finally, the Ares catches up one jump out of BWF, and the glorious FC Securitas orders the fleet to open fire. The ensuing damage only came from 4 bombers, but he still popped inside of 30 seconds.
Having immense foresight, Securitas orders the fleet to get on the BWF- gate in anticipation for the retaliation fleet. A throwaway newbie scout jumps in and reports that yes, indeed, a large, 20-man fleet is waiting on the other side.
FWOOSH!
The gate activates and a single Claw comes in. There is a brief pause before he decloaks and burns back to the gate, only seeing a Blackbird, Huginn, an Ares, and an Atron on the gate. The air is thick in anticipation.
And then...
FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWO-FWO-FW-FWWWWOOOOSH. The gate flashes like crazy and enemy's tacklers decloak. Our Huginn, so outnumbered, flees. I could practically hear the enemy tacklers giggling as they pointed the Blackbird.
Tackler 1: "Oh, lol, a blackbird all by itself. Lets shoot it!"
Tackler 2: "OMG yeah. I wonder where the other 20 reds in local are. They're not on scan and all celestials are on scan. That must mea-"
Enemy FC: "Who cares, there's a kill to be had! Fleet, jump jump jump!!!!"
The gate flashes a lot more times and some heavy-hitters decloak in a nice little cluster. By now our Blackbird is giggling in vent as he jams the tacklers on him, just waiting to die.
Suddenly, the command comes. Bomber squad 1 decloaks and bombs.
Enemy Zealot: "Lol, this blackbird is melting. Oh, what are those things. OH CRAP! BOMBOMBOBMOM!!!!!!"
Boosh.
My Nemesis enters warp, ponderously turning while I curse the fact I didn't have enough time to line up a celestial. 50% shields...30%....70% armor....20% armor....60% structure...
Warp drive active.
As I and a few other bombers whizz off into the distance, we see a pair of bright explosions. The rest of the bombers drop their loads and bug out as we tally our losses.
Enemy:
Curse down.
Arazu down. This guy had a faction point too.
Zealot down.
And the pods.
Us:
Nemesis down. (I was dumb and came back)
Manticore down.
Blackbird down. (YAAAY VALATH)
All in all, a successful night. Unfortunately, we didn't kill more (which I think we could have) because bomber waves 2 and 3 fired at the same spot that wave 1 fired at, which was already a 15km dead zone.
This was what the guys in Stealthfield were really waiting for, a demonstration of the power of stealthed ships against a conventional fleet using hit-and-run, baiting tactics, and other such trickery.
In all honesty, it was a really good fight and props to Wildly Inappropriate. for bringing it. The above was written semi-sarcastically, so don't think my head is that big or that WI are bad enemies...they're not and I respect them.
Till next week,
-Sec
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Rest and Making ISK
Well, it's been a while since my last post. In that time, we've finished our successful deployment in Oasa against Shadow of xXDeathXx and friends, doing 1.6 Billion damage and having 85% efficiency. For our first contract ever, that's not too bad.
Immediately after, we had an interested party contact us about deploying to Branch to take on Circle-Of-Two, which we did 2 days after leaving Oasa. In fact, a lot of our pilots were still in Oasa when our forces were in Branch. I thought this would be the easiest contract ever; CO2 are well known for being an "ISK Farmer" alliance and just more carebears. However, they gave us a very (un)pleasant surprise.
We were used to fighting Shadow of xXDeathXx, who are renters and, with a few exceptions, don't really form up to help a buddy who's being shot at by "stupid AFK cloakers." CO2 were a real alliance and thus, if we didn't kill a target fast enough, they'd come and kill us. They also tried baiting us, which worked a few times.
We had deployed to their home system of AH- on the first day, and it seemed a good start. In short order we had killed a Drake and a Myrmidon, with the help of our friends (now alliance-mates) Ammo Inc. However, shortly they started learning how we worked and would form up large gangs (sometimes 20+ with carrier support) and gatecamp us into systems. This, of course, was exactly what we wanted to a certain degree, as it furfilled the contract's intent of making them chase after us instead of ratting and mining.
The next day, I found a Hulk burning off station, pointed it, and quickly killed it. His buddies didn't come and the faction shield booster he dropped paid for about half of all of our losses in the entire campaign.
Over the next couple days, we got more kills, although we were deployed for disruption and the kills were just a bonus. However, I was impressed with CO2's ability to counter us, which proved very effective in some circumstances. They gave us some very good fights, although they did like to smacktalk a LOT. The contract finally ended nicely with a Navy Raven kill, which was done when I was offline.
After we finally returned home from Branch, tired but 400 million ISK richer, we eased into making some ISK to get ready for the next contract, which is still coming up. In the meanwhile, I lead "Secs Fleets" of cheap but effective T1 Cruisers around 0.0. For example, 2 days ago I led a roam into C-J6MT, the Red Alliance "holy land." We killed a Brutix on the way in, engaged on station against a Rokh, 2 Drakes, a Rifter, a Hound, and a Crow (we had maybe 6 T1 cruisers), and killed the Hound. Combined, these 2 kills brought us way above the amount of ISK lost and it was a lot of fun. I thought it couldn't get any better. It did.
Yesterday, we took the same route, although I took a Thrasher instead of an Arbitrator and it was a scheduled roam, so we had maybe 15 in fleet. However, for various reasons only 8 of them ended up in the actual roam. Upon finding C-J boring, we headed down to Curse. In Scalding Pass we almost killed a red hurricane on a gate, but he managed to burn back. Excited, we headed on until we got to HLW-. We all jumped...
...straight into a gatecamp. I saw the ticker "-10.0" and almost freaked out. We were in a Pandemic Legion gatecamp! The masters of PVP in EVE! With that excitement over, I ordered the fleet to primary the Flycatcher who's bubble we were all stuck in. The Flycatcher managed to get out, and we lost 3 ships, leaving about 5 of us in T1 cruisers against 6 Pandemic Legion in Tech II ships. However, I ordered the fleet to get out to a safespot, which they did.
Finally, we warped back to the gate out of HLW- to KLMT-, and...landed in a sling bubble. Then the Flycatcher warped in along with the rest of the Pandemic Legion fleet. We quickly killed the Flycatcher and his pod, followed by the Cerberus and his pod, before mostly dying horribly to the rest of the ships. Still, we were all hooting and backslapping in vent. Not only had we killed 10x more than we had lost, but we had done it against Pandemic Legion, in equal numbers, in Tech I cruisers. I was very proud of my guys. The Battle.
The End. :)
Immediately after, we had an interested party contact us about deploying to Branch to take on Circle-Of-Two, which we did 2 days after leaving Oasa. In fact, a lot of our pilots were still in Oasa when our forces were in Branch. I thought this would be the easiest contract ever; CO2 are well known for being an "ISK Farmer" alliance and just more carebears. However, they gave us a very (un)pleasant surprise.
We were used to fighting Shadow of xXDeathXx, who are renters and, with a few exceptions, don't really form up to help a buddy who's being shot at by "stupid AFK cloakers." CO2 were a real alliance and thus, if we didn't kill a target fast enough, they'd come and kill us. They also tried baiting us, which worked a few times.
We had deployed to their home system of AH- on the first day, and it seemed a good start. In short order we had killed a Drake and a Myrmidon, with the help of our friends (now alliance-mates) Ammo Inc. However, shortly they started learning how we worked and would form up large gangs (sometimes 20+ with carrier support) and gatecamp us into systems. This, of course, was exactly what we wanted to a certain degree, as it furfilled the contract's intent of making them chase after us instead of ratting and mining.
The next day, I found a Hulk burning off station, pointed it, and quickly killed it. His buddies didn't come and the faction shield booster he dropped paid for about half of all of our losses in the entire campaign.
Over the next couple days, we got more kills, although we were deployed for disruption and the kills were just a bonus. However, I was impressed with CO2's ability to counter us, which proved very effective in some circumstances. They gave us some very good fights, although they did like to smacktalk a LOT. The contract finally ended nicely with a Navy Raven kill, which was done when I was offline.
After we finally returned home from Branch, tired but 400 million ISK richer, we eased into making some ISK to get ready for the next contract, which is still coming up. In the meanwhile, I lead "Secs Fleets" of cheap but effective T1 Cruisers around 0.0. For example, 2 days ago I led a roam into C-J6MT, the Red Alliance "holy land." We killed a Brutix on the way in, engaged on station against a Rokh, 2 Drakes, a Rifter, a Hound, and a Crow (we had maybe 6 T1 cruisers), and killed the Hound. Combined, these 2 kills brought us way above the amount of ISK lost and it was a lot of fun. I thought it couldn't get any better. It did.
Yesterday, we took the same route, although I took a Thrasher instead of an Arbitrator and it was a scheduled roam, so we had maybe 15 in fleet. However, for various reasons only 8 of them ended up in the actual roam. Upon finding C-J boring, we headed down to Curse. In Scalding Pass we almost killed a red hurricane on a gate, but he managed to burn back. Excited, we headed on until we got to HLW-. We all jumped...
...straight into a gatecamp. I saw the ticker "-10.0" and almost freaked out. We were in a Pandemic Legion gatecamp! The masters of PVP in EVE! With that excitement over, I ordered the fleet to primary the Flycatcher who's bubble we were all stuck in. The Flycatcher managed to get out, and we lost 3 ships, leaving about 5 of us in T1 cruisers against 6 Pandemic Legion in Tech II ships. However, I ordered the fleet to get out to a safespot, which they did.
Finally, we warped back to the gate out of HLW- to KLMT-, and...landed in a sling bubble. Then the Flycatcher warped in along with the rest of the Pandemic Legion fleet. We quickly killed the Flycatcher and his pod, followed by the Cerberus and his pod, before mostly dying horribly to the rest of the ships. Still, we were all hooting and backslapping in vent. Not only had we killed 10x more than we had lost, but we had done it against Pandemic Legion, in equal numbers, in Tech I cruisers. I was very proud of my guys. The Battle.
The End. :)
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Deploying to Oasa
Alright everyone! It's been a while so here's the catch-up.
On our free contract, Stealthfield and our partner Academy of Shadows deployed to Oasa to hit Shadow of xXDeathXx. We took some losses, but they were mostly from newer players in Celestis' and Maulus' who had never done this kind of work before. We also lost a few bombers when they were headed out, which nearly all died just a jump or two out of empire, as well as a Falcon due to a fluke. We were killing a Dominix off a gate when suddenly an Abaddon jumps through, less than 20k from our Falcon. Good bye Falcon!
However, I noticed that even the people who had never done this before learned very quickly. One couple-week-old player, HarrisonTM, who cannot even fly a covert ops, has learned how to navigate 0.0, to avoid gatecamps, fleet protocol, and how to report intel. It's nothing short of amazing.
Archenom, another fairly new player, has also learned an immense amount. The difference that I have noticed between Day 1 and now is phenomenal. Before, we were losing 2-3 ships a day and one at every confrontation. Now the last ship we lost was a Maulus and that was 3 days ago. Moving on...
We recently discovered that some idiots in xDeath like to run around letting their posses run out of fuel (or forget to reinforce them) so we did them a favor and just removed them ourselves. POS 1 and POS 2 popped fairly quick.
We then met some Atlas guys in the area and decided to work together, crashing a gatecamp (and a Cyclone) The nice tech II salvage paid for one of our bombers.
Finally, we tried an experimental setup and sling bubbled (with a dictor) an Apoc warping to the station. Imagine his surprise when he came out of warp and saw almost a dozens ships decloak. However, one of our fellow atlas pilots didn't keep up transversal and died, and then one of the Arazus (also not Stealthfield) lingered too long to get the pod, and the Apoc's buddies came in and popped him. It was great fun though, and taught us a lot about the value of hitting and getting out right away. Unfortunately, the enemy pod, who was loaded with a full set of +4's, escaped in 50% structure.
Last but not least, in our most heart-pounding (and hilarious) kill yet, we found a Rokh ratting in a belt, had a stealthbomber stay within point range, and snuck our entire fleet up on top of him. The whole time we thought it was a bait Rokh as it was mining with a few mining lasers (they've tried this before), but we found out VERY quickly that it was just an absolute horror of a fail-fit. This was the same guy who orbited the station at 3k in an Ibis using a small smartbomb to try to decloak us. I hit him with a bomb which was fun as he was moving.
Well, that just about wraps up this week! Thanks for reading and fly safe!
On our free contract, Stealthfield and our partner Academy of Shadows deployed to Oasa to hit Shadow of xXDeathXx. We took some losses, but they were mostly from newer players in Celestis' and Maulus' who had never done this kind of work before. We also lost a few bombers when they were headed out, which nearly all died just a jump or two out of empire, as well as a Falcon due to a fluke. We were killing a Dominix off a gate when suddenly an Abaddon jumps through, less than 20k from our Falcon. Good bye Falcon!
However, I noticed that even the people who had never done this before learned very quickly. One couple-week-old player, HarrisonTM, who cannot even fly a covert ops, has learned how to navigate 0.0, to avoid gatecamps, fleet protocol, and how to report intel. It's nothing short of amazing.
Archenom, another fairly new player, has also learned an immense amount. The difference that I have noticed between Day 1 and now is phenomenal. Before, we were losing 2-3 ships a day and one at every confrontation. Now the last ship we lost was a Maulus and that was 3 days ago. Moving on...
We recently discovered that some idiots in xDeath like to run around letting their posses run out of fuel (or forget to reinforce them) so we did them a favor and just removed them ourselves. POS 1 and POS 2 popped fairly quick.
We then met some Atlas guys in the area and decided to work together, crashing a gatecamp (and a Cyclone) The nice tech II salvage paid for one of our bombers.
Finally, we tried an experimental setup and sling bubbled (with a dictor) an Apoc warping to the station. Imagine his surprise when he came out of warp and saw almost a dozens ships decloak. However, one of our fellow atlas pilots didn't keep up transversal and died, and then one of the Arazus (also not Stealthfield) lingered too long to get the pod, and the Apoc's buddies came in and popped him. It was great fun though, and taught us a lot about the value of hitting and getting out right away. Unfortunately, the enemy pod, who was loaded with a full set of +4's, escaped in 50% structure.
Last but not least, in our most heart-pounding (and hilarious) kill yet, we found a Rokh ratting in a belt, had a stealthbomber stay within point range, and snuck our entire fleet up on top of him. The whole time we thought it was a bait Rokh as it was mining with a few mining lasers (they've tried this before), but we found out VERY quickly that it was just an absolute horror of a fail-fit. This was the same guy who orbited the station at 3k in an Ibis using a small smartbomb to try to decloak us. I hit him with a bomb which was fun as he was moving.
Well, that just about wraps up this week! Thanks for reading and fly safe!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
A Fresh Start
Needing some more independence, I split from Ethereal Dawn with two or three others and formed my own corporation, Stealthfield. We're a mercenary black-ops corporation. Our recruitment thread is here, along with all requisite information.
Cheers to a new start.
Securitas
Cheers to a new start.
Securitas
Thursday, July 23, 2009
What a Day!
Alright, so finally I got some more people on in Delve. They're kind of busy, so it was only one at a time, but more had actually made the move. The beginning of the day was quite boring, and I finally meandered into NOL- in search of some fun. Luckily, I found it on the station...an entire FLEET of goons, just sitting there and shooting at eachother.
Very pumped up by this sight, I ran back to my home station and grabbed some bombs. Hands shaking, I warped to my 1st bombing spot at the NOL- Ishukone Corporation Factory. I quickly lined up a shot, dropped a bomb, and warped off. My bomb hit nearly every ship there and took out a dozen or so drones, but I didn't get a single kill. Then, local exploded.
---------------
[00:31:04] Matteyo > OMG THE DRONES
[00:31:05] Jack Gates > not aimed at our battleships and moroses
[00:31:06] Morrigan Shaikorth > MIEN SHIELDEN!
[00:31:08] Jack Gates > these guys are horrible
[00:31:08] DrNeato > haha, that was a great bomb
[00:31:08] Berious > you are all fucked now!
[00:31:10] RobTheRad > help my shields
[00:31:11] Lume V > lmao he killed all your drones
[00:31:16] Ford Cruller > did he actually bomb us
[00:31:19] Ford Cruller > i didn't even see anythin
[00:31:19] Jack Gates > c
[00:31:21] RobTheRad > ya
[00:31:21] Lume V > c
[00:31:24] Jack Gates > a hostile nemesis decloaked and bombed
[00:31:29] Cymoro > booya booya
[00:31:29] RobTheRad > thanks drneato
[00:31:34] Jack Gates > roughly 5km from station?
[00:31:34] Tschkih Npahppayi > broadcast in local for rep
[00:31:40] Berious >Securitas Protector nice bomb brah
[00:31:44] Cymoro > yo dude in nemesis we can get you a frigate
[00:31:51] Cymoro > join in
[00:31:52] Griff Skyshock > haha ED came down here to bomb us
[00:31:53] Griff Skyshock > ARGH
[00:31:58] Berious > ya
[00:32:00] Jack Gates > he should come on the op
[00:32:00] jm24 > 00:30:51 Combat Scorch Bomb belonging to Securitas Protector hits you, doing 3225.6 damage.
[00:32:02] Ford Cruller > IM TRACKIN YOU SAM
[00:32:02] Jack Gates > the nemesis dude
[00:32:03] Lume V > Well it's not like they have their own space to protect.
[00:32:03] jm24 > o noes
[00:32:06] jm24 > O NOES
[00:32:06] Ford Cruller > IM FUCKIN TRACKIN YOU BITCH
[00:32:07] Berious > he killed an iteron
[00:32:09] Lume V > they are freed from the shackles of owning space.
--------------------------
Encouraged and out of bombs (I did it again, and again, and again), though without kills (they didn't die but it was fun to watch local) I went back and grabbed some more. I ended up bombing them two or three more times before another bomber pilot in Delve logged on. Yelling at him to get from two jumps away to NOL, I loaded up even more bombs.
Together, we took our bombing positions, aimed, and fired. Instantly, the chaos fell behind me as I slipped into warp. I got the damage report and smiled. Any second now, the other bomb would explode....
But it never did. They had set up a trap for me with a cloaked interdictor, however, I had moved spots. Unluckily for Max, my fellow pilot, his own bombing point just happened to next to my old one, and he was caught and killed. No kills for us, but I think I must have destroyed 5-10 mil of tech II drones, and the local chatter was priceless.
Then, regretfully, I had to log off, and came back about 2 hours later.
This time Jalak, a corpmate of mine and an avid Cormorant pilot, was online. I grabbed another Cormorant and off we went. Long story short, we camped the PR to NOL- gate and ALMOST got some kills. I say almost because by some twist of fate Jalak missed his scram range by 500m and a Goonswarm Eris got away in 90% hull.
Then we got jumped by a Crow, and I put that into 10% structure before managed to get away too, and then an enemy fleet jumped in and killed Jalak. Undeterred, I warped back to the gate, engaged yet another Crow, put that into 25% armor, before I was jumped in and killed as well.
Why did I do this foolhardy thing? Well, because my destroyer cost a total of 1.5 million ISK and a Crow costs at least 20 million, or over 10 times as much. If the fleet had jumped in a fraction of a second later, or I had pointed him a fraction of a second longer, we would have come out ahead. But enough whining, today was a great day, even with only 3 or 4 people out in Delve, it was great fun and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
Securitas.
Very pumped up by this sight, I ran back to my home station and grabbed some bombs. Hands shaking, I warped to my 1st bombing spot at the NOL- Ishukone Corporation Factory. I quickly lined up a shot, dropped a bomb, and warped off. My bomb hit nearly every ship there and took out a dozen or so drones, but I didn't get a single kill. Then, local exploded.
---------------
[00:31:04] Matteyo > OMG THE DRONES
[00:31:05] Jack Gates > not aimed at our battleships and moroses
[00:31:06] Morrigan Shaikorth > MIEN SHIELDEN!
[00:31:08] Jack Gates > these guys are horrible
[00:31:08] DrNeato > haha, that was a great bomb
[00:31:08] Berious > you are all fucked now!
[00:31:10] RobTheRad > help my shields
[00:31:11] Lume V > lmao he killed all your drones
[00:31:16] Ford Cruller > did he actually bomb us
[00:31:19] Ford Cruller > i didn't even see anythin
[00:31:19] Jack Gates > c
[00:31:21] RobTheRad > ya
[00:31:21] Lume V > c
[00:31:24] Jack Gates > a hostile nemesis decloaked and bombed
[00:31:29] Cymoro > booya booya
[00:31:29] RobTheRad > thanks drneato
[00:31:34] Jack Gates > roughly 5km from station?
[00:31:34] Tschkih Npahppayi > broadcast in local for rep
[00:31:40] Berious >
[00:31:44] Cymoro > yo dude in nemesis we can get you a frigate
[00:31:51] Cymoro > join in
[00:31:52] Griff Skyshock > haha ED came down here to bomb us
[00:31:53] Griff Skyshock > ARGH
[00:31:58] Berious > ya
[00:32:00] Jack Gates > he should come on the op
[00:32:00] jm24 > 00:30:51 Combat Scorch Bomb belonging to Securitas Protector hits you, doing 3225.6 damage.
[00:32:02] Ford Cruller > IM TRACKIN YOU SAM
[00:32:02] Jack Gates > the nemesis dude
[00:32:03] Lume V > Well it's not like they have their own space to protect.
[00:32:03] jm24 > o noes
[00:32:06] jm24 > O NOES
[00:32:06] Ford Cruller > IM FUCKIN TRACKIN YOU BITCH
[00:32:07] Berious > he killed an iteron
[00:32:09] Lume V > they are freed from the shackles of owning space.
--------------------------
Encouraged and out of bombs (I did it again, and again, and again), though without kills (they didn't die but it was fun to watch local) I went back and grabbed some more. I ended up bombing them two or three more times before another bomber pilot in Delve logged on. Yelling at him to get from two jumps away to NOL, I loaded up even more bombs.
Together, we took our bombing positions, aimed, and fired. Instantly, the chaos fell behind me as I slipped into warp. I got the damage report and smiled. Any second now, the other bomb would explode....
But it never did. They had set up a trap for me with a cloaked interdictor, however, I had moved spots. Unluckily for Max, my fellow pilot, his own bombing point just happened to next to my old one, and he was caught and killed. No kills for us, but I think I must have destroyed 5-10 mil of tech II drones, and the local chatter was priceless.
Then, regretfully, I had to log off, and came back about 2 hours later.
This time Jalak, a corpmate of mine and an avid Cormorant pilot, was online. I grabbed another Cormorant and off we went. Long story short, we camped the PR to NOL- gate and ALMOST got some kills. I say almost because by some twist of fate Jalak missed his scram range by 500m and a Goonswarm Eris got away in 90% hull.
Then we got jumped by a Crow, and I put that into 10% structure before managed to get away too, and then an enemy fleet jumped in and killed Jalak. Undeterred, I warped back to the gate, engaged yet another Crow, put that into 25% armor, before I was jumped in and killed as well.
Why did I do this foolhardy thing? Well, because my destroyer cost a total of 1.5 million ISK and a Crow costs at least 20 million, or over 10 times as much. If the fleet had jumped in a fraction of a second later, or I had pointed him a fraction of a second longer, we would have come out ahead. But enough whining, today was a great day, even with only 3 or 4 people out in Delve, it was great fun and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
Securitas.
Delve Day One
I and one other wingmate finally arrived in Delve, and after logging in for a quick 30 minute session, I checked the map for "average pilots active" and found that NOL- happily had 30. Smiling, I headed over there and waited on the station with a Scorch bomb. Sure enough, some time goes by and a Coercer undocks. I shrugged and sent a bomb his way, then warped off. I sighed as no damage message informing me I had hit someone came up.
Then I suddenly see a message in local.
Durendale Zukuri > oh no
Durendale Zukuri > my empty itty
What? Then I checked my kills, and sure enough, there was a killmail for an Iteron there. Apparently the Coercer had warped off while an Iteron undocked a second later.
After the Iteron kill, everyone in local began smacking for some odd reason. I thought that you normally smacked after you had killed someone else, not the other way around, but obviously in Delve the rules are different.
Vio Geraci > Behold as the combined forces of the Triumvirate Alliance lay waste to the impotent goonies!
Durendale Zukuri > its me im the one being laid waste to
SamHandwich > sup
Securitas Protector > We're not Tri.
SamHandwich > ima dd you right now
Durendale Zukuri > or a sapce hold ing alliance
Durendale Zukuri > boosh
Wim'sei > We are helpless in the very space we hold while they stand free of POS warfare.
At first I had dismissed SamHandwich's threat of a doomsday as a joke or smack, but sure enough, within a few minutes a Leviathan appeared on scan. I guess us two in Stealth Bombers must be pretty scary, eh? Scary enough to pull a titan, anyway. I wonder what they'll throw at us when the full Black Ops fleet arrives.
I also spotted a neutral (probably Triumvirate) Strategic Cruiser flying around, but I didn't have the firepower to take it down with only two bombers. I soon had to log off, but not before I wasted another bomb on that Coercer.
Then I suddenly see a message in local.
Durendale Zukuri > oh no
Durendale Zukuri > my empty itty
What? Then I checked my kills, and sure enough, there was a killmail for an Iteron there. Apparently the Coercer had warped off while an Iteron undocked a second later.
After the Iteron kill, everyone in local began smacking for some odd reason. I thought that you normally smacked after you had killed someone else, not the other way around, but obviously in Delve the rules are different.
Vio Geraci > Behold as the combined forces of the Triumvirate Alliance lay waste to the impotent goonies!
Durendale Zukuri > its me im the one being laid waste to
SamHandwich > sup
Securitas Protector > We're not Tri.
SamHandwich > ima dd you right now
Durendale Zukuri > or a sapce hold ing alliance
Durendale Zukuri > boosh
Wim'sei > We are helpless in the very space we hold while they stand free of POS warfare.
At first I had dismissed SamHandwich's threat of a doomsday as a joke or smack, but sure enough, within a few minutes a Leviathan appeared on scan. I guess us two in Stealth Bombers must be pretty scary, eh? Scary enough to pull a titan, anyway. I wonder what they'll throw at us when the full Black Ops fleet arrives.
I also spotted a neutral (probably Triumvirate) Strategic Cruiser flying around, but I didn't have the firepower to take it down with only two bombers. I soon had to log off, but not before I wasted another bomb on that Coercer.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Delving Away
Last night, I ordered the move to Delve. Unfortunately, there's not much to say as the route was very boring. I cut straight through AAA space and Goonswarm space, encountered one 10-man roaming gang while leaving Curse, which I easily evaded with my Nemesis, and one gatecamp as I entered Delve. I managed to escape the bubble and get away, but they left before I could drop a bomb.
I'm wondering though, why is Delve so empty? Indeed, I looked at "average number of players" on the map and no system had over 30 players. The only action I got before I had to go to bed was foolishly just-for-fun bombing an undocking Rupture. I didn't kill him.
I also made an idiot out of myself by wasting a precious bomb by clicking the bomb launcher instead of my cloak. Fortunately no one was around to take advantage of it, but I felt stupid nonetheless.
Anyway, I'm now in Delve and looking forward to some action.
Also: whoever invented the stereotype about Goons flying Rifters is an idiot or Goons somehow got their hands on some money. I would have loved to bomb a Rifter or something easy, but all I saw Goons flying was Tech II ships, mostly HACs and HICs.
I'm wondering though, why is Delve so empty? Indeed, I looked at "average number of players" on the map and no system had over 30 players. The only action I got before I had to go to bed was foolishly just-for-fun bombing an undocking Rupture. I didn't kill him.
I also made an idiot out of myself by wasting a precious bomb by clicking the bomb launcher instead of my cloak. Fortunately no one was around to take advantage of it, but I felt stupid nonetheless.
Anyway, I'm now in Delve and looking forward to some action.
Also: whoever invented the stereotype about Goons flying Rifters is an idiot or Goons somehow got their hands on some money. I would have loved to bomb a Rifter or something easy, but all I saw Goons flying was Tech II ships, mostly HACs and HICs.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
A New Dawn (Again)
Alright, this is a public service announcement. Though I am enrolled in a summer class, the Ethereal Navy will be redeploying away from our new home in Curse. Look out universe, here we come!
Hint: It has NPC space and lots of reds!
Hint: It has NPC space and lots of reds!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Gentlemen's Club Run-In
Alright, although this is not strictly black ops, yesterday I decided to take a foray into wormhole space to equip our blackops team with tech III covertly reconfigured ships, as it's my dream to have a fleet of these. So, in my specially fit all-purpose Myrmidon, I scan down a wormhole and warp to it, waiting a few minutes for the rest of the fleet to catch up. I definitely deserved the following.
I managed to jump and engaged a Taranis, putting it into high structure before the other ships came in and melted me like butter. In seconds, I was in a clone in the same system. Definitely props to the mad-fast scanners in Gentlemen's Club. Fortunately, I think I trapped them in the wormhole, because their prober and a members re-entered local before the stream stopped. I think my ship plus their fleet jumping into the wormhole and then some of their fleet collapsed it.
To Gentlemen's Club: you guys are good pilots, very nice scan work, even if you did get trapped in there.
In other news, looks like I'll have to wait to get those parts for my dream fleet.
I managed to jump and engaged a Taranis, putting it into high structure before the other ships came in and melted me like butter. In seconds, I was in a clone in the same system. Definitely props to the mad-fast scanners in Gentlemen's Club. Fortunately, I think I trapped them in the wormhole, because their prober and a members re-entered local before the stream stopped. I think my ship plus their fleet jumping into the wormhole and then some of their fleet collapsed it.
To Gentlemen's Club: you guys are good pilots, very nice scan work, even if you did get trapped in there.
In other news, looks like I'll have to wait to get those parts for my dream fleet.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Up to Speed: A History
Before I begin blogging in earnest, I'm going to write a little "history" post that will show how the team got to where it is today. It all begins with a string of defeats that the Ethereal Crossing Coalition(Ethereal Dawn/Intrepid Crossing) suffered during the Drone Wars.
Red Alliance and friends had gotten a foothold in our "loop" area, including a station or two, while we had no systems in their space. This put us on a constant defensive, unable to put pressure on their miners, ratters, and other carebears, while we were unable to make ISK to continue the war.
As a newly-minted Junior FC with not much political power in my alliance, Ethereal Dawn, I thought about what I could do. Having just trained Stealth Bombers, I thought maybe I could get a group of 5 or so and go down to Insmother to put pressure on ratters. Little did I know how big it would grow.
So, I posted a topic called "Operation: New Dawn" on the forums that laid out a template for how I thought this team was going to work. I made an ingame password-protected channel and mailing list, and waited.
A day went by, and when I checked my Evemail, 8 people had already replied. Problem was: not all of them flew bombers. So, I expanded the mission a bit. I'd take all cloaking ships. That very day, I formed everyone up in 3H5(a station system), and we went off. To where? Well, C-J6 of course!
Why? I had recently learned that Goonswarm and RA held this place as sacred, as undefilable. I wanted to wage psychological warfare as well, so this became our quite literal home for 2 months. I did not dock in a station once during that time. The very first day of deployment, we escorted a pair of blockade runners down and deployed 6 giant secure containers at a very deep safespot. Regulations dictated that no one at the cans was decloaked for more than 30 seconds.
Over a few days, we brought in tens of thousands of torpedoes, dozens of bombs, sundry ammo and modules, and then, upon discovering that C-J was not cynojammed, finally jumped in a Chimera carrier. This carrier would only ever leave the area during our deployment to fetch materials and ships from our loop area.
By now, I had almost 20 very active pilots in my Blackops team, all of which could fly bombers. We practiced and got very good with bomb deployment after a few mess-ups(like me, the esteemed FC, destroying his own fleet.) This led to a massive, unprecedented victory later on while I was on vacation(more on that later.)
After bombers, I had a few Falcons, a pair of Rapiers, an Arazu or two, the Chimera, and a Redeemer Black Ops ship. It was time. I gave the order to begin attacks, so we gatecamped the YPW- gate for about an hour. No one came through. Finally, we moved to the C-J station, where we noticed some bombers from Republic Alliance having a go at some Red Alliance ships.
Immediately seeing an opportunity for cooperation, I contacted them and within half an hour we had blue standings. One of the Republic Alliance(RE-AL) corps was eventually to join ED and become an integral member of the Black Ops team. Thus, every day, we woke up, logged in , and appeared in C-J. We started getting insults from the locals, smacktalk, and so forth. That was okay by us; it meant that we were being recognized.
Then, one day, maybe 2 weeks after initial deployment, one of my pilots gave me the location of an undefended moon-mining POS. After a day of few targets, I quickly rallied the 8 stealthbombers under my command and attacked. I will never forget the surprise of our whole fleet when the thing went into reinforced in an hour and a half. 8 stealthbombers had attacked a POS and succeeded! It was unthinkable. This started a whole strategy of search-and-destroy; we actively searched for red (relatively) undefended POSes to hamper incoming ISK. They fell quickly.
By the time we withdrew, we had destroyed over 13 POSes, including a few medium-sized control towers. Additionally, there were often moon-mining materials left over, which contributed to our net profit for the whole operation of a few billion. The whole point of all this is to illustrate what kind of effect we were having on our enemy and the constant new tactics we had to devise. Many of these moon-mining small POSes were the only things holding sovereingty, so Red Alliance and Ultima Rati0 lost about 7 systems.
All the while, we were gate-camping, roaming, baiting, and so forth, netting dozens of kills(and not a few embarassing losses.) For example, one time we attacked a seemingly harmless Drake without ECM. The Drake died, but we lost 4 bombers to it first. We also used the Chimera extensively for POS bashing, with it's sentry drones. An amazing feeling swept through the team and the alliance: we were living in their space, using our capitals and bashing their POSes with impunity.
Because of this feeling, I ordered our own POSes put up in the multitude of unclaimed systems, two of which were just 2 jumps from C-J. In between moving ratting ships down and storing them, running complexes and the like(which also gave a nice feeling), we refined ice, put up guns, and claimed 5 systems, 4 of which eventually reached Sov 3.
Then we discovered that 90% of the reds in spread-out systems were macros that logged off every time a red(to them) was in local. This lead to the tactic of leaving cloaked bombers and other ships spread across different systems to discourage their ISK farming. One of them got so upset that in exchange for us setting him blue, he sent us 10 Million ISK a day. And we didn't even have to do anything.
Morale got higher and higher as we kept bombing, torpedoing, and generally trashing Insmother, and then suddenly I went on vacation for a month in Europe. I appointed 4 commanders(overlap), but when I came back, everything was in shambles and everyone was inactive, which I'm still repairing now. I did discover while I was on vacation a very interesting and relevant fact which made EVE history.
The pre-mentioned bombing practice had led to a massive victory. Red Alliance had titan-bridged a massive fleet into one of our systems TP-RTO. Our fleet was roaming the system, but when the cyno went up, the Black Ops bombers got there first. With over 70 ships clustered tightly together, it was a perfect target. 8+ bombs were launched inside of 15 seconds or so, and those bombers got 56( yes fifty-six ) kills. I was immensely jealous; while I left, my team delivered more than an improvised Doomsday worth of damage to an enemy battlefleet.
Unfortunately, that was the last major action on their part, and that brings me to the topic of this blog: a day to day account of a 30+ man Black Ops fleet in 0.0. Currently, I'm rebuilding after the disastrous summer, but I hope you will all enjoy it.
Red Alliance and friends had gotten a foothold in our "loop" area, including a station or two, while we had no systems in their space. This put us on a constant defensive, unable to put pressure on their miners, ratters, and other carebears, while we were unable to make ISK to continue the war.
As a newly-minted Junior FC with not much political power in my alliance, Ethereal Dawn, I thought about what I could do. Having just trained Stealth Bombers, I thought maybe I could get a group of 5 or so and go down to Insmother to put pressure on ratters. Little did I know how big it would grow.
So, I posted a topic called "Operation: New Dawn" on the forums that laid out a template for how I thought this team was going to work. I made an ingame password-protected channel and mailing list, and waited.
A day went by, and when I checked my Evemail, 8 people had already replied. Problem was: not all of them flew bombers. So, I expanded the mission a bit. I'd take all cloaking ships. That very day, I formed everyone up in 3H5(a station system), and we went off. To where? Well, C-J6 of course!
Why? I had recently learned that Goonswarm and RA held this place as sacred, as undefilable. I wanted to wage psychological warfare as well, so this became our quite literal home for 2 months. I did not dock in a station once during that time. The very first day of deployment, we escorted a pair of blockade runners down and deployed 6 giant secure containers at a very deep safespot. Regulations dictated that no one at the cans was decloaked for more than 30 seconds.
Over a few days, we brought in tens of thousands of torpedoes, dozens of bombs, sundry ammo and modules, and then, upon discovering that C-J was not cynojammed, finally jumped in a Chimera carrier. This carrier would only ever leave the area during our deployment to fetch materials and ships from our loop area.
By now, I had almost 20 very active pilots in my Blackops team, all of which could fly bombers. We practiced and got very good with bomb deployment after a few mess-ups(like me, the esteemed FC, destroying his own fleet.) This led to a massive, unprecedented victory later on while I was on vacation(more on that later.)
After bombers, I had a few Falcons, a pair of Rapiers, an Arazu or two, the Chimera, and a Redeemer Black Ops ship. It was time. I gave the order to begin attacks, so we gatecamped the YPW- gate for about an hour. No one came through. Finally, we moved to the C-J station, where we noticed some bombers from Republic Alliance having a go at some Red Alliance ships.
Immediately seeing an opportunity for cooperation, I contacted them and within half an hour we had blue standings. One of the Republic Alliance(RE-AL) corps was eventually to join ED and become an integral member of the Black Ops team. Thus, every day, we woke up, logged in , and appeared in C-J. We started getting insults from the locals, smacktalk, and so forth. That was okay by us; it meant that we were being recognized.
Then, one day, maybe 2 weeks after initial deployment, one of my pilots gave me the location of an undefended moon-mining POS. After a day of few targets, I quickly rallied the 8 stealthbombers under my command and attacked. I will never forget the surprise of our whole fleet when the thing went into reinforced in an hour and a half. 8 stealthbombers had attacked a POS and succeeded! It was unthinkable. This started a whole strategy of search-and-destroy; we actively searched for red (relatively) undefended POSes to hamper incoming ISK. They fell quickly.
By the time we withdrew, we had destroyed over 13 POSes, including a few medium-sized control towers. Additionally, there were often moon-mining materials left over, which contributed to our net profit for the whole operation of a few billion. The whole point of all this is to illustrate what kind of effect we were having on our enemy and the constant new tactics we had to devise. Many of these moon-mining small POSes were the only things holding sovereingty, so Red Alliance and Ultima Rati0 lost about 7 systems.
All the while, we were gate-camping, roaming, baiting, and so forth, netting dozens of kills(and not a few embarassing losses.) For example, one time we attacked a seemingly harmless Drake without ECM. The Drake died, but we lost 4 bombers to it first. We also used the Chimera extensively for POS bashing, with it's sentry drones. An amazing feeling swept through the team and the alliance: we were living in their space, using our capitals and bashing their POSes with impunity.
Because of this feeling, I ordered our own POSes put up in the multitude of unclaimed systems, two of which were just 2 jumps from C-J. In between moving ratting ships down and storing them, running complexes and the like(which also gave a nice feeling), we refined ice, put up guns, and claimed 5 systems, 4 of which eventually reached Sov 3.
Then we discovered that 90% of the reds in spread-out systems were macros that logged off every time a red(to them) was in local. This lead to the tactic of leaving cloaked bombers and other ships spread across different systems to discourage their ISK farming. One of them got so upset that in exchange for us setting him blue, he sent us 10 Million ISK a day. And we didn't even have to do anything.
Morale got higher and higher as we kept bombing, torpedoing, and generally trashing Insmother, and then suddenly I went on vacation for a month in Europe. I appointed 4 commanders(overlap), but when I came back, everything was in shambles and everyone was inactive, which I'm still repairing now. I did discover while I was on vacation a very interesting and relevant fact which made EVE history.
The pre-mentioned bombing practice had led to a massive victory. Red Alliance had titan-bridged a massive fleet into one of our systems TP-RTO. Our fleet was roaming the system, but when the cyno went up, the Black Ops bombers got there first. With over 70 ships clustered tightly together, it was a perfect target. 8+ bombs were launched inside of 15 seconds or so, and those bombers got 56( yes fifty-six ) kills. I was immensely jealous; while I left, my team delivered more than an improvised Doomsday worth of damage to an enemy battlefleet.
Unfortunately, that was the last major action on their part, and that brings me to the topic of this blog: a day to day account of a 30+ man Black Ops fleet in 0.0. Currently, I'm rebuilding after the disastrous summer, but I hope you will all enjoy it.
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