UGH fights

[Jonathan]

Flew down to our 0.0 base in Curse in my Sabre and decided to experiment with bubbles. Man, do I suck at bubbling! After nearly an hour of camping a gate, I had let a Slasher, a shuttle, a Kestrel, a pod, and a Drake go. I actually did scramble the Drake, but I didn't bother to shoot because I was pretty sure I wouldn't break his tank. In retrospect I should have tried to hold the point and seen if I could outrun his missiles.

Finally, the Kestrel came back and I figured out the bubble.

http://uninvitedguest.info/KB/?a=kill_d ... ll_id=1318

His pod got away. I assumed it was in the bubble, but I suppose he MWDed out of the bubble while I was popping him. I looted a cloaking device, too, which was nice because I had bought one in Jita but didn't haul it in because it took up too much room in my hold.

More bubble practice stories to come.

[quantus]

Uhhh, you suck?

[Jonathan]

WRONG

[Vyrosama]

You da Man?

[Jonathan]

I'M WORKING ON IT

[quantus]

You da Woman?

[Jonathan]

YOU ARE TWISTING MY WORDS

[Jonathan]

http://shc.kungfoosheep.com/?a=pilot_detail&plt_id=522 - my summary, 3kills
http://shc.kungfoosheep.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=296 - fight summary (doesn't distinguish between friendly and hostiles)

Gank night! We had 69 in gang all fitted for max alpha strike.

http://jonathan.pearce.name/Screenshot-10.png

We scared off everybody smaller than us for about an hour. Then finally we found someone will to engage. They had 80+, including carriers and BS. We died horribly.

[Jonathan]

To clarify, they had a close range fit and were sitting on the gate with grid loaded. Our fleet commander decided to jump our untanked alpha gang in for lulz. Lag really limited our ability to alpha targets into nothing.

I got my pod out!

[Jonathan]

And oh, I came in worst damage dealer on 2 of my 3 killmails because I was out of range. I MWDed out of the bubble, but I tried to use the right click menu to warp away. That was epic fail, right there.

[Jonathan]

http://ants.planet.ee/eve/2007.11.17.20.19.10.jpg

Here's a nice shot of the gang before we got mauled. The Hurricane named ~Atop The Piled Dead is me. "~" so I won't be first in alphabetical order and get called primary, and "Atop The Piled Dead" because berserks from Myth II: Soulblighter were, are, and always will be awesome. I name all my ships after berserks (like I named my worms).

[Jonathan]

And... -V- had put together their fleet quite a while back to deal with an incoming TCF fleet which they scared off immediately before we showed up. So we were very much the victims of bad timing.

[Jonathan]

http://uninvitedguest.info/KB/?a=kill_r ... ll_id=1321

Went bubble camping solo again. I killed a noob ship (rawr), then a Claw jumped in on me. I bubbled and went for the scram. Unfortunately he was the scout for a small gang with a stealth bomber who uncloaked and took 1/3 of my health in a single blow, which made it very simple for their Vagabond to pwn me.

Got the Claw, though, before I died. \o/

[Jonathan]

I logged and there was nobody in corp except for one afk guy. I decided to hell with it, jumped in my artillery Thrasher (1M isk destroyer, no MWD) and started heading to lowsec to get blown up. While I was traveling, Jurskjeld logged in. I told him to bring a Thrasher and come for the ride, and he was all over it. He suggested we get on Vent and bring an anchorable bubble (Thrashers can't shoot bubbles like a Sabre, but any ship can deploy one). By the time we got all that sorted out, we picked up quite a few more friends.

http://uninvitedguest.info/KB/?a=kill_r ... ll_id=1342

Good: no friendly deaths
Bad: only decent kill was the Manticore. The Thorax had a crap travel fit.
Ugly: argh not in range not on every killmail. I spent the whole time slowboating from one point to another, trying to find a place where I could hit both guys jumping in from the gate and guys warping in from the other side of the system.

Kills we missed: a cloaking Crow jumped in a slowboated 80km away from the gate before warping. A Hound pilot with 100M isk bounty gave us all kinds of trouble and we never got a lock on him. A couple of non-cloaking inties just burned straight out of our bubble before we could get a lock. An Absolution pilot came in and chased us off twice, but he was too slow and couldn't lock anyone.

[Jonathan]

Went a'piratin' with a couple of Vagabonds and a Huginn. They wanted something fast with good DPS, so I threw some overdrives, nanofibre structures, and a Rapid Deployment onto a Hurricane and hit almost 2.9km/s. I would have felt better at 3.5km/s but good enough.

http://uninvitedguest.info/KB/?a=kill_d ... ll_id=1348

All we found was this Thorax sitting in a belt with a Jaguar. The Jaguar ran off before anybody could get a lock. I got a few mill in faction antimatter and a named mag stab off the guy, plus some other t1 junk and a small t2 armor rep. Sadly only one of his Hammerheads lived.

We flew through Syndicate looking for targets, but couldn't find anyone to engage.

Tomorrow UGH will be part of Cult of War alliance. Be nice to have an alliance again.

[Jonathan]

Squad: me in Hurricane, Manticore (stealth bomber), Zealot, 2x Rupture, Taranis
Kills: Scorpion, some haulers, a Caracal
Losses: none
Loot: some named cruise missile launchers

http://kills.cultofwar.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=51306

We went around looking for trouble, but we didn't find any. We did find two separate Deimoses, but neither aggressed and we didn't leave anyone on the other side of the gate. We also ran into some Ravens ratting in belts, but they warped to a safe spot and cloaked before we could scan them down. There was a large IAC gang which we avoided for a time, and some reports of TCF but we never saw them.

All the killmails were pretty much a fail for me because they died too fast. The Scorpion at least I should have nailed, but I loaded short range Hail ammo in the expectation that it would be heavily tanked. Instead he was fitted for ECM and popped way too quickly before I got into optimal range. I don't think he even jammed anyone.

We cleared the ratting Raven's belt for him, just for lulz.

[Jonathan]

It's unfortunate that so much of the strategy and tactics of Eve is opaque to the casual player. So many players think Eve combat means hit F1-F8 and watch as combat resolves itself. The combat system actually demands much more complicated interactions than that.

I joined a scheduled op for perhaps the first time ever. Our alliance is Blackguard Coalition. BLAC is new and decided to gel by fighting an empire war against Exa Nation, an equivalently sized empire alliance. Then Molotov Coalition and V I G I L alliances declared war against BLAC and we frequently find ourselves outnumbered. Fighting has intense in the constellation where the Hek system is located. The kill:death ratio has been against us, so better tactics were called for.

At 2200 Eve time we formed up in Arnola. Preparations had been made earlier in the week to fit and rig a pile of battleships. The plan was to use large remote armor repairers to heal targeted allies, a tactic called spider tanking. Every BS brought a remote rep and fit a resist heavy HP tank with no local rep. Once you start taking damage you rely on your fleet to keep you alive. Several BS didn't fit any guns, only remote reps, to act as healers. I was offered a BS but declined because I do more damage in a Hurricane due to my maxing out my battlecruiser skills.

We numbered about 20, plus a few neutrals who served as scouts. Reports had two separate enemy gangs in the Hek area. They must have had their own neutral intelligence sources because they all docked just before we got there and sent a cloaked recon to scout our fleet. Our attempts to hide our fleet strength and get the enemy to aggress failed due to their alertness. We stayed docked in Hek for a bit, but no one took the bait. Our neutral scouts reported a large enemy gang of about 8 near their home office several jumps out in lowsec. Exa has one known carrier pilot and Molotov has several, but FC judged that we could withstand a capital ship hot dropped on our fleet. Our fleet rushed to intercept.

They had plenty of reports of our movements and withdrew their gang to their office system where they found reinforcements. Reports had them with roughly equivalent numbers though more battlecruisers than us. We jumped into their system and formed up on the gate. Remote reps have a very short range if fitted on a non-logistics ship.

Our rear scouts reported the enemies who had refused to engage at Hek were en route to our location to link up with the enemy fleet in system. I would have jumped back and attempted to engage them separately, but our commander elected to hold formation so we were guaranteed the remote repping capability.

We held the gate until our scout got a warpin on their fleet. Just as our FC was prepared to warp us to them and engage, they warped the fleet to our gate and jumped through. Again our FC held our formation rather than chase. They linked up with their comrades from Hek and went around through a neighboring region to re-enter the system we held through a different gate. Then they warped in on us about 20km away with perhaps 30 ships.

http://www.blackguardcoalition.org/kill ... kll_id=317

We first called their Hurricanes primary. Like I said, Hurricanes have good damage output, but they're relatively weak tankwise compared to BS. They had lots of other BCs, mostly Drakes, that we did not engage. Drakes can be fit for reasonable damage output, but often they have a really fat passive tank and little damage. After we killed all their Hurricanes, we brought down their BS until they warped. Unfortunately, in an empire war one can't use bubbles to keep a whole fleet pinned down, or we would have killed more of them.

My suspicions about my damage output were right on. I did the most damage to two Hurricanes and was second, fourth, or fifth on our remaining kills (and ahead of quite a few battleships).

The enemies popped a frigate and a recon, but none of our tanks or dps ships. Both ships were pickup pilots from our alliance who hadn't been in on the original plan and weren't fit like the rest. We killed three Hurricanes, two BS, and a heavy interdictor.

We held the field and looted all the wrecks. I salvaged one for fun and profit. We stuck around for a while, but the op had gone on for a long time and they didn't seem eager to engage again, so we headed back to Hek and docked.

Both sides exhibited good tactics and reconnaissance. They refused to engage until they had numerical superiority, and we refused to chase and potentially lose our remote rep range. Our BS pilots did a good job of responding to requests for heals and kept all our large ships intact. Our spider tank strategy proved to be effective.

All in all, I prefer a more personal, piratical style of combat, but the occasional fleet fight does spice things up a bit.

[Jonathan]

Fear is not an emotion I associate with video games. If my Diablo guy or UT guy takes a big hit and dies, I reload and try again. Trying to decide how to get past that guy camping the rocket launcher or to keep the devil's summons from swarming me is a cerebral activity: rapid, perhaps, but not fearful. Even in survival horror, I can't say I've ever been afraid. Surprised, certainly, perhaps even worried about my ammo stockpile, but never afraid.

I bought my first heavy assault cruiser around New Year's. I have been capable of flying them for some time, but I kept delaying the purchase because I really wanted to spend my isk on a command ship. However, 200M of the isk I had carefully been saving up was suicided while I was afk hauling a faction shield booster between two market hubs. Rather than investing the isk I had left into enterprises that wouldn't get as much return, I decided to blow it all on a Vagabond.

A Vagabond is the fastest cruiser in the game and has a bonus to the range of short range projectile turrets. As a result, it's not a hardened fleet ship but is an excellent skirmisher. I've run it into unsecured 0.0 regions and ninja ratted by myself these past few weeks. It is so fast that steering is a bit of a challenge. It attains speeds like a frigate, but still has the handling of a cruiser. I started out fitting a cloak in my utility highslot, but as I have gained more confidence in evading hostiles I have dropped the cloak and relied purely on my speed and ability to fly the ship.

This past weekend I took the Vagabond out to UGH's gatecamps. It's not a particularly good gatecamper, but I didn't want to haul my Hurricane up to where we where. I'm hypersensitive when I'm engaging enemies in my Vagabond, because if I lose it that's a good chunk of net worth gone.

Yesterday our camp had failed to catch anything of interest, so I flew into the hostile station system two jumps away. I found a Harpy (Caldari assault frigate) and another Vagabond sitting on the gate. The Vagabond began shooting me. I considered attacking, as I had three damage modules fitted and most Vagabond pilots fit two and another speed module. If I had burned straight away from the gate, I believe I could have outdistanced the Harpy and shot up the Vagabond. If he had attempted to MWD out of my scram range, I could have overloaded my MWD and possibly kept the point on him.

I didn't do this, though, because I was afraid of losing my Vagabond in a stupid encounter. Instead I jumped through the gate, burned away from the Harpy who followed me through, and warped to a planet. I doubled back to the gate and jumped through, then burned away from the gate and warped back towards my gang which had moved on the gate in the adjacent system. The hostiles didn't take the bait and the result was a standoff.

Today our alliance has provided internal prices on Vagabonds and Sleipnirs, the command ship I have been trying to afford. They're making these ships available at 50% off market price, which means I will buy some and be able to afford to lose them. I'm hoping this means some epic fights as I am no longer bound by fear of losing my ship. Meanwhile I'll keep working on accumulating billions of isk.

[Jonathan]

I was going to write a little missive about how much of Eve is twitch or player skill. Things like onboard scanning, keeping up your transversal, acting as proper bait, and bumping ships off the gate or station all require skills for which there is no skillbook. I spent a couple hours last night in my Stiletto interceptor, which requires a fair amount of player skill to fly correctly.

http://www.blackguardcoalition.org/kill ... kll_id=695

However, people are too stupid. Too stupid! I have run hostile camps in 7Q several times. I made a series of safespots in system so I can approach the Khabi gate and scan their gang without exposing myself. If I warp into a bubble, I do it at an odd angle (like straight down) so that I don't come in where they expect. I only do this if I have a fast enough ship. If they have some fast webbers, I log off and do other things.

Smart enemies do this as well. Or send in alts to run the gatecamp and get blown up. Or send in alts to scan us, wait for an opening when we decided to leave the gate briefly, and run in their Rapiers (happened last week).

Not so smart enemies pop in to check our camp and think they have the skill to escape. A lucky Crow buzzed our gatecamp. He got caught in the bubble and I applied my web, but I overshot him and went out of web range. He burned out of the bubble with barely any HP left.

A not so lucky speed-fit Taranis was scouting for a nano gang with several Vagabonds and interceptors. This time I held on the web on, did not get out of range, and he was stuck. The Vaga gang declined to engage.

http://www.blackguardcoalition.org/kill ... kll_id=710

What smart enemies do not do is run in several hundred million isk in salvage materials without scouting in a Rifter.

http://www.blackguardcoalition.org/kill ... kll_id=691

Or run potentially more than four billion isk in a noob ship with no microwarpdrive or any speed or tank mods whatsoever into a empire entrance with 8 hostiles sitting in local. He didn't even come from empire. He saw us in local and decided to warp in anyway.

http://www.blackguardcoalition.org/kill ... kll_id=695

The true value of what was lost is hard to determine because it depends on the number of runs and the material and production efficiency of the blueprints. I suspect it is worth less than a billion. If we cash out the loot I'll let you guys know.

People worry about never being able to catch up to Eve veterans in skill points because of the way the training system works. All you need to succeed in Eve is a steady hand and intelligence. SP is optional.

[Jonathan]

This image is autogenerated after every new kill I make. I find it amusing.