Entry: nine hundred forty-one.
Four days ago, full evacuation of G5ED-Y began. Me being me, I didn't realize it until the day after, and I decided that I would try to move ships while roaming with them.
My first attempt was to save a Ferox. It's not exactly earth shattering, but I've been trying to fit long-point plus web on them because of the speed issue for the Ferox when trying to take down other battlecruisers. Unfortunately, I ran into a gatecamp of approximately eight pilots. Some of them aggressed me before I jumped back through the gate, and for a minute, I was alone with a Stiletto on the way back to G5ED-. When I reapproached the gate again, the Stiletto came in close, and I got the web and started shooting null.
He got away with something like twenty percent structure remaining. A cynabal had jumped through whilst I plinked at the ceptor and pointed me, followed shortly by the Machariel. Combined, they took out the Ferox fairly quickly.
Some time later, I arrived back in G5ED-. As I undocked in my armor cane, I tried to catch a hostile Thrasher running around ganking cynos, but was unsuccessful. So I warped to Y5J- and jumped. A goon Vagabond was waiting for me.
Let me tell you: Vagabond's don't solo or get amazingly aggressive and brawly without an extra large ASB on board. I had a feeling that this was the case, but with the second hostile in local, I was worried about a Falcon. Either way, I felt like I should take the chance.
I reapproached gate, MWD on. The goon burned for me, and in short order it became abundantly clear that she was going for the hard tackle. Without further ado and thoughts of Falcon vanishing, I changed direction to land my own hard tackle.
Scram. Web. Nos Nos. Keep MWD on, ECM 600's still in bay, perfect, let's whale away.
He aligned out, probably thinking that based on his sheer base speed he could get away. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't packin a scram, so I could MWD at him all day, literally sit on him at zero, and pound away.
Unfortunately for me, the only ammunition I had was Republic Fleet EMP, versus a ship heavily tanked against EM damage and with an Ancillary Shield Booster, and as I was later to find out, a Blue Pill to boot. Due to this, we ended up slugging it out for well over a minute and a half.
In the end, I came out victorious, with twenty-three percent armor still intact.
And all it took was a triple trimarked, sixteen hundred plate armor cane with hard tackle. Sixty million ISK crushes the seemingly overpowered one hundred eighty-four million ISK ship, with the worst possible ammunition type at that.
I have to admit, I felt like a badass for the rest of day having soloed a Vagabond after baiting her into coming close to prevent my escape.
Computer: terminate recording
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
A Logistics Guide
---OVERVIEW---
In all my time, I've seen many guides and discussions on piloting combat ships of all makes and models, but never anything related to piloting a Logistics. Logistics are always mentioned as a critical force multiplier for any fleet, but all the discussion revolves around being a better DPS pilot.
In addition to that, over the last month I've seen more than a few Logi pilots, both in and outside corp, lose their ship for no other reason than that they didn't take the proper precautions, whether on purpose or out of ignorance.
I'll share some of the more common fits I've seen and flown, discuss under which fleets each fit is used for, and give some general advice on how to be a good Logistics pilot.
---
---WHY AND WHEN TO PILOT LOGISTICS---
After a certain point, the numbers in your fleet become too large to be engaged by groups that typically don't bring Logistics. In my experience, this number hits at about six or seven. To get any engagement worth talking about, you end up needing Logistics for two main reasons: First, enemy gangs will either have your numbers or be larger, and second, the incoming DPS from the enemy gang of that size will take your fleet members off the field in short order unless something or someone can provide them with additional tank. The larger your gang, the more Logistics your fleet will need in order to compete with an enemy gang of equal size, the emphasis on fleet fits shifting further from DPS output to tanking ability as fleet size increases.
There are (rare) occasions when more Logistics aren't needed in a fleet, that being almost always when there are too many Logistics, frigate fleets, or in the extreme case, when your fleet actually has no intention of sticking around for anything resembling a fight. An example of the latter is a Sniper gang, or bomber fleet. The reasoning behind it is simple: as a Logistics, most of your time will be wasted in these fleet types because you will not be applying remote reps.
---
---WHICH LOGISTICS TO FLY AND WHY---
SCIMITAR : This ship repairs shields of anything it activates its remote shield reps. While not having as much tank or potential rep ability as the Basilisk, it can be flown without needing a cap transfer partner and can have cap stable AB and MWD fits for the pilot with exceptional skills related to Logistics. This is the Shield Logistics of choice in almost every fleet I've seen because it can be cap stable and is much faster than the Basilisk.
BASILISK : Like the Scimitar, this ship also remote repairs shields. It can fit a heftier tank, but is not cap stable. It also has the potential to fit more remote repair modules than a Scimitar, but to date I have not seen such a fitting. Because it lacks cap stability on its own, it does require one cap transfer partner at minimum, and requires two for the pilot with Logistics IV.
GUARDIAN : This is essentially the armor variant of the Basilisk. It's slower and tankier than the Oneiros, again with the potential to fit more remote repairs than the Oneiros. For null-sec fleets, there is no MWD fit that I know of, and fitting for two cap transfer partners is standard. I have seen the occasional MWD fit for small gangs however.
ONEIROS : This is the armor variant of the Scimitar. Like the Scimitar, it is faster than its Amarr counterpart, and has the potential to be cap stable as well. Until recently these ships were considered runts and not used. Lately, however, they've become the standard and more sought after in fleets as opposed to Guardians. My experience with Oneiros fits is limited, but I have yet to see a MWD fit for one. Were I to see one, I would imagine it for small gangs only at this point.
Update: MWD Guardian/Oneiros: I've only had one fleet worth of experience in this, but it seemed the correct way to pilot these is the same as though in a nano gang. My guess is that if my gang was being kited by a faster one, the logi would anchor on the FC/Stargate (depending on the situation and combat plan)
---
---ROLES WITHIN THE LOGISTICS GROUP---
ANCHOR : This pilot acts an orbitable object. His job to keep the Logistics group in range of the friendly fleet but out of range of the enemy fleet. By filling this role, the rest of the Logistics team can focus on giving reps while the anchor pilots for them.
COMMAND RELAY (for FC and LOGI team) : This pilot relays FC commands to the Logi team, and updates the FC about whether reps are holding and whether the Logistics are dying, jammed, or neuted out. This pilot also tells the Logi team in the Logi chat whether to orbit, light smartbombs, where to align (in absence of FC orders making sense for Logi), and to rep a friendly who is failing to broadcast (if possible).
This role is never decided beforehand: someone has to step up on the fly to respond to the FC. Most pilots lack enough confidence to reply. Don't wait for someone else to do this! Do this as soon as you can! You will earn recognition in short order from your fellow Logistics, and before you know it you will be seen as a competent leader in their eyes. They will defer to your judgement.
---
---HOW TO SET UP A CAP CHAIN---
When piloting either a Guardian or Basilisk, its a matter of life and death that you have a running cap chain. This is typically done by having a dedicated Logistics chat for those pilots. Since the pilots in chat are sorted alphabetically, it is easy to tell who your cap chain partners are. Find yourself in the Logi chat, and add the two members of that chat immediately above you to watchlist, then the two member immediately below you in that chat to watchlist. If you are one of the last two pilots in that chat, the two pilots below you might be the two pilots at the top of the chat. The reverse is true if you are one of the first two listed pilots in that chat.
Once that is done, your cap transfer partners will be the middle two of those four. If your top transfer partner leaves the field or is destroyed, your top transfer partner becomes the person above that. The same technique applies to your second transfer partner, with his second partner becoming your second-backup partner.
Generally speaking, the cap chain should always be up as much as possible, even if just sitting on a gate or a Titan.
---
---FITS AND FLEET USES---
AB Scimitar - SHIELD BATTLESHIP
MWD Scimitar - NANO / SNIPER HAC
Basilisk - (only in the past to my knowledge) CFC Alpha Fleet / CFC Drake Fleet / Incursion Fleets
AB Guardian - AHAC / ARMOR BATTLESHIP
AB Oneiros - AHAC / ARMOR BATTLESHIP
---
--WATCHLISTING and BROADCAST WINDOW---
To get the proper broadcasts, right click the white box on your fleet window, select Broadcast Settings. Deactivate the "Target" broadcast and enable the "Need Armor and Need Shield" broadcasts.
If you can, watchlist everyone in your gang so that they don't need to broadcast for reps. If the gang is too large, watchlist the FC and the backup FCs, two to four other Logistics, your Logistics anchor, and some Recons or other valuable ships piloted by your fleet. If your gang has a prober, watchlist him as well.
*Tip: While you are loading grid, you can still command ship via the broadcast and watchlist windows. This is normally useful, but is VERY useful when experiencing long loading times on system change.
*Tip: It is a smart idea in every gang to leave both the "Need Shield" and "Need Armor" broadcasts active. Pilots tend to mix up or even forget to change their bindings for each. By having both you won't miss a beat.
Watchlist priority:
-FC, backup FCs
-probers, pingers/pouncers, warp-ins
-2 Logistics above you in your logistics channel, 2 Logistics below you in your logistics channel (channel is sorted alphabetically)
-Recons or tech3 ships
-ECM
-Dictors, Hictors
-More Logistics
-Tacklers
---
---OVERVIEWS---
There are three critical overviews you will need.
The first simply has every celestial on it. Quite often the FC will call out an align point and broadcast it, but it can get lost VERY quickly in the broadcast window as pilots call for reps. Because of that, this overview is extremely useful, especially when moons are called as align points.
The second is an enemy overview, for three main reasons. The most common reason is killmail whoring. The second is much more practical in that it allows you to maintain the proper range and orientation from the enemy with respect to your fleet. The third is when the FC tells your fleet to align toward the enemy fleet in anticipation of a warp-in.
The third is a friendly overview. Pilots in fleet tend to either broadcast for reps late or not at all. While it is not technically your responsibility to watch enemy fire and figure out who is getting shot and not broadcasting, ie is about to die, this is something you should do if you have the chance for the simple reason of your own survival. As your fleet members' ships are destroyed, your own survival becomes less and less guaranteed, and losing a two hundred million ISK ship that has a hard time netting kills is hard to justify. Saving your gangmates and allowing your fleet to win an engagement is very easy to justify, however.
---
---HOW TO SCORE KILLS---
The one gripe everyone has about flying Logistics is the failure to show up on killmails. This is usually less of a problem than it seems however. Every Logistics ship has a drone bay, and it is extremely easy to load up a flight of Warrior II's (or in the case of an Ishtar gang, Bouncer II's / Garde's) and assign the drones to a combat(ECM/DPS/TACKLE) pilot in your fleet. To this end, Logistics pilots should train up their Drone skills for the dual purpose of keeping the drones around longer to score on kills and to aid the fleet's DPS output.
As a warning, if you suspect an enemy fleet has smartbombs, don't deploy all your drones at once; deploy them one at a time. Try to leave at least one drone in your bay in case you need to make a quick warp-out and can't reclaim your drones in time.
---
---GENERAL TIPS---
-Keep your speed and transversal up if at all possible.
-One-cycle reps when the enemy fleet is cycling targets quickly.
-If ECM drones are jamming you, light your smartbomb (if you have one equipped).
-Use your enemy overview as your main overview. Broadcast for reps as soon as you see mass yellow-boxing (you've been called primary).
-Some fits are NOT cap stable. This means you will need to cycle your hardeners/propulsion mod occasionally to regain enough capacitor to be useful in the long-term.
-Unless a Tackler is absolutely critical to your fleet or whatever it is doing, make sure your Tacklers understand to NOT call for reps. They are fast enough to escape on their own 95% of the time.
-Keep local minimized if you can help it.
-In extremely laggy situations, you may need to "Hide all brackets" and minimize your overview. The momentary lag spike an open overview can cause could mean you die needlessly.
-If you are in a bubble, and it makes sense to do so, try to get out of the bubble and align out. This does not make sense for AHAC gangs if your gang drops a bubble to fight in.
-Keep the FC and backup FC's prelocked at all times if possible, leave one rep on the current FC when things get dicey. If your FC dies, your fleet will become very disorganized and be much easier to trap and kill until a new FC takes over.
-If your ship is destroyed, it is your responsibility to drop fleet and leave that chat as soon as possible. This helps the FC see much faster how quickly his fleet is losing ships, and helps the Logistics FC determine if he needs to notify the FC that Logistics are dying. If you were part of a cap chain, it also tells the remaining pilots that they need to adjust their cap chain to compensate for your loss. By leaving fleet and that chat, you are helping your fleet even after being destroyed.
---
---WHEN TO ORBIT THE GATE, KITE, or ANCHOR---
This is dependent on where your fleet is fighting.
If your fleet is fighting on a gate, orbit the gate, DO NOT AGRESS anything, and provide reps. If you get primaried and reps can't hold you up, jump out, then jump back in and resume reps.
If your fleet is kiting an enemy gang, you will not be fighting on a gate, so you must kite as well. Failure to kite properly will likely result in you getting tackled and subsequently losing your ship. You may or may not aggress in this situation, depending on if you think you may need to jump out of system quickly via stargate.
If your fleet can do neither, chances are strong you have an anchor. You must be AB fit to use an anchor effectively. Activate your AB and orbit the anchor at 2500m or 5000m.
---
---TIPS FOR NANO GANGS---
-When kiting, do your best to align out instead of flying in a random direction. If possible, align out while maintaining as high transversal as possible.
-If you suspect your fleet is going to warp out in the next few seconds, deactivate your propulsion mod (if safe) if you think the warp out will be different than your alignment.
-Try to stay between 55 and 75km of your gang members. Your maximum range is approximately 80km, so being in this range gives your gang a little bit of play to still receive reps. You may need to manually adjust your speed from time to time, as well as change alignments while maintaining speed.
-If you see that a tackler is coming for you, try to kill it with drones. If you cannot, and your loss would be critical to fleet, let the FC know over comms that a tackler is burning for you.
-Keep your fleet between you and the enemy fleet if at all possible.
---
---TIPS FOR BATTLESHIP GANGS---
-REFER TO TIPS FOR NANO GANGS
-There is normally a Logistics anchor when a certain threshold of Logistics pilots are reached in a fleet. Transversal is typically kept up by orbiting this pilot (usually another Logistics). If you are AB fit, keep your AB on. If you are MWD fit, there is no Logistics anchor.
---
---TIPS FOR AHAC GANGS---
-The anchor is the FC. Orbit at 2500m or 5000m AB on. Because you will literally be on top of the enemy, try not to deactivate your hardeners at any point, and overheat them only when you become primary. Do not light your smartbomb for any reason, as the non-Logistic pilots in the fleet will suddenly spam your broadcast window with requests for repairs.
---
In all my time, I've seen many guides and discussions on piloting combat ships of all makes and models, but never anything related to piloting a Logistics. Logistics are always mentioned as a critical force multiplier for any fleet, but all the discussion revolves around being a better DPS pilot.
In addition to that, over the last month I've seen more than a few Logi pilots, both in and outside corp, lose their ship for no other reason than that they didn't take the proper precautions, whether on purpose or out of ignorance.
I'll share some of the more common fits I've seen and flown, discuss under which fleets each fit is used for, and give some general advice on how to be a good Logistics pilot.
---
---WHY AND WHEN TO PILOT LOGISTICS---
After a certain point, the numbers in your fleet become too large to be engaged by groups that typically don't bring Logistics. In my experience, this number hits at about six or seven. To get any engagement worth talking about, you end up needing Logistics for two main reasons: First, enemy gangs will either have your numbers or be larger, and second, the incoming DPS from the enemy gang of that size will take your fleet members off the field in short order unless something or someone can provide them with additional tank. The larger your gang, the more Logistics your fleet will need in order to compete with an enemy gang of equal size, the emphasis on fleet fits shifting further from DPS output to tanking ability as fleet size increases.
There are (rare) occasions when more Logistics aren't needed in a fleet, that being almost always when there are too many Logistics, frigate fleets, or in the extreme case, when your fleet actually has no intention of sticking around for anything resembling a fight. An example of the latter is a Sniper gang, or bomber fleet. The reasoning behind it is simple: as a Logistics, most of your time will be wasted in these fleet types because you will not be applying remote reps.
---
---WHICH LOGISTICS TO FLY AND WHY---
SCIMITAR : This ship repairs shields of anything it activates its remote shield reps. While not having as much tank or potential rep ability as the Basilisk, it can be flown without needing a cap transfer partner and can have cap stable AB and MWD fits for the pilot with exceptional skills related to Logistics. This is the Shield Logistics of choice in almost every fleet I've seen because it can be cap stable and is much faster than the Basilisk.
BASILISK : Like the Scimitar, this ship also remote repairs shields. It can fit a heftier tank, but is not cap stable. It also has the potential to fit more remote repair modules than a Scimitar, but to date I have not seen such a fitting. Because it lacks cap stability on its own, it does require one cap transfer partner at minimum, and requires two for the pilot with Logistics IV.
GUARDIAN : This is essentially the armor variant of the Basilisk. It's slower and tankier than the Oneiros, again with the potential to fit more remote repairs than the Oneiros. For null-sec fleets, there is no MWD fit that I know of, and fitting for two cap transfer partners is standard. I have seen the occasional MWD fit for small gangs however.
ONEIROS : This is the armor variant of the Scimitar. Like the Scimitar, it is faster than its Amarr counterpart, and has the potential to be cap stable as well. Until recently these ships were considered runts and not used. Lately, however, they've become the standard and more sought after in fleets as opposed to Guardians. My experience with Oneiros fits is limited, but I have yet to see a MWD fit for one. Were I to see one, I would imagine it for small gangs only at this point.
Update: MWD Guardian/Oneiros: I've only had one fleet worth of experience in this, but it seemed the correct way to pilot these is the same as though in a nano gang. My guess is that if my gang was being kited by a faster one, the logi would anchor on the FC/Stargate (depending on the situation and combat plan)
---
---ROLES WITHIN THE LOGISTICS GROUP---
ANCHOR : This pilot acts an orbitable object. His job to keep the Logistics group in range of the friendly fleet but out of range of the enemy fleet. By filling this role, the rest of the Logistics team can focus on giving reps while the anchor pilots for them.
COMMAND RELAY (for FC and LOGI team) : This pilot relays FC commands to the Logi team, and updates the FC about whether reps are holding and whether the Logistics are dying, jammed, or neuted out. This pilot also tells the Logi team in the Logi chat whether to orbit, light smartbombs, where to align (in absence of FC orders making sense for Logi), and to rep a friendly who is failing to broadcast (if possible).
This role is never decided beforehand: someone has to step up on the fly to respond to the FC. Most pilots lack enough confidence to reply. Don't wait for someone else to do this! Do this as soon as you can! You will earn recognition in short order from your fellow Logistics, and before you know it you will be seen as a competent leader in their eyes. They will defer to your judgement.
---
---HOW TO SET UP A CAP CHAIN---
When piloting either a Guardian or Basilisk, its a matter of life and death that you have a running cap chain. This is typically done by having a dedicated Logistics chat for those pilots. Since the pilots in chat are sorted alphabetically, it is easy to tell who your cap chain partners are. Find yourself in the Logi chat, and add the two members of that chat immediately above you to watchlist, then the two member immediately below you in that chat to watchlist. If you are one of the last two pilots in that chat, the two pilots below you might be the two pilots at the top of the chat. The reverse is true if you are one of the first two listed pilots in that chat.
Once that is done, your cap transfer partners will be the middle two of those four. If your top transfer partner leaves the field or is destroyed, your top transfer partner becomes the person above that. The same technique applies to your second transfer partner, with his second partner becoming your second-backup partner.
Generally speaking, the cap chain should always be up as much as possible, even if just sitting on a gate or a Titan.
---
---FITS AND FLEET USES---
AB Scimitar - SHIELD BATTLESHIP
MWD Scimitar - NANO / SNIPER HAC
Basilisk - (only in the past to my knowledge) CFC Alpha Fleet / CFC Drake Fleet / Incursion Fleets
AB Guardian - AHAC / ARMOR BATTLESHIP
AB Oneiros - AHAC / ARMOR BATTLESHIP
---
--WATCHLISTING and BROADCAST WINDOW---
To get the proper broadcasts, right click the white box on your fleet window, select Broadcast Settings. Deactivate the "Target" broadcast and enable the "Need Armor and Need Shield" broadcasts.
If you can, watchlist everyone in your gang so that they don't need to broadcast for reps. If the gang is too large, watchlist the FC and the backup FCs, two to four other Logistics, your Logistics anchor, and some Recons or other valuable ships piloted by your fleet. If your gang has a prober, watchlist him as well.
*Tip: While you are loading grid, you can still command ship via the broadcast and watchlist windows. This is normally useful, but is VERY useful when experiencing long loading times on system change.
*Tip: It is a smart idea in every gang to leave both the "Need Shield" and "Need Armor" broadcasts active. Pilots tend to mix up or even forget to change their bindings for each. By having both you won't miss a beat.
Watchlist priority:
-FC, backup FCs
-probers, pingers/pouncers, warp-ins
-2 Logistics above you in your logistics channel, 2 Logistics below you in your logistics channel (channel is sorted alphabetically)
-Recons or tech3 ships
-ECM
-Dictors, Hictors
-More Logistics
-Tacklers
---
---OVERVIEWS---
There are three critical overviews you will need.
The first simply has every celestial on it. Quite often the FC will call out an align point and broadcast it, but it can get lost VERY quickly in the broadcast window as pilots call for reps. Because of that, this overview is extremely useful, especially when moons are called as align points.
The second is an enemy overview, for three main reasons. The most common reason is killmail whoring. The second is much more practical in that it allows you to maintain the proper range and orientation from the enemy with respect to your fleet. The third is when the FC tells your fleet to align toward the enemy fleet in anticipation of a warp-in.
The third is a friendly overview. Pilots in fleet tend to either broadcast for reps late or not at all. While it is not technically your responsibility to watch enemy fire and figure out who is getting shot and not broadcasting, ie is about to die, this is something you should do if you have the chance for the simple reason of your own survival. As your fleet members' ships are destroyed, your own survival becomes less and less guaranteed, and losing a two hundred million ISK ship that has a hard time netting kills is hard to justify. Saving your gangmates and allowing your fleet to win an engagement is very easy to justify, however.
---
---HOW TO SCORE KILLS---
The one gripe everyone has about flying Logistics is the failure to show up on killmails. This is usually less of a problem than it seems however. Every Logistics ship has a drone bay, and it is extremely easy to load up a flight of Warrior II's (or in the case of an Ishtar gang, Bouncer II's / Garde's) and assign the drones to a combat(ECM/DPS/TACKLE) pilot in your fleet. To this end, Logistics pilots should train up their Drone skills for the dual purpose of keeping the drones around longer to score on kills and to aid the fleet's DPS output.
As a warning, if you suspect an enemy fleet has smartbombs, don't deploy all your drones at once; deploy them one at a time. Try to leave at least one drone in your bay in case you need to make a quick warp-out and can't reclaim your drones in time.
---
---GENERAL TIPS---
-Keep your speed and transversal up if at all possible.
-One-cycle reps when the enemy fleet is cycling targets quickly.
-If ECM drones are jamming you, light your smartbomb (if you have one equipped).
-Use your enemy overview as your main overview. Broadcast for reps as soon as you see mass yellow-boxing (you've been called primary).
-Some fits are NOT cap stable. This means you will need to cycle your hardeners/propulsion mod occasionally to regain enough capacitor to be useful in the long-term.
-Unless a Tackler is absolutely critical to your fleet or whatever it is doing, make sure your Tacklers understand to NOT call for reps. They are fast enough to escape on their own 95% of the time.
-Keep local minimized if you can help it.
-In extremely laggy situations, you may need to "Hide all brackets" and minimize your overview. The momentary lag spike an open overview can cause could mean you die needlessly.
-If you are in a bubble, and it makes sense to do so, try to get out of the bubble and align out. This does not make sense for AHAC gangs if your gang drops a bubble to fight in.
-Keep the FC and backup FC's prelocked at all times if possible, leave one rep on the current FC when things get dicey. If your FC dies, your fleet will become very disorganized and be much easier to trap and kill until a new FC takes over.
-If your ship is destroyed, it is your responsibility to drop fleet and leave that chat as soon as possible. This helps the FC see much faster how quickly his fleet is losing ships, and helps the Logistics FC determine if he needs to notify the FC that Logistics are dying. If you were part of a cap chain, it also tells the remaining pilots that they need to adjust their cap chain to compensate for your loss. By leaving fleet and that chat, you are helping your fleet even after being destroyed.
---
---WHEN TO ORBIT THE GATE, KITE, or ANCHOR---
This is dependent on where your fleet is fighting.
If your fleet is fighting on a gate, orbit the gate, DO NOT AGRESS anything, and provide reps. If you get primaried and reps can't hold you up, jump out, then jump back in and resume reps.
If your fleet is kiting an enemy gang, you will not be fighting on a gate, so you must kite as well. Failure to kite properly will likely result in you getting tackled and subsequently losing your ship. You may or may not aggress in this situation, depending on if you think you may need to jump out of system quickly via stargate.
If your fleet can do neither, chances are strong you have an anchor. You must be AB fit to use an anchor effectively. Activate your AB and orbit the anchor at 2500m or 5000m.
---
---TIPS FOR NANO GANGS---
-When kiting, do your best to align out instead of flying in a random direction. If possible, align out while maintaining as high transversal as possible.
-If you suspect your fleet is going to warp out in the next few seconds, deactivate your propulsion mod (if safe) if you think the warp out will be different than your alignment.
-Try to stay between 55 and 75km of your gang members. Your maximum range is approximately 80km, so being in this range gives your gang a little bit of play to still receive reps. You may need to manually adjust your speed from time to time, as well as change alignments while maintaining speed.
-If you see that a tackler is coming for you, try to kill it with drones. If you cannot, and your loss would be critical to fleet, let the FC know over comms that a tackler is burning for you.
-Keep your fleet between you and the enemy fleet if at all possible.
---
---TIPS FOR BATTLESHIP GANGS---
-REFER TO TIPS FOR NANO GANGS
-There is normally a Logistics anchor when a certain threshold of Logistics pilots are reached in a fleet. Transversal is typically kept up by orbiting this pilot (usually another Logistics). If you are AB fit, keep your AB on. If you are MWD fit, there is no Logistics anchor.
---
---TIPS FOR AHAC GANGS---
-The anchor is the FC. Orbit at 2500m or 5000m AB on. Because you will literally be on top of the enemy, try not to deactivate your hardeners at any point, and overheat them only when you become primary. Do not light your smartbomb for any reason, as the non-Logistic pilots in the fleet will suddenly spam your broadcast window with requests for repairs.
---
Monday, November 5, 2012
We're In, but SMA is OUT
Entry: nine hundred thirty-six.
Approximately 24 hours ago UDEAD was given the go ahead to join NCdot. I found out just after the NCdot alliance meeting, although I had a pretty strong feeling we were in by the time Vince mentioned UDEAD in the meeting, and how we made some of the regular NCdot corps look a little bad.
But, the news comes on the heels of an evac order. G5ED-Y is under siege now, with Goons and pets knocking on the front door. The meeting was held the very day after the CFC hit every tower in G5ED, the jumpbridge, and the station and services. As far as I understand, we will put up a fight, but we are guaranteed to not win it, the biggest factors in that being being massively outnumbered and many of the pilots having lost the will to fight for the sov.
Anyone who doesn't want to go through the whole recording of the meeting, here are some important cliff notes. Asterisked additions are my own, but less biased and/or misleading than what can be seen at themittani.com .
Computer: terminate recording.
Approximately 24 hours ago UDEAD was given the go ahead to join NCdot. I found out just after the NCdot alliance meeting, although I had a pretty strong feeling we were in by the time Vince mentioned UDEAD in the meeting, and how we made some of the regular NCdot corps look a little bad.
But, the news comes on the heels of an evac order. G5ED-Y is under siege now, with Goons and pets knocking on the front door. The meeting was held the very day after the CFC hit every tower in G5ED, the jumpbridge, and the station and services. As far as I understand, we will put up a fight, but we are guaranteed to not win it, the biggest factors in that being being massively outnumbered and many of the pilots having lost the will to fight for the sov.
Anyone who doesn't want to go through the whole recording of the meeting, here are some important cliff notes. Asterisked additions are my own, but less biased and/or misleading than what can be seen at themittani.com .
- NC. will be removing themselves from Vale of the Silent. Members are encouraged to begin evacuating their assets (*non-essential, non-PvP, non-capital, non-roaming ships/assets only).
- NC. will eventually be involved in the war in the South, assisting the Nulli Secunda campaign against SOCO remnants (*and Solar) (*around December at the earliest).
- Summary of the situation with Evoke, and their departure from the war in the North (*losing members, losing activity, shift in activity from what worked to what didn't, causing Evoke/Ewoks to leave for a probable reboot).
- Leadership encourages (*congratulates) the members' efforts in the Tribute war.
However, in stark contrast to every other alliance in the game, NC. did want that space (*not to because they want to hold sov, but because it's an ISK faucet in terms of rent and moon extraction).
- *UDEAD did REALLY well. Vince found himself yelling at UDEAD far less than alliance members and complimented UDEAD on always flying the right ships. Also mentioned how UDEAD brought large portions of fleets in general, making some of the other alliance corps look a little embarrassing.
- *Ambivalent and small mention about SoCo. It's not clear to me if SoCo will or has gotten in. All I can say for sure is that the performance was either on par or subpar to what Vince expected, else they would have received the same mention as UDEAD.
- Threats that under-performing corporations will be ejected from the alliance (*less a threat and more a statement of fact. What's defined as under performing is left up to Leadership though, as I didn't hear a clear statement of what constitutes performing).
- Discussion considering the use of a feeder alliance to breed loyalty and increase numbers in fleet (*not really important, and not likely to happen given the general NCdot mentality at this point).
- In the immediate future NC. will be doing mostly solo work and will be focusing on their allies in subsequent weeks (*approximately one month, possibly two if membership truly desires it).
- When asked whether Geminate will be defended or not, the response is rather ambiguous with no definite answer being given (*on the premise at how unlikely it is that Goons will want to grind that far. It clearly hasn't been really considered yet, but hasn't had to be yet either. ).
- NC. will be using Navy Apocalypse fleets in part to make up for their lack of numbers (*I would be surprised to see this more fielded more than a handful of times. In my experience, members rarely field a Navy Apoc more than once, never more than twice).
Computer: terminate recording.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Acceptance, Reshuffle, Laughs
Entry: nine hundred twenty-nine.
First off, the alliance news as it relates to UDEAD:
A week or so ago, NCdot had an alliance meeting concerning Militaris Industries [UDEAD] and Southern Comfort [SOCO] joining up. While I don't have first-hand knowledge of events and am limited to second-hand, having reviewed the material I feel I have a pretty secure grip on what was actually said and what happened. Keep in mind that this meeting happened a week before the trial date was up.
Eighty percent of the corp, ie the EU and US TZ corporations, voted to accept UDEAD into NCdot. The twenty percent that voted NOT to accept UDEAD into NCdot were the primary AU TZ corps. As for the why, it came down to socialization, something that is actually a foreign concept for me in terms of being accepted into corporations or alliances.
The way I've always experienced it, it was less about socialization and more about what you brought to the table, so I was genuinely surprised that this was the reason since we, as a corp, had been delivering well beyond what was required. Socialization was always the thing that came after. The strange thing about this is that until it was brought up as a requirement that we mesh socially, it'd been pretty hard to do because of how many of the members operate. To that point from my memory, pilots only joined up for fleets, and otherwise dispersed to corp channels or logged out of comms entirely, relying only on Jabber to pick up a call for a fleet.
With that, we and SoCo were put on trial for another two weeks.
Since then, however, it's been much easier to socialize, and we've made an effort. Pilots from other corps have come to our channel, and we've gone to theirs on invite or if we had questions that needed answering. We've also continued to deliver, as the corp hit number 5 or number 6 in the top twenty on eve-kill.net (ratings determined by kill contributions).
Now here we are, a few days away from the end date. I find myself wondering if they'll take us, leave us, or worse, try to string us along for another x number of weeks. At the end of the month, we ranked higher than any DOTBROS corporation, only just under Razor and Goonwaffe, whose numbers are structurally inflated from all the structures they took down in cleaning out Tribute and Vale. We've easily been fielding at least ten percent of NCdot's numbers, if not more, regularly.
But as I mentioned before, it seems to come down to socialization for us, so I'm hoping it's turned out well.
One thing is for sure though, it's coming to an end. There will be no trial extensions. Any attempt to string UDEAD along, or put us on another trial period, will be seen as a rejection. We're not exactly having a derth of offers. The reputation that comes from being in and with NCdot certainly would be nice though, which is probably the reason why we've stuck out this trial for the extended period. Other corp leaders think we're pretty much set to get in, but they said that before we were put on extended trial as well.
Second, corporate news:
Amazing that there is actually corporate news I think. I've become a director in UDEAD, in charge of recruiting at that. I've been the main recruiter for some time now, since CEO roles were passed to Andy, but have largely handled it on my own. Since I've become director, I've been given complete management of the recruiting process, and have recently put a team together to help with recruiting. As opposed to how it's been done previously done in corp, that being a single recruiter (me) accepting pilots or putting them up to be kicked, there will now be a team that will come to a majority vote to determine acceptance or kicking of pilots in corp.
Other roles have been reassigned and restructured, but they aren't really my purview. It's general items such as Lead FC, Logistics Director, POS director, etc.
Third, the PvP:
I've been extremely lax on the solo roaming and FCing, actually barely doing any of the first and none of the second. With the change in lifestyle and additional leadership roles, I find myself with little desire to take on further leadership responsibilities, and solo roaming against Goons seems like a silly proposition at best unless I'm extremely close to the staging system.
That said, I've gone on about eighty to ninety percent of the fleets available, of which there were a large number, and almost always as a Logistics pilot in a Scimitar or Oneiros. It says quite a lot about how much combat is to be had in Vale and Tribute right now that I scored the majority of my one hundred thirty-four kills last month as a Logistics pilots assigning drones. Even though I didn't score the average four hundred kills the rest of my corp seems to have done, I've willingly brought Logistics to every fleet, hopefully boosting NCdot's perception of UDEAD just that little bit.
There was one rather great kill I got though. I was on a roam with Lan (FC), and he pushed an Anathema through the gate into the fleet on the other side. We waited, bubble up, and when he briefly appeared, several of us burned for him. Someone decloaked him, and I burned back, managing to light my smartbomb at the last second and get him. Other pilots in the fleet were snickering that "someone smartbombed him", and the FC started laughing, said "gg!" and asked "the person who smartbombed him, x up". I have to admit, I felt pretty damn awesome at that point. Cyno anathema killed and smartbombed by a Scimitar, not even a whore gun on it!
That would about wrap up events for the last few weeks. Hopefully there will be more to mention in a few days.
Computer: terminate recording.
First off, the alliance news as it relates to UDEAD:
A week or so ago, NCdot had an alliance meeting concerning Militaris Industries [UDEAD] and Southern Comfort [SOCO] joining up. While I don't have first-hand knowledge of events and am limited to second-hand, having reviewed the material I feel I have a pretty secure grip on what was actually said and what happened. Keep in mind that this meeting happened a week before the trial date was up.
Eighty percent of the corp, ie the EU and US TZ corporations, voted to accept UDEAD into NCdot. The twenty percent that voted NOT to accept UDEAD into NCdot were the primary AU TZ corps. As for the why, it came down to socialization, something that is actually a foreign concept for me in terms of being accepted into corporations or alliances.
The way I've always experienced it, it was less about socialization and more about what you brought to the table, so I was genuinely surprised that this was the reason since we, as a corp, had been delivering well beyond what was required. Socialization was always the thing that came after. The strange thing about this is that until it was brought up as a requirement that we mesh socially, it'd been pretty hard to do because of how many of the members operate. To that point from my memory, pilots only joined up for fleets, and otherwise dispersed to corp channels or logged out of comms entirely, relying only on Jabber to pick up a call for a fleet.
With that, we and SoCo were put on trial for another two weeks.
Since then, however, it's been much easier to socialize, and we've made an effort. Pilots from other corps have come to our channel, and we've gone to theirs on invite or if we had questions that needed answering. We've also continued to deliver, as the corp hit number 5 or number 6 in the top twenty on eve-kill.net (ratings determined by kill contributions).
Now here we are, a few days away from the end date. I find myself wondering if they'll take us, leave us, or worse, try to string us along for another x number of weeks. At the end of the month, we ranked higher than any DOTBROS corporation, only just under Razor and Goonwaffe, whose numbers are structurally inflated from all the structures they took down in cleaning out Tribute and Vale. We've easily been fielding at least ten percent of NCdot's numbers, if not more, regularly.
But as I mentioned before, it seems to come down to socialization for us, so I'm hoping it's turned out well.
One thing is for sure though, it's coming to an end. There will be no trial extensions. Any attempt to string UDEAD along, or put us on another trial period, will be seen as a rejection. We're not exactly having a derth of offers. The reputation that comes from being in and with NCdot certainly would be nice though, which is probably the reason why we've stuck out this trial for the extended period. Other corp leaders think we're pretty much set to get in, but they said that before we were put on extended trial as well.
Second, corporate news:
Amazing that there is actually corporate news I think. I've become a director in UDEAD, in charge of recruiting at that. I've been the main recruiter for some time now, since CEO roles were passed to Andy, but have largely handled it on my own. Since I've become director, I've been given complete management of the recruiting process, and have recently put a team together to help with recruiting. As opposed to how it's been done previously done in corp, that being a single recruiter (me) accepting pilots or putting them up to be kicked, there will now be a team that will come to a majority vote to determine acceptance or kicking of pilots in corp.
Other roles have been reassigned and restructured, but they aren't really my purview. It's general items such as Lead FC, Logistics Director, POS director, etc.
Third, the PvP:
I've been extremely lax on the solo roaming and FCing, actually barely doing any of the first and none of the second. With the change in lifestyle and additional leadership roles, I find myself with little desire to take on further leadership responsibilities, and solo roaming against Goons seems like a silly proposition at best unless I'm extremely close to the staging system.
That said, I've gone on about eighty to ninety percent of the fleets available, of which there were a large number, and almost always as a Logistics pilot in a Scimitar or Oneiros. It says quite a lot about how much combat is to be had in Vale and Tribute right now that I scored the majority of my one hundred thirty-four kills last month as a Logistics pilots assigning drones. Even though I didn't score the average four hundred kills the rest of my corp seems to have done, I've willingly brought Logistics to every fleet, hopefully boosting NCdot's perception of UDEAD just that little bit.
There was one rather great kill I got though. I was on a roam with Lan (FC), and he pushed an Anathema through the gate into the fleet on the other side. We waited, bubble up, and when he briefly appeared, several of us burned for him. Someone decloaked him, and I burned back, managing to light my smartbomb at the last second and get him. Other pilots in the fleet were snickering that "someone smartbombed him", and the FC started laughing, said "gg!" and asked "the person who smartbombed him, x up". I have to admit, I felt pretty damn awesome at that point. Cyno anathema killed and smartbombed by a Scimitar, not even a whore gun on it!
That would about wrap up events for the last few weeks. Hopefully there will be more to mention in a few days.
Computer: terminate recording.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Another twelve days in NCdot
Entry: nine hundred ten.
My how the time flies.
Life for me in NCdot has recently been of the possibly addicting type, but not addicting. What I mean to say is, intermittent reinforcement via fights, but a lack of desire on my part, due to other circumstances, to participate in more than the CTAs that get called.
I think this has in part been due to the rash of daily CTAs. I'm not a stranger to it, but I'm not sure it's what I'm in for anymore, especially with my lack of desire to do much of anything. I suppose the true test will be once I get the urge back to do the small gang and solo stuff. In general, there's been a lack of desire to do much though, either or in space or not. I'll probably come out of the slump sooner rather than later, just no telling on the exact date.
I have been seeing roams go out quite often while I am available. I haven't actively joined them for the reasons stated previously, but they are there and plentiful. So NCdot does have more to offer than blob combat and structure taking 'strat-ops'. The feeling I get from the community is that they enjoy both the large and the small combat, so long as it's combat, but a rash of CTAs being negatively discouraging ("read: no fights for a structure bash") has had a slow burn effect on CTA numbers. It's to be expected honestly. After a certain point where numbers are something CFC is willing to take on, the negative/positive reinforcement comes along ("read: fights for a structure bash, whelp or win"), and activity see-saws in this fashion. Keep in mind that when I say community, I mean the following entities: NCdot, Black Legion, Nulli, IRC, etc, not in order of importance, and likely several entities I am unaware of are unlisted as well.
Aside from this, there isn't much to say. Daily CTAs, usually a Zealot or Ishtar doctrine for which I fly the Oneiros either way, or a quick Naga/Naga bash fleet for which I pilot the Tornado. My apparent scrubbiness showed once, however, when "sailboats" were called for and I had no clue what the hell those were. I "guessed" that they either meant Tornados or Tempests, and not having my Tempest on hand, brought a Tornado. The fleet ended up not going out for round two after all, having been called after a Ishtar fleet whelp of sorts.
I say whelp, and that is honestly how it felt me for despite the killboards calling my 'whelps' wins. It was impossible more often than not to catch reps on a target going down, for any number of reasons. It's only after the fight that I see my fleet 'won'; it just doesn't feel like a win on my end.
With that, let's wait and see what the next few weeks bring. The month long trial only has that much longer to go.
Computer: terminate recording.
My how the time flies.
Life for me in NCdot has recently been of the possibly addicting type, but not addicting. What I mean to say is, intermittent reinforcement via fights, but a lack of desire on my part, due to other circumstances, to participate in more than the CTAs that get called.
I think this has in part been due to the rash of daily CTAs. I'm not a stranger to it, but I'm not sure it's what I'm in for anymore, especially with my lack of desire to do much of anything. I suppose the true test will be once I get the urge back to do the small gang and solo stuff. In general, there's been a lack of desire to do much though, either or in space or not. I'll probably come out of the slump sooner rather than later, just no telling on the exact date.
I have been seeing roams go out quite often while I am available. I haven't actively joined them for the reasons stated previously, but they are there and plentiful. So NCdot does have more to offer than blob combat and structure taking 'strat-ops'. The feeling I get from the community is that they enjoy both the large and the small combat, so long as it's combat, but a rash of CTAs being negatively discouraging ("read: no fights for a structure bash") has had a slow burn effect on CTA numbers. It's to be expected honestly. After a certain point where numbers are something CFC is willing to take on, the negative/positive reinforcement comes along ("read: fights for a structure bash, whelp or win"), and activity see-saws in this fashion. Keep in mind that when I say community, I mean the following entities: NCdot, Black Legion, Nulli, IRC, etc, not in order of importance, and likely several entities I am unaware of are unlisted as well.
Aside from this, there isn't much to say. Daily CTAs, usually a Zealot or Ishtar doctrine for which I fly the Oneiros either way, or a quick Naga/Naga bash fleet for which I pilot the Tornado. My apparent scrubbiness showed once, however, when "sailboats" were called for and I had no clue what the hell those were. I "guessed" that they either meant Tornados or Tempests, and not having my Tempest on hand, brought a Tornado. The fleet ended up not going out for round two after all, having been called after a Ishtar fleet whelp of sorts.
I say whelp, and that is honestly how it felt me for despite the killboards calling my 'whelps' wins. It was impossible more often than not to catch reps on a target going down, for any number of reasons. It's only after the fight that I see my fleet 'won'; it just doesn't feel like a win on my end.
With that, let's wait and see what the next few weeks bring. The month long trial only has that much longer to go.
Computer: terminate recording.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The first few days in NCdot
Entry: eight hundred ninety-eight.
Picking up from last time, Militaris has somewhat successfully started its trial run with NCdot for membership. I say somewhat successfully,because despite the idea that we should only be moving what we need, somehow moving seems to be still going on. Honestly, I don't really get it, unless they're moving everything.
People don't make a whole lot of sense.
True to a Nulli source I have some contact with, EU timezone is getting all the good fights and US timezome is making CFC forces either stand-down or, and I quote, "hit your staging towers", despite us hitting their CSAA towers or tech towers. So while the EU pilots get fights, and the AU pilots are planting invasion structures at will, the US pilots are bashing structures. There are worse ways to spend your time though, believe it or not, and every tech moon we take means more ship reimbursement.
Fleets form up relatively fast, with the longest formup being fifteen minutes. I must admit, it's a nice change from the traditional hour or two hour long formups or pretty much every coalition and alliance I've been a part of to date. Small gang fleet formups seem to be roughly fifteen minutes to an hour since they aren't broadcast over Jabber like CTAs are.
I was told I would have to put up with severe trolling and elitism, also from my Nulli source. I've seen the least amount of trolling and elitism here as opposed to anywhere else. The other alliances and coalitions were far stronger trolls, with the exception of Against All Authorities not being good at trolling, but being fairly strong in the elistist attitude. I make these generalizations towards the FCs and supporting commanders, such as logi anchors etc, not in regards to the general fleet, although again NCdot has the least of all these in the general fleet as well. At least for now anyways.
As I mentioned, it's only been a few days, so we'll see later on if things change. If not then that's quite good.
Watching intel and the formup channels, it seems that there are plenty of roams and defense fleets going up in response to enemy roams or lack thereof, so I'm not finding a problem with that. I do see however that the attitude of high cost, high powered ships, does not stay on the warpath, however, and gets carried out through roams and defense fleets as well. I haven't seen a single fleet that wanted any tech one ship except for tier three battlecruisers. That means that using other tech one ships will pretty much only happen on corp roams.
I did almost get awoxed today, although at this point I don't know if it's due the NCdot renters being retards or if the pilot was an actual awoxer. Basically, I was flying around making tacticals at every stargate, my mission to make them for every stargate in the region and sell them, and this renter decides he's going to destroy my ship.
I was in a speed fit Claw, he in a Sabre. You can guess how much success he had (hint: zero). He was so unsuccessful that when I called him out in intel as being an awoxer, when I was asked for proof I didn't have any because he didn't blow up my ship, didn't manage to land a single bullet on me, and my systems don't log 'failed attacks'. Just a tad frustrating there.
Anyways, after evading him like the sad sack of pilot he was, I continued about by business. I'm about seventy to seventy-five percent finished. The last part I have to do is section near Tribute, but it looks dense enough in terms of stargates per system that it will likely take me more than a few hours to complete it.
Overall, the experience I've had with them has been positive, the bad things about it largely being outside of anyone's control. I do wish more of my corp was able to join, ie stop moving stuff and just get in fleet, but as mentioned above, people are strange. Let's just hope for their sakes we get in, or all the stuff they moved in will be jailed in NCdot stations without possibility of parole.
Computer: terminate recording.
Picking up from last time, Militaris has somewhat successfully started its trial run with NCdot for membership. I say somewhat successfully,because despite the idea that we should only be moving what we need, somehow moving seems to be still going on. Honestly, I don't really get it, unless they're moving everything.
People don't make a whole lot of sense.
True to a Nulli source I have some contact with, EU timezone is getting all the good fights and US timezome is making CFC forces either stand-down or, and I quote, "hit your staging towers", despite us hitting their CSAA towers or tech towers. So while the EU pilots get fights, and the AU pilots are planting invasion structures at will, the US pilots are bashing structures. There are worse ways to spend your time though, believe it or not, and every tech moon we take means more ship reimbursement.
Fleets form up relatively fast, with the longest formup being fifteen minutes. I must admit, it's a nice change from the traditional hour or two hour long formups or pretty much every coalition and alliance I've been a part of to date. Small gang fleet formups seem to be roughly fifteen minutes to an hour since they aren't broadcast over Jabber like CTAs are.
I was told I would have to put up with severe trolling and elitism, also from my Nulli source. I've seen the least amount of trolling and elitism here as opposed to anywhere else. The other alliances and coalitions were far stronger trolls, with the exception of Against All Authorities not being good at trolling, but being fairly strong in the elistist attitude. I make these generalizations towards the FCs and supporting commanders, such as logi anchors etc, not in regards to the general fleet, although again NCdot has the least of all these in the general fleet as well. At least for now anyways.
As I mentioned, it's only been a few days, so we'll see later on if things change. If not then that's quite good.
Watching intel and the formup channels, it seems that there are plenty of roams and defense fleets going up in response to enemy roams or lack thereof, so I'm not finding a problem with that. I do see however that the attitude of high cost, high powered ships, does not stay on the warpath, however, and gets carried out through roams and defense fleets as well. I haven't seen a single fleet that wanted any tech one ship except for tier three battlecruisers. That means that using other tech one ships will pretty much only happen on corp roams.
I did almost get awoxed today, although at this point I don't know if it's due the NCdot renters being retards or if the pilot was an actual awoxer. Basically, I was flying around making tacticals at every stargate, my mission to make them for every stargate in the region and sell them, and this renter decides he's going to destroy my ship.
I was in a speed fit Claw, he in a Sabre. You can guess how much success he had (hint: zero). He was so unsuccessful that when I called him out in intel as being an awoxer, when I was asked for proof I didn't have any because he didn't blow up my ship, didn't manage to land a single bullet on me, and my systems don't log 'failed attacks'. Just a tad frustrating there.
Anyways, after evading him like the sad sack of pilot he was, I continued about by business. I'm about seventy to seventy-five percent finished. The last part I have to do is section near Tribute, but it looks dense enough in terms of stargates per system that it will likely take me more than a few hours to complete it.
Overall, the experience I've had with them has been positive, the bad things about it largely being outside of anyone's control. I do wish more of my corp was able to join, ie stop moving stuff and just get in fleet, but as mentioned above, people are strange. Let's just hope for their sakes we get in, or all the stuff they moved in will be jailed in NCdot stations without possibility of parole.
Computer: terminate recording.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Failure is no longer an option
Entry: eight hundred ninety-five.
It's hard to believe it's been eighty-five days since I last kept track of which day in my life I'm at. Strange coincidence it happened on such a round number too.
Cascade Imminent has officially become a defunct entity as of perhaps two hours ago. The provided link gives public access to the announcement and all that it entails. The short version is essentially this however:
One: Archie's recollection of our history as an alliance, minus a chunk in the middle where we didn't do much in Detorid before TEST/PL/etc vs Southern Coalition happened in Delve then Querious and now at 49-U and 4-07.
Two: Why the alliance is going under. He was burnt out on running it, and the two people he would have let run it wouldn't. He doesn't want anyone ruining his alliance, so no one will get to.
Three: How proud he was/is of the alliance, especially at the final battle where the alliance put out the most members on field in its history, totaling one hundred eighty nine distinct personalities. I caveat that with personalities, as some personalities are twisted enough to span several bodies, ie "alts".
Four: The timezone wars with Unthinkables, how bad they really are, how the war was really a stalemate and no one could win in a "us vs them" scenario. Also how they stirred it up just as we went to deploy to Delve as part of SoCo.
Five: FAIL's history with Against All Authorities, why FAIL wasn't a pet, and why he never understood why everyone thought FAIL was a pet.
Six: Two corporations from FAIL will be on trial runs with NCdot. The two corporations in question are Miltaris Industries [UDEAD] and Southern Comfort [SOCO], arguably the two largest and most active corps from FAIL. No mention was made of modro [MODRO], so its unknown if they were never offered a trial run, if they were offered it and rejected it, if they decided to join with Irukandji and stay in Detorid, or if they are leaving.
After the meeting, UDEAD and SOCO changed comms channels and got a brief run down of what was expected in the future in order to pass the probation for entry into NCdot. From what I can tell, it's basically what the alliance was already being steered towards, ie high powered expensive ships in a tight doctrine. Basically what you'd expect from a dedicated combat group.
My corporation, at least, has pretty much completed its evacuation. Even I managed to, albeit I had to move every ship myself to Curse over the course of what seems to be about 16 hours. Having evacced that stuff, and learning how far away the target systems are, I'll probably fly them up and engage in combat with them immediately before getting the next one.
As for how I feel about the change...I don't want to join any part of the CFC again, where the highlight of the day is mostly a DBRB fleet, which while not bad, aren't what I'm looking for. I like that the HBC is a new entity, but prior dealings with TEST leave me not wanting to go there as well, even though Montolio is so damn charismatic he almost makes me want to join the HBC cause. I'm not a fan of triple A, even though they haven't done me any wrong. I don't resent them, but I don't particularly like them either for some reason that I can't explain. As for Solar and associates up north, I feel as if they were simply more of the same, waiting to implode.
Then again, NCdot is supposedly known for imploding over and over again. I get the feeling that this is the sort of change I'll end up liking though, and I don't know why I feel that way.
What a day.
Computer: terminate recording.
It's hard to believe it's been eighty-five days since I last kept track of which day in my life I'm at. Strange coincidence it happened on such a round number too.
Cascade Imminent has officially become a defunct entity as of perhaps two hours ago. The provided link gives public access to the announcement and all that it entails. The short version is essentially this however:
One: Archie's recollection of our history as an alliance, minus a chunk in the middle where we didn't do much in Detorid before TEST/PL/etc vs Southern Coalition happened in Delve then Querious and now at 49-U and 4-07.
Two: Why the alliance is going under. He was burnt out on running it, and the two people he would have let run it wouldn't. He doesn't want anyone ruining his alliance, so no one will get to.
Three: How proud he was/is of the alliance, especially at the final battle where the alliance put out the most members on field in its history, totaling one hundred eighty nine distinct personalities. I caveat that with personalities, as some personalities are twisted enough to span several bodies, ie "alts".
Four: The timezone wars with Unthinkables, how bad they really are, how the war was really a stalemate and no one could win in a "us vs them" scenario. Also how they stirred it up just as we went to deploy to Delve as part of SoCo.
Five: FAIL's history with Against All Authorities, why FAIL wasn't a pet, and why he never understood why everyone thought FAIL was a pet.
Six: Two corporations from FAIL will be on trial runs with NCdot. The two corporations in question are Miltaris Industries [UDEAD] and Southern Comfort [SOCO], arguably the two largest and most active corps from FAIL. No mention was made of modro [MODRO], so its unknown if they were never offered a trial run, if they were offered it and rejected it, if they decided to join with Irukandji and stay in Detorid, or if they are leaving.
After the meeting, UDEAD and SOCO changed comms channels and got a brief run down of what was expected in the future in order to pass the probation for entry into NCdot. From what I can tell, it's basically what the alliance was already being steered towards, ie high powered expensive ships in a tight doctrine. Basically what you'd expect from a dedicated combat group.
My corporation, at least, has pretty much completed its evacuation. Even I managed to, albeit I had to move every ship myself to Curse over the course of what seems to be about 16 hours. Having evacced that stuff, and learning how far away the target systems are, I'll probably fly them up and engage in combat with them immediately before getting the next one.
As for how I feel about the change...I don't want to join any part of the CFC again, where the highlight of the day is mostly a DBRB fleet, which while not bad, aren't what I'm looking for. I like that the HBC is a new entity, but prior dealings with TEST leave me not wanting to go there as well, even though Montolio is so damn charismatic he almost makes me want to join the HBC cause. I'm not a fan of triple A, even though they haven't done me any wrong. I don't resent them, but I don't particularly like them either for some reason that I can't explain. As for Solar and associates up north, I feel as if they were simply more of the same, waiting to implode.
Then again, NCdot is supposedly known for imploding over and over again. I get the feeling that this is the sort of change I'll end up liking though, and I don't know why I feel that way.
What a day.
Computer: terminate recording.
Friday, September 21, 2012
A Midnight Message
Entry:....unhhh...
I had this dream...I have to record the message I got from it. I'm pretty sure this was no ordinary dream.
"I'll always be with you, but I won't be your babysitter. If you need my help, I'll give it: just follow my lead. My only requirement, here and in the next world, is that you be honest with yourself and with me."
"Don't break our deal, or you may find not me when you need me."
I won't if I can help it.
Computer: terminate recording.
I had this dream...I have to record the message I got from it. I'm pretty sure this was no ordinary dream.
---------------------------
"I'll always be with you, but I won't be your babysitter. If you need my help, I'll give it: just follow my lead. My only requirement, here and in the next world, is that you be honest with yourself and with me."
"Don't break our deal, or you may find not me when you need me."
---------------------------
I won't if I can help it.
Computer: terminate recording.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Splits are hard
Entry: I swear I'll start dating these again, but I'm lazy...
A couple days ago, I started up a corp fleet at the request of the CEO. I ended up getting three other corp members to come with me: two were frigate, our only tackle, and myself and Jebac were the two DPS. I decided to avoid Unthinkables this time, my experience being double falconed still rubbing a bit raw on my last loss, and headed for a system owned by some group called Paganism alliance.
After getting into system and failing to locate any of their ratters, we managed to stir up a small fleet to come after us. I coordinated my group until I finally decided to engage on a stargate.
A Hurricane landed first, I called him primary. I figured that between my Brutix and Jbac's Harbinger, he'd go down pretty fast. A Crow landed soon after and was dispatched by my own frigates. The first Hurricane fell, and Jebac and I started on the second, but unfortunately weren't going to be able to take it out in time. I ordered the frigates home, Jebac and I losing our battlecruisers and escaping in our pods.
I actually feel pretty good about that fight. Sure, I lost half the fleet, indeed all the raw damage potential of it. However, we were sorely outmatched, fighting two to one and still managing to draw even in terms of kill/death ratio, and actually almost even on ISK in that fight. I do think I messed up a bit though, when I dropped by EC-600's on the primary and not the secondary. I have a feeling Jebac dropped his drones on the primary, so we took far more damage that we should have.
I do still need to learn how to split up an enemy group though. I wasn't very good at it all, which is why so many of the enemy landed on us so quickly. I doubt I'll be able to practice short of actual combat though, so I'll just need to tough it out.
Computer: terminate recording.
A couple days ago, I started up a corp fleet at the request of the CEO. I ended up getting three other corp members to come with me: two were frigate, our only tackle, and myself and Jebac were the two DPS. I decided to avoid Unthinkables this time, my experience being double falconed still rubbing a bit raw on my last loss, and headed for a system owned by some group called Paganism alliance.
After getting into system and failing to locate any of their ratters, we managed to stir up a small fleet to come after us. I coordinated my group until I finally decided to engage on a stargate.
A Hurricane landed first, I called him primary. I figured that between my Brutix and Jbac's Harbinger, he'd go down pretty fast. A Crow landed soon after and was dispatched by my own frigates. The first Hurricane fell, and Jebac and I started on the second, but unfortunately weren't going to be able to take it out in time. I ordered the frigates home, Jebac and I losing our battlecruisers and escaping in our pods.
I actually feel pretty good about that fight. Sure, I lost half the fleet, indeed all the raw damage potential of it. However, we were sorely outmatched, fighting two to one and still managing to draw even in terms of kill/death ratio, and actually almost even on ISK in that fight. I do think I messed up a bit though, when I dropped by EC-600's on the primary and not the secondary. I have a feeling Jebac dropped his drones on the primary, so we took far more damage that we should have.
I do still need to learn how to split up an enemy group though. I wasn't very good at it all, which is why so many of the enemy landed on us so quickly. I doubt I'll be able to practice short of actual combat though, so I'll just need to tough it out.
Computer: terminate recording.
Monday, September 17, 2012
As is always the case
Entry: ....ah hell...
As is always case, as soon as I speak up, things change. The previous entry about fifty tops suddenly turned in nearly one hundred pilots on a CTA last night. Certainly not all FAIL, but I think eighty or so was FAIL.
We pretty much beat Unthinkables into the ground. Read it and weep.
For those unwilling to look at the damage, that's twelve dead tengus in exchange for dead tackle and couple battleships. True, they killed more ships. Also true, they lost seven point eight billion ISK in exchange for two point five, and skillpoints on top of it. One unlucky Unthinkable lost two tengus, and thus lost skillpoint twice.
I admit, I get a little giggle out of that. It's too bad for them they don't have reimbursement and we do.
As for how the fight went down, we fought on a stargate, and they kept range at eighty plus kilometers. We had a grand total of three guardians and three oneiros, ie six logistics, for ninety-five percent of the two fights that make up this battlereport. I'm pretty sure they had more logistics.
Computer: terminate recording.
As is always case, as soon as I speak up, things change. The previous entry about fifty tops suddenly turned in nearly one hundred pilots on a CTA last night. Certainly not all FAIL, but I think eighty or so was FAIL.
We pretty much beat Unthinkables into the ground. Read it and weep.
For those unwilling to look at the damage, that's twelve dead tengus in exchange for dead tackle and couple battleships. True, they killed more ships. Also true, they lost seven point eight billion ISK in exchange for two point five, and skillpoints on top of it. One unlucky Unthinkable lost two tengus, and thus lost skillpoint twice.
I admit, I get a little giggle out of that. It's too bad for them they don't have reimbursement and we do.
As for how the fight went down, we fought on a stargate, and they kept range at eighty plus kilometers. We had a grand total of three guardians and three oneiros, ie six logistics, for ninety-five percent of the two fights that make up this battlereport. I'm pretty sure they had more logistics.
Computer: terminate recording.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The State of Things
Entry: ...who the hell knows. I'll figure it out next time.
I think my lack of updating has shown how little there really was to take note of in the last two months. The Southern Coalition is still stuck in 4-07, whether by design, resistance, or apathy, I don't know. Either way, SoCo is currently failing in its grand mission to push back the TEST incursion and reclaim space.
I don't really question why Init Mercs, Raiden, and Initiative took up with the HBC, ie the Honeybadger coalition. Grind and whelp with triple A for no gain, or move on for new opportunities. In the same position, I honestly probably would have made a similar choice.
FAIL has returned to Detorid. I feel this is in part the lack of progress repelling the HBC, and also in part to deal with neighbors to the north harassing our renters. I only recently came back from a two month hiatus and discovered this.
I'll be honest though: alliance activity is down across the board as far as I can tell. Combat ready numbers seemed to have dropped to about 50 strong at any one time, as opposed to 70 before that, and 90 before that, and 140 before that. FAIL doesn't seem to be failscading so much as slowly withering. I'm hoping that will change, but hope seems dim given the pattern of things.
In those two months, the small gang combat seems to have disappeared in the area. Maybe it's just my atrophied skills, but I'm definitely having a harder time getting a fight, even in station systems where I can buzz around for an hour in a battlecruiser before getting people to even just outright murder me. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, and I don't know what that is yet, but something else seems off about the activity levels.
And that's really everything there is to say about anything.
Computer: terminate recording.
I think my lack of updating has shown how little there really was to take note of in the last two months. The Southern Coalition is still stuck in 4-07, whether by design, resistance, or apathy, I don't know. Either way, SoCo is currently failing in its grand mission to push back the TEST incursion and reclaim space.
I don't really question why Init Mercs, Raiden, and Initiative took up with the HBC, ie the Honeybadger coalition. Grind and whelp with triple A for no gain, or move on for new opportunities. In the same position, I honestly probably would have made a similar choice.
FAIL has returned to Detorid. I feel this is in part the lack of progress repelling the HBC, and also in part to deal with neighbors to the north harassing our renters. I only recently came back from a two month hiatus and discovered this.
I'll be honest though: alliance activity is down across the board as far as I can tell. Combat ready numbers seemed to have dropped to about 50 strong at any one time, as opposed to 70 before that, and 90 before that, and 140 before that. FAIL doesn't seem to be failscading so much as slowly withering. I'm hoping that will change, but hope seems dim given the pattern of things.
In those two months, the small gang combat seems to have disappeared in the area. Maybe it's just my atrophied skills, but I'm definitely having a harder time getting a fight, even in station systems where I can buzz around for an hour in a battlecruiser before getting people to even just outright murder me. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, and I don't know what that is yet, but something else seems off about the activity levels.
And that's really everything there is to say about anything.
Computer: terminate recording.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Away for a week or two
I'll be away from the blogging scene for a week or two. I'm moving to start a new job, and the new job actually starts a few days before I can get into an apartment with internet, utilities, and the like. The entire process will take about a week just to get into the apartment, maybe another week to get my schedule worked out and some refresher learning in to help me out with work.
Not that much has been going on in null-sec anyways, and I've been unable to log in for days just because of all the last minute stuff that always comes up when you move. From the looks of the mails though, Delve is pretty much a done deal and Catch is about to become the trenches.
Everyone fighting for the South, good luck, stay strong, get some inspiration from Captain Picard. Everyone fighting for the North...well I don't really have anything to say. I'm sure you wouldn't take it seriously anyways.
Everyone else, easy kills are the supply chains from Fountain to Delve/Querious. You could really rack up the muppet kills. You could also get pounded into dust if you aren't careful. I'm sure you guys already knew all this though.
It'll be interesting to see the map when I come back.
Not that much has been going on in null-sec anyways, and I've been unable to log in for days just because of all the last minute stuff that always comes up when you move. From the looks of the mails though, Delve is pretty much a done deal and Catch is about to become the trenches.
Everyone fighting for the South, good luck, stay strong, get some inspiration from Captain Picard. Everyone fighting for the North...well I don't really have anything to say. I'm sure you wouldn't take it seriously anyways.
Everyone else, easy kills are the supply chains from Fountain to Delve/Querious. You could really rack up the muppet kills. You could also get pounded into dust if you aren't careful. I'm sure you guys already knew all this though.
It'll be interesting to see the map when I come back.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Tactics and Tacticians
Entry: eight hundred ten
Lately, there's been a pretty set pattern of tactics used on both sides in the Delve conflict. To be fair, it's less of a conflict and more of the South being steamrolled, but we'll go more in depth in that with the tactics and attitudes of leaders.
As seen in my last deployment in Delve, an enemy alliance anchored bubbles on our station undock and picked us off from range with Tempests. Since the advent of the Tornado, Naga, Oracle, and Naga, this has been taken to a whole new level. The new battlecruisers are faster and cheaper, making them much harder to kill. Combined with that has been the sheer number of bubbles being anchored on the 319- station undock. It started off with just one tech two large, then several tech two larges, and as of yesterday I saw what must have been fifteen to twenty anchored bubbles of varying sizes on and around the station.
As much as I hate it, you can't argue against a winning strategy. Southern forces have been dying in droves, in part to these bubbles, but more in large part due to being camped into the station the majority of the time and being unable to defend Delve because of it. Unable to leave the station, Querious began falling as of yesterday.
When the South does manage to put up a fight under the odd fleet run by Maka, the fight from two versus to one to four versus one. Again, another winning strategy, just by sheer attrition. Our skills and expensive fits do allow us to do some serious damage, and the killboards even show these fights swinging in our favor, but we simply cannot win a fight like that.
Suffice to say that the South is at a such a disadvantage that the North has been carelessly camping the 319- with supers and titans from time to time, even managing to Doomsday the occasional Southern idiot in a capital on the undock.
In an attempt to strike any sort of blow back at the North, there have been the occasional roams out of 319-, and lots of bombers camping in 319-, waiting for the right opportunities to strike. They have, however, been few and far between. Many pilots are losing bombers due to impatience.
As for necessary funds to fight the north, the costs are exorbitant. The two main doctrines both heavily utilize tech three cruisers, and even though it is out of necessity because of the way the war is being fought, many pilots cannot replace these ships when they lose them. To further this, costs to buy even basic Hurricanes and Drakes have skyrocketed. One hundred million for a tech two fit whelpcane is a bit much. Fifty-five for a bombing-specific bomber is also a bit much, though much more manageable. Three hundred for a Scimitar is absurd. this presents the third front to the war: finances. As long as this continues, the South is destined to lose any coalition level conflict. You can't bilk your allies and expect them to still be able to fight.
So far, all I've done is lay out the facts about how the South is losing. Numbers, costs, and morale. But what's the solution?
There is only one possible solution, and while it will still be hard at best, it stands a much higher chance of success than our defensive plan. The concept is that of a base race.
There is literally nothing we can do to stop the North from rolling over anything they want in the South. They have too many pilots, plain and simple. However, if they are in the South, how many can they muster in the North? It'd seem pretty clear that they couldn't muster nearly as many members. Pilots also tend to put all their ships into the trade hub stations for each alliance. It then seems simple that the South should move north, disrupt all of the jump-bridge routes, then take the main stations where pilots pile their ships and goods.
Chances are high a similar action would be executed against us. Both sides would take heavy losses in numbers, mostly from what gets termed the carebear contingent. The more combat oriented would be just fine living out of towers, wormholes, and NPC null-sec. I think ultimately, either the conflict would halt at a certain critical point before total annihilation, or both sides would lose all of their space.
The chances are extremely small in my mind that this would happen though, to be completely honest. The tacticians aren't willing to put everything on the table as they should be, and so the South is stuck with a losing strategy. We're looking more like IRC everyday: unable to hold our space, but no one cares enough to evict us.
It'll only be a short time longer before Delve, Period Basis, and Querious are lost. Then we'll see what the new Southern strategy becomes. Hopefully not more of the same.
I think this sums it up the best.
Computer: terminate recording.
Lately, there's been a pretty set pattern of tactics used on both sides in the Delve conflict. To be fair, it's less of a conflict and more of the South being steamrolled, but we'll go more in depth in that with the tactics and attitudes of leaders.
As seen in my last deployment in Delve, an enemy alliance anchored bubbles on our station undock and picked us off from range with Tempests. Since the advent of the Tornado, Naga, Oracle, and Naga, this has been taken to a whole new level. The new battlecruisers are faster and cheaper, making them much harder to kill. Combined with that has been the sheer number of bubbles being anchored on the 319- station undock. It started off with just one tech two large, then several tech two larges, and as of yesterday I saw what must have been fifteen to twenty anchored bubbles of varying sizes on and around the station.
As much as I hate it, you can't argue against a winning strategy. Southern forces have been dying in droves, in part to these bubbles, but more in large part due to being camped into the station the majority of the time and being unable to defend Delve because of it. Unable to leave the station, Querious began falling as of yesterday.
When the South does manage to put up a fight under the odd fleet run by Maka, the fight from two versus to one to four versus one. Again, another winning strategy, just by sheer attrition. Our skills and expensive fits do allow us to do some serious damage, and the killboards even show these fights swinging in our favor, but we simply cannot win a fight like that.
Suffice to say that the South is at a such a disadvantage that the North has been carelessly camping the 319- with supers and titans from time to time, even managing to Doomsday the occasional Southern idiot in a capital on the undock.
In an attempt to strike any sort of blow back at the North, there have been the occasional roams out of 319-, and lots of bombers camping in 319-, waiting for the right opportunities to strike. They have, however, been few and far between. Many pilots are losing bombers due to impatience.
As for necessary funds to fight the north, the costs are exorbitant. The two main doctrines both heavily utilize tech three cruisers, and even though it is out of necessity because of the way the war is being fought, many pilots cannot replace these ships when they lose them. To further this, costs to buy even basic Hurricanes and Drakes have skyrocketed. One hundred million for a tech two fit whelpcane is a bit much. Fifty-five for a bombing-specific bomber is also a bit much, though much more manageable. Three hundred for a Scimitar is absurd. this presents the third front to the war: finances. As long as this continues, the South is destined to lose any coalition level conflict. You can't bilk your allies and expect them to still be able to fight.
So far, all I've done is lay out the facts about how the South is losing. Numbers, costs, and morale. But what's the solution?
There is only one possible solution, and while it will still be hard at best, it stands a much higher chance of success than our defensive plan. The concept is that of a base race.
There is literally nothing we can do to stop the North from rolling over anything they want in the South. They have too many pilots, plain and simple. However, if they are in the South, how many can they muster in the North? It'd seem pretty clear that they couldn't muster nearly as many members. Pilots also tend to put all their ships into the trade hub stations for each alliance. It then seems simple that the South should move north, disrupt all of the jump-bridge routes, then take the main stations where pilots pile their ships and goods.
Chances are high a similar action would be executed against us. Both sides would take heavy losses in numbers, mostly from what gets termed the carebear contingent. The more combat oriented would be just fine living out of towers, wormholes, and NPC null-sec. I think ultimately, either the conflict would halt at a certain critical point before total annihilation, or both sides would lose all of their space.
The chances are extremely small in my mind that this would happen though, to be completely honest. The tacticians aren't willing to put everything on the table as they should be, and so the South is stuck with a losing strategy. We're looking more like IRC everyday: unable to hold our space, but no one cares enough to evict us.
It'll only be a short time longer before Delve, Period Basis, and Querious are lost. Then we'll see what the new Southern strategy becomes. Hopefully not more of the same.
I think this sums it up the best.
Computer: terminate recording.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Back To Delve
Entry: nine hundred eight.
That out-of-pod line I was talking about in my previous public entry: it came through. I've got to admit to being excited about it. I've been rather busy dealing with the particulars, but I've still found some time to be embroiled in the Delve war.
Yesterday on evenews24 I came across a TEST State of the Alliance recording. How much is truth, propoganda, and outright lies I will likely never know. I am not what anyone would call a power player, and in politics, things get kept close to the inner circle that rules the galaxy. Still there are parts that feel more honest than others, and parts that feel more like lies mixed with propoganda. Overall, I think the main thrust of the recording are accurate enough, along with the reasons for attempting to leave Goons out of the war and why it escalated: it's the stuff on the side that strikes me as misleading. I'll leave it to you to decide. You can skip the last half of the recording if you just want the gist of the situation.
If you were paying any attention to the alliance tournament broadcast yesterday, you may also have noticed a sudden livefeed of a large battle in 0-H in Delve, just a few jumps away from Querious. CFC/PL forces were taking the station with supers and apparently a large number of Drakes. SOCO forces had a bomber fleet, a sniper tier three battlecruiser fleet. The conflict eventually took place at the PUIG gate, stringing out towards the star. There's not too much to say about it. SOCO killed an absurd amount of Drakes between the bombs and sniper battlecruisers, but there were simply too many enemies to prevent the station from being taken.
Aside from those major events, it's been huge fleets rolling around on both sides. Lots of kills and lots of fun to be had for sure, simply because everyone is in the same area. It's an exciting time to be in null-sec.
Computer: terminate recording.
That out-of-pod line I was talking about in my previous public entry: it came through. I've got to admit to being excited about it. I've been rather busy dealing with the particulars, but I've still found some time to be embroiled in the Delve war.
Yesterday on evenews24 I came across a TEST State of the Alliance recording. How much is truth, propoganda, and outright lies I will likely never know. I am not what anyone would call a power player, and in politics, things get kept close to the inner circle that rules the galaxy. Still there are parts that feel more honest than others, and parts that feel more like lies mixed with propoganda. Overall, I think the main thrust of the recording are accurate enough, along with the reasons for attempting to leave Goons out of the war and why it escalated: it's the stuff on the side that strikes me as misleading. I'll leave it to you to decide. You can skip the last half of the recording if you just want the gist of the situation.
If you were paying any attention to the alliance tournament broadcast yesterday, you may also have noticed a sudden livefeed of a large battle in 0-H in Delve, just a few jumps away from Querious. CFC/PL forces were taking the station with supers and apparently a large number of Drakes. SOCO forces had a bomber fleet, a sniper tier three battlecruiser fleet. The conflict eventually took place at the PUIG gate, stringing out towards the star. There's not too much to say about it. SOCO killed an absurd amount of Drakes between the bombs and sniper battlecruisers, but there were simply too many enemies to prevent the station from being taken.
Aside from those major events, it's been huge fleets rolling around on both sides. Lots of kills and lots of fun to be had for sure, simply because everyone is in the same area. It's an exciting time to be in null-sec.
Computer: terminate recording.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Rumors, Politics, and Communal Garbage
Entry: nine hundred one.
It's been quite some time since I released a public log. In all fairness, I've done little of note, simply whiling away the days in station. That said, I've become tired of the current reading material, and have in fact simply not even skimmed over ninety-five percent of the posts. They've honestly been garbage according to my taste.
I hold no illusions about my own product. I'm nowhere near as popular as them. I'm most likely held in contempt to what I'm calling garbage.
With that out of the way, I can move on to some more matters of note.
First off, Red Overlord and Against All Authorities have been spreading this rather nasty and outright false rumor that Cascade Imminent is failscading. This is apparently due to neither group knowing what we as an alliance are doing or planning to do, and in Red Overlord's case, some amount of animosity as well. Having access as I do to some of the internal goings-on within our alliance, I can safely say that as of right now, no, we are not failscading. We are simply waiting for other players to make their moves before we make ours. As an example, we were set to deploy to Delve, right up until some of the CFC alliances and corporations staged nearby for the rumored assault on the South.
Item number two is about the health of our alliance. We've lost some corporations, most notably and recently Chaotic Tranquility [CTQ] because they attempted to overthrow the holding corporation for the alliance after being in the alliance for all of fifteen days. From the grunt point of view, I hardly ever saw them, and what little interaction I did have was generally unpleasant.
We've also gained corporations, however. The newest additions that I'm aware of since MODRO and V3R are New European Regiment and Zebra Corp. Zebra Corp has gained some recent notoriety from an excellent podcast they put out at www.crossingzebras.com. Since they moved in a week to two weeks ago, I've had the chance to fly and interact with some of their members, and overall have had a positive experience with them. I've not had much interaction with NER, and I'm not sure why, but the little I have had has been positive as well.
Item three is combat activity. We haven't been deployed since Curse, which I believe was three to four months ago at this point. We've had quite a few roaming gangs and some backstabs from the neighbors, but overall it's provided some much needed combat activity aside from the roams. It's my opinion that this amount of combat activity has severely slowed the atrophy that has been occurring where action is concerned, but it isn't halting or reverting it. We need a deployment, and soon, before we become fat and lazy in our space. This ties in with the first item, however, so there's not much to be done about it.
Number four is a more of a recognition shoutout than anything else. Of all the alliance level FCs aside from Archie and their own, MODRO has said that Jason Erquilenne, a member of my own corporation, is the only FC that is good. That news was fantastic in my mind, and just makes me happier about the fact that I snagged him while he was still new to the capsuleer life.
I don't care that they didn't say anything about me. I'm not an alliance level FC. If I weren't a recruiter, I would probably have gone for it, but I can't manage both tasks. Jason tends to ask me to be second in command when he FCs roams, though he can't for alliance level fleets because of the command structure, and that's good enough for me. Just be aware that you shouldn't always primary him since he isn't always leading fleets.
Finally, I've been rather busy when not active as a capsuleer. Everyone knows how those responsibilities go, and it's just the way things work. I will say that I've been putting my time to good use however, trying to find ways to better myself and my situation in ways that exclude spaceships. I haven't yet sorted it out, but I'm hoping to rather soon with two fantastic opportunities on the line.
With all of that laid out, I hope to resume some semblance of normalcy soon. Let me be frank about the public logs I follow though: it needs to get better. It needs to focus more on spaceships, on politics, on strategy, all of the things that make this life worth living. It needs to deviate from its current crash course of rage, phallic waving, retorts, tinfoil hattery, and blatant misinformation via terribad journalism. There has been too much focus on tweetfleets, podbanters, blog banters, podsides, etcetera, and it is at a point where it not only ceases to be interesting, but drains the life from everything important.
I'm not going to say community isn't important. I am going to say that the community sometimes gets out of hand and has to come back to its senses. This is one of those times.
Computer: terminate recording.
It's been quite some time since I released a public log. In all fairness, I've done little of note, simply whiling away the days in station. That said, I've become tired of the current reading material, and have in fact simply not even skimmed over ninety-five percent of the posts. They've honestly been garbage according to my taste.
I hold no illusions about my own product. I'm nowhere near as popular as them. I'm most likely held in contempt to what I'm calling garbage.
With that out of the way, I can move on to some more matters of note.
First off, Red Overlord and Against All Authorities have been spreading this rather nasty and outright false rumor that Cascade Imminent is failscading. This is apparently due to neither group knowing what we as an alliance are doing or planning to do, and in Red Overlord's case, some amount of animosity as well. Having access as I do to some of the internal goings-on within our alliance, I can safely say that as of right now, no, we are not failscading. We are simply waiting for other players to make their moves before we make ours. As an example, we were set to deploy to Delve, right up until some of the CFC alliances and corporations staged nearby for the rumored assault on the South.
Item number two is about the health of our alliance. We've lost some corporations, most notably and recently Chaotic Tranquility [CTQ] because they attempted to overthrow the holding corporation for the alliance after being in the alliance for all of fifteen days. From the grunt point of view, I hardly ever saw them, and what little interaction I did have was generally unpleasant.
We've also gained corporations, however. The newest additions that I'm aware of since MODRO and V3R are New European Regiment and Zebra Corp. Zebra Corp has gained some recent notoriety from an excellent podcast they put out at www.crossingzebras.com. Since they moved in a week to two weeks ago, I've had the chance to fly and interact with some of their members, and overall have had a positive experience with them. I've not had much interaction with NER, and I'm not sure why, but the little I have had has been positive as well.
Item three is combat activity. We haven't been deployed since Curse, which I believe was three to four months ago at this point. We've had quite a few roaming gangs and some backstabs from the neighbors, but overall it's provided some much needed combat activity aside from the roams. It's my opinion that this amount of combat activity has severely slowed the atrophy that has been occurring where action is concerned, but it isn't halting or reverting it. We need a deployment, and soon, before we become fat and lazy in our space. This ties in with the first item, however, so there's not much to be done about it.
Number four is a more of a recognition shoutout than anything else. Of all the alliance level FCs aside from Archie and their own, MODRO has said that Jason Erquilenne, a member of my own corporation, is the only FC that is good. That news was fantastic in my mind, and just makes me happier about the fact that I snagged him while he was still new to the capsuleer life.
I don't care that they didn't say anything about me. I'm not an alliance level FC. If I weren't a recruiter, I would probably have gone for it, but I can't manage both tasks. Jason tends to ask me to be second in command when he FCs roams, though he can't for alliance level fleets because of the command structure, and that's good enough for me. Just be aware that you shouldn't always primary him since he isn't always leading fleets.
Finally, I've been rather busy when not active as a capsuleer. Everyone knows how those responsibilities go, and it's just the way things work. I will say that I've been putting my time to good use however, trying to find ways to better myself and my situation in ways that exclude spaceships. I haven't yet sorted it out, but I'm hoping to rather soon with two fantastic opportunities on the line.
With all of that laid out, I hope to resume some semblance of normalcy soon. Let me be frank about the public logs I follow though: it needs to get better. It needs to focus more on spaceships, on politics, on strategy, all of the things that make this life worth living. It needs to deviate from its current crash course of rage, phallic waving, retorts, tinfoil hattery, and blatant misinformation via terribad journalism. There has been too much focus on tweetfleets, podbanters, blog banters, podsides, etcetera, and it is at a point where it not only ceases to be interesting, but drains the life from everything important.
I'm not going to say community isn't important. I am going to say that the community sometimes gets out of hand and has to come back to its senses. This is one of those times.
Computer: terminate recording.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
It's not all wins
Entry: eight hundred eighty-nine
I certainly did not win at all today.
What started out as a two man idea to roam became a seven man corp roam consisting of two assault frigs and five battlecruisers.
We started our roam at 2G-, and after ganking a hurricane made our way over to PNG space. Unfortunately, we hit a snag, that being a scout Brutix for a thirty man Drake fleet.
People are getting crafty these days, I tell ya.
Where I messed up was trying to burn past the PNG fleet even though they were waiting on our outgate on a pipe. I seriously underestimated PNG's capabilities, and in short order they chased us down through their space and killed the majority of us. Surprisingly, they knew I was FC. I say this is a surprise because I was FCing a fleet that contained an alliance FC in it. I won't say there were spies, but I guess Hak knows me better recently for leading fleets than Jason.
So, long and short of the experience: I whelped the fleet trying to burn past a fleet four times bigger than my own. I would never have encountered this experience had I been in frigates or destroyers though, so the experience, while grueling, is still a positive one in a twisted light.
Computer: terminate recording.
I certainly did not win at all today.
What started out as a two man idea to roam became a seven man corp roam consisting of two assault frigs and five battlecruisers.
We started our roam at 2G-, and after ganking a hurricane made our way over to PNG space. Unfortunately, we hit a snag, that being a scout Brutix for a thirty man Drake fleet.
People are getting crafty these days, I tell ya.
Where I messed up was trying to burn past the PNG fleet even though they were waiting on our outgate on a pipe. I seriously underestimated PNG's capabilities, and in short order they chased us down through their space and killed the majority of us. Surprisingly, they knew I was FC. I say this is a surprise because I was FCing a fleet that contained an alliance FC in it. I won't say there were spies, but I guess Hak knows me better recently for leading fleets than Jason.
So, long and short of the experience: I whelped the fleet trying to burn past a fleet four times bigger than my own. I would never have encountered this experience had I been in frigates or destroyers though, so the experience, while grueling, is still a positive one in a twisted light.
Computer: terminate recording.
Monday, June 11, 2012
It's the little things...
Entry: eight hundred eighty-seven.
I'm really loving this small gang PvP stuff.
Jason and I took out a Jag (long point and scram), paired with my new favorite Brutix: The Power. We roamed north to SAD-AD, then started heading for R6-, the entry system for Ethereal Dawn's ratting operations.
For maybe five minutes, nothing was happening in R-6, Jason was trying to find a fight in there while I was pounced above the R6- gate in 2G-. After five minutes of him failing to get anything, a neutral jumped into 2G- from the 9F- gate. I ordered Jason to get to gate while I warped down. Shortly after, a PNG-A Drake landed, full red on my overview, and jumped through as I tried to lock him.
He jumped right into Jason. Jason grabbed point while I jumped in and burned for him, eventually landing a scram. My full rack of Neutrons with Void ripped into the Drake as Jason warped out and back to recover his shields. By the time he got back, however, the Drake was down.
Let's hear it for The Power! YEAH!!!
The Drake did put me down to seventy percent armor though, so we headed back to SAH- to repair before we got camped in. A short break later, we came back to find a few neutrals passing through. Before docking in SAH-, we had chased them a system past SAH- into EX-. Since they were back, I guessed that they were going to G-Q.
As it turned out, I was right. Jason landed on gate with a Damnation and held. As I was landing on the G-Q gate he pointed the Damnation, forcing him through with me to the other side of the gate. Once he decloaked, I got a scram on it and two Hounds decloaked, one of which threw a bomb at me. Jason managed to snag one of the Hounds while I worked on the Damnation, literally sitting on it at zero and whaling on it. The pilot, to my great surprise, ejected! I couldn't turn my guns off fast enough, and two overheated volleys took the command ship from half armor to wreckage. Jason finished off the bomber shortly after that.
We took another break. It was turning out to be a great night for us.
After we came back, we headed up to R-6 again, just to see if we would get lucky again. We didn't, and after ten minutes of hanging around, we headed north to F9-, where again we hung around for ten minutes hoping for something. Again, we were unlucky, so we set destination to D-IZT9. On our way there, we encountered a gatecamp on the 9F- gate in 2-G, forcing us to gatecrash and return to SAH- for repairs and refuge.
We took another break, and came back to a PNG Pilgrim. Jason tackled it as I landed on the outgate back to Detorid, so I warped back and engaged, ambivalent about my chances of killing it before getting neuted out. It was a bit of a standoff: I was neuted out, but had the Pilgrim into armor in what appeared to be a shield fit, and Jason was at the mercy of drones if he stayed. We deaggressed on station and docked up. It's unfortunate, but a single Pilgrim is a perfect counter for our two-pilot gang.
With three wins and two losses, three kills and zero deaths, we decided to head back home before things devolved. It was already op success, why ruin the roam? All in all, it was quite the good roam.
Computer: terminate recording.
I'm really loving this small gang PvP stuff.
Jason and I took out a Jag (long point and scram), paired with my new favorite Brutix: The Power. We roamed north to SAD-AD, then started heading for R6-, the entry system for Ethereal Dawn's ratting operations.
For maybe five minutes, nothing was happening in R-6, Jason was trying to find a fight in there while I was pounced above the R6- gate in 2G-. After five minutes of him failing to get anything, a neutral jumped into 2G- from the 9F- gate. I ordered Jason to get to gate while I warped down. Shortly after, a PNG-A Drake landed, full red on my overview, and jumped through as I tried to lock him.
He jumped right into Jason. Jason grabbed point while I jumped in and burned for him, eventually landing a scram. My full rack of Neutrons with Void ripped into the Drake as Jason warped out and back to recover his shields. By the time he got back, however, the Drake was down.
Let's hear it for The Power! YEAH!!!
The Drake did put me down to seventy percent armor though, so we headed back to SAH- to repair before we got camped in. A short break later, we came back to find a few neutrals passing through. Before docking in SAH-, we had chased them a system past SAH- into EX-. Since they were back, I guessed that they were going to G-Q.
As it turned out, I was right. Jason landed on gate with a Damnation and held. As I was landing on the G-Q gate he pointed the Damnation, forcing him through with me to the other side of the gate. Once he decloaked, I got a scram on it and two Hounds decloaked, one of which threw a bomb at me. Jason managed to snag one of the Hounds while I worked on the Damnation, literally sitting on it at zero and whaling on it. The pilot, to my great surprise, ejected! I couldn't turn my guns off fast enough, and two overheated volleys took the command ship from half armor to wreckage. Jason finished off the bomber shortly after that.
We took another break. It was turning out to be a great night for us.
After we came back, we headed up to R-6 again, just to see if we would get lucky again. We didn't, and after ten minutes of hanging around, we headed north to F9-, where again we hung around for ten minutes hoping for something. Again, we were unlucky, so we set destination to D-IZT9. On our way there, we encountered a gatecamp on the 9F- gate in 2-G, forcing us to gatecrash and return to SAH- for repairs and refuge.
We took another break, and came back to a PNG Pilgrim. Jason tackled it as I landed on the outgate back to Detorid, so I warped back and engaged, ambivalent about my chances of killing it before getting neuted out. It was a bit of a standoff: I was neuted out, but had the Pilgrim into armor in what appeared to be a shield fit, and Jason was at the mercy of drones if he stayed. We deaggressed on station and docked up. It's unfortunate, but a single Pilgrim is a perfect counter for our two-pilot gang.
With three wins and two losses, three kills and zero deaths, we decided to head back home before things devolved. It was already op success, why ruin the roam? All in all, it was quite the good roam.
Computer: terminate recording.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Shark vs Shark
Entry: eight hundred eighty.
Intel came across for the area: there was a neutral in 46DP- in a Hurricane. It appeared he was alone, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I grabbed my Hurricane, uncertain if I would make it in time before he left. I was already in 0-G, so it was a short three jumps away.
I tend to think of Hurricanes as sharks: Vicious and brutal powerhouses of destruction. At the scent of blood they come running. When facing a prey of equal or lesser size, it does its best to get right on top of it and rip it to shreds. My fit reflects this well I think:
Hurricane:
Highs:
6 425 mm autocannon II
1 medium smartbomb, (for clearing enemy drones)
1 medium energy neutralizer II
Mids:
2 Large Shield Extender II
1 Experimental Microwarpdrive I
1 Warp Scrambler II
Lows:
1 Damage Control II
2 Nanofiber Internal Structure II
3 Gyrostabilizer II
Rigs:
2 Medium Anti-Em Screen Reinforcer I
1 Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Drones:
5 EC-300 Hornet I
Tell me that that doesn't resemble a shark.
When I got to 77S8- I heard he was aggressed in ZO-P5K. I was still two jumps out, and was burning like a madman. Thankfully, when I got to the system and warped to the outgate, he was still there in one piece. The aggression, as it turned out, was due to an anchored bubbled on the outgate into Red Overlord space.
We locked each other up immediately, overheating everything. He put a point on me, and in short order I put a scram on him. At first he didn't seem to realize the situation he was in, but as he started to take more damage than me, he started trying to bug out. I saw his drones on me and lit my smartbomb, trying to take out his flight of Warrior II's. Because I was right on top of him, my smartbomb was also doing a little bit of extra damage to him.
He entered structure as I was hitting low armor. I could taste the panic from him, my frenzied bloodlust was increasing, but he was pulling range due to my bad piloting. As he hit low structure, my scram dropped, I capped out, and two of my six guns burnt out. Thankfully, I was still in high structure, and he was itching to get away.
He warped out. I was frustrated with the kill having slipped away. I was in medium structure when he warped out. My hull was on fire, my prey had escaped.
Still, it was a fantastic fight between two sharks.
Computer: terminate recording.
Intel came across for the area: there was a neutral in 46DP- in a Hurricane. It appeared he was alone, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I grabbed my Hurricane, uncertain if I would make it in time before he left. I was already in 0-G, so it was a short three jumps away.
I tend to think of Hurricanes as sharks: Vicious and brutal powerhouses of destruction. At the scent of blood they come running. When facing a prey of equal or lesser size, it does its best to get right on top of it and rip it to shreds. My fit reflects this well I think:
Hurricane:
Highs:
6 425 mm autocannon II
1 medium smartbomb, (for clearing enemy drones)
1 medium energy neutralizer II
Mids:
2 Large Shield Extender II
1 Experimental Microwarpdrive I
1 Warp Scrambler II
Lows:
1 Damage Control II
2 Nanofiber Internal Structure II
3 Gyrostabilizer II
Rigs:
2 Medium Anti-Em Screen Reinforcer I
1 Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Drones:
5 EC-300 Hornet I
Tell me that that doesn't resemble a shark.
When I got to 77S8- I heard he was aggressed in ZO-P5K. I was still two jumps out, and was burning like a madman. Thankfully, when I got to the system and warped to the outgate, he was still there in one piece. The aggression, as it turned out, was due to an anchored bubbled on the outgate into Red Overlord space.
We locked each other up immediately, overheating everything. He put a point on me, and in short order I put a scram on him. At first he didn't seem to realize the situation he was in, but as he started to take more damage than me, he started trying to bug out. I saw his drones on me and lit my smartbomb, trying to take out his flight of Warrior II's. Because I was right on top of him, my smartbomb was also doing a little bit of extra damage to him.
He entered structure as I was hitting low armor. I could taste the panic from him, my frenzied bloodlust was increasing, but he was pulling range due to my bad piloting. As he hit low structure, my scram dropped, I capped out, and two of my six guns burnt out. Thankfully, I was still in high structure, and he was itching to get away.
He warped out. I was frustrated with the kill having slipped away. I was in medium structure when he warped out. My hull was on fire, my prey had escaped.
Still, it was a fantastic fight between two sharks.
Computer: terminate recording.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Blob plus One : battlereport
Entry: eight hundred seventy-nine.
Battle report:
Took out a small roam, meant for corp only, but opened to alliance just in case. Final fleet composition came out to a five double nano whelp canes and an instacane plus myself in a triple TD, sixteen hundred plate, triple trimarked Arbitrator.
When we started the roam, I ordered that Jason and Killie take point, acting as a two man gang instead of having the normal interceptor scout for a bigger gang. I felt that if they acted in this fashion, possible targets would be less likely to run. Eventually, on our way to a blob on the map, Jason and Killie jumped into a gatecamp in PUZ-IO. This camp consisted of a Cynabal, Rapier, Pilgrim, Curse, Falcon, and Drake. The Falcon and Pilgrim were initially cloaked and possibly off-field, the Drake was off-field.
I told Jason and Killie to hold cloak, then fake a gatecrash to draw aggression. Once that happened, Jason called jump and the rest of our gang landed. I called points on the Rapier, eventually driving it off since we weren't able to kill it. The Falcon decloaked while the gang pushed the Rapier out and I set my TDs on the Cynabal. Temujin pushed the Falcon off field with his instacane. I immediately called the Cynabal primary next, Jason warped out with shields gone, and after he left the field the Drake landed and aggressed with the Curse. I didn't mean to bait tank with my medium armor repper, but it looked like I was going down. I managed to jump out before entering structure, and the rest of the gang killed the Drake and Curse.
Everyone did what they were supposed to do and did it right. Only downside was lack of scrams. With the scrams, the Rapier, Cynabal, and possibly the Pilgrim would have died as well.
After that conflict, the rest of a roam was a bust, right up until we got to a system in the Kalevala Expanse where Black Legion was shooting some structure. I had called Jason and Killie to warp to the cyno and gank it, costing Jason his cane. I did not realize who was in local, neither did I take into account that they should check dscan at a nearby celestial first. My frustration at the lack of fighting drove me to this silly error, needlessly costing us a cane.
Overall, the roam was a still a success, in terms of ships and ISK, but it wasn't as perfect as it could have been by far. On a side note, the Arbitrator performed fantastically in its role. I took almost zero damage from the Cynabal, and I'm certain Jason was able to stay on field as long as he was because I was TDing the Cynabal so heavily.
Computer: terminate recording.
Battle report:
Took out a small roam, meant for corp only, but opened to alliance just in case. Final fleet composition came out to a five double nano whelp canes and an instacane plus myself in a triple TD, sixteen hundred plate, triple trimarked Arbitrator.
When we started the roam, I ordered that Jason and Killie take point, acting as a two man gang instead of having the normal interceptor scout for a bigger gang. I felt that if they acted in this fashion, possible targets would be less likely to run. Eventually, on our way to a blob on the map, Jason and Killie jumped into a gatecamp in PUZ-IO. This camp consisted of a Cynabal, Rapier, Pilgrim, Curse, Falcon, and Drake. The Falcon and Pilgrim were initially cloaked and possibly off-field, the Drake was off-field.
I told Jason and Killie to hold cloak, then fake a gatecrash to draw aggression. Once that happened, Jason called jump and the rest of our gang landed. I called points on the Rapier, eventually driving it off since we weren't able to kill it. The Falcon decloaked while the gang pushed the Rapier out and I set my TDs on the Cynabal. Temujin pushed the Falcon off field with his instacane. I immediately called the Cynabal primary next, Jason warped out with shields gone, and after he left the field the Drake landed and aggressed with the Curse. I didn't mean to bait tank with my medium armor repper, but it looked like I was going down. I managed to jump out before entering structure, and the rest of the gang killed the Drake and Curse.
Everyone did what they were supposed to do and did it right. Only downside was lack of scrams. With the scrams, the Rapier, Cynabal, and possibly the Pilgrim would have died as well.
After that conflict, the rest of a roam was a bust, right up until we got to a system in the Kalevala Expanse where Black Legion was shooting some structure. I had called Jason and Killie to warp to the cyno and gank it, costing Jason his cane. I did not realize who was in local, neither did I take into account that they should check dscan at a nearby celestial first. My frustration at the lack of fighting drove me to this silly error, needlessly costing us a cane.
Overall, the roam was a still a success, in terms of ships and ISK, but it wasn't as perfect as it could have been by far. On a side note, the Arbitrator performed fantastically in its role. I took almost zero damage from the Cynabal, and I'm certain Jason was able to stay on field as long as he was because I was TDing the Cynabal so heavily.
Computer: terminate recording.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Alliance and Corp News, Followed by a Question
It's definitely been an interesting week for Cascade Imminent, that's for sure.
No doubt, long since everyone has heard of Krysis' collapse. Contrary to popular belief, Krysis was not a Cascade pet at the end. They may have been at the beginning, but having shown their worth in Querious time and time again, they became permanent guests without being required to join our CTAs or fleets. They were literally given their own portion of Detorid to handle and defend.
That, unfortunately, didn't work out for them. I don't know how much or how little the supposed spy that brought Krysis down did, but I do know that they had been struggling for a while. At the end, they finally decided to disband the alliance because they got fifteen pilots for a CTA. Abysmal numbers, and the numbers had been steadily declining for a while.
With that done, all Krysis members were offered asylum in any Cascade corporation of their choice. UDEAD absorbed Circle of Power. From what I'm told, these were the more active combat pilots.
Around the time this happened, Initiative began playing around with our sovereignty in 3-L and ZLO3-. They don't seem particularly interested in taking the space, only in generating the fights. I question how badly they may want to generate the fights though. Honestly, if they want to generate fights, they needn't even bother with the sov. All they have to do is roam down around our home systems.
In addition to that, Black Nova Corp has left Cascade Imminent. I honestly can't remember seeing them on any CTAs, and can only vaguely remember one or two on a smattering of roams. Apparently, Initiative reinforcing a BNC tower triggered the evac, so it's just as well. I've heard that MARS has also left the alliance, though I don't remember them on CTAs or roams either.
There are rumors that another corporation is leaving the alliance as well. I know the corp in question, but I'm not allowed to say so at this point. Suffice to say that they've been of low actively in the alliance lately, have showed up to few CTAs if any except for the odd member that may want to stay in Cascade, and haven't had much roaming time. To be honest, I think it's their own fault for constantly segregating themselves from the rest of alliance and being elitist when they had no right to be.
With the bad out of the way, it's time for the good news.
Perhaps a week or two ago, Cascade picked up two new corps: Veni Vidi Vici Reloaded [V3R] and MODRO, a group who's corporate name I don't actually know. I haven't yet seen much of V3R, but MODRO has been extremely active and been a blast to fly with. I sincerely hope they stay with us for the long haul, as their members have excellent attitudes and their roams are extremely fun. The only downside is that the roams typically happen even past the time I want to be awake, and I'm on the latest USTZ.
Initiative continues to attack our space. It's clear they aren't serious about taking the sov, but they are doing it. Yesterday we saw more participation in our CTAs than normal, which was an excellent sign in my eyes that the health of the alliance is starting to recover. Essentially, we had fifty percent participation from the active alliance pilots, which is a huge deal. Normally, you'd expect a twenty or thirty percent participation rate. Fifty percent in massive, and I would love for the trend to continue.
Finally, on a personal note, I've finally gotten to start training Medium Blaster Spec, and soon Medium Rail Spec. I have quite a few Feroxes and Brutixes I'm itching to try out. I've got two versions of the Ferox I'm looking to field, and possibly three versions of the Brutix.
Question: for a shield Brutix, is it worth sacrificing a Neutron Blaster in order to fit a Nanofiber? Why or why not? I'm leaning towards the yes, if only for the added chance to catch a target...
Computer: terminate recording.
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