Night Of Ganks

Last night was the first time in 3 weeks I was able to get online and participate in PvP, much less be a Fleet Commander for one. So I felt a fair amount of rust when I assembled the fleet of armour destroyers (Glorious Algos Fleet Unite!) and set out looking for adventure.

It felt like the warzone was pretty quiet for the two hours we were roaming around but we racked up a number of quick little kills where we would stumble across a war target or pirate. A neutral Vexor in a plex where we were trying to get some war targets; a war target Vexor on a gate with Tech II rigs; a pirate bait Prophecy that was not quite ready to bait; and a juicy pirate Hyperion that tried to get some kills with a Cruor buddy on a plex entrance (which worked on our Svipul) but couldn't get away from the cavalry.

Then things heated up in Nagamanen when a kitchen sink TEMPLIS Cal Mil fleet came in and set up in a medium plex.

We outnumbered them and had a handful of logi frigs to their none, but they stood their ground as we warped in and we had a good rumble where we cleaned their clocks. Mad props to them, I was in structure and smoking when we tipped the balance of DPS versus reps.

After that we hunted Twitch streamer Fintarue of High Drag podcast fame as he was flying around in a Vigilant, but it was getting late and some ex-Cal Mil pirates came knocking in 5 Caracals that the math suggested we would not survive against, so I took the fleet home and stood down.

Tally stands at 17 kill mails and 0 losses, I'll take it! Good night to shake the rust off.

Shaking off the Rust

I lost two EVE sessions in October due to Thanksgiving travels one weekend and my fall Board Game Day another. Which sucks because I get rusty at FCing pretty damn quickly.

Sunday night I logged in and started putting together a fleet for the corp. We quickly grew in numbers and swtiched from a kitchen sink frigate fleet to a Rouge Squadron doctrine Algos fleet supported by interceptors and Navitas logi.

We got word of a Caldari Militia assault frigate fleet movign around Tama and we swung through Fliet's back door to try and engage them. In the battleground of Sujarento we jumped in on them and engage at point blank range on the gate. They had a couple Griffins and my target calling was rusty because at one point I primaried a couple of Harpies that I should have left for some softer Tech 1 Frigates.

Not a big deal and I internalize the lesson and we won the fight and held the field, losing 5 Algos and a single Atron and Navitas while killing 2 Harpies, an Ishkur, a Wolf, a Jaguar, a Retribution, a Kitsune, a Merlin, a Burst, and two Bantams.

We went back to Fliet and reshipped, then proceeded to scour the warzone looking for more targets. It was going pretty quiet until we got reports of two hostile pirate fleets in the Fliet area while we were deep in Black Rise region. We ran back to Essence and while an allied Gallente Militia fleet took on one fleet, we engaged the other in Heydieles.

We executed the attack a lot more smoothly this time and we only lost our initial scout Algos (don't ask, but really Marcel deserved it) and killed 4 Coercers, 2 Cormorants, an Ishkur, a Thrasher, a Jaguar, a Harpy, and a Hawk in return. Our Logi were hero's in that conflict and props to Ordo Mortis alliance who gave us that exciting finish to the night.

All hail the mighty Algos!

Welcome To The Danger Zone

Last night I was leading a Destroyer/Frigate fleet and we got word that allies in the Gallente Militia were going into a big fight with a rather famous local pirate group called SniggWaffe (training corp for Sniggeredly of Pandemic Legion) who have been living out of Kinakka in the Black Rise region.

We burned a few jumps to help out and jumped into a big fight in Innia with them and our GalMil allies. The Snigg fleet was flying a Thorax cruiser centre coupled with a significant wing of Exequrors as support. We targeted the enemy logi and threw our firepowered combined with our allies firepower and tried to take them down but to no avail. Their reps were spot on and more than enough to compensate for our damage. On the other side, our logi began to go down and the order was given to flee but not before a few of us were taken out.

We took our shattered fleet back to Fliet and after some discussion and communication with the other GalMil FCs, we up-shipped to cruisers using our Rogue Squadron Vexors (excepting Marcel in a Vexor Navy Issue and me in my old Ishtar) with our own wing of Exequrors and headed back for more pew.

We set up on a gate in Eha as our allied fleets had already engaged them and I waited for intel. Local spike, its Snigg. Where are they?

Suddenly a fleet of suspects warps in on us; the Snigg fleet arrived and its Exequrors and Celestises. I'm torn by indecision... should I engage? Wait for them to make a move? What if they jump and our fleet gets split?

Someone calls "point!" and my momentary paralysis is broken. I start calling targets, assigning my drones, locking up Exequrors. Primary, secondary, primary, secondary, overheat, spread points, primary, secondary... Calls of "Logi Jammed!" and broadcasts for armour ring out. I see my shields dip and I hit the broadcast button. Enemy Exequrors are wiped out and I start directing the fleet into the Celestises and its become apparent that we have won this round.

The rest of the enemy warps off and we kill off the stragglers. We lost one friendly, a non-Aideron pilot in our fleet who was in a Stabber Fleet Issue that got primaried and taken off before logi could react. All in all, a good result that could have gone badly had the SniggWaffe fleet still had been in their Thoraxes from earlier.

Good fight Snigg! See you in space.

Ships to Command From

Last night I ran another public Aideron fleet and we got up to about 30 members before I turned the fleet over to Marcel and logged off. It was a decently productive evening, picking up on 12 killmails for myself and I know the fleet got more where I was too slow. I did take us into one losing engagement and lost my Enyo to a very prepared and powerful Soultakers fleet (pirates local to Old Man Star) but I had to try for that bait Vigilant before the logi and Stabber Fleet Issues came in. Really, I am surprised we didn't lose more than we did that fight!

I'm continuing to try and determine the best ship for me to be a Fleet Commander from. Two weeks ago I had started in an Enyo and switch to an Ares interceptor and found myself too distracted in the latter as I spent too many of my limited brain cycles worrying about tackling targets instead of thinking about the big picture.

This week I started off in my trusty Enyo once more but lost it early on, as mentioned, to the Soultakers. I liked the ship for its simplicity of use which is basically a shotgun approach with its big blasters and only a single drone... its like a bigger hitting Incursus and my love for that ship is well documented. However, in the fleet last night it was the only Tech II frigate and hence was a primary target for the pirate fleet to take out. It wasn't a big deal in that little fight as we were bailing already when I was going down, but in a longer even fight it would be detrimental to the fleet to have its FC taken out early (barring having secondary FC ready to step up of course).

I reshipped into an Algos destroyer to lead the fleet figuring its longer ranged railguns with Spike ammo and flights of light drones would allow me to fight at range and worry less about piloting and more about FCing. I found I was mostly right and that the ship flew well in some of the engagements where we were on top of the enemy, but any fights where the enemy was fast and running I was frequently out of the action. This is not necessarily bad as it gave me more time to look at the big picture, but when we were scrambling and warping around a lot I found the slower align and warp time taking its toll pretty fast and a couple times I had to designate on-scene FCs to call targets until I got there. Not a big deal, but it had me considering alternatives again.

So to summarize:
- Ares : fast and agile but required too much of my divided attention
- Enyo : solid and simple to use but attracted too much hostile attention in a fleet where everyone else was T1 and faction frigs
- Algos : good range and not too hard to use but slow and fat.

I might try another interceptor but a more combat oriented setup that allows me to get around the field but is not too dedicated on catching targets.

Coming Around On the Algos

When the new Destroyers were released back in the day I was a big fan of the Algos. Then I flew it and had some bad encounters. Disappointed, I left it for fleet doctrine use only and began my love affair with the dual repped Incursus.

Recently, as part of defending Heydieles from the endless hordes of State Protectorate Militia I entered a medium plex and encoutnered a pirate Algos that was on the beacon. I engaged and found myself quiet over my head very quickly. Despite having both reppers running I was reduced to a wreck and so flustered I allowed my pod to get caught too.

So when I ran out of Incursii later, I was forced to plex our base of Heydieles in something else. I picked an Algos and went into a small plex to run the timer down. Then on short scan I picked up a Dramiel, a ship I'm familiar with and fond of.

"Surely," I thought, "he won't come in here unless he has backup. The Algos has the range and tank to deal with him."

But into the plex alone he did come. I locked, webbed, and scrammed him and watched in disbelief as his ship was shredded and no support came.

Quite simply put, the Algos is a scary destroyer for solo frigs. Here's the fit I've been flying:

The railguns give it range to help project its DPS beyond the blaster range common for Gallente ships, and the drone DPS further enhances that projection. And anything foolish enough to get webbed and scrammed faces around 300 DPS and a nice 12K EHP buffer tank to chew through.

All-round solid ship for faction warfare plexes. But I still love my Incursus.

Tripping Up In The Algos

Last night the wife said "I'm calling my mom" which is code for "going to chat for half and hour or more so entertain yourself".

"Excellent," says I, "time to fool around in Eve."

I logged in and decided to give that new Algos a trial run. I undocked from Heydieles and headed towards Tama. Felt nice to be in space in a new ship again. Dear CCP, time for those new Battleships to fill out the lines.

Anyways, I jumped in Hasmijaala and found a neutral in a Daredevil there with me. I started to head back to the gate wondering if this neutral would engage a little old criminal anarchist like me. Sure enough he came right at me. I tried to give a good fight but the drones and blasters were not enough damage in time before my armour melted under the Daredevil's big damage.

I went back to Heydieles vowing to come back for revenge. I reshipped to a Worm and went looking for that Taek'il. It took a few minutes of searching but finally found him in Eranakko. This time I had the drones out and rockets blasting but I forgot to start the shield booster early and forgot to overheat it and ultimately it did me in as I exploded with the Daredevil in structure.

We exchanged more "gf"s in local and pleasant conversation about how close it was, then I docked in system and logged as my wife was off the phone and we had some Survivor to watch.

* * * * *

Just before bedtime I figured I would move my pod back to Heydieles so I would be ready for the next impromptu roam. As I pulled into my home station I saw local spike with a wave of orange. The Caldari had arrived. I counted at least 17 hostiles. I debated going out in something to see if I could run into some stragglers. Then local spiked again but this time it was friendly purple. A fight was brewing... or in progress. Colour me interested...

I jumped onto Teamspeak and saw the fleet in a channel. I also noticed Marcel Devereaux was FCing the fleet. I joined up and got the low down that tht fight was happening at the sun over a strechted out battlefield. I needed something with range and defences. My Oracle. Perfect.

I warped to the sun and joined the fight. It was hectic fun and we held the field at the end. I was primaried once but the enemy lacked tackle and my armour held up and I was able to warp out. I came back and got on a few more killmails. It was great and made up for the earlier losses.

Once again Marcel is my hero.

Tripping the Algos

I have to try out the new Algos destroyer, I just love the look of it. The Corax looks neat too, but I can wait to try one of those.

Here is the fit I've settled on to try out for now:

Click for full size.

Decent damage, speed is not bad, but not a lot in the way of defense which I'm ok with. Let's see how long it takes for it to get destroyed.