A Month In Stay Frosty

I'm really sorry for the lack of blogging lately, I'm still playing and EVE news is interesting, I've just been lazy :)

September is over and so is my first full month in Stay Frosty, running Sunday Night Roams in small kitchen sink gangs and seeing what we can turn up. Its been decent:

Nothing like the heyday of low sec and faction warfare, but not completely without action. Some excitement does not register on the killboard, like last night when I entered a FW plex to engage a Rifter (Scout/Tackle FC best FC) in my trusty dual rep Incursus only to find myself counter-tackled and a Chremoas alliance tournament ship uncloaking 50 klicks away.

Ho ho, a trap. My fleet comes in and the enemy flees (I lost my point barely on the Rifter) so no losses, but I did comment that I found that tactic is a pathetic use for an AT prize ship, baiting in almost perfect safety where there is not even a chance someone might land on you from warp and uncloak you accidentally.

Of course, some might point out that going around in a gang and ganking solo or duo ships is not very sporting either, but at least our initial tackle ships put it on the line and there is a chance the enemy might spring a trap with more or bigger ships and a pitched battle occurs. Sitting deep in a plex with a covert ops cloak and running at the first sign of a challenge is not the same thing.

But whatever, caring is the path to madness.

As for my Sunday Night Fleets, I've noticed once again that consistency is the key: putting the fleet up at the same time and night every week slowly brings in more pilots and we have more options on what we can engage as a result, getting more excitement and luring in more pilots. First couple weeks was just a handful of us, last couple weeks we started to peak around 10. That's the sweet spot, 10 to 15 pilots. Enough to cover all the roles of scout, tackle, damage, and a logi bro or two.

Good times! I highly recommend the Stay Frosty Retirement Program for aging low sec PvPers.

First Stay Frosty Roam

I started up my Sunday Night Roam in Stay Frosty on Sunday evening and 6 of us headed out into the black (including the illustrious Rixx Javix himself) in some Tech III Destroyers, a Cormorant, a Slasher and myself in a Navy Slicer.

Here's how it worked out:

Yeah, we ran into Twitch streamer Damassys Kadesh in a Abaddon looking for fresh meat and we provided in spades. I think my reliance on Aideron Robotics logi bros made me a little over confident in this engagement and our T3 dessies were picked off one at a time. Interesting note is that he used webbing and target painting drones to aid his laser fire, and if we had not had to deal with sentry guns (i.e. warping out and in to clear them) we might have coordinated enough to take them out and get our tracking disruptor on him to negate his damage.

Oh well, lesson learned and shook off some rust in the process. Next time!

Trying To Shake off the Rust

My mom had a 65th birthday/retirement party on last weekend so I didn't get online until Monday night. I decided to just roam around alone and see what trouble I could get into, using my trusty Ishkur assault frigate.

In Renarelle I came across a lone Enyo pilot and after a few warps and missed connections we engaged in a duel. It was close and we were both in low structure when I blew up. If only I had switched my ammo from null to void... oh well.

Back in another Ishkur I was flying through the wilds of Black Rise and avoiding Thorax fleets when I came across Mad Ani, a long time EVE Online Twitch streamer, flying a Stiletto. There were lots of other ships floating around but I thought maybe the streamer was alone and looking for a challenge so I warped to a complex in Hikkoken and waited for him. He showed up indeed... along with friends. I died.

I had a chuckle at that ten million ISK deposited in my wallet. I appreciate the gesture.

Hope I have better luck next week.

Right Place Right Time

This past Sunday night I gathered a fleet for my Sunday Night Roam and went out looking for trouble in the wilds of Black Rise, Essence, and Placid regions. News was that the Caldari Militia was out in force taking systems and achieving the lofty heights of Tier 4 warzone control so I was hoping to find some with my friends and shoot them in the face.

We were successful:

The biggest kills were all the result of our fleet being in the right place at the right time:

Bhaalgorn - We saw the battleship in space and the Calmil pilot logged off at a gate, we assume disconnect. We tried to probe down the ship but were too slow. Suddenly he logs back in and warp back to the gate as part of the log in... right where our hungry fleet awaited.

Cruor - Our scouts were engaging a Loki in the next system and as soon as point was called the fleet jumped in and warped to the scout. The Loki was too fast and got away... but as we landed a Caracal and Cruor landed trying to gank our scout. Tackled and dead.

Tengu - Heading home, sitting on the Hikkonken gate, this non-cloaky strategic cruiser warps to the gate where we are sitting and we jump through with him. No escape, tacked and dead.

Sometimes you need to be more lucky than good.

Eyes in the Sky

As time marches on, I notice that the regular faces I see in my Sunday Night Fleets change as people move on and new people fill in the spots. This is fine, this is EVE, and change is the only constant. And its always a big deal when an old familiar face comes back for a roam in Black Rise.

But one upshot of this phenomenon is that sometimes I find myself without a reliable scout as the fleet starts up. Last night I was trying out my Worm frigate and decided that I was tough enough and fast enough to be the scout for the Destroyer and Frigate Kitchen Sink fleet.

Man, scouting takes me back a decade or so. Being the eyes of the fleet was the first real role in PvP that I learned to do besides being an F1 key presser. Looking for bad guys, reporting numbers and ship types and alliances all before the advent of copy paste scan results into website parsers. And getting that hero tackle on that fleeing ship we proceed to gank... heaven.

I didn't do too much hero tackling last night and most of the kills were from two pilots from the Imperium who kept bringing bigger ships against us despite knowing we outnumbered them considerably (so props to them for providing content), but it was a good time and nice to feel the space dust of low sec in my face again.

And I love the Worm, what a nice little tough frig.

Raiding the Farms and Fields

I was asked to run a structure bash op for my Sunday Night Fleet this past weekend but it got cancelled right after I had jump cloned so decided to fight my nervousness about null sec and do the roam in the great black yonder of Cloud Ring and neighbouring regions. We set out with a fleet of small ships, interceptors and frigates and destroyers and a couple interdictors.

Man, its weird seeing interdictors actually being used! And bubbles as an option in the tool box! And no gate guns! Its all so freaky.

But the freakiest thing is the residents of null sec we ran into.

Ratting Vexor Navy Issues. Several times.

Ratting Rattlesnake. (He got away)

Industrial on a gate.

A moon mining op. And after we killed a couple of them, a Cynabal wandered too close to our interceptors and got caught.

I've always suspected that the shark eat shark microcosm of constant warfare of low sec created pilots of a higher quality and this roam around null sec only reinforced that idea. Its just not safe for ratting in low sec, and mining ops are much more paranoid. In null sec the lower population density and infrequency of danger lowers one's guard more, but I still find it interesting that the reaction is quiet acceptance of the kills. In low sec, getting a kill with a fleet almost always ensures a fleet being assembled to come kill you. Yet the one gang we saw didn't give chase.

Oh well, it was a nice ego boost either way as Galmilistan continues to exist against all expectations.

Also, loving my Taranis, what a nice little pistol.

With One Hand Tied Behind My Back

Last night I organized a fleet of kitchen sink armour cruisers (with logi) and went on a roam to find some trouble, when half way through the fleet we get reports of a Caldari Militia Athanor refinery anchoring in Asakai. We burn over there with 6 minutes left in its vulnerable period and start putting firepower into the structure.

Just as an enemy fleet arrives to drive us off, we succeed and waltz off field.

As we regroup we see that the Caldari controlled Reitsato system is vulnerable so we decide to bash the infrastructure hub.

Soon after we started we got reports of our old foe Templis CALSF forming up a fleet to fight us, and later they undocked in a standard Caracal / Osprey fleet and started moving our direction.

I knew our kitchen sink fleet despite having logi support was undergunned in mostly short ranged weapons to take on the current apex cruiser doctrine, but allies from Spaceship Bebop alliance reshipped into some Oracles and after much debate I decided to try to take the fight against my more conservative gut instinct.

As the fight loomed, problems surfaced. The 5 Oracles from BEBOP were not in fleet and not on comms, making coordinating with them difficult. I didn't want to take the fight on the I-hub grid but getting the message clearly to the Oracle pilots was not working fast enough and I did not want to be the one to leave them hanging in the wind.

Templis arrived on grid and I made the call to dive in, hoping the firepower of our blasters and lasers would overwhelm the reps of the Ospreys. It did not.

Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

Times Have Changed

The first time I went into null sec, I decided to buy a destroyer.

Being a Caldari pilot I went looking for a Cormorant on the market. But I wasn't in a big null sec alliance, I was in a small corp tucked into a couple systems of a constellation in a quiet part of Syndicate region, 9GYL-O to be precise. And the only Cormorant on the market was in the opposite end of the region, in a pocket that was controlled at the time by Goonswarm.

It did not end well.

It is amazing to me how much I didn't know back then. I spent many years in and out of null sec in corporations and alliances of different sizes and capabilities before deciding that low sec was more my speed for my casual playstyle. I got better, learned how not to buy things in hostile territory, how to move assets into null without getting ganked at the first jump, and eventually mastered using carriers and jump freighters to move things around. Null sec because comfortable to me and I did not leave it because it was hard or frustrating.

Last Sunday night, back in a fleet in null sec as we defended some timers in our constellation in Cloud Ring, I was scouting and tackling in a Taranis. Pandemic Horde dropped by to give us a fight and I scored some kills on a Griffin and Taranis and a few pods. Nothing special.

But afterwards as I mused on the evening's activities and reviewed my performance, I was struck by a difference: I was calm. Excited for the battle, pleased at the outcome, but calm. Last time I lived in null sec every engagement was fraught with nerves and adrenaline, but years of constant fighting and killing and losing in low sec have steadied my nerves and given clarity to my piloting.

I flew towards jamming Griffins, dodging missiles slung from Caracals, dogfighting a Taranis, bobbing and weaving in and out of the battle, and while I felt alive I did not feel panic. Hands were steady, heartbeat even.

It is been a long road from frightened newbie to hardened veteran and it is hard to see the difference week over week, month to month. But the stark contrast from the last time I was in null to fight and to this time allowed me to see the change easily. I'm not saying I'm a better pilot, but definitely more ready for the challenge.

Null Sec Blues

Its been a long time since I've been in null sec. I moved to low sec and never looked back years ago.

Low sec PvP and Null Sec PvP are very different. The presence or lack thereof of gate guns, warp disruption bubbles, and faction warfare plexes all make minor contributions that combined change the feel of the space.

So it was with great trepidation I prepared a fleet for Sunday night out of our deployment system adjacent to Cloud Ring region, flying frigates and tactical destroyers on a roam looking for fights and kills.

Overall it did not go so well. For example, at one point we decided to engage an Orthrus on a hostile citadel and lost a few ships to point defense guns that his buddy activated once we were within range. We have them in low sec but so rarely engage near citadels, it seems fighting on hostile structures is maybe more common in null sec?

Warping from gate to gate, sometimes forgetting about drag bubbles. Later on warping into a fight an ally had started and getting stuck in a bubble and I didn't even realize it. *Groan* Dealing with bubbles used to be so second nature for me, years in low sec has dulled those skills.

Overall it was not my best fleet I've run. Hopefully enough rust has been scraped off to make the next fleet more productive for my members.

Hanger Cleanout

Over the past year I've been trying to slim down my hanger through attrition by using my Sunday Night Roaming fleet to use ships that otherwise don't fit into normal fleet doctrines and using them until they die.

Jan - Abaddon
Feb - Omen
Mar - Daredevil
May - Pair of comets and an Oracle I had forever

And last Sunday I broke out one of my oldest prize ships, a Vigilant cruiser, and lost it in a fight with Templis CALSF. We knew Stalence in his Megathron was bait but the night was quiet up until then and we were itching for a fight. At least we killed the bait.

At least the faction webber and warp scrambler (over 100 mil combined) both got destroyed in the explosion.

Bloodied

Over the past few months my weekly fleets have been quite successful, earning a variety of good kills including the occasional battle cruiser, battleship, and even a Chimera carrier once (to be fair, he was looking for a fight). In exchange I've been posting very few losses so I've been very happy. Its easy to forget how often the pendulum swung from green to red back in the day when Calmil was serious about roaming and contesting space.

So of course, karma decided I was due for a beating.

I decided to run a kitchen sink fleet comp last night so I could play with one of my favourites, an old Oracle battle cruiser fitted with mega pulse lasers. Hits like a brick to the face. The fleet started out OK getting a Thorax and Enyo in two skirmishes earning me a killmark on the golden hull. That should have been a clue I was in for trouble.

In Pynekastoh we got a report of an Orthrus hanging out on the outside of a PLEX. I moved in to bait him to tackle me and he did, but it turns out he was bait tackle for a cloaked Hel carrier 250 km off that quickly dispatched drones and reduced my Oracle to space dust. Worst part is, that same pilot has been doing that trap for months and I knew about it but just forgot. Even worse, in one of our intel channels another pilot 30 minutes earlier talked about the exact same trap... and I read his account!

I reshipped and rejoined fleet in a Hawk assault frigate.

In Akidagi where Templis CALSF alliance lives we got reports from our scout of a Dominix on scan, then landing on the Nennamailia gate. Since this is exactly the same gate we caught and killed a Hyperion last week, I ordered the fleet to dive in and attack. I should have been suspicious when the cal mil pilot opted to fight instead of try to crash gate, but blood was in the water and I wanted to make up for the Oracle loss. He was active tanked with neuts and drones and reinforcements started to drift in. Our fleet was not large and without serious logi and I waited too long and allowed myself to get caught and killed. And on my way back to Fliet I was too slow on the draw reporting another Cal Mil fleet of a couple Confessors and Thrashers and I lost my pod with mid grade snakes! So stupid!

I ordered the fleet to abandon the Dominix fight as we were losing pilots and more reinforcements were inbound. Podded back to Fliet and wanting to rejoin the fleet quickly I jumped in an Incursus and moved towards the fleet... only to get insta-locked and trashed by yet another small cal mil gate camp fleet of Thrashers and a Svipul in Abune! I rushed back to Fliet, got in an Algos, and went to help bust the gate camp but was too eager and lost the Algos as well before a fleet member in a battleship forced them off for good.

Four ship losses and an implant pod loss later, I was feeling quite beat up. We formed up the fleet and went looking for more fights, killed a couple destroyers before I had to call it quits due to tiredness. Definitely ended up in the red this time!

It Was a Quiet Night When Suddenly It Was Quite a Night

Lately the Sunday Night Fleet I fleet command for has been an informal affair where doctrine is not strictly adhered to and people can pretty much bring whatever ship suits their fancy. This is primarily because the organized opposition we typically face has been largely absent last couple months since Caldari ran out of steam in their push and we pushed back hard in the South of the warzone.

Some weeks I call for frigates and inevitably see a cruiser heavy fleet we need to avoid, other weeks I call for cruisers and/or battlecruisers and try in vain to catch frigates and destroyers. This week I called for armour destroyers in hopes that I could get the best of both worlds: fast enough to catch smaller stuff and big enough to engage smaller numbers of bigger stuff.

So there we were, halfway through our roam in Aubenall in Placid region, we only a blobbed Black Shark Cult Thorax on our killboard when the scout calls out:

"There is brutix navy, hyperion, ferox, ferox, cerb, cynabal and chimera on gate."

Whoa. That was unexpected.

Our fleet was tickling the underside of 20 pilots with about 8 tech I destroyers (Algos for the win!) and my Hecate, with 3 or 4 tech I logistics frigates and a smattering of frigates. Even discounting the Caldari carrier we would be very hard pressed to engage those heavy ships and come out with even one kill if they were well tanked.

But our foes, an alliance called "The Glory Holers", had stumbled into an unfortunate occurrence of a perfect storm for them.

Before I could decide what to do, a pilot in my fleet pipes up "hey, I have a dread in this system I'm willing to throw at them". After checking its able to hit sub cap targets it seemed we had more DPS, but I was still skeptical...until a handful of Pen Is Out pilots, another Gal Mil alliance and long time friends of Aideron Robotics, we nearby and coming to the fleet bringing a Megathron with 4 days left on its insurance policy and a smattering of cruisers. On top of all that, we quickly pinged Gal Mil intel channels and reinforcements began to form in Black Rise. That gave me hope that we could engage and hold on to some targets while we mustered the DPS from these sources to contest the fight.

I sent my scout in to see what was going on in Renarelle.

"They are all zero on the gate."

"Even the carrier?" I ask.

"Yep."

At that point the Navy Brutix jumped in. He re-approached gate and I stalled for time by not engaging him since he was neutral and I didn't feel like dealing with sentry guns. Would he advise the rest to warp off? Or are they coming in...?

"They're jumping in."

And the fight was on. They brought the last piece of the Perfect Storm, a driving desire to fight.

They decided to engage a Comet and Algos first, but those pilots were not pirate sec status so that the enemy took suspect flags. That was an unexpected bonus and makes me suspect these guys are not normally from low sec; any low sec denizen would have known to attack the flashies like me first to avoid the suspect flag. This allowed us to pile on our first target, a Ferox, without worrying about gate guns. Indeed, the gate guns helped our cause a lot in the opening salvos.

We then traded four of our destroyers and a few frigates for killing a Vexor and Caracal. Our DPS was dwindling. Our destroyers killed another Ferox and the Phoenix dreadnought killed the Hyperion and the situation started to turn around. We lost another Algos but in exchange nuked the Brutix Navy Issue, Cerberus, and Osprey Navy Issue as the dreadnought continued to make its presence known and the reinforcements began to arrive.

We killed the last sub-cap enemy ship and tore into the tackled carrier and its fighter squadrons. It was well tanked and fought to the bitter end but it could not resist the fully armed and operational Phoenix and soon exploded.

There was a moment of panic as an unrelated Tengu appeared and scrammed our dreadnought before it could warp back to safety of a station, someone crying out that it was part of Northern Coalition come to get a capital kill themselves, but a desperation play by a Drake with only one module fit, a handy ECM module, got the jam and the dreadnought slipped into the cold safe embrace of the tunnel.

We lost a lot of ships in the fight, but killed far more than our ISK worth and earned some glorious kills. Its not often a random encounter works out so beautifully for us.

Lucky Rabbit's Foot

Last night I led the Sunday Night Aideron Fleet into the warzone and I must have brought my lucky rabbit's foot in the cargo hold of my Hecate Tactical Destroyer because we had an unusual run of good luck.

First up we were in the occupied system of Vlillirier with a couple bait/scout ships trying to lure some of the Caldari Militia occupiers out to play. We got a report of two ships attacking our two pilots and requiring some assistance in a large plex so I ordered the fleet to jump in and warp to the plex. One of the enemy ships warped off though so it looked like a wasted trap sprung.

But, to my surprise, we came out of warp just as a significant Cal Mil fleet dropped out of warp right on top of us. We have numerical superiority so I started calling targets and  we killed at least three tech 3 tacical destroyers, one Thalia logistics frigate, and a Hyena EAF.

Later on while searching for targets in adjacent systems, we had a Maller cruiser and Drake Battlecruiser jump into our fleet and die quite quickly.

Near the end of the fleet, we were chasing a Cal Mil T3D fleet that had more of the advanced destroyers but we had more logi and pilots. We found them in Oinasiken engaging a couple of Hyperion battleships that went suspect on a gate, so we landed, chased the Cal Mil fleet off, and proceeded to kill the two battleships. Afterwards we got regrouped and were about the engage the Cal Mil fleet that seemed to decide they wanted to fight us, only cross jump the destoryers to see that they brought reinforcements in the form of 2 Scimitar logistics cruisers with some Machariel battleships and a smattering of battlecruisers. Well I had the fleet moonwalk away from that fight with only two Algos and a Maulus losses and go home to call it a night.

All in all, a good lucky night for Aideron and friends.

Update on Fight - Video

Here is a video from the perspective of a carrier pilot of the fight we had Sunday night where we helped with our frigate swarm.

Surviving by the Skin of My Teeth

Sunday night's fleet was Speed Swarm, i.e. fast frigates that swarm on targets of opportunity and kill them before escaping from superior forces. Microwarp Drives On!

We roamed the warzone looking for targets of opporunity, and at one point we contacted by allies in Black Fox Marauders corporation (aka BLFOX) to assist on a hot drop on a roaming hostile cruiser gang. BLFOX had a bait Megathron with cyno fitted and a Slasher for tackle and a handful of carriers ready to jump in, but needed more tackle to prevent more of the cruisers from escaping the wrath of the fighters.

The Megathron moved into position and engaged the enemy, and we swooped in as the fight started and spread our points on all the targets. Once pointed, the carriers jumped in and began melting the cruisers in short order. The Megathron died, but so did all the cruisers:

Our frigate fleet survived intact, and as a bonus one of our new pilots scored this amazing podmail worth an estimated 2.4 billion ISK.

Later on we were heading home when we saw a war target in an Omen Navy Issue in a quiet system. He was strategically positioned on the outside of a complex such that any frigates trying to close the 100 km plus gap would have to contend with his drones and lasers. Nevertheless, we tried to circle him with our super fast interceptors and my speed Garmur, dodging in and out of his targeting range to try and tackle him. Finally I got a point on him and called in the rest of the frigates but was taking serious damage. I tried to warp out and watched in horror as my favourite ship's armour dissipated and I dipped into hull... but finally pulled into the warp tunnel.

I checked and had 6 out of 560 hull points left. A true 1% escape.

He warped off but an eagle eyed pilot saw where he warped too so the fleet followed and got point again, and proceeded to tear him up. Good fight, and good fleet!

Like Starting Over

One thing about FCing for the same group of guys over a long period of time is that you become very familiar and comfortable with what everyone knows and can do, so you can give an order and reasonable expect it to be followed to the best of everyone's duty. Also, when you put a fleet together asking for a particular ship type, you can look at your fleet size and immediately know what your capabilities are in terms of fights and targets you can take.

However, with the advent of Ascension and the efforts Aideron Robotics has been doing to recruit new inexperienced players, I've found myself having to get out of my comfort zone and be a more proactive and attentive Fleet Commander which means explaining things with more detail, giving more instructions repeatedly, being patient, and being aware that a significant portion of my fleet is made up of Alpha Atrons just learning PvP.

Sunday night was the second fleet I ran since the expansion and it was one in which not only the new players were trying and learning things, but also some veterans as myself and Ashterothi and Kuruk were flying Magus Command Destroyers with the new on grid links.

Overall the fleet was a little more chaotic than I am used to; some pilots need some lessons on fleet comms (i.e. I don't need to know your father is kicking you off the computer in 15 minutes) and finding the fleet, others (like me) need to be a little more careful with the micro jump field generator. But in the end we had fun and got a few sweet kills like this expensive Osprey Navy Issue we surprised and this Scythe Fleet Issue we managed to burn down before losing fleet cohesion and getting picked off.

Its a different fleet for sure but I'm confident we can help our new pilots get better and become the good PvPer's I know they can be.

Appreciate The Beauty

Last night we were on a T1 frigate roam breaking in some of our new players and looking for trouble when trouble came looking for us wearing the hull of a T2 Deimos. Our fleet of 20 frigates engaged and quickly found out... we were losing.

We called for help in our intel channels and fortunately were close enough to a main base that some more pilots in heavier ships arrived and put the pain on to earn the kill. Afterwards we took a hard look at the killmail and were impressed by what we saw on the ~700 million ISK loss.

Dual deadspace reps, large cap battery to help with cap stability and ward off neuts, faction stasis webber, Gecko drone...and battleship sized afterburner. Overall, an impressive ship with very tough tank.

Hats off to Leathal Annihiliation666 for giving us an exciting fight and whetting the appetite of our newbros for more PvP.

Smacked Around the Head

Last night was not a good night.

I started the fleet off in our traditional Tristans and Navitas, a decent comp for any Novice complex fighting, when we stumbled across a Mercenary Coalition Navy Comet fleet. We setup in a plex and allowed them to come to us, but their numbers and sheer firepower burned through our reps before we could kill more than a couple.

We regrouped into Algos and Navitas fleet, the thought being the bigger buffer and DPS would give us the chance to whittle them down faster, but they left the area. However we came across a neutral/pirate cruiser fleet that we decided to engage. I made a couple unforced errors in commanding the fleet, taking gate guns and not primarying one of the two Augurors, and we were forced to disengage with bloody noses and only a single Blackbird in exchange.

I tried to reship us into crusiers to engage again but our cruiser stockpile was too many jumps away so we decided to try Algoses again with a couple more pilots and a resolution to correct the mistakes of last fight. We found them at the sun one system over and engaged, but this time they had three Tech 1 logistics cruisers and we were just short of the damage required to break them.

We were closer to home in Fliet this time so we swooped down the pipe to there and reshipped into cruisers, Vexors and Exeqs. For sure this time we had the firepower required to win this fight! We raced back towards the enemy and were surprised to find them racing towards us! But they went right past us (although we did make one Augoror pay).

Turns out they were running from a SniggWaffe cruiser fleet which was bigger than their fleet. As they warped in on us I make a snap decision to take the fight and we tried to break their logi but it was to no avail, we took some losses and extracted the rest to home.

Four fight attempts, four lost fights. Not my best night.

At least it was not boring.

Take The Shot

Our roam had brought our little kitchen sink fleet to Kedama looking for trouble. Outside of a large Caldari Militia fleet in Martoh, where they were working hard to flip the system during a current push on the warzone, low sec was not teeming with targets and a few pirates in Kedama had caught out attention.

Local chat lit up with someone claiming another pilot in a Dominix was a bait ship for a fleet of battleships one system over. While we were checking out a large plex the accused Dominix pilot warped in on us and I was faced with the decision: warp away or engage?

The Dominix is a typical bait ship and the chatter in local made me think it was definitely a trap, but on the other hand just last week we caught a solo Dominix on a gate and killed it, and even earlier tonight a Rattlesnake pilot allowed himself to fight and get destroyed. So while I strongly suspected the current ship was a trap I felt it was worth taking the shot. Who knows? Maybe he is alone (after all, a battleship fleet is very rare in low sec just roaming around) or maybe we can kill him before reinforcements arrive.

Alas, it was not meant to be. We got him into armour when the reinforcing battleships started to arrive and I sent the rest of the fleet away. I was caught in the trap but it was just a Thorax so I didn't mind.

What's Next?

CCP finally announced more details about the changes to command links today and come November a major gaping wound in EVE's PvP gameplay will be addressed as links become a more interactive and dynamic mechanic.

Once this change is in place it will mark the end of the old era as part of a series of changes that have each modified how the game is played:

- tiericide - made swathes of previously useless ships earn a role in combat and codified the Combat, Attack, and Support designations
- micro jump drives and field generators - expanded the mobility of ships on the grid and opened up new attack vectors for fleets
- Phoebe jump changes - increased the prevalence of small capital operations as the threat of immediate hotdrop by superior forces diminished, plus the advent of capitals using gates gives more tactical options and interaction opportunities
- new modules - heavy stasis grapplers, ancillary shield boosters and armour repairers, reactive armour hardeners, etc
- new ships - Navy Ewar frigs, Tech I and II logi frigs, command destroyers

Indeed, over the last few years the game has slowly but radically changed. The big question is, what's the next big change to come to PvP on a grid near you?

Here are some of my ideas.

1) Static Deployable Defenses - deployables, like Mobile Scan Inhibitors and Cyno Jammers, give players some ability to alter the terrain of the battlefield, and I think CCP should concentrate more on similar temporary deployable that have more direct impact. Defense platforms with weapons or neutralizers or webbers or disruptors or Ewar...

2) Space Weather - I think we need some random elements that pilots need to take into account, liek meteor showers that randomly deplete armour, dust clouds that impact targeting range and speed, asteroids that block weapons fire, solar flares that impact shields, etc

3) Assault Carriers. No, I won't let it go.

What are your ideas for the future of the space battlefield?