New Friends and New Challenges

I'm sorry I haven't updated my blog in a while, but work has been rough. I'm also moving soon across the country, so there's that. 

Game Update:

 

When searching for a corp and interviewing potential corps I had some requirements in my head that I didn't exactly share with the people I spoke with. 

One of them was the spirit of aggression. 

There are people who play EVE and live in Wspace who don't exactly feel shooting at others is their top priority. That's OK, EVE is filled variations of play styles, it takes all kinds. I just don't want to fly with those pussies. I didn't care if they were good at PVP, that can be trained. I just wanted to know if they fought every single thing that came across their hole. 

The follow up part of that was if they were respectful if they won or lost. You would be absolutely amazed how many people view pvp in a negative light. Either they are talking shit when they win or talking shit when they lose. Sometimes in both situations. 

Where I finally settled, was a c4 alliance with 8+ corps in it. Some corps were alt corps formed to do ice mining in high sec, others alt corps for god only knows what but the primary alliance holding corp was the most active in the hole. 

I thought about joining that corp, purely because of the corp book mark situation. After hearing how they practiced security I decided they where taking risks that I didn't feel comfortable with. 

Even with the challenges I heard their attitude sold me on the group. Their totally red kill board showed they got out of their shields and mixed it up with every connection. They lost 9 times out of 10 but they still got out there, tried, laughed doing it and reshipped for more. 

I ended up dusting off my alt corp Semper Ubi Sub Ubi or SUSU for short. 

1 week after moving into the hole their primary corp that I was going to join was robbed. All I could do is hold my tongue without shouting at the top of my lungs "I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO". They have, I assume repaired their security issues.  Turns out it was a corp approved Op from the Wspace group Odins Call.

Even with a recent theft that would have broken most pilots, these guys just got up and dusted themselves off. I admire them for that. Had it been my stuff, I would have taken action in the purest revenge.I was thinking of making a side project and invading their wormhole, but honestly I have been so busy with work and this move, that I wouldn't have been able to pull it off with any real effectiveness. Maybe after everything calms down I'll work some magic. 

Once I got everything into the hole and ready for action, I did have the pleasure of FC'ing some alliance fleets. 

Now before I give the blow by blow, I  like to remind my dear readers and pvp experts, the group I joined isn't good, at... much.. but they fucking try! So cut them A LOT of slack.

The battle of Destini (what we call our C3 static, destiny spelled with an "i", because stripper name)

One particular engagement was after we had rolled our C3 static. Our scout called out that there was a Gila on D and an Astero. Then shortly after, our scout said there was a thrasher. We could only assume that they were planing to or have already started to run sites. So we formed up. 

Now forming up with this crew is not as quick as it was in Iso5.  In Iso5 everyone is on point, no matter if they are in the game or not. They know what ship to get into for what ever situation may arise. The ships are ready, fit and each person knows how to fly them to the best of their ability. These guys not so much. 

I ended up jumping one of my falcon alts into the C3 to assist in target location. The thrasher was parked in space at what looked like a signature. 

Some quick deductive reasoning and made the call that it was a wormhole.

The reasoning being that if the thrasher was salvaging, there would be wrecks there, if it was any other type of sig other than a wormhole it would have been totally obliterated by rats, or useless. I asked my scout buddy to drop probes near planet 4 and scan down Sig XXX, its a wormhole. 

He said "How do you know that?" I told him, "I just started playing in Wspace and I had a hunch." 

 

To his total surprise it was a wormhole and we warped his astero to the hole, then he watched the thrasher jump through. 

I quickly jumped my own astero into the target hole and told him to jump after it. 

The scout jumps through following the thrasher. Low and behold there was a sabre on the other side, It was a trap!

They saw the probes, knew that someone would tackle the thrasher.. ooo those crafty wspace people. 

I jump through the hole to assist right as the Gila joins the fight. 

This hole process of me finding the thrasher on D, him scanning for it was less than 3 minutes. He and I moved so fast that our back up wasn't even close to being ready. 

We both quickly burn back to the C3 while trying to pop the thrasher and sabre. Nope, we jump back. 

Now at this time, I still had my alt in a falcon in the target hole but the jumping of the bait thrasher was so fast, the hole wasn't book marked. So when I jumped the astero back, this gave me the warp in I needed. 

Now with a friendly falcon on grid, we could sort the situation. 

The hostile stratios jumped in the c3 to follow. 

Sadly the scout lost his astero, it was left to just my astero and whatever random ships decided to join us from the home hole. 

Finally our back up did manage to jump into the C3 and we ended up chasing them back to their hole with the only loss an astero. We did manage to kill a Gila and his pod. So isk wise for the engagement we were ahead. https://zkillboard.com/kill/46704885/   

Got the pod too https://zkillboard.com/kill/46704888/ 

After the skirmish I left my falcon cloaked on their connecting hole to the static C3. Everyone headed back home, high on the fact that we actually won an engagement. 

Hole activation.... a Omen navy began circling the hostile wormhole in our static connected to their hole. The gauntlet has been thrown. 

We decided to form up and see what kind of damage we could do, but first lets take a quick gander at what was on the other side of the hole. 

I reshiped another character into a cov ops and he said his farwells to his family because there sure as hell was death on the other side of that hole. 

I warped in my scout to the hole, waved at the Omen Navy and checked out what was on the other side. Uggggg.. 

2 Guardians, 3 Stratios, 1 Brutix, 1 Munin, Legion, bomber and I think some destroyer. There might have been something else, but it was more than we could take. 

They saw my scout jump in and told me in local they where going to blow me up. They didn't end up trying. They let me take a good look. I warped off and back again. 

Now at this point I could have told the friendly fleet to stand down, instead, I said in local. "We'll fight, but we can't fight that". 

Like true wormholers, they responded with "Ok, let me talk to the FC and see if we can ship down".  Bob Damn I love wormhole space. Cool dudes, even when fighting one another.

They warped some stuff away, and I told my guys that they might be shipping down for us. Someone in voice coms said "They'll do that"? I said, "Yea dude, this is wspace not K space, people are cool here." 

 

I asked everyone in coms to attempt to fly the same doctrine, either armor or shield. We kind of got that. Instead of guardians, we went with two excecurs, cap chains are for scrubs :)

So I removed my scout and told our opponents that I would brb. I wanted to keep the falcon on standby in case they went back on their word. Wspace aside... some people are just dishonest sometimes.. this is EVE after all. I did mentioned to the aggressors that if they shipped down and fought, I would leave the falcon at home. Cloaked, at home... same difference right?

I got into a Navy Harb and prepared to do this. I gave my fleet the overall plan. I told the fleet to jump in and then warp to the hole at 0. I went out of my way to explain that we could jump into them if we got too low, possibly polarize their fleet, use the hole to our advantage. I was under no illusions that our logi would be on point.

I  then told the execurers to warp in at 50 orbit like a mad man, if they get primaried and started to drop warp off and back again.. 

Great plan right? Basic wspace throw down tactics. I told the fleet to jump and warp. Everyone asks, which book mark they didn't have the target hole book marked. *face palm*... 

Well, I wanted to move quickly so I didn't have time to sort out the fleet boss situation. We aren't so good at that either, "Who's boss? Dono, that guy is afk"..... sigh... 

Ok, everyone warp to the cloaked falcon at 10. I pasted his name in fleet. 

We landed 70k from their hole and then I asked everyone to make their way to the hole. 

When we landed they jumped into us, and we had a proper throw down. 

I called the hostile brutix primary.  He gets low and jumps back into this hole. We shift to another target and we lose our brutix. https://zkillboard.com/kill/46705306/  (cap stable self repping... )

To my surprise, our reps were holding and they all jumped back into their hole. I was stunned!

We held the field vs a fleet with logi and we had our own logi. 

After the fight, the people who we brawled with thanked us for it. They even went to far as to offer their assistance any time we might need it. We made a friend because we brought the fight. Man I love wspace. 

I wish I could describe what a huge win this was for us. But Spear, "you guys lost a ship and killed nothing." Sure, it looks like that on the surface, but if you look a little deeper. We brought a fight to an organized group, with nearly the same doctrine in fleet (intentionally) everyone was on coms and for the most part we all followed instructions. 

This is progress! This small success makes me feel great! I just hope the alliance feels the same way and we can continue to improve.