Bob favors the bold, stupid and the drunkard.

Bob favors the bold, stupid and the drunkard.

TLDR: Some jerk offs who refused to fight try and gank my scout ship and fail... try and gank my Kronos..hours later..  then lose.

Story:  

Its early Saturday morning and the only people online are playing LoL. (annoyingly, in the fucking EVE wormhole mumble channel).  Most of the time, if you shout out that you have targets, they will stop their game and log in to assist. So its no big deal.

I log in my 5 accounts and begin my examination of the home hole and its chain. I play a few characters at once for a few reasons. First, I’m a control freak. I like intel and having a scout at the right spot before a fight can mean the difference between winning and losing. Not all of my characters are scouts, but all of my characters can scout. Also, I'm a multi account addict, there I said it, can I have my 1 day wooden coin now?

I begin the process of scanning out the chain. As luck would have it, the chain from our home hole is huge this morning. Not just in one straight line, I mean,  each connecting wormhole has at least 2 or more w-space connections. It spreads out like a huge spiderweb. I spent about a solid hour mapping close to 20 holes.  I would like to point out, that I’m the only one online doing this, no big deal... fortune favors the bold.

The scout ship I'm using is a multi point, scanning neut legion. The thing has a huge tank, 3 med nuets, 1 small nos, 1 scam, 1 disruptor and no guns. It simply holds things for the fleet to arrive, sometimes two things at a time.

This is my scouting process, there are many like it but this one is mine.

I start by jumping the hole. I book mark the way I just came from then hit D-scan. I have my D-scan set default to look for wrecks, force fields, towers, SMA, ships and drones. Wrecks on scan? I then find out where and get on grid ASAP. No wrecks and just ships? I find out where they are. I’ll narrow the D-scan to find out which POS and FF they are at. Once found, I get on grid with the POS, book mark the POS and see if any of the ships are piloted. If they are piloted, I start checking for recent kills, how often they fight, what ships they fly.. more intel the better. If it looks like the type that bite bait. I go down that road. If they look like they run from fights or have no kill board other than losses, no bait will be good enough.

I do this in every single hole I scout, and I can normally knock out a 10+ sig hole in less than 10 minutes. Any holes that have people in them, but nothing to shoot at, get marked Red as being potentially hostile. Any notable (known large pvp alliances) get marked on siggy with the name of the alliance/corp. They get special treatment because it’s a very good chance they will have pvp scouts of their own.

One hole I jump through is a C4 and has a buzzard in it. The buzzard is piloted because it keeps cloaking and uncloaking randomly. The buzzard drops probes. As a rule of thumb, I don’t chase covert ops ships. It’s just not worth it to me. Cloaks scouts are hard to catch, they can just hide and go afk. Sometimes you can set up a bubble at a hole they will might jump through, but that’s if you are super bored and want to wait. Since I’m exploring, meh. Not in the mood.

I jump through a connecting hole of the C4 into a K162 to a C2.  Run my process,  jump through another and the chain dead ends at a c1. Since each hole in this chain has multiple connecting holes,  I back track a bit. 

I like to explore less than 3 or 4 wormholes out from my alt fleet because if I get too far from my home, help isn't too far away to be really quickly effective.

I jump back into the C4 and there is a fleet waiting for me. Hurricane, Astero, Pilgrim, Raven, Rapier… All at 0 on the hole. “Well HELLO there!!” 

I have 30 seconds on my cloak timer. My other two combat characters are in a falcon and assault frig. Not quite the backup I need. I pipe up in coms… with exactly what I just encountered while I’m holding cloak. The response is less than ideal. “That sounds like a strange comp” – Sicks. LoL coms continue… To be fair, if they didn’t have EVE loaded and already in combat ships.. they couldn’t have assisted much anyway. Shurg. Reason number 88374343 and 1 why I multi box.

Welp… Looks like I’ll have to sort this shit myself. I start moving up my support they are two jumps out. I start neuting the tackle while the falcon jumps into C4. They are applying neuts of their own and apply a huge amount of DPS (fking webs) I’m forced to jump back into the C2. My support falcon lands cloaked 30 off from the C2.

On the C2 side my scout is lucky enough to have appeared away from the wormhole, Their fleet follows trying to uncloak my scout.  I warp to safety. Pheeww

Alright, that little bull shit is now sorted out. Now it’s time to bring the fight to these guys, they clearly want to throw down.

I go back to coms and ask if anyone wants to fight these dudes… I get 2 people out of coms with 10 in it. Less than ideal. O well, its not all about ME! I’ll take what I can get.

Since I’m going to be triple boxing PVP, I have been playing around with this fun fleet comp I made for myself. The “ECM ARMOR DRAKE” x3 fleet. 

Its easy to multi box, does very little dps and provides laughs for nearly everyone involved. At the end of the day its all about fun imo. I bring my falcon back, my legion back and my assault frig back. Ship up/down (perspective) to drakes and bring my 2 volunteers to throw down with these guys.

I jump my drake in and hit D-scan. Just the buzzard on scan. Nothing else. Zip. Nada.  I warp back to the location where I got jumped 30 off the hole. (yes I know solo drake screams bait but meh). 

Crickets. Not a damn peep. I wait about 20 minutes and call off my support and apologizing for the lack of what clearly should have been a fight. My support leaves and goes back to whatever.

I then warp my other two drakes to the third and wait. I have 0 support and it’s just me. 

I pipe up in local with a legit question. “Where did you guys go?” Silence “Was it the Kill board or drake fleet that you are hiding from” Silence.  It’s a legit question, I mean if he checked my pilots kill boards, he would see I fight. A LOT!.  I might hide from me too. But they threw the first punch! They jumped me! Not like I’m picking on some victim PVE fleet. These guys legit tried to murder my scout ship, I can’t fault them for it, but for fuck sake, if you are going to un-pos to try and fight, and someone brings it.. don’t fucking hide?!?

I then offer a 3v3 at the sun. Then someone gets brave and says “We aren’t as dumb as you think we are”.

 WTF!??!  I just want to shoot and be shot at! What the fuck does that mean? 

I have 3 drakes, what type of special magic do think is going to happen? I might kill your 3 whatevers you bring to the fight? I might break my word and you lose your ships still? It’s a fucking game for gods sake, you get ISK from the sleepers you kill, why is it so much to ask that you fight someone looking for a fight, and offering you an even numbers fight too.Nope, not going to do it, its just not their style I guess.

I then say “How about a 1v1” maybe they don’t have a lot of isk.  So a frig 1 v 1 at the sun just for the giggles. Nope. He refuses and says, that I have multiple people on recent kills there for I wouldn’t honor a 1v1. 

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?! “ it’s a single frig. At the sun.. you have clearly 6 god damn people, one of them must want to throw down on some level? Are they scared I would pod them? I'm sure one of those 6 fucking people might not be in a full slave set and could then risk a potential podding...

I get frustrated and just give up. I say “whatever dude” he responds “Bu Bye”.  Clearly he has won the moral victory. He has outwitted me.

I get caught in this trap all the time, where I expect people in my sandbox to play my type of game. It’s not a fair assumption I place on other people to respond to things the way I would respond to things. This guys play style is just as legit as mine, problem is I continue to be surprised when the two don’t match.  O well, I’m not perfect.

Fast forward 8 hours and two of my characters have getting podded out of my home hole.

I started drinking a little. And whats worse, I decided to spend some isk and drink. Not a good combination. I was already in High sec, so I figured I might as well get a new Kronos. I replaced a Navy Harb for another character. I fit out the Kronos, Navy Harbinger and begin the process of jumping back to one of our High sec entrances.

During this long 16 jump trip, I jump on PODSIDE (podcast for podcasters) and start bull shitting about W-space. I finally arrive at the high sec hole to our chain, and just sit there while I bull shit more on Podside. I must have sat there about 20 minutes outside high sec hole with both ships.

I jump the Kronos and N. Harb into the C2 from high sec. I don’t check D-scan, I’m not even on alliance coms… I’m just a few bourbon shots into it, and headed back to home after spending too much ISK. I land on the home to C2 hole and jump in with both ships.  Little did I know, I was being watched.

Astero uncloaks, rapier uncloaks…   “O NO YOU DIDDNNDDN’T!”  I say on PODSIDE, ‘I just got ambushed guys, who do you think is going to win my Kronos and Navy Harb vs
 I'm listing ships off in PODSIDE coms as they are uncloaking. I said "Wish me luck"… Hurricane uncloaks.. Pilgrim uncloaks.. Raven uncloaks…  Falcon Uncloaks. Drake uncloaks…They begin by pimarying my N. Harb.. 

If that fleet comp sounds strangely reminiscent, that’s because it was the same mother fuckers from the attempted legion scan ship gank.. that refused my fight.

I’m on the wrong coms.. luckily I’m still in fleet, I pipe up on alliance chat, that I might need a hand…No clue if they even saw my call for help in alliance chat. I bastion, drop drones and start in on the astero (soft target and tackle) 3 cycle of my guns and drones and the astero is forced to jump back. I lock up the falcon and he tries to pull range. Faction point + Bastion mode = dead falcon https://zkillboard.com/detail/37543810/  I start in on the rapier… get him to structure, he warps off, I start laying into the hurricane, I get him down to low armor he jumps back.  I start in on the drake and he withdraws…

I felt like Hudson in Aliens… “O you want some?  Yea, come get some too.. You want some too!?! YEA GET SOME!!”  It was glorious.

I don't know if it was the Krono's ability to lay the smack down or if the support fleet landing changed my luck, again i was drinking and trying to save my Harb, which was buffer fit and dropping.

All i know is, the Kronos held the field!

  

This ship without a doubt is my favorite ship to flight with. Just so much hurt wrapped up into a little bundle of fun.

My support catches the Drake on the other side of the hole after he tried to get me. https://zkillboard.com/detail/37543834/  The support fleet chased them through the c2 to the high sec where the raven ran to. Raven jumps through a now crit hole ditching his hurricane buddy inside.. https://zkillboard.com/detail/37543901/ poor little fella.  The rapier tried to get away too.. but was swiftly caught by a bubbler trying to escape the carnage. https://zkillboard.com/detail/37544173/  --- pod https://zkillboard.com/detail/37543914/

I’m not sure if there is a moral to the story, other than BoB gives to those who are drunk, dumb and bold…. 

Or if he punishes those who choose to not honor him with explosions.

Dono… He is a fickle god, but I love him.