Live Events Discussion

This is 4 parts due to my long writing. Sorry for that in advance.
------------------ Part 1-------------------------

First of all, I want to tell my thanks to Super General, who was the FC of our fleet in the fleet that I was a part of, in yesterday’s event. Never have I seen such a large mass of people so under control and in near perfect organization.

I will write with all the information I can remember of, with some timeline of the events.

I was lucky enough to be able to play Eve in 7 November, the time of the live event that took place, which ranged from highsec to nullsec: but I didn’t know that in time, so lets move back.

It was approximately 17:50 when I logged in to my lowsec base. The alliance chat was already alive with the upcoming event’s discussion by 3 people that were going to get into it. I said why not, I’ll come after finishing this site.
After being unable to finish the site, I decided it’s time to get back to highsec to join the event. So far, all I had known was that there were 2 starting locations, Sarum-Prime and Meves. Alliance chat told me that Sarum-Prime was full, and someone else stated that Amarr was locked up too. Great, that was where my jump clone was. Obviously, I should go to Meves, since that system was told to be near-empty, with only about 250 people compared to the 1000+ at Sarum Prime. Someone asked for people who wanted to come into the event and didn’t have a fleet so far. I typed the classic “X”, and was asked to join a chat room. This revealed to be an intel channel of Solitude, with 6 people in it. They were all going into Meves and invited me too. They said they had logi figured out, so I thought of bringing a cruiser. First things first, get into empire space.

I managed to jump into Amarr at about 18:10, thinking 40 minutes will be sufficient to arrive at Meves. Bad mistake, always think about tidi and ship fitting time being much more than normal. By the time I had finished fitting my beam omen, it was 18:30, 20 minutes to event. I set the destination to see 18 jumps. Great, I won’t catch it in time.

Still, I start my way over there, and halfway through I finally get invited into the fleet. It’s an amazing 200 man fleet, a size that I had not witnessed myself. I learn that they are using Eve-voice. I connect. General chatter about the situation of the fleet is taking place. I learn that the meetup is now a system next to Meves. That’s a jump less, so I’m happy. When taking the tidi-stained painful long warps, the first surprising thing happens:
A woman speaks, saying hello to everyone. It’s followed by general awe about the person that’s unknown to me. People are surprised that she’s playing Eve. I ask what’s so special about her, except that she’s in the 4% of eve population (a topic that was talked just moments before). She’s a CSM member.
O_O
I’m in awe; wow, that’s a person who talked with the CCP crew. I mutter something about being jealous, while she explains the role of CSM, not knowing I do know things about the game. Can’t blame her for that though.

Fast forward into the meetup system- which I’ve learned to be the second waypoint- I meet with the rest of the fleet. It’s huge, and it’s mixed. Of everything. Literally EVERYTHING. Most are frigate/cruiser, with some other sized ships. The undetermined flagship of our fleet, however, turns out to be someone with huge balls that brought a vindicator. People congratulate the guy for bringing such a ship for an event we know that we’ll all die.
A yellow writing appears on local chat, telling the next location: Stackmon. Everyone sets up the destination, and the race begins. Kinda.

As the warp to the gate beings, so does the time dilation. It increases linearly, and fast. In under a minute, we’re at 10% tidi already. I take the longest jump (not warp, mind you) that I’ve ever done, often alt-tabbing to see if my client crashed. Eve-voice is filled with general discontent about the tidi, along with me joining in with the phrase “Oh god, you have been cleared for jump-in within 91 seconds. This is taking forever.”
(It got worse with 165 seconds later on another jump. Luckily, the jump didn’t last that long)

Fast-forward 8 jumps of 10% tidi, the CSM member explains us how node-reinforcing works and what happened during a fight that took place in null, etc… Also general complaining about tidi.
Before I arrive at Stackmon, the next system is given in Stackmon: a lowsec system. The call for hold at Stackmon is given, along with the general intention of the fleet:
“If you are flying a ship that you cannot afford to lose, you might as well go back. If you’re flying a pod that you cannot afford to lose, you might as well go back.”
Close to my arrival, we learn the last destination is, as foreseen by lots of people, is nullsec indeed.
After getting all ships together, we jump through some other gate than that people would normally take, and start our way through to nullsec. Super General takes the command, coordinating everyone perfectly through lowsec space. The fleet operates as:
1. We align to our next destination together. No one is stupid enough to attack about 100-150 ships at a gate.
2. Near-scout jumps ahead and tells us if the next system is safe, and moves on.
3. Far scout gives information about bubbles in nullsec.
4. Near scout completes warp, we jump into next system.
Not one incident occurs at lowsec, but we (atleast me and other experienced people) know the risks of nullsec: bombing and bubbles. We take our time to travel to not get caught in camps.
Meanwhile, my alliance mate that took the other fleet reports that he’s dead from a gatecamp in nullsec. That was expected. Another, which is in my fleet, tells that he already arrived due to the fact that he’s in a probe with a tech 1 cloak.

------------------------- Part 3 ----------------------------

Also, while we wait, picking off people who show their noses inside grid, we get a warp scramble attempt from a Megathron to a Lachesis. There’s no one in grid except us. Huh. Now, the funny thing happens:
“That’s strange: someone’s shooting the ship that I’m repping.”
That’s GOT to be a Bad Luck Brian right there: trying to kill a fleetmate while it’s getting repped, inside the whole fleet. Possibilities that he had his overview messed up, or that he was a very bad spy/awoxer. Either way, he fails to kill the lachesis, and we get into a brief discussion about who the hell is doing this madness. After 10 seconds, the battleship is broadcasted. After 20 seconds, the battleship explodes.
We also get the pod, which has +2 implants. Not a bad day. People are getting happier, most likely due to the fact that “Man, my killboard is looking good now.”

We complete the reps, and before we move in, Super General asks the same question about whether we leave or stay. Someone says “**** this, I’m out” but most are thrilled about continuing. Super warps us into the battlefield once more.

The battlefield is mostly cleared of ships the moment we warp in. There is an unlucky ship that’s close at 22 km range, and it gets melted nearly instantly. All other ships on grid decide to escape from our still scary 80-man blob. I shoot a cruiser that’s 95km away successfully, but it just warps away. Now there are only ships that are 100+ km away, and they don’t stay for long too.
We sit there for a moment, feeling happy, talking about what to do now against these runners. Discussion takes the form of warping into the Sun or not; but we learn that there are bubbles at the sun. Super General does take us into somewhere by warping the fleet, and we’re back in action.
Local has dwindled down to about 230 people now. I have no idea what happened to eve-uni fleet, nor do I care. I focus onto the battlefield that we just warped in to.

There are ships in front of us, and this time they’re close as 20-30 km. Someone (I assume our FC Super) starts calling the primaries, but I cannot determine the primaries: they don’t get into the top of my overview like they normally should. I do see my fleet members requesting shield/armor though.
Then I see a manticore uncloak. It launches a bomb. I was already aligned into planet I, but wait for a moment to see if more bombers arrive, while trying to lock the bomber. I manage to get a solid hit on him, just when the bomb hits me, dealing 1000 damage and taking off most my shields. I also start getting some random damage, but they are little. I take a look into my overview to see ships getting closer than before. Our FC pauses from calling primaries for a second, and tell us that if you’re taking damage, you can warp off to planet I. That’s good enough for me, I take the warp. However, I click the wrong planet, and the warp takes some extra time to start. I get some armor damage. Whoops.
I arrive at the planet, half expecting random enemy fleet members waiting like we did. That doesn’t happen though, and I see 3 other fleet members who did the same as me. I take the warp back to a fleet member, while Super gets tired of calling primaries, and tells someone else to do so.
Meanwhile, a goonswarm fleet lands with muninns into the battlefield, along with Evoke caracal fleet. Maybe they were there, but now the battlefield looks to have greatly increased in size. I quickly align into a planet and start to shoot a broadcasted target. It dies, and I start shooting a ship at random, which was a rifter. That turns out to be a bad idea, as I do negligible damage to it, and it gets repaired. I switch into another ship, swap ammo, and take a look at the battlefield.
Whelp, I’m directly headed into a flock of caracals. I forget about aligning and turn straight around, and cycle my micro warp drive once. I start shooting something else, as I’m now missing my target. I’m getting random damage from someone, but I don’t care, as it didn’t even take out my shields. I plan to stay till my armor gets low, and then warp out.

I start shooting one of the closest caracals, dealing some damage. From our comms, I know that the formidable nullsec fleets are slowly crushing our fleet. At this time, I have no plan about what to do, so I just deal random damage, hoping to get into more kills.
Then, the goonswarm muninn fleet decides to primary me.
At first I think I can shrug the damage off, but I quickly realize that I need to get out. I’m not aligned at all. Dang.
I spam warp, while seeing my armor go at about 10% per second, then 20% as I get more people attacking me. I’m now tracking disrupted, painted. Still no warp scramble though. I may get out, just maybe.
However, the goon fleet is strong enough, and they take me down. The moment before I die, I see the warp disruption and web notifications, but I don’t have time to register those. My ship explodes, and I warp into a planet in my pod, then my safespot.
My roam is over, along with nearly all other fleet members. I quietly tell, “I’m down too.” And start listening to the fleet.

Now that's an awesome write up and not TL;DR, I read every goddamn word with drool running from the corner of my mouth and a heavy heart of just what so many of us missed.

Awesome reporting and loved the links that you included along with that you had balls to go back in your pod to get some more.

Great story mate and very jealous.

I'm not sure about who arrived there in time, but if anyone did, I'm betting it was either a very well established fleet (unlike our fleet) in the sense that they could easily waltz through nullsec systems that could be camped. It's also a must that they were organized and fast enough to be able to go the the lowsec destination directly, whereas we skipped that destination.

That being said, I do remember seeing tons of people at the second highsec, and more than 400 at Stackmon. It's entirely possible that a formidable fleet have gotten to lowsec in time for the nullsec destination announcement. In this time, that part of nullsec wouldn't be camped since it would be too early.

Hello Gulboy.

I read the whole story and reminded me of the whole event as if it were now. I was also in the Meves fleet. The huge fleet experience was amazing all the time. Not need to say more,this topic describes everything very well. Went back to do it all again.

And, i was the guy in the Vindicator

Here's proof:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20374872

Fly safe.

An amusing read indeed, thank you!

Couple of moments reading it that i must admit did make me smile!

Just for the record - First time we dropped on grid and no one called primaries it was because eve voice kept dropping me which was when i warped the fleet out :P

And i only stopped calling targets and got someone else to start calling after i died xD

The lovely Ali was the CSM in the fleet nice enough to discuss about reinforcing nodes.

Was a shame that we left Meves after being told the first waypoint system but by the time we got to the destination it was all over thanks to the tidi.

Before we jumped into low sec we had a fleet of 213. Before i made the final jump into Null, when we was told the event was over i gave people the option to leave. The jump into null the fleet was at 176.

Despite the Tidi and outcome of the fight it was greatly enjoyed.

Special thanks to everyone that did stay, your company was awesome <3

I'll stick this AAR up on the Fcord mailing list.

Excellent write up!

Oh the Cumemare system. One of the funniest times of the fleet. We were spelling the first 3 letters of the system name. Obviously, this made things funny.
Random eve-voice conversations that comes to my mind:

"So, we're aligning to the *** gate?"
"Is the system really named that way? No, it's named Cumemare but if you read the first 3 letters..."
"Okay everyone, jump on contact when you arrive at the *** gate. I never thought I'd say that..."

Fun was had.

EDIT: I didn't know that writing the first 3 letters of the Cumemare system was automatically made into stars (***).
Makes sense

You are welcome sir! I generally like to make long long post about something that I truly enjoyed. Yes, I did enjoy the tidi-stricken jumps too; the fleet chat too funny and I did talk with a CSM member.
Waiting for the next event. Hopefully, the tidi will be less in that one.

Inner thoughts:
(WOW A CCP DEV LIKED MY POST)