Alliance & Corporation Recruitment Center

Friday 30th May 2014

Joined a Weazl fleet out in Rail Feroxes. Looked like we had overshipped initially and weren't going to get a fight, then suddenly a large fleet belonging to Galactic Skyfleet Empire were sighted in Kourm. We were about 25 strong with three Ospreys. Their fleet was considerably larger, predominately in Armor BCs and Cruisers with Augoror support. Initially there was doubt that we could take them and the thought that we needed to get a couple more Ospreys before we could consider it. However they were between us and home. We were in Auga and they in Kourm.

We went to a safe while in Auga and considered our options. A report came in that they were engaging something on the Auga gate in Kourm and had gone flashy, thus the gate guns were shooting them. There was some confusion about what they were engaging. Annah gave the order to warp down to the Kourm gate. Then a clarification report came which showed they weren't as engaged as we had first thought, just a gank. The order was countermanded, too late people had started to warp, Annah committed us and we all warped down.

We landed but they didn't immediately jump into us. Our boosts had arrived in Auga and although we could have warped off, Annah decided to wait and see if they would jump into us, it was a regional gate and they were largely in short range stuff. Presently they did jump into us and a surprisingly easy fight was had with us taking down 25-30 of them with only a couple of cheap losses.

The fleet was stood down after that, but about 2 hours later a Fweddit gang came into Huola and set up in a small plex. Lory pulled together a small fleet. There were about 8 of us and 15 of them. We got into spider tanking Dragoons and went in. Hilarious fight, we took down 9 or 10 without loss.

Ended the night 30 kills for no loss.

Tuesday 3rd June 2014

Lory was running an advertised roam tonight, it was meant to be Armor Cruisers, but we started in grab bag frigates and then shipped up to Armor AFs with Inquisitors to get a fight in Kamela, I was in the latter. However, the fight never materialised and all we did was gank a couple of things down.

Lory decided to take us on a roam and we jumped into Lamaa heading for Tzvi. At that point Emokiller, who I think was out solo reported he was in a belt in Tzvi and had one of the new Mordu Legion BS rats tackled. He was pointed himself and being taken down by the thing. We landed, got reps on Emo and killed the rat. The Barghest BPC dropped which at this moment in time is worth +2 Billion and the first couple of built ships have sold for +3 Billion. Emo took control of the BPC with plans to build and sell the ship quick and deposit the funds into the alliance wallet.

At some point during the night I tried running an offensive novice plex in Auga. I was in a Breacher. I was there several minutes and couldn't break the tank on the thing. This was a novice, a frigate. Admittedly, my Breacher DPS was low, but I've taken down literally dozens of faction frigates and dessies and even the odd cruiser with that fit. My skills are damn near perfect with a proper PvP fit. I got the rat to low armor a couple of time, but it was active rep. Eventually I might have broke it, but a call for help went out from another fleet mate and I gave up and left the plex.

Frankly CCP have thrown the baby out with the bath water in their constant attempts to appease the anti-farmer lobby and bear in mind that another change they have made is these rats respwawn after a few minutes of killing them.

Flipping systems is now going to be a major effort, every plex is going to need either multiple pilots or a high DPS brawler fit, which of course is vulnerable to kiting players and is going to take ages. Defensive plexing is trivial by comparison. My Breacher can for example run all sizes without any help. Thankfully the Minmatar hold 51 out of 69 systems in the Warzone. It is going to be a lean time for the Amarr and they are already thin on the ground. The Minmatar PvPers aren't going to welcome that.

On Saturday afternoon I was running a small offensive plex in Eszur with a corpmate. I was in a Tristan and my mate was in an AF. A friendly militia pilot came into the plex, he was in a Breacher and in the TLF NPC corp. He locked me up and started shooting. I presumed he thought he was shooting a pirate as my sec status was now around -9.94

As he wasn't doing a huge amount of damage I held off firing and convo'd him instead. I asked what he was doing trying to explain that I was Minmatar Militia. His response was a bit confusing but he did stop red boxing. My friend meanwhile had opened fire on him, I told him to stop and he did. Seconds later the TLF guy opened up on me again. This time we killed him. I tackled the pod held him for 30 seconds or so while I linked a post I'd written about how to set up your overview to avoid shooting flashy militia members. I then let him go.

It wasn't until the next day that I noticed the mail telling me that I had been demoted. I was surprised, I assume now that it was because I aggressed on the pod. But I know for definite that if the other pilot fires on you, even if you shoot first, you get a limited engagement timer that allows you to shoot the pod immediately after without taking a security hit. I assumed that would be the same for TLF standings and I'm in the process of petitioning it.

The worst thing though is the size of the hit. I had been a Val. General with +10 standing (both derived and actual) to the TLF. I was demoted to the lowest rank, Nation Warrior and my standing to the TLF went to -2.23 (derived), -4.57 (actual). That was 30 hours after the event and I'd run several plexes in that time which would have pulled some of the loss back. Although I still have very high standings with the individual TLF L4 mission agents, as my derived standing was below -2 I couldn't access them anymore. It took me 2 offensive plexes and 2 defensive plexes to get my derived standing back to above -2 and then I was able to pick up an L4 mission from one of those agents, which brought me up to about -1.2. So no real harm done, but this can't be right.

Aftermath: As I was running the second of those offensive plex a friendly militia pilot in a Comet came into my plex. An NPC had just spawned and I was engaging it in my Tristan. The Comet went to range locked me up and started shooting. Now of course I was wary of shooting back. Again I convo'd the guy and thankfully he stopped firing and then warped off. But he left me in half structure and the rat was still up shooting me. I needed the plex and there was only a minute left on it. I pulled range and just popped the rat with only 27% structure remaining.

Wednesday 11th June 2014

Lory was running an advertised roam. Gila's was the requested comp. Gila's were 300M last weekend in Jita, they have drifted down a bit since then, but still very expensive. I'm a tight git and although I could afford it I don't like sinking so much money into a DPS cruiser that is only going to be used in fleet fights. Thus didn't buy one.

The fleet was forming nicely in Huola when a neutral cruiser gang was sighted passing through Kamela towards Sosala. However, around the same time a couple of PL were also sighted in Kourm. Conscious of them hot dropping everything of late. Lory decided we would ship down into our Moa / Osprey comp. The neutral gang were in a similar comp, but as more detailed reports came in, it was clear, they were a bigger gang than us with 6 logi and around 25-30 in total. We were around 20 strong. Logi was asked for, but I decided after the previous day I wanted an easy time in a DPS boat. Four logi were eventually pulled together, but it was a mixed bag in a couple of Ospreys, a Scimitar and a Scythe.

Frankly our comp was looking a bit dodgy and I can't blame Lory for dithering a bit. All the time our targets were slipping further away going in the Sahtogas direction. Lory decided to go for it and ordered undock and warp to the Kourm gate. We landed, jumped through and there on the other side was a neutral drake.

Lory ordered us to kill it, we hit it hard but it burned to gate and jumped out. Three of our people were still on the other side, they caught it and then it lit a Cyno. PL jumped in with at least 2 Supers (Nyx and Aeon), a Thanatos and 5 Black Ops BS. They killed SERIFOS' Thorax worth 40M, but not before the Cyno Drake was taken down worth 85M. In addition, there was a report that when PL finally jumped out, one of the carriers forgot to scoop his fighters.

We hung around Kourm for a while waiting for PL to leave and our stragglers to get through and rejoin us. The neutral gang had pushed onto the Oyonata/Sahtogas gate. We finally started after them with little hope of catching them and frankly not sure we could handle the fight if we did. We arrived in Sahtogas as the neutrals jumped from Oyonata into Kurniainen and there they were engaged by a small SCUM BS gang with 4 Guardians support.

We rushed towards the scene of the fight intending to 3rd party. But before we arrived SCUM had killed several of the neutral DPS just alphaing through the reps. Their logi wing had burned to range and although it wasn't obvious to our scouts, most of their surviving DPS deaggressed and jumped back to Oyonata and then went safe while their Logi warped to a safe in Kurniainen.

We pushed up to the Kurn gate and jumped in after the combatants had left. We hung around for a bit and then one of the Moa's that had gone safe in Oyonata, came back to the gate and jumped into us.

We killed it quickly, but that action kicked off the fight. Their logi warped down to the gate to try and save it (too late). Their dps survivors in Oyonata warped down to the other side of the gate. We deaggressed as their Logi landed. Lory ordered us to jump into Oyonata and hopefully catch them split. However their logi followed and caught the first thing we primaried. We switched to a couple of other targets to no effect. Then someone pointed out that their booster Loki was on the gate with us. We primaried it and it jumped out, after that we cut through their reps, they deagressed and jumped away but not before losing 4 Ospreys, another Moa, a Scythe and a Slicer.

We returned to Huola and reshipped into the advertised comp of Gila's and other blingy cruisers, myself in a Vagabond. I became scout for the fleet as we roamed and we eventually reached Arzad. I jumped in and noted 6 WTs in local, the rest of the fleet waited in Tararan while I tried to find them. I warped to a medium plex gate which was out of scan range, but on landing on the gate found it empty. Remaining on the gate outside. I switched to my pod saving overview, unticked the 'use active overview settings' on my scanner and stared scanning the belts and planets.

The engagement alarm went off and a warp scrambler icon appeared above my capacitor. I shat myself! I had no idea what had tackled me as ships don't show on my pod saving overview and I had brackets turned off. I yelled for help and the fleet jumped in. Meanwhile I switched to my fleet tab and found a notorious idiot called Mark Thosis had tackled my Vagabond in a Firetail at 2000m range. I killed him with ease, just missing soloing him as the fleet landed and a couple got on the KM.

We went on and killed a couple of more things and then as usual, just as we were trying to put things away. Someone tackled a Hurricane off a novice plex in Huola and we ended with a nice gank.

Ended the night 9 kills for no loss.

Monday 16th June 2014

Three losses tonight and I have to say I don't feel I've really got into Eve this month. I'm wondering if it is to do with the FW changes. I don't seem to be putting myself out there like I was and that is partly down to the fact that there is virtually no pressure to decontest. When I do go out I'm making mistakes that I wouldn't normally make.

First loss was a Breacher against a Hawk. He was in a small plex and I went in with a Rifter backing me up. I got to range and stabalised the orbit, the Hawk killed the Rifter. Then my MWD burnt out and it took one of my ASBs with it. I'd forgotten I'd pre heated it before landing in the plex and never turned it off.

Second loss was another Breacher against 2 Retributions. I was trying to get tackle on for a small gang of us, but they were both MWD fit and I couldn't control the range well enough. They just let me burn out to them and then dived in and swatted me like a noob.

The third was an Inquisitor running with a small gang of Tristans with 3 logi. We were on our way back to Huola after chasing around fruitlessly. We landed on the Huola gate piecemeal with a neutral Deimos and engaged, only to see two more Deimos and a Cynabal land. The bale order was given. I hadn't actually engaged (or repped anyone aggressed) and although I'd landed at zero, I just mucked up my orbit and ended up 6 or 7 kms off the gate, got webbed and scramed and died about 500m short of jumping. At least I got my pod out I suppose.

Kill wise I managed 8. This included 3 AFs and a couple of Caracals all shared kills and a Magnet I soloed. He was on a gate and I really expected him to jump away before I could kill him. Seems he had the same problem I had in the Inquisitor - same gate as well.

On the petition front, it was rejected by CCP. I feel like it wasn't really read properly, just "Huh - guy crying about his standings, fob him off". Thing is, since the incident, I've now run around 40 L4 TLF missions and got my final promotion back to Val. General. TLF standing is now +9.3 (+9.18 actual). So I had nothing worthwhile to personally gain anyway.

Wednesday 18th June 2014

Dev was running an advertised Navy Vexor gang tonight. I came on late but found the fleet still in Huola. I joined and took over as logi commander. We had 3 logi and initially I thought we were all in Augorors, only after we got moving did I realise that one was in an Exequror. This I didn't like, it made the Augoror cap chain very vulnerable. But I didn't have the conviction to voice my doubts after we had got moving.

We roamed about eventually jumping into Eszur from Siseide. Scouts reported a biohazard gang of cruisers landing behind us. We were 13 strong (inc. Logi) and our DPS component was made up of 5 Navy Vexors, 2 SFIs, 1 Ishtar, 1 Ishkur and 1 Celestis.

I didn't catch what the enemy were reported in. But when they jumped into us it was clear they were a considerably larger gang with Augoror support. The battle report shows 20 which included a Tengu, Absolution, Sacrilege, but only one of their logi showed on it and I'm sure their gang was actually around 25 strong.

They primaried our Celestis first and although we got reps on it, it just melted. Next they took down one of our Navy Vexors. Worse Gordin Brott my cap chain bro, reported he was jammed and presently I capped out. He came back up and we got restarted again, but he was ECM'd out a couple more times during the fight. Each time I capped out briefly before he came back up.

We lost a second Navy Vexor and at that point all we had killed was a single Augoror. With Gordon jammed again and me close to capping out a second time, I was panicking and told Dev, reps weren't holding. He overrulled me though, "We are starting to kill them" he said.

I don't know how we did it, but somehow we held the rest of the fleet up while Biohazard just collapsed. They lost the Tengu, 3 Vexor, 1 Vexor Navy Issue, 1 Augoror, 1 Succubus and 1 Celestis, before baling and leaving us to loot the field. It was a really good result for us, but I was left feeling stressed and guilty for ignoring my doubts and not insisting our logi component was more solid.

We went back to Huola and Dev stood the fleet down. I went out later in AFs with Bengal and we killed an Enyo in Huola, that was the only KM I featured on all night.

Sunday 22nd June 2014

Came on to do a bit of admin, one of which was to carrier jump assets back from the Eszur / Ebolfer operation from two weeks ago. Then got involved in a number of recruits, two of which I booted from corp for failing the trial criteria of 10 kills a week in the first four week and 2 new faces I processed and accepted into corp.

A Fweddit gang came into Huola and got into a small plex, they were mostly in Merlins with a Slicer, Harpy and Ishkur, about 7 in total. I threw up a fleet advert and to my surprise, considering the short notice, about 8 people joined.

I asked for 2 Bantams and then small plex capable shield stuff. As only one person X'd up for a Bantan, I took the second. I wanted to get moving fast and told people to undock and get to the small plex. 5 of us landed, which included both Bantams, a Sabre, Tristan and a Thrasher and I wasn't going to wait for stragglers and miss the fight. We activated went in and slaughtered the enemy without loss. Taking down the Slicer, Harpy, Ishkur and one Merlin before the rest baled. We looted and then put things away. One of the shortest running fleets ever. Although sadly I didn't get on any of the kills.

Monday 30th June 2014

Started off helping to kill a Caracal, that was my only PvP engagement of the night.

After that I moved into PvE mode. I ran two Besieged Covert Research Facility sites in Huola and picked up pirate skins for a Brutix, a Cyclone, a 10 run BPC for the new Limited Hyperspatial Accelerator and 54 Covert Research Tools. About 15 minutes work in a Tengu and worth at least 100M. I skinned a Brutix straight away and then shipped it to Amarr where it sold for 90M before the end of the night. Bringing back enough Shattered Villard Wheels to build all 10 accelerators, these too ended up on the market, this time in Jita before the end of the night.

I then swung past the Abandoned Research Outpost in Huola. People have been complaining that it hasn't been paying out like it used to, but it did for me this time. One Dark Blood Faction Cruiser kill later and I scooped 120M worth of faction modules which included a Dark Blood Medium Energy Neutralizer.

End of the month round up and it hasn't been a good one for PvP. 186 kills for 19 losses (12 Solo, 39 Top Damage - although that is with our new Killboard which doesn't include pods in the solo and top damage stats). Isk efficiency is good and it certainly hasn't been my worst month, but after 4 outstanding months where I averaged 479 kills a month, it seemed dead.

Why? Hard to say. June is traditionally a dead month and that applies for most of Eve I think. We were on Tier 4 for most of the month owning 53-57 systems out of 70 throughout and that is never good for PvP. Most of the mediocre Amarr simply don't bother when they are on Tier 1. So the only opponents are the hard core PvPers who generally know what they are doing, and neutrals. Finally the patch has significantly reduced casual farming, which in turn has simply negated the need to get in defensive plexes where you are going to stumble on PvP without looking for it. The patch additionally has opened up low sec to a lot more sources of PvE income and that has distracted a lot of people, possibly only short term while it is fresh.

Great thread Major.

Probably has not been read by many as it is a recruitment thread. Would be a worthy read in Warfare and Tactics. Not had time to read it all but great diary.


To pilots looking for a corp and picking Minmatar FW. You cannot do better than right here.


I'll keep looking for your orange stars. Good luck.


Sarge

For intel reasons I'm unable to comment on the events of last night, but according to dotlan as of 0824hr 8th July 2014, 2785 ships and 238 pods died in Huola in the last 24 hours.