Alliance & Corporation Recruitment Center

4th January 2014

And we are back!

Huge things have happened in Iron Oxide, most significantly that we have merged Oxide Nation and the Penguins into Ctrl-Q. Thus this thread has been edited for CTRL-Q and I've moved across into this corp.

Why did we merge? Simple! We have been operating as one big corp for months. Everything was being done in alliance fleets. We decided it would reduce the leadership effort and simplify the logistics and Ship Replacement Program.

Why CTRL-Q - this is the oldest and most established corp in the alliance and rated 71st on BattleClinics Eve top corp list.

On the warzone front, Minmatar now own 58 (of 70) systems and are at Tier 4 (Amarr are at Tier 1). It is money making time again or LP making time. I've run 47 missions recently and recieved something like 3.4M LP (worth minimum 3.4B) and 197M Isk, but I did lose a Purifier during the endevour.

On the PvP front, it has been a bit quiet. There is plenty of small or solo stuff about, but alliance advertised ops were suspended for the Christmas period. They have just started up again, 2 being run this last week. I ended the month of December with 237 kills (30 solo, 84 Top Damage) for 42 losses.

CTRL-Q is now open for recruitment.

Monday 6th January 2014

During my turn to the dark side, my security status had dipped to a low of -9.1, but last week I'd bought it back to -4.6 with the use of tags. An exercise that cost approximately 60M. That enabled me to do the pick up run of the full circuit of FW mission including the 4 high sec stations. I did 3 complete circuits of these, + a few singles.

So I start tonight as usual in a Novice plex in Huola. Nowadays, I'm in a Breacher most of the time. I used to detest kity ships, but there has been a lot of frustrating ganks going on with neutrals. I know I gank myself, but that doesn't mean I enjoy being ganked. So I switched to kiting when I don't know what is coming in and seem to have got quite good at it. Even thinking about getting another set of LG-Snakes in fact.

Anyway a neutral Incursus comes in. I long tackle him and orbit outside his scram range. For once I find I've got a genuine solo player, but it's too late to change to a brawler now. He is MWD fit though and for a while it is a bit dodgy. He could have slingshot his way in or out, but instead he appears to just burn straight at me, overheating until he burns out his MWD and then it's just a matter of time. He has a single Auxiliary Armor Repairer. When that runs out of charges I take him down, then pod him.

I take a massive sec hit, back out to -5.1. In all the time we were engaged, I had assumed he had aggressed on me. But obviously I stayed out of range of his guns and he never bothered to fire them. Hence I never got a limited engagement flag and took the hit for the pod too.

Lory was running an advertised Navy Exequror roam, joined it for a bit and we ganked down a couple of things on the Kourm/Kamela gate. Went for a bit of a roam, but slow night, no decent fights.

We stopped and had the management meeting for the new corp.

I came back and scanned down a Wormhole in Huola, looked up the code and was told it connected to High sec. Sent my alt through for a look and found myself in Solitude. As I was doing all this 4 Dessies from LNA landed on the wormhole. They had also scanned it down and had a scout in the high sec system belts. They had found a miner and had decided to suicide gank him. I brought my alt back got into a Sigil, followed them and scooped all the loot. Not a great return, made about 20M I guess.

Then I joined a Weazl Armour cruiser fleet that was about to engage a Predator Elite gang in a Huola medium plex. They were already set up and we derped, myself losing an SFI. Ended the night 5 kills for 1 loss.

Wednesday 8th January 2014

I start the night taking a run out to the nearest DED office. I had a Recruiter Tag (I think) and pay an additional 4M Isk to take my sec status from -5.1 to -4.6

Back in Huola I prepare for a Shield Frigate roam that I had advertised. I'd asked for Merlins with Bantam logi but at the last minute I got an idea. Now don't laugh - Spider Tanking Bantams! One repper and 2 Light Ion blasters in the highs. Anyway I fit up a dozen or so of them and when the op starts hand them out. There are some comments made, but the guys go with it. A few can't get into them so they take regular shield frigates. About 15 in fleet in total, just enough to get everyone on the watch list.

We set out and almost immediately catch a WT Sacrilege on the Sosala gate in Kamela and murder him. Two jumps later we find a Zealot and 3 Dessies in a medium plex in Anka. They take the fight and we slaughter them, the Zealot drops 250M of shiney loot. Next in Sahtogas, half the gang engage a Comet, Hawk and Rifter on a Novice plex gate and take them all down. Still we haven't lost anything, people are starting to come around to the idea, we even get a name for the comp suggested "Slow Kitten".

Next we are in Kurniainen with scouts ahead in Isbrabata trying to bait a small cruiser gang. I send half the fleet in, but just as I'm about to commit the rest, an AF gang jump in to the rear group and two fights kick off at the same time. It is a real confusing mess, not helped by the fact that I get primaried and go down early. But when the smoke has cleared we find we have lost 5 Bantams, a Condor and a Merlin in exchange for an Enyo, Ishkur, Vexor and Rupture.

We reship in Huola and take 10 minutes then set off again in the same comp. We have another successful roam, ganking a wolf (+pod) in a plex in Sosala, then a Vexor and Rupture in Isbrabata. Finally we jump into a Cruiser/BC fight between WTs and Neutrals in Aset and take down a Brutix, Stabber and Rupture for the loss of one Bantam. I drag the fleet home after that. Over two hours we had been out, but some people were almost begging me to keep going. lol. Mission successful, it won't be the last time we are in that comp.

You heard about it here first. It may have been tried before, but if so, I was unaware, this was a fresh idea on my part and Zen coined the name "Slow Kitten".

Weekend 11th/12th January 2014

Nothing official planned. I logged on late Saturday afternoon and found a few people on line, did some admin but didn't really start flying until early evening. I then joined a mixed FeO/LNA/Weazl fleet (about 8 of us) loosly running around the area in cheap frigates.

A cap assisted fight kicked off on the Kamela gate in Khourmonen between CVA and Shadow Cartel I think. There was at least one Archon on field from CVA, while SC were out in their Sentry drone Cruiser gang. Some of us went over to wh*re on the kills. I took a breacher and targetted the CVA fleet who were actually on the gate. In short order I lost the Breacher from fire from four Absolutions. You would think they had better things to shoot at, but it seems by the time we arrived the main opponents had reached a stalemate. SC were too far out to be effectively hit and CVA had the Archon holding up what was left of their fleet. But there was a large number of wreaks on the field.

I reshipped into a Slasher and came back. This time I tried a different tactic. I warped to a perch bookmark above the gate, picked out a wreak among the CVA ships, warped down, scooped the loot and warped off. On the first attempt I scooped the jackpot. The ingame calculator showed the contents of my cargohold worth 167M Isk, which included two Imperial Navy EANMs. I took the contents back to Huola while doing the same thing with my scouting alt. In total I did another 10 or 12 scoop and run trips, none were as successful as the first, but I must have ended up with over 250M Isk worth of loot in total. Result!

Annah the CEO of Weazls took over the fleet and got people more organised after the SC and CVA had left. We roamed around in Frigates and killed a Caracal in Kourm, then a Thorax, Rupture and Omen in Huola, then a Malediction and Caracal Navy Issue on the Oyonata/Sahtogas gate, before loosing most of the gang in the same fight. Scratch Breacher number two.

We came back to Huola and just as I docked a shout went up that a Megathron Navy Issue was on the Kourm gate. I reshipped into an SFI and warped down. It redboxed a friendly just as I landed and I engaged. More friendlies arrived some bringing heavier stuff than they should have done including 3 BS and a couple of BCs. An Exequoror Navy Issue also landed and engaged us, we killed that first, myself getting top damage and then turned back to the Mega. Local spiked, more than a hundred. We hung in overheating. The fleet landed on us and still we held in there. The Mega popped, it was bling fit and worth over 1B but then we had to pay the cost. We lost two cheap fit BS and my SFI. I was tackled before the Mega popped. But as soon as it did, I pulled drones and started deaggressing while approaching gate. Initially the BS were primaried and I thought I was going to make it. With about 15 second to go they turned on me and I started to melt. I still thought I was going to make it though. The counter actually counted right down and I was spamming jump when I popped, it was so close. I ended up with the final blow on the Mega and 2nd top damage dealer but quite disappointed with how close I'd come to getting away. A little later I added to that disappointment out solo, by derping a Comet against a Vexor

Sunday began right after downtime. A planned op to assist Weazls in taking down a POS in Hegfunden. This was about 20 jumps away, we handed our ships over to the carrier pilots and then made the run over in Intercepters. Got our ships back and went to work. The POS had just come out of reinforced mode. I was in a Loki, the first time I'd ever undocked in anger in one. We were expecting a fight but the enemy was a no show, killed the POS and a couple of modules and then came back to Huola in the same fashion.

Some people logged at that point, about 6 of us roamed loosely around the area. I was back in a Breacher and I went a bit further out and found a small Cruiser/BC gang on the Kamela gate in Sosala, it included a Proteus. I went to a perch and watched them while the rest of our gang shipped into BCs. There were about 8 of them, we had 5 BCs and my Breacher. Really they had the advantage. However, just as our gang was ready to warp to the gate. Our targets engaged a neutral and then half of them had to bounce out. Our fleet charged across Kamela and jumped in. I warped down and tackled a Brutix and we primaried the Proteus. The other half of their gang came back, but then either jumped out or warped off again. We killed the Proteus and Brutix. The Proteus was blingy, about 850M, but before we could scoop the loot, a noobship warped in and scooped it. We killed the noobship and thankfully all the shiny loot dropped a second time. I was given a faction web for my efforts.

We went back to frigates and made some good kills, including a Daredevil, Vexor and Scythe. But then lost 4 of our frigates including my Breacher, in a fight against a pair of Daredevils, which frustratingly saw one escape in low structure.

Ended the weekend 23 Kills for 5 losses.

Wednesday 15th January 2014

Lory was running an advertised Interdictor roam tonight. We had a good turn out with over 20 in fleet, with a significant proportion of them (myself included) in the preferred ship, which was an Eris. Those that couldn't were asked to bring armor logi.

We started off and got lucky straight away, killing a Sleipnir on the Kourm gate in Kamela. It dropped some bling, but sadly the Gist C-Type X-Large Shield Booster worth 500M wasn't one of them.

We hadn't de-aggressed when a neutral gang consisting of at least five Moa's landed on the gate and jumped to Kourm. Scouts reported that they were simply burning to range on the other side, we assumed (correctly) that they were railgun fit. Presently we jumped through and chased after them, logi had a hard time keeping up and we lost an Eris and a Thrasher, but five Moa's went down. We chased after the remnants that had warped to the sun, but they got away.

We went back to Huola to sort out our comp. Although we had been victorious, it had highlighted a number of issues. We needed MWD Logi and to adjust the numbers of webs, long points and scramblers on the Eris'. With only one spare mid slot we had to carefully balance who took what.

We went out again and did a classic roam of the warzone and the ganks piled up. Mostly T1 Cruisers and Frigate, but we did get one Sacrilege.

At one stage I was acting as scout and a couple of memorable event occurred. In Anka a friendly Condor and myself entered a plex with a WT Vexor, Maller, Comet and Executioner inside. We got tackle on the Vexor and the our fleet jumped in and warped to the plex. The Condor went down and then they turned on me. I was sure I was going to die, but then with 22% structure remaining our logi landed and caught me. Then we killed the two cruisers. That's the second time our logi has pulled my Eris back from certain death.

On another plex in Kourm I found an Incursus and Atron on short scan and went in. There were several blues and neutrals in local, but only one WT. However, on landing I found they were both suspect Neutrals. They were both at a bit of range, but I was able to get tackle on the Atron with help from skirmish links and overheating. The fleet landed, but I'd killed the Atron before they got in and the Incursus baled.

It was a fun night, but nothing spectacular. Killboard shows that I got on 22 Kills for no loss. But I know there was also an Iteron V we killed in Kamela, which just hasn't shown up on the KB.

Sec status continues to drop.

Friendly Bump , our name looks same.

Monday 20th January 2014

A Weazl op was running from 1900hrs, but that's a little early for me and as it wasn't local I couldn't join when I logged on later. I join TLF comms and do some admin. Then I hear that there is a WT Comet and Hookbill in a small plex in Huola.

There are only 3 of us available and one isn't quite ready. I'm wondering what to ship into for it. A Comet tends to be brawler fit, a Hookbill tends to be Kity, but both can swing either way and they hold the warp in.

I eventually decide to go with a Light Missile Talwar, it's only tank is a damage control. Shantarius tells me he is bringing a Thrasher and we agree to meet the 3rd pilot on the plex gate. I warp over while setting up the fleet. Then to my shock I find they are sat on the outside of the plex and land right on them. Mummy!

I'm expecting to die and primary the Hookbill in the hope that it is kity with no tank and I might actually kill it before I go down. Thankfully Shantarius lands right behind me, he follows primaries, but intellegently tells me he is pointing the Comet. At that point I realise I haven't actually got a point on my Talwar, it was designed to be part of a blob. So nothing is actually pointing the Hookbill.

To my surprise there is no damage incoming immediately, we hit the Hookbill with 3 or 4 salvos and it pops, only then do I start taking damage from the Comet. But we turn on him and kill him almost as quick, just as I start taking armor damage. Then we pod both of them. The ships were poorly fit and the pods were empty. I suspect it was one player, double boxing and we caught him distracted.

I reship into a Breacher and run down 4 novice plexes that had stacked up in Huola. There is another 6 plexes up of various sizes. I scan them as I'm running my plexes and eventually find a Corax in one. Nobody else was available at that point, but I decide to go for it in my Breacher. Enter plex, burn to kity range, tackle, orbit, kill. I see him fire light missiles but they don't hit me. He pops and I pod him. Again an empty pod and the most awful... well you can't even call it a fit. Looked like he had just fitted it from the junk available in his hanger, 7 of the 13 module slots were empty and no rigs. Amusingly, although he only had 3 light missile launchers, he was carrying 25000 light missiles and 2 Rocket Blueprints.

Wednesday 22nd January 2014.

Took a day off, will be back Thursday or Friday.

Friday 24th January 2014

Dev is running an Interdictor roam tonight. I log on and hear Annah on comms talking about a fight that has just gone bad in a novice plex in Kourm. I jump into a Breacher and head to the plex, land on the gate and find two Tormentors inside. Three more pilots are on their way including Annah who has reshipped. I activate the gate intending to crash out to range and tackle one of the Tormentors. I land, get tackled and murdered.

Dev is online, I pod back and get into an Eris and the advertised roam starts. Zen scans down a Tempest and Harbinger running an anomoly in Kamela. They bail when our tackle enter the first room. I follow and enter the site, it is a three room site I recognised (Blood Raider Psychotropics Depot) and they had almost cleared the 2nd room. Dev orders us to the next gate in the roam schedule, but as we are in warp I suggest we finish the site, we only need to kill 4 BS in the second room then an Exsanguinator Cruiser rat in the third room, to get the shiny stuff. Moments later we are in possession of about 350M of loot including the 18th Overseer Effects, an Ashimmu BPC and Corpum B-Type Medium Armor Repairer.

We move on, kill and pod a Merlin going into Sosala. Then an Eve Uni fleet of 20 odd Cruisers is sited on the Kourm/Kam gate. They had some BCs and more importantly logi with them. Dev indicates we would need to reship to engage them, but decides we will continue on via Sahtogas and go the long way back to Huola. As we jump from Tannakan into Sahtogas a WT Caracal lands and jumps with us. Someone calls point on the other side, but he warps. Stabbed. However, he warps to the Oyonata gate which is where we were going, We overtake him in warp, jump with him into Oyonata and again someone calls point, again he warps off this time to Sosan. Sosan is also on our route, so yet again we overtake him in warp, jump with him and go for the tackle on the otherside. This time he comes out 7 Kms away from me. I get a scram on him just as someone else calls point. He only had 2 stabs and melts. As I was right on top of him, I get top damage too.

We finally get back to Huola and reship into Armor Cruisers. Weazls bring the logi element so I reship into an SFI. However, by now we have lost sight of the Eve Uni fleet. We get a report that they are in Amamake and head that way then go on into Metro, we spend over an hour chasing after ghosts heading out of FW space into some obscure low sec. Then coming back to Metro to try and engage an Amarr gang on a bunker bash, but by the time we arrived another friendly gang had scared them off. My tea is ready, so I drop fleet and go back to Huola.

I don't come back until around midnight. By then nearly everyone has logged off. I think about running a plex before logging myself and notice about 7 WTs in system. There are about 20 friendlies too, but none from Iron Oxide and no fleets up. I undock my Cyno/Scout alt for a look and scan towards a novice plex. I see 5 or 6 frigates, 2 or 3 corpses, several wreaks and a pod. Looks like a fight is going on there.

I warp my alt over at range and undock Trant in a Breacher. I land my alt, burn back a bit and cloak him. The fight is going on outside, but it is really confusing. First let me explain that there are some 2 day old alts farming killrights in our system. The noobship wreaks, corpses and pod is from one of them. Now I set up my overview so that I see Wartargets, then Criminals and Suspect and finally low standing players in that order. Now my alt sees Trant's Wartargets as low standing pilots, unless of course they have a Criminal or Suspect flag running from killing these killright farmers. I see 4 Suspect/Criminal frigates with two of them apparantly engaging a blue Thrasher at range.

I warp Trant over at range and find the Frigates are all WTs, 2 Merlins, a Rifter and a Slicer, the final two have got the Thrasher tackled at range, about 130 Kms off. Another WT Incursus lands on the gate 70 Kms off me. I burn towards the Thrasher, threading my way around the 2 AB Merlins trying to burn out. Just as I get in range and lock up the Slicer and Rifter the Thrasher pops. I'd started firing at the Slicer, but I note that it is the Rifter that is carrying damage. I decided to leg it and warp back to station. Jump into a Cerberus and warp back at 70.

The Rifter and Incursus have both gone. The Slicer burns in very quick and gets tackle on. Then burns out just as quick as I start hitting him. As he reaches 60kms, I switch to one of the Merlins, then to my dismay watch the slicer take a hit at 80km from my last salvo which puts him into structure, just as he is turning around to come back. I'd forgotten just how far I can shoot with a Cerberus. I start shooting at him again. But now he is in GTFO mode and warps off before my missile reach him. If I'd only fired one more salvo from the initial burst...

I switch back to the Merlin, then realise the Incursus has warped back in and landed right on top of me. 7kms off and he gets a Scram on me. This is not going well. But I proceed to murder him, then for the third time switch back to the Merlins. They should be baling now, but instead a WT Dramiel joins them. I pop one Merlin, then the next, the Dramiel is at 32kms but he burns in a bit closer. What was he thinking and he had no tank either. 3 or 4 salvos and he is in his pod too. I should point out that my Cerberus was fitted up before Rubicon and still had 42 salvos loaded in it's RLMLs at the start of the fight.

Continued...

Saturday 25th January 2014

Started with some good skirmishes in Kourm in frigates, before an Amarr cruiser gang was sighted. We reshipped into Cruisers, about 8 of us, myself in an SFI and jumped into Kamela. At this point one of the gang, reported he was in contact with Winmatar and they had 18 people sat on their Titan ready to drop on something.

At first it looked like we had missed the Amarr, but then a WT Zealot landed on the gate with us. We expected him to jump straight through and we got on zero ready to go with him. At that point 3 pirate Exequrors landed and scouts reported Pred and co. was undocking from Kamela station. His corp had dropped from the Amarr militia while Minmatar held Kamela.

Now would be a good time for that Titan bridge, but we weren't in fleet with them or had a cyno. Our liason reported that their cyno was nearby and they would be ready to drop in 30 seconds. All the time both gangs had been circling the Kourm gate holding fire. We assigned targets to point then finally aggressed. We expected the reppers to hold up the Zealot while it pointed something in return, but all they did was soak up some damage and then jump out.

A Cerberus landed at 70, someone in a fast ship burned out and got tackle on. The rest of us burned out or bounced. I did the latter but landed just as the Cerberus popped. I scooped the loot and then Pred's gang landed on top of me. A couple of Tornados landed at range and I think they engaged Zen's Exequror Navy Issue, but the rest of them primaried me.

Where the hell was the cyno we were asking. It had been 3 or 4 minutes since they had told us 30 seconds. I was orbiting and shooting Pred's Maller and dipping into armor. I decided to try and burn out. I had an AB and thankfully, I was pointed but not webbed. I gradually pulled range as my armor was stripped off and still no sign of the Cyno. Eventually to my surprise the point dropped and I selected warp to the station. Even then I didn't think I was going to make it, damage was still incoming, I was in deep structure and expecting another point to come on. Then finally I went to warp with 22% structure remaining. I docked, repaired, undocked and warped back. During this period the Winmatar cyno went up and they dropped, but all they did was mop up the last of Pred's gang which we had largely beaten by then. Then to add insult to injury they looted the field. Including friendly wreaks such as Zen's Exequror.

We returned to skirmishing around the plexes mainly in frigates. At one point I undocked in Huola in a Breacher and found a noobship on the undock. It was one of the killright farmers only he had a suspect flag running, must have looted something. Before I could lock him, he warped to the Otelen gate. I warped after him. Upon landing I found I was unable to lock him and assumed he had already jumped. Otelan was Amarr highsec, but I figured I could pop him quick and bounce. Only after I'd pressed jump did I realise he hadn't actually jumped, he was just holding with his post warp invulnerability.

I jumped into a gang consisting of 3 Gnosis, a Ferox, Tempest and Condor. Bounced out and reported them to the fleet. Annah was on comms and he immediately started forming a fleet for them. I bounced back to Huola and reshipped into an Augoror. There was about a dozen of us in fleet, mostly Weazls and LNA based out of bottom station. I undocked and waited for instructions, there were only two of us in Augorors and I didn't want to get caught in warp to the bottom station when the order to warp elsewhere was given.

I had got my cyno alt into Otelan to watch them and they had jumped into Huola before we were ready to go. We lost them temporarily, but then they landed on top station, docked and then undocked on me. I was back at about -5.1 sec status and they aggressed on me. Annah warped the fleet over. I held until they landed and I was in deep Armor, docked, repaired and undocked. The Tempest was able to deagress and dock, but the 3 Gnosis, Ferox and a couple of frigates went down. It was quick, but the Augorors had some work to do cause most of the fleet went suspect on them and dock guns opened up.

A little later I came back to Huola top station and found the same noob ship sat on the undock, again with a suspect flag running. I undocked a Thrasher and alphaed him. Moments later I lose the Thrasher during a Rupture gank.

Ended the day 17 kills for the loss of a Breacher, Thrasher and Comet.