EVE General Discussion

Operation Graystone
Report Author: Captain Stellar Vix
Location: Geminate Region
SWA: 3/18/2012
Time: 0001
Desron 03: Mixed Weight Patrol out for Combat Familiarization, 2 Battle cruisers 1 Cruiser, 10 Frigate
Commanding Officer : Captain Stellar Vix

Watching the Naga Attack Battlecruiser roll off the assembly line I couldn't wait to get her out for a spin and had her customized for the operation before loading her into the SWA Sky Dancer, a re-purposed Orca serving as my mobile base of operations. From there I plotted the patrol route based on a few metrics of activity and set course

Today I had about 4 new rooks, 2 new ex-patriots, one ex-SWA and rest of the fleet was from my previous roams still learning. They all came in their usual bunch and hodge podge collection of ships, interesting though two of our pilots decided to try out the griffon to my liking as support target jammers

However as usual took about four hours to lasso up these herd of cats into one system and then we finally departed into the Geminiate region

One of the ex-patriot pilots volunteered while our tradesmen by day selected to be rear scout. I was Fleet Command again today as none of my Lieutenants showed up. None the less they where all eager except one to which had the gall to backtalk to me and ignore advice at his cost later on

The fleet was finally rounded up, pre-flights preformed and comms online and we shortly departed into null sec space

First hop into low sec was a bit lively on local so I order everyone off the gates and sweep the belt, The forward scout was top notch and found us a Drameil running a 2/10 plex. Frigates went in to antagonize the prey while the heavies sat outside guarding the entrance to the plex. I speed off to burnable distance to not only pick up drones but to put any target that warps directly to the gate a fist full of railgun charges.

The frigates inside reported that the Drameil ran off after engaging the squadron after failed attempts to get the ships to spread out. Re-affirming the order to stay in formation saved them from being picked off.

The hostile Dramiel then returns to the complex gate where I quickly locked him up and fired off a volley off before he got away again. Purposely leaving one of the abandoned e-war drones out I then ordered my rookies to get out the plex and start warping to me.

The gambit paid off the Drameil pilot warped 10 kms off my bow and started to pound away at my shields while I burned back to the rest of the fleet. The friendly tackler and griffon pilots first ones to show up and scared him off my tail after I got into half shields. The Dramiel did his best to get out of there and almost did as he was well far ways off and trying to get out of scramming range of the tacklers. I fired another volley at 110 kms off with the antimatter rounds and nailed him square on the head shredding his armor and hull in one blast.

A Congratulations given to the fleet on a successful kill without losses. Feeling confident we moved on

We traveled a good 10 jumps with no action until we where about to reach way point ALPHA, the site was picked for the large number of ships destroyed there the day before. Rear scout starts tallying 4 stealth ships behind us. Thinking they where an advanced patrol since I didn't get a good alliance/corp tag from rear scout I assumed they where EWPATs and ordered the fleet to push forward at best speed as I do not want my rookies dealing with a stealth bomber especially with no logistical support this far out. Four systems in and Scout jumped though and reported 25 in local and two Thannatos carriers on d-scan without star base structures listed I decided to 'skip' this system as quickly as possible

Turns out that wasn't quick enough. Appox 4 sabers, 1 bellcose, 1 Loki, 1 Onerious, 1 Stilletio where among the first ships of AAA to meet us. Scout who already jump ahead reported a similar sized fleet on the other side as well. Thus we just got caught in a pincer attack. I tried my best to direct the efforts the Onerios couldn't be dealt with our level of firepower and I ordered the jammers onto them. Unfortunately we only fitted Matari jammers this week Gallente was bottom of our lists. I ordered the rest of the fleet on the Loki in an attempt to match kill weight but with none of the jams working damage we dealt was quickly nullified and he stayed at full health then.

All but two frigates got out we lost several pods to the sabers mobile fields. I barely made it out myself in half armor on the pod. Over all out of 12 I think only four of us made it back to high sec without the travel express option.

Debreif basically came to the unanimous conclusion, we where just simply screwed in that system in that pincer attack which just seemed to be by accident as the four stealth pilots behind us was later found to been caught in the same trap that just wiped my fleet out. They fared slightly better with a loss of an unaffiliated falcon.

None the less the rookies had fun and some of the ex-patriots tried to sell me a bit higher on the FC competence level which I tried to reject but they insisted.

I have issued out only 1 derpy ribbon today, to myself for beating my scout though a gate >
and no Micheal J Caboose medals so that's something.

I thought noobs were for victimizing?

This game is going to the dogs.

Bumping in the hope that the faceless mass of SWA sees this thread and pays attention to corp chat once in a while.

More on topic:

These roams are a great tool, giving rookies their first taste of a tough fight where the odds are against you. Its in these situations that I see people freezing, forgetting to retarget, capping out, forgetting their drones and not paying attention to the space around them. With just a little experience, the rookie pilots on our fleets are insuring themselves against poor decision making when the worst comes to the worst.

Additionally, everyone gets a good idea of fitting practices, fleet tactics and teamwork, as well as being able to see null without being the only target for the big bad SOV-holders to pod.

You can only turn your brainpower into firepower... if your head ain't on fire.

Another small-scale SWA training op

Operation Missioner Improbable

A certain lone wolf capsuleer had been sighted repeatedly harassing rookie SWA and eve uni mission runners in Perimeter. An Ex-SWA rookie by the name of Dazzork Anneto asked to help bring him down following the loss of an SWA missioning drake that got overconfident

The stage was set, our Ex-SWA rookie set up a mission in Perimeter and an apparent "mission-specific loot can" was dropped next to a mission industrial wreck. Sure enough, the target scans down and sees a sniper-fit "apparently PvE" Omen running missions, grabs the mission loot and gets shot at. He pulls out his Caldari Navy Hookbill and warps in to find two cruisers waiting

Before he knows what's happening, he's dead in the water, double webbed, scrammed, 6 drones and two lots of DPS pouring in on him. 12 volleys later, one rookie-harassing Faction Frigate wrecked, one rookie-harasser ruined into joining a new corp for help. Dazzork walks away with his first real PvP kill and Perimeter is safer for our rookie missioners a week or so

Just another day in the State War Academ

- Rick

Sounds like a lot of fun, and a good idea at that.

Look forward to some action in the near future!

Good that you guys pvp with new players, really awesome. +1

On a side not, depending on the null sec region always expect 2 and +fleets/gangs to come after you once you're spotted, most often they will not engage unless they're have superior numbers with a lot of logistics.
There are a few guys out there that don't mind to loose ships no matter if it's versus newbies or bitter vets, they will engage you in equal/less numbers for the fun of the fight.

I've seen this a couple of times and it's really awesome but also really rare.

I have a feeling that rook was going to learn the hard way. Good job showing him an important lesson without casualty.

I hope he doesn't have to learn to much more when getting told about certain aspects.

Sorry about the rifter loss was he debriefed on how he messed up?

-Vix
SWA Instructor

Updated operations with the link to the lastest ops.
-Vix

Congrats you found out how to pvp in eve, practice does make perfect, or at least it drags out dying longer :).

Operation Persian Shade
Report Author: Commander Stellar Vix
Location: Vale of the Silent and Tribute Regions
SWA: 3/31/2012
Time: 0001
Battron 01: Heavyweight Patrol out for Combat Familiarization, 3 Battleships 1 Battle-cruiser 3 Cruisers 4 Destroyers 12 Frigates
Commanding Officer : Commander Stellar Vix

Oh how long its been since I last stepped aboard command of a battleship. Crew wasn't too happy about it as I'm rather notorious for losing the damn things but I joined the lead formation in a wing of scorpions. My crew was even less pleased to know my electronic's skill aren't on top of the line either.

Fleet muster was called and we had 18 volunteers in various ships to escort the battleship and we slowly made our way into Tribute.

Three jumps into the patrol and my crew decides to pull a quick one and slam on the emergency warp. The second in charge took the fleet to the system safe. Once I got the Xo replaced on my bridge and got my ship back to the gate there was a small squadron of thrashers and a black bird. We stared each other down and the squadron considered that if they where to engage me along at the gate would have been an error on their part with my fleet en-route to me and gate guns pointed at them. The thrasher squadron jumps though and my fleet lands.

I ordered a 10 second delay before sending the scout through. Scout reports lighter numbers than us on the other side and I order the jump. What we walked into was beyond confusing but early analyses suggest it was a fight in progress between two sides and we just happened to be the third. We engaged several ships in the gate camp and bubbles where deployed all over the place I told the squadron to reform on the gate and be ready to quick exit.

Tech 3 cruisers, interceptors, stealth bombers, the list goes on there seemed to be total chaos on the hostiles sides. Half of the thrasher squadron and their black bird was sandwiched in between our fleet and the defenders cadre of slowly pouring in ships.

I was calling primaries and secondary and changing targets as quickly as the flow of the battle. My fleet couldn't get points on all of them and we lost possible kills on an Ishtar drake and Atron. All was doing quite well until an oracle pilot warp 150kms off gate and starts picking off my escorts. I called retreat because from our current angle and mass location of all of our fleet being mostly in a bubble itself there was not a viable warp solution with a bubble another 100kms behind the oracle. To avoid haphazard situation I called for a general retreat and remained in system long as possible soaking up damage in the scorpion. My wing scorpion pilot I couldn't repair fast enough and didn't know he was still shooting a pod and was locked from using the gate. I watched his ship go down and regrettably jumped though wishing I could have done more to save him. The Ishtar that we scared off earlier was on the gate picking off stragglers and began engaging my fleet. I ordered an attack for our heavies but the lights joined in and got blapped by the sentry turrets at that point I ordered everyone off the gate. The Ishtar didn't pursue.

We took the aggression cool down time to regroup and rethink the events and concluded that the 'meow' system was not going to be a pretty walk back into and without any sniper kits with use today the oracle would continue to prove a serious problem for the fleet. we only suffered mostly light losses weight wise and we still had two battleships in full tank ready to go. So the escort pilots got second ships and we patrolled vale of the silent.

This place was very much its name sake. The largest fleet we ran into was a detachment of two frigates. After several skirmishes and one failed attempt to get a Tengu we destroyed several ships and pods in null. We ventured deep enough to spot a parked Avatar and several Velators/ibis in system and a Thanatos. Not wanting it to rain titans and gumdrops I asked the fleet and most said they where running on fumes so we plotted a course home and scored one more kill on the way.

Overall we sank over 125 million isk worth of stuff and suffered relatively small losses. Scores include 1 cruiser 4 destroyers 1 frigate 1 stealth bomber 2 pods at the loss of 1 battleship 2 cruisers and four frigates.

Our most amusing kill was a very suicidal stealth bomber that launched the bomb at point blank at our sole tackler and missed entirely. The kill was nearly a solo performance by our forward scout as warping 120 AU's took most of us a long time to get a lick in.

The pilots agreed this was our most successful roam here. Also its been the heaviest roam in SWA's 5 year history with our three battleships.