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A tale of two Sygma’s

Real Life Sygma and Eve Sygma are two different people. Real Life Sygma believes in Liberty above all. John Locke in 1689 went in to great depths to describe liberty as it pertains to the roles of government; I will be a bit more simplistic. Liberty according to Sygma simply means: “Do what you want as long as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others liberties”. Marry who you want, carry what gun you want, wear a tutu to a funeral…I don’t care. But in EVE…I am the opposite.

When I first started EVE I struggled to mesh my real world philosophies with the in game philosophies. Six months into EVE I didn’t even know if I liked the game; it was boring. Then something happened that gave me a paradigm shift; my first fight, I was clueless…and my heart was pounding, but I felt alive. I thought to myself….WOAH, this is what I want to do. I made the decision that day to exit carebear land and enter the valley of DOOM.

The first thing you need for PVP is an income stream. So I flew cheap and figured out how to make isk. I no longer fly Caracal’s and Thorax’s but I do fly Stabber Fleet Issue’s and Talos’s. Instead of brawling, I prefer Logistics and most of all I am into flying with a great group of guys who share my passion for blowing up things. If this is something you may be interested in stop by our in game channel and talk to a recruiter.

We will have you stomping the life out of your enemies, looting their wrecks, and having them lick your boots within hours. We aren’t nice, we are killers. Although we honor our 1v1’s and ransoms, we will use any means to kill. We are not above using Falcon’s, we are not above bringing more than a gang can handle, we will black ops, we will kill on a gate, we would kill our parents if they played. That is what we do, and we don’t care about your civil liberties….We are A4D.

John Locke can bite me!!!
Sygma 2013

Not dying is the hard part.

Killing is easy but the problem with having blood lust is that you get so caught up in getting the kill that you get yourself killed in the process. Sometimes you have to take a step back and not engage. On average we kill roughly 4 ships to every one we lose; to maintain a 75% killboard efficiency ratio we have to kill 1 billion isk for every 250 million we lose.

Anyone can kill 1000 ships a month if they engage enough fleets, but the true test of a pvp’er is staying alive when engaging. Leading the A4D killboard in kills is good but doing so while not leading in losses is GREAT. Let’s go over some basic principles that you need to know that may keep you alive.

• Always know what backup a guy has before engaging, if it seems too good to be true…it probably is. A Rifter trying to get you to aggress your Cynabal probably doesn’t mean that he thinks he can solo you…
• Set hot droppers to red, and cyno alts of hot droppers. Then if a RED comes in local, you will know they are known for hot dropping, use caution.
• Understand patterns and remember tendencies: I always know if I see Chasing Power Gal..they are flying Gallente, if I see Mukk Barr in local; I expect 25+ behind him, if I see Art of War in 8G, I fully expect a bubble on the CL-85 gate, If I see 0utbreak, I expect no Falcons but a healthy dose of EC-Drones (Ironic). Know your enemy; not doing so will bite you in the behind.
• Engaging on station, if you don’t have the Range to kite, or Logi to rep resist temptation. 30 battleships undocking can be a wakeup call you don’t want.
• Know the ships capability and what it can handle and what it can’t. I know a Coercer can handle a Dramiel…but if he hasn’t ever seen a Coercer he doesn’t know that. Research it. Watch Youtube, go to the test server.

These are just some basic rules of thumb, they aren’t going to win you a lot of fights, but they may keep your ship intact. When one of our guys loses a ship I often ask them these basic questions and more often than not they did not adhere these basic principles. This is what we mean by flying smart. Remember, every ship you don’t lose is isk you never have to earn.

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat

We went on a three man Stabber Fleet Issue roam to Nulli space, our goal was to get a gank or two and to do some team building. Everything went as planned, I got lucky and got a tackle on an Abaddon, it took us a while but we took him down pretty easily, it wasn’t the kill of the century, but it was decent enough I guess.

We knew that we hit Nulli’s radar at that point so we looted the battleship wreck and got out of dodge. We had found some Rookie Empire guys that we thought may be mining and wanted to go back and check to see if they were back in their Ice belt (They weren’t). So we went back in Nulli space to see if we could sneak in another easy kill but there were none to be found.

On the way home a blue told me of Retribution and a Drake camping the out gate. I warped to the gate at a ping to look over the situation. I told the guys to hold on the gate and I would try and pull the Drake to the other side with the Retribution. I would hold my cloak then point the Drake…thus allowing for my group to get to me. Easy peasy, I have done that trick with great success a thousand times before.

Not so much, I jumped into a 20 man Broken Toys gang with the bubble up. I assessed the situation and realized that my only shot was to mwd back to the gate and hopefully most of them would aggress giving me some time to vacate. I approached with my mwd overheated and on. The enemy fleet strips my 12k shields off and puts me into 80% armor before I jump.

I survived, but now they had a Harpy, Retribution, and the Drake on this side. I looked to see where I was on the gate and motored straight out overheating my microwarp drive. The Harpy was doing the same and keeping up with me at about 30k. Unfortunately for me, there were no celestials in the direction I was heading. I make a gradual turn, but see more enemies jumping in.

They were heading away from me so as to warp to the Harpy in pursuit so I gambled and made a sharper turn; allowing the Harpy to actually catch up and scramble me. Since I was the short point guy in my fleet, I reciprocated and scrambled him back. I am sure he didn't expect a stabber to be short point fit and he didn't notice his mwd turning off. I used this time to align toward a celestial. I put my drones on the Harpy making and overheated my MWD once again. I warped to a celestial keeping my hull intact.

Unfortunately they kept my drones…that is not very nice.

Doing the damn thing

A4D is a pvp corporation pure and simple our member’s job is to kill and we don’t care how you do it, just do it. Although some like to sit on bubbles, some like to roam, some like to blop, and some like to gank…I don’t care how you get the kill mail as long as you get it. For instance we had a gang roll through with a sleipnir and some backup…although he was fit with a Cyno, he complained about the two Falcons. The Falcons were considered unfair to him but his carrier was not (He still died)

For me personally I love getting kills by outsmarting my opponents. Anyone can Titan Bridge and jump 50 on 4 guys. Anyone can gate camp gank single ships with 10. It takes ZERO SKILL to do so; ZERO. But it is when you do something unique that really makes EVE special. When you can bait a 16 man gang and kick them in the face with 11 with inferior ships…that means you have done something special.

We had 6 Vexors sitting on the RMOC gate in K-QWHE, Senex Legio was on the other side with 16, we had 3 Exequrors and a Thorax and Stabber Fleet at a safe spot 16 AU off the gate. We had Claymore bonuses at a pos giving our Vexor’s a web range of 16 and our Warp scramblers a 14k range. We had antimatter fitted and mods running hot. Our goal was simple…scram, web whatever you could and tracking disrupt them, and wait for the Logi support.

The enemy fleet had a ton of Cynabal, Rapier, 6 Vagabonds, 6 Ruptures, Omen, and tackle. But this is how the fight went down. We lost our Retribution right away as well as one of our Vexors. About this time our Logi arrived, and we established tackles on quite a few expensive ships. Our tactic was simple: Vexors grab what you can, and hold down your ship and beat them senseless with blasters. Tracking disrupt whatever is hurting you most.

We killed two vagabonds who got webbed and scrambled fairly quick, one of our tackling Vexors killed an omen solo while assisting drones. We managed tackles on their rapier, a Sabre and their Cynabal and were taken down in succession. Things were going so well we actually had to move now to find targets. Our Claymore bonuses were aiding us greatly in hawking down new ships to tackle.

We managed tackles on 2 ruptures, a Corax and a vagabond and of course, they died. Total kills 11 total losses 2. Now I wouldn’t call this a masterful victory, we showed 6, took 11 killed 11. We did not blob, nor did we use ECM. We did however use T1 logistics. I did expect the fight to be closer, but we were able to prevail because of our superior tactics…not because we had more people, not because we had more expensive ships, but because we out flew our opponents. THIS, is what A4D is all about. Doing the damn thing like the damn thing is supposed to be done.

Hats off to Senex Legio for the fight. (I still hate alliances)

Intestinal Fortitude

I took a small expeditionary gang to Doril to see if there was anything there to kill. There was! Unfortunately we had zero chance of winning fight vs. what they had. They had Zealot, Arbitrator, Loki, Legion, and Astarte. We had a thrasher and 3 Stabber Fleets buffer fit with zero EM resistance. Zealots and Legions = bad for us.

We decided to head back and reship into something that had more than a 30 second life expectancy. While reshipping we were eventually joined by 6 more of my closest friends. We went from a hit and run fleet to a full on death gang. We decided on 5 Vexors, 3 Exequrors, 1 Stabber Fleet and 1 Hurricane just in case we needed bait.

We meandered over to Doril to find the gang we were trying to hawk down no longer there. As dejected as we were, we figured we would head out towards Litom and see if the guys we engaged in KDF earlier that day were still active. When we arrived they were docked up and not active whatsoever. Our Intel channel lit up like a Christmas tree. Utopia had filled up with Severance.

The initial ship Intel listed 37 frigates and cruisers…but luckily Quawr had an alt close buy and could get a more accurate fleet composition. The gang was 31 with 1 Scimitar, 4 T1 Cruisers and the rest were a mix of T1 and T2 Frigates. Even though we had them in Logi 2-1, they had us in numbers 3-1. It was a toss-up on who would win, but we decided to try and catch them anyway.

We knew they were heading to Provi to join up with the rest of the Provi blobbers so we met them on the 6-K gate and waited for them. There we were us on one side, them on the other. We figured if we jumped in to them they might cross jump us and get away. We decided that it was best that we held our ground and gave them two options, fight or run away. We waited for a good 5 minutes; we went over our game plan multiple times so everyone knew their job.

Out of the blue, they warped off and made best speed the other way. The 31 man gang wanted nothing to do with our 10 man gang. We were dumbfounded…we didn’t know if we could win, or if we couldn’t. We were simply in it to win it. We happily take fights that can go both ways, the only ones we don’t take are suicide missions. This one bordered on suicidal. They only had to split their gang into three and take out the Exequrors simultaneously.

We saw a blip on the screen on the way to HED. We motored that way. We got to the system in question and found a 12 man fleet with 3 Scythe’s camping 100k off our in-gate. They had Loki bonuses and were formidable. Talos, Scythes, Caracals, Cynabals. The only problem was that they were so far off our scout couldn’t draw them to the bubble. They wouldn’t budge. So our scout called us in, figuring that since we were pretty equal they may fight.

They didn’t, so we blew up their bubbles….still no fight. Dejected, we went home, but caught wind that the Frigate fleet was 2 jumps out of our home system. We made best speed back to K-QWHE. We figured that if we could get into K-Q that we could log in Armor bonuses and we would have an even better chance of winning…if they decided to grow a pair. We hit the K-Q gate the same instant that their scout landed. They turned around and ran from us once again.

This happens a lot, this is why we fly the T1 Cruisers, we tend to get more fights, but only I the opposing fleet have an inkling of Intestinal Fortitude. That is what we try to preach to our members, take winnable fights. Don’t give up free kills.

Fruitful day

I like to take a couple trips to Doril a day mostly to upset the bubble campers. We usually take gangs of 4-12 depending on who is on and who wants to come. Typically our goal is fairly consistent, find target, kill target and clear the area of Mobile Small Warp Disruptor bubbles. We do this to upset the guys that live locally…it is our shtick. We figure that if we do it enough they may undock something to fight.

We got a quick gank on an Enyo, then a Tornado but the gang we were seeking out was not prepared to take on our Vexor Fleet of DOOM. They had enough members active but since we have fought them multiple times with this particular fleet I think they knew that if they weren’t set up properly they would get an a$$ kicking of monumental proportions…as they have in the past.

We decided that we were going back to home base to reship into faster ships. The Vexor gangs are fun and awesome but they are armor so they are a little slower than we prefer. As we jumped into system, a few of us went AFK, and we had about 6 remaining. Local went up by 5…we didn’t know where they came from so we undocked in our Vexors and Exequrors…the Vexors would hit each gate finding our targets and call in the troops.

Blythar and I chose the RMOC gate to warp to…wrong guess. Kabars and Bullmastiff chose the CL-85 gate…Tempest, Tempest, Incursus, Curse, Omen. It was on like Donkey Kong. Kabars followed the gang into CL and held cloak as long as he could. When the Tempests started running, Kabars got a hero tackle and was soon vaporized. We all jumped in and started burning out to tackle what we could.

Two people called point on the first tempest, and it was called primary, the other two Vexors tried to run toward the Curse but the Curse GTFO. We then went and warp scrambled the other Tempest. We cycled points as best we could but the tempests heavy neutralizers were effective. We were forced to only use our warp scramblers. Without cap, we had no use of our webs, mwd, tracking disruptors or guns! Our Drones did all the DPS and our Exequror pilots were awesome.
*snip*Posting of kill reports outside of the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited. ISD Ezwal

We went down the pipe a ways to the old Legio systems that we used to Frequent. When we got to V-3 there were 11 Initiative Mercenaries in local. I warped around system looking for targets and found a few, but was hoping to draw them out. I warped back toward the gate where our gang was and started looting drones from a previous fight hoping that they would see me and attack me. 2 minutes goes by and nothing. I guess I would have to do a better job. I warped to the station at 70.

On the station sat 2 Hurricanes, 2 Rapiers, 1 Eagle. This could be problematic…our gang now consisted of 5 Harpies, 1 Oracle (don’t ask), Atron, Scythe. I aligned to the gate and warped to the gate where my guys were sitting. One of them said “Come back” in local. To appear weaker than I was I said “Heck no”. 10 seconds goes by and I see a Hurricane and Eagle on Scan. It is going down soon.

The eagle lands at 200, a Rapier lands and jumps through. Knowing he would just cloak up I pointed the Hurricane and started to warp scramble. The cane now knows he screwed up; he is hosed whether he jumps through or not. His only shot was to burn me down and warp off. Due to my awesome tackling skills, that didn’t happen. Although we only ended up with a single Hurricane kill, it was worth it.

*snip*Posting of kill reports outside of the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited. ISD Ezwal

Continuing on toward our destination we were greeted by empty space…followed by empty space. We decided to do one last stop in 4-07 before we headed back home. I jumped into system and did a quick scan. Thanatos, Thanatos, Legion. So I warped to a Haven and found the Thanatos had just warped away. There were three more anomalies close by so I warped to them individually. On the third one I land 33km from the Legion!

I overheated my warp disruptor, hit my mwd, and went in for a close orbit. My tracking disruptors were very much keeping my ship intact. The cavalry arrives and we all start burning down the Legion. Out of nowhere, a Thanatos lands…then a second. The Legion lands and we start on the Thanatos. It was evident that our combined 1500 DPS was not enough to break the tank of a Thanatos so we looted the Legion and warped out. We have a new destination spot.

*snip*Posting of kill reports outside of the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited. ISD Ezwal

We were running short on time so we set waypoint back home; we were already fairly content with what we had killed this evening. It was fairly uneventful as we were now into the empty part of Catch. We decided that we would take a slightly different route home; instead of 0SHT, we would go “The OTHER way”. We made it to ZXIC and I said wait a second guys, I am going to check out KDF. Hold a second.

Although KDF had been empty, Nulli was now renting it out to a couple small corps that had a tendency to engage smaller fleets. I jumped in and did an anomaly scan while simultaneously doing a Dscan. Hrmmm, another Legion on scan? Could lightning strike twice? The anomaly scan was clear so I warped to the station at 0. There sat the Legion. I made the attempt to dock or at least make it look like I was trying to dock and the Legion aggresses me.

I point him, and burn to him with my tracking disruptor on. He was 16k off the station and I had him. I called in the troops and he attempts to de-aggress. We overheat our guns and manage to kill him before his timer runs out. Our second Legion kill of the evening. WINNING!

*snip*Posting of kill reports outside of the Crime & Punishment forum channel is prohibited. ISD Ezwal

ENTER CATCH PHRASE HERE (part 2)

To say we rested on our laurels is completely false. Our goal was to smash the living crap out of anything that came through our system. We weren’t there to be nice; we were there to show everyone what we are capable of as a corporation. If you came through, we were going to beat the bejesus out of you…PERIOD.

Next up was a serious of singles that passed through from various corps. By killing these singles we managed to get on the radar of some larger groups…groups that would be dropping by to say hello, groups that we were going to punish by doing so. First up was a “convo” from a dear old friend saying that Seventh Sanctum was Blopsing around today…and we should be ready for them. When one of them hit our scout’s radar, we re-shipped and were ready.

We assumed that they would be Blopsing with around 20, so we fit out our Vexor Fleet with 5 Exequrors to help keep us alive while our Drones ate away at whatever they had. We sent 5 Vexor’s to the bubble and left the other 5 at with the Exequrors. We were aligned and ready. As expected, they warped in bait, tackled one of us and lit the Cyno. We gave the command to warp in and unleashed our Drones.

Although Green Cannon and I were in Structure and Jammed our Logi support came to the rescue. We started calling primaries and started in on their Falcons, Down went one, Down went two, their third got out, and we managed to kill the Arazu that lit the Cyno. Our drones took out another three bombers when they called to GTFO. We didn’t lose anything and we were going to start beating their ass. We had completely underestimated their numbers, they had dropped 40 on us and we still took zero losses.

Our neighbors had put up some bubbles so we decided to take them down. We took small fleet two jumps out to kill their bubbles and decided to head to Doril for fun. We side stepped a Chasing Power Gal battleship fleet and motored to Doril where we found a CVA frigate fleet. After splashing 2 Wolfs, Hyena, Heretic, and 2 Retributions, we decided to head home to continue our day of carnage. We killed another 5-6 singles but the true carnage continues.

I continue to be amazed. A pvp corp with 85 on the roster as of today. No alliance, few blues. The PVP gods surely smile on us. What an amazing day to have been a part of A4D!

Blog updated. This time I try to make a commented video on an everyday fight you get on Curse.

Fleet Harpy vs Sabre and Crow

http://curses-im-in-my-pod.blogspot.pt/2013/02/commented-video-fleet-harpy-vs-sabre.html


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A4D recruiting:
• Small Gang warfare. Fleets go from 1 to 10;
• No Sov Warfare. No Structure Bashing. No CTAs;
• NPC Curse Space
• Busy pipe on home system for occasional gate camp;
• Large alliances nearby for hunting grounds
• You undock and you go kill
• If there is no fleet up, you make one and go kill
• Always outnumbred and prolly outgunned. Need to fight smart!

Join in-game channel "A4D Bar" and ask for a recruiter!

I endorse this thread.