First T3 kill?

It had to happen - the first T3 ship kill I think is here. A proteus and all I can say is ouch and bring on the next one!

The cost of the ship alone is eye-watering but that killmail is a historical moment. Just what was she doing with that ship in the faction warfare madness of Old Man Star?

LOL - We suck big time, apparently.

I posted about our war with GIS and friends here and was not expecting a lengthy comment. However, I did get an interesting reply that warranted a post. I wanted to answer and clarify my points in the original blog post as well as refuting and countering some of the misconceptions in the reply. I doubt very much whether any active pilot from Com-Star posted the particular comment, which I have included below. They've proved to be good pilots and we haven't seen any major whining from them. Also, I don't suspect it is an active GIS pilot either - while Com-S are the better PvP corporation; GIS can bring the numbers too and have spanked us in the past. However, if I am wrong, then fair enough.

Finally, if there are any factual errors in any post, then please send me an evemail and I will correct. Now to the comment:

From Anonymous:

GIS et al: rich businessmen/soldiers used to fly expensive and effective equipment in elaborated teamplay.

BASTERDS and Tussies: poor sobs who only can fight and tune their efficiency by being killed almost daily in cheapmost frigates whilst killing some carebear's hulk or some lone soldier in his 20 times more expensive t2/faction/officer equipped ship.

Have you ever seen them flying in frigs except interceptors before ? Well, seing them flying in cheap shit like you now shouldn't be the best message for you. They are learning and they are teamplayers. Definitely not good for you in the long run.

Counting in that carebear ally in business with GIS is cheap and somewhat dishonest on your behalf.

See their Killboards and you see who is trained soldier and who is a easily killable stupid carebear?

Nothing more easy to kill a Hulk/Mackinaw to polish your KB-"Efficiency" when the only thing you obviously can afford to fly is a worthless frig. Naturally they'd have to kill hundreds of your frigs 3only to break even with one single Hulk-Kill on your side.
So your "efficiency" is just a worthless number. Taking Shipkills, you obviously are not a match for the Comstar Elite Squad and not even for those GIS-Folks only getting some score with carebears and it would be a real shame for you if you wouldn't even be able to get at least some score with carebears.

Now lets get to the point:
- Can you win against them ? Obviously not.
- Can you seriously harm their business ?
Obviously not.
- Can you really fight them soldiers ? Obviously not seriously.
- Can you fight them carebears ? Silly question - you are pirates, aren't you ? It would be a shame if you even can't match some carebears in their hulks.

Since there is nothing, really absolutely nothing for you to gain, what will you get ?
- Some nice Hulk-Kills
- Some Kills of some unlucky striders of them
- Being docked on station the rest of the day as soon as there is more then one guy of them in your local.
- Being killed all the time in cheap beginners frigs as soon as you cross their roads.

Sounds like a dumb Looser's Job.

Gratulations !

Friday, March 20, 2009 11:27:00 PM by A FanBoi.

Well indeed you have said your piece. I kept your spelling mistakes in the post as English isn't your first language so you are forgiven. At the risk of feeding this troll let me comment:

1. You seem to show an alarming lack of respect for your 'stupid killable carebear' corp mates. Am sure they feel quite happy that you have shown such disdain for their way of playing. If they're out mining; shouldn't you be trying to run escort for them?

2. Seeing our opponents fly in cheaper and cheaper ships doesn't alarm us. Why should it? We decided to fly T1 frigates because they are cheap and effective and were more than enough to take down more expensive T2 hulls. I don't think this will change at all. We'll just be killing T1 hulls instead and it will be easier.

3. Soldiers? Don't make me laugh.

4. Don't embarrass Com-Star any further by calling them the 'Com-star elite squad'. They're very good pilots and brave too but your brown-nosing only makes other people laugh at them.

5. We love to kill more hulks and if we lose a few frigates doing it, does it matter? It's about the isk and we don't have as much isk as GIS and friends. We fly cheap to kill expensive. We're happy and you are happy and the world continues to turn.

6. Do you even realise what our goal is? The war-dec was simply done to enable us to tackle and fire upon certain corporations without sentry gun interference. That's it. The war-declaration isn't a solemn contract at forcing GIS and friends to leave their or anything grandiose. The war-declaration is a bribe to the police to look the other way when we have the opportunity to shoot them.

7. We haven't yet declared war on the other killable care bears (as you call them) because we can't be bothered and they're well, killable. GIS and Com-S are the main players that we want to take on and we don't want sentry guns stopping us. They are active and numerous. It is hard enough as it is, for us, with their superior numbers without sentry guns against us as well.

8. Less of the holier than thou please - GIS and friends are allied with many who are classed as outlaws and pirates. You can't get to -10 just by ratting.

9. We are online most of the time and we don't dock up in fear when we see one war target appear in local as we know for sure that there is a much bigger bunch one jump away. It's how they play, no big deal with that and we know the score. We just avoid them and get on with piracy until a better opportunity appears.

10. You don't get it. We're here to shoot and kill people when the opportunity arises. We're having fun and if they're having fun as well - then all power to you.

Let the war continue.

Busting a level five mission

We managed to crack open the hidden location of a level-five mission run by a trio of Foundation alliance pilots. Their small fleet comprised of an ishtar, vulture and typhoon.

Having the numbers, we scrambled after them with Cooch and Prophet bravely pointing both the ishtar and typhoon while Hera went over to point the vulture. The space was thick with gurista battle ships. The Foundation trio were sent no doubt to destroy these guristas but now it was a three-way fight. Some of the guristas targeted us pirates as well as continuing to pound the Foundation trio. We realised that we lacked either afterburners and/or webbers and there was a real danger that we would lose track of all three ships - since they all sped off in different directions and attempting to split us up. We quickly decided to leave the ishtar and attempt to nab the remaining two.

We eventually tackled the Typhoon and Vulture and demanded an appropriate ransom.

"We're FOUNDATION pilots and we don't pay ransoms. Please finish what you're doing and we'll be on our way."

We popped both their ships and salvaged the wrecks.

Hanging around our station? Nahhh

We killed McNoto's Armageddon outside one of our stations - his fit was very good and we knew it would be a tough tank to break, especially if he attempts to dock up immediately. He stayed outside and with some friends popped a few of us over the evening, all frigates but down to silly mistakes. However, McNoto's continued presence outside was his eventual undoing. Hera undocked a couple of times in his dominix and drew aggression a couple of times while the rest of our pilots made ready. I selected my maelstrom and reloaded with large hail ammunition. The minutes ticked by as we heard Hera's commentary.

"He's firing on me. He's now aggressed. All pilots hold." There was a hiss of static as Hera's own weapons joined with McNoto's laser batteries.

"Shit, he hits hard too." Observed Hera, a slight trace of concern in her voice. Slight mind. Nothing to worry about.

"Hera, shall we undock?" Asked one pirate.

"Negative. Hold. Hold." There were a slight interference on our own scanners due to the close proximity of the large laser discharges from McNoto's mighty armageddon.

The seconds ticked by, then Hera gave the order.

"Undock. Undock. Engage. Engage."

Seven other ships, a mix of battle cruiser and battle ship class vessels were spat out into space. Proximity alarms blared in warning as our seven ships came close to colliding with the golden hued mass of McNoto's armageddon and Hera's own dominix class battle ship. So close, no-one could really miss and everyone in the fleet unloaded a fearsome broadside into the enemy war target Armageddon.

McNoto had instantly stopped firing and ceased all hostile activity in order to let the harmful energy discharges to dissipate fully before it could dock up in safety. This period after the last hostile action and before one could dock was about thirty seconds. We had to rip through the immense defensive armour of a properly equipped armageddon in under half a minute. A tall order without a massive amount of ships and / or capital ships.

My maelstrom shuddered as the 800mm artilleries thundered out the deadly hail ordnance.

"Pour it on! Pour it on!" Roared RoninData.

I had one eye on the tactical readout, the armageddon was already shield-less but his armour was sitting at 75%.

"Overheat! Overheat! Burn out the guns. Get him!" Pushed RoninData. No replies from the fleet but the intensity of fire increased.

I toggled my communications to my weapon engineers. "Ordnance."

"Yes sir?"

"Take the safeties off the 800mm ACs and red-line them. Push them past their limits. I want maximum damage."

"Yes sir. Safeties all off."

My guns started to glow red as the damage output increased by 15% with a corresponding level of heat damage to the barrels, gyrostabilisers and loading mechanisms as I pushed the guns beyond safety limits. I didn't care.

"Shit. He's going to make it. He's going to dock..." Complained one pirate.

"He's going down! He's going down!" Countered Hera.

"He's into hull. He's dying. I see crew escape pods already being jettisoned." Said Maltrox.

With a shudder, the armageddon, probably seconds from docking up, broke up in two as one of it's plasma reactors went critical and tore the heart out of the ship. The station rocked slightly as the battle ship blossomed out like a new sun. The super-hot cloud incinerating some of the closer crew capsules.

There were cheers on the bridges of our ships as we were showered by the debris field. We loved this. McNoto expertly whipped his capsule out.

The killmail is here. We all agreed that McNoto's fit was a very good one - plenty of damage potential with enough armour to withstand a tremendous amount of punishment. The fit shows us that COM-S have some damn good pilots.

This is PIRACY

Last night was a typical night of piracy, I linked in late in the evening and the voice comms was full of laughter. Just earlier in the evening, some of Bastards had ransomed a pod pilot but instead of killing him, he was offered an option to sing his way out of his predicament.

The wise pilot, Le Pal, chose the latter and was asked to sing one of two fine songs: 'YMCA' by the Village People or 'It's raining men' by Aretha Franklin.

Clearing his throat, Le Pal, complete with a wonderful Gallic accent, let rip with YMCA (right-click and save as if the playback is too short)..Damn good effort and there was much laughter. Le Pal proved to be a good sport and also purchased a weekly pass off us to ensure that we wouldn't be interrupting any more of his missions. He even enquired about joining us but I doubt he would find the pirate life suitable for him.

So we continued to scan the system for mission runners and with our three probers in the system; our chances were good at getting something. However, TechZero complained that he 'sucked' big time as he failed to get anything more useful than junk on his returns. At least he was scanning, I was sitting in a safe spot; twiddling my thumbs.

Finally, Cooch had a hit (of course) and the rest of the fleet warped to him. We arrived at an ancient, but still functioning acceleration gate and proceeded to activate the device. Cooch had already scrambled the target drake and waited patiently for our appearance. We duly arrived and stripped the drake down into it's component parts. The pilot refused all attempts at communications and thus, a ransom was not available.

We destroyed Hero Vata's drake but failed to get his pod.

Whipping back to our respective safe spots; we continued to wait out our criminal timers.

"How's the scanning chaps?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Going shite."

"Hey, there's a pair of ravens around. Just appeared around planet IV. " Said Hera. RoninData spoke up, "Confirmation?"

After a quick check on my own scanners, there was indeed a pair of ravens - the pilots had not even renamed their IFF transponders and therefore allowed us to correctly identify them and obtain vital information on them.

Both pilots were still in the same starter corporations despite their four years as capsuleers. Minutes ticked by and then we had a hit. There was no recognised FCs in this fleet; since all the pilots present were seasoned pirates and knew what was to be done. However, I wanted to confirm that we had proper locks on the targets.

"Fleet, this is Flash. Thomas Talbert is now designated as Alpha and Andrew Reeves is designated as Beta. Can I have RoninData, Hera and Cooch put points on Alpha while Rodney, TechZero and I will put points on the Beta Raven. Primary will be Talbert/Alpha."

The fleet pilots all pipped their confirmations and we barrelled into the mission area. The space was thick with Angel cruisers and Angel wrecks as the two raven class battleships made short work of them.

"Alpha pointed." Followed shortly by, "Beta pointed. Switching DPS onto Alpha."

"ECM drones on beta please." I said, directing what little ECM we had onto the secondary target. It was unlikely that it could attack our cruisers effectively but I wasn't going to take the chance.

We added our own rain of fire onto the Alpha's raven. It was optimised to tank the specific damage from the Angels but not from us. The mighty shields on the raven started to break down. As it dropped down to zero shields, Hera fired up her ship scanner, a specialised device designed for pirating: it gives a breakdown of the fitted modules on the target ship and thus, it would guide on our what to ransom. Both ships were fitted with expensive T2 equipment, none of the rarer more exotic faction or office mods but still useful nonetheless.

"Time for a ransom I think." Said RoninData after considering the results. He opened up a line of communication with the older of the two raven-pilots. We assumed that he was in charge. The avatar of the pilot appeared in our very own ransom channel. Only Ronin did the talking, as we continued to maintain an oversight on the ravens, increasing our damage to ensure that his shields would remain low. Low enough for us to destroy his ship.

"Hello!" Said RoninData cheerfully.

He was greeted by a stony silence.

"150million for both ravens." A generous offer. Over the voice comms, a pirate questioned the figure.

"For both?"

"Yes indeed. We would get less if we popped the ravens."

"200million isk, I say." Ventured the pirate.

"Who's doing the ransoms? Me or you?" This was greeted with silence and satisfied; RoninData continued the ransom.

"40million!" Countered the Raven pilot. This was met with guffaws.

"No, 150million for both ravens."

"40million!" Repeated the pilot. I glanced at my overview and realised that beta was moving away.

"This is Flash. Beta is moving away, can we confirm points?" I asked, nudging my rupture to close the distance so that I could throw a web on the raven and slow it right down.

"Rodney here: point on beta."

"Hera here. point on beta." However, I just realised that I had the chat logs and rather than retell the narrative why not read the the conversation...

RoninData > Hi there!
RoninData > 150mil for both ravens please.
Thomas Talbert > 150?
Hera Darkthorn > Yes for both.
RoninData > You're rigged so it's a good price.
Thomas Talbert > shop. shop.

Shop? Ah, he meant 'stop'.
RoninData > what?
Thomas Talbert > OK.
RoninData > Send to ronindata. You have 1 minute.
RodneyStar > Take your drones off and de-agress.
Thomas Talbert > Please wait a bit

The enemy drones continued to buzz around us.
RodneyStar > Take your drones off now
Hera Darkthorn > Stop firing now, or you will die. We will wait a bit for you to get the isk
flashfresh > Stop firing and scoop up your drones.

The drones were recalled

RodneyStar > Thank you.
RoninData > Thank you.
Thomas Talbert > 100m OK.
RoninData > No.
Thomas Talbert > My ISK such.
Hera Darkthorn > We scanned your ships. We know you are rigged.
Thomas Talbert > I can only put out now 100m.

There's a flurry of chat on our ventrilo server. We needed isk and some wanted to hold on the 150million ransom. Meanwhile, the ravens were slowly dropping into armour.
RoninData > You sure no more?
RoninData > Even 120?
Thomas Talbert > Attacks to me! I do not have that many. I only then 100M
RoninData > OK. 100mil. To ronindata and we will stop
Thomas Talbert > For you ISK! The determination cannot attack to me!
RoninData > Yes, we will not attack you if you pay 100mil isk
Thomas Talbert > For which position?
RoninData > Send 100million isk to RoninData
Thomas Talbert > Now ceases attacking!!
RoninData > OK
RoninData > Done. Now you pay
Thomas Talbert > 40M

Groans on the ventrilo server.
RoninData > NO! 50mil EACH SHIP= 100mil
Thomas Talbert > Waits a bit, I take once more.

Another pause and we continued to keep the raven's shields at 10%
RoninData > You pay RoninData. NOW
Andrew Reeves > You can guarantee to me. Does not fire to me!
RoninData > yes
RoninData > When you pay
RoninData > 100M to RoninData
Thomas Talbert > Already paid you 40 M

RoninData > You are a funny man
Thomas Talbert > 40M
RoninData > we will kill both of you now

We then switched our fire onto Andrew Reeve's raven (beta) and took it down to about 10% when we were told to stop. 40M was received by RoninData.
Andrew Reeves > End of mission
Andrew Reeves > ???
RoninData > hold on. I needed 60M extra. I only have 40M. You hurry up
Thomas Talbert > You do not keep one's word.
RodneyStar > You did not pay the full amount!
RoninData > YOU ONLY PAY ME 40M
RoninData > Check your wallet
Thomas Talbert > I pay you 80 M
Thomas Talbert > ? ? ?? ? ?? ? ? ???? ???? Two times pays your 40M
RoninData > OK the deal is 100mil
Thomas Talbert > Two times pays your 40M

There was a lot of laughter and we prepared to dispatch both ravens and return the money to the stalling raven pilots. It was then when RnProphet interrupted our ventrilo server and quickly told us that he had been the recipient of a mysterious benefactor and his wallet had grown by an extra 40M isk. The penny dropped. In his panic, Thomas Talbert had sent the first part of the ransom to the wrong pilot. A pilot not even in our corporation let alone in our fleet. Fair play to Prophet for jumping in.
RoninData > Ah...you paid RnProphet other 40M
RoninData > So yes, we need 20M extra
Thomas Talbert > Now also misses 20 M
RoninData > Yes
Thomas Talbert > Waiting a bit.
RoninData > No, you pay now.
Thomas Talbert > Yes, 20M
RoninData > 20M to RoninData
Thomas Talbert > OK

The remaining isk appeared in Ronin's wallet.
RoninData > Thank you
Thomas Talbert > Lets off me!!
Thomas Talbert > Lets off me!!
RoninData > Er, I am off you. I am off you.
RoninData > Fly safe.
Thomas Talbert > Thanks.

EVE System > Thomas Talbert was kicked from the channel by RoninData. , Effective until 2009.03.22 02:41:53.
EVE System > Andrew Reeves was kicked from the channel by RoninData. , Effective until 2009.03.22 02:41:58.

RnProphet > You wanna go on a date first sailor?
RoninData > LOL

We continued the evening with attempts to scan down a cerberus and another raven.

"There's a Caldari Navy-issue Raven coming through....."Informed Techzero. "He's slowboating it would appear. Pilot is Dracon44." Not quite believing our luck we scrambled our ships and switched from cruisers to something a bit meatier. I opted for a broadsword as did Techzero since we had to tackle on the gate and ensure that we could hold point long enough to knock down the more advanced shielding systems of the CNR. A raven was tough but the specialised CNR with it's top-range shield systems and elite crews was something else. The CNR chaser fleet was:

Flash - Broadsword
TechZero - Broadsword
RoninData - Typhoon
Nova Blackadder - Brutix
Ard Unjigo - Hurricane
RodneyStar - Hurricane

This fleet was put together in record time and we raced for the CNR's last known position. We caught up with it at Gultratren and locked it just as it flew towards the Ingunn gate. No one managed to scramble it but the pilot should have had a firm idea that we were after him and we were worried that our game was up.

We all arrived in a burst of light around the busy Gusandall gate in Ingunn - haulers of all shapes and sizes queued impatiently as they jostled for the next available slot. We needed to be sure we can catch this prize.

"Ok - HICs I need you to hold off on the points. Techzero - jump into the next system and wait for the CNR if he jumps through. Flash, you stay here and jump with the CNR if he bolts." TZ sent his acknowledgement and jumped into Gusandall. I waited as the remaining four ships opened fire on Dracon44. The automated warning flashed up and the four pirates opened up. I locked Dracon44 just to keep track of the damage. I was unsure whether he had fired back but he was taking an awful pounding and his shields shrank very quickly. Soon he was into armour and RoninData initiated a conversation with Dracon44, a ransom for a CNR would be good isk and much better than the destruction of his modules unless he was flying with rare faction gear.

The CNR went pop a lot more quickly than we all expected; the conversation didn't even get a chance to start before the pod was ejected. It was scrambled and even Techzero and I got our points on the pod. RoninData once more tried a ransom but nothing and since the automated gate guns were still firing on us; we didn't bother to hang around and blew the pod wide open. Some equipment survived the fiery death of the CNR and we scooped it.

Later on, one of our other pilots received a note from Dracon44 who said that we had blue standings and that it was bang out of order that we attacked him. Checking and rechecking; we are 100% sure that his corporation does not have blue standings nor those the individual have any standings with us. It turned out that when he was with M34N corp; ages ago - we indeed, had corporation to corporation blue standings; however since he had left M34N a long time ago and corporation standings don't follow pilots when they leave, all we can say is sorry but check and re-check your standings.

Here's the dropped items from the CNR kill:

Drone Link Augmentor I
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I
Wrath Cruise Missile, Qty: 61
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Ballistic Control System II

Enemy frigates outside our door!

"We have lots of war targets outside." Informed Shae in her cloaked and hidden position above our station. After over a month of official war with GIS and their friends, where we have been successfully attacking their more expensive ships in our much cheaper T1 frigates, the enemy came back to visit us last night in similar T1 frigates. No doubt to entice us to fight and to cut down their losses. Their killboard efficiency isn't too good at the moment.

"Can you ID the ships Shae?" I asked as I quickly scrolled through the available pilots list.

"Er, incursus, incursus, rifter and griff. There's more in local than there are ships."

"So expect some cloakies, probably falcons." I observed. GIS are well known for their love of ECM. A valid tactic by the way and something we need to work on.

"Yup."

"Shouldn't matter; all pilots 'x' up to kick GIS and their frigates." The corporation communication channel, always populated and busy flashed several times and we had a small fleet of eight pilots.

We undocked and then we danced with the GIS frigates who didn't immediately engage us but tried to dock. On several occasions, buzzing us and taunting us with their close fly-bys and then docking up. It could not continue and we eventually popped three of their frigates. Through a combination of poor tactics and sloppiness on their part and good placement of ships by us. This is where the war declaration has helped us as we could engage these chaps without any interference from station guns and CONCORD.

Long live bribery!

We've learnt some more and will adjust our tactics and ships accordingly.

I lost my rifter due to a moment of absent mindedness where I locked and fired on a neutral. The gate guns, detecting an illegal weapon's discharge, dismembered my rifter in very short order. Obviously, we didn't bribe enough people!

During all this, and since we were pirates, we still managed to probe down and tackle a drake. Forcing the pilot to eject from his ship was a bonus but the pilot wasn't in a talkative mood when we offered to sell back his rigged ship.

Finally, the frigate/destroyer fleet - restless for more booty went off on a roam towards Metropolis / Heimater. We managed to ransom a rifter and killed an arbitrator and a falcon. The arbitrator pilot was very unhappy with us as we tried to first ransom his cruiser and then when his ship popped, we tackled his pod. He wasn't too happy with us.

Cooch took over the fleet as I had to dock up - there was a very odd bug where my global criminal countdown kept on resetting back to 15 minutes every five minutes. This went on for over forty minutes! Very odd and quite disturbing. The arbitrator pilot, just before he popped, threatened that his friends would find me and deal with me. Maybe this was what he had in mind?

Crime does pay
Finally crime does pay as the list below shows you the pay-out from yet another batch of loot that we have sold.

**** 106,010,958.01
**** 11,105,295.58
**** 69,740,264.89
**** 21,870,671.50
**** 19,612,745.53
**** 9,931,825.00
**** 23,492,253.50
flashfresh 26,791,258.38
**** 60,780,529.25
**** 99,981,083.50
**** 257,043,220.38
**** 45,905,777.00
**** 67,048,803.00
**** 34,709,465.75
**** 2,928,337.04
**** 24,085,517.52
**** 31,507,797.67
**** 111,800,468.37
**** 27,544,864.15
**** 55,779,574.33
**** 58,828,362.91
**** 21,963,471.13
**** 10,481,149.30
**** 2,743,399.30
**** 460,331.98
**** 80,226,163.64
**** 21,538,028.42
**** 16,092,014.48
**** 1,593,181.82
**** 154,550,897.47
**** 83,056,499.50
**** 20,580,517.82
**** 47,697,812.10
**** 11,284,585.71
**** 24,271,850.71
**** 60,041,643.82

Total sales were around 1.7 billion isk and there's another load of gear being repaired, repackaged and loaded up.

One of the strengths of our pirate corp is the equitable split in all loot collected. We've developed an application that takes all kills and loot and hyperlinks them to each pilot involved, the killboard and the item values from EVE-Central. In one place, everyone can see the value of the loot drop per kill, the pilots involved as well as total value.

A very slick, almost automated loot management and isk distributing system, developed by pirates for pirates. Something that we, The Bastards are very proud of. Here's an example from the application.



The Recruitment -'Recruitment for The Bastards is now closed'.
New recruits are fitting in quite nicely but we still have a number in the queue being evaluated - it's a long process and unfortunately, mistakes during the evaluation period might result in the application being rejected. It's a bit harsh but we can't afford for someone to be a paper weight.

January to March 2009 Recruitment Intake Details

Total Applicants: 29

Instant rejection due to failing to complete form as directed: 2
Rejection due to failing basic security, AGE and API checks: 2
Rejection due to failed interview (ex. no vent): 1
Rejected due to inexperience in piracy: 4
Rejected due to other reasons: 12

Still in progress: 5 (to be completed by middle of Mar 2009)
Passed and accepted on a three-month probationary period: 3
Those in the queue and ready for next recruitment cycle: 2

Thrashed and do you know Cooch?

The Bastards have been taking part in an official war now against a nominally, anti-pirate corporation and their alliance friends for over a month now. We actually declared war on two corporations and are planning on increasing the number of declarations to encompass more of their friends. War declarations do cost a lot of isk and we don't like to waste it. So for now, we avoided declaring war on their alliance lackeys.

Why do pirates need to declare a war and have it recognised by Concord? Well, it is to allow us the chance to shoot said war-target on gates and stations without the interference from the cops. Yes, a war declaration is known in some circles as a bribe.

We give donuts to the cops to look away as we fire on legally recognised enemies.

However, since the war targets hang around with friends, most who are not our war targets (though we try to kill them as well) this has presented some interesting challenges for us. We have plans to deal with this as well. Meanwhile, some of us are racing out and dealing death and destruction to the war targets.

Rather than regale you with the tales, let me refer you kind reader to a video that General Coochie has put together of his (usually) solo actions. You will not be disappointed.

Not wanting to miss out the fun, we decided on the night before the big Aurora systems upgrade - we would try our luck and bum rush into the system where we knew there would be war targets. A mixed fleet of 16 ships, split into three squads made ready. It was a motley crew of t1 frigates, destroyers and ECM cruiser hulls.

We wanted fun and had Hera and RoninData ahead of us. As they entered the constellation, Hera informed us excitedly, "Maelstrom-class battle ship on scan." RoninData in his cheetah was already in system and started seeding probes around the nearest celestial object where the Maelstrom was last seen.

Banter was fast and furious on the corporation ventrilo server and finally, after a five minutes, RoninData announced a hit and started warping there. Hera gleefully asked to go in for the tackle. The rest of the fleet started to move and blasted past the rather lacklustre gate camp manned by some confused war targets.

Killing the maelstrom was easy, as was his coercer and thorax escorts. Loot was nice and some enterprising pirates also salvaged the ship wreck.

The night continued with a fun chase of a jaguar next door and ending with the fleet parking itself on the undock point of the war targets home base. We melted a deimos and then bugged out to check our loot.

Alia and Shae have both recounted the night's actions wonderfully well and much better than what I can do.

So is this war declaration and war actually working? Well our goal is simply to kill them without concord interference. We have no desire for their area of space or the moons or anything. So let's examine our two opponents:

Gemeinschaft Interstellarer Soldner
Com-Star

Their friends include:

Cloud 7 Nebulosa alliance (made up of nine corporations)
Free Doom Fighters (13 man corp)

To name only two.

There is also a lot of unaligned, pilots that we have seen, flying with them. They're either in other corporations (our list is growing) or they're ex-members gone back to the starter corporations.

The above named corporations can field some impressive numbers and COM-S are good fighters. As a whole, they have killed more of our ships then we have of them. They can bring capital ships and everything else, so a straight up slug fest will end up with us being killed for a heavy loss. This is something we have learnt. Our bigger ship losses were before the war declaration earlier this year; before we even realised that GIS and friends were moving in and trying to (and succeeding) in setting up a base that sits on one of our roaming routes.

Once we started the war declaration a month ago, we tightened up on our operations and changed our tactics.

Our campaign now....

Not bad, we have ended up with 59 kills to our 17 losses since the war declaration with a nice isk efficiency. However, we do have some distance to go to clean up the overall total head-to-head losses versus GIS and friends. We made some knuckle-headed moves in the past and we have since learnt our lesson. Now we usually pick our fights and engage them 1 v 1 or 1 v 3 with us mainly flying our t1 frigate hulls. As you can see, our T1 ships are more than a match for their T2 hull. Once again, I refer you to the excellent video that Coochie has put together, and if you're a fan of the incursus, then you are in for a treat.

Examples:

• Priest in his incursus versus a stiletto.
• Coochie (the master of disaster) in his atron versus a crow.
• Rodney in his rifter versus an enemy raptor.
• Coochie (again) in his incursus versus a raptor.

Even with their falcon support and falcon alts. They do like their falcons and here's some evidence of this on their very own killboards: most used ship in combat? The Falcon.

Now to compare, one can check the GIS Campaign against us. Slightly different statistics, partly due to the differing isk values different killboards assign to ship kills and modules. Their KB shows 42 kills against us while sustaining only 25 losses. This discrepancy can be explained due to the different dates the campaigns began and the inclusion and exclusion of corporations. Our campaign statistics includes Com-S and their non-war declared friendly corporations and alliances but does not (yet) include any losses incurred by our sister corporation, The Hellcats while the GIS board includes The Hellcats but excludes Com-S and others. So all boards need to be referred to by all pilots to get a fuller, more accurate picture. There is no hint on either side of silly killboard manipulations.

Remember I said that these chaps can bring the numbers if you give them the chance? Check this bit out here.

33 v 5 - with Ms Pwnage being killed before the main fight at the station. To be fair, the remaining four losses were part of a bigger 7-8 VHI gang that got themselves pinned to the gate. Some of the VHI chaps managed to extract themselves and jump out. Still, I am impressed by their numbers that GIS and friends can put up.

Also, here's another... 37 v 5; not bad numbers!

So, if you give them a chance - they'll bring almost over whelming numbers, including falcons by the bucket load and avalanche you with the lot of them. It's their way of fighting so everyone best get used to it, there's no need to whine. For capsuleers New Eden is all about finding your own destiny and this is one viable method of fighting. Honourable one-versus-one duels do exist but this is a war. One just a need to adjust tactics to the right situation and success will follow.

We have renewed the war declaration, that should be enough doughnuts to keep the cops happy while we continue on our way.

My Glasses and Shae...

Just wanted to give a shout out to Shae and her real life artistic talents. This image of me has been blogged but I wanted to inform people that she started this drawing using pencil then scanned it before finishing it digitally. Am hoping she can do more of me and The Bastards and Hellcats, on a commission of course (!) - as I would be honoured to have it done. What's your rate Shae?

She's a talented young lady is our Shae and we're lucky she's flying with us and Mynxee is even luckier to have her as a reliable pirate in her all-Female pirate corp, The Hellcats.

Love ya Shae.

XXX


The above drawing is copyrighted by Shae and no reproduction without her express permission is allowed...unless it's in a cool blog with pretty pictures.