Carrier kill and other bits.

After cleaning up some of the newer applications I linked into the corporation chat and it was nice to see over 20 corp members and another 6 in our semi-public chat channels. Immediately, I was bombarded by fleet invitations.

"Guys, guys - what is going on?" I asked.

"Carrier outside a POS shield. I need a webber here asap!" Replied RoninData, obviously doing his ninja-type skulking around.

"We need a remote repping battle ship fleet NOW." Demanded Hera as he busily got himself ready.

"Get a fleet up. All pilots, acknowledge."

"RoninData, ready. "

"Randgris, ready."

"Jax, ready."

"3Jayne, ready."

"Pix, ready." In all, the fleet had seventeen pilots and within two minutes, the rag-tag fleet raced to Helgatid in a near approximation to a remote armour repair gang as could be done in the time limit available. Gorgoleon was the first battle ship to arrive and double-webbed and pointed the chimera class carrier. I was next but had no point, instead I was concentrating on repairing the armour on my fellow fleet mates.

The chimera was slowed to a crawl but then fighters and drones were launched, screaming into space. The POS had two gunners who controlled the plethora of guns, webbers, neutralisers, scramblers and missile batteries to keep us busy.

"Bump him. Bump him!" Shouted Hera, taking lead as the larger ships attempted to get into position. We knew that the chimera had an immense shield tank and only by attacking the capacitor supply would we be triumphant. However, most of the cap was being used to power our remote repairers and energy transfers. It was a fine balance and we were found wanting. The chimera pilot was slowly crawling, like a glacier towards the safety of his POS shields. More corp members logged on and were pulled in to assist. Silv came in, twice with his hauler with much needed cap boosters before a gate camp prevented his third trip. Silv informed us that in the neighbouring system, Electus Matari were camping the gates and their numbers had been going up since we had tackled the chimera. They had not yet made their move but it wasn't clear if they were friendly to the chimera pilot or not.

However, our DPS was too low to worry the carrier, initially. The chimera was smart bombing our main source of DPS, the drones from the two dominix class ships. We needed dreads or our own carriers but we didn't have any available. All we could do was to keep the chimera webbed and occupied long enough to think of something else. Meanwhile, the POS operators cycled their webbers, neutralisers and ECM on all of us.

"Randgris needs armour."

"Maltrox needs cap."

"Gorg needs armour and cap."

So it went on for a good fifteen minutes. Silv's timely appearance in his hauler allowed us to keep up the pressure but we needed more energy neutralisers and / or damage. We desperately called out for more help. If the POS was unmanned - it would have been easier but the POS gunners did an effective job on us. At times, we had our ships warping out to repair and or jammed into ineffectiveness. Our logistics cruiser was almost 100% jammed or neutralised to the point of uselessness.

Finally, our frantic calls for assistance was answered with Herdzo coming in with his carrier and we even pulled in a complete neutral - not even an alt of any of the pilots; who brought in his thanatos to assist. With a carrier full of cap boosters we could finally get on top of the fight. Our own fleet fighters screamed out and all our heavy neutralisers could be permanently run. The Chimera's shield shrank very quickly and once it had dropped below 10%, it was good night and pack up your stuff.

Meanwhile, the number of reds next door continued to rise - they already outnumbered us and we were getting a bit nervous. However, our ships started to align as the chimera began to drop into structure.

"Contact. Contact. Contact." Said someone in fleet - the Electus Matari fleet, finally arrived and dropped six carriers on us. Their long period of sitting in the next system (almost 30 minutes) was probably them organising their own capital ships. They were too late to save the chimera (if indeed they were) and most of the The Bastards got out; we lost a dominix battle ship in the ensuing scramble. The neutral carrier was warp scrambled by the POS tower and was doomed. I don't even know the name of the thanatos pilot at the time (found out it is Maruk Ihnati) but we thank him from the bottom of our (black) hearts for his assistance. After the fight, we chatted to him and he sounded mellow and calm. He wasn't too bothered and was looking forward to a new carrier. I don't think it was even insured...

Here's the kill mail linky.

Great job on the work, considering that The Bastards had mothballed their remote repping fleet setups during the run up to the alliance tourney, we did okay. Need more damage and better organisation but it was good nonetheless. Additional screenshot courtesy of z0de.