Skyward Sphere and Solo Tackling on Gates

Is that a hamster?

This is very cool: http://www.ccpgames.com/skywardsphere and well done CCP!

Roam and solo-tackling on gates

Last night we had a little fleet going and just one jump out of Evati, we tangled with Eve Uni. They had ranged out from their low-sec campus in Dudreda and it was too tempting to pass up. The Unistas were smart, hanging around the gates and not initiating any aggression. So they left that last bit to us. We raced in and tried to grab as many of them as possible. However, they all managed to not fire back and jump through. Well, not all of them - one made the mistake of shooting z0de (who wouldn't want to shoot z0de? - joke) and he was promptly tackled, webbed and pummeled into flaming scrap. We lost no-one but had the gate guns hammering away at us. Tsk tsk.

We then turned round and killed an Unista Osprey again on the gate and under sentry gun fire. Yes, we're bullies but what the hell and besides, sentry guns hurt and the global criminal countdown is ANNOYING AS HELL. 

Then it was off towards Kane Rizzel's home in Gusandall and Eifer. We noticed a battle cruiser gang there of x3 hurricanes and x1 harbinger. Cpt Nessaja, an old hand at piracy was also around and we greeted the wily bastard. There were others but z0de volunteered to go in ahead and bait them but we failed to get to z0de when hostilities started and z0de died and we caught nothing. Pity.

We then switched over to a frigate gang and continued racing around low-sec, we shipped down from battle cruisers as we wanted a change. Love the frigate, still nothing like 'em for the cost and versatility. I was in a rifter (of course) and there were a few other rifters, a punisher and Dil'e taranis of doom. I have to say that Dil'e had no fear tackling non-criminals at gates in the speedy little ship; incurring the wrath of the sentry guns and surviving is no easy feat. Guys have balls of steel.

We love pew-pew

An honorable mention to Johnny Twelvebore in his punisher: the infamous 'bleeder' set-up. He too tackled people on gates and suffered sentry fire...and survived. Of course, Johnny's confidence got the better of him and he decided to solo tackle a drake. Or was he himself tackled by a drake at a station? Either way, the plucky little ship exploded in a spectacular fashion.

We also managed to kill an afk kestrel sitting on a gate in low-sec - even podding the poor fool too. It was a target too tempting to pass up!

The night ended with the pirates heading home; not too much loot but plenty of fun was had. Layla and Aaron were both caught and killed by some Sansha ships as part of their incursions: those guys are nasty.

70s roam and some outstanding Haikus

Just realised that I lost my 90s roam post from last week! Sad Panda but all I can say is that Pearl Jam rocks. The Bastards requested that we do a frigate based roam, get some ransoms and kills and then blow up horribly from a smart bombing battle ship. All these elements were present in the roam last night varying degrees.

Flash - what could have been..

So, it was 70s night. A much under-rated decade in my view: not into the fashion myself but the music rocked!

I believe big hair, bell bottomed trousers and floral patterns on shirts were the order of the day?

I put together a Youtube play-list, fired it up and then undocked in my Jaguar.





Here's the playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=67F56A02AE76126F


1. Disco Inferno - Trammps
2. Brick House - Commodores
3. Y.M.C.A - Village People
4. September - Earth, Wind and Fire
5. Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees
6. You're My First, My Last, My Everything - Barry White
7. Last Dance - Donna Summer
8. Flash Light - Parliament
9. War - Edwin Starr
10. Play that Funky Music - Wild Cherry
11. Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglas
12. Don't Fear The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

Other pilots had the their own and I will be collecting these into a compilation album.

Anyway, in frigates it meant we could cover a lot of ground quickly. We had scouts in all the neighbouring systems, including the jam packed area towards LXQ2-T where the Northern Coalition (NC) was assaulting the drone regions; packing the local star systems with their capsuleer swarm.

One of our scouts spotted a ship and shouted out:

"Rattlesnake! Rattlesnake on scan!" We thought he was on the happy juice so asked for him to confirm. The scout was 100% sure and started dropping probes to get closer. Our frigate fleet was scattered between five different systems all trying to sniff out a target but we all raced towards the penultimate destination. The Rattlesnake (a wonderful variant of the feared Scorpion battle ship) was running a mission of some description, it was possible that only ships equipped with after burners would function properly so checking the fleet disposition, there was only one ship that had a long point AND an afterburner. He was picked as the main tackler and he made himself ready.

Probes were now squirting back the information to our prober who fine tuned and narrowed down the location until he could get a warp in. The minutes are agonisingly slow with time sliding slowly past you as if it is in treacle.

"Hit. Hit." The prober warped in, cloaked and sneaky while the rest of us waited, impatiently.

"Got him. I am nine kilometres away. Warp to me now." The tackler took this as his cue and raced in, points all ready. I then sent in two more with webbers and scramblers just to be sure. The remaining pack of frigates clustered around the gate.

"Point." Said the first tackler.

"Point and web." Said the second. We had it. I ordered the rest of the fleet through and we warped, en mass towards the rattlesnake. He was being hit hard by us but the local Blood Raiders (what were they doing here I wondered?) were also taking a chunk out of him.

We wanted a ransom and I appointed Arrhidaeus as the ransom taker. He pulled the rattlesnake pilot into our dedicated ransom channel and started negotiations with the ransom set for 900 million isk; a nice sum for sure.

The shields on the rattlesnake dropped alarmingly and we also realised that this feared ship was fielding tech 1 drones. Not too scary.

As the negotiations were progressing, the rattlesnake dropped down into armour and I ordered us to start firing on the Blood Raiders who were swarming all over the rattlesnake and ourselves.

I kept an eye on the ransom channel and it wasn't going as expected: the pilot actually wanted to die so he could 'see a pretty explosion'. Quite odd but we obliged and popped his rattlesnake unfortunately, we also popped his pod as well.

A few minutes later as we were aligning to get out: Arrhidaeus caught a thrasher pilot and killed the ship. We grabbed the pilot and demanded a haiku in order to save him from a pod kill. He was too poor to pay us and we had no desire to kill him without some sort of payment (the rattlesnake pod kill was the result of an itchy trigger finger by Red Vegas). So Veliric stepped up and delivered the following:

Pirates are great,

they will decide my fate,

I hope this is not to late.

OK - it doesn't strictly follow the haiku path but a damn good try nonetheless. Everyone in the fleet decided that this was an excellent attempt. We cheered and applauded loudly. We let the pilot go after the haiku delivery and recorded this onto our ransomboard.

Meanwhile, our presence in Eifer was noted by a few people and we noticed combat scan probes appearing. They were quite far away and we weren't bothered by it - the chap probing for us wasn't doing a  very good job.

However, a megathron soon appeared and Arrhidaeus excitedly pointed it. No fire was coming from the megathron and only a few desultory looking drones ambled out. The rest of the fleet warped in and we started to apply points. Wary of any smart bombs we maintained orbit but surely someone using drones wouldn't be stupid enough to have drones out as well?

Edwin Starr is a Brutor

With Edwin Starr's 'War!' playing out loud and proud ( a hit by Edwin Starr for the anti-Vietnam war song and a number one hit in 1970 in the USA). We detected two approaching ships and seconds later, dropping out of warp was a drake and a taranis from the same corp as the megathron. They all arrived approximately 50Km from the megathron, no doubt to get a view of the fight.

They then turned tail and ran, a wise decision considering they were facing over a dozen frigates.

No weapons' fire was detected from the megathron so we suspected strongly that it was smart bomb fitted (or had no ammo!). Arrhidaeus, unfortunately got too close and proved our suspicions. We maintained our wide orbit as only poor Arrhi was caught in the blast. We tried to ransom the battle ship but the pilot was having none of it and we sliced the megathron to pieces. The megathron pilot whipped his pod out as we circled around the wreck.

We tried to get his other friends to engage but it wasn't possible. Meanwhile, another one of our scouts had reported a mission running hurricane and a small cruiser gang roaming. We turned and raced towards our target. We passed a few juicy looking ships but they were all near the star gates and in frigates, tackling them would be a bad idea: the sentry guns would completely shred us.

Sard Caid was busy with friends in Atlar and was wise to our presence and waved to us when we joined in (the cad!).

However, while the fleet scattered to grab a mission running hurricane; my, Tibbs and Arrhidaeus managed to grab a rupture pilot. We demanded a haiku as payment for his release. After trying to figure out what a haiku was he offered this up:

Akala Rocker>>

Pirates have my ship

I call but no Concord comes

Please don't kill my ship

Not bad an attempt, we recorded it on our ransomboard (we thought it was worth 20M isk easy) and we let the chap go.

The 70s tunes were throbbing and grooving and it was a great night - so good that we had to run the frigates into the first camp we could see and attack it. I mean, the night had to end in fireworks - either an adversary or our own. Here's the result when frigates meet battle cruisers.

An excellent night and some damn fine tunes from The Bastards.

Road trip coming up with great tunes no doubt.

Bushkashi, Shield Gank Hurricanes and dead cows

Busy week with a hilarious roam into Etherium Reach in one of our typical shield tanked battle-cruiser fleets and Rae killing a CYNABAL in his rifter. A kill of the year so far with interesting comments in BattleClinic too.

One of our pilots was celebrating her birthday and it was decided that something special was to be planned.

Since The Bastards Forum post described the event better than I ever can, I shameless plagarise this from Persephone Astrid..

What: A brutal sporting event followed by a frigate roam.

When: Friday 5 March 2010, 2100 EVE time

Where: Evati

Who: All Bastards members and Bastards recruits.

Why: Because you only become officially old once.

How: First we play bushkashi, then we go on a roam.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 1, Bushkazi Battle: Bushkazi is an ancient game from Afghanistan or thereabouts. In it, the torso of a sheep is used as a ball. Teams of mounted horsemen compete to grab the dead sheep torso and drag it around a pole driven into the sand, and then back into a winner's circle at the other end of the field. While this is going on, the other horsemen may do whatever it takes to stop this happening and to score the goal for themselves. Typically the riders carry whips in their teeth and wear armor. The game is notoriously brutal and serious injury is common.

Since we lack horses, sheep, and whips, the rules will be slightly modified for New Eden...

Teams will consist of T1 frigates fitted with T1 modules, T1 ammo and drones, and T1 rigs. The goal will be to snag a cargo container full of livestock using tractor beams, drag it around a marker some distance away, and then drag it back to the starting line. Players may do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal, including destroying the ships of the other players. If the container of livestock is destroyed, play stops, the pilots cease fire and return to the starting line, and a new container of livestock will be placed on the field. If the container of livestock is destroyed five times, nobody wins.*

No faction, wormhole, officer, T2, or other pricey stuff will be allowed. ECM modules are not allowed, but other EWAR is allowed. Cloaks are not allowed.

Teams will consist of no more than three pilots, and all the teams will compete at the same time. Sign your team up in this thread. Those who cannot get onto a team will be put together into pickup teams by the event organizer on the day of the event. If a pickup team has only two pilots, then one member of that team may choose to fly a destroyer instead of a frigate. If a player has no teammates at all, they may choose to fly a T1 cruiser instead of a frigate.

Each member of the winning team will receive a victor's trophy. Every participant will receive a celebratory gift for attending.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Well, what can I say? I was in a team with TheHermit and Kai. We huddled together around a table and supped beer and leaned in closer to discuss our plans. Kai had an idea.

"Right this is what we're going to do. Flash - you burn ass close to the livestock can, grab the livestock and swap it with a pint of milk. Keep the cows in your cargohold but tractor the now livestock-less cargo can. Try and finish the circuit. Once you're getting close to the finish line, cut the tractor beam and let the cargo can drift. This should cause some confusion."

TheHermit, grinning from ear to ear pitched in.

"We'll be running interference of course and Kai has parked a number of ships in an off-grid safe so he can ship up quickly. No need to dock up you see."

I nodded to myself considering the plan so far and actually liked it. "That is quite...sneaky."

Kai continued. "Anyway, once you're close to the finish line just jettison the cows in a new cargo can, tractor it and bring it over the finish line. There and we've won the first round. Done and dusted." Kai sat back with a measure of smugness.

I took a deep pull on the beer and felt a belch coming along.

"Okay, what are you two going to do?"

"Run interference and blow the crap out of the others."

"Or jam them solid." Added TheHermit.

I sat back, belched and nodded. It was a good plan and what could go wrong?

"I like it. Let's do it."

When the event kicked off, an hour late (a Bastards tradition, starting late that is) - we were all assembled. There were a total of three teams: two teams of three ships and one team of two. The duo had a destroyer making up for the lower number. Persephone had the role of MC and Referee and got us all the starting line.

We waited, the tension was there.

Then we were off!

I gunned the micro warp drive and sped towards the can. My two team mates proceeded to lock up available targets but it appeared that JManZA in his thrasher (he was in the team of two) had attracted the most attention. I was so far, unmolested and arrived at the can. I quickly yanked out the mooing cows and carefully place a pint of milk in their stead. I closed up the can, switched on the tractor beam and started to move towards the middle stake. Already, ships were exploding and capsules zipping past me as they raced for home and for a new ship. As I approached the second can, I realised that I had lost the can. I had got out of range and someone else was pulling it back towards the middle!

I gunned the ship around the stake and was racing home.

Meanwhile, I could hear a lot of cursing and confusion as someone discovered that the bushkazi can contained not live bovine stock but a pint of milk instead. This was my cue to jettison out the cows in my cargohold into a new cargo hold and tractor beam them the remaining 2KMs back over the line.

I announced that we had succeeded. There was much hooting and cheering. Both TheHermit and Kai were also still in their ships. We had won.

Persephone wasn't too sure. Nor were the opposition. Persephone, on hearing that we had crossed the line ordered a ceasefire. However, one of the team, 'claimed' that they didn't hear the ceasefire command and proceeded to blow me and TheHermit up. Not nice. Anyway, I was still floating around in my capsule when Persephone's Navy comet came up and checked the can and yes, indeed - there were cows in there. A bit bashed about, they had crapped everywhere and were mooing and stomping around but they were indeed the milk producing bovine livestock we recognised.

Persephone smelt a rat (or a cow pat) and reviewed the video logs. Our hysterical laughing and snide remarks didn't help either.

It was finally decided that we had someone cheated and that we deserved to get blown up.

We started again, but unknown to anyone, z0de (a member of the 'other' team of three) had discovered Kai's off-grid safe and his stash of ships. He jumped into the ships and then offlined all the modules. Sneaky bastard. When Kai lost his ship, around the beginning of round 2, he zipped back to his safe and discovered his ship was inoperable. Much hilarity ensued.

The second round was eventually won by Arri who's team had successfully blown up me, TheHermit and Kai in quick succession.

The event was over after a frantic 30 minutes of ships colliding into each other, livestock spilling out into space and laughter drowning out any sane conversation in the ventrilo server.

However, more was to come - we all agreed it was a superb event but Persephone wanted to take a frigate gang on a suicide roam and what did they get? They killed a loki with their rag-tag fleet, ah birthday roams - best roams.

Frigate roam and the need for faster points.

Getting back into the saddle is important for all pirates and last night I took out a small frigate gang for a wonder. Pickings were slim that night, with Jmarr snagging a thrasher in his incursus (great kill there mate!) with Persephone in support and us losing Maltrox's rifter to an alpha-striking absolution on a gate.

We did discover a strategic cruiser running a mission and we duly dropped probes for it but the pilot was alert and spotting the probes, exited the mission area and cloaked up. The system he was in had no stations so our conclusions were sound. Not wanting to waste time we moved quickly through - the roam was only going to be for a couple of hours and mid-way through; we had a change in personnel. We lost two and gained through - all pilots slotting into allocated positions smoothly.

A disappointment was not pointing a flashy zealot on a gate. I jumped last, to ensure that we had everyone through and when I got my bearings, there was a flashy (i.e. criminal) zealot. No-one had shouted 'POINT!' and as I ordered some pilots to point it, the zealot accelerated away and warped. We chased after it and lost it. In these circumstances, pilot's initiative should have kicked in and points and webs slapped onto the zealot as soon as we all appeared. Granted am only talking less than seven seconds but instincts should have been sharper if we are to capitalise on these opportunities. So sad panda.


Am running more T1 gangs at the moment to assist the newer pilots into integrating with each other's fleets. I am also using it as an opportunity to evaluate them under moderately high-pressure conditions. We have a three-month probation period after a recruit has been accepted. During these three months they will be accessed by their peers and a decision made on their continued inclusion by a majority vote.

The month of October has seen us hit over 1B isk in ransoms already. This time without the benefit of a single Kronos ransom for 500M isk. Well done chaps, well done. Also, loot sale and split is due to distribution to the interested parties - I have sold about 3.6B isk of loot in the last eight weeks and will be splitting them up between all the pirates. Due to a couple of weeks where I was away from the game, this transaction is now running later than I would like it.

Recruitment is going very well and I have been lax in keeping recruitment statistics up to date on the forum. My recruitment officers have been doing a fine job, I do miss the fun of working with applicants, or rejecting them out of hand (!) and I trust that my guys are doing a fine job. So I just want to thank them. Also, I have not done a pirate speed-linking or participated in a blog banter in a while. CK my friend, I am sorry! However, barring any other international humanitarian disaster - I should be slowly getting back on top of these little, but vital functions.

Finally, I have just got a replacement lachesis. I love this ship, who wouldn't love the ability to point something over 50KM away? Very tempted to get some more faction scramblers and disruptors on this puppy and I would be interested in seeing some ship setups if some of my readers care to share?

Frigate roam

Everyone loves frigates and there has been much discussion within our ranks of going back out using these small, nimble and cheap ships for maximum mayhem and damage. I never left them but we've had an influx of new pilots join our ranks and the ship mixes in the fleets have been a bit too haphazard for my liking so the 'senior management' have decided on trying to fix this.

Using the frigate as an example, we decided to maximise its strengths of speed, tackling ability and cheapness with a scattering of frigate based ECM. Quite straight-forward in anyone's books but it was useful just to go back to basics. The aim was also just to get some of the newer pilots used to flying with us. A date was marked in the calendar and we started talking internally on what would be the ideal fleet setup(s). Operation D-Day was the 13th October, 19:30 EVE Standard Time.

A quick roll-call and we set-up a fleet with an emphasis on speed, DPS, tackle and cheapness. We're pirates and need to maximise our isk flow; most of us don't have the luxury of GTC selling or alt mission running.

The fleet was as follows:

Thrasher
Thrasher
Catalyst
Incursus
Incursus
Incursus
Incursus
Rifter
Rifter
Griffin
Griffin

Taranis*
Stabber**

The taranis and stabber were the odd ones but they proved to be excellent additions. However, the operation didn't kick off as swiftly as I would have liked but no matter. With a route in mind, the fleet roared out of undock, startling the dozens or so of sleepy haulers lumbering out of the station. With two scouts racing ahead we tried to zip through systems as quickly as able but one jump from Evati we were already rumbled. Under the various Minmatar republic intelligence channels, our fleet was announced system-wide.

We ignored it and led by our scouts we soon made good progress.

It was Platinum who called a pause in the movement.

"I have a blinky brutix here. It is a Mean Coalition ship. Locking him." Platinum was in his taranis, he had no other frigate hulls available and opted to go expensive with the taranis, a close-range face melter. The brutix didn't immediately fire on the taranis and Platinum wisely didn't engage it - doing so would have given the Brutix time to activate the star gate and jump through. Excess energy from any weapons discharge would take at least 30 seconds or so to entirely dissipate before the star gate can safely engage its own drives. Such are the mechanics and rules of conflict around star gates.

Anyway, the Mean pilot, Kashmyta, like many of her colleagues are far from stupid. They are skilled operators having years of experience in low-sec. He didn't immediately engage but warped to another gate. Platinum followed but was joined by Coochie and Maltrox. The latter coming in from our home base in his stabber.

"Maltrox - engage the brutix and force him to jump." I said, still with the rest of the frigate fleet two jumps out.

"Roger." The communications channel went hazy as Maltrox spun up his auto-canons. "Engaging."

"Coochie here. Engaging as well." Coochie was in his incursus, a ship he had perfected into a T1 killing machine. I moved the fleet closer.

"Frigate fleet jump into Sotrenzur, warp to the Ingunn gate and hold." I repeated the order two more times to ensure it was understood. "Execute, execute, execute."

The frigate and destroyer fleet whipped into warp space and raced towards the gate, meanwhile Coochie was giving us a running count-down and the Brutix had eventually decided to fire back. He had drawn aggression and until he stopped firing, he could not activate the gate. He was also pointed. Cue Platinum to join-in.

We held and waited but only for a few minutes as an intelligence source informed me that Mean corp had mobilised and dispatched a dominix class battleship to assist the beleaguered Brutix. It was only seconds from activating the gate.

"Frigate fleet: jump, jump, jump." With a flash, our fleet disappeared from normal space and were thrown millions of kilometers to the Ingunn solar system. We raced towards the engagement, our ships dropping out of warp, together like a deadly swarm. The Brutix was held tightly and attempting to fend off the other three ships; now joined by a dozen more.

"Primary is Brutix. Primary is Brutix. Watch out for his drones."

The rest of the fleet responded and poured fire onto the battle cruiser. The star gate flashed and I checked local. Right on cue: there was a pilot from the same alliance as Kahmyta. It was Serenator and my intelligence source was correct, dominix-class battle ship.

"Primary is Brutix. Secondary is Dominix." Like a well-oiled machine, the fleet re-adjusted itself to confront this new threat. There was a blinding series of flashes and Jellyworm cried out:

"Smart bombs! The domi has smart bombs!" These weapons are deadly to anything smaller than a destroyer and it was a mild 'surprise' that this ship came in one of the few weapons systems to really hurt us. However, the smart bombs went off too soon and didn't catch anyone.

"Fleet: orbit the domi at 9KM and maintain point and focus on primary and secondary." The brutix eventually caught fire and was badly hulled. At this time, we lost a frigate and our DPS dipped slightly.

"Drones are on me. Bugging out!" Said Platinum, his taranis spurting fuel and atmosphere as he turned and raced to safety.

"Watch out for the domi's drones!" I said to no-one in particular. The brutix was entering structure and I ordered Cpn Planet to drop his point on the hull and prepare to snag the pod. He was in an incursus and shouldn't have any problems.

I was buffeted by the sudden appearance of an armageddon, flown by 'General LaoTse'. He wasn't aligned to Mean Coalition so we kept a wary eye on him. He jumped through, no doubt calculating on the odds of his survival if he engaged. Oddly, Mean didn't scramble anyone else to assist, their HQ was only 2-3 jumps and we knew they had ships out and about. Maybe the Domi pilot didn't feel like calling for help? Either way, our DPS wasn't high enough to my liking though the Domi was dropping through structure.

The brutix finally exploded in a bright flash and Cpn Planet attempted to snag the pod but Kashmyta knew her stuff and her pod slipped into warp in a blink of an eye. The Domi was aligning to the gate, it may have been her attention to race for the gate - who knows? There was the flash of incoming gate fire and we were engaged by a Mean Coalition maller-class cruiser; it's distinctive slab sided, 'long-chin' appearance already flashing with impacts from our own ordnance.

"Primary is Dominix, secondary is maller." I said as I increased my orbit to get out from potential neut range and put some distance between me and the new hostile. We lost another frigate and a destroyer by the time the dominix finally exploded. However, a thorax had dropped in, the armageddon from a few minutes ago (found a pair finally) and a phobos flown by my good friend, Muhaar. The fact that he immediately locked me didn't distract me from waving at him.

The thorax and 'geddon were friendly with each other and no doubt with the Mean Coalition but seeing the odds and that we've had our pound of flesh, I ordered a withdrawal and everyone smoothly disengaged. I was already on fire from multiple hits and couldn't hold the ship together and popped as I entered warp. No matter; we had done well in this engagement though disappointingly, we didn't pick up any of the dropped loot!

Bah.

Altogether, a successful engagement with some worthy adversaries.

The fleet was on its way back much buoyed up due to the fight. We had some pilots leave and new ones join the fleet for part 2: a roam into null sec. We came close to hi-jacking a mining operation inside a null-sec system but were a fraction too late to point anyone. We did lose two frigates to an enterprising destroyer pilot.

Part 3 was a run down to Amamake, FC'ed by Cooch and a fourth roam had z0de as FC. I had, by this time already retired from the field. Still, great to be back with a fine bunch of lads and lasses.