New Logo - me like

I like our new in-game logo very much and feels the more like the 'proper' one that adorns our kill board, ransom board and forum.

Remote Repping BS fun

z0de has always been a fan of the remote repping battle-ship gang and last night he got his wish. As per typical Bastard procedures, the roaming-operation was posted on the forums asking for pilots and their ships. Many signed up and on the night, many more joined in. Another typical Bastard characteristic is not starting on time - I have tried hard to fix this but it is a struggle. The op was slated to kick off 20:00 but we didn't roll until 20:37, credit to z0de for not losing his rag but the fleet rumbled out of the space dock in Evati and into a deep safe. In this location we went through the finer points of such fleets and how to fly them. It included watch lists, broadcast history and standard operating procedures when approaching gates, decloaking etc. The strength of any 'RR' fleet is that each ship should be able to tank damage long enough until their companions slap one or two remote armour repair systems onto the damaged ship. A ship receiving eight to nine such devices can tank a lot of damage almost indefinitely. Certainly, the fleet could sit quite happily under sentry guns for as long as required. Following us, we had a cloaking hauler to carry extra ammunition and cap boosters as well as picking up extra loot.

The fleet ended up being:

z0de | RR Dominix

JediJane | RR Dominix

Jmarr | RR Armageddon

Flashfresh | RR Typhoon

Persephone | RR Scorpion

Jabajools | RR Scorpion

Mei | RR Scorpion

TheHermit | RR Scorpion

Captain Blackler | RR Armageddon

Zemledocl | RR Armageddon

Viginti | Lachesis

Silvtrys | Huginn

Arrihidaeus | Vengance

Kingzolo | RR Harbinger

Nicho | RR Hurricane

LostCause | Brutix

Yes, we had four scorpions, much to z0de's disapproval. We had them retrofitted to be armour tankers but we all agreed that the new model for this ship type is very sexy.

Once z0de was satisfied the order was given and we rolled out. Our scouts moving ahead and sniffing out targets of any opportunity. The night started off with the RR fleet killing a thrasher but we had received word that there were targets in Gultraten so off we went, ships rumbling onwards. We sat on the Rokofur gate but all useful targets were leaving low-sec through this Rokofur gate and not coming in. We had ships of all sizes (including a freighter) land on the outbound gate and jump. There was much gnashing of teeth.

After a few fruitless minutes we moved on and decided on a trip down to Resbroko and onwards towards Amamake. The results were disappointing - looks like the entire pipe had unfriendly scouts along its entire length that notified people of our presence. Such was the poor pickings we even decided on going after a velator. Oh the desperation.

We ended up on the Auga gate and managed to snag a sleipnir and vagabond. They were part of a slightly larger gang that we wanted to tangle with. These two made the mistake of firing on us. The Sleipnir dropping a nice juicy, Caldari Navy X-Large Shield Booster. That should be worth a few million.

However, we encountered and failed to nab many other opportunities during the latter half of the roam: a fast BC crew racing around, about 7-8 of them who blasted past us around the Auga/Dal/Amamake area; a mixed BC/BS gang in Kourmonen; a frigate/cruiser gang in Amamake itself and most disappointing of the evening, a BC/BS gang around the Ardar area when we were coming back. We only snagged their brutix and their hurricane. We someone lost their tempest who rumbled away with it's micro warp drive blazing brightly in our faces.

So the tally for the night was as follows:

x2 Vagabonds

x2 Velators

x1 Shuttle

x1 Sleipnir

x1 Hurricane

x1 Brutix

x1 Rifter

x1 Buzzard

x1 Atron

We lost Arrihidaeus to gate guns as we couldn't rep him fast enough. The other chaps on the killmail came from an earlier engagement.

AT 8

Well the BS roam was set-up to allow us to relax and stretch our legs after some intensive testing on our Alliance Tournament fleet set-up. Also, real life testing is much more valuable than on Sisi due to the unpredictability of the other pilots. The team hasn't been picked yet as the team leaders are playing things very close to their chests but am hopeful that come Sunday, 15:50 the TuskerBastards will emerge victorious, pulling off a shock defeat of past AT winners, and favourites, HUN Reloaded. The reality is that HUN Reloaded are seasoned AT participants compared to us. Be that as it may!

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.

Chasing them complex runners

Many pilots now run complex missions deep inside space, hard to probe out but if done - then it could prove rich pickings for pirates. A mixed gang was in place as a call went out for more DPS. Someone from M34N corp had found a gang comprising a megathron, drake, drake and rokh inside a known complex. Due to spatial anomlies, the complex entrance tends to shift so relocating it was a boon and we assembled a fleet as quickly as we could. We hastily refitted with afterburners to ensure a decent turn of speed inside the odd conditions within a complex.


Warping in assembled and took stock. The fleet included:

Hurricane
Astarte
Stabber
Prophecy
Typhoon
Taranis

(sorry if I got the ship types wrong!)

We approached the first gate - the mission runners had been inside the complex for a while and we had to hurry. They could be finishing their last level and we were merely at the entrance. Speed was of the essence.

Activating the first gate, we were catapulted to the next level, deeper inside the spatial anomaly. It was empty, only wrecks visible and evidence of the passage of the mission runners. There was a second gate, 48km away and the fleet hit their afterburners and tore themselves over to the next gate. It took precious minutes to get the entire fleet there. We jumped into the next level and found that, like the first, it was empty apart from wrecks. Checking our scanners we realised that the megathron and rokh were now present and probably behind us. Maybe they were aware of our presence and were thinking of a trap?

We ploughed on. The third and fourth levels were like the first and second: disappointingly empty with the next gate always further away than expected. The last level was the location of the hive mother. Yes, the complex was infested with rogue drones of all strains. Some absolutely massive and horrifying. Bursting from the previous level, I saw the monstrosity for myself: a drone of massive proportions with mutated ships growing from it. In front were two Drake-class battlecruisers, all that remained of the mission team we were hunting. We had to avoid the hive mother but also tackle the drakes. We were also 60KM away and had to circle round. The mission runners appeared to be unconcerned about our presence (or oblivious) and continued to fire on the hive mother.

I was caught on some debris and my velocity stopped dead. Meanwhile, a tackle was made on one of the drakes by our taranis and battle (albeit long-range) was joined. I was set up for short-range destruction so was unable to participate. However, I did get close enough to be shot at by the hive mother.

One of the two drakes warped off while the tackled one was destroyed. The fleet stayed and destroyed the hive mother all the time waiting for the megathron and rokh. However, once the last drake was destroyed, the megathron and the rokh also disappeared, reckoning that our fleet was too big for them. Fair enough - we hovered all of the compounds dropped by the rogue drones, especially the huge cache by the hive mother.

Fleet Canes for the win!

Busy, busy here but this day, my heart is still thumping from an encounter that will go down as one of the most intense experiences so far.

As ever, there were pirates of various persuasions in the independence channel as well as Black Flag pilots. A predominantly Black Flag fleet was setup with all the BF pilots in the specially modified BF Fleet Hurricane, a product of much research and development led by Viper Sam.

The fleet included: Jubes, Viper Sam, Muelac and myself in the fleet canes, Inglorfin (wolf) Sal (deimos) and Spiderus (hyperion). Inglorfin was ahead and scouted for us and we knew that there was sizeable fleet from the Russian Coalition between Gultratren and Arnstur. Inglorfin provided up to date intel on what ships were coming in and out. Spiderus was bait and jumped in on Inglorfin's word. The Russian Coalition had the following ships: two dominix class battleships, a stiletto, a drake, a thorax, a rupture and a harbringer-class battlecruiser. An equal fleet to ours but we felt that a decisive strike at the two dominix class ships should shatter them. Also, we were sure that this fleet knew of our presence and intention. No matter, it will not save them.

Spiderus jumped into Arnstur and found no-one in the gate but Inglorfin had now vectored him towards the Brin star gate. Spiderus turned his ship round and moved off into space. Inglorfin stayed about 100km from the gate, ready to update the vital intelligence that would win this contest. A few minutes later, the communication channel squawked.
"Stiletto and Dominix now at the gate. Stiletto now jumping into Gultratren." So, the Russian Coalition were sending in a scout. We were off the gate now and aligned and ready to pounce. "Dominix has jumped in as well." Spiderus chimed in.
"Coming back to the gate and jumping through. Maybe the domi will follow me once I am through?"
"Affirmative. Go ahead. Fleet align." That was Viper getting the four hurricanes ready. The ship's engine rumbled as the battle-cruisers slid into position. Spiderus jumped through and locked the waiting dominix and then engaged.
"Jump to me," said Spiderus as the trap was being sprung."I am under sentry gun fire. Engaging Dominix."
Meanwhile, Inglorfin was checking on the other side.
"You have incoming. The Dom was bait. I see their fleet inbound on your position. " There was a dramatic pause. "Gate fire! Gate fire! They're coming through!" We clicked once on the comm channels to confirm and we were in mid-warp.
"Hurry, am surrounded!"
"Hold on Spiderus. We're on our way." I said, putting my ship to red alert. All four hurricanes burst out around Spiderus in bright flashes. Our overviews filled with enemy ships. We had to engage them and incur sentry gun fire but that didn't bother us. We wanted our fill of blood and our pound of flesh.
"Primaries Sam! Primaries!" I yelled as I locked all the ships; we needed to target one ship to maximise our firepower however and our fleet commander had not yet allocated targets.
"The Harbringer!" Came the reply. Fuck, which one was that?
"Names, Sam! We need names!" I opened fire on the nearest target, a drake-class battlecruiser piloted by 'Malenkiy'. I was hoping I wasn't too harsh on our FC.
"Primary is Kelev. Primary is Kelev!" Good, I had Kelev's Harbringer already locked and knowing the names of targets was easier for everyone. I switched all my 425mm ACs on and hammered at the harbringer. So did the rest of the fleet. The Russian Coalition had two dominix class battleships and they spat out angry T2 drones. They screamed towards us. All their other ships locked us and fired. I had no idea who was primaried on our side. I glanced at my watch list.
"Help Spiderus!"
"Roger." That was Muelac, languid as usual but deadly efficient. We started to repair Spiderus' shields as we volleyed Kelev's Harbringer into scrap.
"Next target?" I said, well aware that we were a touch too slow on the target calling.
"Domi is primary. White Don. White Don!" Got it. I had White Don on lock and sent another volley of Hail towards him. Meanwhile, Spiderius's hyperion was being rocked back and forth but it's shield damage was almost repaired. Lucky for Spiderus as he was in structure already when the repairs began. White Don's Domi had neutralisers and was sucking the cap dry on Viper Sam. Just as he started taking in damage. I switched my repairer from Spiderus to Viper. Then the rupture and drake started to target me. My shields shimmered as it absorbed the energy of the rounds. Not too worried, I concentrated on the domi, now on fire, spewing atmosphere and fuel and unable to repair quick enough as four hurricanes tore it to pieces. Our hail rounds punched gaping holes in it's hull and it exploded to the cheers of the crews on our ships.
"Primary: Dobriy Ya. Secondary: Malenkiy." Target calling was coming quicker and the second dominix died under our guns. It's structure twisting under the intense heat of internal explosions. Jubes was under fire as was I from the sentry guns and the enemy drake but the rest of the fleet, nimble as ever had provided support to us. The drake's shield systems were overwhelmed by the HAIL and EMP rounds and then the rupture and thorax followed, burst open in a ball of light and sound. We killed them almost like an afterthought. In all this, we had lost Sal's Deimos. Stupidly, no-one had him on their respective watch lists and we were unable to see his damage until it was too late. He took gate gun fire, some T2 drone damage and possibly, the drake missiles.

The area around the gate was strewn with sparkling wreckage and flash-frozen bodies. Aimless drones drifted around, opportunity locking anything as it's AI mind tried to follow it's last commands of it's dying overseer.

The final tally was impressive: two dominix, harbringer, thorax, rupture and drake died to us for the loss of one deimos.

It was a good kill and our featured hurricane setup, a centre-piece of all Black Flag fleets performed superbly well. We looted and salvaged what we could and lept to our safe spots. Still drunk on adrenaline we wanted more and more targets. However, the Gods of New Eden decided we had had enough.

Oh well.

A day later, I decided that my thirst still needed quenching. I tackled and killed a thrasher and a phoon and a caracal (two) of them.

AFK Dom got killled, I mean WTF?

Have to start with the most recent of piracy and wanton destruction...this was me and a gang popping an AFK dominix. I passed him three times in and out of Gusandall, sure that he would just warp away when engaged. Certainly, my first attempt, I locked him in the vain attempt of getting him to return fire and open up hostilities. No such luck for me. On returning to Gusandall, I called out for some help in the Independence channel and a few other channels that I was in, reporting back to all on the location and status of the dominix. I grabbed my Hurricane while Jaxx Blackfox and Salicyate both got their megathrons. We needed some tanking ability to split the sentry gun fire. I was hoping that my drones would do the job for me. On arrival, the dominix sat there, big and brooding and oblivious to its imminent demise.

The three ships arrived and we pulsed our engines to nudge our ships into optimal positions, we knew that the automated sentry guns would open fire on us the moment it detected an illegal weapon's discharge.

Once we had surrounded the dominix and we were all at our optimal ranges, out came the drones.

"Get into position. I will take first wave." Said Jaxx. She opened fire, the blasters on her megathron opening up in bright flashes. At the same time, Sal and myself locked and opened fire too. The dominix rocked as our deadly ordnance splashed over it. The shields, flaring started to bleed off the tremendous energies from our weapons. However, it could not silently take this punishment as it's deadly arsenal of drones would be screaming around all our ships, trying to take them apart. Surely there was a catastrophic malfunction between the pod interface and the rest of the ship? Already, we could see tiny puffs of atmosphere as the crews' escape pods rained out from all over the ship. The crew knew that the ship had moments to live, no point in going down with it. The shields soon failed and snagged the capsule and killed the pod pilot. We could only imagine what had happened to the pod pilot. No matter, he was blasted to frozen organic matter by our weapons.

The sentry guns continued to pound on our ships and I had to loot the spluttering wreck with heavy ordnance hitting off my shields and armour. We scored a couple of T2 cap rechargers, T2 berserkers and x2 named large armour repairers. That's what I grabbed - Sal and Jaxx also grabbed what they can. We all got back to split the loot.

Whoever was piloting the Dominix (a known farmer) was probably asleep on the keyboard. Poor bastard.