February 2019 – Somewhere Out There

AAR: 23 Feb. 2019, Insmother

I joined a late night/early morning whaling fleet. No whales killed, but we got a few subcaps in the chaos.

Our 60-80-man group of Goku Bombers took off through a wormhole to the Insmother region, via the Cache region. Our target(s) were Rorquals that Fraternity had in the field.

On our way to UDE-FX from 4S0-NP (our ingress system), our scouts reported a lone Rorqual in a belt in 4LB-EL, so that’s where we headed. The scouts tackled and bubbled it, and the fleet warped into the belt.

By the time we landed, at least one enemy subcap was on grid and they had cyno’d in at least one Apostle (there were two on grid at one point). We were unable to take down the Rorq, as we had a limited number of Focused Void Bomb users (myself included) to neut the Rorq’s capacitor, and the fleet was never sorted into proper bombing squadrons that could do bombing runs. I don’t think we ever broke its shields.

We eventually placed a Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor, which our logistics pilots managed to keep up for quite a while. A Nyx and a Nidhoggur showed up as well. It started to get a little hairy as our Interdictors were sometimes bubbling us in the chaos of an escalating situation. We nearly took down an Apostle before leaving. One enemy Nestor was destroyed.

The Rorqual escaped, replaced by multiple enemy caps.

From there, we moved next door to 5IH-GL. By now, FRAT was well aware that we were in the area and had begun responding. While no equivalent fleet was met, several FRAT subcaps moved to intercept us, along with a handful of caps.

With the majority of fleet in Bombers, we were hard-pressed to directly engage. We resorted to guerrilla-esque hit and run tactics, warping back and forth from the gates to see what we could catch. Additional subcap killmails were had in the process.

But with limited number of Interdictors left, and FRAT fully aware of our presence, we had to extract. The goal was to get back to our ingress wormhole. We warped and jumped around a bit to lose our tail, did so, and eventually set course to 4S0-NP. The route back was uneventful, as was the journey back home on the other side of the wormhole.

We stood down once safe at home. Though we didn’t achieve our objective, the final Battle Report showed us winning the ISK war, about 60% vs 40% efficiency (4LB not shown).

A couple of issues we ran into included the ridiculous TiDi as we jumped around in Cache. Altogether, there were probably less than 100 pilots in any one system, so any TiDI made no sense, even if it was just moderately-intense at most.

In addition, our FC, who was in a Harpy, was often just too fast for a fleet of mostly Bombers (I was in a Manticore). The fleet was often “smeared” in a long line behind the FC. We had Command Destroyers (“Booshers”) with us, which made booshing difficult. Sometimes members, even if anchored, missed the boosh. Our FC was often not paying attention to speed, and would even yell at us to catch up, even if we already had MWDs on and flying at max speed.

Overall, it was a good time and everyone did well, considering. Looking forward to the next whaling fleet.

AAR: 17 Feb. 2019, Catch

Gaming

We decided to go on a couple of PVP roams. They didn’t turn out very well, but hey, each is a learning experience.

Part I

6-8 of us went out to our usual roaming grounds between Oijanen and Akkio. Having noticed that “shotgunning” anomalies and belts, trying to find targets, wasn’t very effective in previous roams, I decided to bring my trusty Helios with combat probes. Overall, it was kitchen sink gang.

After finding nothing in Oijanen, we moved onto Akora. The gang’s presence in space posed a problem for my probes, so I asked them to dock up. I eventually scanned down an industrial of some kind, and as I warped in under cloak, it warped off to the nearby Mesoya gate.

I warped in at a distance, still cloaked, to see what it would do. Instead of immediately jumping, the indy just sat there. Gilmor came to investigate in an Algos, but the indy still stayed put. Being low-sec, we were wary of the gate sentry guns and didn’t engage.

I started wondering if this was bait since we were next to Mesoya and we’d had losses there before. I asked Killroy to use his Wolf to jump the gate and see if anything was on the other side. He could crash the gate or even warp off in case there was a camp.

For some reason, Gilmor decided to jump in as well. As they went, the industrial jumped in behind them and we heard the groans over comms. There was a small gatecamp and, indeed, the indy was bait. We lost two ships (here and here), and the rest of us headed back home.

Lesson learned: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Part II

Our gang, somewhat deflated, went our separate ways, but eventually a few of us decided to head back out. Rather than go to the usual spot, I suggested we head south. Deep south. To the distant lands of Catch. Maybe we could catch some ratters.

So Heinrich, Gary, and I set off. It was a 25-30 jump journey. Though 10 or so jumps in, Briggens decided he wanted to come, so he set out to catch-up.

The route to Catch was pretty uneventful. It’s surprising how empty large sections of New Eden are. As we got closer, we decided to go into a pocket that showed a lot of ratting activity (via Dotlan): RNF-YH. This would later prove to be a very bad idea.

The locals alerted each other quickly; D-Scan showed little activity, even though plenty of people were in those systems. Rather than backing out, we decided to go further into the pocket. This time Heinrich had probes (and cloak) and tried to find us some targets

While he did that, our gang got a little split up. As Briggens was moving to Heinrich and me, he lost his ship. Shortly thereafter, as Gary was checking to see what happened, he too was forcibly deprived of a ship. Both were given the pod express.

It was at this point we realized our mistake. We were deeply in a dead end. We would have had to jump at least 3 systems before getting out of the pocket. And after losing two guys, we knew some baddies were camping the gates. To make the trip worth it, Heinrich and I decided to try and kill something. Anything.

Unfortunately, all that were left were MTUs, two of which we destroyed. I suggested we let our timers run down, safe log-off, log-in 30-45 minutes later, and then burn out of the pocket once the heat was gone.

Heinrich, however, noticed via D-Scan that a couple of ratting Nyxes had ventured back out, sensing we weren’t much of a threat.

So we warped to a Nyx and scrammed and took out a fighter group! The Nyx itself ran.

Now it was time to run the timer down. 15 minutes. He cloaked up while I continuously warped between safe spots and celestials. We managed to run the timer down with no issue, but then Heinrich had the great idea to check-out the gate. It was clear — let’s give it a try! As he jumped the gate, I warped to it.

Within a minute, he was destroyed by the mini gatecamp on the other side. As I landed…Well, you can see it up top.

Oh, and I managed to bring my training clone. Sigh.

Lesson(s) learned: Stick together. Never go into a dead end pocket (especially one that deep). Safe log is always an option when stranded. Leave the +4 training clone at home.

Hi.

Gaming, General

Well, hello. I’m JCPhoenix. This is my new WordPress site I’m experimenting with. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll post here, but I’m sure it’ll be a lot of gaming related stuff. Like my “battlestation” up above. If I’m not working, sleeping, or at home, there’s a good chance I’m sat here for hours on end.

My current lineup of games is EVE Online, Planetside 2, Stellaris, and Foundation, with other games I play every once in a while. I’m a fan of management/building simulations games.

That’s all I have for now.