Waiting for the Other Shoe

“How on earth do you guys deal with this crap in local?”

We started our weekend educating our Gallente friends on how to completely block an entire alliance in EVE. If you’re flying around our warzone, it’s a handy trick to know if you like to keep your local window open and your sanity intact.

The Gallente had been planning to help us take the system of Dal, but were unfortunately about 12 hours late to the party. So, those who decided not to head back to their own warzone hung out Friday evening, roaming the warzone.  We found a few things to kill, and generally had a good time hanging out with some people we don’t frequently get to fly with.

I spent some time fitting up some ships for alliance contracts. The alliance shop I revamped, and setup in January has been a huge hit. I’ve already sold nearly 150 ships for March, and we’re only a week and a half in. I admit, while gates are being camped and plexes are being run, I occasionally sneak back to Huola to fit up another stack of something.

In fact, I was coming back on coms Sunday, after muting things so I could concentrate on fitting up another 70 ships or so, when I heard Annah Kitheran getting ready to bridge on the Amarr in the system of Lamaa. Everyone was in sniping Tempests, so I jumped into my Condor to run to Kourmonen to get something appropriate.

That’s when the Amarr started dropping dreads. We had two carriers on field, so the call was made to get some dreads of our own.

“Should I go get my Dread?”

“Yes, go Susan.”

I turned around and headed back to Huola to jump into my Moros—a ship I’ve had for nearly a year and have sadly never dropped into a combat situation. I was beginning to think my tech 2 siege skills, and Gallente Dreadnaught V were a waste of time to train.

I quickly checked to make sure I had enough fuel and strontium, blew off the dust, and then headed out.

“Cyno up.”

I glanced at my friendly overview when I landed on field, trying to gauge the situation, and choked a little. We couldn’t have had more than 15 on field, most in sniping battleships and things that weren't particularly appropriate for what we were going up against.

The Amarr were like a swarm of bees, in one of the most diverse kitchen sink fleets I have ever seen. They had at least 2 times our numbers, in everything from dreadnaughts, to faction frigates, to tech 1 cruisers.

I clicked my siege button. It was a good day as any to die in a glorious fire.

“Primary is Predator Elite.”

I locked up both the dreadnaughts on field. Predator was almost into hull by the time I arrived and got him locked up. I finished him off, and then set to work on his alt, who was the other dreadnaught.

He was hitting low armor when my siege was starting to run about, but I decided not to siege another cycle. Once the hostile dread was down, I would be useless against the Amarr’s smaller support.

They hit me hard when I can out of my siege, and I was quickly pointed by several things. Bahamut turned his triage onto me, and I never slipped much below 60% armor. I didn't want to use my local reps, because I needed the cap to jump out.

“This maller is still pointing me.”

I started rattling of people who were attempting to keep me on field so that our support could chase them away. Finally, I saw my moment, and jumped back to Huola. I had a few dents, and more than a few new scratches, but was happy my Moros had finally done some battle time.

Our other capitals were not so lucky. Bahamut ended up losing his dreadnaught and his triage carrier during the fight. Our friends in Iron Oxide lost two carriers, and AmyMuffMuff, of Wolfsbrigade, also lost his carrier. (He’s an X-Minmatar who still flies with us on occasion.)

We lost hands down, but everyone still had a super fun time. We agreed we much rather lose caps in a fight like that, then to a null-sec alliance dropping a hundred caps on us. With how long we were on field in capitals (probably at least 20 minutes or longer throughout the whole fight) I was somewhat surprised that PL didn't catch wind of the thing, and jump all the supers on our head.

Things calmed down a bit, and we went back to roaming around in smaller stuff the rest of the night. I hopped in my condor, and ran around.  I think I may have found a solo fight or two, but nothing particularly remarkable.

I was heading back to Kourmonen when I noticed Bob FromMarketing and his two buddies hanging out around the Auga gate in two vigilants and a scythe.

“Guys, Vigilants to kill!” This of course brought everyone romping toward Kourmonen. I buzzed to station to ship up to a SFI. My Condor was probably not going to be much help for this.

We killed the Scythe easily, and DeBug managed to suicide point one of the Vigilants in his Jaguar. Just as he popped, someone called a secondary scram. As the first Vigilant started to go down, Bob FromMarketing ran away, leaving his buddy to die.

I scooped a faction Web, and promptly gave it, along with a Jaguar I had sitting unused in station, to our suicide pointer. People who die pointing shiny things for us to kill get free stuff. That’s just the way it is.

“Uh, guys, the other Vigilant is aggressing me on the Auga gate again.”

“How far off is he?”

“He’s really close to the gate actually.”

People started scrambling back to the gate. Someone scrammed him, and the second Vigilant went down.

We roamed around Auga Siesede area for a bit, in our cruisers and BCs, and finally caught wind of a Fweddit fleet of similar composition. They unfortunately ran from us, but as we balled up on gate, Sugar Kyle’s corporation dropped some BCs on us. They were outnumbered, but they fought us anyway, and managed to take a few of us with them.

It was extremely obvious that they were competent pilots, and I couldn't help wishing they would move into the area. LNA needs more competent pvpers to fight to shake our lazy bones now and then.

Or maybe, it’s time for us to do a bit of roaming of our own.