Boom, Headshot

Every once in a while in EVE, kills are handed to you. Folks warp defenseless into your gang while you lay in wait in a plex or at a belt, they jump into your gate camp without a scout, or they somehow fall helplessly into your waiting hands.

And then at other times, kills in EVE involve a long, slow hunt. You lay down bait, or try to lure in a target in some way. You spend time observing your prey –waiting for them to make a mistake.

The worst times are when you hunt, and you bait, and you catch –only to have something go wrong. And, you are left looking at the engine trails as your prey runs away from you, stabbed. Or, you are left sitting in the dust as the fleet you were trying to intercept and prod into a fight, successfully avoids you and scurries away home.

Since I started PVPing again and playing EVE more, I’ve seen a very wide variety of combat.

Last week, we were out roaming around in a Svipul gang when a cyno lit up in local. Now, cynos aren’t all that unusual –and not all that exciting unless it’s a hostile one lit next to your ship with local spiking up around you.

But this one was odd. Instead of being at a station or near a POS, it was out in the middle of nowhere-space.

We warped to it to see what was coming through, and an archon popped through into our waiting hands. The only thing missing was the silver platter to go with it.

Of course, being in a destroyer fleet we weren’t exactly equipped to take down a capital. But that didn’t stop us from grabbing all the points we could and shooting the thing. (And calling for help in alliance to see if anyone was available for some heavier backup.)

Nobody saw the mobile depot. And there was a collective groan on coms as the archon warped away –far more stabbed than our smallish fleet’s points could counter.

Then the weekend arrived. And with it, a brand new experience for me, as far as pvp goes.

I was enjoying a particularly lazy Sunday afternoon playing EVE. Our Europeans were determined to kill something or other, and were hatching all sorts of plots to bait in this or that target. After a failed attempt or two, I remained in fleet and on coms—not because I thought they were going to be successfully at sparking a fight, but because it was so incredibly entertaining listening to all the elaborate things they were coming up with. 

(You have no idea what baiting is until you’ve heard our alliance folks come up with one of their crazy ideas….lol )

To be honest, I had started to zone out –alt-tabbed on another screen working on market orders, only half listening to whatever trap they were currently trying to lay. And it was then that a surge of excitement noticeably changed the atmosphere on coms, and I tuned in to see what was going on.

“omg, it’s working…I have an Avatar on long scan!”

Wait. What?

The fleet jumped into high gear—our FC calmly restating orders as though carefully moving chess pieces on a board. Just one wrong move and the prey might get away….or worse.

“Confirming that the titan is landing on grid.”

“HICs, on standby.”

“Doomsday! Confirming Doomsday!”

“Cyno up. Cyno up.”

There is a narrow period of time, just as your trap is sprung and you are preparing to act—when everything could go wrong. It could be a counter trap. Or, something could happen too early or too late. I’ve seen many situations where a single, tiny mistake blew the whole operation.

That was not this situation. Everything happened with clinical precision. The HICs. The supers. The sub capital fleet bridging in on our squirming, blistering prey.

The boys had caught themselves an Avatar, and I was about to get in on my first titan kill.

Now, it would be far more interesting a story if there was some sort of battle that then ensued. A titan fighting for its life –perhaps calling in friends. My alliance doing glorious battle to smash their caught prey.

But, that was not what happened. What happened was a very fast, very focused execution. There was no mess, no confusion. And there was only one primary.

The titan evaporated, dying so quickly that he was nearly in structure by the time I bridged through and locked him up. His only friends that came to help him were a couple of griffins –which flitted around like a couple of small, helpless birds.

And then, the titan was dead. 

So, I guess don’t mind fights and kills being handed to me on a silver platter. And I’m prepared for a few to get away once in a while. But it’s kind of fun to see folks plan and connive, and to see that planning and conniving result in a big, beautiful explosion.