Shield Battlecruiserish gang with logistics and some recons. And a Tempest. And a Cynabal. Because, why not?
The recruitment drive has been working. TEXN has absorbed several new people as has THC2. We all have a few more in the cooker. THC2 has a few low SP characters that we are teaching the basics of low sec and making sure they are ready for a transition that is not easily reversed.
The first goal was to go and see if there were any gangs or gatecamps within hot drop distance.
Scouts rolled out in multiple directions and scanned along the length of our jump range. It was quiet out there. The scouts reported nothing. Disgruntled, we took the Titan Express to head out of Molden Heath and see what there was to see.
Hot drops are visually very pretty. I enjoy watching everyone appear on the field. Once settled, we waited for our cyno to go down. This has the advantage of allowing the other cynos to head to the fleet.
Thirteen of us or so in fleet. That is large. We've not seen those types of numbers for most of the summer. So now, our blobtasticly ginormious fleet takes off. We're kind of veering around on different sectors to visit people and see what is going on. It was quiet thou, very, very quiet.
The leading edge of the blob landed on a gate just as a mammoth flew through. The general question, "Pews it?" went out. The FC went, "Uhh... its a hauler... fine pilots choice." There was a sigh in there. Poor FC. Herding explosion thirsty cats is exhausting.
As soon as it delcoaked it exploded as the rest of the fleet landed. Nothing special was discovered inside. He was stabbed but there were way to many ships for him to make use of the mod.
One hauler the thirst quenched does not make. First we docked to let GCC wear down. One reason there is a bit of discussion about what we will shoot is because of GCC. If the target has GCC themselves or is a -5 its shoot on sight. However, if they are not the decision is made if the fight or kill will be worth it. A good fight with another fleet is always worth it but a single kill is often not. The hauler thing, we've bitched an awful lot for being denied hauler kills.
With counting down GCC and gategun aggression it was almost another hour before we found something else. Systems were emptied, pounces were missed, people escaped from bait. Terrible.
Finally, Mane was running point through Amamake. He went sniffing into belts when a rupture landed on him. Sadly, for the rupture, the fleet was on the other side of the gate. The rupture was disabled and Mane was able to break free. The rupture was then destroyed by a ridiculousness amount of overkill.
It was looking to be a bum night for finding a good fight. We veered back into the area of faction warfare. We've been knocking on Nulli's gate a lot recently. People were in system but no one was undocked.
With faction warfare getting so popular, we've gotten a lot better about finding people in the various complexs. We had a few false starts but finally we grabbed a group inside a complex. They started to bail when the fleet landed (I can't blame them). Our two lead ships were able to pin down a hurricane and a stabber fleet issue. The stabber almost escaped the fleet, but he burned right into my general area and I had a long point.
A momentary flash of awareness had me change my ammo to barrage as we landed on the gate to the faction warfare site. The ammo gave me the distance I needed to finish off the stabber while the rest of the fleet converged on the hurricane.
We had a bit of a discussion about the entire faction warefare system afterwards. We are fighting on and in their complexs more and more these days. It makes for an interesting dynamic. Maybe we can down ship to fast cruisers and pounce on more groups? Pirates, pirates, everywhere trying to kill errything.
A bit further on flashy jag landed in the group. Our faster ships were able to land a point and he blew up right before he made it back to the gate. I'm not sure why he made a run for the gate. He had a higher chance of warping off or just burning for distance. I think.
Just as we killed the jag a typhoon landed on the gate we were at and jumped through. The FC almost choked. Most of the fleet was GCC. He went whomever was not GCC through to tackle and hold down the typhoon. The rest of the fleet spammed jump until we made our 60 second session timer to join in. The typhoon was putting a hurting on the tackle but when the rest of the fleet arrived it was a dep/neut/jam overload for him.
Another plexing stabber fleet issue was caught by one part of the group while others let their GCC cool. A few kills down everyone's mood was a bit better. That turned out to almost send things into the gutter when a flashy hurricane played kiting games with members of the fleet.
The cane had pounces all around the gate. Our cruisers had been trying to establish a good tackle. They nailed a few of his pounces and he bailed for a faction warfare gate. We followed only he had a pounce and we landed on the gate. He was a hundred off and people decided to burn for him.
He kited Mane's cynabal out and when mane was 200 from help he turned and nailed him. He had links on. His point was ridiculously long and he started chewing through the cynabal like no tomorrow. The scimitars were 200 off and overheating to reach him. Mane was trying to make distance to escape the hurricane. Due to the dynamics of the grid, warping to assist was not going to happen. We were watching Mane die and there wasn't a lot we could do about it.
Finally, the rapier made point and webbed the cane. Mane managed to break free in structure. The cane decided to bail. The fleet, strung out over 500k of space was a mess. We regrouped, resorted, had some words, and headed back home.
Back near home some of the THC2 boys were trading blows with a group that has moved into one of the stations one jump out of a null zone. They did some 1 for 1 trades and both sides bailed. They were undocking carriers to rep their people on my boys and they were not able to break through the carriers reps to take enough ships down.
We organized and got ready to jump them. They got ready to jump us. They tackled two of the boys, the fleet spiked local, and they docked their carrier and bailed.
Sigh.
It would have been beautiful if it had worked. They left a vindicator on the station. There was an archon in the station as well. The vindi was only station bait. It would get reps and dock if we actually did anything to it. Station games suck. Sometimes you get a good bump at a good angle and knock someone out of docking rage. Normally its a lot of wasted ammo.
They came up with another elaborate plan. God, I was falling asleep between warps because I had been up for 24 hours. my mind couldn't comprehend what was going on fully. All I remember is that they were going to escalate if they could get the situation.
I was falling asleep. I found myself dozing off on the gates and the fleet jumping without me. Whoops. Plus, an incursion in in a chunk of Molden Heath. We gathered the fleet, cleared the gates of the incursion rats (they will tackle and kill us in low sec) and warped the fleet together until we were clear of us.
Ugh.
I made it almost home before I had to dock. So tired...
*yawn*
Comments
Post a Comment