Comedy Fleet: Badgers and Osprey are a Go

Two weeks ago I decided that I was going to plan the Comedy Roam that Diz had come up with back in March or so.

The base concept was battle badgers. I do mean Badgers. The T1 industrial hauler. The goal was to fit them as well as they could be fit, form a largish fleet (by our terms) and go forth and find at least one ship to kill while creating hilarious kill mails.

Badgers are rather helpless by themselves. Therefore, for support, we designed repping Osprey. These t1 logistic boats would turn the tide of battle. They would keep the badgers alive (hopefully) and under the mighty dps out put explosions would happen.

There was also the chance that we would all die and kill nothing. The potential was fantastic.

At some point the ships had been around for this. I'm not sure what happened to them. They are buried in a station somewhere I am sure. I decided to start from scratch. If Diz was willing to FC I was willing to put it together for him.

The Planning

I decided to start with a base of 20 badgers and 10 osprey. Diz came up with 4 fits. One was an artillery Badger. One was a Lazor (laser) Badgers. One was a rocket/Repping Osprey. And the last was Lazor Repping Osprey.

I decided to open it to our local pirate corps that we fleet with all of the time. Diz and I would be providing everything. We just needed bodies. I wrote up notices on the forums for people, dropped the info in chats and let it cook a little bit. Four days before the event I sent out alliance eve mails and forwarded them onto the other groups to send out for those that wanted to come.

Fitting and prepping this many ships without knowing if they would be used was a new thing. I started with fully fitting them. About 1/3 of the way through I stopped fitting the rigs and just placed the rigs in the cargo hold. My idea was that I would hand out the fully fit ones first and then the ones with rigs in the cargo hold. Whatever leftovers I had could go back to be resold. If I fit the rigs I'd have to destroy them. I also had some T2 mods I was not sure if everyone could use. Thankfully, the T1 versions were cheap so I placed a T1 and T2 in each cargo hold for the pilot to decide what they could fly. I also put a handful of ammo in each ship of all the various kinds I wanted them to use.

The entire process was a bit click intensive. I could not fit both types of ship with any one character. In one widow I had my alt with Caldari cruiser skills fitting Osprey. In the other I had Sugar fitting badgers. I also found out that I needed to fit at least one Badger and another one of my newer corpmates asked for a Scythe. I had no idea how to fit the Scythe and took it as a arty/rep fusion.

Back and forth. I made naming conventions to keep track of what ship was what. I kept running out of things because I don't know how to count. Over the course of a week I managed to get all of the ships fit. I decided upon 20 badgers and 10 Osprey. The total bill for everything is just under a billion ISK. We didn't shit fit anything. Our fine theory crafters made the best T2 fits they could.

I did my best to follow the fits and install or put everything into the cargo holds. I had no idea how many missiles to use for the missile boats. I went with a handful of faction ammo and a wad of generic ammo. Then MacG asked what size cap boosters he needed. I realized that I had completely forgotten them. Chella undocked and another emergency trip with the Viator was completed. I loaded up and hauled butt back down to stock all the ship with an assortment of sizes.

Ender logged on and asked me about sensor boosters. "Eh?" was my response. It seems that the locking time on the badgers is so obscenely long that they had suggested sensor boosters. Another trip to high sec to pick up mid slot and low slot sensor boosters. My idea was that people could decide which one they wanted to use and give me the spares. A little bit of independence would have to be allowed with the hope that people would fit the best for their skills.

The Fleet

The boys were running around doing stuff. I had to miss out because I discovered that a weapon that calls itself medium does not have medium ammo. My knowledge of lasers is nil and that really showed. I had an emergency trip to buy crystals (laser ammunition) right as people were starting to trickle into system.

Then people discovered that they could not fit the ships. I wound up with more osprey then badgers. I had people trade back the mods that they were not using. Everyone was a really good sport about it.

The turnout was 17 people. Not bad. I would have liked to have filled all 30 ships but I was very happy to have over 10 for this. The mood was good and the serious factor was out the window for the fleet.

We undocked and headed out. Space was pretty busy. Normally this was exciting. This time, we needed to pick our fights carefully. We wanted to take something down with us so derping into a well put together fleet was not the best idea.

"There is a rat here and I seriously think it might kill us," said our bait team. Then the osprey pilot realized he would go GCC if he repped the badgers. They managed not to die. Barely. Also, every system we spiked resulted in massive hysteria in local a few moments after we started warp. Most people know the various corps and people. Then they saw the fleet and laughed and cheered us on.

We hopped into null sec. There was a hawk, a firetail and a mantacore fighting by a bubble. They all bailed when we spiked local. Some of our Osprey pilots went in for the tackle but they bailed beforehand. Then they saw our fleet comp. With at least one person in high grade snakes we moved back to low sec. The last person our of system said a Tornado was landing as he jumped.

Back to low sec we went.

Then we had word of a harbinger on gate. We rushed forward and sent our bait to it. He attacked one of the osprey. Rawr! The other osprey and badger turned and engaged. Whoops, gateguns. We forget most of us are full on outlaw sec status. Full battle as the entire badger fleet descended. Sadly Gateguns.

We were so proud of ourselves until we realized he was armor tanked. He deaggreesed and jumped the gate to get away from us.

Damn. With about 15 minutes we would have pewpewed him to death.

We sent another bait team forward. They jumped a drake. The rest of the fleet warped to them to jump to the gate. By the time we got there we had lost a badger and one of the osprey. We managed to drag the other back. I think. It was just turning into a mess. The osprey are trying to rep everyone, badgers are exploding, osprey are exploding, and people are in local laughing. Repping power at its finest. The drake managed to escape us while we were rescuing our comrades. Then other's jumped in, probably hearing about our ridiculous fleet on the other side.

Then the server reset came. Some of us jumped some didn't we had GCC they started bringing people. I managed to make it back to the gate in structure.

I then tried to make it for our osprey but it was too late. I was killed by a Drake. I got my pod out. The entire thing was too hysterical not to be funny by that point. People are dying around me. The rest of the fleet is trying to rally up. I decide to head home. On the other side of the gate they have gotten together a welcome fleet to pop us at a distance.

But too late for them. We were decimated. With the server shutting down in ten minutes, most of the fleet dead, and another op planned for later, we decided to go home.

Concord isn't spawning but gateguns still shot us :( People were dying in high sec and gateguns ripped our fleet apart. It would have been awesome if GCC broke and we could have fought a little longer.

Results

What Did I learn?

I learned that Lasers that call themselves medium may not actually hold medium ammunition.

Two weeks notice is still not enough for people to check if they can fly the ship.

I can make it back to a gate with GCC in a badger. Why the people on the gate didn't shoot me I have no idea. I was flashy red and had GCC and they let me make it back. Silly people.

It is a lot of work putting these things together but its absolutely worth it at the giggles and enjoyment people get from it.

I enjoy doing this type of thing.

Eve is a ridiculousness game where people do things to amuse themselves for nothing more than the amusement value.

Summary

By Diz:

Thanks to everyone for showing up was def a DIAF affair.

Fleet started late - Check
People ran from us - Check
We all died in a a fire - Check

OP success