Syndicate fights

As almost anyone in my alliance would tell you, if they even know me, is that I am a mostly AFK player, or maybe away from game(er) is a better monicker. Over the last few months I have been drawn back into Eve, but my current time zone activity is still sporadic and makes it difficult for me to make the majority of the Fleet ops that happen in Rote Kapelle. So consider this a bit of an outsider's, insider, perspective.

This post is all about my commentary on the Rote Kapelle cleanse diet that we are currently on. (no more carbs)

To me, the most interesting part of our campaign hasn't actually been the campaign (IE the in space pew pew), but has been the reaction both from other Syndicate residents and the larger community as a whole. Another Rote Kapelle blogger, the famous Ripard Teg, of Jester's Trek, started out the conversation in the blogging community in his typical fashion with this post. Now after reading all 42 comments to that post and then re-reading the post it's near comical the reaction to our campaign, even several weeks down the road. Anyways, Mord Fiddle over at Fiddler's edge pretty much summed up his viewpoint in some comments and then later in his post, Scouring the shire.

That was worth a response from Ripard, here. And then another post from Mord, where I think he gets the baseline message of our campaign wrong. Ripard also responds to that response....

Mord says our objective is, in his view of course :
"Rote's way is the traditional way and the best way to play PvP in NPC nullsec.  Failure to PvP Rote's way diminishes Rote's enjoyment of Eve in general and PvP in particular.  Therefore, it is essential that those in close proximity to Rote PvP the Rote way.  If they don't, Rote will harry and kill them until they either move away or submit to PvPing as Rote thinks proper."

I think our actual objective is closer to this :
"Rote doesn't appreciate the lack of PvP we have been getting from entities in Syndicate. The only solution we can see to continu to get good fights is to force those fights to happen. In order to force those fights, we will have to get into the dirty busines of killing static structures."

Sure, Rote is in it to attempt to force out the players in Syndicate who don't or won't fight us, or if they do fight, require that they get every advantage, more numbers, more logi, we jump into them, etc etc. To one of Mord's points, yes Ripard did heavily paraphrase the post on FHC made by a NOTORIUS badposter, Anderson, who was using that post to fling shit-filled words at a wall and see what ones stuck. Looking at the comments on Rip's post as well as the FHC thread (since locked) most of them did stick.

Perhaps more explanation is in order, because in looking at Rip's comments I can tell that something just isn't being translated...

Rote Kapelle is and always has been all about "the fights." It's something we actively comp our fleets for, we engage when we can, and don't when it's complete suicide. But above all, we engage, we go out looking for a good hard fight, not just ganks and quick kills, though we certainly don't shy away from those either. When I say above all, I mean, two evenly comped fleets sit on the other sides of a gate, one is Rote and the other is most every other Syndicate entity. 9/10 times we jump into them, in fact, it is so predictable that we know something is wrong when they jump into us. Some of our most obvious defeats were still generated by us jumping into a superior fleet with the intent of finding, generating a fight. If that's not clear enough, let me sum this entire paragraph in just a few words.

"Rote Kapelle exists for the fights."

Solutions to our problem along the lines of "we need to adapt" are stupid. Yes, stupid. You clearly have  no damn idea what we do, or how we do it. Adapting is something we are doing that's what brought us to this conclusion. We are practically begging for a giant blue blob to come fight us. Even when IRED shows up in a all Abaddon and rep fleet, and wipes the floor with us, we still engage. I can't even imagine the response from IRED if we showed up in their systems, during their peak hours, with a fleet like that. Here's a expected outcome... We wouldn't get a fight.

Now recently Rote has been having a tough time with activity (alliance wide) due in part to other MMO's/games, or other activities interfering with fleets. That's not all. It's become so hard to find a fight, even finding hostile ships in space that we can throw ourselves at in Anderson's "Bushido" doctrine, the one against the many, fighting to the death, no retreat style of play... without that there has not been a reason for some of our players to login.

Usually RK leadership combats this 'lack' of fights by going on a "road trip" where we leave Syndicate for a while, and hope for what I will call a re-spawn of local fights. While we are gone other Syndicate alliances have time to dig in, fight each other, get more confident. Then by the time we get back, we enjoy a flurry of new fights either from new residents who don't know us, or often from re-invigorated old alliances that have refined their tactics a bit and are now willing to engage us.

Sadly, or happily depending on who you are, Rote Kapelle has shrunk dramatically in size since last year. For instance, last year, Rote Kapelle was swelled by Veto and we had a near 23.5/7 reach where Rote and Veto could project anywhere from a 5-60 man gang. Now our most active TZ is west coast USA, and in an all-in type operation we are lucky to pull 40 members to a gang, including alts. To sum this development, it means that we are not of a "size" large enough to go play with the bigger fish in say Curse, Provi, or any of our other usual road trip destinations. Playing the dodge the blob game to get a couple kills isn't a whole lot of fun either. In any case, yes we did toss around the idea of doing both anyways, and found that it wasn't as viable an option.

A "staycation." The solution, but also the problem. How could we stay in Syndi, generate fights, and still reinvigorate the flight-club that is Syndicate? The options are pretty limited here, either we just stay in TXW and hope the fights come to us. OR we create a campaign, something that not only draws interest from our membership but ALSO attention and interest from the rest of Syndicate, thus generating more fights.

How to generate fights? Static assets, and home systems. Static assets are a long time risk in nullsec and especially Syndicate. Rote, alliance with near to no Blues, Rote has very few static assets. No Poco's, few POS, very little that can be directly attacked. Some of the same people who refuse to fight us seemed to be building near sov level POS and poco backbones in our own back yards. Now aside from the Ripard post where he points out the folly in POS mining or moon mining in Syndicate (we have shit mins yo, and any good min moons are claimed by large sov holding alliances), well these static assets became a target, fight generators as it were. A big target.

The thought was, simply, maybe if they won't come fight us while we roam, if they won't even undock, then by attacking their static assets, we force their hand, maybe even getting a few decent fights while we are at it. So, D5IW was chosen as the first target, there Damned Nation sat happily in it's stations and POSes, willing guinea pigs for our new tactics. As we jumped in Anderson made his post on FHC, and we began.

To some outside observers we were just wrecking sandcastles, but to us, we were generating fights, content and I'm not talking just one or two fights, but around the clock skirmishes, forcing people to call in favors, have their blue friends out in Sov space form up on titans to bridge and engage us if given a chance. Further it was our chance to show them how it felt. We'd let them get all worked up, securing blue fleets waiting to help them out and save x or y pos when they came out of reenforcement. Sure enough we saw some 100+ man whelpcane fleets out in Sov space on a titan just waiting for the jump order to engage us. We waited and after a month those same friends were no longer responding to those calls for help.

BUT THAT'S AGAINST THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CAMPAIGN RIGHT?

Short answer, no. The campaign is meant to bring us fights, not needlessly throw ourselves away against assorted blues and friends of people we were attacking. We aren't always stupid, we aren't going to up engage some 15 people vs 100+. 15 vs 40 is apparently fine though. Anyways, we would let them use up all their goodwill and then be forced to either defend in person, or lose their resource. This in addition to the extra fights we got just by the effort of setting up a static camp (something people could come fight, and did come fight, namely IRED and friends, as well as Goons, and a few TEST visitors, V.e.G.A., and others), fights gave people a reason to login, a reason to play Eve. In fact something that I'm sure won't be repeated for a while, was a very successful Stealth Bomber fleet that harassed logi and repair efforts on modules and POS all around D5IW.

Killboard - Success! All this in mind, the real numbers are just as important, in the months leading up to this campaign shows low fleet based activity, mostly Solo kills or ganks. But since the start of the campaign we have 972 kills to 143 losses in our target area's. Now if your real goal is to go out and fight... that can be seen as nothing but a success.

Since D5IW was cleared out... We have now moved over to 4L- to say hello to V.e.G.A. Who felt like helping out Damned Nation was a good idea, but only showed up in Fleet BS. Really it is because they liked to bring big battleship fleets to help out Damned nation in D5IW. Since we have showed up on their porch, fights have been lacking, well at least with THEM. We've instead had some good fights vs Goons, last night in fact... here

We'll see if they start turning out while we kill off their infrastructure. All in all, using this way to liven up combat in Syndicate for Rote is paying some serious early dividends  but it will be interesting to see the long term effects.

Long Term outcomes:

1. "Nothing ever works as planned." Rote successfully "sweeps" Syndicate, forcing out a good group of our neighbors, and nobody moves in, Syndicate goes from bad to worse with lower population and Rote is once again without fights, we fail-cascade epically when we turn on each other for kills.
2. "Stupid Christmas" - Rote gives up on our futile plans to sweep Syndicate, and moves back to TXW for the holidays, I get to share Christmas with John Rev and IRED in a happy peaceful Syndicate. Fights return to pre-cleanse level, nothing major has changed. Rote claims success because we never lost, everyone else claims success because they were never expelled.
3. "Rote WHO?" - Rote gets camped in/killed by one of the various coalitions either in Syndicate or  from their big brother friends in surrounding sovspace. Rote returns to TXW, proclaims success, but remains persecuted, more fights on average, but also more blobs.
4. "Fat trimmed." Ev0ke and Rote force out all the bad alliances, Ev0ke takes up permanent residence in Outer Ring, populating Syndicate with good fights for all. More alliances move to Syndicate to partake. Everyone is happy.
5. "I'm boooored!" Rote gets bored, (already showing early signs), still can't get fights, moves back to TXW in frustration, tries to figure out next game plan. Syndicate laughs off their campaign as unsuccessful, life moves on.

So between all of that I would think that 2, 5, and 3 are pretty likely, especially with the addition of Ev0ke to the area, having just moved into FD-. With them in the picture Rote will need to be extra careful when fielding it's cap fleet lest we become Ev0ke's next cherry on their killboard. I project that Ev0ke will beef up some more and head back out to Sov space in short order, likely CR, and will build a little defensive coalition that might give us good fights in Syndicate. Failing that we can always roam out to CR, Ev0ke's never shied away from fights.

Syndicate AT First weekend recap.

After some serious organizational work by Apathetic Brent of STIMULUS and Rote Kapelle, the first weekend of the Syndicate Regional Alliance Tournament or SRAT for short, I just came up with that needs a better nick name, was held in XYY, with various Alliance teams all from the Syndicate region competing in a double elimination Bracket based tournament centered around last year's AT rules. One of the main changes is that Tier 3 battlecruisers are 15 points, just one point less than CS but two more than a tier 2 BC. The current bracket can be found here updated by the SRAT organizer Apathetic Brent.

pBump was nice enough to stream the event for those interested, and here's the run down,


No sound. Fights in the stream are timed thusly : Winners are highlighted

27:25 - Flying Dangerous vs. Narwhals (midway through - we had to probe out the location to get eyes)

Whole match from the Ref's perspective.

Killboard links Flying Dangerous and Narwhals. (Can't find the Narwhals kill-board.)

45:22 Groon vs. Flatline.


Ref's view here.

Flatline Scimi view here

Killboard links Groon and Flatline. (both BR are confused with their two matches.)

1:17:30 Flatline. vs. Rote Kapelle 

Can also be watched through an RK Sleipnir's point of view

Or the RK Scimitar.

RK Killboard linky

Flatline Killboard. (Battle report shows both Flatline matches.)

1:49:55 Groon vs. Narwhals

Killboard of Groon (BR confused with their two matches.)

Standings are as follows:

Flying Dangerous 1 win 0 losses
Rote Kapelle 1 win 0 losses
Flatline. 1 win and 1 loss
Groon 1 win and 1 loss
Narwhals 0 wins and 2 losses (not sure if eliminated at this point, should be.)

The bracket has not been recently updated, but I will add a shot of it to this post when it is added.

What a weekend...

Horray, for the first time in seemingly ages I was able to take most of the weekend off and actually get some playtime!

I logged in when I got from home and was able to head on over to some fertile hunting grounds in a support role, giving two buddies a hand in a scimi, evening the odds a bit and scoring a few kills while they were at it.  The back to TXW once that fun died down, or blobbed up as the case may be.  Tiwa was about to head to bed when he noticed a blip of people in Espigore, 2 jumps into lowsec from TXW, a Rooks and Kings Carrier doing a Level 5 or something like that...  anyways,

A general call for help was put out and of course we responded in force, nothing like a cap kill to bring out the troops.  We guessed RandK were trying to bait in our caps, the joke being on RandK since we didn't need any caps to kill that carrier.  Well and their Falcon was a bit slow on the draw/cyno drop...  They showed up in Vestouve in force as we headed home, a couple of carriers and BS, I had already passed them, but they were unable to land a tackle on any of us and we made it back to TXW safely.

So after nerding up before the wife got home, I took time to welcome her come and have some dinner and then rejoined comms to see I had just missed the friday night blob fleet, shield BC's.  Damn it, had to catch up in a Dramiel arriving just before the first big fight of the night...  Props to the peeps in NM- (Valor Empire) for undocking to face us.  Our gang comp was a bit better than theirs, as can be the case when a roaming, pre-planned fleet faces up against a hasty home defense fleet, the fight was very fun, the best of the night!

I had to keep mobile, but I had my dram properly fit, that is dual prop, and was able to avoid being tackle and killed when diving through their undock to land tackle, DPS etc...  Never even had to use my MWD, as an aside; Dramiel's are just stupid fast.

We had our first major disappointment of the night when our fleet of about 20 landed opposite another, similar fleet of about 20.  They refused engagement because "they were there to hunt TEST, and would happily join us in a fight aginst TEST."  I was pretty "disappoint" at that point because our fleets were similar with the exception that they held a bit of the EWAR advantage and we had 4 suddenly Tempests in our fleet augmenting our BC DPS (and Usagi's Tengu).  I think we would have steamrolled them as well and that might be part of my frustration but I just wanted to fight.

FORTUNATELY FOR US, TEST came to the rescue and was more than willing to send in the drunk-gang!  Not that we used the other gang's help, we managed their drunk fleet handily.  Masses of t1 frigates littered my screen as we jumped through, with a smattering of t1 cruisers.  It ended, well, predictably. I think a TESTie put it best when he said something like It's a good thing we had to pull off, clearly we were too good for you.

After that we just made best speed for TXW.  All that in just one night of playing Eve, man I missed this game.

Saturday I logged in and headed down to Stacmon since our alliance is pretty dead during my early morning, jumping in my bits and pieces shield rupture I headed out to lowsec and made it a whole 1 jump out of Stacmon before the ROOS decided to try to kill me with a gatecamp.  Thankfully their Devoter missed me by something like 4 meters and I was able to make the gate in low structure to jump back into Stacmon.

Angry and happy to have targets I swaped out to an Abaddon and was warping into the Ostingele gate when another of my Alliance mates said hello and we joined forces to wipe out the evil ROOS!  It didn't go great, but my two losses were easily recouped by the single kill we managed, a pimpy Devoter.  Around then I roamed around a bit more, trying to find something else to kill in lowsec before logging off to start my actual weekend at home.  I came on a bit later but ended up going out and drinking with the wife and her hot friends, so who can blame me!

Sunday I came online mid-afternoon and found time to try to get some kills with Rixx over close to our neighbors, but they wouldn't play even though ALMOST got a drake at the undock.  His friends were too scared to even agress us, except him and this one Apoc with really long ranged Mega Pulse II's that could only hit my curse when I wasn't dampening him, or more accurately when I missed the damps, hey I was at 100km alright!  So judgy!

A little later on a couple FA guys were trying to corner a Drake in NG- their two turned into 13, and they failed to get anyone though they did trap myself and the Drake in NG- while they sat on the TXW gate...

Once a response fleet was formed we did a little gate shifting, our fleet ending up on the TXW gate with them on the TXW gate in NG-.  The hunters had become the hunted.  They made the valiant charge into us, but to no avail, we held the field and managed to catch most of those who lived as they tried to escape to 5-F.

After that I decided that I had better log off BEFORE I did something horribly stupid and thus ended my weekend on a high note.

Welcome behind the Mask LURCH!

Recently Rote Kapelle has been happy to accept LUCRH into the fold.  Made official by this kill, http://www.rotekapelle.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=47671

Not only has this expanded RK's membership by 20-30 members, but, to my surprise, also added several bloggers to the Rote fold. So welcome LUCRH.

Courtesy of Rixx Javix

Leading his corp is of course Rixx Javix of EVEOGANDA Fame

The bloggers under the LUCRH banner

Jushin Dragon's Flyin On The Edge

Tai one on's creatively named Tai one on

With one or two more likely to join soon.

Other RK Bloggers

Paritybit's EVE's parity bit

Misan's Serious Thukking Business

Usagi Tuskino's Chaotic Dreams

Dwindlehop's Uninvited But Not Unloved (Hissy fit averted!)

Turning into a respectable stable of bloggers, now to get some of them posting more often.... WHAT?!  I can dream!

New system on the market

Nice System in Syndicate looking for new occupants, inviting scenery, Intaki stations, plenty of room.

Friendly neighbors including convenient lowsec, routing to Stacmon.  Solitude, Cloud Ring and Outer ring just a few jumps away.

Private dead end ratting systems adjoining, but the premier attraction is the overly friendly occupants of the surrounding area, sure to welcome you with a bang.  They will provide both prime feasting opportunities and hard and fast schooling.

Previous tenants clean, though foul-mouthed.  Through scrubbing and cleaning included free with purchase.  New carpeting and Drakes throughout the system.

The grass really is greener here, move now to see how beautiful springtime in Syndicate really is.

Vacancy open for a limited time only, act now!  No price too low, no applications rejected.

Apply at any of the friendly real estate agents located, for your convenience, at all TXW-EL stations.

A deal like this can't last long, ACT NOW!

Option to buy at the end of the rental term.

Last night, she said...

So last night was my wife and my whole hand(5 year) anniversary.  Well since we met each other at least.  We went out and got dinner, had some wine, went out to the bars....

Okay fine, I'll get to the point

Friday night is blob night, here's what we get up to on blob nights! By our leet FC

Lets check that pocket.

It's late, i want us to move quick, but there IS a 19 man bubble on the map pretty close to the route home, so I take us over that way. Sak jumps in, says there is 50 in local, and I tell him to go get eyes. He derps around a bit (THEY ARE ATTACKING AN OFFLINE TOWER AT A PLANET!), but gets us a fleetcomp of: a few carriers, a few dreads in seige, a cyno up, and roughly a 50 man BC heavy mishmash fleet w/ no (non capital) logi.

I get the fleet off gate to a tac, and start publicly debating with myself... Lexa is bugging like champ, and I kinda want to get home rather than derp the fleet, BUT I famously pussied out on Thursday night against a fleet I could have squeezed some kills out of (even if we would have died horribly) and I was pretty emo about that, PLUS, I had specificly loaded us towards BCs or "whatever you could afford to lose" specificly so I could go have a scrap. So: Fuck ya. Balls deep.

I tell Sak to get me a warpin, as the cyno is down... he indicates that the show is @planet six at zero, so I order fleet to jump in, align, and after 10s, warp to planet six at optimals. This meant zero for DPS, 50 for logi, and 30 for me.

We do land right in the middle of fuckoff blob, and I order bubble up and start calling primaries.

I could write a book about primary calling last night. I probably should.

The bottom line is that I had brackets on, which I always use to try to best understand the SHAPE of the engagement on grid. Unfortunately, this time, there was SO MUCH on grid that this plan backfired utterly. I simply could not get an idea of the force disperal. So I quickly went to targets by range.

This meant I started with 3 drakes (I always try to call primary, secondary, tertiary)... some people were hurfing a bit but at this point, I'm just steamrolling with drake calls. The GOOD news is they go down rather quick, which allows me to get my pants on a little more, and I start preferring canes to drakes on calls.

My watchlist is showing me ships getting repped (rather than popped) so I'm happy to keep strolling through primaries eventually getting into the truly tanky ships (abbadon, etc.) There was ONE drake they had enough reps on that I wasn't able to immediately break it and had to switch off of. Meanwhile, I'm keeping a point on one of the carriers, and asking other people to keep points on the others. this started to suck as that carrier was slowboating away from the fight and my ranges were getting mucked up, so I started incorperating any other calls into my call-chain. If someone said "I have XXX tackled", I'd bump XXX to my secondary slot, and just keep steamrolling.

They cyno'ed in more carriers around this time, but I kind of just didn't care, as we continued to have no trouble popping things through their capital reps.

About this time, dreads are insta-cynoing out once their siege finishes, and we don't have bubbles to stop it (our hic died). Atan and Bacc are crying like babies on private channels to cyno in their toys, but we don't have an exit cyno sorted yet. I'm still calling primaries, and try to load another eve client to get a cyno alt loaded in TXW, but my framerates go to shit and I abandon the effort. I finally decide i don't give a shit if they lose them, and if they want to bring them onto the field, who cares.

So, I thumbs up the operation, supers come on, and bacc starts calling carrier primaries. I continue to call subcap primaries as they appear (they were broken at this point, but keep warping in "to help")... eventually this dries up, and all focus is on maintaining capital points and getting fighter-bomber DPS onto carriers.

I order our carriers to start looting as we go, letting the supers concentrate on dps, and move scouts into nearby systems to watch for reinforcements.

That doesn't happen, and we are left with a huge ass field full of loot. Looting took about 15 mins, by which time I was super nervous, so we evacced caps and went home.

I was SURE I was suiciding the fleet, and I wasn't. There are also all kinds of kills on the board that I know I didn't primary, so i'm very interested on hearing xbox's recording of the fight, because I don't remember much- it was really a blur.

At the end of the day, logi kept us up, tackle kept them there, and generally, we couldn't have done much better (maybe 2 carriers left that we shoudl have pointed).

It was easily the best fight of my eve career. Thanks for everyone who convinced me to do the unsmart thing.

Seriously, 66 kills and 6 losses.  That's a night I'm sure nobody will be forgetting soon.  Nice job Rote! 

And just as importantly, Happy Anniversary wifers!(She doesn't even know of this blog, so lolz)

A long journey home

Our week had been building up to this.  Cassius strolled in casually to the meeting room, ahead of me, a smallish but once empty bar up on the capsuleer decks of mid station of Reynire.  Now filled over capacity with pilots from the assembled corporations of Rote Kapelle.

Truth was Rote Kapelle had been absent from it's adopted home in TXW for close to two and a half months now, working to strew seeds of the revolution from Pure Blind to Providence.  Taking our lumps and giving them against the monolithic NC and New Providence in one place or another.  During these months spirits and morale had been up and down in quick succession but nothing compared to the current feeling in the room.

It wasn't tension but anticipation, for blood, for home, for a fight.  We were all quiet as our leaders and assembled FC's broke the news of our plan to the rank and file, in person this time, ensuring no confusion.  I moved to the back of the room, looking back towards our brief.

"As we stand here, your Remote Repair BS are being delivered to your hangars, from station storage and prepped for combat.  Our token force in TXW will attempt to convince the new locals," smiling a bit at the comment, "into combat.  The rest of the fleet, meaning you, will stand by in Vestouve, with light cap support for backup."  There were some involuntary nods around the room, one of those reflexes you gain from years of briefings.  I was one of the nodders.  I scanned the room quickly with slight embarrassment.  Of course there had been no need to nod, this was hardly the first time we or rather I had heard this plan, but it would be the last.  None had noticed, fortunately enough saving me the casual barbs passed around like candy in these meetings.  When the briefing broke up short seconds after that a light murmur of voices filled the room as the pilots of Rote Kapelle moved towards the doors.

Some had already remotely jacked into their hangars, or comms systems, ordering cargo in or out of their holds, prepping their delivered battleships for combat before arriving at them, joining the fleet, chatting on their communicators.  I stumbled slightly, still getting used to this new clone after my recent clone jump, and my foot careened off the floor from my misstep and then down right on the outside foot of Usagi Tuskino.  I tried to recover some, but my tall frame was already overbalanced, somehow I was able to remain upright although nearly falling into her, I started to apologize quickly.  Looking down to meet her eyes, those shocking blue eyes unnerved me instantly, as every time I saw them, making my already awkward apology stutter from my lips.  She waved dismissively, a small smile sliding over her lips as she moved away, her mind obviously on something else.

Once I stepped from the bar, I grew in confidence with each step closer to my hangar I got.  It was like I could feel the power there.  I set my body more or less on autopilot, moving instinctively, quickly towards my pod and waiting tempest-class Battleship.  The sweet feeling of becoming something greater, bigger looming ahead.  I joined the fleet channel, placing quick orders to move some large cap boosters into the waiting injector, my mind meshing with the comms channel, quiet now, assigning me to the second squad of the first wing of the fleet.

I broke the mental connection and refocused as I entered the room housing my pod, already inside my tempest, only marginally aware of how I got there.  My excitement grew, a smile spreading over my face as I disrobed.  I guess some people said you never got used to submerging in pod fluid, giving up control, that was never true for me.  I had always been a dreamer, meant for something greater, to be something amazing, my voluval mark reinforced the popular view that I was below notice, just another man, ugly man, but inside.  No matter the number of times I had been warned that I was the bloated and stupid rock I had never given up hope, even if their world was the mountain, my hope didn't die.  It was one of the few things that had kept me alive as a slave was this hope, carefully guarding it, clinging to it fearfully like a secret that could be taken away at a moment notice.  It had survived that and still it lived on.

***

Connecting to a pod was like being reborn into that thing I had always wanted to be, something greater.  While Battleships were ponderous and slow the simple feeling of power could overwhelm the untrained senses.  While I could still feel myself in the pod it was a distant and largely unconscious feeling, I simply was the ship.  I twisted the camera drones around my ship, prepping my guns with Barrage L and powering up all systems.  I had barely settled in when the order to undock came from our FC.  I had already cleared for undock, placing me next in line and then suddenly pushed out of the station.

Relying on drilled in precision I set destination for home, my tempest turning towards the first gate with a touch of my will.  The order to warp was not long in coming, and I was once again one of the first into warp, jetting towards the low security gate ahead, TXW a short 6 jumps away.  I kept my ship on course, laughing at myself as if I was some other person looking back at the meeting in the station.  I thought to myself that surely had not happened to me, it was a memory from another life, filing it away I jumped through the gate on command.

Reports were not encouraging as we made our way, only 5-6 of the new inhabitants were nearby, but our friends in the station as well as pilots on scene had seen none of them in space.  Determined not to waste any further time, our commander pushed us ahead, a very unfortunate Vexor meet it's timely end with a small section of our fleet removing it from space, our large ships near invulnerable for a time against the "peacekeeping" gate guns employed in low sec.

The Concord ding to my security was hardly worth noting, even lower than caring about the loss of life and money for our victim.  We waited briefly in Vestouve hoping for a fight in TXW, but none came.  With assured speed we moved back into TXW, orders already circulating for the formation of another, smaller, nimble fleet to assemble in TXW 8-8.  It was set to leave in 1 hour.

***

Leaving the pod was another matter entirely, I ended up feeling very alone.  On the floor of the same room, my consciousness collapsed into the small shell that was my body, my thoughts battering around inside my head, as if it was suddenly too small for me.  I dry retched, gripping at the floor, tears filling my eyes as I did.  I struggled to my feet, grabbing a simple towel to wipe the goo from my eyes, already headed to my next ship.  I didn't notice if people saw me, naked, awash in the glow of my hangar, approaching the sleek monstrosity of my Scimitar.  Like the Tempest the Scimitar was powerful in it's own way, able to project shields across the vastness of space, all while moving too fast to follow.  In the shadow of the vast cruiser I left the towel, repeating the process of connecting to the cruiser, as always, opting to spend my time inside the hull of the powerful ship, viewing it as a whole rather than as a simple man.

***

The hour passed quickly, maybe even too quickly as I scanned the fitting of my ship, making last minute changes and bantering in the new fleet for parts, all the while passing sarcastic we have returned comments into the local FTL channel.  I was slower on the undock this time, forcing my cruiser through the mass of ships at the undock point and then getting it pointed out toward the gate took a bit longer than needed but being back out in space, powerful once again was it's own reward.

The cruiser leaped into warp, feeling even faster and reckless as my blood rose to a near audible hum in the pod of my ship.  Our first challenge was to find a fleet willing to face us.  After several attempts and even more half fights and quick kills, we arrived in MHC, seemingly finding a interested party.  In fact the fleet we were able to find was made up of only CPU/Tabula Rasa, scared to fight against the trappings of their imperialistic and wanton needs, they left the field quickly, leaving their mate to die under our hammer.  Behind us they slunk back to the gate, catching a straggler before we could return to save him.

A few jumps later a hostile force that best matched our own was detected.  We were forced to redeploy hastily, blocking their route.  Our scout reported their fleet launching drones and throwing up a bubble, it was time to fight.  I stretched my will across the fleet, mentally marking members of the fleet to follow through the fight, hoping to catch those in need of repairs before their ships buckled.  We jumped, space buckling at the number of ships moving across space.  We found them in place on the other side, the battle was already on.

Usagi and her blue eyes was one of the first to go down in the fight, her Rook removed from the field before I had finished locking her for repairs, she had been foolish to reveal herself so soon into the fight.  From there things seemed to stabilize.  We were still taking a fair amount of damage, Scimitars burning for range while the rest of our light and speedy fleet attempted to lay down fire on the requested ships.  They were dying, but not fast enough.

FALLGUY was one of the next to go down, his Vagabond crumpling under reps, at the same time my lock failed after another lucky jam from EC-300 drones swarmed around me like insects.  I burned hard, trying to maintain range and escape from under the net of EC drones in vain, they would stay on me for much of the fight, until their owner was removed.  We might have lost a Vagabond but they were dying as well, 0458 proved to be a bloody minute, 4 of their ships lost for just two of ours.  My reps were working overtime to keep BlackFalcon01 alive but another lucky jam and distance allowed him to fall to the guns of our opposition.  But he was the last.  Their heavy ships tanked our fire best they could and disengaged the other side of the gate.  The battle was bloody, but ultimately we were victorious, holding the field. 

Returning to TXW with half our fleet seemed oddly like a loss.  We had come to expect to lose few ships in a battle, but even so we once again proving ourselves strong and our fight was motivation enough to be stronger.  The bloody fight fresh on our minds moved the CPU gang once again out of our way, despite their now similar numbers.  The rest of the flight home was more or less uneventful, never once stressing our gang to the point our fight had.

Our FC moved the fleet into dock, dismissing us as we entered station.  I sat there for a bit in my Scimitar, spinning camera around the outside of the ship for moments before disconnecting.

***

Sometimes it's worse than others, and you find yourself on the floor minutes later, coughing, unable to form thoughts, wishing vaguely for just one more moment in the pod.  At least that's how I felt right then, weak, out of sorts, unable to think clearly.  Luckily, my body was moving, working off years of completing the same task, I gripped a new towel and pulled it slowly over my body, cleaning it as I left the ship, the previous towel either removed by some unseen employee hired in one of my smarter moments or swept out into space like so much junk.

I walked into the quiet dressing room in TXW, my mind more or less settled now.  I pushed to get myself through the quick routine of a shower, getting dressed and doing short work on my hair.  I stepped out of my section of the Hangar Bays, long strides taking me the shortest route to the local capsuleer pub we all tended to favor after well just about any fight.  Even pilots who had lost ships had made it there before me, but one knowing look was all it took for almost everyone to understand.  I guess not everyone has such a hard time leaving their pod as I do, but at least they understand it.

I was happy to have missed the "AAR" as our FC's called them where pilots mistakes were pointed out and shamed.  I felt I must have made some, possibly costing people their lives, or ships.  Each loss weighed heavily on my mind as I looked up at the simple cork board in the bar that had hard copies of kills and losses listed.  Right now it was more kills than losses but I felt as if it could change at any moment.  Often times it would be updated before the pilots even returned home from a fight.  Nobody was quite sure who did it or why, but there were plenty of comments tacked to the side of kills before they dropped off the bottom of the board.

A pair of unsolicited shots slid down the bar towards me, I looked up to see smiles all around, I took the first shot quickly, the faint buzzing of responsibility, fatigue and loss slowly wiped from my mind as the smile spread to my lips after a few minutes.  I could barely keep up with some in the bar, but I managed to catch up at the very least... I think.

We are Rote Kapelle

Well it's been a while since RK looked collectively at our front page and re-did the wording introducing our alliance.  Through some collaboration and revisions on my part, this is are a few samples of what we came up with.  I like them both so it's going to make the "choosing" process later down the line harder =/

There are those who see the hand of god in turning hounds against their fellow man.  Zealots who proclaim their religion loudly, their "savior" providing their chains.

There are those who yearn for the freedom of their brothers so strongly, that they bind themselves as surely as if they wore a collar.

Some declare themselves free of religion while worshiping their production lines and financial devices.Others build temples of bureaucracy, chaining and sacrificing freedom in the name of securing said freedom.

There is a secret. They are all mad. And they envision themselves your master.

Eve AT8, Days 3 & 4

Thanks to some RL(whats that!) commitments this weekend I wasn't able to watch nearly any matches as opposed to nearly every match I watched last weekend.  Well other than Sunday where I was able to be in ours AND see quite a few.

Statistics...

I kept up my average of being near .500, I think I was at .56 this weekend, a slight improvement, but once again I got it right where it counts!

Day 1 short recap,

• Surprised that NOIR. Lost again
• Erebus showing very poor form not showing up for their match, but I expected more people to do the same given the long odds of advancing.  I wish STENT had shown up with less ships so they got more points and advanced, especially if they had been ranked 32, then we would get to shoot them again!
• Co2 breaking out the Freki to place the slap down on ROL!  Super expensive match, on both sides.  Co2 loses their Flagship as well.  Brutal.

Day 2 short recap,

• HYDRA handles Old Intentions in what could have just been a setup match.  But doesn't seem to be, just a bad setup VS bombers.
• Dead Terrorists plow through The TB alliance in short order, ending their attempt at a run into the next round.  Tough loss to the Tusker Bastards!
• Unaffiliated and IISL traded blows in a great match, sad I only caught it on the replays.  Brutal fight that left both sides with few survivors, IISL won eventually, sealing them into the next round.
• Dystopia fight goes crazy.  What a great out of the box setup there, Kadeshi failpoints and bring 101 it looks like.  Either way still a wild and crazy fight.

 Our fight vs AAA was a great one in my humble opinion.  Even if Kil2 got it very wrong when commentating about our Harb and then kept bringing up the beam harb.  To put a seal on that, it was pulse fit, and you should be able to tell that given how fast the guns were cycling on and firing, beams have a much longer cycle time.

The whole fight from my perspective;
The fight starts and it takes a painfully long time for me to lock anything, so I align for the Sun, locks come up(heart pounding) so canes webbed first, neuts on all three prot, guns on primary(started out as one of the canes while our support worked on theirs), warriors out on DD then back on primary.  Notice the prot's getting close(Bombers dead now), turn off the web on the other cane, swap web over to Sky'stale's Proteus, turned off ECCM, flipped on cap booster as my cap was already flagging.  Look at gang window to see damage spread over a few targets, nobody really needs help, keep warriors out there.

Cane down, follow the primary over to the next cane, neuts still on Proteus, trying to angle towards their Oneiros who slips into range.  I get a neut on him as well for a few cycles before swapping back to the Prot trying to keep them capped out, curse and I trying to keep them cycle dry.  Notice TD's on my Bhaal, from one of the Proteus(how long has that been going on?), check optimal of guns, adjust crystals to go back doing reduced damage.

Second cane down, warriors come back, Their tackle somehow dead, I drop rep drones to head over to Bacch wondering if they are going to get there in time as he drops into structure.  Check cargo then, of 27 cap boosters ~15 remain at that point.  Proteus make their brake for HEROGUARDIAN, I send my rep drones over to him pretty fast after that, wondering why the hell he's burning away from me while I flip on and overheat the MWD to try to keep the Prot close and webbed.  Close the distance on the Proteus and get them webbed, takes forever to get up to speed, seems even longer knowing the distance is increasing (peaked out at 37km) meanwhile HEROGUARDIAN tackled, heavy damage, into structure, but still alive! First proteus going down aaaand down.  HEROGUARDIAN still benny-hilling around in super low structure as I get back into overheated web range of the Prot's now at my full speed, HEROGUARDIAN skips out of range of their guns and lives for a bit longer.  He still doesn't turn back towards the Bhaal so I have to keep f-ing with my MWD to try to keep up.(turn around HEROGUARDIAN you bastard! is what I'm thinking, only words that come to my mouth are Proteus, webbed.)  A Prot times a cap boost perfectly, MWD to slide out of web range + 1 gun cycle does in HEROGUARDIAN.  I pound approach on their Oneiros who is now at 17km, neut him with my free neut, down to 3 cap boosters left in cargo and 6 in cap booster, little cap left so I keep the boosters coming.

We fire on the Oneiros and Proteus, I swap my guns to the Oneiros to get it through structure, missing mostly, stupid TD's, but he dies anyways.  Both Prot are now ~10km from the Bhaal but under webs and neuts, as the second Prot hits structure I'm out of cap boosters, turn off the neuts and pulse guns to keep the webs active, shutting down the DC to get that 1 cap every 30 seconds of something from it.  Pull rep drones, launch warriors.  I try to push a little range looking for cap boosters in the wrecks, can't find any, get inside 8km from Proteus while doing so, turn and move back out... slowly.  Second Prot down now, working on the last one.

Last one is double webbed, I pulse my guns to keep him webbed, game over.

Nearly have a heart attack as I come out of the battle haze, most of my modules are >50% heat damage, guns at 94%.

This morning I listen to the vent recording, realize how little I actually heard that wasn't important to me at the time and have a little chuckle at HEROGUARDIAN's voice after he dies.  Seriously goes up like 2.5 octaves.

Anywho mad props to AAA for the best fight!  Once again greatly civilized in local during and after the fight.  Was such a good match up and fight!  TD's really hurt DPS, and damn cap management is a pain!

Next round matchups were just posted, so on to my next post!

Rote Drei, RK and AT8 Day 2!

So much to write about and so little time!

AT8 day 2 is now behind us, upping my win percentage from .500 to a staggering .531!  At least I didn't go down, and I did guess, emphasis on guess, right on the one match that mattered, our match.  So let me recap that first,  Go to Here and turn the volume down after reading this...

I was flying the Bhaalgorn of sparkley bits, named Rote Drei, Man is that ever a sexy ship!  Joining me were an Eos, and no it didn't boost my already long web range (that a skirmish link not a info warfare one...)  Anyways, 2 Brutix, 3 Purifier stealth bombers, a Guardian and 2 Keres completed our lineup of 99 points. Primaries were assigned and a bombing run setup.  Our guardian pilot was having major trouble staying logged in giving me heart palpitations as I thought of what losing Rote Drei would do.  Fortunately we were able to get him back online in time, or maybe a little late, and stable, for the match.


The rest of the fleet was given Primaries while I was given the order to kill the Keres, Blackthorrn, first, hanging 47 KM away from me, 1km outside web range, and in good to perfect scorch range.  Everyone else was to focus fire on the Rook, Joe Fester, also just barely outside of my web range.  The idea was to get ECM off the field, then swap to the Basilisk then kill everything else.  The Purifiers were going to drop bombs, since they were 10km closer to the targets than the rest of the fleet, putting them close to 30-35km from the other fleet.  Now keep in mind bombs have a 30km range with a 15km explosion radius.  So really you can hit out to 45km with a bomb.  The match started and I immediately spanked my MWD towards the enemy fleet's cluster of ships, some 45+ KM distant.  Locking the Kitsune, Rook, Basilisk and our Brutix's for my med Armor rep drones.


Our bombs did hit, contributing damage across the board but mostly to the Rook and possibly the Kitsune.  I either finished off the Kitsune after the bombs hit or managed to oneshot it just before the bombs landed and as my webs were landing on it and the Rook.  The Rook was dead before I could cycle my guns on it(note the bomb damage on the killmail), so it was on to Sashade in the Basilisk.  Our focused fire picked the Basilisk off quickly, and the rout was on.  A single volley of cruise missiles struck my shields, taking them down to half, but their fire was the only time I was hit.  Georgena May was next, the first of three Ravens, neuted, webbed, now inside 29km.  Followed by sina241198.  And then Vulkan Prime.  We paused to loot, offering a laughable ransom in local of 1bil to destruct our ships as HYDRA had done before, but mainly to pass the time as we looted.  Twilight, extremely good natured to the end, said they were just one isk short, we would have happily accepted 999,999,999.00 but they declined, with their Nighthawk, Bubbajmac being the last to fall.


Some reports of us losing a SB to boundary violations were incorrect.  We returned all our ships to our hangars at the end of the match.


GF to STENT.  Good luck in your next match!


So enough of a recap, how about the fights that really surprised me?


- TB - losing their Flagship to HUN.  It's a rough loss and the first Flagship loss of the tourney.  Props for fielding the Bhaalgorn though, it takes guts, lots of guts, to put it out there in any match, let alone against a good group of PvPers like HUN!  I'm not sure if we had been in the same position we would have done the same.


STIM pilots in general (mainly because there are tons of SFites) don't really like Jade, so when T O R M E N T U M slapped them out of the park, it was a great thing to see!  Well for us at least, besides who can get tired of watching Jade die.  The setup I was so impressed with, forming around 3 Mach's doesn't look as invincible as initially thought when used to such good effect day 1. 


R.A.G.E stepped in(to replace Goons) with a very impressive showing against EVE ENGINEERING.  On short notice that was a great job.

The trend of non-flexible FCing continued into the second day, with certain teams calling bad primaries, or failing to correctly identify threats.

VOLTRON fielded the first flagship of the tourney, using it in style to drub the pilots of Honourable Templum of Alcedonia.  It was a very impressive and DPS heavy setup, made greater by the pinning power of the Bhaalgorn I know all too well.  Carnage like that, always fun to watch.

Jita-cam was great, but I wish they had setup Rens cam and Amarr Cam for fun. 

I can't wait to see the matchups in week 2, RK is currently ranked closed to the top by various people running the numbers so it looks like we will face some tough opposition next weekend.  I think we will either face .-A-. or Agony Empire in the next round.  .-A-. were very successful with the much emulated Tengu setup in the first day, Agony winning by default after Hydra suicided, but both ending up with a high number of points and very skilled pilots despite Agony's near loss.  I will post with my picks once the matches are released.

Side notes : Eve broke the PCU setting the new one at 60k users!  Just before the RK match, seems like someone was interested in us ;)

Also yesterday, my blog broke 50 visits in a day for the first time ever with 89 unique users connecting to the blog, an achievement for me at least, welcome to the blog peeps!

AT8 Teams announced!

Well it's that magical time of year again!  Where teams trying to get into the AT but didn't scream on the forums, and those who did get in prepare for hell.  This year the overall field looks strong!  Even stronger since Rote Kapelle made it in!

So many teams to root for, so little time.  Not to mention the wife not being happy when I broke the news to her that we made it in, she really doesn't like me waking up that early to go play INTERNET spaceshipzz!

In any case, the full list can be found here...  AT8 Participants.

Now, I get to look at each team and try to figure out how everyone will do!

A#1.  Rote Kapelle - Well obviously I would like to see us win this time, to avenge our poor showing at the last tourney!  With the outside chance I might be on the team makes this look even better!  gogo fail Kapelle.  Seriously though we have a LOT to prove, especially after last AT where I lost count of the mistakes after the first fight.

Everyone else...  That I actually know.

Against ALL Authorities - Great batch of pilots here, including Wensley, hope they do well against everyone but us, honestly I hope they aren't in our bracket!

Agony Empire - Teachers of some reportedly great pvp classes, and seem to have some good instructors and pilots, it will be interesting to see what they field.

Cry Havoc. - I'm starting to be a big fan of these gents as well.  But I used to hate them as ENH and Outbreak pretty much crapped all over one of my more favorite corps I was in.  Anyways I wish them luck!  They have some very capable pilots and have always made a strong showing AND good pvpee video's.

Curatores Veritatis Alliance - CVA, well I just hope they lose.  Wonder if they will show up golden fleet style?

Dead Terrorists - Out in Syndicate by us.

death from above.. - Apparently Jagerda's old alliance mates...

Electric Monkey Overlords - Know these guys from around the Groothese pipe.  Wonder if I will see anyone I remember in the fights?  Pretty horrible though, gate camping in dictors ftw, no idea how they are now.

Get Off My Lawn - Last time I saw these gents they were in our local, cloaking in SB, smack talking (yay) and doing bombing runs when they weren't trying to bait us into engaging a either overpowering fleet or trying to trap us.  Wish them luck because unless they have dramatically improved, they are going to need it.

GoonSwarm - Really?

HUN Reloaded - Always a solid team!  Won AT6 I think?

Huzzah Federation - It's spring so they must be reforming.. again

HYDRA RELOADED - Genos is scary, good luck out there!

Important Internet Spaceship League - They base in Syndicate pretty close to us so we see them on a regular basis.  That's all I'm gonna say

Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate - Really?  I thought IAC was mostly dead?

Noir. Mercenary Group - Our second fight AT 7, just barely lost to these folks!  Seems like we have seen at least one of the better alliances in combat before.  We also fought NOIR. about a year or more ago in Syndicate, though they weren't targeted against us, we did see them around so to speak, as much as you can see cloakers =)

Panda Team - gogo Josey Wales!

Pandemic Legion - What I would consider one of the favorites here and a great set of teams last year, we will see how they match up this year!

The Kadeshi - I remember these gents from last year, not sure why I remember them, but their name sticks with me.  Just looked at it and though they beat the Five last year, they were killed by Manifest Destiny... Battle Badger anyone?

The Star Fraction - Could be a very solid team with good financial backing, doesn't mean I have to like them!

The Tusker Bastards - Two effective pirate corps, so it will be interesting to see what they can do in what should be small gang pvp.

Ushra'Khan - Always root for UK since I hate CVA arrogance so much, not sure I care about them this year though.

Good luck to all!