I’ve been a bit quiet?  Busy busy busy

It all started a week or so ago when I had some people I knew from back in my empire days contact me.  The problem they had was a war dec from a rogue merc corp who were out for ISK ransoms.  A fair enough tactic for sure, and usually quite an effective one.

The problem wasn’t that so much, but that they had a lot of newbie’s who were being popped like balloons.  Their more experienced players were either offline during the enemy active times, away or simply unable to rally enough force to make an effective stand.  Enter….. yours truly.

Normally I don’t get involved in this sort of thing, but these people have always kept an eye out for me and I’m pretty fond of them too.  With an offer of a replacement ship and fittings for each one I lost, and a bounty for each target killed I thought “What the hell” and decided to get stuck in.  Approaching the medical station, I winced as I knew the impending transfer of my consciences across the vast distance was about to take place.

Arriving slightly groggy and worse for wear I staggered out of the medical station at my destination.  My 20+ jump trip cut down to a matter of seconds.  Having left the clone at a 0.5 station after my last empire visit meant I had a little freedom - at least in the surrounding area.

Getting in touch with their CEO, I requested a ship and rigs to be sent to the destination system.  The corp mostly operates in the lower high security systems, rather than 1.0 which means I don’t get hunted down by my Concord/Faction friends.  However the ship itself (all those on the market) were in systems I couldn’t get to - hence asking for it to be delivered.  The other fittings I was able to collect for myself.

Stating that our “area of operation” would be limited due to my security status, they would need to either bring the targets here by luring them in or letting them find us here.  As it turned out, it wouldn’t take very long.  I’m not sure if they had good locator agents, or newbie spy alts, but whichever they didn’t take very long to arrive.

The other problem I had was this was all arranged on short notice so no time for me to train a “dummy” to hold my corp spot open, not to mention the CEO wasn’t too keen to have a wanted pirate criminal in their midst (yeah, ironic and all that).  So this meant I had to be “fleeted” with someone at all times so that I would appear “blinky red” to the enemy.  It also meant I couldn’t attack first, until I was attacked.  Now believe me that takes some concentration after not being in high sec.

So each and every problem has a solution and work around.  Now, to stop the newbie’s being splattered across space like scrambled eggs it meant I had to be “bait” (more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing).  The enemy docked up in our station, along with me and a character of a month or so from that corp.  Shortly he disappeared from the station guest list, which meant only one thing - show time!

Being a bunch of trigger happy overconfident smack talking pilots, I highly doubted they would resist a blinky red target - let alone even check the corp I was a member of.  I was right.  Moments after undocking from the station, I pulled the ship to a full stop and sat… waiting.  Tactical consoles informed me of what I knew was already going to happen as the HAC’s targeting computers tried to resolve a lock on my ship.  The lock was completed a few moments later, and I kindly returned the favour.

The HAC launched it’s T2 drones and zoomed around at a very high speed indeed.  I was up against a 2006 pilot, in a HAC with T2 heavy drones.  The drones swarmed me in seconds and set about their job… very ineffectively!  I had tanked my ship to resist their preferred type of drones, the shield holding around 90-95% if memory serves correctly.

I still sat there, doing nothing.  I didn’t fire, I didn’t launch my drones.  This part reminds me of the film Zulu (thanks dad):

“What are they doing, why aren’t they fighting?”
“See the old boy on the hill?  He’s counting your guns!”
“What!?!?”
“He’s counting your guns, testing your firing power with the lives of his warriors”

That’s along the same lines of thinking I had.  I knew a 2006 player with T2 drones could probably put out 500-600 DPS which is quite considerable by any standards.  So I wanted to know if I was going to be in one piece by the end of it - it certainly seemed so.

Then a moment of concern…. The drones were recalled and another type deployed.  Another set of different T2 drones roared towards me, their weapons blazing.  The concern was that I wasn’t tanked for that type of damage - I was fully tanked for the other.  So I only had my natural resistance, plus my recharge rate - however both of them are considerable.

The tank ebbed, but we hadn’t hit peak recharge yet and the DPS wasn’t nearly enough. I summoned the two “newbie’s”.  Their ships burst out of warp, one virtually on top of me one at 10km just as requested.  The staggered drop out of warp formation would give a better spread for the webbers and warp jammers - basically increasing our web and jam distance, rather than having two tacklers right next to each other.

“Web him, jam him!” I shouted a few times.  “Trying” they said, racing towards the enemy ship with their afterburners lighting up.  As they did so, I launched a volley of faction missiles which should have struck for around 1100 damage, but the tacklers hadn’t managed to web him at that stage.  His tank was speed, so the missiles didn’t do nearly anything like they were capable of.

Still, it was a nice distraction and kept him busy whilst the tacklers did their work.  I heard the distinctive “hiss” of an energy neut and looked at my cap, it had indeed been hit with a neut (two it turned out).  I couldn’t help but smile, not actually needing the cap for anything apart from warp power.  The attempt was probably to disable the tank - he’d wrongly assumed it was an active one.

Moments later, the HAC was webbed and jammed.  Unable to escape and it’s only tank, speed, crippled.  “Keep on him, keep in range” I said which they did very well considering their age.  Now he was webbed, I once again launched a volley of faction missiles this time striking for considerable damage.  The two tacklers launched their drones upon the HAC, blushing slightly as I’d forgotten mine, I launched them too.  15 light drones swarmed the HAC.

Missiles spewed from their launchers - almost a constant stream slamming into the HAC (you have to love the sound of Havoc and Thunderbolt’s).  Half the missiles were set for his shield, the other for his armour, my intention to switch when his shield was down but there really wasn’t enough time.  The two tacklers providing extra DPS with their drones, blasters and rail guns with the combined fire of missiles meant the target popped very quickly.

As soon as the ship popped, I started to target the pod instinctively but my lock time would be slower than the tacklers.  However, being relatively new, they didn’t target it until I started yelling “Get the pod, get the pod!” by which time it warped out.  “F***!” I cursed.  Still, it didn’t matter.  A good result and morale booster.

Having fought my body was awash with adrenaline.  I actually had to get up, walk away, and walk it off a bit having a drink and smoke to calm myself.  Nothing beats that, and I know everyone who’s PVP’d will have experienced it at some stage or another.  Returning later, still slightly wired and on a massive high I reflected over the whole experience.

Why had it affected me so much this time?  Thinking further on it I came up with a few possible answers.  The first being that the opponent was considerably older than me and in a T2 ship (yes, mine T2 fitted, but the ship itself it T1).  The second thought was because I was “responsible” for the other pilots.  I’d not really FC’d (fleet commanded) before and any mistakes would ultimately be my responsibility.

Thankfully, it all went well and there were no casualties although the HAC did switch to one of the tacklers in desperation to escape, but it was far too late by then.

One of my more enjoyable PVP encounters, aside from my first as a tackler with Independence – the sound of Auto Cannon’s is really quite impressive the first time you hear them

Several similar encounters with similar results occurred, albeit with different enemy targets.  It seems they don’t communicate very well.

This entry is rather vague as I was asked to keep details to a minimum – which is understandable.  However, I couldn’t resist writing about the outline of the entire event.  Hope you enjoyed it too.

Happy yarring,

Alia