POS Bashing, a good case of the giggles and BOB

So a little over a week ago we were fighting for our very right to exist in W-Space. Well I'd like to share with you a story about a bonding sessions The 12 Month Challenge (12MOC) members had together. It was almost a religious experience only those who have ever tried to bash a Large online POS with 4 people for many hours in W-Space could ever truly understand.

We had logged on to catch our would be invaders starting the set-up of a second large POS in our system. We were fairly evenly matched by the time our crew managed to log on at 7-4 odds their favour. So we offered out a fight and when it wasn't taken started warping about the system and sitting on the High-Sec Wormhole to prevent anyone else utilising it.

No fight forthcoming we surveyed the POS towers. One was incredibly well armed while it appeared the second was not set-up yet hopefully due to our activities. We formed up our best POS bashing fleet we could muster and set on the POS both before and after downtime. after a good solid 7 hours of bashing we finally reinforced it and went to bed ready for our daily activities the next day.

During that 7 hour period we went through many phases. The first was discussing whether or not they had time to put stront in the tower, what they would do the next day when they found out or small little corp wasn't going to lie down roll over and play dead and also the various weather fronts at each of our real life locations. after 3-4 hours all the bad jokes were coming out something as simple as the chicken crossing the road would have had everyone in hysterics. We were in high spirits. We were beating up on a now defenceless POS and slowly but surely chewing its shield away. There would be no quarter given we knew we could win this fight from that POS bash.

Finally the giggling settled down. We were all connected by our sense of purpose. United against our foe. And we felt very assured that BOB was with us as these guys clearly didn't belong in W-Space. They had not taken one fight or even made any attempt to do so. We are all pretty sure this kind of attitude is what has angered BOB so much and has caused him to send his righteous followers to drive them from W-Space time and time again.

To quote a great prophet of BOB

ISD Dorrim Barstorlode ISD Community Communications Liaisons Likes received: 2,927

#4Posted: 2012.07.29 21:06 2 To appease Bob, you must: - Always provide a fight when it is presented. - Learn to fight wisely in Bob's Presence. - Sacrifice a shuttle to Bob before running His Sites. - Squander none of Bob's Gifts. - Carry exactly what you need. These are the fundamentals. Learn them well. ISD Dorrim Barstorlode Captain Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department

Kerb Stomping

After much time spent we are once again the sole occupants of our wormhole system. Having hired Surely Your Joking to tear down the POS that we couldn't we have finally had some breathing room to finish setting up and go about recruiting more people into our lovely tour.

I'd just like to give a shout out at this point to Surely Your Joking, they promised the POS would be removed and it was. We were offered the means of which we wanted it gone whether by reinforcing it and popping it or by scare tactics. We chose the latter as I would rather take a fight myself I just cant tear down a POS of the calibre that B-Bad (one of our former neighbours) set-up. They were extremely professional in their dealings with us and got the job done. They come highly recommended from me, good job guys.

Ok now that I've finished plugging we finally after almost a week got a fight out of the other corp that had taken up residence in our space. Hence the title of this post. It was a fairly even 3v4 although they don't seem to be able to count properly but meh. The result was almost total domination until they managed to get their scanner back in the hole. The line-up went something like this Dominix Loki Guardian v Raven Vigilant Exequror Naga. They initiated on the Naga and we left it on field to die for the sake of bumping the Loki off the hole. It went like clockwork and the Loki was sent soaring off the hole as the Naga Popped. I pursued in my Vigilant for a second bump engaging my webs between bumps after his velocity slowed down to prevent him from burning away. Again it was sent soaring further from the hole and again a dual web Vigilant held it still. We overheated our guns and hounded on it as it dipped into armor completely ignoring the Reps as it was a shield tanked Loki. As it went into structure a loud cheer was heard on coms from us. Our first real taste of blood against these toothless invaders. We quickly focused again and switched to the Guardian which had stupidly burned a little off the High-Sec Wormhole. We had to jump the Exequror through the hole at this point as it was taking heavy damage from the Domonix. I overheated my micro warp drive for a cycle and bumped the Guardian further before engaging webs on it too. Once again we overheated guns and burned it down while the Dominix helplessly tried to rep it. It didn't change the outcome though as the Guardian also Popped in a Brilliant flash. At this point I ordered the Raven off the field as it was dipping into armor and we had it won. The Domonix jumped into the security of High-Sec as it started to take too much damage and warped to a station somewhere.

We took stock of the situation. The Butchers Bill,

                     KILLS                         LOST                              LOOT

                    572MIL                       84MIL                             81MIL

Total Loss to The 12 Month Challenge 3Mil, Total Loss to Kadabracraft 572Mil + 10Mil of scooped drones.

Now that's what we like to call a good old fashioned Kerb Stomping

So to recap if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire SYJ. The contacts that are listed on their alliance description are the only ones to talk to. My contact was Bradford Clear and his service was impeccable. True Mercs they honour their contract to the letter and afterwards pack up and leave. Also if you intend to live in W-Space make sure you honour it by always trying to give a fight when its practical to do so, care-bears don't belong in W-Space.

A Very Rocky Start

So typical me forgot to update my skill queue again. Thankfully my work computer reminded me so I logged on really quickly to update it. Being that this is W-Space as I warped into my POS I hit D-Scan and what I saw shocked me.

There were several T3 ships as well as quite a few others. Well not having the time or ability to play at work I offered an arranged fight in local over the weekend so we could actually bring them a fight and honour the 'code' of living in a Wormhole.

I was set-up in a private conversation with 2 CEO's of 2 corps and repeated myself and said I could arrange probably a 3v3 or 4v4 over the weekend if they were interested. As it turned out they weren't there for a fair fight. I told them we are all AU TZ so they wont get a gank out of us at this time either and they said they weren't there to gank us either. I asked the magic question 'What are you here for then'. The answer was quite simple 'The Hole'. I wished them luck and told them that I would bring them a fight after all and it would be tonight and not later. One of my other Touree's was able to log on shortly after and kept feeding me Intel on their movements. Two 25 man corps had set-up 2 Large POS's in our home and were bringing in a tremendous number of ships.

I did something I like to pride myself in, Research. It didn't take long before I knew more about their past then they would have liked. Turns out one of the corps has been extremely inactive for recent memory and the other one got kicked out of their C4 followed by their C2 a little later. Man these guys deserved a break but this was not going to be it. We were only here for our 3 months of the tour but I wasn't about to pack up and go just because these lads were having a bad month and thought they could come in and take over. Ironically we were chasing neighbours to live here with us but we weren't allowing bully's in ;).

Well we couldn't handle this on our own. We certainly weren't moving out just because a bigger kid had more muscle. We frantically went about calling in help from all our sources and contacts. It however never arrived in the form we had hoped for as they were either busy or couldn't commit to a time to help so we waited and waited. As we all finally finished up our real life commitments and rushed on-line to take charge of the defence of our home just as the last of our new 'temporary' neighbours logged off. Well we hadn't been able to try and defend ourselves properly due to Timezone differences and they knew it would be that way. But 2 can play that game so we went about reinforcing their brand new POS and setting up another of our own in system. This would be a battle of the wallet and a battle of wills not a battle of numbers. Our new POS ensured this as it was as monstrous as their first one they put up in system.

I contacted old comrades in arms and soon a wardec went out to make their lives that little bit harder. No matter what anyone says I know from personal experience that the lack of free movement in High-Sec can make all the difference. Finally when all else failed and our expected help never materialised I went about using said wallet to more effect then all out bat phoning put together. I contacted the lads who had kicked them out of their previous homes to do it one more time.

Well it cost a lot but I convinced them to do the dirty work of removing the POS that could hold us at bay forever. So finally just as the POS went into reinforce I got the message from the Mercs that they would indeed take down the troublesome POS for us for quite a substantial cost.

So to wrap it up our first week in W-Space so far has been extremely eventful. We set-up a POS and went to null sec for some fun from one of our connections. Then we went on to defend our space from would be invaders. So far they have not actually attempted to engage us when numbers are under 2-1 odds their favour. So here's hoping we do get a fight out of them at some point before we kick them to the kerb

Yaarrrr... huh...

This is a tale from when I was scouting out my new Low-Sec home and moving some ships into it. Well it all started one fine day in space. The sun was shining, downtime had just ended and I was one of the only people online. This same time often happens to coincide with my youngest child waking up for a feed. Well I hit jump on a gate as it was a long warp and that would give me the better part of two mins to get back to the computer. Well if you have kids you know that when you do something like this it never quite pans out like that when it matters.

So there was my pod AFK decloaked off a gate in the middle of Low-Sec and who should stumble upon it but a resident pirate I had already flagged as such. Well he got the brilliant if some what deluded idea of ransoming my pod back to me which to be totally truthful I would have paid about 50 mil for.

Anyway two things went very lucky for me here. The first was that I was just sitting back down to the computer with a bundle of a child in one arm and the second was that he was in a stealth bomber which isn't particularly apt at pod popping or and surviving gate guns. So as I look at the screen I see my pod go into structure and my agressor go PoP in a brilliant flash and then sit next to me in his Pod. Well with nothing else to bedone i bumped his pod and warped ot the nearest station.

We had a good old chat afterwards about what went wrong and what not but I'd just like to give a shout out to the first guy that gave me a kill using only my pod :D. Thanks Mr pirate and better luck next time.

Low-Sec Shenanigans

So I took one of my fellow touree's who hasn't been in much PvP before into Low-Sec during the in-between period and we decided to have some fun. I was packing a crazy fit Vexor and the Enyo. He brought along a Hookbill fitted for range and speed. I gave him one task and that was to stay at long point range and shoot things.

Well we found a rupture solo gate camping a High-Ses/Low-Sec gate and I sent the Enyo in as bait. Sure enough he agressed and we jumped our forces in and began to pummel this poor sod. Well It neuted the Enyo pretty quickly and the Voxor fit came into play at this point. pulling a whopping 300 Drone DPS and packing 2 Medium Remote Repairers as well as appropriate tank and cap booster it kept the Enyo up and the rupture attempted to deagress. He got very lucky that our only real tackle was a newbie and was orbiting at point range and thus lost point. He got away and we moved on our newbie having learnt a valuable lesson about setting realistic orbiting distances.

So after down time and a bit of a roam we encountered a Noctis about to jump through a gate. Not having come to pirate just yet we followed it through to find a Myrmadon on the other side already pointing the Noctis. Well this was what we were looking for we all jumped and locked up and started blapping the Myrm. After about 15 seconds he dropped point on the Noctis giving it up and focused on the Enyo which was scramming him at this point. Well he really stood no chance of doing any real damage with the hammerheads he had out so we kept engaging until I noticed a corp mate of his in local. I ordered an overheat as it was losing structure every salvo and we quickly finished him and his pod off while a Proteus landed and also agressed the Enyo.

We hadn't just found ourselves a target this time we had ourselves a small battle. So next in line for our squad was the Proteus which tried for some unknown reason to kite us off the gate which really worked for me as I wasn't planning on jumping and i figured he would need to sooner or later when he failed to break the Enyo. Well it went down as planned I webbed him 30Km off the gate and the newbie kept point the whole time and he hit half armor before turning around for the gate. At this point 2 more of his corp members appeared in local and I knew that this fight wasn't ending in us all sitting in our ships. But we weren't there to make ISK just for the fight so fight we did. First on grid was a stabber fleet followed promptly by a Loki. The Loki turned a full rack of neuts on the Enyo and the stabber started hounding on the poor little fella. Well the Enyo earn't his keep here when I turned off guns and mods except the AB, Vampire and repper and turned on the Vexor's Reps. Well the Proteus must of been pretty scared at this point as he deagressed and tried to head for the gate while going deep into armor. Finally somebody in their group had a brain storm and the Loki turned its neuts on the Vexor. Well this signaled the beginning of the end as the vexor was a much easier and softer target then the Enyo and burned down pretty quickly despite 2 medium reppers overheated. With all our guns overheating we saw the BRICK of a Proteus finally take the first bit of structure damage.

Sadly it was the Vexor who went down first and the Proteus burnt outta range of the Enyo which was finally webbed for the first time during this whole engagement. I ordered a scatter and my newbie got away while the Enyo got chewed up. After it all we killed a little over 100 while only losing 60 (thank you for not getting your pod out and keeping us positive). Well we had fun and my newbie learnt some vital PvP tactics. Also that is one group of pirates that just learnt the secret of the RR Vexor. Next time I go to tangle with them it will be with the support Myrm. Stay tuned for that story :D

The Start of the Next Leg

So I finally left the life of High-Sec behind. moved alot of my assets to a staging system near Low-Sec to start jumping them in one at a time as I didn't wanna risk losing the freighter to a random lucky pirate on the way. While I was starting this and the few guys who have decided to join me started coming too we discovered by chance a wormhole in one of the systems in our back pocket. Well part of living anywhere means wormholes so we figured why not check it out. May be some interesting prey inside.

Well as it turns out there was some very interesting prey inside. There was a POS setup inside with just one CHA and one SMA. nothing else no guns, hardeners or EWAR all fueled up and forcefield active. Also there were no less then fourteen sites up at the time. Well none of us had the time to commit to a seige or a bash at the time so I seeded an alt in the hole cloaked up and left it there and continued about my business.

After watch listing the entire corp and making plans on when to initiate this hostile takeover I logged on my alt daily cloaked up and observed. We fell more in love with this hole everyday. It had two statics as we discovered and had the best PI planets I've seen in one place for a while. Here we could use PI to make all components and the fuel itself for our POS - the ice. The statics were perfect for a small corp aswell. One to High-Sec and one to a C3.

So we hit 1 week to the day from our hostile takeover of what turned out to be the most inactive 30 man corp in existence when I logged my alt on and discovered something CRAZY. All the towers and the 2 modules I had grown accustomed to seeing -1 very VERY important thing. The Force Field....

For those of you who don't know about POS's allow me 1 moment of lecturing ;). You have to fuel a POS with its racial fuel or it goes offline. When it is online it has a Force Field which protects it's modules and forces an attacker to shoot it at a greater distance so you have to use longer range weapons to be effective. So if you forget/neglect to fuel it well it becomes a lot easier to take down the valuables.

So I called/messaged the troops to action and scanned down the hole. We got very lucky it was 10 jumps from our High-Sec staging system into Low-Sec which is where a great deal of our assets had been consolidated. So we got what was easy and would work well in a PvP engagement together and rushed the hole. Bringing my favorite combo the Enyo and the Vigilant I was first to arrive as these ships were alot faster the the BS's and ABC's that were also on their way.

Turned out they abandoned the hole as the SMA was empty upon being popped and also that CHA had only a few bulky modules most likely left behind. We popped them anyways and as it was all very impromptu and we all had other places we needed to be soon we called it a night and went our separate ways. Well since then I have sunk almost 1.5 Bil ISK into fitting out a POS and have set it up in the hole claiming it forever as ours (or at least until the next enterprising group spies us out and wishes to contest us our space). We have already made some kills and have learnt alot about living here that we just wouldn't have without having done this. It took me an hour to figure out how to anchor a dam POS module and the credit to that still goes to Rob who looked it up while I cursed CCP for another hard to figure out mechanic.

So now the opp that was planned is now simply a combo of a POCO bash and a POS bash without the timer and no real resistance. We intend to setup another POS here as we all are looking into manufacturing and it could be fun to nut that one out while in here. Anyways not as exciting as some of the previous stories but perhaps instead it could be inspiring ;)

PS this leg of the tour is by invite only. Hit me up if I know you and perhaps you can score an invite :)
PSS This tour has been very educational so far and I highly recommend if you can't join ours to try it out for yourself