Escape and Evasion

It was just another Saturday night and we were rolling holes in our current C3 connection because it resembled Swiss cheese and we wanted to run some sites. After successfully rolling 4 X702's (K-Space to C3) we had just 1 more to do. All was going smoothly until I jumped in my raven light and the hole collapsed behind me leaving me stranded deep in goon space with too many jumps to count to High-Sec.

We had discussed this possibility when making our Corp Raven fit for C3 running and as a result I had a Mobile Depo, probe launcher and probes. So after a quick refit I was ready to try and scan my way out of hostile space instead of almost certain doom. after 4 systems I finally found a connection to a class 3 which made all the class 3's we had been running look sparse. Sadly I scanned my way around and found a wondering connection to a class 2. The class 2 led me to another class 2 which had active members who launched combat probes within 30 seconds of me appearing in system. Well the race was on I scanned its static C2 down warped to 0 and jumped straight through.

Bob was with me this day and I cross jumped the Saber that was set to catch me and managed to drop probes once again and warp off before I got pinned down. Combat probes were soon in system and I warped to the first wormhole at 100km I found which was the C4 static it had. as I warped off as a Buzzard declaoked 10km off me. After 5 mins of constant warping I managed to track down the High-Sec. I warped at range and sure enough there was my friend the Saber. So I warped back to the C4 at 50km this time and had him land at 100km, 50km away. I aligned back out to the HS static and managed to warp before he burnt the distance towards me.

I landed at 0 on the High-Sec hole and hoping it wasn't an Island I sat there. I had been pursued for near on 10 mins total and wanted a chance to actually fire some shots back. First up to land on me amazingly was the Buzzard. Who in a ballsy move De-cloaked and scrammed me. I dorpped drones and launched a wave of rapid lights soon as I acquired target. he dropped almost instantly into deep structure and jumped b4 a second volley launched. Next up was the Saber Landing as the Buzzard jumped. Repeated the process except he took a few volleys before jumping too. Finally the cavalry landed. A single Proteus and 2 T1 cruisers. Had I realised this was all I was being persued with I'd have hdd it out 100 off a hole instead of at 0.

I tried to burn out but with my AB on was moving at a nice steady 45MS with all the webs on me. So I started on the T1 Cruisers. First 1 took all of a reload to force to jump. The second wasn't quite as tanked and I was chewing at its structure before it was suddenly a 1v1. These Ravens we devised were indeed amazing. The Dual ASB and resists could tank what I was taking from these lads. Well The Proteus was a nice mix of tank and DPS and I wasn't forcing him off field anytime soon. I switched to EM missiles as he clearly had filled his explosive hole right up. My damage increased but not enough for a quick victory. soon both ASB's were reloading and my armor started chewing down. The first ASB reloaded after my first hit of structure. And again I was back on top. Finally after what seemed forever the Proteus jumped too.

Having had an amazing fight and driving off a great 5v1 I jumped through myself to find 4 very sad looking burning ships and 1 unaccounted for buzzard. I set destination for our home connection which was 30 jumps away gave a gf in local which was ignored and started the long journey home. Although it was quite a bit closer and safer then the trip I would have had to have made without scanning down some new chain :D

The Do's and Dont's of moving ops

This is an educational post mostly about my experience in running moving ops out of and back into W-Space.

The Don't's
First Don't
This is something I nipped in the bud stage before it became an huge issue for the dedicated few. Never let everyone go free for all down the chain trying to move their own assets out. Especially when there are multiple Corp assets to move out. Any Corp Assets getting moved like Staging equipment/multiple POS that sought of stuff moved via Indies or even Loot Ships from a successful eviction/smash and grab should always take precedence over other peoples personal ships. Enlist every able bodied person about to help move these assets or picket holes. If you let people as a whole move what they want they will leave you and your dedicated few the daunting task of moving out everything else.

Second Don't
Never bring along 1 Indy ship to an eviction they may just drop 1/2 a freighter full of loot out of their XLSAA which they are using like a giant CHA and you get stuck moving it out 35000m3 at a time. This is a huge DON'T as it makes for some very argro people. Trust me on this one

Final Don't
When everybody has been up for 20 hours + and just wants to get to K-Space after a good fight/eviction it's probably not a good idea to find them a fight. I mean we all want a fight but some people have lives and need sleep and just want to go to bed and finding em a lovely little gang to mix it up with on the way home makes people argro :D

The DO's
DO be positive the whole time. If there is 1 grumpy person on Coms silence them. Grumpiness spreads like an Aussie bushfire in the middle of summer. If your grumpy and running the op it's best everybody doesn't know about it :D.

DO be quick and efficient in it. Have as many people moving as possible but never leave yourself vulnerable especially when asset hauling is in progress. I suggest cloaky eyes all along the chain on the side you are jumping through to.

Finally once you are down to combat ships assuming everything went well move them on out too if you have the mass left in the chain along with the staging POS if there is one to be moved and have a few scouts follow. Never let a combat ship get caught out by collapsing a hole without someone to quickly find them a route out.

Operation 'The Good Samaritan' Part 1 of (many)

It was a relatively quiet day in our C2. We were gearing up to run our C3 for some isk when we noticed a new signature in home system. Well never being one to pass up potential PvP we scouted it and found a indy corp and we managed to catch sight of a Viator going to High-Sec. So we set up a trap to try and catch it, it was not to be they had cloaky scouts on the hole and he simply sat in High-Sec so we tried a new ploy to jump back into him warp off to the POS and warp back cloaked ready to catch it. It was just after I warped my Phobos off their hole he jumped straight through. well admiring the fact he managed to pull a fast one on us we went in looking for a fight instead.

They geared up what looked to be 5 characters into potential combat ships. Then proceeded to POS spin for 15 mins then started logging off one by one. Well we weren't going to take that and went over to their relatively undefended POS and started shooting it a bit to get some attention. It worked and instantly we noticed all 5-6 log on at once. hoping to get this fight we shipped back to our combat cruisers and waited for the fight to come to the hole. But again they started logging off. I finally gave up and used local chat and offered a fight on even terms if they would take it. No response. I offered my standard line when a fight wasn't forth coming, 1v1 T1 frigs? No response. I then gave in and threatened that in Bobs Holy land when 2 shall meet a good fight shall be had. This is the will of Bob. The last of them then logged off...

Well I was a little pissed at being blue balled yet again by Wormhole care-bears so I talked to the CEO of my sister Corp in our C2 and we got into bashing ships and went for the undefended tower. Sure enough we got a log on. Yet still no fight. instead simply moving materials from the undefended POS to the really badly defended POS. This was the last straw. If they weren't interested in even coming out to save the POS then they weren't going to live here any more. I moved my spare POS to their system and set it up nice and handy near the first POS we started bashing and we spent a couple of hours putting it into reinforce.

We then missed the RF timer due to real world commitments and what not but proceeded to bring in ships and more people. Better prepared we once again bashed the POS down and were pleasantly surprised to find out that it only got enough Stront for another 2 hours. After polishing it off we took a few days to finish preparation and wait for the weekend to come. THEY WARDECCED US???

That's right not officially a formed alliance they wardecced only our sister corp only and we assisted naturally. This was interesting perhaps they were going to show some backbone 500mil in lost towers later. Nope they formed up when they thought nobody was online and tried to bash our staging POS. Well our entrance systems were 4 jumps apart hence nobody really active in their hole but scouts. So I put out the call to my lads and we joined the one fella from the sister Corp online and took a HIC, Proteus, Enyo and a Curse and landed on them thanks to a cloaky scout.

The Buble went up and I called primary neut and DPS targets. I called a spread of scrams to stop micro jump drives and after the first Raven went down I noticed that the Golem wasn't in bastion mode. I also noticed my Enyo had done around 1/3 of its shields in damage already. Diverging from my original plan of leaving it till last and just capping it out I called it primary. It took only seconds and it popped. I've killed a few Golem's with more DPS then we just fielded and I have NEVER seen one die that quick except a non fitted autopilot Golem I once stumbled upon. We promptly popped pods and the remaining ships and started to loot and take stock. 4 ships 4 pods no losses. A perfectly executed op. Not wasting time I called a rolling of the hole on the off chance that was the majority of their pilots podded out.

Now having time to breathe we set about looking at our kill mails. We were in for a bit of a surprise... 2 RR ravens fitted with a drone link augmentor and 2 shield transfers each... a typhoon fitted the same... and to our horror a Golem ALSO FITTED THE SAME......  NO bastion. No Local Reps. We were shocked. It was a truely terrible fit for doing anything with. We realised at this point we were was much doing Bobs Divine Will as doing these guys a favour. We named the op at this point 'Operation The Good Samaritan'

A few days went by before the big POS bash we had planned and a few skirmishes happened along the way resulting in quite a few poddings and removing of terrible terrible fits. One Loki was completly untanked and to this day I'm still unsure why it was burning around in my bubble since it was nullified.

Finally the big day. We started at 5:30AM local time as it worked best for the majority of the bashers. It took around an hour of bashing and they finally started to realise they were going to lose it all. They launched a Pheonix into space!!! We had seen it already but they looked to be hiding it up until now. We were prepared our Domi's and Geddon had prop mods to speed tank this beast and we had gaurdains feedingus cap when needed so we could bump this bad boy should it come out.

Well first attempts to dislodge us came in the form of a terrible attept with battle ships. this ended in 1 sided losses. they switched tactics. They tried to shoot us from the other side of the POS with the Pheonix. I bounced us off a celestial and straight back on it at 0. It POS'd up again. I asked for a scout to get me a cloaky warp point 150km off us on the other side of the tower expecting this game of cat and mouse to continue. Instead he came out at us full pelt and sieged up. This video will explain the rest better then I ever could. For those of you who don't know what a Aussie sounds like after a week long eviction with little to no sleep every night this is also an educational video :P Pheonix Down

After this fight a pleasant unexpected offer came through local chat. Surrender terms :D. We said unanchor the sma's we want to see what you have. We left with all their battle ships T3's and T2 cruisers. Those that didn't already get popped that is :D

This will now be our crusade. It is at this moment the 12 month challenge shall end as we have answered Bobs call to Purge those who don't follow his ways. Operation 'The Good Samaritan' Shall be an ongoing thing

Bob Wills It