The Threeway

On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end...
-- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)

Harrassing an ISK farmer by making it difficult for him to run the 2/10 plex is a favourite past time of mine, his frustration, my jollies. He doesn't like, me, he doesn't like Keira and her uber links, in fact, I don't think he likes the EVE universe much as he chooses a poor way to venture through it, all cloaks, very little dagger, means I care little for his opinion, or his anonymous comments on my blog.

Anyways, whilst waiting for him to come back and try his hand at running the plex, my associate in Eifer reports a Myrmidon ratting. I recognize the name, the corp and the alliance, not ones to fly alone so I ask about to see if anyone has spotted his corp or alliance mates. Eventually it seems like this fellow is ratting solo, in Eifer... I know right?

I undock the Fifth Elephant™ once again, I'm liking this again, a white knuckle ride of a ship. I enter warp to the Eifer gate just after spotting an Electus Matari pilot warp the same direction in a Hurricane, he jumps through to Eifer, followed by me. The Myrmidon is in the belt closest to the Gusandall gate and as I enter system I see the Hurricane warp to said belt.

I warp at range and land as the Myrmidon goes red, engaging the Electus Matari pilot. Deciding it's a nice day, I light the Myrmidon up, he goes down faster than a choir boy at an Amarr church service. Then it's just me and Karum... He engages me...

Say what? Here I am, being a pillar of society, helping this man out of the goodness of my heart and he shoots at me.

Well, I can't stand for this, stand idly by whilst my good intentions are spat upon, so I lock him up and start shooting.

The shooting is going good, I'm easily able to tank his damage whilst obliterating his shields and armour, things are going well until...












BLACKBIRD! piloted by Ekkeko, for those keeping track












Karum's friend warps in at 100 clicks, lights me up and negates any use of my targeting systems what so ever.

I pop a blue pill, a strong one as I'm going to need it.
First jam cycle is a given, a cap booster charge is consumed, my shield booster repping massive chunks of shield, but it is hungry.

Second jam cycle, another cap 800, I'm smashing the targeting console, hoping, for even the slightest chance. Karums Hurricane is humping The Fifth Elephant™ like a rabid poodle, his warp scrambler and web meaning I'm dead in space, unless I get lucky.

Third jam cycle, this is getting tiresome, there's no chance I can fight back, my drones start taking damage as Karum's Hurricane is in hull and his only chance is to kill off my autonomous damage.

Fourth Jam cycle, another cap 800, more shield reps, more damage being applied by Karum, strangely no energy neutraliser, I'm being hit by... what the fuck are those... Rockets?

Fifth Jam cycle, cap booster 800, shield rep, smashing target button

Sixth jam, cap booster, recall drones, down to three of my brave friends.

Seventh, booster, repping like a Boss, deploy drones.

Eight...

Nine...

Ten...

TARGETING!!!

The Blackbird misses a cycle, lock resolves, Karum has two thirds structure left, guns overloaded, drones aggressed... GOGOGOGOGO!!!

It's a race, despite it's name being associated with a lumbering animal, this was one The Fifth Elephant was destined to win, Karum's hull not able to withstand the ferocious onslaught of sheer ECM hating destruction unleashed upon it.

A very good fight, sentiments shared in local chat.
For all the haters out there, Keira wasn't in system during this fight :P

Took some shots of the Rizzel's in formation, rather shiny if you ask me :)





Edit: It also helps to read this story whilst listening to this song as it was playing during the fight :)

Tapping my fingers in frustration.

On Earth, No-one Can Hear You Say "Um".
-- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)

I've been busy, far too busy but it hasn't stopped me thinking about violence and ways I can inflict it on others.

I had the hangar crew build a Thrasher class destroyer, short range, plenty of punch but not much survivability. I was eager to test the setup and undocked even as my crew chief warned me not to go out until the last rig was delivered, but lately my impatience has gotten the better of me.

A Griffin is in the direction of my favourite hunting ground, I initiate warp and soon land with the Griffin just activating the gate. I follow and engage...

...And then I sat for four full ECM cycles and watched, as first my shields, then my armour and finally my hull get destroyed.

Well played sir.

The Drones

"Well, 'scuse me. I was jus' tryin' to save the world."
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

A Rifter and an Ishkur in Gusandall, one more challenging than the other, I warp The Cunning Man to the 2/10 plex and wait.

The Ishkur warps in and immediately locks me up but doesn't fire as I'm about 25 clicks away from the warp in. A quick look at his weapons leads me to the conclusion he is blaster fit, so the plan is this, stay on the edge of scram and web range and kill his damage drones, then close in and start windmillin*

I start to close, but not too much, 10clicks is all I could allow. He deploys a mix of hobgoblin and warriors, tech 2 variety. With overloaded web and scram keeping him at bay I start to pick off the drones one by one, until the last warrior was left, then some ec-300s appear on overview and that was pretty much it.

I'm jammed till the last moment of the Cunning Man's illustrious service to NovaKane Incorporated, I stayed till the end in the vain hope of getting lucky and the ec-300s were defective or something but as is my luck, I had none.

Kane Rizzel > ecm drones were a bit gay but gf
Doctor Genocide > yep, gf dude
Doctor Genocide > ECM drones are fair on a boat with 2 flights of drones
Doctor Genocide > you killed my damage drones
Kane Rizzel > not when you're fighting a rifter :)
Doctor Genocide > lol
Doctor Genocide > true
Doctor Genocide > but hey; without them you'd have kited & killed me
Kane Rizzel > tbh, I just wanted to kill them so I stood a better chance of going toe to toe
Doctor Genocide > AC Vs Hybrid is leg to toe

So ec-300s once again prove to be the bane of Kane, was frustrating but c'est la vie.

Two losses in a row, things are not looking so good at the moment

*Verb; To whirl one's outstretched arms around in a circular motion, fists clenched, with the intention of hitting something (or someone). This action resembles the spinning blades of a windmill.

EDIT:

I finally killed something. So, there's a Jaguar that undocks from Gusandall station, I casually board Flubber and join him in the black. Jag is tough cookie to crumble and it would be tougher still to do so under sentries.

The jag pilot was hesitant to engage, I nonchalantly dragged him away from the station, a bit of lame Kane at 60% thrust. At over 150 clicks off station it's game time. The jag pilot is from an alliance that is well known for not flying without backup, so it was a race against warp speeds for me to kill the jag and get out with Flubber in one piece.

Jag is trying to keep range but Flubber is tricksy and jag can't keep range, so jag dies just as local comms fill up with his alliance mates, a Tempest, two Myrmidons and a Hurricane warp in to our position just as the jag pilot's escape pod warps to safety.

At full thrust it's time to make tactical advance to the rear, a dangerous counter-attack that is practised by many grand armies, at about 40km the Tempest loses point and I make casual exit from battle ground tipping my hat to the combatants as I leave.

Pie haters and the love for ECM

Last night saw a rag tag bunch engage Capital Storm pilots in Gusandall, our home system.
Our ship compliment of Hyperion, Brutix, Hurricane, Rapier and Rupture versus Raven, Maelstrom, Basilisk, Hound and Falcon.

Primary was the Basilisk as the tanking capabilities of the Maelstrom and Raven are boosted massively by the logistics ship. Hopefully we would be able to drop it before the Falcon came into play with it's myriad of Electronic Counter Measures. We were succesful in dropping the Basilisk, in doing so losing a Brutix. Primary was shifted towards the Raven and our remaining ships closed in.

Getting the Raven down to half shields as the Falcon uncloaked and started to get cycles on us, effectively removing us from the fight and forcing us to disengage.

Two of us had gotten close to the Falcon to force him to cloak but in doing so had spread out and diluted our firepower on the primary. we made the mistake of all trying to get back in on primary, allowing the Falcon to uncloak and start cycling its jammers again.

With us unable to lock targets the order was given to disengage, which we all did.

The duration of the fight lasted for about 10 minutes with both sides losing only one ship, disappointing to say the least.

Sitting in my bunk, watching the video feed from the engagement reinforces my hate of EWar.
Sure it's a viable tactic but I feel it's too easy. The Falcon is a massive force multiplyer and I'm wracking my Sibby brain to come up with counter measures. I just don't like the fact that one ship can effectively nullify multiple ships in a fight. It's even more potent in small gang engagements like we find ourselves in.

One which we have been succesful with is forcing the Falcon to disengage by getting on top of it and forcing drone aggro, unfortunately to do this means diluting firepower. Using dedicated means to force the Falcon to disengage has the same result.
Of course bringing our own ECM to the fight just means we perpetuate the stupidity and is something I'm loathe to do.

Personally I prefer a stand up fight, guns blazing but I must give props to Capital Storm, a good bunch of pilots, sure they are Anti Pie, but are amongst the better Pie haters I've fought against.
Zero smack and respect at the end of a fight.
Props too to Deltauk1, the Falcon pilot, his skills are keeping me awake at night trying to figure out a way to effectively remove him from any future engagements.
I'll get you... and you're little Falcon too ;)