Ombeve

Blog moved

2008-05-14T14:44:00.003Z

ATTENTION- I have moved this blog to Wordpress, so please continue to read this blog here, and not here. I thankyar.

Omb

Defanging the Hydra

2008-05-14T09:55:00.014Z

I have been quite busy over the last few days, so no entry.

We accepted a contract against Hydra Alliance a few days ago, and once again started the process of moving all our ships, modules and ammunition (I sometimes consider training up Amarr ships, the idea of not having to procure ammunition is very tempting, but then I have to train T2 lasers, meh). Fortunately, this time it wasn't so far from Nonni, or Torrinos for that matter, and without an Empire wardec to slow us down, we relocated reasonably quickly to Obe.

As I was at a loose end on Sunday, myself in a Vagabond and a few other KIA pilots (Mikhalio, McKinley and fertigo) decided to run up the pipe toward TVN-FM, where Hydra are based. Along the way, we narrowly missed a couple of ships, and TVN didn't prove to be fruitful either. We finally managed to bag a Retriever mining ship which had jumped into the outpost system of C-FP70. It was officially the first kill of the contract :-)

We didn't know what sort of response that would elicit, so as we were light on both numbers and firepower, we headed for home, calling in quickly to TVN again, and this time I got lucky and warped into a belt where a Drake was blithely ratting. As we were light on firepower, and I had no EMP ammo on me (moron, I won't make that mistake again), it took some time to kill him. There 24 neutral/ hostiles in local and no-one came to help him. It turns out he wasn't hardened against EM at all, just kinetic, the damage the Guristas favour. We decided to get out of there as 2 more Drakes now undocked.

The past couple of days was spent POS bashing, I joined in where I could, and we took down their cynosaural jammer field, enabling us to bring in the Titan. I had gone to sleep for the night when our Titan destroyed 25 Hydra/ Tau Ceti ships (I didn't realise TCF were friends with Hydra). They witnessed the power of this fully armed and operational Titan.

And so, last night. Once again, Hydra had repaired the cyno jammer, and we took our BSs to blow it up. When I joined the gang, they were hard at work on the jammer, the guns and the other fripperies a POS usually has. Most of their guns were taken out, then Hydra gunners started turning up. We had to be extra careful, and there were no losses. We then jumped out to Obe to restock on ammo, repair up any remaining armour damage, recharge shields etc. My Tempest's readout was all showing optimal.

We got word that Hydra, having seen us leave the system, had set up a camp on the Obe gate in P3. They were Battleship heavy, with support ships ranging from Inties to Hictors. We were going to jump in an engage- no Titan this time, just conventional weapons. I quickly ran system checks and confirmed with the crew that everything was AOK. This was going to be a big fight. We were gang-warped to the gate and jumped in.....

The fight lasted 11 minutes.

We held our cloaks, and took stock of the situation. I had filtered my overview to just show battleships, and my word there was a lot of them. I instructed the camera to look around, and I could see there were a lot of support ships on the gate with their drones out. I couldn't initially see the Battleship group... then there, I spotted them- above the gate and out some way. They were all about 40-90 km away. Our FC, Tjakka, ordered a regroup and our ships all broke their post-jump cloaks at the same time and headed toward him. This brought us all in range of each other's remote repairers.

Tjakka started calling targets, the first being Alrick Undying- bad luck for having a name starting with 'A' as we were going alphabetically this time. He was about 90km out. I had pre-loaded Tremor ammunition, with it's extra long range reach, and the ship shuddered slightly as my 1400s blasted the rounds out toward the target at tremendous speed. Then, shortly afterwards, he disappeared... I assume he had died, but I can't find any trace of him in the kill-logs, so I assume he warped off.

Then, the thing that all pilots dread happened. For no clear reason other than a lot of ships are in close proximity to each other (and by this I mean up to 500km), our electronics are interefered with, and there is significant delay in updating camera drone feeds, de/activating modules and even issuing commands to the ships engines. Not even the top scientists can attribute this phenomenon to anything, and we just have to live with it.

So, I started doing my best to target several ships at once, with the delay it meant I would have them pre-locked by the time they were called primary and by the time my weapons had deactivated. While I was distracted doing this, my ships shuddered under the hammer blows of six Wrath Cruise missiles. My mouth went dry, I figured I was primary... but the damage wasn't that great, and my overview confirmed only one ship, Edes Imp, was firing at me. Curious. He wasn't doing enough damage to worry me at that moment, and then he was called primary. If he was called Zzzebedee, then maybe he'd have become an issue, but there you go.

I noticed on the Watch List that Eddz was in trouble, he'd been primaried (as usual), so I locked him, and waited... and waited.. and then activated my remote reppers... and waited. Sigh. I could've prelocked him, but with these sorts of delays it could lead to friendly fire- kind of a fine line to tread. It looked like others had the same idea, and Eddz was keeping alive. I quickly told the camera drone to view Eddz's ship- it was on fire, and steam was venting out into space. However, streams of repairing nanobots flew toward him from our ships, and repper drones were buzzing around him, and his ship was being reconstructed faster than it was being destroyed.

During this time, blue flashes rent the blackness as one after another the Hydra ships were destroyed. Our support ships were being kept busy chasing down and killing their support ships. I launched my drones, but didn't tell them to engage any support as I had filtered them out in my overview. They would auto-attack anything that attacked me, so this was good enough for now.

McKinley in a Raven was the first of ours to go down, followed by Jack Drask's Scorpion (no doubt to remove his jamming abilities). CheeseMonkey in a Tempest, Misato in a Hound, then finally Elias West's Vaga all fell.

As their numbers dwindled, so did the incoming fire, and the battle reached a point where it was clear we'd win. They eventually withdrew what they could/ what was left, and we finished off any ships caught in the bubble. We held the field and the faster ships looted the wrecks..

(Click the pictures for a larger view)

Final tally was approximately 55 kills for 5 losses... not bad in anyone's book. Respect to Hydra for a good fight, and no smack whatsoever.

Good times, bad times

2008-05-03T16:26:00.002Z

I woke up this morning in my berth in Torrinos. I found out that only a few hours previously, our Titan had seen it's first usage in combat. Due to "smacktalk holding up your jump", the cyno creator Broadsword had taken a little too much damage to survive the DD as well, and popped. Tjakka then got his pod out, got a Claymore from the now safespotted Titan, and came back to kill a Rifter who was cheekily taking loot.

After breakfast, got into my pod, and was placed in my Rapier. It was configured for scanning down ships, and therefore it's damage output wasn't as good as it could've been. Still, I had found recently I was enjoying scanning down ships in supposed safespots, and as KIA don't have many people who scan, I was helping the cause.

I broadcasted on the alliance channels if anyone was interested in joining a gang for a roam, but didn't get a reply- people were busy, and there weren't that many on. I jumped into EC-, holding my breath- I was reasonably safe, due to the Rapier's cloak, but bad luck or a mistake, and i'd lose it. The gate wasn't camped, just a lonely small bubble left by Goonswarm was on the gate. I moved, cloaking back up and watched some traffic flow to the gate. The bubble was poorly placed to catch any traffic, but I saw it was probably to catch traffic from the station in system, not the other gates.

Anyway, there was no-one on scan in EC- so I went next door to EWOK. Sure enough, I picked up an Omen immediately. There was only one pilot in local, Zirush. I weighed the odds of being able to take an Omen on my own, he was a young-ish character. I figured I'd try and probe him out to start off with, then decide. He was predictably safespotted, and I narrowed him down to about 8au away. I dropped a Fathom probe, which had a 10au radius and the 60 second timer ticked away as the probe scanned. It seemed like such a long time- my directional scanner showed he hadn't moved. With a click, the result flashed up on my HUD. The probe had pinpointed him to with 250km. I sighed, and entered warp. Not a bad result for a 10au probe I guess.

I exited warp, and sure enough, there he was, but 240km away, and seemed to be heading toward me. I accelerated toward him, still cloaked, and the distance closed slooowwly. I thought I'd call out again to the rest of the alliance, most of would be 2 jumps away in Torrinos. This time, got 3 people who were interested. They were en-route. By the time they arrived at EWOK gate in EC-, I was 170km away, and not closing any more as he'd changed direction. I warped out to change to a more accurate Snoop probe with a 5au range, when the guys in EWOK engaged a ship, and jumped through to chase it. This spooked my Omen, who left system.

The other guys went back into EC- and the Omen had returned. Again, I narrowed him down to what appeared to be another safe, again about 7au away. So, i changed back to the 10au probe and 60 seconds later... got a 50km accuracy hit. But also on a Thorax. I warped to the Omen, contacted the others to give them a heads up, and came out of warp....50km away was an Omen, and a Thorax. Both dead still and next to an anchored container. This was probably an ammo or loot cache. I smiled to myself, closing the distance. At 20km, I told the others to jump in- we had Jay Deah in a Hictor, so that was good.

I decloaked, put my Warp Disruptor on the Omen, and double Webifier on the Thorax- they would interfere with his engine, and slow him down- hopefully he would panic and not try to warp out yet. I fired at the Omen, and put drones on the Thorax to distract him. They both picked up speed, and then the other guys arrived. The end was inevitable, with the Omen's armour melting, and the ship disintegrating before the massive explosion of the reactors. The Thorax went shortly after.

We then went back and camped EC- for a while at Torrinos gate, and the only interesting fight we had was a Taranis interceptor who jumped through, decloaked, and made a run for it to get out of the bubble. Elias West gave chase in his Inty. Either the Taranis didn't try, or was scrambled, and in a flash, they were both 150+km off the gate. I remained cloaked and warped to Elias....but they were already 90k away again. Damn they were fast. Again, I waited till they were 150km away, and warped. This time, they had stopped going in a straight line, and were orbitting each other. I landed at 50km distant. Elias was calling that he was going into structure, so I decloaked and engaged my MWD. Locked the Taranis, and webbed him while scrambling him, and opened up with my artillery. A blue flash, and Elias blew up... a second before I got the final blow on the Taranis, and it blew into a million pieces.

Collected Elias's loot, dropped it off in Torrinos for him, and then we decided to fly up the pipe to RQ. We had quite a few more people in gang now. Nothing very exciting, but we followed a Raven into a dead end system- we did it in a hurry, so jumped in unscouted...and there was a Myrmidon, Malediction and another cruiser on the gate. They engaged, and I was primaried....I burned away from the gate as the others jumped through. The Myrm was doing oddly small damage to me, I wondered what he had fitted, but I warped away as I wasn't scrambled.

I heard the FC say "get away, everyone run", but I was already in warp back at this point, cloaked. I had opted to warp back at 10km.. which saved me as I landed in front of a 30ish strong gang of DeStInY Alliance. Ah. I was 3000m from the nearest ship when I panicked and thrust the ship straight down, saving my bacon. Another 500m... and I'd have been toast.

About 30 seconds later, an odd thing happened. Ships appeared to warp away from the gate, but in doing so, accelerated past me and decloaked me (I assume), even though they had started going into warp 20km away. Anyway, I decloaked, and they locked me before I could recloak. I MWD'd away, but the result was going to be messy. Shield warning buzzers went off in my ear as my shields melted, then my armour started going, but much more slowly. I told the crew to abandon ship, and waited for the coldness of vacuum to envelope my pod. I was killed, with only 5 or so of the ships in their fleet doing most of the damage.

We regrouped in a safe, and when the gate was clear, very shortly afterwards, we got out. Not sure why they didn't want to camp us in, but after some light smack in local from one of them, they showed us no further interest. Such a big fleet in a dead-end system- maybe something else was going on. Who knows.

Anyway, made our way back to Mantenault where I left the gang and went to purchase another ship from Orvolle.

KIA Titan is born

2008-05-01T08:47:00.002Z

And thus, KIA's first Titan is born:

Leviathan- click for larger image

We are having a discussion about what to call it.... I think 'awesome' will do!

"now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battlestation"!

Tortuga R.I.P Dec 07- Apr 08

2008-04-29T08:13:00.002Z

Tortuga is collapsing, like a house of cards made of feathers. Feathery cards. If you can imagine feathery cards. Hmm.

Midway through our Scalar contract, we heard that BoB had sieged H74, a system in Querious, and an important one for MC. They took it quite quickly, we were greeted on Sunday morning with the fact 1-N was under siege. This is MC's home, and a direct attack on this made the most sense for BoB. The cyno-jammer was taken out, and BoB's capitals moved on, starting the beginning of the end.

We all clone jumped back again to Period Basis, not sure how happy our employer was about this, and attempted to mount some sort of defence in conjunction with MC. We were told to move our ships into 1-N and await instructions. Which never really came.

Rumours were circulating that MC was fracturing from the inside, pro-BoB elements inside MC were at loggerheads with anti-BoB elements, and as such, there was a 'failure cascade'- a fitting use for that term I think.

KIA was told to get our assets the hell out of PB, but keep the defence ships we'd put there. So, Sunday was spent moving our stuff out. There appeared to be no organised resistance to speak of, BoB vastly outnumbered any forces we could put up. Although we (KIA) were all keeping in touch on comms, there appeared to be no cross-alliance gangs. We organised within our corps to get all our assets back to empire, which seemed to go very smoothly.

In a combat op on Sunday, BoB obtained a POS password that a few of our ships were in, warped in 2 Titans and DD'd the area. KIA only lost a few ships there, MC lost about 16, mainly battleships. It's not very sportsmanlike, but this is war I guess, and BoB has an axe to grind.

Speaking of Titans, it turns out KIA have a Titan being produced in a shipyard in L5D, and it's due to be complete in a day or two. As it turns out, the person who gave BoB the POS password was an MC guy who was having a Titan built (due to be complete a few days after ours). He was trying to get a deal where he gives the password over to BoB, in return for them letting his Titan complete. MC kicked him out, and aborted his Titan build! Harsh, but very fair. Was he stupid enough to think BoB would honour this? Talk about an easy PR victory for BoB, win-win for them.

I am a bit hazy on POS stuff, but I don't think BoB can now destroy the building Titan before it's done. I am sure they haven't overlooked this, and have probably just concentrated on 1-N. Of course, once it's built, it'll be more fun for them to try and kill it, so this chapter isn't over quite yet.

New contract v Scalar Alliance

2008-04-23T10:48:00.004Z

After the eventful weekend, we were informed of the real reason we were back in Empire- a contract against a small Alliance called Scalar Alliance [OOC- read some back history on this conflict, here]. We had been hired to bring some muscle to the table.

The action was taking place in Pure Blind, a rather poor region of not much interest to anyone, which I concluded to myself, was why a small Alliance were being allowed to 'look after' the Region by Triumvirate, their neighbours. The latter could, let's face it, move in and move these guys out should they see fit. But current events had it that Tri were undergoing some leadership issues, and had removed a couple of more PvP orientated corps from their Alliance recently, so who knew what was going on.

Anyway. The upshot was that we were ordered to move our ships closer to one of the entrypoints into Pure Blind, Torrinos. The earlier hostilities with BoB and friends had ceased as we had dropped the WarDecs, and thus fighting in Empire wasn't likely to happen (other than suicide ganks.. and you don't tend to suicide gank combat ships). A friend of mine outside the corp, we'll call him "Bert", helped out with his T2 transport, a rather scary looking black Amarrian ship. Very imposing indeed. He wouldn't take any ISK, he just enjoyed hauling stuff around. He was going that way anyway on a trade run, and as my ships didn't take up too much space, it was no bother.

I flew my Tempest up myself, you can't realistically transport Battleships without involving Freighters and we weren't going far so there was no need for that. The journey was uneventful, but as the autopilot aligned the ship for warp in Oipo, my pod's heads up display flickered slightly, then came back. I quickly checked the ship's systems, and found that the capacitor was down to 33%. Weird. I checked the sytem size, and there was the answer- the gate to gate distance was almost 200au! I made a mid-point safespot, you never knew when they'd come in handy, and in a system this big, it was a nice place to hide.

Torrinos was a busy little system, over a hundred pod pilots there. I guess high sec systems that were also entrypoints to nullsec were quite rare, and the opportunities were there for all sorts of safe trade and commerce. Of course a lot of KIA were flitting about, doing the same as me, or just acquanting themselves with their new home for the next week (at least).

The op was starting a little later than normal to allow people to get ships in to place. Impatiently listening to comms chatter, I found myself quite looking forward to this. The first proper contract we'd had since the whole Tortuga move, and we were all looking forward to going back to our roots.

We formed up in our Battleships to smash a camp in EC-P8R but they'd obviously heard we were coming and had gone by the time we arrived. As our main objective for tonight wasn't a BS gang, we switched out to small, fast ships, and went back into EC. I was in my trusty Stiletto once more. I had to buy a T2 Warp Disruptor module for it, as they were almost half a million ISK cheaper in Torrinos than in Nonni, which amused me.

So, we jumped through and surprised an Exequror, Rapier and Armageddon. I was a little surprised to see the Exequror, it was a ship with a huge cargo hold and not often seen in PvP. I was more concerned with locking the Rapier before it cloaked- with a Sensor Booster, my lock time was very quick, and so I had him locked and his warp core distrupted in short order. I turned my mighty 250mm Artillery and missile launcher on him, and put myself into a distant orbit, awaiting the double webs. They never came. The Exequror had popped really quickly, the 'geddon was pointed and wasn't going anywhere, so the others had similarly turned their guns, drones and launchers on the Rapier. It wasn't built for damage, but stealth, and it's hull soon crumpled, buckled and tore apart with a bright flash.

The 'geddon pilot was vainly trying to reach the safety of the gate, but now he had our full attention. Shields blossoming with the impact of the incoming fire, then shimmering as they failed. I'd seen it a thousand times before, but it always captivated me. Armour holding briefly, a green haze of the gases vented by the armour repairers desperately trying, and failing, so stem the flood of damage. Steam and debris being ejected into space as the hull is breached in one, then five, then many places. The crew lifepods hurtling away from the doomed vessel. The inevitable silent blue flash as the reactor takes a hit and the ship is blown to pieces.

Just as we were collecting the loot, a hapless Comorant pilot, minicung, emerged out of warp off the gate- as we had a bubble up, he was nowhere within jump distance. He popped very quickly. His death log showed he had an interesting mix of railguns, lasers and a smartbomb fitted. I pondered briefly if he knew something I didn't. Maybe not.

I volunteered to be the scout up the pipe to RQH-MY. I had no idea why that was our destination, but didn't ask, as I didn't really need to know. The journey up was uneventful apart from when I was holding on an outgate waiting for the rest of the gang to jump into the system, a Crane Transport warped up and jumped through the gate. As I knew he had a built in warp core defence system, i knew my single Warp Disruptor wouldn't be enough to stop him. Although he had made the right choice of ship out here, he was lucky it was just me!

So, we get to RQH, and split between the Mantenault and MQ-NPY gates. I was on the Mantenault gate, an entrypoint back into lowsec Placid. We then were met by our employer, who talked to Eddz briefly. The whole exercise was a show of force, let the employer see what he's getting for his money. Scalar did put in a showing- an Eagle of their's warped in at 200km and locked me. With a finger poised over the jump button, I watched as his railgun rounds shot past me or plinked off my shield with no damage. I wasn't sitting still, or a large target, and I had my MWD off, so he gave up and warped off. He did, however, warp back at range and kill a friendly Kestrel belonging to our employers corp, but they are hardly expensive. He smacked us in the local channel (which I think really is lame, but that's just my opinion) about not protecting our employer, then ran away. Uh huh.

Called it a day after that, the WarDec against Scalar was live in just under 24 hours, so they won't be able to use empire, sentry guns or Concord to hide under. Just as we were disbanding, a Raptor belonging to "TheJackalKiller" jumped into us from Mantenault. He almost made it back to the gate, but we killed him quickly enough. He had no weapons fitted, so I assume was just transiting. His corp, "Soliders of Eve" (I had to double check Concord's registration database, as it seemed to have a spelling mistake in it, but that is the name they chose), was one of the corps causing troubles for our employer, so that was cool.

I found a nice quiet safespot in a nice quiet system and told my small crew to get some sleep. I followed suit.

Back to empire...

2008-04-21T09:50:00.002Z

Been a busy couple of weeks, but nothing to write about. After the fights with IaC, we withdrew to Period Basis once more and started shoring up defences, concentrating on bringing ships into the region, equipped and spread out so we would have a flexible and fluid defence when BoB comes. And they will, there is no doubt, but now we are all just a single clone jump away. They probably think keeping us on tenterhooks is quite clever, but in reality, we aren't. We are prepared.

So, clone jump back to empire and wake up in my favourite clone in Frarn. Ah, Frarn, my spiritual home. A busy mission runner's system, one jump from the perma-busy Rens, and a nice place to make some spare ISK. Also a place to bump into curious characters, none of whom speak a language I know, warping their ships around at exactly the same time, to the same places, and mining all the time. Takes a discipline I don't seem to have! Rumour has it they have some kind of hive mind thing going on, but I'm no scientist. I'll leave that to the lab guys.

Anyway, I start to plan out how I'm going to move my ships up to the KIA HQ for the upcoming weekend of fighting, and realise I'll need to shuttle around a bit. Call up the market, and go to the well used market bookmark for shuttles, 9000 ISK, thankyou very much. Only... they aren't 9000 ISK any more. Their prices are fluctuating wildly, starting at 25k ISK, and going up to 250k+ ISK. OK, what the hell was going on!?

Being out in PB means we are cut off from the Empire going's on, and we have our own production and markets out there, so we don't have to be in touch with Empire markets. Seems that the owners of the Empire stations have decided that making shuttles is too much effort for too little gain, and have ceased production. We could all rely on shuttles being in every station, and they made for quick and easy transport (something about flying around in a pod seems very low rent to me), but now.... shuttles are on sale still, but all the entrepreuners have now increased shuttle sales. As I said, prices are fluctuating heavily, as the sellers are testing how much people are actually willing to pay for one. Too much, and people will buy a frigate instead. Take the Minmatar Slasher for example. Costs about 30k ISK, and is very very fast. Put an Inertia Stabiliser on it's single low slot, and you have a ship that can go to warp as fast as a shuttle, and (I think) warp faster than a shuttle, at 6au a second.

A knock on effect will be on Tritanium prices. Shuttles being 9000 ISK everywhere meant that they kept Trit prices low- you refine a shuttle, and you get something like 2300 Trit. So, if Trit rose too much, you'd just buy and refine a shuttle instead. How this will effect prices on everything that uses Trit in it's construction (and that's pretty much everything), remains to be seen.

Anyway, I digress. After the surprise, I bought a trusty Slasher and got on with my business of moving ships. I pondered briefly on buying a trusty Minmatar freighter, which I can actually fly, but... nah. Freighters are big fat targets these days, and I can't be doing with it!

So, fast forward to yesterday. I caught up with our 30+ gang in Inaro, and we headed down to Perimeter to see what we could find. I was in a Stiletto Interceptor- as I needed to catch the gang, I needed to be in something that I could rely on to gtfo of any 'situation'. Upon jumping into Perimeter, the lead elements said a BoB gang had just entered warp at our out gate, and were in warp to Urlen gate.. where I was. I was pretty confident I could catch one of them the other side, so I MWD'd back to the gate myself, just as the BoB gang arrive- about 8 or 9. I jump through, so do they. If they wanted to stay to fight, I'd be dead, but then the rest of the gang were right behind us.

They decloaked and took off, but I managed to get a point on an Astarte piloted by BarataS- by coincidence, so did another inty pilot who'd been right behind me. The Astarted locked me, and fired- he got one hit on me, then my transversal increased as I tightly orbitted him. I had activated my artillery and launcher, then the rest of the gang showed up and it was over for the Astarte.

Moving on down toward Chamemi, we jumped into Hishai from Geztic, and warped to the out gate, just to see a WT Typhoon Battleship enter warp back the way we came. I promptly flipped the ship around and back to Geztic gate. The 13.5au a second warp really made up for the headstart the 'phoon had, and I jumped through to Geztic right behind him. McKinley was waiting the other side in a Malediction- he'd obviously heard comms and waited. The 'phoon was doomed....or was he? The warp from the other gate back to Geztic was 90au, so the gang was arriving in dribs and drabs.... and unfortunately, the guys with webs were late in coming- so the 'phoon MWD'd back to the gate on half armour and jumped through to Hishai. I thought the slower guys on the other side would then had the pleasure of finishing him of.... but they never got that chance.

The 'phoon promptly warped off- the pilot had done a complete emergency shutdown. This sort of thing is frowned upon as it feeds extra warp power to the engines to get them out their current position- if they haven't aggressed anyone in that system- if they have, the power is diverted to weapons/ shield and armour systems, and thus if anyone is scrambling their warp drive, they are basically finished.

The downside is that it puts tremendous strain on the ship systems and isn't seen as an honourable thing for pod pilots to do- they black out as the ship feeds all available power to the warp core, and only minimal life support is left up.

However, his ship was now hanging in space somewhere, and we needed to find it within 15 minutes before it was disappear from scan as it completely shut down for a system reboot (which could take any amount of time, it was completely random). Regrettably, we didn't have a prober with us, and Eddz asked if anyone had probe skills.... I do, so I volunteered. I noticed we were next door to Agil, a nice trade hub in these parts, so quickly docked. I stayed in my pod while I accessed the market and quickly bought a used Cheetah Covert Ops ship- I got my pod transferred into it while buyinga Recon Probe Launcher, and probes. I was splashing my ISK around to ensure I got the engineers, mechanics and loaders full attention.

Sure enough, I was turned around and undocked in record time. Jumped into Hishai, warped to planet 9 where the rest of the gang were, and dropped a probe. The readout showed me I had to wait 42 seconds for the result. Time passed really slowly... and in that time I realised the gang were all awaiting my result... I hoped I was still competent at this, I hadn't probed anyone for a looooong time....

With a barely audbile 'ping', it announced a result. The Typhoon had been located, with 0m error, and was just over 1au away. I told the gang I was warping in, cloaked up and warped to within 10km of the hit. Sure enough, as I exited warp, I landed 10km from the silent, motionless Typhoon. I told the gang to warp to me, then moved out of the way so they didn't decloak me. It was over in seconds, the gang fell on the inert BS like a pack of hungry wolves, and it melted under the onslaught- systems were offline, no kind of tanking, no nothing. The pod popped out, as did the crew's escape capules, and warped off.... another 42 seconds later, located the pod and that went splat. He'd wake up in a clone vat somewhere wondering what happened as he wouldn't have known we were there due to everything being offline.

I stayed in the Cheetah for a while, but I wanted to join in the fighting as well as realising how valuable probing was. And so, in a lull in the action, I docked in Amarr, and purchased a Rapier. As well as being very useful in PvP, it could also scan, so I had the best of both worlds. And boy did I pay for that, as Rapiers are not cheap. Still, I could use most of the bits from the Cheetah, which I sold.

All in all, a satisfying evening's work!

Battle in 49-U

2008-03-29T08:16:00.003Z

Sitting in the Concord station's concourse bar, the other KIA pilots and myself were all abuzz with what tonight's operation could be about. We had been told to bring our battleships, and every single pilot was ordered to attend. Long range guns were required, long range ammo. It was about damage, not tank.

I spent an hour recalibrating my weapons and working out a new fitting schema. After running up to Rens (they all know me by name now, I've had to buy so many ships from there recently), I got the techs to remove the 1200mm Artillery I had fitted and fitted the 1400mm monsters, along with the other new modules. I tested, calibrated, and it was good.

Tempest outside station
(click for large image)

We formed up a large fleet outside the station, then as we set off for 49-U, Eddz let us know that we'd be forming part of a Tortugan fleet (eg. MC, Daisho, Odyssey also) to bash IAC. Most of us breathed a sigh of relief as we'd privately suspected POS bashing, given the ship fitting orders.

Uneventful 25 jumps or so up, we were relayed information that the battle was in full swing, with large fleets engaging in toe to toe fighting. IRON alliance had reinforced IAC, so Tortuga had withdrawn, but re-engaged when they knew our 40+ BS were almost there.

In flight
(click for large image)

We were given the order to jump into 49-U. As ship after ship jumped through, the gate operators decided to be jobsworths, and call a traffic advisory. After an agonising 2 and a half minute wait, we were allowed to jump in. Well, something must've gone wrong with the gate or the ship, because for 10 minutes we were stuck in nullspace. I confirmed with the crew that everything appeared to be in the green, but we just were "nowhere". A cold feeling started to spread outwards from my stomach... I'd heard awful stories about pod pilots who'd just disappeared. No appearing at a clone station, no nothing... perma-death.

Fortunately, 49-U swam into existence, but the sensors were massively overloaded with information, and although I could see my ship being targetted by an Incursus, I couldn't lock him, activate modules or launch any drones. Sitting there impotently while a ship worth a 100th of what yours costs buzzes merrily around you is quite frustrating. Scotty, my engineer, managed to get the drones into space, and I finally got a lock on the Incursus. I futilely engaged my guns, but there's no way they would track. Finally my sensors updated, and the Incursus was running- seems my drone AI had saved the situation, and they had correctly responded to me being aggressed. I recalled them, then as nothing else seemed to be working properly, took the decision that most pod pilots hate to do. Full reset.

I informed the crew, then instructed the computer to full reset.

Life support was the only system not reset, and I could feel the ship's systems dying. The warp drives, thank Jove, correctly responded to a reset, and warped us off into a random vector. After 10 minutes, ship systems were back online, checks were run, and we warped back to the gate. This time, we appeared about 70km from the gate. The sight, now we were a little back from it was amazing.

The battle
(click for large image)

Finally, the ships targetting systems were working, and I could start targetting things, although with degraded perfomance. I think the other KIA pilots were having issues also, as the FC was calling targets that weren't even on the field any more, although at the time I thought it was my overview glitching still.

The rest of the battle was over quickly, the Tortugans held the field, but KIA had taken heavy losses- we'd jumped in at a bad time, and in the wrong place, and bore the brunt of it. Overall, I think the Tortugans won, MC and the others had inflicted heavy damages including a couple of capital ship kills.

After looting what we good, and destroying the rest (and god there was a lot if it), what was left of the KIA fleet withdrew- all 5 of us- myself, Eddz, EV1, Mr Kunta, and Niroku (maybe a couple more). As we were in BSs, we were sitting targets, and the inevitable happened about 6 jumps from home. Even with the best scouting in the world, we were too big a target to miss, and we got hit in F4R2- me and EV1 went down, and I couldn't get my pod out as it was in a disruption field. Goodbye F4, hello Sendaya! The clonebay tech was different this time, a bit more chatty, and pretended to be sympathetic to my tale of woe.

So, time for another trip to Rens. They will be pleased.

The paint wasn't even dry!

2008-03-26T08:14:00.002Z

Well, last night was a doozy.

After a fitful rest, only interrupted by housekeeping wanting to clean my berth, I was energised and ready to go for another evening's combat.

Sure enough, our gang was up already, camping the Doril gate. We'd been there so much recently, we were getting to know the first names of the stargate personnel. Apparently, they love watching ship combat, so getting a job on the outbound gate of a 0.0 border system is quite a sought after post.

I jumped into Doril, and joined my comrades orbitting the gate, when we got a call from our Alliance mates on Utopia gate in Doril- a large (but not larger than us, according to intel) force of ships was on the other side. We hurried back to Sendaya, and most of us changed to Battleships, apart from those of us in Huginns, Rapiers and Hic/Dictors.

Back into Doril. The non-BSs warped over to Utopia gate on instruction from the FC, just in time to see a AAA Flycatcher cloak off the gate. The faster ships engaged MWDs and sped toward the last point we saw him at- he wouldn't be able to fit anything more than a Prototype cloak as the electronics of non-covert ships were really quite incompatible with cloaks. As it was with a Proto cloak, so much of the ships energy went to cloaking the ship, it took most of your engine power.

As a result, he was decloaked easily, and we promptly despatched him. I had double webs on him, and we also had another Huginn and Rapier with us, so he wasn't going to make it to the gate any time soon.

We jumped through into Utopia, while the BSs came to the Utopia gate in Doril. As we jumped in, we saw 3 interceptors on the gate- 2 were 100+km off, and one, a AAA Stiletto was on the gate.. but curiously didn't jump and got killed. Almost immediately, an Eris Interdictor exited warp on top of the gate, ejected a warp bubble and jumped through. We all knew what this meant, so we mentally prepared ourselves for battle.

FC told the BSs in Doril to jump through to us, and told support to hold fire until we saw how big their force was. I was a choice target, as they were mainly in nano'd smaller ships, and they all hate being webbed. I was starting to take damage, so jumped back through to Doril as the BSs appeared in Utopia and their big guns opened up.

In Doril, I was convinced I was going to get destroyed- there was a bubble on the gate and a 20 man AAA gang who'd come in behind us. I was impressed with their organisation, but more concerned with getting out- while holding my post-jump cloak, I saw I was just outside of their bubble. Luck appeared to be on my side as I was aligned to a clump of planets, so I decloaked and warped...phew.

I could scan the gate from the point I exited warp and saw the gang had jumped through. Human nature being what it is, everyone wants to be in on the kill, but if I was in charge, I'd have told them to stay there- they could have picked off any ships coming back through. However, as it turns out, our BSs were doing a lot of damage on the other side.

I warped back to the gate, and landed on the edge of Hictor Bubble. A Broadsword was there on the gate- I ignored him and burned to the gate, he ignored me. I was needed the other side. Jumped through into a chaotic swirl of drones, plasma, projectiles and missiles. I quickly identified the Deimos HAC that was the primary- it was well within web range. Decloaked, locked and webbed, and let rip with my 650mm guns and assault missiles. He was destroyed quite quickly, but my threat indicator was squawking in my ear- I was under sustained attack from a Sacrilege HAC. I switched all my ordinance to the Sac, my drones popping out of their bay and made my way back to the gate. I was out of shields, he was entering armour... not good. I was about to resign myself to losing the Huginn when he was called primary! In very short order, he was transformed into a wreck.

And this is where I made my mistake. I was on the gate, and started to shoot another target. We had intel that a TCF gang of 65 had entered Doril- they weren't blue to us, and it was likely we' get caught in a nasty sandwich.

The FC called for us to withdraw, so I switched all my guns off. I kept trying to jump, and the stargate kept denying me- my combat electronics were still in operation. With one eye on the overview (no-one locked me yet), I double checked my guns and missiles- all off. About 60 seconds had passed, I should be able to jump! "Stargate denies you access" WTF!! With the rest of KIA jumping through, there were less and less targets for AAA, and inevitably, they decided I was too slow and a good target to shoot at. Frantically punching the jump button, and wondering why I couldn't jump, my shields vapourised, as did my armour. Surely now I would jump through, saving my pod and clone.

And then I blacked out, the image of the gate burned on my retina. Like I was stuck in glue. Couldn't move. Then nothing. Huginn down. It occured to me later that my bloody drones had been busily fighting, blissfully unaware that I was trying to jump out. Still, my own damn fault, very noobish.

I woke up to the concerned face of a Sendayan Concord technician looking down at me. I drew in a deep breath and filled my new lungs for the first time. The Tech smiled and withdrew, indicating with his hand a towel and shower in one corner. Chatty bunch, these cops.

So, I had been podkilled then. I mourned briefly for my other clone with it's lovely implants and cool shades, then pulled myself together. I had to get another ship from Rens, as Derelik, the region that I was in, was quite frankly crap for shopping. To cut a long story shorter, I shuttled up to Rens, bought another Huginn, an even cooler pair of shades, then hurried back to Sendaya after getting my ship fitted with guns, launchers, drones and ammo.

The gang were patiently waiting for me, bless them. We had decided to give Doril a rest, word was clearly out that KIA were in town, and everyone loves to fight us! We headed out to G-5EN2, the border system for Providence. Had a couple of kills here and there, but when we got to 7MD-S1, a large CVA gang came up behind us, and engaged those of us left in ERVK-P. The rest of the gang jumped into ERVK, but I got primaried quite early, and my brand new Huginn got destroyed. I wasn't about to wake up in a clone bay again, so when I knew I was going down, I MWDd out of the bubble, which saved my pod when it popped out of the fiery wreckage. I warped away.

CVA weren't quite quick enough to stop the rest of us exiting the system and, frankly GTFO the area. Back to Assah in my pod with the gang. I docked up in Assah, rented a room for the night, showered off, and went to bed grumpy!

However, the battle reports made interesting reading. In the first fight vs. AAA, we actually came out on top, considering they had 20 more ships than us. In the second fight vs. CVA, they outnumbered us 2 to 1, and we, to be honest, got stuffed.

Still, them's the breaks!

Doril and roaming

2008-03-25T10:41:00.002Z

I had just finished an excellent bottle of the local wine from Sendaya, and was relaxing in my berth in between patrols, when a call was received for all pilots to help out a KIA gang in Doril.

Pulling on some overalls as I sprinted down to the station's docking bay, people were deftly moving out of my way, well used to pod pilots sprinting to their ships- especially in Sendaya.

Sendaya is a border system, the last link of Empire security before you jump into Doril and the lawlessness beyond. Concord decided to build a station here, the only one in the system, to keep an eye on things spilling over into Sendaya. Although they have no jurisdiction in Sendayan lowsec, they keep a quiet eye on things.

The station was a dull, utilitarian affair, but what did you expect from cops. Even the station's bars were a little boring- well lit and clean. And mostly empty. Hence drinking wine in my own berth.

Anyway. I called ahead as I ran, and my Huginn Recon ship was prepped as I arrived in my hangar. It was hung in mid-air, moving gently as the anti-grav units worked to keep it still. Clambered into my pod, and it started to fill as the lid closed. I felt it rock as it was lifted and a thump as it was placed in the Huginn.

Quickly ran-pre flight checks, then undocked into the blackness. Quickly orientating myself, I pushed the ship into warp toward Doril gate. I was tuned into the Alliance comms, and there seemed to be a huge fight going on, opponents unknown- no-one had time to give me details. I assumed it was clear to jump in, and upon arriving at the gate, did so.

The scene that greeted me as I arrived in Doril was quite amazing, and initially I struggled to take it in. The overview filled right up immediately, and I filtered out the friendlies. It flickered, and filled up with enemies. I adjusted the view screen, and gawped. Stretching for about 120km off the gate was a series of small battles- pilots caught in life or death struggles with an Alliance called AAA. The distance off the gate negated the ability to call primaries, we were too spread out. Our fleet commander was calling primaries, but at best they were 90km away from me, and up to 120km out. I looked at the overview, and gawped again. An Ares was travelling at 20km/s... I didn't think this could be correct, maybe the overview was wrong? I found the Ares, and his movement seemed to indicate the overview was, of course, correct. In fact, most of their ships were travelling at ridiculously fast speeds in bursts, so a stretched out battle like this suited them down to the ground. They must be "nanoships".

I kicked in my MWD, and headed out to the nearest fight. It didn't look good for KIA, some of pilots were in pods, and the others seems to be struggling. We couldn't bring enough firepower to bear fast enough, and I cursed my Huginn's lack of speed. The FC quite correctly told us to withdraw and jump back through to Sendaya. Disappointed I couldn't help more than I did, I turned my ship around, and jumped back through. I waited on the other side, along with 2 other neutral ships who were either scouts or just naturally cautious, and saw most of our fleet back in.

So, we took a bit of a battering, but some days you kick, other days you get kicked. Such is the nature of this life!

It's ALIVE!!

2008-03-24T07:35:00.006Z

Yes, the time has arrived, the time that me and probably quite a lot of other pilots has been waiting for- mobilisation for battle.

Apparently IAC's leader, Tyrrax Thorrk had been rather nasty about KIA, so the word had gone out that IAC was going to be KIA's first target.

For a few days, we had been moving ships and equipment to a system in Derelik, a few jumps from the 0.0 entrypoint, Doril, that IAC frequent.

At 2000, we undocked- quite a sight, and it gave me a thrill of pleasure and satisfaction to see what sort of force we could muster- approx 65 ships, all BC and less in size, all T2, ready to kick arse. We aligned to the out-gate and within a few jumps, were ready to jump into Doril. Our scout told us that there was nothing on the other side, so we jumped through.

Eddz, the boss, had been caught up in the hellhole of Jita, and was thus running late, so we set up an impromptu gate camp in Doril, to see what we could catch.

First kill of the evening was an unfortunate (and unscouted) Crow pilot:

[ 2008.03.23 20:22:49 ] (notify) Jay Deah [KIA]<KIA>(Flycatcher) has started trying to warp scramble "BA Akira [CAPZ]<QSA>(Crow)"
[ 2008.03.23 20:22:49 ] (notify) DerSchakal [LNSSE]<KIA>(Malediction) has started trying to warp scramble "BA Akira [CAPZ]<QSA>(Crow)"
[ 2008.03.23 20:22:49 ] (notify) Your attempt to target Crow failed.
[ 2008.03.23 20:22:49 ] (notify) Target is invulnerable.
[ 2008.03.23 20:22:49 ] (notify) Target is invulnerable.
[ 2008.03.23 20:23:00 ] (notify) xxxxxxx has started trying to warp scramble "TempSniper [KIA]<KIA>(Vagabond)"

Just for the lols, I included the line in red- the xxxs are a KIA pilot- we were all very rusty! Throughout the first 30-60 mins, we had a lot of people with guns hot locking up the stargates and webbing/ scramming/ shooting them. Amusing yet annoying at the same time!

I was in a sensor boosted (res script) Huginn and didn't even get a lock on. Humph.

Fortunately, we got back into the swing of things quite quickly, and when it counted, no-one messed up. We hung around the gate waiting for Eddz, and killed: an Ushra'Khan Anathema (don't quite know how he managed that), a Broadsword, Jaguar, then as we moved to Utopia, an Ushra'Khan Vagabond. He was fast, but not fast enough.

We made speed then up the pipe toward FAT, killing a Damnation, Falcon and Imicus along the way, all different corps/ alliances.

We were in CNC-4V, one jump from FAT-6P, and our scout told us there were many IAC ships in local, and they were warping to CNC gate. We hurriedly warped to FAT gate and jumped through- we wanted to engage them on the FAT side. Sure enough, a large gang arrived at the gate. We were told there wouldn't be any primary calling, as there were too many to sift through to pick primaries. As we all knew what our ships were capable of, we just got on with the job. The battle was epic. I was initially picking off Frigs and Inties, as this is what the Huginn is made for, then moved onto cruisers. Blue flashes were going off all over the place, drones and missiles filling the skies. Voice comms was very quiet, a good sign as everyone was concentrating hard. I didn't take any damage, which was down to luck more than anything else.

Eventually, the battle subsided, we held the field, and so it would seem, had taken relatively few losses. Once all the KMs were up, seems we fought 47 ships versus our 67. IaC knew what we had, so major props to them for engaging outnumbered.

However, it wasn't over yet. After clearing the field of loot, a few of us jumped through to CNC to chase a ship, but then IaC re-engaged on the FAT side with another sizeable force. We rushed back to the gate and jumped through, but IaC withdrew quite quickly.

It was getting late, and we decided to head back to Doril. We made good speed, didn't really come across much, but we got ambushed in F4R2, a few jumps from Doril. I am not clear exactly what happened, but they must've Jump Bridged ahead of us, and had about 100 ships, although only 50 show on the battle report as it was just those who managed to engage. We scattered. Fortunately, we could go around 1P, so I warped to VA6-DR gate... and landed smack dab on top of a huge IaC force, with a bubble up. I must've warped before they bubbled, as I landed on the gate. Sweating, and on my own, I jumped through, thinking they are bound to follow. Only one Stiletto did, but I had the advantage and managed to get out... phew.

Warped to K0CN-3, then back into 1P.. thinking I may be able to get away with this.... and thank the Jove, I did. Close shave. Picked up some straggler remnants of our fleet, and we regathered on Sendaya gate in Doril. We had taken some extra losses it seemed, but we were still in the lead in terms of kills/ losses.

The night wasn't quite over yet however. 6 Blackguard Coalition jumped into our camp and got killed. I called it a night then, time was getting on.

An excellent first op after so long to raise the morale, plenty of skirmishes and fun.

Trinity Patch 1.1

2008-03-12T11:30:00.003Z

Yes, it's been some time. No, not a whole lot going on in terms of systems being won/ lost. The Coalition's impetus has been blunted somewhat by BoB's solid defence of NOL, indeed using 4 Titans online 23/7 (so I gather, not sure how realistic this is) under the cover of a cyno jammer. This means of course, that you have to use sub-capital ships to kill the titans. Which is of course possible, but not with the lag large fleets of ships causes. Also, no BSs can withstand 4 DDs, so losses would be very heavy.

Indeed, Goonswarm, who have a reputation of not taking the game too seriously have started moaning on the forums about Titans being overpowered. I was very surprised to see this, as I have not seen GS whine about anything in the game before. They may be joking, but I don't think so. BoB is of course making forum capital out of this, excuse the pun.

In other news, the North has just blown up into a massive war. I don't pretend to know what is going on up there, but apparently enough that Morsus Mihi have pulled out of Delve and gone back to help an ally.

And if that wasn't enough, there is a second war there too, ably summed up by MC's Yalson:

"War number two is taking place in Perrigen Falls, where Atlas and Chaos Incarnate (CI), supported by Smash/Roadkill, have been fighting Intrepid Crossing, XIX and Ka-Tet. That went rather well until RA got involved, breaking the no-pos warfare pact and moved to attack CI's POS in 9IZ, a station system. Some CI POS got removed by about 25 RA capitals, but so far the tower count is still in CI's favor.

As expected, Smashkill reset standings to RA and it is now a free for all. Tons of politics involved, leading to this rather messy situation"

RA is a big beast, and I assume they can fight on two fronts, but I have a feeling that pilots who want pewpew would rather go fight in the North than against a dug in BoB.

War number three involves Triumvirate vs. Atlas Alliance. Tri actually dec'd Atlas, and seem to be having at them in Empire. More than that, no idea.

So, apart from that, the 5th Alliance Tourney is over, and props to Ev0ke for winning. We did well, got to the quarter finals and lost to Tri in what was arguably the best match of the tournie, swinging one way, then the other. Props to TJ and team, and indeed to the Tri team. Oh and Tri decided to comedy wardec KIA due to comments Eddz made on EveTV. As we are all in PB still, this didn't really affect anyone, but it was more for effect than practical purposes I'm sure.

And now, everyone is holding their breath over the next few days as to what the future holds... couple of alliance ops last night and tonight, and then we'll see what direction we're going in...

Finally, Trinity Patch 1.1 is being deployed as I write this. There are a whole raft of fixes, a few changes (nothing for Minnies to get excited about sadly) such as undocking now pushing you out at a random angle at full speed, and corpses now having boobs. Yes, female corpses. LOL.

Update

2008-02-20T14:59:00.002Z

For the past weeks, the dust has been settling in Period Basis, and us Tortugans have been consolidating our position here. We have been running raids and sieges into Delve, notably C3N which fell to the Coalition. However, for the most part, there has been a lot of carebearing going on. We won't be getting any new contracts till after the Alliance Championships in 2 weeks, so things (and this log) have been very quiet.

Sure, there are nightly raids going on, but they aren't guaranteed to yield fights and are sometimes too late in the night for me to participate.

However, recently, Stain Empire have been sending in raiding parties of highly organised HACs and Recons (for the most part). Not many losses on either side, but it's one to watch.

BoB

As for Band of Brothers, they are on the ropes, but far from out. Only recently, they downed an RA Titan belonging to Oort, in NOL-M9 (BoB's home system). It was Oort's personally owned ship... I can only dream of such riches or ability. One can work studiously towards the latter, but not necessarily the former.

There are rumours of Molle handing over the reins to another for the time being. I can only imagine how much time it must consume running an alliance the size of BoB!

I can't see BoB dying any time soon, nothing has changed since my last entry. They are getting the fights they want, in their home system, and defenders always have the advantage in Eve due to the fleet/ lag issues.

Mysterious stellar object

It appeared a couple of months ago, then people forgot about it, then it's back on people's minds. Yes, it's the bright star in the universe. Able to be seen from every system, it has got people wildly speculating on what it actually is. Notable astronomers gathered in Aporulie (Essence region), to discuss it.

University of Caille Professor Kral Sangan, the chair and first speaker at the conference, outlined the nature of the problem. 'We have no idea what it is,' he said, 'we have had a much easier time determining what it is not. The true nature of the phenomenon is truly baffling.'

They say it is definitely not a supernova, as it is emitting radiation across all spectrums, something a nova would not do. It could be a white hole, the opposite of a black hole.

Some wilder theories have it as being the reappearance of the Jove, some have it as being a portal to another universe, some see it as an omen of doom, but most are just perplexed. At the moment, the implacable star-like object is giving nothing away, keeping it's secret to itself.

TPARty

2008-01-30T08:18:00.000Z

Well, it appears to be over bar the shouting. TPAR sovereignty will switch to Tortugan hands as of downtime today (barring a bug/ act of God/ whatever).

Last night (GMT night), a major support fleet of mainly BSs, and a cap fleet was assembled to finish off the remaining BoB POSs in TPAR that had been put into reinforced the previous night.

The cap fleet was a combined effort of the following:

Tortuga (providing about half the numbers)
IRON
RZR
TCF
IAC

Total numbers at peak:

116 Dreads
50 Carriers
13 MS
2 Titans

I was in a Tempest, and me and my BS buddies were sat off the heavily bubbled MGO gate, while the lighter support zipped around as the FC directed. Everyone was wondering if BoB would show, but it soon became clear that they probably wouldn't. This was confirmed to us when we got word that RA had somehow got a BoB POS password, warped in a Titan and BOOM HEADSHOT. Reports were 50-60 BSs died. I am not sure if this is down to the initial blast or any follow up pewpew? I know that KIA fleet setups for BS, on the whole, can take a Titan blast. Anyway, I digress.

Some screenshots of the cap fleet (BMP format, apologies, I didn't take them):

Cluster
POS shooty
Purty

We were getting word of POSs as they were coming out of reinforced, then getting popped 5 minutes later. Not many of us BS pilots had seen the whole Cap fleet, so when we heard they were popping POSs in 3-5 minutes, we got some idea of just how many Caps there were. Some kind soul had set up a news thread on EveO so we could keep up with what was going on.

The final POS fell, and I think you could almost hear the sighs of relief.

PB had been expected to fall quickly, but not by me. I know hindsight etc., but when it was first announced we'd form Tortuga I thought it wasn't going to be quick. There's no way on earth BoB would let us steamroller PB. Maybe if the forums didn't exist and there wasn't chest-beating smacktacular flamefests, they'd have defended TPAR long enough to get their kit out and then concentrated on Delve defence. But they had a point to prove, and I think they did a brilliant job to be honest. It's a real credit to their leadership and pilots that they held us off as long as they did.

And now the dust is settling, the fat lady is walking onto the stage, who knows what will happen. The spotlight has now shifted to Delve. Whether BoB will pull an 'RA' and go down to one system, hanging in there at all costs, we shall see. Personally, I think once an entity is down to one system, defence is made easier, you just need numbers. And BoB sure as hell has those. And Caps. Any victory over BoB in such a circumstance could turn out to be pyrrhic.

I am reasonably sure we won't be joining in the attack on Delve, that wasn't what we set out to do, but I'm not involved with any command decisions. With any luck, we can go back to contract work, but I'm not naive enough to think it's a situation that can last. As mercs before Tortuga, we weren't bound to territory. After Tortuga, we very much are, as are MC. As such, we'll have to come defend when attacked.

What effect this will have on KIA Alliance's future as mercs remains to be seen. But for now, we will enjoy the honeymoon period...

Eve Tribune War Reports

2008-01-17T09:15:00.001Z

As I have just discovered, the rather excellent Eve Tribune is covering the Tortuga war, and is doing a great job of reporting the facts while remaining neutral. As such, here are the last 2 weeks reports, copied from here and here:

"The war for Period Basis now continues into its third week with continuing server issues. No major offensive actions have occurred with either side in the meanwhile, with BoB’s last attack on Tortugan space being the failed Assault Frigate horde.

On Wednesday, the BoB Cynochain in L-Y, MG0 and TPAR were all attacked by Tortugan forces, knocking between four to six POS into reinforced. The jump bridges were disabled in these neighboring systems for another wave of pushes towards BoB’s remaining foothold in the region. Roughly 70 Battleships and 130 ships of other classes were destroyed with an equal number of losses for both Tortugans and BoB.

On Thursday, a large Tortugan Capital force of roughly 120 Capital and Super-Capital ships escorted by 80 support prepared to launch an attack on the MG0 system as the bridge pos dropped out of reinforced. BoB responded with a force of 80 Capitals and 150 Support. The node was being shaky as before, and a new cynojammer was anchored and onlined before Tortugan forces could deploy into the system. The attack was called off given the presence of the jammer preventing capital deployment and the fortified BoB position and the capital fleet ordered to stand down. BoB moved an hour later with the possibility of attacking MC’s 1-N system, but they too stood down given the fortified position of the defenders in the system. A suicide operation of T2 Frigates was conducted by the Tortugans, with massive losses, as they moved into the TPAR system, most destroyed trying to enter the system.

By Friday, BoB’s attempt on an MC POS in L-Y was deflected, with the POS successfully repaired before BoB forces could destroy it. An MC medium tower was taken down in BoB’s MG0 and the repaired MC POS in L-Y was put back into reinforced.

On Saturday, the Shrike Titan incident occurred. Tortugans jump bridged a fleet of Dictors and support to assist in the attack upon the BoB Titan. Most were unable to enter the system with support before the mass-disconnects, ending the operation.

At the end of the week, there has been no advancement by either side on the Period Basis front. All of the Tortugan offensive operations have been defended against, and BoB has made no move aside from trying to hold onto their last remaining outpost and jump chain, having apparently decided to hold at all costs TPAR, the Y-2 system in Fountain, and ‘Fortress Delve’.

In the fourth week of the Period Basis campaign between BoB and the Tortuga group, no major engagements occurred in terms of direct confrontation. While no Tortugan systems have been seriously attacked by BoB forces, the BoB held the system of TPAR against multiple incursions. A few small and medium TPAR towers were unanchored early this week, with reports of possible freighter movements to evacuate some assets in case of the worst.

The stalemate remained largely as in the previous weeks until an advance was made early Tuesday night, when a Tortugan support group put the BoB Cynojammer in MGO offline, as well as reinforcing the TCAG and MGO POS in preparation of eliminating BoB’s remaining logistical infrastructure for the push on the TPAR system.

Thursday night, the TCAG Sov-holding jammer POS was eliminated in TCAG, and the MGO Jump Bridge POS was destroyed as well. BoB’s Sov3 in TCAG was broken, the first shift in sovereignty since beginning of the Tortuga announcement. A Tortugan staging pos in MGO was destroyed as well.

Early Friday morning, the Tortugans reinforced all seven remaining BoB large towers in TPAR. BoB moved back to successfully repair their last cynojammer remaining tower in MGO, repelling attacks by Tortugan Battleships using a pair of Aeon-class Motherships. In the process, a Tortugan Thanatos-class carrier piloted by the well known Mynas Atoch was destroyed in the retreat.

Saturday saw the repairing and subsequent destruction of a Tortugan staging POS in the TPAR system. Producing 200+ ships and 2 Titans, BoB repaired their reinforced towers in the cynojammed TPAR system before dispersing. The Tortugan fleet conducted a roaming interference operation in the meanwhile.

As a summary for week 4: Two BoB POS were destroyed in their systems, and the Tortugan offensive on TPAR was foiled again by Sov3 Cynojamming and a large titan-centric defense force. However, BoB has not launched any offensive action of its own this week, being quite busy with the defense of Delve against RSF invasion.

The war for Period Basis now continues into its third week with continuing server issues. No major offensive actions have occurred with either side in the meanwhile, with BoB’s last attack on Tortugan space being the failed Assault Frigate horde.

On Wednesday, the BoB Cynochain in L-Y, MG0 and TPAR were all attacked by Tortugan forces, knocking between four to six POS into reinforced. The jump bridges were disabled in these neighboring systems for another wave of pushes towards BoB’s remaining foothold in the region. Roughly 70 Battleships and 130 ships of other classes were destroyed with an equal number of losses for both Tortugans and BoB.

On Thursday, a large Tortugan Capital force of roughly 120 Capital and Super-Capital ships escorted by 80 support prepared to launch an attack on the MG0 system as the bridge pos dropped out of reinforced. BoB responded with a force of 80 Capitals and 150 Support. The node was being shaky as before, and a new cynojammer was anchored and onlined before Tortugan forces could deploy into the system. The attack was called off given the presence of the jammer preventing capital deployment and the fortified BoB position and the capital fleet ordered to stand down. BoB moved an hour later with the possibility of attacking MC’s 1-N system, but they too stood down given the fortified position of the defenders in the system. A suicide operation of T2 Frigates was conducted by the Tortugans, with massive losses, as they moved into the TPAR system, most destroyed trying to enter the system.

By Friday, BoB’s attempt on an MC POS in L-Y was deflected, with the POS successfully repaired before BoB forces could destroy it. An MC medium tower was taken down in BoB’s MG0 and the repaired MC POS in L-Y was put back into reinforced.

On Saturday, the Shrike Titan incident occurred. Tortugans jump bridged a fleet of Dictors and support to assist in the attack upon the BoB Titan. Most were unable to enter the system with support before the mass-disconnects, ending the operation.

At the end of the week, there has been no advancement by either side on the Period Basis front. All of the Tortugan offensive operations have been defended against, and BoB has made no move aside from trying to hold onto their last remaining outpost and jump chain, having apparently decided to hold at all costs TPAR, the Y-2 system in Fountain, and ‘Fortress Delve’.

In the fourth week of the Period Basis campaign between BoB and the Tortuga group, no major engagements occurred in terms of direct confrontation. While no Tortugan systems have been seriously attacked by BoB forces, the BoB held the system of TPAR against multiple incursions. A few small and medium TPAR towers were unanchored early this week, with reports of possible freighter movements to evacuate some assets in case of the worst.

The stalemate remained largely as in the previous weeks until an advance was made early Tuesday night, when a Tortugan support group put the BoB Cynojammer in MGO offline, as well as reinforcing the TCAG and MGO POS in preparation of eliminating BoB’s remaining logistical infrastructure for the push on the TPAR system.

Thursday night, the TCAG Sov-holding jammer POS was eliminated in TCAG, and the MGO Jump Bridge POS was destroyed as well. BoB’s Sov3 in TCAG was broken, the first shift in sovereignty since beginning of the Tortuga announcement. A Tortugan staging pos in MGO was destroyed as well.

Early Friday morning, the Tortugans reinforced all seven remaining BoB large towers in TPAR. BoB moved back to successfully repair their last cynojammer remaining tower in MGO, repelling attacks by Tortugan Battleships using a pair of Aeon-class Motherships. In the process, a Tortugan Thanatos-class carrier piloted by the well known Mynas Atoch was destroyed in the retreat.

Saturday saw the repairing and subsequent destruction of a Tortugan staging POS in the TPAR system. Producing 200+ ships and 2 Titans, BoB repaired their reinforced towers in the cynojammed TPAR system before dispersing. The Tortugan fleet conducted a roaming interference operation in the meanwhile.

As a summary for week 4: Two BoB POS were destroyed in their systems, and the Tortugan offensive on TPAR was foiled again by Sov3 Cynojamming and a large titan-centric defense force. However, BoB has not launched any offensive action of its own this week, being quite busy with the defense of Delve against RSF invasion.

-Aries Acheron "

TPAR ping-pong

2008-01-16T08:17:00.000Z

Not much more to report on the Period Basis front. The situation has been steady for over a week- the Tortugans (us) control most of the systems bar maybe one or two. The one last major BoB system is TPAR, which is like a game of ping-pong. We blob the system, reinforce their POSs, take down Cyno Jammers, pop up some POSs of our own. Next day, they blob the system, repair the POSs and Cyno Jammers and reinforce our POSs.

However, BoB is being stretched between Period Basis and Delve, where the Russians and the Goons are assaulting their home systems, and that can't be good. Having said that, they are very good at this sort of fighting, it's in their blood, and shouldn't be underestimated.

It does make for a boring blog, so I'll update this every now and again until we resume more normal activities.

Been a while

2008-01-01T11:34:00.000Z

Been a while since my last post, but things will get back on track soon. Been a busy few weeks, what with Xmas and all, and the POS war to'ing and fro'ing which, while very important, isn't exactly riveting (rivetting?) reading.

Invention!

2007-12-16T19:51:00.001Z

Apart from all the Tortuga fun, I have discovered the joys of invention!

( Click to enlarge image)

After much gnashing of teeth, frantically buying missing skills and reading up on invention (and then crying when I realise decryptors aren't reusable and very very bloody expensive. The best Minmatar one is ~90m (Assembly Instructions). Ouch. It does improve chances of success hugely, so I guess I'll save those for inventing the new Trinity ships.

Anyway, my first bash of 4 inventions proved very successful, as you can see above. Yay!

Tortuga

2007-12-16T18:36:00.000Z

I haven't written much over the past week or so, as KIA has been involved in a major hush hush build up to invade Period Basis.

First, the official write up by ISD which was published today, and explains it all nicely:

---
Tortuga: A new future for Period Basis
reported by: ISD Tsuki Kiyuu 2007.12.16 08:36:43

In a series of press releases that shocked some and came as no surprise to others, the Mercenary Coalition reset all standings and swiftly followed it up by outlining a new future for the Period Basis region as a mercenary-and-friends owned area “unfettered by the agendas of foreign powers”.

The Tortuga announcement declared that “as of Saturday the 15th of December MC, KIA Alliance, Ev0ke and Outbreak claim the region of Period Basis as our home” and stated as their reason: “we do this for ourselves, our fellow brethren of space.” It finished by claiming that “once our new home is secure, MC and KIA will be available for regular contract work.”

This latest dramatic twist in the southern war is being seen by some as perhaps the largest turning point in a conflict littered already with many landmark moments. The removal of the Mercenary Coalition from the side of the Band of Brothers means one less group for them to call upon, and arguably the greatest loss so far in terms of willing allies. Leaked instructions have alleged that BoB leadership has ordered their alliance to withdraw from most of the current theatres of conflict and prepare to make a final, decisive stand in Delve.

“All Catch fleet will be pulled to Delve on Sunday and onwards, 5-N2EY will be left, V2-VC2 will be left. We keep FAT-6P and 25S-6P. I’m sorry, but no one spits on our face like that. Ever.”

Words exchanged between the once steadfast allies (or business partners, depending on one’s perspective) are already showing signs of an increase in a tension many have observed for quite some time. Zakma of the MC advised his BoB counterparts that the move could in fact be a blessing in disguise, reducing the number of areas they need defend, and indeed reinforcing the key region of Period Basis which neighbors Delve. His statements however were laced with an animosity that is fast coming to define at least parts of the new MC/BoB relationship.

“In the end, we do what is in our best interest. If BoB’s leadership thought about this a bit more, they'd see that this probably benefits them in the long run. Their south side border is shut off…they have a region less to defend…However, in typical BOB style they'll probably try and go against us. Opening yet another front for themselves, and weakening the defences on the other ones…their ego just can't take it so their leadership will ultimately be their downfall.”

BoB’s leader SirMolle was quick to retort, claiming that since his alliance had come under direct attack from the MC and was thus being immediately threatened, they would not simply ignore it or leave the MC’s actions free of consequence.

“There’s a huge difference between asking ‘Hey, guys, can we have this space here for XXXX and XXXX so that we feel secure?’ or sending in 250 pilots with 40 dreads and attacking head on. I don’t really think it’s us who needs to do the thinking here, if you for one second think that we are going to sit idle while you attack us, you’ve got another thing coming. Make no mistake, this is your doing, and no one else’s.”

Some of the first public signs of tension between the MC and Band of Brothers were seen months ago during the assault on the Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate in Catch, when GoonSwarm leaked internal discussions between MC revealing a frank and robust debate amongst them about BoB’s tactics and their worth as allies and clients. In a telling exchange, leader of the MC Seleene had this to say at the time:

“One last thing to any of you who doubt it - My loyalty is to the MC, to you. BoB is in no way, shape or form in control of me or this alliance…Don't think for a minute that MC is on anyone's strings. There are always plans within plans and I'm not one to tie our destiny to any specific path. The MC will always adapt and overcome.”

In yet another leaked internal communication, the CEO of Black Nova Corp Coranor was alleged to have labelled the MC as traitors and warned his alliance mates to expect harder times ahead, including the loss of stations. Despite this he maintained that BoB would and should continue to fight regardless and not buckle under the increasing pressure.

”MC is probably going to hit us tonight in Period Basis. Traitorous bastards, to be honest. The goons and company are hitting us tonight in Catch. Pretty much every northern alliance is due to hit us tomorrow in Fountain…stations are gonna go damn quick once this kicks off.

We [have] fights on our doorstep every day now…they think that they can actually drive us out of delve and kill us. They think they're actually better than us. They think we're panicking….We're the un-killable alliance and we're gonna bleed them for every system they take. If we lose our outposts then we move to the [Blood Raider] stations and take them back. We're not leaving delve…Delve is the Alamo…”

It remains to be seen just what the fallout from this latest turn of events will be. Some are expecting the MC to consolidate their space and then open up for business, claiming that it would be unlikely for them to push on further against BoB outside of Period Basis without a contract. What exactly any potential new contracts could bring however, assuming they do secure the region, remains anyone’s guess. Speculation is already flying. Some are predicting that MC’s capital fleet just may enter Delve in their first contract against BoB, whilst others claim that if BoB goes down, MC will be the next target regardless of these recent actions – a suggestion that one of GoonSwarm’s leading pilots The Mittani has refuted.

“If MC goes through with their plan…and gets the hell out of the war, they're no longer on the list of 'people who make me an unhappy mitten'”

As with much at this early point in the next stage of the southern conflict, it remains unclear whether of not his words will hold true in time. For the moment, all eyes are on Period Basis, watching with anticipation of just how deeply these latest changes will affect the conflict at large.!

---

Which explains it all pretty well. KIA have teamed up with MC Alliance, Evoke and Outbreak to go and take Period Basis. I knew nothing of the plans to do this, but I wouldn't expect to. So, it came as a complete surprise to me.

We ended our Hydra contract a few days early (the announcement is here) in order to prepare all our ships, mods and generally everything we needed for the, frankly, huge logistical nightmare of getting all the 4 participants ships into Period Basis. I shan't bore you with the details of the very long night we spent moving ships (and that was just one of the 3 nights in total that it took).

(Click on the pictures for larger views)

Everyone co-operated extremely well considering we'd never worked with each other before.

More amazing was the fact it never leaked out in a huge way. MC made an official announcement about the coalition (nicknamed Tortuga), and the thread has already turned epic.

Clearly BoB will respond and respond big. Why? Because this is BIG news, and people are keenly watching. Bob fighting RA/ Goonies is old hat. So BoB needs to fight us to save face and keep up PR. This is by no means over. More to come, as there are things happening I still can't talk about.

Death of a Phobos

2007-12-09T16:22:00.000Z

Well, I finally got to see one of the brand spanking new Phobos Heavy Interdictors. Regrettably it was at the receiving end of our gang's weapons:

(Click for larger image)

They are 220m ISK at the moment, plus fittings, must be quite expensive. I can imagine they'll drop in price, but not just yet :)

The Eve Cemetery

2007-12-09T09:23:00.000Z

With cloning technology, life is cheap. Death is even cheaper. No-one is that bothered about getting killed, as it's not perma-death.

So, corpses from ruptured pods are spread all over the galaxy until the harshness of space breaks them down, they fall into orbit of a celestial object, or are just blown up for a laugh.

Thus, the thought of a final resting place for corpses seemed a little... pointless. Until someone did it, and now it's done, it's suddenly a nice idea!

In the orbit of Molea II, in Khanid, a pod pilot called Azia Burgi has created a cemetery for the corpses of fellow pod-pilots, regardless of race or affiliation. She has catalogued the corpse names, here. There are approx. 200+ small secure cans that the corpses are stored in, to be kept forever.

As I had to collect a ship in deepest Khanid, I swung by to see for myself. Molea is a quiet system, so it seemed an appropriate final resting place for many corpses.

The dots are the cans

After a moment of quiet introspection, I headed back to Taisy.

New Camera Drones

2007-12-08T16:32:00.000Z

Well, the past couple of days has been a whirl.

People have been reporting that they feel like they lost a day, and to be honest I feel that way also. One moment I was docked up in Taisy, the next I was still docked in Taisy, yet I felt like there was a hole in my memory. A lot of pod pilots have been muttering darkly about it amongst close friends but no-one wants to come out and say anything as it sounds mad.

The scientists have pulled a blinder and upgraded our external camera drones- they now show our ships and the outside space in general a lot more clearly and true to life. There had been some kind of restriction previously and the optics had been downgraded.

We've been pulling long shifts, camping the M-O, P3 and Jita pipe and getting a lot of kills. Some losses also... and my first loss while in KIA:

We had jumped into M-O to bust up a camp, and then hung around.... just too long it would seem, allowing them to form a counter.

I had recently taken delivery of a brand spanking new Sabre Interdictor class ship. I'd never really flown them before, and was just getting used to the unfamiliar behaviour (not really spent much time in the Thrasher, it's T1 brother either). Popping out Interdictor Bubbles was nice, seeing how effective they were.

Anyway, the people we'd just busted up had come back and engaged us. A couple of Stealth Bombers had decloaked and they decided I'd be the primary (a wise choice, tbqh, given the ship I was in). And I didn't last long:

2007.12.08 12:59:00

Victim: Ombey
Alliance: KIA Alliance
Corp: Obsidian Inc.
Destroyed: Sabre
System: M-OEE8
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 3294

Involved parties:

Name: RazorCRO
Security: 5.0
Alliance: Morsus Mihi
Corp: The Arrow Project
Ship: Manticore
Weapon: 'Malkuth' Cruise Launcher I
Damage Done: 1561

Name: m00ny
Security: -1.9
Alliance: Insurgency
Corp: Greenspring
Ship: Rokh
Weapon: Valkyrie II
Damage Done: 1101

Name: Farseer Shas'o'Kais (laid the final blow)
Security: 2.0
Alliance: Giant Space Amoeba
Corp: The Patriot Society
Ship: Manticore
Weapon: Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missile
Damage Done: 632

Destroyed items:

Barrage S, Qty: 1155 (Cargo)
200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 2
Interdiction Sphere Launcher I
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Warp Disrupt Probe, Qty: 7
Barrage S, Qty: 102
Warp Disrupt Probe, Qty: 24 (Cargo)
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Dropped items:

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 5
Fusion S, Qty: 1100 (Cargo)
Warp Disruptor II
Barrage S, Qty: 132
Stasis Webifier II
Type-D Altered SS Overdrive Injector

I am sure the guy in the Rokh put his drones on me at the last moment just to get on the killmail! Got my pod out, thus saving my implants (nothing special, but saves me having to source more).

[as our killboard is down at the moment, I am not sure if we killed the Rokh who was our primary target]

After that, we hopped back into HACs/ Recons and prowled the Jita pipe, netting us some kills from Hydra pilots who were STILL flying solo and unescorted. I am still flabbergasted by this. One plucky chap in an Viator evaded us in Maskononen, despite the fact we'd had him locked and points on. He had the inbuilt transport bonus and I think only two of us, maybe three had got points on. We figured he was going to P3, and someone remembered there was a MDK bubble up in there, so we followed, and sure enough caught and despatched him in P3.

He was carrying loads of the new scripts for the modified Sensor Boosters amongst other stuff but again our corporate KB is down so I can't offer any more information. This is because Concord have decided to help their admin dept. and not send an EveMail to everyone involved with a kill, but rather just update the log of the person who gets the final blow. To make this more attractive to killmail hungry pilots, they have given us more stats, like damage done by each person, and what survived the kill as well as what got destroyed.

KIA Alliance are also proud to welcome In Terrorem and Lyonesse to the KIA family. After Trinity Nova left, we needed to bring our numbers up and we have on good authority that these 2 corps are well up for a PvP scrap. So, they joined us in the last 24 hours, and will no doubt fit in well!

[Trinity Patch] PCs get the boot

2007-12-06T06:31:00.000Z

[out of game context]

Well, most of us in the UK will be waking up to patch Eve eagerly, but finding out our brothers in the US/ Canada have hit major problems with the patch. Namely, a mis-placed "\" has meant the boot.ini file that Windows XP/NT/ 2000 uses gets deleted. No biggy... until you reboot.

As you imagine, the forums are on fire. I am on Vista (never thought I'd be chuffed about it), but I am not patching a damn thing until I get back from work when, I assume, CCP will have sorted everything out. Probably.

New patch preparation

2007-12-04T21:30:00.000Z

[out of game context]
Well, the much awaited Trinity patch goes in at 0200 tonight, and I have set long skills on my 2 accounts. CCP have released an in-game story to cover the release of Heavy Interdictors in the patch which I thought was quite cool, so have copied it:

Annual Physics Summit Unveils New Technology
reported by: ISD Baram Vorus 2007.12.04 12:18:26

Luminaire - Yesterday, the annual Physics Summit - a yearly gathering of highly renowned scientific minds - saw the unveiling of Project Cronus, a highly anticipated yet closely guarded project headed by Gravitech, with assistance from the Kaalakiota Megacorporation. Yukia Feuren, CEO of Gravitech, gave an hour long presentation detailing how Cronus works, with the focus being on the technology directly constructed using theories present at last year's summit:

"Theories such as those put forth by Professor Haalikim of Pator Tech School last year, are the foundation of this technology. The system created allowed for warp disruption technology to be exerted from a ship itself. Rather than simply installing a single target warp disruption system, it became possible to create a highly modified ship control system which allows for a powerful disruption field to be generated within a vessel. This field is not only as powerful as current interdiction technology, but is also able to be focused, like with the more common warp disruptors, allowing it to use its incredibly powerful disruption ability on a single target. The systems have been created for use on a Cruiser chassis, and while the field will weaken the mobility of the Cruiser-based interdictor, the vessel is capable of mounting a defense far superior to that of current Destroyer-based models."

Not all reaction to the announcement was positive. Several groups of students carried signs with slogans such as 'Not a Commercial' and 'Advance Peace Not War' stood outside, protesting the involvement of a Mega Corporation in the Summit. During closing questions, a Kaalakiota spokesman stated that they have been contacted by several other companies and are already in discussion to sell the technology to other corporations for use in their own designs.

Gravitech was not the only focus of the summit though. Tel Mu'Kor, a leading Physicist at the Imperial Academy, led a three hour round table where he and several others put forth work that is believed to be a key in creating a more effective means of stargate operation, allowing for faster and smoother travel between star systems. Doctor Kaeli Zemnar of Poteque Pharmaceutical gave a presentation on Zero G bacterial research, which has shown promise in the field of developing more effective antibodies for fighting illness and disease. It was applauded by many in attendance as the most promising presentation of new research given this year.!

Caps and POSs

2007-12-04T19:44:00.000Z

Already been a busy evening, we went to kill a Hydra POS in Otsasai:

Small tower goes boom

That went down fairly fast, M-D-K were also in on the job. They are at war with Hydra as well (as well as Mournival Alliance), so it made sense to co-ordinate.

Some time after we gathered a BS fleet, a large one, and had intel that Morsus Mihi had caps in M-O. We hustled over there, and jumped in. They had a LOT of ships, mainly caps. We started killing support and keeping E-War on the cap we had primaried. About 5 mins later, we weren't making much progress, they were getting reinforcements, and things weren't going well. Also there was Razor alliance. Suddenly, they started withdrawing their fighters, and the Titan pilot from Morsus Mihi was in local. We started de-agressing, and I attempted to jump out, but due to lag, I couldn't. This time, we all saw the DD go off....and I had the presence of mind to grab a snapshot:

Click to enlarge image (gate at ships at bottom right)

I was left with half armour, and jumped out. I think the vast majority of us got out, as we all have meaty armour/ resistances. He got 3 BS, a Command Ship (Astarte) and a Recon (Arazu). First major losses of the contract in one engagement, but it had to happen sometime!