The Last Chancers, Transmission Lost & Talocan United defend a Class 2 w...

Right, so there was going to be a post about kicking about null sec earlier this week, but then germans decided to try and kick over a pos in a system we're playing around in. Pretty good sized fleet, but they had a small problem.

They're null seccers.

Null seccers as a whole are fairly unfamiliar with the concept of "hole control". They decided that closing/critting a hole one at a time makes more sense than sending a fleet over to do it. These particular null sec folks did exactly that, which cost them dearly. They had been wailing on the pos and got it to 64% percent when we got a large group of people together and got them to roll holes for us by being sneaky. Having scouts ready to get us a new hole when the old one closed, we got the new one and found it was only 4 from the old one. We got there as fast as possible, and, well, the video above is the end result. Was fun!

Blue Probes Out.

Hot Drop in a c6. Awww yeah.

Safety in a C6 Wormhole

So. Class 6 wormholes. At last count, there was.... 113 of them? Something around that. Not the point.

No no, what we're here to talk about today is the idea of "safety" in a class 6. As most people know, there's a few ways to be safe when running sites. The most popular option is d-scan, where you spam the crap out of it as so to catch anything popping up on it. Option 2 is having a scout cloaked on a hole, watching and listening for hole activation. Everything else is just extra security which is never a bad thing.

In addition to that, most c6 groups travel light. We're talking a lot of poses, but little defense so if they get sieged, they can pack up and move if they so desire. Given how often people can find a c6, not terribly hard to get in and smash some. I don't recommend trying it against the better wormhole groups, you'll just get them mad enough to follow you home and smash your house in retaliation. 

So, let's say that you're in some tengus running a c6 radar. That gives you an advantage when someone comes looking for you, mostly because it adds to the time it takes to scan you down. The only time it's not terribly effective is when the people looking for you know how to work d-scan properly. Especially if you go to run sites and they've already snuck a scout in. Which leads me to today's story.

Today, we ran across a c6, J160855, static c1. Current occupants are Red Army Recon. If I had one word to describe them, it'd be terrible. Earlier, we had one of our scouts sneak into their hole through a c1 we connected to and scout them out. Their towers were laughably defended; a strong breeze could have knocked them over. So we sat and let our scout watch them gather and we slowly moved a fleet up to the c1 to hit them when they ran things. a c1 being small, that meant Battlecruiser and smaller only.

Challenge accepted.

So our scout watches them all warp to a site after they had scanned a site down. It let us know that they were at a radar, and that they were halfway through wave 1 when we jumped in. This is where that scout came into play. Since they had scanned their system down earlier, they knew where the c1 we were in was since they had spawned it, and had a cloaky scout sitting there watching. So when our gang jumped in, they all aligned out as we warped in on our scout. One by one, they all warped out, except for one guy. He had the misfortune of being warp scrambled by the lone sleeper frigate they had remaining. It's about that point that we landed and just messed his day up. One dead Tengu later, we all head up, as they log off. Fairly sad when you think about it.

Wait, what's that? We have fraps of it? Well alright then! It'll be right above this post.

Look at that. Embedded video. Nifty!

With that, next post will be.... tomorrow. Awesome. With that...

Blue Probes Out.

How To: Sleeper Tank

So, today I'm going to teach you all a new tanking technique. It's called Sleeper Tanking.

Sleeper tanking is mostly a PvP-only way to tank, as the way it works is very different then your normal tank. I find a PvP fit drake works just fine for this, as it's the first ship I used for it and worked with to get the result I did. 

The way I found this handy little trick was an engagement gone wrong. As in, no probes and we lost wrong. So we're warping around, trying to avoid dying for whatever reason, when it occurs to me. "I got in this ship. I have already come to terms with the fact that I will lose it. I'm finishing this my own way." So at a relative safe spot (relative in that two full flights of combat probes were scanning me down), I did a quick system scan. I pick up a Core Garrison. 

Perfect.

So I warp to it. We're doing this on my terms, damn it! The sleepers instantly lock me and do their thing while I get traversal and start moving, waiting for their combats to lock me down. A minute or so later, a massive fleet lands on it. Luckily for me, this is where the sleeper tank shines.

You see, sleepers love new targets. So when they get an entire selection of new friends to play with, they immediately switch targets. I remember seeing a hurricane pop before my own drake exploded. However, due to them being in PvP fit ships, they were extremely hesitant to throw a bubble up to catch my pod because that leaves them at the mercy of the sleepers. My drake explodes gloriously and my pod makes a quick getaway to a safe where I promptly High Sec express myself out so I could carry on my merry way.

So! To sleeper tank, you require them to both know where you are and to acknowledge that you will most likely die. Other than that, it's simple. You just warp into a sleeper site and wait for friends to show up. Then, fight as you normally would. Give it a try today!

Blue Probes Out. 

MEANWHILE, BACK IN...

When last we left off, spirits were high off that carrier kill. It felt good, man.

The part that I HADN'T mentioned though, was right as we began our operation, a joint fleet of Exhale. Surely You're Joking, Brotherhood of Starbridge, and, for some silly reason, Insidious Design, rolled up into one of Talocan United's home c5s, named Asgard.

Was only 70 people with a rev and like, 15 logi for the t3 brawler fleet they brought. Totally not overkill.

What? Sarcasm font isn't you know, a thing. Italics only do so much!

Anyways, so there's this fleet in Asgard. Big mucky fleet. Were they hired? Couldn't tell you. Were they looking to bring even more people in? Oh yeah. I know one of those Exhale pilots, and he loves his moros something fierce. He's also got it pimped out to a stupid good degree, and I bet it's become even more pimped since the last time I tangled with him.

But yeah. Bad situation. Good thing for my side that we have

BERNIE NATOR, TALUN DIPLO!


on our side. And yes, it HAS to be caps, and italicized. Loses meaning otherwise.

So, similar to how Transmission Lost had to deal with them last week, I dialed up the Batphone and started pulling favors from the various groups that we've done favors for before. And since I was the only leader really on, it feel to me to amass as much help as I could muster. Eventually we had this massive ball of people rage rolling holes to try and find our hole. It was literally maddening. [Editor's note: Rage rolling a hole means slamming mass through a hole so hard that the hole collapses. A c5 to c5 connection takes roughly 3 bil in raw tonnage to collapse. That's 3 battleships and a carrier, or two battleships and a Phoenix (IT HAS USES PEOPLE) and your hole will collapse. All normal mass restrictions apply, except in Alaska. Because Alaska.]


So, it's about 7 est. Exhale et all have put up two towers; one belongs to Exhale, the other to insidious design. No defenses though. It's also right at that time that a Transmission Lost fleet found a k162 into Asgard through a c5 they found in low sec. Which is good, because TL can bring huge numbers, and given that we had about not enough people on in Asgard at the time, we were immediately grateful for anything they could bring in.


So when Exhale and company up and left, we were kind of baffled. They literally just took their shinies and left. Not even a fight. Maybe they knew about the incoming shit storm and decided to leave while they still could? No idea, still can't get an answer out of Chitsa. Maybe at some point I will.


Funnily enough, they left the towers. So we went ahead and reinforced exhale's tower for them. Full stront bay. Makes sense. By this point TL had set a tower up as well. So we take that fleet over to the Insid tower, reinforce it, and...


2 hours of stront. I shit you not. We killed it 2 hours later just because it needed it.


Oh, wait, shit, forgot that exhale watched us reo the towers and then while we were asleep (well, while I was, since I'd been up for awhile at that point. Same day as previous post, remember?) they went and reo'd the TL tower THEN left. In their haste they left/abandoned some pilots in Asgard. 


Like this poor guy. Which is a shame, because I liked this guy. Really swell dude. Still, it's what happens when you invade someone.


There's more to this story, but this post is long enough as is. I'm going to come back in a bit and finish all the bits. Also, I'll have plenty more stories! Like how there's always a pressing need to observe your surroundings, and how a sleeper tank is viable for pvp!


Blue Probes Out.