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.


  

The Triage Module vs. The Cloak Module

So, this past weekend was a bit...

Intense.

I'm gonna time line it for you. Because it was nuts. I'll start with the first half of Friday in this post.

Before anyone says anything, the only thing that went down Friday was a chimera. That's the seat I'm taking. Deal with it.

So, a few months ago, we found a tasty tasty target in a c5. Very poorly defended, lots of shinnies, and possible capital ships. Aka, tasty tasty target.

So over the next few weeks, we draw up a very basic plan; slide some cap ships in when they aren't looking and let them sleep in the dark until we actually roll in to hit them, with only us being the wiser about it. W managed to sneak some 5 caps in. I'd tell you which ones they are, but that's poor intel right there.

Plus, 3 show up on the killmail. Spoilers!

So, we throw up our base of operations, which is really just a pos used as a temporary home. One of the locals notices, "Hey, holy shit, there is a large fleet on scan. With cap support. Maybe we should...PACK UP ALL THE THINGS AND GTFO".

So they do just that. They grab all their important loot into a chimera and proceed to warp straight to a safe spot with the intention of warping out.

At this point, our FC called for combats to be out, so we had that chimera probed down right as it landed. Since we also had an idea of where it was headed, I aligned my brick in the direction of where it was going so I could apply as much missley goodness to it as possible. That's when our prober landed on it and....

...couldn't tackle it because it hit triage.

Apparently, in the madness of trying to flee, he had forgotten to fit a cloaking device and mistook the triage module for a cloak. He didn't have much time to regret the decision, as I landed mere seconds later with two other dreads right behind me. I popped into siege, locked it up, and began to use my Phoenix for the very first time in PvHOLY CRAP IT DID HOW MUCH DAMAGE?!

Fun fact: Found a use for the Phoenix. And it's hitting structures and capital ships.

So, the "fight" lasted a little under 2 minutes.

Here's the resulting killmail:

Oboozie's Carrier

I'm not going to lie, it was satisfying. Podding him would have been even more so. The pod managed to slip away though. From there, we were going to go hit their pos, but they decided to strike a bargain with us. An undisclosed sum and a song later, we agreed to pull out.

Meanwhile, in a Talocan hole...

Part 2 later this week will focus on what happened to one of our c5s while we started the op.

Blue Probes Out.
This
 

Stealth Bombing and You

Ok, ok, I know, I'm running behind on updates. I've been busy, don't judge me.

Or do. Couldn't care less if you did, really.

Anyway! Originally this was going to be a post about cyno fields, but it has come to my attention recently that most people can't fly a stealth bomber worth a damn. It's a fairly easy concept but most people get themselves killed in a retarded way. So, without further ado, Here's Bernie's guide to Not Suck at Bombing.

Step 1: Get in a bomber.
Step 2: Equip a bomb launcher and cov ops cloak.
Step 3: Load a bomb that's situation specific.

Meaning, if you are going in a fleet, use a bomb that is agreed upon or watch a bomb take out the other bombs, wasting isk and ruining a perfectly good kill.

(Here's where we do the actual run btw)
Step 4: Warp to the target about 50 km off.
Step 5: Approach target until you are 35 km off.
Step 6: Align the front of your ship to the target or where the target is heading.
Step 7: Turn your engines on.
Step 8: At 32 km, uncloak. This is so you can actually launch your bomb with no delay.
Step 9: At 30 km, launch the bomb.
Step 10: Get the hell out. You should not be concerned with watching your bomb go off, or staying around to engage if it's a pure bomb fight. It's the fastest way to lose your bomber.

Step 11: The post fight. Here's where you decide to cut and run or go back for more bombing goodness.

Other than a few technical things here and there, this is all you need to know. Although I do have to remind people that bombs are explode on contact. If you're making a bomb run and there's say, a pos mod, between you and the target, if your bomb hits that pos mod, your bomb will explode prematurely, and you will probably lose your ship. Don't be an idiot.

Soooooo, go forth and bomb. Bombs are fun.

Blue Probes out.



 

I'm Running out of Windows

Phew. wow. I have just discovered that when you're in a position of leadership, you get to have a lot of chat windows open. Literally a lot. Your typical EVE player has somewhere in the realm of 4 to 5 chat windows open. I just hit a record high of 31. 

That's 31 separate windows, and it's pretty much all diplomatic work. I can't even properly write a post in under an hour due to just the sheer number of people I'm talking to. Between this sentence and the previous one has just been ten minutes of talking to different contacts in game, and most of them are mad.

It kinda just goes to show that people can take video games a bit seriously at times. Don't get me wrong, most gamers can get a bit heated about the games they love. I feel the same way about puppies. I love them so much, and god help you if you do anything bad to one. It's just that some people get heated about different things. And that isn't even going into motivations for gaming. It can be real complicated sometimes.

But that's not what my post is about.

No, my post today is just a suggestion to any CCP devs that might run across this post. Instead of making the additional chat windows pop up in the same box and having additional windows pop up in an arrow going to the right in a drop down menu, can't we just extend the border to make it go up so we can easily get to any tabs that need our attention? It's really just a small thing that makes our lives a little easier. That's all I ask.

Blue probes out.