The home system has been quiet this week (which is why I’ve been writing a few more guide-like things than normal), but one thing we did manage to accomplish was getting one of our old friends/new pilots into the system. In this case, it’s Tai (not to be confused — though he will be — with Ty).
Tai has particularly impressed me during his early time in EvE, because he’s asking really smart questions and (more importantly, to my mind) figuring out a lot of stuff on his own. He’s one of those extremely rare birds for whom the EvE interface actually seems to be intuitive, which is roughly as likely as a pregnancy resulting in identical twins, both of whom emerge from the womb as capable FORTRAN programmers.
Also in his favor is the fact that he’s chosen to stay focused on his ‘race’ of ships. Some of the Amarrian ships are a bit of a challenge to fit for wormholes, true, but since he’s not doing foolish things like learning every type of turret and missile system (Ty) or getting perfect ratings in every race’s frigate-class ships for every tech level (Bre), he’s been able to get into wormhole-functional sleeper-killing ships (full tech-two tank, tech2 weaponry, the whole package) in what is, to me, a surprisingly short amount of time.
As an added bonus, he doesn’t need to bring much with him for the move, since we have both pve- and pvp-focused Amarr battlecruisers waiting in the tower with his name on them (literally). Secure in that knowledge, he flat-packs all the parts for a Magnate-class scanning frigate in the hold of his Bestower-class hauler and flies to meet me for an escort through a few low-sec systems and into the hole. I give him a tour of the tower, show him where to dock his ships and stow the skillbooks he brought along, and we’re all set.
Tai logs out, but I’m not done, as it’s time to head out of the hole to known space again. Once again, I’ve made a list of stuff we need to pick up over the weekend, and once again, I’m going to step out a day early, switch to my cheap jump clone, and go on a roam with RvB to blow off some steam at the end of a stressful week.
The only difference this time is CB, who’s decided to come along and get some practice with his Sabre-class interdictor, whose warp-disrupting probe launcher seems to be very welcome on these roams. For myself, I’m happy to stick with the Arbitrator from the previous week, set up with a couple tracking disruptors, lasers, and many flights of drones.
The previous week, the laser fleet took a bit of time to get rolling, and a bit more time to find any sort of serious fight, but the opposite is true this week. By the time we reach the mustering system, not only have over a hundred pilots assembled (including three or four logistics ships for support), but the nascent fleet’s managed to kill a couple of capitol ships, in the form of two carriers who were (inexplicably) killing pirates in lowsec systems. Pity we missed out on that, but it turns out that quickly finding fights is going to be a theme for the night.
It just won’t go in favor of RvB.
CB and I have to race to catch up with the fleet, and once we do it’s only a few jumps before our forward scouts report a large fleet coming the other direction. It is, in fact, a fleet comparably sized to our own, all pilots from the well-known Northern Coalition.
They are, as I said, heading our way, so all we need to do is get to our best ranges off the gate and prepare, which for me means getting out well past thirty kilometers and for CB means getting right on top of the stargate and waiting for the blood to start spraying.
We don’t have to wait long, and it isn’t pretty.
The RvB gang had congratulated ourselves on having a small number of Basilisk-class logistics cruisers in the fleet, and it is only because of their efforts that we lasted as long as we did, but the NC. fleet had well over a dozen Guardian-class armor logistics cruisers of their own, and the power of their group’s repair capabilities proved more than we could punch through. A single Zealot-class heavy assault cruiser was the only ship that dropped to our guns before the gang was routed, and it was long before that that several fancy NC ships targeted CB’s interdictor (always a high-priority target in any engagement) and liberated his escape pod from the confines of the ship.
Both of us were able to escape the initial engagement with our clones intact, but it proved impossible to get back to anything resembling neutral space, since the enemy fleet broke up into at least a half-dozen smaller groups (20 ships per group) and stationed themselves on gates leading away from the system for several jumps in all directions. CB’s pod was cracked trying to reach me and, with him waking up in a new medical clone back in Gallente space, I made a run for it and found that a non-travel-fit cruiser with 1600mm armor plating is an unlikely candidate for nimble blockade running.
Still, the cost was minimal, the experience was experiency, and I lost no implants, thanks to my throwaway clone. CB did, but he was planning to upgrade his implants (which require destroying the old implants in any case), so at least they got retired in a proper blaze of glory.
Our night ends quietly, with CB cashing in some goodwill with the Gallente military to get some new wires in his head (and checking on what he needs to do to get a proper jump clone, which he hasn’t done), and me pricing fuel and tower supplies we need to bring back into the home system in the next few days.
It feels like things are getting back to normal and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.
At least I wasn’t killed by scrubs, nope I got targeted by some Grade-A Mean Ships.
I needed new implants anyway, I was running on some ghetto ones I put in after the mean old Stealth Bombers popped my mining ship in July.