My good friend, wingman, and all round Rifter jockey buddy, Miura Bull has crashed behind enemy lines. While out on a reconnaissance mission he lost contact with Gunpoint Diplomacy Command and we have been unable get him back on the line. Our systems have locked onto his Rifter’s distress beacon, though, and the news is not good. He seems to be trapped deep behind enemy lines in the territory of Blackwater USA, part of the Against All Authorities alliance. As head of the RANSM Special Ops Taskforce it is my job to go and retrieve our man. This operation has been codenamed Black Rifter Down.

A rescue fleet formed up in Egbinger consisting of Hurricanes, Drakes, and a couple of Scimitars. We set out on the long journey through bandit country to the borders of Against All Authorities’ empire with trepidation in our hearts.

The run through Great Wildlands was uneventful. It was almost as if someone had already rolled through here and cleaned all the targets out… Our scout did manage to locate a Harbinger in 7Q-8Z2 and, after sending zombiedeadhead in as bait (which wasn’t taken) we got a probe hit on his safe spot and warped Vanderie, interdictor pilot to the stars, onto him. Bubble went up and the gang jumped in for our first kill of the night.

We continued our roam towards Angel country and our scout/dictor combination did another excellent job grabbing us a Drake kill. Excellent work from our Scimitar pilots saw Vanderie’s shields brought back from the brink mere moments after we landed. Good work, gents.

There was nothing else to be seen along the pipe and we moved into Curse. In CL-85V our scout reported a few hostiles buzzing around and myself and Vanderie jumped in to see what we could grab. Everything on the gate fled and we reapproached while probes were dropped for a Rupture that was on scan. With the Rupture located I warped in and began to shoot him, hoping to spring a response from his friends. No such response turned up and I bagged a solo Rupture kill. The Art of War gang that had been shooting him were all cloaked up and showed no signs of decloaking so we began to move again.

It was here that things took a turn for the worse. I was away of a large Initiative gang in the Catch area and it seemed that they had decided to come back through Curse at this moment. Our local count began to climb and we quickly assembled the gang in one place while getting eyes in the next system. The way seemed to be clear and we began to burn for freedom, which went well until we encountered the bulk of their gang in RMOC-W. We safed up and began to bounce around once probes appeared on scan. The main hostile fleet was behind us with a few advanced elements on the Hemin gate. The Hemin gate was a constellation gate and, after a slightly confused bit of leadership, I gave the command to warp to the gate and make a run for it. Unfortunately as we hit warp our scout reported the hostile gang beginning to land on the gate. This was going to be tight. We jumped and I gave the order to scatter to the most convenient celestials. Unfortunately their vastly heavier gang managed to grab 3 of our Hurricanes while we destroyed their Sabre.

Mine was one of the Hurricanes to go down leaving me unable to command the fleet. Vanderie promptly took control and got the gang to the safety of low security space where they regrouped and decided to come back to Molden Heath to reship and go roaming. I waited a while in a station then decided to try and get my pod back to safety. I’d jumped into my Hurricane clone and was quite keen to get my fairly expensive implants to safety. Unfortunately luck was not on my side and I jumped into a small gang of artillery Thrashers who promptly removed me of my Reaper and then sent me to the clone bay. Thanks guys.

So, our operation to recover Miura was not successful. Our agents are reporting worrying intelligence that he might be being indoctrinated and I worry that it might already be too late to recover him. We will try further reconnaissance missions in the future and hopefully not run into the massed ranks of The Initiative. I have high hopes that next time we will actually make it into AAA territory.

In all seriousness, though, good luck in your new adventure, Miura. If you ever want to come blow stuff up in low sec I know the guys would jump at the chance of having you in gang and if you want to come do small gangs in null you know where to find me…

So last night was one of my Wednesday evening gangs and all was set to go as usual. We were going to form up in Hurricanes and Drakes and go visit our friends in Geminate. I got logged on nice and early and opened up the map to see what was happening. There was the usual hot spot in O2O-2X and a few hot spots around Geminate and Vale of the Silent. All in all it looked like things were good. Then my connection died.

I came back on and we began to form up. Various amounts of messing around, people arriving late, and general faff later we finally got underway. Sa’Haira reported a wormhole linking Molden Heath to Melmaniel but by the time we arrived in Kadalina it had already been collapsed, thwarting my plan to go west. Unfortunately the situation in Geminate was changing pretty rapidly and the hot spots looked just to be fleet form-ups. By now there were about 1,000 people in one system and everywhere was emptying out. We made our way through Etherium Reach and into EOA- but nothing was showing up. Using the map I tried to steer us into systems with what looked like reasonable activity but Dian kept reporting empty space or clusters of battleships waiting on titans. Things were not looking good.

In TVN-FM we ran into a VOLTRON Maelstrom gang with heavy logistics support. Dian had reported them on the station but as we jumped in they had moved to our in gate. Their bubble went up and I picked an align point and got people to burn away from their heavy tackle. In the mean time I called their Sabre primary, hoping that we could volley through their logistics but they managed to pull him back from about 25 % shields and there was nothing we could do. Masty had been snagged by their Huginn and Lachesis and there was nothing we could do to save him. The rest of the gang warped off and we waited around for them to lose interest before heading down the pipe to P3EN-E.

In Y5J-EU Dian found a Sabre but he dropped a bubble and jumped out before we could give chase. As our warp drives activated a Manticore decloaked and followed us in warp. Caught in the same bubble as us he dropped out of warp right on top of our gang and before he could do anything about it he had been evaporated by 720 mm artillery shells.

We continued down the pipe towards low security space and somehow, upon jumping into P3EN-E I had what can only be described as a “spaz attack”. I just seemed to lose my ability to do anything and ended up aligning my ship off in a random direction, shooting a gate, warping off when I meant to realign, and somehow (although I didn’t discover it until later) setting my default warp range to 70 km. I eventually managed to pull myself somewhat together and we jumped into Obe.

Obe sits in a low security pocket of half a dozen systems that connect Vale of the Silent and Tribute to Empire space through P3EN-E and M-OEE8 respectively. There are lots of Northern Coalition pilots in the area and we spread out looking for them. Sa’Haira had got seperated from the gang because he was too busy looking for a spoon to eat his Nutella with. As he tried to find us he reported that he had been tackled in Hakonen by a Tengu and called for our help. We quickly burnt back to the Obe gate and jumped. 30 % shield remaining and we still had to cross Obe to get to the Hakonen gate. Thankfully it was a short warp and as we landed Sa’Haira’s Hurricane was just going into armour. We jumped and deployed ECM drones just as the Tengu decided to deaggress. It was a race against time as overheated artillery cannons and missile launchers span into action. His shields were dropping slowly and then all of a sudden more rapidly. As he entered the last few percent of his shields I lost lock and began to swear as I though he’d successfully jumped to safety but then I realised that the shear power of my last volley had punched clean through his armour and hull leaving him as just a smoking wreck. A nice kill and well played to Sa’Haira for getting us it.

We dumped loot and formed up in a safe spot. My plan at this point was to spread the gang out and explore the pocket looking to see what we could get. Before we’d managed anything much a pair of GCC’d Hyperions were reported and we moved to engage. I aggressed one of them and pushed both of them through the gate where Dian was waiting for them. Somehow one of them got away but the other fell to our guns.

At this point I get a bit hazy on the details. I have no idea how but I seemed to have taken GCC again while the rest of my gang were okay. (In retrospect I think I must have docked in a CONCORD station.) It seems that the last vestiges of my little break down in P3EN-E were still hanging around and I spent most of my time futilely warping around trying to avoid sentry guns while the gang called targets and began to take people down. It was a true Gunpoint Diplomacy moment as, from the chaos that the gang had become, killmails began to appear. First a Rapier, then a Tempest, Abaddon and Armageddon. By now I was feeling completely useless and thought I was probably more of a hindrance than a help at this point. It was suggested that we dock up to let everyone’s GCCs resolve and get things back on track. I took the opportunity to stretch my legs and get a change of scene. In fact, I enjoyed my change of scene so much that I didn’t really want to come back to the computer and when I did half an hour later it turned out that Suleiman Schouaa had come along to join us and had taken over the gang. Thankful to be relieved of command I apologised for my absence and decided that logging off was the best course of action for me. It seemed to work well for the gang, too as they killed a Stabber Fleet Issue in Taisy before going to what looked like a good fight in M-OEE8 followed by a Raven kill back in low sec.

So what went wrong? Well, I could blame the fact there was a big fight going on and all the locals being CTA’d into fleets but I don’t think it was that. In all honesty my heart just wasn’t in it. I’d offered to lead the gang so I logged on and did it but all day in front of a computer had just killed my passion for sitting at it any longer and my performance suffered. It probably didn’t help that I had a couple of beers but when we docked up in Nalvula I was really pleased to be able to step away from it. Thanks to Sulei for stepping up and taking control of it and also thanks to Ari for reminding me that this is just a game. Sorry to everyone who I abandoned but I was already less than useless by that point and would only have got worse. In retrospect I should have done what I normally like to do and go set up shop in someone’s home system rather than roaming and getting frustrated. I think what I really need to do is tag along to a few more gangs lead by other folk and pick up my confidence a bit.

What have I learnt? Well, the sun is shining, and the days are long. Its time to get outside more and not log into Eve just because its something to do. Especially if it means that I am going to die stupidly like I did this morning messing around in M-OEE8 with my arty cane. It is, after all, just a game. So yes, there’s going to be less ship spinning from me, more focussed killing and getting good instead. Right, time to go ride bikes…

ECM drones are pretty much the bane of my life. So many battlecruiser brawls have been ruined for me because my opponent carried ECM drones and they got off a couple of jam cycles, putting me in deep trouble and costing me the fight. This wouldn’t bother me so much except for the fact that it is always light ECM drones that cause me these troubles. Why can a flight of frigate sized drones lock my Hurricane out of a fight so effectively?

Let’s take a look at the ECM drones available to us:

• Hornet EC-300 – Jam Strength 1.0
• Vespa EC-600 – Jam Strength 1.5
• Wasp EC-900 – Jam Strength 2.0

So what? Those jam strengths are pretty puny when compared to best named multispectral (2.4 jam strength) and racial (3.6) jammers. Why am I getting my knickers in a twist, then? Well, in short its all to do with the way that ECM stacks, or doesn’t as the case may be.

Take a random spaceship, let’s say a Rifter, and try and jam it with an EC-300 drone. The Rifter has a LADAR sensor strength of 8. Therefore the chance of a single ECM drone jamming it is 1/8 or 12.5%. That seems pretty reasonable, don’t you think? Well, let’s see what happens if we add a second drone to the mix. There is a 87.5% chance that the first drone didn’t jam our Rifter and an 87.5% chance of the second drone not getting a jam off as well if that happens so the chance of getting jammed is now 1 – (0.875 * 0.875) = 23.5 %. If we continue this maths for the next three drones the total chance of our Rifter getting jammed is 1 – (0.875 * 0.875 * 0.875 * 0.875 * 0.875) = 48.7%. That seems fairly reasonable to me. These are frigate-sized drones and the Rifter is a frigate so they should be effective against it. A flight of Warrior IIs would make short work of it after all.

The formula for calculating the chances of getting a jam from multiple drones is:

1 – (1 – jam strength/sensor strenghth)^n where n is the number of drones.

Let’s look at how our flight of ECM drones fairs against some other ships:

What this table shows us is that even versus a battlecruiser frigate sized drones still have more than a 25 % chance of getting a jam. The thing that really stands out to me, though, is that versus a frigate EC-300s have a 49 % jam chance but EC-900s only have a 39 % chance against a battleship. Surely battleship drones should have the same relative effect on their equivalent class as frigate ones do.

The big problem for me is that no other type of electronic warfare drone is this effective. There is no point in flying with tracking disruption drones or sensor dampening drones or, heaven forbid, target painting drones. There should be no question that these things are imbalanced and need to be brought into line.

Either way, it means that a flight of EC-300s can seriously affect the outcome of a fight, even against much larger ships. One of my favourite fights is a good old battlecruiser brawl but in Great Wildlands pretty much everyone I fight has ECM drones and I pretty much always lose these fights if I get into scrambler range. Obviously if I stayed out of scrambler range and put my own drones on their EC-300s it would even things out a bit but I won’t lie, I am terrible at multitasking. So what options do I have other than just to get better?

Well, obviously one option is to carry my own ECM drones. Usually I prefer damage drones because I think they get me out of more hairy situations, more often than not with a killmail. My biggest concern is getting scrambled by a frigate under my guns and because of their excellent tracking most frigate pilots can easily shake off a flight of EC-300s. Warriors, however, usually get the job done. Especially when they are already under pressure from a neutraliser.

Instead of, or at least as well as, getting better at Eve I am looking at another idea. I usually fly with a nanofiber in one of my low slots. This gives my Hurricane very nice speed and agility but it is a property of the ship I have not really found myself having to rely on so much. Instead I am considering fitting a LADAR Backup Array II. This means that I lose some speed (1,470 m/s to 1,344 m/s) and some agility (6.93 s to 8.23 s align time) but I gain sensor strength (16 to 24). This means the chance of EC-300s jamming me goes from one in four to one in five. It might not be much of a gain but in battlecruiser and ECM heavy space like Great Wildlands I rarely need my maximum speed but every bit of ECM resistance helps.

Of course, like all experiments this might end in failure but I think its worth a shot. Sure, its not much of a difference but until ECM drones get the re-balance they deserve I’m going to try every little thing I can to increase my chances in these fights. Oh, and while in Great Wildlands I will now be carrying my own ECM drones just in case.

Edit: Jackal sets were mentioned to me on Twitter. A low-grade set would cost me about 100 million ISK or so and boost my sensor strength to 23 on a regular Hurricane and 34 on the ECCM Hurricane. Interesting. Very interesting.

Edit the second: No post on this blog would be complete without a graph these days so here’s how jam chance varies with sensor strength for a flight of EC-300s:

Last night we ran another one of my Wednesday roams. As with previous weeks we formed up a gang with artillery Hurricanes at the core with Scimitars and tackle ships providing support. On top of that we had not just the Loki we’ve used in the past but also a Tengu to provide extra leadership support. In the end we mustered seven Hurricanes, plenty enough to give us the volley damage to take things down quickly as well as a tonne of DPS.

The plan was the same as before. We checked out Great Wildlands but things were too quiet for us to stand a chance of getting a fight so after scouting out the usual systems we made full speed down the pipe towards LXQ2-T. Other than a couple of frigates there was nothing of note there either and we continued on towards Geminate. In Otosela a Hurricane cross-jumped us and stood no chance of making it back to the gate under our firepower. First blood of the evening.

Geminate itself was looking pretty quiet on the map and no system seemed to have more than 10 people out in space. Seeing as there were no gangs to fight I decided that the best thing we could do was to camp the station in L-HV5C and see if we could provoke a fight. We set up with tackle on the station undock and a small bubble to catch people warping in from the jump bridges in the system. Unfortunately we got no real hits other than a bait Rattlesnake on the station undock. We’d been there for over half an hour and I was just contemplating turning round and heading for home when a gang undocked and warped off to a safe spot. Probes were dropped and our Arazu went in for the tackle followed by the rest of the gang. We dropped bubbles and set about them, catching as many as possible before they could warp off. Initially a Falcon, Scimitar, and Armageddon fell to our guns and before we could finish looting a second wave came in for the attack. This time we snagged a Scorpion, Caracal, Tempest, Apocalypse, and Blackbird. Good stuff. We looted up the field and I was preparing to move the gang away when our Heretic pilot told us he’d been aggressed on the undock by a Megathron. The gang swept in and we killed the Gallente battleship before he could dock.

So far so good. We’d bagged nine kills for no losses. Once again I was contemplating turning around and heading home when a new gang began to undock. This time it was a more coherent fleet with Drakes, Basilisks, and Blackbirds but not much light tackle. We were hanging around on the station still with our interdictor placing bubble between us and them. Unfortunately the bubbles didn’t work and with our gang looking disorganised they warped in on us. Once again Zombie got tackled and there was nothing we could do to keep him alive. Their next primary was me but I’d already got myself around their gang and safely rejoined my own gangmates. With Scimitar reps holding me up but no real targets presenting themselves we warped out and prepared to go home. The battle report is well in our favour and because they only got the one kill doesn’t show all the numbers that were in the second gang we fought and likewise doesn’t show those who escaped the first fight. Still, we fought out-gunned and out-numbered and lost just a single Hurricane while doing nearly a billion in damage ourselves and we got to loot the field for once.

Their gang, growing in numbers, was sitting on the NBPH-N gate, blocking our most obvious route home. Instead I took us into YN3-E3 where we were scouted by a Hurricane sitting on that gate. I got the gang to align for the sun and burn away from the gate, hoping to be able to pull some light tackle away from the main gang. They jumped in and Suleiman was able to volley his way through a Blackbird. Unfortunately, House2Twist was flirting with the hostiles far to close for comfort and found himself tackled and too far away from us for support to burn back and save him in time. We did try and shoot the Hurricane that had shot him but their reps were holding and there was nothing we could do but get the rest of the gang away safely.

At this point it seemed unlikely we were going to be able to get any more kills without taking losses and I concentrated on getting the gang home. Our route into NBPH-N and on to home was currently block so, hoping to throw them off the scent, I doubled back into L-HV5C and, rather than going the direct way, took the gang into D0-F4W. This did the job and we were able to proceed into NBPH-N and onward to Akkio with the hostile gang chasing us but always a jump behind. Suleiman had lurked behind and was able to kill an Incursus too, the whore.

Once safely in low security space we made our way to Tasti and docked up. This was the end of the night as far as I was concerned and I logged off there but it looks like people carried on back to Molden Heath and had more fun there.

When we were camping L-HV5C I was getting a bit concerned that they weren’t going to give us a fight but it seems that patience paid off and people will not tolerate you locking down their principle system for nearly an hour. Their initial response was the rag-tag one that I had hoped for and we did an excellent job taking them down. Their second fleet was far more organised with good logistics and ECM support, I’m guessing with racks full of LADAR jammers, too. I should know by now that when you see someone bring out the counter to your gang it is time to make a move and leave but we hung around for the second gang and let them take the initiative back, costing us two ships. If I were to do it again I would have warped our fleet out to NBPH-N and burnt off the gate, leaving tackle to pin them down. That way we could still have made use of our strengths rather than have them warp in right on top of us.

Either way it was a lot of fun and an excellent fight. I definitely got the fight I wanted this time and that always feels good. Thanks to everyone who came along and extra thanks to those that brought T3s along, Dirty Protagonist and Vincent Pryce for top notch Scimitar piloting, and especially Vanderie for doing an excellent job in the Heretic and getting us all those kills. Here’s to next time! Maybe I’ll even remember to take some screenshots so you can what the fights looked like from our point of view.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volley’ed and thundered.

– The Charge Of The Light Brigade

It was always going to happen sooner rather than later. After the good fun and smooth running of my last couple of Wednesday nigh roams, this one fell short of my expectations. It was one of those nights that started a bit chaotically and I never really got on top of it from there.

The number of people willing to die in whatever silly fight I try and take on seems to be increasing and, with scouts and gang booster, we peaked at 19 people in gang last night. The bulk of the gang was made up of artillery-fit Hurricanes as discussed in an earlier post. With a Loki booster, covert ops, interdictor, a couple of tackle interceptors, and a pair of Scimitars supporting us we could hopefully fight off whatever defence fleet formed in response to us. Before we got moving out towards null sec, though, there were reports of targets all over Molden Heath and we dashed around in a slightly disorganised fashion, putting them down as we found them. First to go was a Blackbird in Aedald. Unfortunately we couldn’t pin the rest of his gang down. Next up was a small gang in Oddelulf who we managed to bait with a Dominix as they jumped out of Atlar. This time a Curse and Drake fell to our overwhelming fire power. A shout out here to Dian Lung who foolishly or bravely decided that tackling in a Stiletto under sentries was a good idea and somehow lived to tell the tale.

A couple of other smallish gangs were reported around the region but I decided that our gang was wasted engaging such small forces and decided to head out to find some bigger fish to fry. Our first stop was a loop through Great Wildlands, entering through 7Q-8Z2 and moving through the station systems, before heading off to Etherium Reach and out through LXQ2-T back into lowsec. All the way through Great Wildlands and Etherium Reach we barely saw a soul and no real targets worth engaging. The only incident worth noting is that Miura disconnected every other jump and lost his Hurricane by the time he was able to log back in the last time. In Uemon things picked up and three Harbingers warped to the gate we were loitering on. Half the gang engaged and the ‘bingers jumped through, followed by the rest of our gang. Points were called and the targets tried to flee, knowing we were waiting on the other side. As soon as aggression timers ended the rest of the gang jumped and we finished off all three of them. Hardly a good fight but its always nice to pick up kills as we go.

Looking at the map, the only system in Geminate with a reasonable population in it was my regular stomping ground, L-HV5C. We set destination and burnt there without incident. As usual we set up on the station and waited to see if we could provoke them into a fight. We picked off quite a few people but, other than a Trans-Solar Works gang poking their nose in and then leaving, we were unable to drum up a response to our presence and I decided to move on. There was nowhere with a population big enough for us to get a proper fight on the map but I decided to go check out AP9-LV and see what Violent Entity were up to. On the way we ran into a Vagabond who was surprised to learn that 8 Hurricanes could volley through him before he got back to the gate. He dropped a faction point, too, so that should contribute to keeping us in tackle ships for a bit longer.

In AP9-LV our scout reported a few battleships and a Thanatos hanging round on the station. I sent in a couple of Hurricanes to see if they could tempt them into aggressing and encourage anyone else to undock. An artillery Tempest was doing pretty significant damage to our advance party and on hearing that the hostiles had aggressed my gang got a bit trigger happy and jumped the gun before I could trickle in support. With local fully bumped by our gang I had no choice but to rush to the station and hope we could kill something before they docked. Several of them got lucky and made it to safety with a slither of structure remaining but an Apocalypse wasn’t so lucky. He’d have died faster too if people stuck to the targets I was calling, damn them.

It was getting late now so I turned us around and we began to burn for BWF-ZZ and empire space. Before we got there our scouts reported a gang in 2E-ZR5 and we were able to kill a Harbinger and Malediction who jumped into us. During this fight it seems that Violent Entity had returned to hugging their station so we turned tail and burnt back. Once again we trickled people in and this time we were able to kill the Tempest that had been worrying our vanguard.

Now it was time to burn for home again. The gang that had been spotted in 2E-ZR5 was hanging around the area still and seemed to be a similar composition to ours. I decided that we were going to fight them if we could and I set up the gang on the SR-KBB gate in NQ-9IH. Rather boldly I put our damage ships at zero on the gate and this turned out to be a mistake. The opposition jumped in a Legion initially and we quickly went to work on him, which kept us right on the gate where they wanted. With the Legion at half armour they jumped in and Scimitars quickly went to work on him. Time for us to burn but we’d left it late and they were easily able to tackle a few of the gang and took down our interdictor, an interceptor, and one of our Hurricanes for the loss of a Taranis. Having regrouped our gang and assessed their composition we were ready to go back in, at range this time, but when we got to the gate they had already bailed and looked to be heading back to Vale of the Silent. It was late and I didn’t want to give chase so we continued towards home.

In IOO-7O a Sabre jumped into us and once again felt the wrath of our 720 mm artillery cannons before he could make it to the gate. We jumped into BWF-ZZ and were greeted by the sight of a Vindicator landing on the gate. At this point the red mist rose and I kind of lost control of the situation. We began to engage the Vindi only to have a Drake gang with logistics land on us. Thankfully we aligned out and the gang was able to warp off without casualties. We didn’t warp coherently, though, and people we scattered all over the system with some still trapped in IOO-7O. zombie had landed on the sun at zero with the hostile gang right behind him. While I was en route to a safe to get the gang back together, Sulei decided to play the hero and rescue zombie so he would finally survive one of my roams. By the time Sulei arrived zombie was safe but our knight in slightly rusty armour wasn’t so lucky and lost his ‘Cane.

With the gang finally reassembled we got everyone safely into BWF-ZZ and from there into low security space, docking up in Akora and calling it a night. In total we killed three battleships, a Vagabond, a Sabre, three interceptors, a Curse, a Blackbird, and six battlecruisers for the loss of three Hurricanes, an Ares, and a Flycatcher. Not a bad return at all really.

As far as debriefing goes, I think its fairly safe to say that I’m at fault for never really stamping my authority on the roam. Except between Great Wildlands and L-HV5C, things felt pretty disorganised and chaotic. In L-HV5C I felt much more in control of the situation and maybe we should have hung around in there a bit longer to see what happened while we were on the front foot. When fighting the opposing nano gang I should never have had us at zero on the gate and instead set us up with a head start so we could draw people away from the main gang. As it was we might as well have jumped into them for all the benefit we got by being on our side of the gate. Ah well, live and learn, unfortunately they didn’t hang around long enough for us to get a second round. By the time we hit BWF-ZZ everyone, especially myself, was pretty tired and things once again got pretty disorganised. Next time I think I need to be a bit more strict with time constraints and not spend time chasing after smallish gangs. Then again Geminate was pretty quiet anyway. I know I feel a bit disappointed with how things turned out but then I had very high expectations of what we’d achieve with our improved gang.

The final thing that I want to say is that I really liked flying the artillery Hurricanes. The volley damage that they deliver makes them great for punching through targets before they can get back to the gate. On the stations we lost a couple of kills because the huge cycle time of artillery means that targets have longer between volleys and those fractions of seconds are enough for them to dock up if we can’t alpha through them. Unfortunately we didn’t get to test them out in anything beyond skirmishes so I’ll be interested to see how they handle bigger fights.

My Hurricane roams seem to have taken over my Eve life at the moment. Don’t worry, this is a good thing and I am enjoying trying to work out how to get the best out of them. I still solo in between roams but now with the added aim of scouting out areas for roaming.

Anyway, after jotting down my thoughts on FCing these gangs yesterday, today I have turned my mind to the best fits for the Hurricanes that we use. Our standard fit at the moment is a 425 mm autocanon fit like the one below:

[Hurricane, Autocanons]

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I

The resistance rigs and invulnerability field are there to help the Scimitars that we will have next time. Until now we’ve been rolling with two extenders and field extender rigs. However, after chatting to Suleiman Shouaa I have started to consider the possibility of changing to an artillery Hurricane. Now this might seem counter intuitive for a close range gang but bear with me. Here is my proposed fit for the artillery Hurricanes:

[Hurricane, Artillery]

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

So why have I started to think about artillery fits. Well let’s compare some numbers. First of all they have the same speed but we sacrifice some EHP and resists on the artillery fit due to the need for an ACR rig. Its the DPS numbers that catch my eye, though. Autocanons with RF EMP in them do 549 DPS and with Barrage do 437 DPS. 720 mm artillery canons with RF EMP do 462 DPS, more than you get with Barrage. Their range is also impressive with an optimal of 19.5 km and nearly 36 km fall off range. This means that artillery out-damages Barrage at all ranges and out-damages EMP from 10 km.

This works very well for the way we fly in these gangs and allows us to hit out all the way to warp disruptor range (24 km) and beyond, which is particularly good with a Loki or Claymore providing long range points. These numbers only consider a stationary target with 125 m signature radius so don’t tell the whole story. So what about an interceptor orbiting at 4,000 m/s and 20 km?

In this case we can see that it is perfectly possible for an interceptor to get under the guns of an artillery-fit Hurricane. However we tend to primary interceptors and small ships for the very reason that they pose the biggest threat to our mobility. This means that they tend to die at the very edge of our lock range rather than right on top of us. If they do get on top of us there are multiple flights of Warrior II drones to deal with. In our last but one gang Sulei was able to hold off the entire hostile fleet and even pop a couple of frigates without too much difficulty.

The upshot of this is that I will be running artillery fits in my next gang to see how their performance compares. The equivalent or better damage at longer ranges should really help us take down more of the hostile gang and I am really looking forward to seeing how they perform.

Edit: As pointed out on Twitter, something that I have not discussed in this is the fact that an artillery Hurricane delivers enormous alpha damage. Each volley lands 3744 damage assuming it hits perfectly. If there are ten such ships in gang then the effect can be devastating and make the life of opposing logistics ships very hard.

Ah, another day in Geminate, land of the brave, home of the foolhardy.

I started the day with a frigate roam up through Great Wildlands, Etherium Reach, and on into Geminate itself. In LXQ2-T I found Badger Mk II caught in a bubble but it didn’t drop anything of real value. Yesterday Uemon was the sight of one of the largest supercapital battles New Eden has ever seen and today you could see the effects of the aftermath but at least it was safe for me and my Wolf to pass through, admiring the super capital ships that appeared on my scanner while I warped.

EOA-ZC, my preferred way into Geminate, was quiet so I hopped through UBX-CC and into AD-5B8 where I found a Harpy on the Eurgrana gate. He responded well to my overtures and returned my lock. It wasn’t really a fight, more of a quick and brutal execution but at least it was a kill.

As usual my next destination was L-HV5C where I hoped to find some DEM0N HUNTERS to fight but everything was quiet and no-one seemed interested in undocking. My next destination was AP9-LV, home of Violent Entity. A few battlecruisers undocked but nothing I had a chance of taking on so I decided to head back towards home.

Violent Entity seemed to object to me messing around in their home system and a Zealot and Retribution followed me into NQ-9IH. Show time! I fired up my microwarp drive and burnt away from the Zealot, eating volley after volley of scorch from his lasers until I pulled out to a safe range. As I’d hoped the Retribution gave chase, looking to tackle me. “Good bye,” came the taunt in local. As soon as I was happy with the separation between the Retribution and Zealot, plus the other guys who had jumped in as I burnt away, I turned my ship around and prepared to greet the Retribution with a traditional Minmatar welcome: overheated 200mm autocannons. Retributions can pack a mean tank but, despite his dual armour repairers, my new friend melted in short order and I was able to warp away to safety. “Hello, guys.” I wasn’t going anywhere.

Local was swelling now and they were starting to bring the kitchen sink out to kill me, a humble little Wolf pilot. By now they had a Curse, Falcon, Phobos, Ishkur, Malediction, Ares, and some assorted battlecruisers. That Ishkur had caught my eye. I wanted it and I wanted it alone. NQ-9IH is a natural choke point that protects Violent Entity’s constellation. Knowing this they had set up on my out gate and it was there that I warped now. As soon as I landed I turned tail and began to align out. A quick flash of my fine Brutor tailpipe and I warped off, hoping they’d want more of what I had to offer. Their Curse followed me but nothing bite-sized came with it and I quickly bounced back to the gate to see if I could tempt something else off. This time the Ishkur was away from the pack so I loaded EMP and prepared to go to war. My main concern was the Falcon so I made sure that I kept 100km away from him in order to prevent him getting any jams off. The Ishkur did want to dance and pretty soon we were locked in mortal combat. Knowing the Gallente ship would want to get in close I opted to align out to a celestial, ready to leave as soon as he exploded. Unfortunately for me, as the Ishkur began to go into structure, the Falcon was able to get into range and jam me. One or two seconds later and I would have been free but now I had to endure another slow, helpless death as their gang got into range and whored onto my lossmail.

Later that night I was FCing another one of my nano battlecruiser roams and we began to form up a gang in Egbinger. As usual the bulk of our fleet was formed of Hurricanes with a Deimos (I know, I know), Drake, and Ferox thrown in just to highlight quite how brilliant the Hurricane is. When we undocked there was a neutral Dominix on the undock but he had not aggressed the Ferox we sent out first and it was not worth taking GCC on someone who would be able to dock straight away. Instead we set course for M-MD3B and went to go find us a fight. Two jumps into Great Wildlands and our scout was reporting all clear when all of a sudden our local spiked. We were being followed by a gang twice as big as our own. I instantly called for the fleet to jump into 6WT-BE and burn off the gate. The hostiles followed and I began calling primaries. First to drop was a Rapier and a second Rapier was able to jump out to safety before we could nuke it. As is traditional, our opponents had called zombie primary and his Hurricane was our first loss. More primaries were called but we had difficulty keeping people pinned down but. As we lost ships, including my own, I gave the order to warp out and regroup. We lost 5 battlecruisers and a Deimos to their two Vagabonds and a Rapier. Not a stellar performance but they did outnumber us two to one and if the Deimos had been a proper ship then we would have finished up on efficiency too. After a bit of hesitation on my behalf we made our way back to Egbinger, looping through 0PI4-E to avoid the hostile gang between us and home.

While we took a break and reshipped people I had a think on what had happened in that fight and what we could have done better. The first thing that came to my mind was that the Deimos doesn’t really have a place in my gang concept. Let’s face it, the Deimos isn’t a particularly great ship and is almost an instant primary, especially when surrounded by battlecruisers. I want a cheap, disposable fleet that I can fight any group with and not have to worry about losses. I’m not going to yell at people for losing ships but I do want to stand a chance of winning each fight when it comes to ISK efficiency and that skewed the battle against us. I made sure that Slotos came back in something a bit cheaper that fits what I’m aiming to do. The next thing is that I kept us on our original gate too long. Once I’d cleared the initial tackle I should have warped us out, regrouped, and repositioned the gang so that we could go back for another round and draw them out again.

With these lessons learnt we set out again. We’d lost a few and gained a few but the best thing was when we undocked a gang of about 10 Hurricanes at the same time. It looked brilliant and I was so caught up admiring our fleet that I subconsciously set destination for Etherium Reach when I’d been meaning to go to Curse. Never mind, by the time I realised what I’d done I decided to just go with it and see what we’d find. This turned out to be a good decision.

On our way out towards Geminate we found a couple of lone ships which we mercilessly ganked but other than that it was as uneventful as when I’d done it earlier in the day. However, Suleiman reported a camp on our out gate in UBX-CC and bravely lost his Hurricane scouting them for us. They had approximately equal numbers to us with Drakes and Hurricanes providing their main fleet and some tackle and a Phobos backing them up. Around the gate were several anchored bubbles. This looked like the perfect chance to get a good fight.

I warped the gang to a pounce spot above the gate and then down to one of the bubbles furthest from the hostile gang. One of their interdictors burnt towards us but shied away when we opened up on him. We should have let him get into instapop range. Nothing else came towards us so I began to slowboat the gang towards them, pulsing our MWDs occaisionally and taking pot shots at soft targets. None of them wanted to fight and they began to jump back out until their were just three Drakes, the Phobos, and a Flycatcher on gate. This was ridiculous but as we mocked their bravery in local I had a cunning idea. The heavy inderdictor was still running his bubble on the gate, despite all the anchored bubbles around him. I ordered the gang to burn for him and as soon as they were in his bubble, start spamming the warp command. As soon as we got into the bubble the Phobos was aggressed by our warp commands and we set about killing him under the noses of the Drakes who just jumped to safety on the other side. Some of us, myself included, were so busy spamming warp that we didn’t notice we were no longer inside bubbles and got a bit of a shock when our ships reported “warp drive active” but no matter, we all came back in time to see the gate start to flash and local rise. I ordered the fleet to burn off to the edge of the anchored bubbles and see what came through. The answer was a 60 man battleship gang and we set about doing what we do best, killing the tackle the suicidally burnt for us. Unfortunately they had decided to bring six Basilisks so we were unable to make a real dent on their heavier ships but we killed lots of tackle that burnt for us. Our only real loss was Dian’s Hurricane when she warped back to us, forgetting that she’d get pulled into the bubbles. At one point the hostiles warped out to try and land on top of us but they too forgot about their bubbles and ended up well out of range.

With nothing left to kill we warped off an regrouped before returning to the gate to see what was happening. A Hurricane and Viator were looting our wrecks and a few Drakes hugged the gate but nothing major was on grid. I quickly warped us down to the Viator and we made him pay for being on the field. Unfortunately the Hurricane pilot had his wits about him and got out before we could hurt him. With no more soft targets available and because it was starting to get late we made the decision to get out and call it a night.

This was a much better fight on our behalf. On the battle report you will see a small Russian gang who were semi affiliated with us because they were friends with one of our gang members but because of their inappropriate fleet composition and the fact they weren’t on our Teamspeak I don’t count them as part of our gang. Watching them die completely unnecessarily was kind of amusing, though. The Falcon really isn’t an appropriate ship for this kind of nano gang and the Sentinel spent far too long in the bubbles soaking up Drake missiles. Still, once again the power of these nano fleets to engage much larger gangs was demonstrated and we only lost our scout and one bad warp in. It really is starting to come together.

In fact, things have come on so much so that I’m going to actually turn these into slightly more serious gangs. When I first started running them they were just a chance to hang out with friends, get pirates out into null sec, and die in a glorious fireball. Now we are starting to pull significant numbers – with the affiliated Russians we hit 17 in gang. This means that I think we can start to shift things up. We didn’t have our gang-link Loki last night and I think we really missed his bonuses in both fights. A bit more speed and agility would have helped keep people alive and the extended point range would have made sure people died. I’ve also had a donation of 1 billion ISK to help encourage good stories for this blog and I am going to use that to provide support ships for our fleets including Scimitars and interdictors of our own. That way I can keep the costs low for people coming along but also increase our efficiency. There isn’t going to be another one of these roams for a couple of weeks and in that time I am going to try and come up with a more co-ordinated fleet so that we can fight outnumbered even more effectively and also take some time to make sure I have an excellent set of bookmarks in the areas we roam so that I can warp our gang in and out to try and spread the opponents more.

I’ve definitely learnt a lot of lessons these last couple of weeks and with a couple of weeks off FCing this sort of gang I’m going to have some time to actually think what I’ve learnt and try and apply it to make these roams even better. One thing that is going to change is that I’m not going to run these as “anybody is welcome” and be a bit more selective about who gets invited. This isn’t because I want to be elitist but because I want to keep numbers under control so that we don’t end up rolling around as a disorganised blob ourselves. You can see the effect of not operating as a single unit in the Geminate fight where the Russian gang acted effectively independently and didn’t fit into our plans. Probably the main thing that came out of last night is that I have decided to train for the Claymore. Lokis provide better bonuses but they are too fragile to be on the field and if I am going to command these fleets I need to be on the battlefield amidst the action.

While I’m not running any of these skirmish gangs for a while I have offered to FC a Gunpoint Diplomacy corporate gang on Saturday and I’m planning something a bit different for that. Until then, fly recklessly and have fun!

PS: I know the battle reports look a bit funky but I can’t find any good, accurate representations, I’m afraid. If anyone can find better ones post them in the comments and I’ll edit the post.

PPS: I have enabled comments on my killboard now. The password is “rifter”.

Last night I did another of my Wednesday night roams. This time we based out of Molden Heath and, as well as a few of my old Tusker friends, a good number of the locals came along for a laugh. Unfortunately we had to leave Zombie behind because his computer seems to have some kind of moral aversion to TeamSpeak. Sorry, mate, we’ll use Vent next time.

Comms where suitably chaotic while we formed up, bringing people in from Teonusude, getting ship fittings together, and generally hanging out. It was about half an hour after the planned departure time when we finally set out from Oddelulf and set destination for Khabi. The plan was to hold one jump out while a scout checked out 7Q-8Z2 to see if there was a camp set up and we burned at full speed across Molden Heath low security space. Our gang consisted of 6 Hurricanes, two Drakes, a Sabre, two assault frigates, and a stealth bomber acting as scout.

7Q-8Z2 was empty but there were about half a dozen or so camping the in gate in 8YC-AN. When we jumped in they bailed and most of them got away successfully but we were able to tackle and kill a Drake that was too slow to decloak and warp after jumping in with us. Their gang was sitting in a safe spot so we moved towards M-MD3B and set up shop on the station. Our Sabre sat on the undock with the assault frigates providing support while the gang moved to a pounce spot above the station. I set up drag bubbles aligned to the two gates in system to see if we could catch any stragglers. While all this was going on four or five interceptors hung around outside the station observing us but didn’t make any moves to engage or get warp ins. A Rifter undocked and Rathnon made short work of him as soon as he moved and a few minutes later a hauler undocked but, seeing our gang warping down upon him, redocked without breaking his invulnerability. Somewhere else, in NIH-02 I think, our scout found and killed a noobship. A vital kill that would have enormous consequences for our overall efficiency.

After about fifteen minutes of hanging around and asking why, with 62 in local, they didn’t want to fight our gang, it was time to move out. The map was showing some activity in Curse so I decided to head down there and see what we could find. We warped out and jumped into E02-IK where we formed up on the NK-7XO gate while our scout sorted out his autopilot settings – he’d been directed into 8YC-AN, presumably to go to Doril via lowsec. As we waited local spiked and a hostile gang appeared on scan.

The hostiles began to land on our gate. Drake, Cynabal, Arazu, and more, and more and more. I held our gang at zero on the gate waiting to see what would happen. A couple of them yellow boxed us and I decided it was go time. The gang aligned out and began to burn away from the gate, through the bubble that their Onyx had dropped, while we shot at their Arazu. Initially we thought we’d killed it but it seems that he jumped out without aggressing. Once out of the bubble and away from their heavy tackle we cut our MWDs and concentrated on nuking the interceptors that were burning towards us. A Vagabond came out from the pack too and we destroyed that. By now their heavy tackle had closed down on us and we’d been going slowly for too long. People were starting to drop and I was fairly early to go. I got my pod out safely and Ariartus took over calling targets with the aim of getting the gang out without taking too many losses.

Although the fight was not a completely glorious victory for us we did pretty well considering my hesitation. In the end we destroyed a Vagabond, Hurricane, three interceptors, and a bomber for the loss of five of our own Hurricanes giving us a 52.49% killboard efficiency. I’m pretty sure that another Drake was lost somewhere in this but either the loss hasn’t been posted to Eve-Kill or I am wrong about that. This is by no means a stellar result but not bad for 10 versus 28. I could have handled the fight a bit better by either being a bit more pre-emptive about burning off the gate before their gang had finished landing or, better yet, jumping through and fighting them on the other side where they would have had to jump into us, giving us time to burn off the gate. Once the fight had started my priority should have been to keep burning away, get out of range of their DPS and then pick off their fast ships as they came to us. In the smaller scale fight last week I was pretty good at warping out and coming back in at a different angle but this time I messed that up and gave their heavy ships time to get amongst us. Oh well, I think everyone had fun and I learnt some lessons that I can apply next time.

After the fight we regrouped and prepared to get out pods out to the safety of empire. 8YC-AN was clear and we jumped in and warped to the 7Q-8Z2 gate. A Sabre was waiting on the other side and I sent in the surviving battlecruisers to force him off, which they did admirably. There was a sling bubble on the out gate so I ordered the gang to hold on the in gate while I warped to a pounce spot but a couple of people were a bit eager and warped straight to the out gate. I think we lost a pod or two here but I’m not entirely sure. Another hostile gang began to land on the Khabi gate and a small and disorganised fight began as people had issues getting a good warp in to the gate without getting caught in the bubble. By this time my pod was out in Molden Heath and I couldn’t provide warp ins and had to just listen to what was happening. We killed a Hurricane but lost a Drake in the ensuing confusion and eventually managed to get everyone out and into lowsec.

By now it was about 23:30 and a few people decided to call it a night and log off. The rest of us toyed with forming an armour BC gang with Guardian support to go fight in 7Q-8Z2 again but by the time we’d spent an hour getting our act together numbers were dropping, people were getting tired, and Masty had gone off to do his teeth.

Thanks to everyone who came along. I hope you all enjoyed the fight that we got. It always amazes me that lemmings are willing to turn up to my operations but I think I’m learning from all of them so our survivability should definitely increase over the next couple of weeks if people still turn up. If you were in the gang and have any ideas how I/we could have done better please let me know and if you have any tips for FCing nano(ish) gangs then please leave them here. Oh, and if anyone has any nanoish fits for Gallente pilots to bring along to these gangs please let me know because the only ideas I have so far are Rob’s autocannon monstrosity or something involving railguns.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to do a roam next week but the following week should be frigates and/or destroyers based out of Placid. Next time we do a Molden Heath roam I will have a stock of fitted BCs to hand out to people (for a fair price of course) so there is no excuse for claiming it is too far away for you. Come hang out in the Rifter Drifter channel if you fancy coming along.

Now my Eve life is a bit more casual with no CTAs or other alliance commitments to worry about, I have resurrected my Wednesday night roams. This started back when I was in The Tuskers and decided to invigorate things by scheduling a regular roam, often with a theme and always primarily concerned with getting a fight. These days I no longer do lowsec prowls but instead take gangs into nullsec looking for good fun fights for all concerned. We used to call these gangs “Wensley’s Wasted Wednesdays” because drinking was compulsory while in gang and things would usually be pretty relaxed. As it happened, more often than not we had good fights and ended up winning.

Last night I formed up a small gang of nano Hurricanes with Robert Mason standing out like a sore thumb in his nano, autocannon Brutix, and lncognito scouting in a Nemesis. We formed up in Vlillirier and I opened up the map looking for a suitably active system to set as destination. To get things moving I set an initial destination of C4C-Z4 in Fade. In YI-8ZM we hung around on the station to try and provoke a fight but the locals showed no interest in playing so we continued on our journey northwards until lncognito reported a Tempest on our in gate in PPG-XC.

I ordered Miura Bull to jump and then had myself and Rob follow him, leaving zombiedeadhead behind incase the Tempest tried to deagress. As we jumped Miura reported the Tempest as showing no sign of burning for the gate and when we decloaked I saw a notification that he had warp disrupted Miura. I called zombie in and we set about destroying the Minmatar battleship. At this point lncognito managed to get his Nemesis stuck on the gate somehow and found himself despatched in a single volley. As the battleship’s armour began to fail an Armageddon and Drake landed on the gate. When the Tempest fell I switched primary to the Apocalypse but the gang was beginning to take heavy damage and we warped out one after the other. After regrouping I had the gang align back to the 8R-RTB gate and warp back into the fight. This time the Drake was going to be our primary. I made the mistake of warping to the gate at 0 km and despite my efforts to pull range found myself warp scrambled by the Armageddon. I aligned out and counted the kilometers as they slowly climbed while my shields fell. 5… 6… 7… 8… come on, come on… 9… DAMN! I exploded and warped my pod out listening to the gang. They weren’t breaking the Drake’s recharge and damage switched back to the heavily damaged ‘Geddon. Rob had also got himself caught and his Brutix was destroyed leaving just Miura and zombie on the field as the golden ship exploded. By now a Hurricane had landed and the decision was made to bail with what we had left. Unfortunately both of them were unable to get away before they were destroyed. Zombie’s warp drive had been about to kick into gear when the Hurricane snagged him and Miura appeared to have got into warp before Tranquillity’s calculations caught up and he found himself switching to a pod mid-warp. Despite our losses, which I think we could have avoided, or at least limited in retrospect, it was a good fight. Everyone was in high spirits and keen to go out for round two so we took our pods back to Placid and I ferried new Hurricanes to everyone from Orvolle.

For round two I opened up the map and picked another destination. This time we’d be going into Pure Blind through RQH-MY. Fidelas Constans (FCON) live in this part of Pure Blind and we had regular fights with them in the neighbouring station system of D2-HOS when I was in Rionnag Alba. Armed with shiny new ships the gang burnt full speed for Mantenault, the final low security system in our route, with me running ahead to make sure the outlaws didn’t run into any camps that might cause them trouble. In Mantenault we formed up in a safe spot and took a break for people to get fresh drinks and prepare themselves.

When everyone was back I formed the gang up on the RQH-MY gate. There was an FCON Vengeance on the gate and a Helios had just jumped through too. In hindsight I think the Helios had probably been sent in to find us in our safe spot so we got moving just in time. These two ships lead me to believe that there would be a camp on the other side of the gate and rather than sending in a scout I decided the best thing was just to try and break through it. We should at least get a fight and some kills. I ordered the gang to jump in and hold cloak. There was indeed a camp with about 15 or so in it including an Arazu and a handful of frigates. A sling bubble had been arrange to catch from the MQ-NPY gate (if I remember correctly). Their camp was mostly centred around this bubble so I ordered the gang to break cloak and burn for the D2-HOS gate instead.

Their FC had called zombiedeadhead primary and he was tackled by the Arazu. There was nothing we could do to help him with no logistics on the field so I ordered the gang to keep burning and primary any frigates that got into range. lncognito was tackled by the Vengeance and, although we were able to despatch the assault frigate, he’d been slowed down long enough for them to get other points on him and he too went down. With a couple of losses taken we continued to burn out of range, shooting at any frigates that tried to come in and get tackle on us. Once we were a safe distance away from their main gang we changed our alignment point to the sun and turned off our MWDs to see what would happen. A couple of frigates buzzed close by but no-one wanted to get into autocannon range. We scooped drones and I warped the gang off.

When we landed I turned us around and warped us in to the station at 70 km getting the gang to align away towards the MQ-NPY gate when we landed. A few battlecruisers came to the station but no-one showed any signs of wanting to follow us so we went to the MQ-NPY gate to try our luck there. This time we had more joy and an Ares burnt out to try and tackle us. When he got within neutraliser range of my Hurricane it was all over for him and we managed to level the kill count. This time a Vagabond and Hurricane came out to act as heavy tackle but we were able to chase them off but not actually kill them, unfortunately. When a Hurricane warped in ahead of our alignment I decided it was time to leave and we warped off again.

Now it was time to return to the Mantenault gate and see if we could draw anyone away from their gang there. We lured a Hurricane out of range of their Arazu and Guardian but once he realised he was in trouble he turned tail and burnt back to the main gang while asking for reps in local. We knew that they had a prober in system and when their gang warped off to a pounce spot I should have guessed that they were probing our position, not being willing to send any more light tackle after us. As soon as they had a probe hit their gang entered warp to us and I ordered MWDs on hoping to burn away and get some kills. I’d forgotten about the danger that the Arazu posed and when I finally did warp us off grid it was too late for Robert who had been caught in his big, fat, slow Gallente excuse for a nano ship. At least we’d got lncognito and zombie’s pods out to safety.

With just two of us left, lots of hostiles, and none of their tackle willing to risk a pass at us, I decided that it was time to cut our losses and head for home. Miura and myself warped to the gate and jumped. What I hadn’t counted on was their gang following and hunting us on the other side. I’d forgotten that I was the only non-outlaw in gang and that they wouldn’t have to take GCC to tackle Miura, which they did. Damn. That was two unnecessary losses we’d taken. Still, I think everyone had fun nanoing around and trying to separate them. I’d run the gang just like I operate when soloing in a Hurricane and we had been able to get a few kills and nearly bagged a couple more. What we could really have done with was a couple more Hurricanes and even better a Scimitar or two to keep people alive. Hopefully if more people come along then we’ll be able to form even better gangs.

Over the course of both fights I’d made a fair few errors FCing that had gotten people killed. I am still very much a novice FC but taking gangs out like this is how you improve and I’d at least succeeding my key aim of getting us fights. Now all I need to do is move on to winning them rather than dying gloriously. Taking these kind of gangs out in nullsec is definitely harder than running frigate wolfpacks like I have done in the past but also has much more potential for good fights. It seems that despite all the losses everyone had enjoyed themselves so it was definitely worthwhile and we’ll be doing another next week, hopefully with more people.

Those of us still online reformed in Hevrice and decided to do a quick loop around the area to see if we could find anyone to shoot. I headed out while people were reshipping and toyed with the Roughnecks briefly in Aeschee but didn’t feel comfortable engaging their fast frigate gang on my own. We moved out through Old Man Star (which is dead these days) and Heydieles (which is crowded) without finding a fight until Robert reported signs of activity in Ouelletta. He played bait on one of the stations but no-one was willing to bite until he saw a Vexor in a belt and warped in to tackle it. With the Vexor pointed he called in the gang and as we jumped a warped a Thorax and Rupture appeared in support of the Vexor. We managed to get points on the two Gallente ships but the Rupture escaped. With both crusiers down a Hurricane landed in the belt and we set about that, losing lncognito’s ship for the third time that night in the process. Next to arrive was a Dominix and we set about him too, trying our best to stay out of neutraliser range. An Armageddon landed to complete the party and we decided that it was too much for our little gang and began to burn away. Unfortunately Rob’s Drake had been warp scrambled and neuted and, despite prayers to the gods that his EC-300s would do the trick, he too went down. I hung around in the belt after the fight, hoping for a round two, but had no joy so satisfied myself by looting the remaining wrecks and popping them so that the Vigil that was hovering around could not salvage anything. A gang had parked itself on the gate back towards Hevrice and, although I tried a couple of passes to see if they would try and tackle me, they didn’t do anything risky. With my GCC and zombie’s outlaw status we called it a night and docked up in Ouelletta. A nice little fight to end a fun evening.

I have a new favourite ship. Since coming back to low security space I have spent a lot of quality time in Hurricanes and they are rocking my world. I mean these babies are almost perfect. With Wensley’s skills I can put out 624 DPS with Republic Fleet ammo and Warrior IIs or 511 DPS with 30 km falloff if I load Barrage instead. Couple that with a top speed of 1,386 m/s, excellent agility, and 46 kEHP and you get a real monster of a ship.

With Great Wildlands right next to Egbinger and two other nullsec entries easily available through Khabi and Skarkon, Molden Heath is an excellent region to base out of. Because I’ve needed to give my security status a little polish from time to time I’ve been spending quite a bit of time around BRT-OP killing Angel rats. The great thing about the Hurricane is that I can take out a PvP fit and load up my guns with cheap Fusion ammo for the rats. Then I just rat away and hope someone comes to interrupt me. BRT-OP is on the main pipe from the Drone Regions into central Great Wildlands and there seems to be plenty of roaming traffic through the area, especially during Russian prime.

My first PvP in the BRT-OP region was after I’d been taking pot shots at a Republic Alliance Vagabond. An Absolution and Sacrilege tried to trap me once but I was able to use my speed and agility to get away from them. The second time, though, they had a gang-boosting Loki in system and fast lock times combined with 17.5 km warp scramblers resulted in a dead Hurricane. Never one to be easily put off I went straight back to Molden Heath and grabbed myself another battlecruiser. I got my rewards not long after when a Hurricane found me ratting and began to chase me around JUK0-1. I’d taken quite a bit of shield damage from the rats that I’d been fighting so I used my speed to burn away from my pursuer, giving the impression of running while allowing my shields to recharge. Once I was happy I turned my ship around and sped towards the Hurricane, guns and neutralisers primed. The hunter had become the hunted. As we came into range both ships opened fire and broadside after broadside was exchanged. My neutralisers did their job and shut down my opponent’s invulnerability field as his capacitor was already drained from our preliminary manoeuvres. My overloaded guns ripped through his shields, armour, and hull and his ship exploded as my own armour began to take damage. My previous loss was avenged and my blood lust was satiated for now.

Not long afterwards I noticed that I was being chased by a Cynabal and Rapier. I wasn’t confident that I’d be able to do much about the Cynabal but if I could get the Rapier alone for long enough then I should be able to take him down. Even if I died in the process then it would definitely be a moral victory on my behalf. Eventually I found myself alone in JUK0-1 with the Rapier pilot. I knew the Cynabal would be on his way so I needed to make this quick. I picked an empty belt, moved away from the warp in point, and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough the Rapier decloaked about 50 km from me. I pointed my ship at the recon cruiser, my guns were already loaded with Barrage, and overloaded my microwarp drive. Even if he webbed me I would have the momentum to get in close and let my damage really show. I knew I could hit him well out beyond this ability to point me so things looked good. My inertia carried me right alongside him and my guns were tearing into his shields as I saw the local count climb by one; the Cynabal was here. I aligned out to a celestial and overloaded my guns as the last of his shields disintegrated and high tech rounds began to rip into his armour. The Cynabal appeared on grid as the Rapier entered structure and before his warp drives had would down the Rapier was reduced to a wreck and my own warp drives powered up, taking me to safety. That was close. I bounced around a few safespots waiting for my adrenaline to cool and the Cynabal to give up on me, which he eventually did, before logging off.

Later on I logged back in to see Ariatus and Masty planning a roam through null security space. As always I was keen and burnt back to Egbinger to join in their form up. We had a fun tussle with The Hatchery in Egbinger but most of their ships warped off before we could get points on them. The roam itself was pretty uneventful. A Republic Alliance gang tried to trap us but we got to safespots and waited them out. They didn’t bring probes so we were never really in any danger. In E02-IK we caught a Hurricane alone and we should probably have killed a Tempest in 7Q-8Z2 but erred on the side of caution.

Back out solo in BRT-OP I noticed a Drake following me around. We had a couple of close calls and near misses before his disappeared for a while. Shortly afterwards he reappeared and I quickly learnt that he’d left to fit a warp scrambler to his HAM Drake. After a period of indecision and evasive flying I decided that I was going to engage him and see what happened next time I saw him. No sooner did I jump into BRT-OP from 66U-1P than he arrived at the gate. Despite not having fully charged shields (I think they were at somewhere in the 80-85% region) I decided that it was now or never. I set an orbit of 2,500 m so that my own speed would stay as high as possible while my guns delivered maximum DPS and opened fire, overloading as soon as I got into range. He returned the favour and launched Hornet EC-300 drones. Oh crap. Our shields were dropping at pretty similar rates and I crossed my fingers that his drones wouldn’t get a lock while I put my own on them to take them down. Both ships entered armour together as I turned off the overload before my guns burnt out. Still no jam from the ECM drones. Now we were both hitting structure with it looking like my damage was arriving slightly before his. It was a race now and it looked like I had the edge as a volley from my guns took him to half structure fractions of a second before his missiles slammed into my own structure pushing me down to the same level. Another round from me and he exploded just before his final volley of missiles hit home and crumpled my own structure. We sat their in pods staring at each other in amazement before both warping off. That was officially the closest fight I’ve ever had in Eve and it was nail-biting stuff. As I warped back to Egbinger I decided that what I really needed was more damage so I grabbed a shuttle and headed for Rens. Once I got there I had a bit of a splurge and bought myself a 5 % medium projectile damage implant, a 3 % rate of fire implant, and a 3 % falloff implant. Next time I met a HAM Drake things were not going to go down to the wire. With my new implants I could push 652 DPS from my autocannons and get up to 739 DPS with overheating. That’s a lot of damage right there. I could drop my nanofibre internal structure for an extra gyrostabiliser to really push things up (752 DPS, 852 overloaded) but I like the additional speed and agility that the nanofibre gives me so I’m going to stick with it.

Armed with my improved clone and a new Hurricane I went back to Great Wildlands a couple of days later. My routine was the same as usual and I hadn’t been ratting before long when I noticed a Hurricane on scan. Time to tango. I didn’t want to fight in a belt because if I was going to play bait the rat damage could easily swing the battle against me. Instead I found him on a gate and warped in at range to draw him away from it. Sure enough he began to burn for me and it was on. Unfortunately I had barely done any damage to him before his ECM drones began to do a number on my targeting system. One. Two. Three jam cycles in a row put me in serious trouble and I aligned out and burnt away for all that I was worth. I got out of range for just long enough to warp away and lick my wounds while my damage modules were patched up. Once again I began to make evasive moves while trying to kill rats when I could. In JUK0-1 I noticed another member of his corporation in local. I made my best come-and-get-me eyes and sure enough a Manticore decloaked in my belt. I aligned out and a single volley from my 425 mm autocannons was all it took to remove the danger. Unfortunately another danger loomed in the form of the asteroids between me and my alignment point. I adjusted my course and overloaded my microwarp drive as the Hurricane dropped out of warp. This time he was ready for me and as I realigned to warp out he pointed me. I returned fire and continued to burn with overloaded microwarp drive. I overloaded for too long and my MWD burnt out giving me no option but to fight. In fact, things were looking pretty good for me as his shields stripped away faster than my own. Those implants were doing their job. Just as I started to get my hopes up his drones got a jam off and it was all over.

This last fight resulted in quite a bit of thought going into drone selection. Generally I like to carry combat drones to deal with pesky frigates trying to get under my guns but it seemed that pretty much everyone in Great Wildlands was carrying ECM drones. Eventually I resolved that if you can’t beat them, join them and packed my new Hurricane with ECM drones instead of my usual Warrior IIs. Instead of heading to BRT-OP I decided to mix things up and set a course for the station systems M-MD3B and E02-IK. On my way out I came across a battlecruiser gang who did their best to intercept me. I toyed with them for a while but they refused to be separated and in one encounter I lost my drones. I needed to patch up and restock so I made a few warps to throw them off my scent before making a dash for M-MD3B where I docked up and resupplied. After a couple more tussles I eventually logged off in space and called it a night. The next day I logged back in and saw a few in local. In particular a Hurricane caught my eye and it wasn’t long before I found him on a gate. As usual I began to drag him away when he aggressed me. It was show time and my guns made short work of him, popping him just as a Scimitar landed on the scene. I scooped loot and warped off. I’d obviously piqued the interest of the locals and it wasn’t long before I saw a Phantasm on the same gate. My initial reaction was to burn off but once he started firing named beam lasers at me I turned right around and sped in for the kill. The Phantasm was doing me no real damage and was soon in armour when a Hurricane and the Scimitar landed. Caution got the better of me and I burnt away allowing the logistics to repair the Sansha crusier’s shields. Damn. I should have gone in for the kill. Not long afterwards I found a Drake alone on the same gate and once again I went in for the kill and once again he was in armour when the cavalry landed and I burnt for safety.

The next hour was full of various Benny Hill manoeuvres as a gang chased me around E02-IK and M-MD3B and I tried to isolate various members before running away without finishing the job. At various points in time they had two Hurricanes, two or three Drakes, a Keres, a Merlin, a Griffin, a Scimitar, a Stiletto, a Myrmidon, a Rupture, a Flycatcher, and – briefly on station – an Armageddon Navy Issue in gang. One of the Hurricanes was fitted with 720 mm artillery and I made a couple of attempts to get him alone but each time I was forced to flee before I could finish the job. I also shot a Griffin into structure but I was aligning out at the time and too far away to get the killing blow. At one point a Flycatcher burnt out to me and bubbled but, trapped in its own bubble, fell victim to my guns. At least I thought it did. No killmail has surfaced and I am sure he was pointed and in structure as my guns fired. Oh well. After almost two hours and just a few minutes before downtime their Stiletto finally made a tackle on me and, despite my autocannons reducing him to half structure, was able to get under my guns. Its situations like this that I carry Warrior IIs for but I had neither those nor my ECM drones, which I’d left at a gate. It was looking grim. I was low on capacitor and their gang was warping in on me, although not managing to land right on top. Things came to a head when I finally ran out of capacitor just as the Scimitar got within range to repair the Stiletto. There was no way I was going to escape now and I gave them a “gf” in local as the sharks circled in for the kill. It had been a good fight, too. Everyone involved had enjoyed it and my love for the Hurricane has really been cemented. They’re cheap, incredibly effective, and fast enough to be able to take on large gangs like the one I’d been playing with.

The question that I still haven’t been able to decide in my mind is ECM or damage drones. In today’s fights I don’t think the ECM drones ever did me any great favours – it was my speed that got me out of trouble – and a flight of Warrior IIs would have saved me at the very end. Then again if I’d still had my ECM drones the odds are they would have got a jam off and let me escape. The jury is still out but for now I think its going to have to be ECM. Whichever I decide upon, my love affair with the Hurricane shows no sign of ending any time soon.