Congratulations to bonni3. The winning number was 25. Thanks to everyone who took part in this. Hopefully it will be the first of many but I do promise to actually post some content between now and the next lottery.

Recently I’ve been having a lot of fun flying faction frigates, especially the Hookbill and Comet. While I have had a series of fights in these ships I don’t have any really exciting stories to tell you and I was hunting around for a way of explaining how much fun they are. Sure, I could link you a bunch of frigate videos, but instead I thought maybe I should encourage you to have a go instead. After tossing this idea around for a little bit I decided to try running a little lottery with the prize being a collection of all four navy faction frigates. That is to say a Federation Navy Comet, Imperial Navy Slicer, Republic Fleet Firetail, and Caldari Navy Hookbill. That’s about 100 million ISK worth of ships.

Edit: Now with added Dramiel thanks to Roc Wieler.

To keep things simple the rules are as follows. There are 49 tickets for this lottery, costing 2 million ISK each. The winning ticket will be determined by the bonus ball from the UK National Lottery Lotto draw on Saturday 2nd April (assuming all tickets are sold in time, if not then the next UK Lotto draw after the final ticket is sold). To enter simply comment on this post with the number that you would like and send 2 million ISK to Wensley with the comment “Frigate Lottery”. Make sure that you state in the post which character will be sending the ISK so I don’t get confused. As soon as your ISK transfer is confirmed I will mark your name on this list. Once a winner has been determined the ships will be contracted in Jita although I can probably arrange to get them moved to another high sec system if you’d prefer. One entry per person.

So what are you waiting for? Four faction frigates for just two million ISK? Sign up now!

1. Nursultan
2. Shandir
3. Tadalafil
4. Miura Bull
5. Ariartus
6. Pajama Sam
7. StevieTopSiders
8. Dante Vegas
9. Wulfgang Kies
10. Juggernaut667
11. Naoru Kozan
12. Max Ursa
13. Vamun Re
14. TFirish3
15. Temuil
16. noise
17. Laktos
18. Tsubutai
19. Jaxley
20. Xi ‘xar
21. Suleiman Schouaa
22. Kishin Hattori
23. Tan Mie
24. TheSlicker
25. bonni3
26. 5aul Dagenham
27. Masty
28. Orochi Kyros
29. LazyDane
30. Darth Normski
31. Myrhial Arkenath
32. Mane Frehm
33. Saftsuze
34. Dong Orson
35. Ryuichi
36. Man Barthelme
37. Magurdur
38. Ridlaw Az
39. Roc Wieler
40. Evelyn Tyr
41. Pegleg Punk
42. Bel Amarr
43. mikeazariah
44. von Diel
45. Silinde Telemnar
46. Zerthrin
47. Nuos Ono
48. Jarth Skyrunner
49. Ellios Rile

Good luck!

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.

Thanks to Sassy B, Rifter Drifter now has a new look. There’s also a new header over at my killboard as well to tie it all in together. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the makeover but just a quick warning that this site might break from time to time as I tinker with the template files a bit more. Test servers are for wimps!

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.

I’ve been meaning to do a post that looks at the information contained in the combat logs that Eve records for a while, especially since Kane has started to use them to great effect in his story telling. Yesterday I went to roam Geminate and had a series of fights that are perfect for this post.

The Wolf is one of my favourite ships to fly at the moment. It has a great balance of DPS, tank, and speed which makes it ideal for solo frigate roaming. The biggest problem with it is that in order to get the most damage out of it you need to fit 200 mm autocannons and because the Wolf has no intrinsic tracking bonus this means that you risk people being able to get under your guns. Thankfully about 75% of people you encounter in nullsec will have MWDs fit to their frigates and this means that you can usually control the fight in such a way that tracking does not become an issue. Those other 25%, however, can be a real pain in the backside.

The first fight I had that I want to talk about was with a Dramiel. I spied him on a gate in AP9-LV and watched to see what he did from my position about 100 km off the gate. He began to burn towards me and the first thing I noticed was that his speed topped out at just over 2 km/s. He was afterburner fit. I cut my own microwarp drive and let him cruise into range. As he got to about 70 km from me I turned my ship to point at him and pulsed my MWD. With our combined speed I knew that our orbits would overshoot and this would give me a chance to land some good early damage. However once he had me webbed and scrammed I would be unable to dictate the range and he would be able to either kite me – in which case I should continue to land good hits – or try and out-track me – in which case I would be unable to do so. He chose the latter option but, by the time he got in close, he’d already taken considerable shield damage. It was only once he was in a tight orbit that he began shooting me with his own guns. Unfortunately the fact that he had EMP loaded meant that he was hitting my highest resists and seemed to have tracking issues of his own. The incoming damage was perfectly controllable and his shields were very slowly continuing to dip. As he got to about 10% shields he obviously decided that he wasn’t going to be able to win this fight and made the fatal mistake of trying to disengage or at least pull some range so that his guns would hit me better. Unfortunately this brought him into the sweet spot of my own guns and he melted before he could make a bid for freedom.

Looking at the combat logs for this fight you can see the various phases of the engagement. As the two ships approach the damage builds and peaks. My rockets start to hit when we get to scrambler range. He is taking heavy damage early on in the fight but we haven’t yet settled into things and while he is shooting me with RF EMP he hasn’t released his drones. My damage peaks in the “contact” period when I am pulled out to my preferred range and hitting him with all I’ve got but he responds to this launching his drones and pulling into a tight orbit. At this point I go from averaging 100 DPS to just 15 DPS. His gun damage barely varies and I assume this is due to the poor tracking of his own 200 mm autocannons (blue line) as well as having the wrong ammo loaded. While I am not doing much damage he realises he isn’t either, even his drones are doing fairly negligible DPS (orange line) and I was right to ignore them. Realising he can’t hit me he then pulls range and you can see my own damage spike as he comes back into my optimal with a noticeable dip in damage as I start hitting the higher resists of his structure.

So the combat logs allow you to clearly see what was going on in a fight and help you to work out why you won or lost as well as checking out your fit. Bigger guns might do more damage when you load them into EFT or EveHQ but until you look at the logs you can’t be sure that you’re successfully applying that damage to your opponent. If you are the kind of person who likes to test things and see numbers, as I do, then you can use these tools to opimise your fits and flying techniques. Grab a friend and run a series of duels adjusting the calibre of your guns, general fitting, and tactics to see how you get the best results.

The next two fights show the benefit of such knowledge. I had been hanging around in Violent Entity’s constellation for a bit and I was about to head towards the NPC station in FDZ4-A when I ran into an Armageddon and Zealot piloted by a guy who looked to be dual boxing (same surname on the pilots). I quick search of Eve-Kill didn’t reveal any intelligence about his Zealot fit so I decided to play it cautious and flirted around the edge of point range to see what I could discover. What I found was that he was using heavy pulse lasers and could hit out to just below 40 km. There was no sign of any sensor boosting effect so I couldn’t determine how his midslots were arranged (although in retrospect his speed was such that it was unlikely he was armour tanked. Anyway, after a bit of this he piped up in local and told me to stay there while he reshipped. Curious to see what he would come back in I did just that and was rewarded by the sight of him returning in a Jaguar.

A quick glance at the overview told me that he was MWD fit and I loaded up RF fusion and burnt in to engage him. Once we were inside scrambler range I used my keep at range command to reduce the transversal between our two ships and my autocannons began to rip into his huge shield buffer while his own guns chipped away at my armour but not so badly that my repairer couldn’t keep up with it. My only problem was capacitor but I had enough DPS that I was able to break through his dual-extender buffer and destroy him with about 1/3 of my own armour remaining. I looted up and warped off to a pounce spot to repair my overheated guns. When my guns were fixed an Ishkur appeared and I warped down to the gate before realising that I hadn’t finished patching up my armour. Damn it. I jumped through the gate and burnt away from the Ishkur on the other side. While this was going on the Jaguar pilot reappeared and showed all the signs of wanting to fight again, this time equipped with an afterburner. We had to wait until a neutral Hurricane and Rapier were chased off by the Ishkur pilot (who had reshipped into a Hurricane) but then the fight was on. This time he used his afterburner to get into a nice tight orbit around me and set a nosferatu onto me. Because he was more than twice as fast as me, I had a much harder time keeping the transversal down while his own 125mm guns were still able to score good hits. It was a very close fight and I ran out of capacitor as he went through about half armour. As we were both in structure I managed to get another pulse of my repairer off but it wasn’t enough and this time I exploded. An excellent fight and big thanks to Kira Tiberius for the fun and Galtogrim Tor’mashrah for letting us duel it out without interfering (the damage he does on my lossmail is from the Ishkur earlier).

By comparing the plots for the two fights against the Jaguar you can clearly see the difference. In the first fight I am able to hit the Jaguar for about 100 DPS all the way through but in the second my damage is vastly reduced and I only hit for about 60 DPS. The Jaguar’s damage is pretty constant across the two fights, thanks to the high tracking of his 125 mm autocannons and he does a pretty consistent 50 DPS to me. I obviously don’t know the fit of the second Jaguar but looking at the amount of damage he took I assume that the only changes he made were the addition of an afterburner and nosferatu for the MWD he had fit before. Coincidentally he could have made the fight even more convincing by opting for an energy neutraliser having seen the fact I was using an armour repairer.

I hope this post has demonstrated to you the use of the combat logs that Eve generates. The graphs in this post were generated using Ruds Snikja’s excellent Combat Log Analyzer tool. I will definitely be using it more in the future and hopefully will be able to illustrate more posts like this to show the relative strengths and weaknesses of fits and tactics that I try.

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.

I’ve done a fair bit of FCing my nanocane roams now and there are quite a few lessons that I’ve learn over the weeks. Before now I’d done bits and pieces of FCing but it was nothing more than moving small gangs around and looking for kills. These days I feel like I’ve stepped up a bit and now I am comfortable leading a small gang into a proper fight. Over the next few weeks I hope to take the lessons I’ve learnt flying these cheap battlecruiser roams and try and turn our gangs into something a bit more formidable.

So what have I actually learnt? Probably the first thing is that if you find people fights and make sure that they have fun they will sign up for your gangs and word will spread. These Wednesday evening jaunts have gone from just a handfull of friends to pretty much everyone we know who is online joining in and several people flying halfway across Empire space for a laugh. They know exactly what they’re getting, they bring cheap clones, and we fly cheap ships but I get them a fight and more often than not we come out of it respectably even if we all die.

One thing I found that really affects how successful a roam is, is to make sure that you have a plan. When I first started FCing we would wander around aimlessly hoping to find the odd target to gank and not really hanging around much. These days I have a specific target in mind. We go to a system and provoke a fight out of people there, taking advantage of their disorganisation to get as many kills as we can. This planning involves looking at a map beforehand and plotting a route, getting intelligence on jump bridges and other local infrastructure, and making sure that there are people in space but that you’re not going to land in the middle of a massive fleet battle. There’s nothing worse than aimlessly wandering around with no real direction so get out a map, look for some targets and come up with a plan.

Part of planning is to scout out the areas you want to fight in. The odds are that the fleets you encouter will have good knowledge of the area and try and use that to their advantage. If you have a good bookmark collection then you can nullify this advantage. If they’re using bubbles to try and pull you into a close range fight then you can use your bookmarks to get your gang into a kiting or sniping position and achieve what you want to achieve. Sure, you will have a scout or two but there is nothing better than knowing the lay of the land and being well prepared. Maybe its the solo pilot in me but I like to have a fairly comprehensive bookmark library in the systems where I regularly fight. While going out and making bookmarks might seem like a very tedious task, if you do it in a combat frigate then you will surprise yourself how many fights you can get in the process. If possible get hold a of jump bridge map – these are easily found on Google – and try and avoid getting yourself stuck in a pipeline with hostile gangs on either end. If this does happen the best solution is to get the gang safe, make sure aggression timers are over, and then log off and go and do something else. Log in a scout after 15 minutes or so and see if the coast is clear. If it is make a break for it but otherwise go watch some TV and try again later. You’d be surprised how little patience defense fleets have – they want to get back to their sanctums as soon as possible.

When possible you want to force the enemy’s hand. Don’t give them time to form up an organised gang. Jump into a system and lock it down. Bubbles can catch people warping in from jumpbridges, stations, and gates. Use them to pull the enemy’s reinforcements apart. Shoot ratters and stir up trouble as fast as possible. This way you will get a disorganised response and make your life easier. The longer the enemy has to plan and prepare for your gang the more likely they are to come up with a counter and make your life hard. This is not the end of the world and by playing it carefully you can still get some kills but you need to be prepared when they come for you and make your retreat if its prudent.

Gang composition and organisation can play a large part in the success of a fight. So many fleets you encounter, especially if you’ve riled up the locals a bit, will have a hodge podge of ships with no over-reaching philosophy behind it. If you have a well focussed gang you can exploit this to your advantage whether you’re flying interceptors, battlecruisers, nanoships, armour HACs, or remote repair battleships. Know what your gang can do and fight on your terms. In the case of our nano gangs this means drawing out the enemy and picking off weaker targets. If a ship doesn’t fit what you want in your gang then get the pilot to ship into something that does. Fat and slow blaster ships have no place in a nano gang while at the same time a shield Hurricane isn’t going to add to a gang with armour logistics.

If you’re fighting outnumbered then skirmishing is a very useful tactic. Once you’ve killed the soft targets that initially present themselves you will often find that your gang has become a little bit disorganised and spread out. Don’t let people get isolated and caught on their own. Warp out, regroup, and prepare to go back for another round. If you can warp into the enemy and a different angle to your initial foray you will often catch them off guard and get more people pulled out of shape. Repeat this several times and you will minimise your own loses while getting more kills.

When skirmishing something that is vital is good warp ins. If you are fighting on a gate that is bubbled then simply warping out and then back in will often land you right in the middle of the hostile gang. In these situations it is best to have an interceptor or covert ops ship provide a ping spot so that you can warp to them then warp back down into the fight safely. Another thing that you should remind people is not to warp back into a nano gang fight at zero. In the time it takes their ship to align and warp the fleet could have easily moved 20 – 30 km and they will find themselves in the thick of the enemy. Instead get them to warp at range and they can then slowboat until the main gang catches up.

With regards to this, communication in general is an important thing. Don’t just assume that people know not to warp back into the fight, make sure that people know what their jobs are, know where your scouts are, etc.

Support ships can play a surprisingly important role in combat. Well, maybe not so surprising, but at least impressive. So far I have flown without any logistics ships and this has really limited our potential. While we have been able to fight outnumbered against gangs with recons and logistics, we always take losses. With a couple of Scimitars in gang our combat ability would be greatly improved and we would be able to take out more the heavy tackle that came our way. Likewise my own gangs would be improved by the addition of a Lachesis. Quite often we are taking people down only for them to burn back towardss teir gang and escape our points, allowing them to warp away. The long points provided by a Lachesis would allow it to keep people on the field while at the same time operating away from any enemy tackle. Interceptors and interdictors provide other useful combat support.

On the one occaision where I ran a nano gang with a Loki in support it was incredible. The bonuses to speed, agility, and above all point range made it so much easier to outrange the enemy gang and keep them on the field long enough to die. Our tacklers were able to snag people from much further out than they expected and all was good with the world. Now, I don’t like invulnerable T3 ships but they are a tool that is available to us and one we’d be foolish not to use. Because I don’t have a T3 alt of my own – even if I did I don’t like dual boxing in combat, never mind when FCing – I am currently looking at training command ships. While these can’t provide the same bonuses as T3s they do allow you to fit a very solid tank and that means you can FC from the front line rather than in a safe spot. With logistics in gang you can also provide very tempting bait for the hostiles.

One thing that I often find myself doing in a gang is trying to solo the opposition, or at least fight them like I was solo. In some ways this is the right thing to do, an FC should be in a combat ship so that he can see what is in range of the gang and how primaries are going down. However you have to think of yourself not just as one ship but as several. Another side to this card is that it is not advisable to FC from a scout ship or a tackle position. In the former case it means you are away from the main gang and not on field should a hostile fleet run into them. You can’t backseat FC, no matter how much you think you can. Also, if you die then you leave the fleet without any ability to make decisions. Not because you are amazing and pricesless but because you are unlikely to have been making intel repors so the other potential FCs in gang have no basis on which to make decisions. Similarly in a tackle ship you will often be away from the main gang or even sitting in a pod fairly quickly. Have trusted people in support roles and lead your fleet from the centre.

Scouting is a pretty vital part of any gang. There are many ways to do it and no one in paricular is right. Its up to you to decide how you want to do it. The most traditional ways of doing it are to send either a covert ops ship or skirmishing interceptor out ahead – this is my preferred method, but some people like to scout with bait battleships or heavier tackle. When we are running a remote repair gang around lowsec we often send plated battlecruisers ahead as heavy tacklers, knowing that we can support them with repairs when they need it. Just make sure that your scout is providing you with good, clear intelligence and, ideally, knows how to negotiate gate camps. The more intelligence that you have, the better your decision making will be.

This leads me to my final point: be decisive. Don’t worry about making the wrong decision, the most important thing is just to make a decision at all. If you make a mistake you can always issue a new command but don’t dither. Hesitation could not only cost you a fight but also will reduce people’s confidence in you. After the fight is over there is plenty of time to review the decisions you made and I would heartily advise you to do this. Whether you watch a FRAPSed video of the fight, run through it in your head, ask people in your gang, or write up a report for your blog, make sure you question your decisions and ask what you did right and what you could have done better.

Well, not quite my final point. FCing is good fun. It is rewarding in its own right but its amazing how many people you will meet through running gangs. Don’t be the person who sits in chat channels asking if there is a gang up. Be the person forming the gang. You don’t need to take out a gang of HACs or T3s to have fun. Tell people your not experienced and to bring something cheap and you’ll be surprised how many will ‘x’ up and how supportive they will be and tolerant of any mistakes. In the words of a 20th century sportswear brand: Just do it!

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”.

Something seems have clicked with me lately. Since the turn of the year I’ve started to get much better at finding fights. My Wednesday night roams have stopped being hapless wanderings with the occasional gank and instead turned into good fights, almost guaranteed.

I didn’t write up last week’s frigate roam but suffice to say that we went into Pure Blind and had a good fight on the station in D2-HOS until Pandemic Legion ruined our fun. While we waited for people to reship I managed to lose the rest of our fleet to obvious bait in RQH-MY. After that we were joined by Laedy and did an uneventful loop through Pure Blind and Cloud Ring before calling it a night.

Last night we formed up in Egbinger with speed-fit battlecruisers and an interdictor. The plan was to poke my friends Republic Alliance in M-MD3B and see what they would bring to fight us. In 9SNK-O our scout reported a gang of Drakes with Scimitar support. They were either at a safe spot or running a site of some description so I decided to ignore them and move on in the hope that they would give chase. As we jumped into 6WT-BE I got word that they were doing exactly that and when our gang landed on the SL-YBS gate I got them to align away. The hostile gang soon appeared on my directional scanner. “Microwarp drives on, burn out to 40 km and then cut them.”

As I hoped the hostile gang landed on our gate at zero. “Bubble up. Rapier is primary.” The fight was on and their Rapier went down almost instantly. The next primary was a Scimitar which we also dropped pretty quickly. One of our Hurricanes hadn’t got far enough away from the gate and was tackled and killed while their second Scimitar jumped out. The plan now was simply to kite the heavier Drakes and their lone Hurricane and pick off what we could without getting scrambled. Primaries were called as they burnt out to us and then turned back to safety but we didn’t manage to take any of them down. Unfortunately a couple of mistakes keeping range and a bit of over-eagerness from our interdictor pilot meant that we lost a couple more battlecruisers and were unable to get the DPS we needed to take out the Drakes with a Scimitar on field. We were two T2 cruiser kills up for the loss of three of four battlecruisers and I decided to disengage and head back for people to reship.

It was a good fight and most of our losses were due to over enthusiasm. They had more DPS ships and logistics on field and yet we still came out on top. Our inexperienced Flycatcher pilot placed a good initial bubble to keep them on the gate but unfortunately got a bit eager and jumped back in to try and bubble their second Scimitar. This bubble meant that people warping back to the fight got caught in it and died to the hostile gang. Far be it from me to criticise another interdictor pilot considering my own terrible record and we all have to start somewhere. After all the whole point of these gangs is for everyone to learn how they work. Back in the safety of the station in Egbinger we chatted about what we could have done better, reshipped and re-equipped everyone and then set out again looking for more trouble.

This time we moved down to Skarkon planning to burn quickly through to LXQ2-T and then on into Etherium Reach to visit my new best friends, DEM0N HUNTERS. For this second leg we were joined by Suleiman in his artillery-fit Hurricane, Sard in his Jaguar, and most importantly a gang-boosting Loki. Actually, I say the Loki was the most important thing but actually the fact that Sard had joined us meant that it was time to fire up the RANSM Disco Comms so we could party to a seemingly endless list of Haddaway remixes while we roamed. The journey out to LXQ2-T was uneventful and I held the gang in Paala while we waited for stragglers. Sitting in lowsec seemed silly and, at Ariartus’ suggestion, I got the gang to jump back into LXQ2-T to camp the bubbles that had been left there. Almost the very second we decloaked an Ishkur warped into a bubble that was set to catch from the station and the gang vapourised him. It looks like our timing was perfect because he dropped some very tasty loot. I could pretty much lose our entire fleet twice over and still finish up on efficiency now, assuming the killboard’s assessment of the damage control’s value is accurate. We chased a couple of others around the system to no avail before Sard joined us and we started back on our way.

EOA-ZC and AD-5B8, both entry systems, were empty so I set course for L-HV5C, home of DEM0N HUNTERS. We landed on the gate and I sent a couple ahead to check out the station and try and get anyone sat their interested in us. At the same time I gave Sard a small bubble and asked him to anchor it on the station in line with the jump bridges at planet 2. As an aside, if you are roaming the north and want to do something similar then you can use the NC jump bridge map to find good targets. While we waited on the in gate a Hurricane cross-jumped us but we were unable to tackle it on the other side. We were sure to have been scouted by now so I got the whole gang to jump in. An Enyo warped to our gate at range and we burnt for him. I don’t think he was expecting our Loki-boosted point ranges and got a bit of a surprise when two Hurricanes pointed him from 35 km or so away.

Sard’s bubble was anchored by now so I got the gang to warp to the station where a Hyperion and Drake were hanging around on the undock. A couple of Thanatoses had been sighted but they had either docked or jumped. We set up tackle around the bubble and hung around to see if something would warp in or whether they would burn away from the safety of the station to chase us off. It didn’t take long for our bubble to catch something (I forget what) but it warped off before Sard could get tackle. A Hound decloaked and tried to bomb the gang around the bubble in what proved to be a fatal move. With these two down I got the gang to spread out and moved to a pounce spot where we could warp to the bubble or station without getting caught should a gang warp in on us (I learnt that lesson last week).

I don’t know if they probed our location or it was just a lucky warp but a Tempest warped to within 40 km of myself and Avan. He picked me as primary and I kept my distance but Avan was able to get point and the rest of the gang soon warped in on top of him. He was at least 200 km from his friends on the station but no-one came to save him other than an Ares that burnt for us too late and managed to avoid Sard’s attempt to tackle him.

By now we were a bit spread out and I was concerned that they might have probes on us. Their gang was warping out to a safe spot somewhere and it looked like they were preparing to warp on top of us. By now local was climbing pretty steadily and I’m not sure where it eventually topped out but reports varied between 40 and 70. I didn’t want us to get caught with our pants down so I warped the gang to a planet at range to get us together and asked our T3 to see if he could probe down their staging location. He reported hits and I got him to warp us in a 20 km on a Rapier.

As we came out of warp it turned out that their gang was on the station again and most of them had docked except for a Thanatos and Hurricane. Once again I called for the gang to burn away from the station and our path took us right past the two hostiles. There was no way we were going to break the Thanatos but the Hurricane made a good target and with extended point range we could stay clear of any neutralisers the carrier had. The Hurricane melted and a Drake came to join the Thanatos. As we put damage on the Drake my overview exploded with a battleship gang warping in. Time to bail!

Rather stupidly I kept trying to warp to planet 1 but we were already there. I burnt away from the gang to safety, though. Suleiman was less lucky and he found himself jammed and tackled. He had made good distance from the battleship gang, though, and they seemed to be fit with close range weapons so I got the gang to warp to him and align out with him. We began clearing their light tackle and managed to score our second Rapier of the night. In exchange they killed zombie’s Hurricane when he warped to Sulei at the same time as their battleship fleet did a miniwarp to their fast tackle and Myst’s Flycatcher. Here’s the full battle report.

By now they had numbers and ECM on the field and we had removed pretty much all of the soft targets. Rather than have our gang die needlessly in a glorious fireball I decided it was time to get out and we burnt full speed for the safety of Akkio where we docked up with no problems. A small gang set up to try and catch us should we come back but by the time I sent a scout to find out their composition they had left.

At this point I was pretty much ready to just log off and call it a night but Sard pointed out that we might as well move back towards Egbinger and get people home while we had the numbers. You could tell it was late now and that a few of us, myself included, had had a drink or two because we all set off in different directions according to our autopilot. We got everyone on the right track only for me to become seperated again because I had instinctively followed the shortest route back through LXQ2-T while the pirates I was with had opted for the lowsec route.

On the LXQ2-T I found a Hurricane and two Vexors who locked me up and seemed interested. The Hurricane was sensor-boosting and I decided it was worth trying to engage them without my gang in support. I jumped in and burnt off the gate. They followed and the Hurricane gave chase but soon gave up. I turned my ship and headed for the Vexors, playing it cautious. I got one tackled and the second Vexor came for me while the Hurricane warped to a pounce spot. At this point I decided to play it careful. I didn’t want to get scrammed and instead chipped away at the cruisers with Barrage from range. Being cruiser-sized Vexors are pretty nimble and they can pack a mean armour tank. They kept slipping out of my grip and Sard and the gang jumped in just in time to get a tackle on one that had got out of my point range. This Vexor died and the other two bailed. In retrospect I should have gone in close on the Vexors with fusion loaded. I would have been able to melt them and get away from the Hurricane rather than nearly failing to kill any of them if it hadn’t been for my friends.

I got back to Egbinger with no further incident although I did try to take down a Taranis with two Vagabond friends under sentries but burnt out my guns which were already pretty heavily damaged from the LXQ2-T fight so he got away safely to his surprise. The others roamed Molden Heath a bit more and while I was still on comms managed to kill a Daredevil and a couple of battlecruisers. Good work guys.

It was an excellent roam and I think we’ve all got used to fighting these kind of numbers in nano ships now. We did excellently in Geminate and got some really good kills without managing to make any major mistakes. Hopefully the patience of people who have flown and died with me is being rewarded and I am stopping making silly mistakes and getting much more decisive in these fights. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I am no longer nervous about leading these and really looking forward to next week’s roam. Thanks guys!