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Taking What We Can Get

I killed my first barge today.

Sundays are often hit or miss when it comes to finding fights and roaming. I was idling reading and chatting and in general vegitating nicely to start my day off when Diz suggested a roam up to Amamake.

Sure. Why not. My blog has been full of thoughts and randomness. We were only two systems out when we spied a procurer out mining. We looked for him but he warped out (smartly) when our scout localed up. We continued on and a little bit later stumbled upon a Retriever out mining.

It was somewhat weird. Our scout went in and tackled said retriever. The rest of the fleet came in and we killed him in mass. He was very angry at us. We were called douche bags for killing him. A retriever in low sec is killed by a roaming gang of PvPrs and we are terrible people. Killing miners in low sec. Awful group we are. He told us he can buy 100 more so he didn't care that we killed that one.

Somehow we managed to overcome the sadness and continue on our roam. A Mack, Skiff and something else were mining about three systems over. However, they were in a grav site and bailed when we came into local.

We also had a war target follow us a few jumps. We seem to be at war with some random group. I've ignored it. But this guy was following us in a rifter. After the 4th jump we boated back to the gate and sure as hell he jumped in and we tried to nail him. It wasn't going to happen but his surprise was amusing. He said that there had been a gate camp in the area that he wanted to see us jump into.

It wasn't till we reached our coal that we had a fight with Fweddit.

Fweddit was on scan in Amamake. They had many more people than we did and some blackbirds. Even with a few blackbirds in the gang the general decision was made to deal with the ECM issue as they came and take the fight any way to see how we did. We'd not found anything and now we had a fight to work with.

We warped to the sun and started to pull some range. The goal was simple that if they landed they'd not land on top of us. Hopefully we'd be able to stretch out their gang some and give ourselves a better chance.

Ren told them that faction rats were at the sun and their tackle landed. We started plucking away at them, the rest of the fleet came in and it was on. We tried killing tackle while keeping our distance. Randy went down pretty early on. It wasn't going terribly but it wasn't going as productively as we might have liked. The blackbirds were 80k off and landing jams left and right.

Sometimes I'm jammed, sometimes I could shoot things. It's a frustrating situation. I was really, really careful to keep my range up. This lowered my DPS but my barrage was doing its thing. We were not killing much. Every time we got productive jams, jams, jams. Being out for twenty seconds sucks a lot. So we kited, we danced, things died slowly, we died slowly.

Then my MWD died. I was jammed and people were creeping closer. I hit my MWD to create a little space while I tried to pick off frigates and avoid getting sucked up into the center of their fleet when my MWD stops responding. Click. Nothing. Click. Nothing. Not burned out. Just not gonna work today.

Diz told me to warp out and dock. I did so, removed it, put it back on and undocked and it worked. I warped back to Diz and continued to pluck away at them. We finally got one blackbird down. That helped the situation a lot. However, Diz and Ren then went down shortly after. That left three of us on the field and Ren's pod got pointed and we couldn't get them down before they popped it and he lost a set of low grade snakes.

It happens. It sucks to lose an expensive clone but losing expensive clones happens just like losing ships happen. I feel bad for people so tied to their implants that they won't fight.

None of us were pointed at that bit but we were scattered and we had lost most of our organization. With half the fleet down and most of their fleet up and one of us jammed at any given moment we decided to bail while we could still get out. My poor drones. I abandoned them to the field.

So when someone asked with a 'lol really?' about the snake clone that Ren lost I asked the boys not to humor them. It's not worth answering people in a situation like that. The pod is lost. Some dude was also screaming something about the Amarr and I don't know what other randomness. I guess its part of this roleplay Faction Warfare thing? I have no idea but it was weird as hell.

We really, really tried to kill the Stiletto on pilot. They did a damn good job with it. Every time we almost killed him he vanished. Our lack of successfully killing him led to Ren's pod loss. It's nice to see a good interceptor pilot.

This also brings forward the good question of 'winning'. We took this particular fight. We went to the sun and when they localled up told them where we were. We lost more in ISK. Half of our fleet made it out. We also had six pilots and they had seventeen. I guess they held the field since we did not overcome them but this type of situation is not the cut and dry of 'I won you lost. I rule you suck.' Perhaps this is why I'm not competitive natured. There are too many factors for things to be as cut and dry as people often makes them.

Anyway, the fight was over. Susan Black appeared in local and asked me if I wrote a blog. I replied, "Yes, ma'am." I then remembered that Poet does not get along with Late Night anymore or something along those lines. I forget that we are in Faction Warfare land. GCC was cooled and we slipped the rest of the fleet out of the system.

Diz scouted me back home because he is wonderful. At home, Fried brought up the touchy topic that maybe we should start fielding ECM ourselves due to these situations. The antipirates next door rarely leave home without it. We can all list fight after fight that was a nonstop bout of sitting in space and dying unable to shoot back. We do use ECM drones but it's a personal choice more than anything else.

Right now I think that we are holding on to see how the new ECCM skills help out.

I have most definitely had a good evening. Now, after being awake for 22 hours, old woman that I am, I am going to wander off to bed.


  1. There are a few ways to lessen the impact of jamming but none of them are particularily fun. The easiest was is a full set of eccm implants (jackals, spurs, grails, or talons depending on race of ship) and swapping a nano for a lowslot eccm. This brings the cane from 16 sensor str to 34 sensor str. This becomes 40 with the eccm skill at 5.

    On ships like harbs and drakes which need the second nano, you are forced to drop a rig for a polycarb to maintain your speed advantage. Its also highly advised to use the sensor str link because every little bit helps.

    Alternatively you can just put higrade grails and a lowslot eccm into a megapulse oracle and use a t2 locus rig and frentix to 2 shot ecm boats from 80-90k. The problem with that is people who rely so heavily on jams will eventually stop fighting you. -VoV

    1. ^^ wonder what those folks are gonna do ANYway once Retribution rolls out in a month or so...? Just saying. ;-)


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