Escalating Engagements and the Lost Carrier

How I am treating you today! Two posts you say...

Revelations...

The time had come. The ships channel had an interesting offer within it. A character was attempting to create some liquid ISK by selling off his assets. I inquired further to the location of some of them. 

The one I was interested in was in a perfect location. Within jumping distance of home and I managed to whittle him down to a very reasonable price. Not an hour later, The 'Vodka Shark' was in the hands of Jedziah and getting fit up at HQ.

She had in all set me back a decent chunk of ISK but it was worth it for such a wonderful ship and fulfilling one of my ambitions in Eve. Not 20 minutes later, she was able to get her maiden combat sortie.

A local group called the DrunK GanG rolled up to our station. We had no intentions of playing fair as they tend to bring along 1-4 Falcons for every engagement we tend to have. Kulmid and I undocked the big guns once they had engaged. Ronin and Jorge webbed down a Megathron and painted it up. As the Falcon's uncloaked, I dropped the Shark into siege mode. The Dual Giga Pulse extending from the side of the ship.

As I began to re-lock the Megathron, Kulmid's evil Ogre II's from the Moros were tearing it up. The Mega was hitting around 1/5th Armour when I regained a firing solution.  The Dual Giga Pulse lasers fired in unison, smashing the Megathron for over 9000 damage and securing the final blow.

The remainder of their gang decided now would be a provident time to 'get the fuck out' and proceeded to do so. The fight lasted just long enough for the Revelation to drop Siege and retract its gargantuan firepower.

Escalating Engagements...

Spectre got on the blower:

'Guys I'm in Aset being engaged by an Astarte. My Ishkur is doing pretty well, what size drone bay does this thing have?'

Kulmid replied from the seat of his Pilgrim: 

'Same as a Brutix, you kill those Hammers and he's all out'

By now I had turned my Vengeance Assault Ship round and made best speed for Aset, only 3 jumps away from my current position.

Kulmid and I landed simultaneously. Burning the 30km+ off gate to the battle. Spectre was doing well, the Astarte unable to track his sleek Ishkur. Kulmid engaged his cap redistrubtion subroutines and drained the command ship dry. The Dual Armour Repairer fit was suddenly unable to function. The nanobots died in space, as did the Command ship.

Desperate to seek vengeance, Two Drakes and a Thorax warp in while we loot the wrecks. Mr. Frog had now arrived on the scene in his trusty Arbitrator. We immediately got to work on the light drones spewing out of the Drakes that could swing the fight in their favour.

The Thorax then warped out after burning out of range. We started to pound upon the Drakes with the anti-frigate drones now dispatched. The primary Drake began to buckle under the sustained fire and entered armour. Without a trusty Damage Control, the Armour and Structure disappeared rapidly.

Viginiti and Bandy soon arrived in their Frigate support. The Second Drake began to melt under the fire and with Kulmid switching the shield hardeners off, the EM hole was a wet dream for myself and Vig who tore the ship apart.

As the Drake dropped into structure, a Megathron and Falcon dropped in on the battle. The Falcon a sultry 60km away. I looked at the crew in my new assault ship, they already knew what to do. 

With the afterburner overloaded, The Vengeance cut the distance down in just a few seconds. Viginti and Spectre instinctively did the same, knowing full well we were the quickest ships and the best equpped to deal with the Falcon.

To our surprise, the Falcon began to armour rep as we piled on the damage. Mr. Frog, Kulmid, Ronin and Bandy did a sterling job of keeping the Megathron pointed and killing off it's wave of Ogre drones.

After some intricate bumping to prevent the Falcon's escape when he jammed us, we finally reduced it to structure, removing its raspberry jam from the equation. Definitely what we would call a pioneering and expensive fitting.

The Falcon removal squad returned to the fight in time to aid in the destruction of the Megathron, now stranded 60km from the gate out. With the combined firepower, it dropped into structure rapidly and died in the face.

The pod was locked up and the fun continued. We held him there for over 10 minutes. Kulmid knocked up a hilarious thread upon Eve-O, attempting to sell the momentous occasion to someone out there. The pod had a monstrous 1mil ISK bounty. Someone obliged and popped the pod in their Manticore, grats to them.

Overall, this engagement lasted nearly 20 minutes. We had for the most part, taken all of them down in frigates and a force recon. The fight and lols were epic and once again we could pull out the much coveted Running Man and Axe Swing Dances.

The Lost Carrier

Not an hour after one of the funniest things I have ever seen happen in Eve did this occur. But let me explain the funnies.

Our elite squad had pinned down a Megathron in its mission. As per standard etiquette, we began a ransom. The pilot had posted a message in local regarding how much he would need to pay to be released.

For the 30 second period we gave the pilot to transfer funds, he remained silent in our ransom channel. For this reason, we repainted his ship in order to learn him.

Once he was podded and sent back home on the clone bus, a red in local shouted a LOL. We naturally asked what he was so happy about.

It turns out that he had started a private convo with the chap and presented the ransom demands of 300million ISK for his ship. Despite this person being the opposite of affiliated with us, the guy without question handed 300mil ISK over to the chap and then was bemused when we re-opened fire and made him explodificate. We had even got an Iteron V to pod the missioner, making the whole thing just too funny.

An absolute genius play by the pilot, but alas, Karma would come back round to bite him in the arse.

Snaptz was on the Todi-Evati gate. Pinned on it by a red Jaguar. He proceeded to jump through to the other side where a Maelstrom had been waiting for him. We scrambled at best pace to help out. With the combined firepower of Ronin, Khaled and Jorge the Maelstrom's tank began to buckle.

It then dropped a Cynosural Field...

'Cyno, Cyno! shouted Bandy as he jumped into system'

In came a Thanatos Class Carrier. Immediately repping the Maelstrom, preventing us from killing it. We disengaged and pulled off. The Carrier warping away to a station. 

As soon as it moved away, we jumped back in to finish the lampooned Maelstrom. Luckily doing so before the Thanatos could help. To our disbelief, it then returned to the gate and was immediately pointed by our crew. Each in turn took turns to point the carrier, then warp off when the fighters began to tear our ships apart. 

Shae had rumbled in with the big guns hot in her gigantic Hyperion Battleship. I had been furiously attempting to gather fuel to jump in the Vodka Shark and aid the battle but alas, Helium Isotopes were hard to find.

San ended up coming back in a Sentinel. The Jaguar was still running around and preventing people from warping. I arrived just in time to chase the Jag off and allow Jorge to warp out his Harbinger on 5% structure. While I continued the dogfight 80km away. M34N had been informed and dropped in some more Battleship support. 

By now, the Thanatos was running out of Cap. The combined efforts of the Dominix that were draining cap through their Heavy Energy Neutralisers had made the entire situation overwhelming for the Carrier pilot.

After chasing the Jaguar away, I returned in to the battle to help suck a little cap and finally tip the Thanatos into structure. Seconds later, the mighty warship exploded upon the gate. Filfthy Scum will no doubt be asking serious questions of the tactics employed by their pilots but nonethless a bold move which we certainly did not see coming. The lack of smartbombs, point and scram on the Thanatos which these days are essential led to it's demise but hell, we certainly didn't care.

A good week overall. The Bastards are now just 2bil away from breaking 100billion ISK damage done as a corporation. We are hoping to surpass it as a Christmas objective.

That's all for now anyway. We did a crap frigate op too and I killed a Stabber in a Bantam. But you know, it just didnt seem to compare in story telling procedures.