Category Archives: Faction Warfare

Meanwhile, In Black Rise…

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I had surgery a few days ago, so I missed all the fun in Enulari over the weekend.  Boo! No longer will the Caldari be using Ena for quick jumps into Nenn.  Hikkoken, my favorite place to lose frigates, has no stations.  In fact, no systems that the Caldari control neighboring Nennemaila have stations, so I kind of hope the squids push back and take something.  So I’m fighting neutrals and lowering my sec status.  I’ve found a few fights there recently, and I just had a fun one that makes me like Eve. I’m in Hikkoken, running down buttons, because why the hell not?  I’ll take a nice pile of LP for hitting the scan button.  A neutral Atron hopped into my plex (because I own it, right?).  I was also in a kitey Atron, and we had a fun little dance.  I wasn’t quite hitting enough, but he kept letting me get out of point range.  So I got out at mid structure.  GFs happen, and then he says “I need to learn to fly better.”  I told him to not let me get out of point range.  We both ran back to Nenn, and met up in Continue Reading →

Double Play in a Three Way

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Low sec faction warfare has a lot of wrinkles any time engagements start.  An interesting twist to many fights is that allies in one moment are you foes the next.  Amongst faction warfare pilots, you have those who have hit pirate status (pies) and those who either haven’t by choice or those who haven’t simply because it takes some time to drop your sec rating.  I joined FW with a shiny 5.0.  As I write this, one month in, I stand at 3.8.  Yep, I’ve become that evil bastard that shoots the innocent.  Sometimes. Tonight we had a nice little fight that showed how all of these mechanics work.  My corp had meeting to discuss various things, and then we decided the proper way to conclude business was a gate camp in Akidagi, on the Ichoriya gate.  For those who are unaware, Icho is a HS Caldari system jumping into low, so it gets s moderate amount of consistent traffic from both Militias, neutrals, and pirates.  It’s a good place to catch those who are not taking the proper precautions when entering low sec.  It’s also a really nice place to catch Caldari Militia loners who don’t bother checking intel. Continue Reading →

Learning Logi

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Tonight was an interesting night.  Whenever I log in on Grimmash, one of the first things I do is check the fleet finder to see if any gangs are out and about.  While I have been trying, and failing, to figure out solo pvp in my frigs and destroyers, I find small gang to be both more enjoyable and more effective.  By effective, I mean I might have to actually put more ammo in my ship at some point instead of learning if I insured it or not.  Tonight started slow, with a few losses to bring my ego in check.  Two destroyers and three frigates found the jump gate to the great FW hunting grounds filled with booze and good fights in various ways on April 1, 2013.  I mostly blame my poor choice in engagements.  I keep warping into plexes in situations I think I can handle and finding out the friendlies already popped, or that I misread the situation. But that was not to be my only action on the Day of Fools!  After licking my wounds, doing some *real* shit, and trying to find PvP videos to learn something from, I hopped back in game.  It Continue Reading →

The Battle of Hikkoken

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Fweddit came to Hikkoken tonight. Word came in that the Amarr Militia wanted to come over and fight.  I guess they needed a break from getting shoved around by the Minmatar?  However you look at it, they made it known when they wanted a fight, and we started preparing.  But not well enough. We got about 30 pilots together, and sent out scouts.  Much bouncing through systems and plexes ensued.  As the Golden Glob was approaching one jump out, we learned they had significantly more numbers and organizations that we did.  10 logis, and another 50 or so cruisers.  We had about 5 logi and 20 cruisers with some frigates for fun.  A frantic align and warp got us out of Pyn and back into Nennemaila, and reshipping began.  ECM was added, the call was sent out, and we eventually got up to around 60 people.  Fweddit was nice enough to wait next door while we tried to make the fight more interesting. After a bit too long a wait for some tastes, we undocked and flew to Hikkoken.  The dirty slavers had taken up residency in the Medium plex of the Cadlari pig-dogs, and we warped on in to Continue Reading →

A Week in Black Rise

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We always hurt the ones we love… I officially have a rank in the Gallente militia now, so I guess that makes me a totally legit faction warfare pilot.  Right?  Guys?  Oh well… I’m a week in to FW, and after missing fleets most of said week, I finally got in on some fun action tonight.  By fun, I mean I managed lie, cheat, point, and whore my way into some 17 kills, give or take, tonight, including my first solo killmail ever.  On a Condor that I’m pretty sure didn’t know I was shooting him.  So that was awesome. But the most interesting part of the evening wasn’t my first solo kill during a fleet fight.  It was a particular Vexor gang that found out what happens when you linger too long in one place.  A mixed group of Fidelas Constans came for spin through Black Rise and got pincered between at least two Galente FW fleets and a whole bunch of folks who showed up.  It started out Innocently enough.  Chatter had been coming in about some FCON Vexor fleet that was tooling around in Enaluri and thereabouts.  This was met with mixed thoughts on my part, as Continue Reading →

Luminotgonnahappen

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I tried to go to Luminaire today, but alas, it was not to be.  A fleet of us got together, sorted out logistics, spooked some camps along the way from FW LS to Dodixie, and then we watched the Live Feed of the Luminaire event.  Once the Leviathan was at about 30% shield, we said screw waiting, let’s go.  We had been holding back to see if the null sec fleets would pound each other down, but that was not to be. We got to the Pettinck-Luminaire gate at were locked out.  For a while.  While watching hundreds of ships orbit a gate on the lowest graphical settings was a new experience for me, it was less than enthralling.  I honestly had more fun playing cat and mouse to move some Caldari gatecamps out of the way earlier.  We were making the route safe for some of our lowsec pilots to rally up. As I was sitting at the gate, idly punching the jump button to see the error message, the gate briefly unlocked, and I was pulled through all by my lonesome.  My Myrmidon was immediately, although languidly, target, scrammed and popped by the fine members of various branches Continue Reading →

Tackling Tempests and Trailing Tengus

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Close only counts… A few days into faction warfare, and I’m fleeting up and roaming around.  Today I’ll give a three informal after action reports of situations that didn’t work. Tricky Tengus On a roam starting in Nenn, intel told us a pair of Tengus were running mission sites a few systems over.  We take a look at our fleet, mostly frigs and destroyers, and decide that between an Arazu and some tacklers, we had a chance to sneak a point in and hold at least one Tengu long enough to get the rest of us in. Operations commence with the fleet holding on gate outside the Tama system, home to our pair of would-be kills.  They don’t appear to notice anything aside from one fleet member warping through system.  We get cloaked eyes into the mission room.  Then it comes to light that the Tengus have a Buzzard hanging out off-gate watching traffic.  This doesn’t seem to be a problem, as we just need to sidle our tackle in and then once point is accomplished, the Buzzard is irrelevant. Then a fleet mate jumps the gate.  The Tengus spook and dock up.  Good game.  The moral of this story Continue Reading →

Another Day, Another Incursus

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I like the Incursus.  It’s a nice little ship that looks pretty and seems to hold up well in small matches.  And I got another kill in one today.  Nothing fancy about it.  In fact, he got the drop on me because I was sitting in a plex, looking at three different chats and comms trying to figure out where the damn fights were.  And then the fight was targeting me.  We danced for a while, and as often happens, some other militia came in while we were jockeying for position.  Much like last time, I had him in a bit of armor, he had chipped away at my shields.  I find it terribly difficult to manage my screen,  but I’m trying to get the spiral approach down and it seems to be working a little.  At least based on relative shields and armor in the brief 1v1 situations I’ve been in.  So that was fun.  I’m starting to realize how janky the drone control system is though.  Ugh.  I have to stop forgetting to launch drones. After that, I tried to fleet up for a while which was a mixed bag.  No offense to non-American english speakers, but system Continue Reading →

Warring with the Factions

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A few nights ago I had my first foray into faction warfare.  I spent a few days moving ships and assets out of Caldari space to new high sec mothball hangar in Gallente space, bought and contracted a bunch of ships to my new low sec home, and while waiting for the bulk of my supplies to arrive, I hopped into a few ships and took the not-so friendly stars of Black Rise. The first thing that happened was this.  I warped around Nennamaila for a while and ended up in a small complex, I think that’s what it was, and starting orbiting the structure with a timer.  That seemed like the logical thing to do, right?  Shortly thereafter, my new friend warped in.  He had an Atron, I had a Incursus, I figured why not?  Cut to a rather long chase, with me cycling between webs and reps, struggling to keep the Atron in range after my poor drone had turned to space dust.  I’d gotten him to structure, and had a solid scram on him, but this was taking forever!  My Gallente militia mate happend into the room at that point, and a few more shots from his Continue Reading →

Faction Warfare: Questions

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For a variety of reasons, I have been considering jumping into Faction Warfare.  However, I have a few problems: Aside from the popular bloggers’ affiliations, I know relatively little about FW.  I sense that Amarr and Gallente and in the crapper, based on the control maps.  But is this indicative of the level of players involved?  Part of me wants to join the little guys and get some fights.  But part of me is afraid that there is nothing going on in those militias.  Anyone care to share thoughts on this? I am terribad at PvP.  Mostly from lack of, well, doing it.  I’ve been a functional carebear for my career in Eve.  I put an alt in RvB for a while, which although fun, quickly devolved into Red Blob v Blue Blob, until one side got so outnumbered they had to leave the field for the night.  My few attempts to go solo roaming in low sec have brought me nothing in the way of combat.  So, any recommendations for gaining PvP skill, or lacking that, practice?  Good roaming routes? Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to answer!