¶ The three days since the last battle report have been largely uneventful in O-2RNZ. After the destruction of The Perfect Storm (which will be recommissioned at the earliest possible convenience) I returned to ROIR-Y with what little of the crew managed to survive the explosion, hired a new crew and returned to the front aboard The Big Boom, a Tempest-class battleship. Fitted with a pair of plates and carrying a specialized Damage Control crew with the best equipment ISK can buy, The Big Boom is loaded for bear… or dreadnaughts or anything else our FC’s point us at.

¶ With Triumvirate and Band of Brothers threatening NCC titans and motherships in Tribute, there has been little more than sabers rattling back and forth at one another in Deklein. Even so, I’ve managed to capture some impressive images during one of the Northern Coalition’s attacks on a friendly tower in the sieged O-2RNZ system.


¶ Despite Pure. and Tau Ceti Federation deploying titans in O-2RNZ, the G00DFELLAS fleet (with occasional help from Axiom Empire) has maintained a consistently positive efficiency in both number of kills and ISK destroyed. Not a single G00DFELLAS capital ship has been lost in Deklein, compared to the 4 carriers lost by Pure. (3 Nidhoggurs and 1 Chimera). The entire time, Pure. titan pilot Papa Pod has only managed to destroy 13 G00DFELLAS vessels with his doomsday device “Judgment.”

¶ The killboard shows one large tower destroyed and one lost, but I cannot attest to the verity of that assessment – with both sides reinforcing enemy towers only to see them repaired and brought to full operational capacity before being able to capitalize and finish the job, I know that not many towers have been destroyed yet but I don’t personally know the exact count. What I do know is that, with their superior numbers, there is no reason why Pure. should not be able to sweep aside our towers other than that Pure. and the rest of the Northern Carebear Coalition are terrible at what they do. Terrible.

¶ Last night I read reports from Tribute detailing the way two different NCC titan pilots merely warped to a station at 0m and fired off a doomsday blast, not bothering to check range or wait to draw the hostile force in or drop bubbles. To be fair, bubbles aren’t exactly 100% effective against nano gangs like the Triumvirate and Band of Brothers elements were flying, but with the range of the doomsday device you shouldn’t be able to fire a doomsday and not kill a single nano cruiser. Terrible.

¶ The most successful thing that the North is doing in all of this is their ever-present cloaked gate camp in CCP-US, the entry point into Deklein from the Fade region. They’ve done very well in catching stragglers or people travelling alone which, frankly, isn’t difficult with a cloaking interdictor, force recons and a Widow-class black ops battleship. Unfortunately for them, that sort of thing isn’t the same as successfully defending a solar system from capture!

Once More Into the Breach

¶ Knowing that I’d never get a battleship to the front lines alone, I was forced to wait for an opportunity to move with a fleet of reinforcements from ROIR-Y to O-2RNZ. This had me quite frustrated, sidelined for nearly two days before I was able to join such a movement. Immediately upon reaching O-2, though, The Big Boom was thrust into a battle already in progress.

¶ I sent the call to battlestations and could hear the claxons reverberating even through the ambiotic fluid of the capsule as the ship was brought to readiness. Sensor boosters and tracking subsystems were activated, the damage control team readied their equipment, the gunnery crews loaded Carbonized Lead shells into the cannons conducting last-second diagnositcs to ensure that nothing had gone wrong between ROIR-Y and O-2RNZ.

¶ The general situation was that combined Pure., RAZOR and Morsus Mihi forces were firing on a friendly tower at P6-M16 and we were to make things as difficult for them as possible. Our capital presence at that moment was less than optimal and the enemy had a significant numerical advantage, but we were happy to screw things up for them in any way we could.

¶ Warp-to points were broadcast and I landed with the rest of the sniper-fit battleships a little more than 160 kilometers from the enemy capital fleet which was quite large by my reckoning. Enemy support, however, was nowhere in sight and we were far enough away from the capital ordinance that the radiation didn’t interfere too much with critical systems ((smallish fight, no lag)). We all had a good idea that we wouldn’t be able to do much to their dreadnaughts with so many carriers to keep them repaired, but on our fleet commander’s orders, we opened fire on a Revelation-class Amarr dreadnaught belonging to Pure. alliance.

¶ The Big Boom rocked as her 6 1400mm Howitzers fired in unison. All around me beam lasers, railguns and artillery roared at the enemy. The cloud of expended nanites was tainted the O-2 sky a sickly green color as the Revelation activated her armor repair systems, enemy carriers targeting the Amarr capital ship to monitor her status and lend assistance if needed. Unfortunately, it was not.

¶ It didn’t take long before the NCC’s got a covert ops ship close to our position and their support fleet arrived, dozens of HACs, Recons and HICs arriving behind a leading element of Interceptors and Interdictors. Had the ‘Dictors warped in just a little closer, they might’ve been able to ensure a kill or two for the enemy fleet, but the enemy covops ship had brought them in too far and it was no trouble for our battleship fleet to warp to safety. This is the importance of being aligned; as soon as our sniper fleet arrived on station, our FC gave us orders to align to one of our other towers. If not for being aligned, it would’ve been easy for the enemy interdictors and interceptors to close range and tackle the fleet, which would’ve lost over two billion ISK worth of battleship hulls.

¶ Not having the numbers to mount a real defense against the NCC capital fleet, we were forced to watch and listen to the steady stream of damage reports accompanied by reports of enemy fleet movements from friendly scouts.

¶ Despite setbacks like this, our foothold in the system is solid and our position is one of patience. Tactically, we have the advantage of superior tactics and leadership which allows us to destroy more than we lose in the conventional battles as well as the limited capital engagements we’ve been able to stage – as I said, we’ve destroyed 4 NCC carriers, losing no capital ships of our own. Strategically, we know that the future is getting darker and darker for the North as Triumvirate and the GBC (still neutral to each other at the time of this writing) continue to rip their space away from them elsewhere. It’s a matter of time until the rest of the northern napfest can no longer commit capital ships to help Pure. defend the system. When that happens, the day will be ours. No amount of poorly-piloted titans or cynosural system jammers can stop it. Our morale is high. Our demeanors are cool. We are not leaving.

Hit, Run, and Hit Again

¶ Throughout the rest of the day, our scouts were very alert in watching enemy movements through the AGG and 3JN gates, managing to force the NCC sub-capital force into numerous fights they would rather not have committed to. For most of these, my battleship’s long-range cannons would be entirely useless so I had slipped out of my capsule for a shower and some relaxation. Before leaving the bridge, I left orders for the comms officer to monitor the secure channels and notify me the instant it sounded like a real fight was brewing. After washing off the pod goo I went up to the forward observation deck and ordered a cup of coffee brought up to me. There I sat, watching the muted flashes of distant explosions until the call was relayed over the ship’s public address system: “All battleships and support, align toward planet III.” I ran to the bridge and got back in the pod, suppressing the feeling of disgust as the fluid poured in around me.

¶ One of our scouts caught a small hostile battleship gang with limited support attacking one of our towers that had had its guns incapacitated earlier in the day by the NCC capital fleet. This gang had the smell of bait, so the standing FC was cautious in approaching the situation. First he made sure to have his recons secure sniping positions for the battleship fleet. While they were working on this, he sent one scout around to the hostile towers to see who and what the enemy had active in system.

¶ Once it was established that we were working with equal numbers to our enemy and our support fleet was in place, the order was given for the battleships to warp to their designated sniping position and as The Big Boom leapt into warp I made sure the sensor boosters and tracking computers were active. While we were in warp primary, secondary and tertiary targets were called by name and ship type so as soon as our ships came out of the warp tube, everybody knew exactly who to shoot at. First up was mrwinky, in a Tempest like my own. Our surprise counter attack was perfectly executed; the only drawback was that we did not have an interdictor at our disposal at the time. Because of this, the rest of the enemy battleships and their support craft were able to escape. As soon as it was clear that we would have nothing else to shoot at over the P3-M1 tower, we were instructed to return to VI – 20 and await further orders.

¶ I listened to the chatter over fleet comms for another couple of hours as our support fleet attempted to isolate a target here and there. Successful for the most part, the enemy did manage to kill two Rapiers and a Vagabond in the early morning hours, but given the overall stats of our campaign in Deklein, we can live with that.

In Other News

¶ This little distraction has been going around for a while and since everybody else seemed amused by it, I decided to give it a try. You answer a series of weighted questions and it generates an assessment of what sort of capsuleer you are. I don’t know how accurate others have found it, but I found its judgment of myself to be apt.

Gunslinger
Take The EvE Personality Test today!
Created with Rum and Monkey’s Personality Test Generator.

-Havo out.

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