Part of this post was written up as a news story on New Eden Express.
I didn't have a lot of play-time yesterday. Mostly I had three distinct moments in Eve that turned out to be rather short bursts of activity. Days like that make it difficult to build any sort of momentum, and momentum is important in Eve. Or at least, it seems that way to me. This doesn't count the thirty minutes I spent warping around and having people run away from me, which is pretty typical and doesn't count.
First One
During the end of that frustrating thirty minutes a group of us discovered a Svipul inside a Medium Plex that had a Huggin friend with him. Luckily they can't lock very fast and we all got our Frigates out in time. This started us thinking and we decided to quickly form up and take them on. The system was only a few jumps away and I raced back to pick up my Curse. Nothing fancy, but enough to make problems for the Huggin and allow my mates to clean up.
Of course, by the time I returned the targets had moved on. A few more systems down the line, but across Okka. Now I typically won't take a large ship alone across the Okka barrier, this is simply a pragmatic rule of thumb, since Okka is often camped. All our potential scouts were in Reit at the time, but Okka was clear and I decided to jump thru to help them take care of a Stabber. Once again, by the time I arrived the Stabber had moved on. We waited inside the plex for a few moments and managed to grab a pair of poor Frigates. I don't purposefully engage in this sort of thing, but we happened to be there. Breacher and Tristan.
Sure enough, on the way back across Okka I ran into a gate camp and lost the Curse. As you can see from the kill-mail, I was not going to escape that.
Second One
I came back later to the news of a couple of Svipuls next door. I jumped into mine and went hunting, but they ran off. Eventually one of our scouts reported one in Okka and Skir and I went off to take it on. I landed at the plex early and decided to go ahead and engage. Sadly the Svipul was not alone and once I was engaged an Eris de-cloaked and started pumping insane deeps into my shields. I melted rather quickly and tried to warn Skir, but he was already jumping the gate. This was not turning into a very good day.
Typical Monday.
As usual however, if you wait long enough fortune will smile upon you. Returning home reports began to come in about a Rattlesnake a few systems over. Tia Aves was following him, but it appeared he was just warping between gates and he was neutral. More then likely he was high-tailing it to HS and we'd miss out. I started fitting up other ships and waited to hear what might happen. We only had about six players in our gang at the time, so this could be a tough fight. If it happened.
Sure enough, two systems away, the Rattlesnake appeared at a plex. Tia was already in warp to get tackle. Hurriedly I made the decision to grab my Rook. As you all know I loathe ECM but the Rook is at least combat fitted and, since we didn't have numbers, I thought it would help balance the field in our favor. We also had a Maulus on the way, between the two of us we should be able to keep him at bay.
By the time we arrived he had burned over 200k off the gate and Tia was just about to die. Luckily our staggered arrival meant others could grab points as I burned at him. I started asking for some assistance and Nashh and his group responded, so back up was on the way. Just as our Comet pulled off I managed to get point and hold him. Jams finally caught and he was held down. In between cycles I started taking some serious hits, but we held him long enough for Skir's Domi to get close and the Bastards to show up.
3.8b Rattlesnake go boom.
Thanks to Tia for sticking with it and holding on. And for our friends for the assist. Much appreciated.
Third One
I came back after Dinner to reports of a Drake. Common refrain huh? I grabbed one of my Hurricanes and started moving across gates. Skir was already in system hunting him down, but he kept moving and it took awhile for us to get him locked down. Eventually he landed on the other side of the gate from me, but he was neutral. The plan was to engage, then warp off, heal and return. However, once I landed I realized I had grabbed the AC Cane and not the Artie Cane. I made the decision then that the Drake would die. I burned at him and got so close I could see his eyes! Between him and the gate guns I was taking furious damage, but I remained calm and focused on breaking his shields. It was going to be close, but once his shields broke he went down fast. I had 6% armor left. I think Skir said his armor was about the same.
All my mods were toasted and I had almost no armor left, so I immediately started burning back home. As it turned out, I was going a tad fast and didn't have a scout set up. As usual that didn't work out very well for me. I jumped right into Adi and Nashh who were coming to look for us, and with everything toasted I didn't really have any choice but to align out and wait to go boom.
Typical Monday.