This Saturday I FC'd another Black Ops fleet. The header image includes all 30 of us cloaked up and waiting for our scouts to find us some juicy targets. The image was taken by Tenacious Devil.
As always we continue to try and create new content and new experiences for our pilots. We've been organizing Black Ops roams for months now, not often, but every so often. These types of operations are certainly not our bread and butter, but they are a nice change of pace. Plus it also helps to experience different things and get pilots into ships they wouldn't normally fly. I also thought we'd be able to bust up some gate camps due to the ongoing Grand Prix event.
But these are Stay Frosty ops. And that means they are full of Pirates. Which means they don't always go as planned. We had a great turnout and almost 30 pilots in the fleet on Saturday. Lots of joking around and I think everyone had a great time. Not five minutes after I sent our scouts out looking for targets, they stumbled on this Drake running belts. So we dropped on it.
Then we started to find a few gate campers here and there. Nothing seemed to be working out in our favor. They'd move, or warp off, or dock up, just as our scouts would get into position. But then we happened on 2 Rokhs and a Maelstrom and they finally settled down long enough for our scouts to get into position. We dropped and they all warped off. They were stabbed.
Eventually we did catch this Praxis. Not entirely sure if he was gate camping, or just moving weirdly through Low Sec. But either way.
Some of our T3s went off and found this Gila.
Which happened when I took all of us into Tama thinking we might get some interesting fights in there. And while we scared a few people off, the fights weren't coming. We tried everything and nothing was working. So finally I had our fuel truck Wreathe hang out at zero in the top belt, while the rest of us hung around cloaked. Surely this would entice someone to come and try to explode it?
You'd be surprised. Time passed and just as I was about to start moving us home - the Atron landed and pointed the Wreathe. So we had to kill it.
We had to fly the fleet home. We couldn't jump because our Sin pilot mistakenly clicked on the wrong cyno and found himself in Tribute as the guest of NullSechnaya Sholupen. Oops. While I've certainly heard of things like this happening, this was the first time I've ever had it happen in one of my fleets. lol. I think all of us sent him some isk to help soften the blow. But good learning experience.
As a footnote to the weekend's events, I didn't get to play much yesterday - but we did manage to catch this Praxis in a belt. We lost a Stabber holding him down and he took an insane amount of dps - but we did finally manage to explode it.
A Band Apart is an extremely busy and active Alliance. These days we operate 2-4 organized operations every week and try to keep the variety, experience, and opportunities there for our pilots. From Wormholes, to Null Sec, Low Sec, and points in-between - there is something for every kind of pilot and play-style. We play to have fun and enjoy the game of Eve Online. And we never take ourselves too seriously. If you are looking for a casual, intense, fun-loving group then I suggest taking a look at our Corporations, and not just Stay Frosty - but Lucifer's Hammer and Average Pilots as well. You are sure to find something that fits.
Fly Safe.