Aug 222012
 

For the past few weeks, my Ganked attendance was due to be pretty flaky so I arranged for Guest FC’s to take a few roams out in my stead.  And for Ganked 36: Snipaa Knights, Lorkin Desal aka Boss aka Luckyccs stepped up and offered to FC a group of sniper ships (and friendly tackle) into null-sec.  And in a strange twist of fate, and my body telling me “I need a night off”, I was there.

And not only was I there, but I formed up the fleet and spammed it around for a while, as strangely enough Lucky was late!  Anyway, when he did show up we piled on out, with at least 45-50 Tier 3’s in fleet along with as many assorted other ships – both snipers & tacklers (ie anything frig sized).  Scouts informed us of RnK being nearby however they had bailed by the time we did pass through their location, and then we found ourselves in G-5EN2.

[ 2012.08.18 19:17:45 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : G-5EN2
[ 2012.08.18 19:18:28 ] Mangala Solaris > hai guys
[ 2012.08.18 19:18:33 ] Willaev > o7
[ 2012.08.18 19:18:37 ] Mangala Solaris > is this where the white wimmin be at?

After some mucking around we came under attack by a 35-40 man Assault Frigate gang from Severance & assorted other Provi residents. We had already moved our snipers off the gate they landed on before they attacked, keeping our tackle there to, well, tackle and those guys did a bang up job while those of us in sniper ships blapped everything. It went surprisingly well.

After being all “fuck yeah, we are pro”, we moved onwards, not seeing much as we did so. We got word of a bomber gang led by Suitonia that may have been ahead of us, however by the time we had a “plan”, they had dropped off our radar, so again on we moved until we got word of a Scorpion Navy Issue that was doing an anomaly in a system on our route. The word was right. Even after jumping 70+ guys into local, he carried on npcing, right up until the time our prober got a point on him, and was still doing it when he died.  Around this time, the Severance AF gang appeared in local again:

[ 2012.08.18 20:21:34 ] Willaev > Round 2?
[ 2012.08.18 20:21:57 ] Mangala Solaris > hi
[ 2012.08.18 20:22:01 ] Llewelyn Fawr > o/
[ 2012.08.18 20:22:05 ] luckyccs > come at us bros
[ 2012.08.18 20:22:09 ] House2twist > ROUND 9000?
[ 2012.08.18 20:22:11 ] Llewelyn Fawr > spam?
[ 2012.08.18 20:22:11 ] Kadesch47 > wb mates

And eventually engaged us in F9E-KX. Was a bit messier this time, but we still killed them dead, along with a couple of random Loki’s that showed up, a phobos & a phantasm as well.

Snipers really, really, really, are so much fun.

After a small break in HED-GP which consisted of being both afk and warping around popping anything people could catch, we headed back out this time into deepest Catch. We saw very little along our route until we got word that -A- and their southern buddies were in GE-8JV and for once not sitting in Armageddons with Onerios support, but in Tier 3’s much like ourselves. We raced ahead to EX6-AO and in a random move for snipers, setup right on the in-gate with a “plan”. -A- in a surprising move jumped in and started moving off the gate. Lucky started calling and things started dieing on both sides.  We managed to take down quite a number of their shinier ships before we were overcome by their numbers (the silly numbers of Tornados that jumped in during the fight really bolstered the -A- numbers!), but we fought and whelped and that was why we were out after all. Evekill says this and the -A- kb (which may be green) says this.

And that was that.

Roam was over.  Night was a huge success, 114 kills at around 9billion isk and to be the snipers made a change from being on the receiving end of them.  What a great night Luckyccs gave us!

Vidya:

 http://www.twitch.tv/hydrooo/b/329097223

&

 

As usual, our friends over at Somer.Blink sponsored prizes and here are the winners:

Scouting Distinction – Ares x2 (Daneel Trevize, Malaes) 

Corpse Collector – Sabre (Snortle) Yes it can happen people on 2 prizes!!

Spot Prizes – Naga x5 (Admiral Rufus, Roigon, Snortle, Schohrf Khrathzen, Rokhaard Indiz)

Combat Distinction – Huginn x 3 (Phantom OfKrankor, Sikander 2, Murphy Hewlett)

Combat Excellence – Fleet Tempest (Sens1)

Heretic – Sacrilege (Nutjob O’Crazy)

Aug 082012
 

RvB has many many members all making pretty explosions on a day to day basis, however a small number of these pilots either “live-stream” or “fraps” their efforts and I figured I would highlight some of them here. If you are in RvB and have a stream or make videos and want to be included here, then let me know via private message on the RvB Forums.

==========================

Live Streams, just a note these guys may not stream every day, but when they do it’s usually very much worth watching – assuming you are not one of the people flying with or against them:

A player new to Eve online named El’ia Kusoni rolls this stream nearly every day and features RvB action from the view point of a low sp character. He gladly accepts donations to keep him in ships to blow up for your viewing pleasure.

Watch live video from El’ia Kusoni on www.twitch.tv

 

Eve Online veteran Tribal Solidarity streams fights from the Blue Republic point of view, in addition he also is one of the live streamers for RvB Ganked.

Watch live video from kura_eve on www.twitch.tv

 

RvB Alliance Tournament 10 Team Member, Zerge Bacon streams on a less regular basis, but is very much worth the watch.

Watch live video from Zerge Bacon – RvB combat on www.twitch.tv

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Aug 072012
 

Ganked 34: IN THE NAVY MATE, was originally going to roll down the South and South West, however following the events that have become known as “The Mate War“, I changed that and decided to roll us North. A couple of days after this decision was taken, it turned out that NCDOT and others had been found breaking the terms of an agreement they had with other owners of Technetium moons, who had as a result decided to forcibly expel NCDOT from their space; Consequently my decision to go north felt even more justified, as with Goons & the rest of the CFC dog-piling onto NCDOT, Black Legion & Nulli Secunda then the possibility of orgies of boat violencing destruction was too good to pass up.

 

The chosen theme was Navy & Fleet hulls and we got a very very impressive number of them, out of the 190 pilots that left the Reisen area Id say roughly 120 were in hulls ranging from the Caldari Navy Hookbill to the Republic Fleet Firetail to the Stabber Fleet Issue even as far as a Dominix Navy Issue and a Tempest Fleet Issue. Looked very impressive when I zoomed around the fleet, just annoyed I did not take any screenshots.

After a little travel time and no sightings of anyone, we were just jumping into OEY- in Geminate, when word went out that there was a few NCDOT mates behind us, so I ordered the fleet on to our in gate over in 39- and set up. And waited. And waited.  All the while hearing reports of the NCDOT numbers going up, thinking to myself all the time: “So nice of them to come and see us, without making us schlep all the way to Tribute.”

Turns out they had brought ALL the scimitars to keep their Tengu’s alive:

[ 2012.08.05 17:57:12 ] Nyu Trustan > loool so many scimi’s
[ 2012.08.05 17:57:14 ] Verse Askold > 23 scimis

So out of a 80 man fleet (give or take a few, as I cannot recall the exact figure), around 1/3rd were logistics. And apparently they called that a “lol fleet”, weirdest definition of “lol” that I have heard of, how about you guys?

Anyway, eventually they began jumping in and I called their interdictors right away, however after a couple went down it was apparent that even with our superior numbers, we would not break their scimitar reps and so I started having us BURN ALIGN, BURN ALIGN, BURN ALIGN, BURN ALIGN and warping us to the next gate on our route as soon as I thought it was possible.  We suffered some losses this way, but not as many had we stood our ground and fought. After a few jumps of this, I called another BURN ALIGN and warped the fleet – well the parts that had not warped to the obvious out gate already – to another gate in the same cluster as the out gate marked yellow.

And jumped us through.

Then I had the group of pilots with me leg it. 

I was not sure what happened to the 60+ guys I left behind while I was doing this, but I know the majority got out and met up in FDZ4-A with very minimal losses.  However the fun part was, the NCDOT fleet realised what I had done and came right after my group and the chase was on, would my 80 guys get away before they tired of the chase or would they do us in and be able to claim victory against a drunk fleet?  As it turned out, I got my group all the way back to empire via Great Wildlands before NCDOT gave up and carried on to wherever it was they went.  We had survived a very merry Benny Hill style chase, just with less maid & nurse outfits.


Watch live video from kura_eve on TwitchTV

Eventually my group also ended up back in FDZ4-A, where the other survivors had been camping a gate and also trying to bump a carrier off a station. I soon ended this overt display of boredom and moved us into Vale of the silent, where nothing much happened except a solo NCDOT Tengu & a solo RnK Cynabal, and the small matter of a Charon in space that we had probers rushing from highsec to find but  to our shame they were too late. It logged before they arrived. 

Following this little diversion, we moved into Tribute, killed a few more ships belonging to NCDOT (Bad bubblers are bad), and an Intrepid Crossing Viator that did not cloak or warp before Kaeda got a point on it (Yes he fit one for this roam!), the pilot of which offered us ISK:

[ 2012.08.05 21:03:56 ] Mourning Souls > “[21:03:38] Taidel > i’ll pay”

However he died before we could even discuss negotiating with him amongst ourselves. His pod was juicy.

We wandered around a little, heard of a Black Legion rokh fleet in 0-Y, Wiiggls heroically tried to get us a warp in, but being hammered didnt do it and died for his trouble. Then Lorkin got us one, so we jumped in, landed on them, tried to down something before their reps landed, failed and ran away again losing a few more ships in the process. As we jumped out of 0-Y we found ANOTHER fleet – this time the CFC & PL, a happy few made it past them only to run into NCDOT this time in Abaddons and armour logistics…  Then suddenly we were in EC-P8R and it was the end of the roam, plenty of us survived and got out into high sec space, including Arciteck who had been rolling the whole night in a full HG Slave set!

All in all, a very random night, not many kills, but isk wise better than some other Ganked roams. I know most of the fleet enjoyed themselves especially when we were being chased by NCDOT in their Tengu fleet. but and I mean it this time, SCREW THE NORTH.

 

I’m taking my ball and not going back there again.

 

As ever our glorious sponsors at Somer.Blink provided several prizes for this roam:

Scouting Distinction – Buzzard+Launcher+Probes x3 (Kaeda Maxwell,  Roigon, Brutus Aniofka)

Corpse Collector – Sabre (Solarienne)

Spot Prizes – Federation Navy Comet x10 (tgl3, Brain Gremlin, Shaid Rulfsson, Lorkin Desal, Patrick Kasper, Belkadan, D4RK 0NE, Qestroy, Vora Dumem, Federal Criminal)

Combat Distinction – Caracal Navy Issue x5 (Arciteck, Sens1, Shish Tukay, Phantom OfKrankor, Dobriy)

Combat Excellence – Navy Apocalypse x1 (Tribal Solidarity)

Heretic – Cruor x1 (Jiny)

Aug 062012
 

So, you have been on an RvB Ganked roam, seen me whelp us repeatedly and still have people fly with me over and over again, and now want to run a Ganked yourself?

Then you are in luck!  This post is going to cover the basics you should understand before attempting to “FC” a Ganked roam, and I may or may not ramble off on various other Ganked FC related topics along the way. We shall see.

 

Theme:  Try to pick something that does not limit the ability of others to take part, for example do not say “Stealth Bomber roam with Blops support” as suddenly 50% or more of regular, and potential RvB Ganked attendee’s, are unable to attend due to skill & experience levels. Any ship type that has a low barrier for entry or at least a T1 variant is your best bet to be as inclusive as possible.

Meetup Location: Use a hub, or somewhere close to a hub, that also has a reasonably close low sec, so that even the less law abiding amongst us can aid us in our eternal quest to locust the hell out of the market in every region we start from. In addition, try to ensure your meetup location gives you access to several possible regions.  Saying “lets go from Stacmon” for example only really gives you Syndicate as a viable target region, whereas Rens gives you Providence, Great Wildlands, & Curse. Dotlan is very useful for helping with this decision.

Scouts: Choose them wisely.  Green Gambit, Evilian, Kaeda Maxwell, Thecla Elarik, Daneel Trevize & Lorkin Desal (in one of his many guises) are amongst the best the regular Ganked line up has to offer. However, more are always appreciated, especially if they bring combat probes.

Local Spam: Ensure it is mostly in line with the theme, see if you can get a couple of handy images “shopped in time for the roam, and as usual YouTube will provide relevant videos. One thing to note, try not to let your fleet mates go TOO FAR in regards to spam, it can get them warned or even banned and we do not want any negative publicity or views when it comes to Ganked do we?

Once this is all done and you have passed the info to me, I will make the post on the RvB forums, mail the mailing list and begin the weeks twitter campaign, as well as edit the RvB Ganked channel MoTD to ensure as much coverage as possible is given to the roam. The more the merrier on these things after all.  I’d suggest if you are Guest FCing a Ganked roam you also work on publicity from your end and your in game social circle too, as occasionally I do slip and either forget or get too busy to push as much as I normally do. 

On the night, set up your fleet, use the Fleet MoTD for all the important information, have your route(s) communicated to your scouts and then herd your cats to glory! While doing this remember:

  1. Lemmings will happen. Make sure they link their losses;
  2. Gloriously running away is a GOOD thing if you want to avoid a needless whelp. If 20+ logistics will ruin a fun whelp, then bail. No one will mind;
  3. People may expect broadcasts, try and do it, means more people on the primaries therefore more chance of winning the isk war;
  4. Shinies are a great way to “win” a Ganked roam. Primary them at all costs, especially if they jumped to you before their logistics did;
  5. Ensure there is a prober around;
  6. Never go north, they just are not as fun as the rest of null-sec space.

And most importantly, try to keep the following two images in your mind at all times, one to link & one to just keep you smiling no matter what the fleet actually does:

 

 

 

And its all over.

It is now the day after and the roam was a success, you killed stuff, stuff killed you, and people got very drunk playing internet spaceships.  I would love it if you mailed me your prize winners so I can get our wonderful sponsor’s at Somer.Blink to pass their prizes to them and if you can write a few words about the roam and I’ll post them on my blog/Reddit for publicity – any publicity is good publicity after all.  

After you have done this, you can have your life back.

Not quite the same as it was before is it…