Dec 282012
 

gankedyr2mk2

2013 is almost upon us.  

Which means we must start looking ahead to the Ganked roams happening during the first few weeks of the year, I think I have a “fun” selection of themes covered for those in January, however for the others, I will not be here so am looking for both themes & Guest FC’s.  

So please comment here or eve-mail me if you wish to Guest FC – remember as FC you pick the theme too! – or have ideas on theme’s we can do (they have to be inclusive as possible so no one is missed out intentionally) once January is out of the way.  

Maybe we’ll get enough to keep us going all year!

Ganked 52: SHAFT!
Thorax Hulls
Sunday 6th January 2013. FCd by Mangala

Ganked 53: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
Venture Hulls / Followed by frig hulls
Saturday 12th January 2013. FCd by Mangala

Ganked 54: MOAR DOTS
DPS & ECM Hulls (BC & Under)
Saturday 19th January 2013. FCd by Mangala

Nothing on 26th January due to another RvB MASS FFA. A potential 26000 frigates to be exploded in 1 weekend!

Ganked 55: Saturday 2nd February 2013 Needs FC+Theme
Ganked 56: Saturday 9th February 2013 Needs FC+Theme
Ganked 57: Saturday 16th February 2013 Needs FC+Theme
Ganked 58: Saturday 23rd February 2013 Needs FC+Theme

Ganked 59: Wulfpax
Destroyers
Saturday 2nd March 2013. FCd by Mangala

Ganked 60: Fraction Warfare
Empire Faction Night. Cruisers & Under.
Saturday 9th March 2013. FCd by Mangala

So, quite a selection of nights arranged by me in the new year.  Lets hope our guest FC’s can do their nights justice too!!

On a personal note, 2012 has been an amazing year for Ganked and I hope that we can better the “good fights” found during the past 40 roams or so!  See you all next year!

Dec 272012
 

gankedyr2mk2

21/12/12.

Apparently the world was to end.

As you can tell the world is still here, and so on the 22nd December 2012, Ganked 51 happened.

We took out over 150 guys in a mix of frigates & destroyers with the usual aim of finding a fight or two as well as generally banter with each other and anyone else we saw.  We had a pretty quiet run through low sec from our meet up point until we jumped into Cloud Ring, where we ran over a Sabre whose pilot subsequently chased us in a smartbomb fit Typhoon. I think we made him mad.

Following this, our resident live streamer Edward “No Delay” Tivruskii, let me know that a guy in Fatal Ascension wanted to fight us, and me being a bit merry by then, agreed due to:

[ 2012.12.22 21:40:38 ] Hlakke Miccanope > kitchen sink from what I see.. to quote “whatever you want to lose”

So we run up towards their basing system in Fade, and while waiting on an in gate to regroup a bunch of lemmings warp themselves to a cyno, and find an ever increasing number of Fatal “lolololwe’resopr0” Ascension in Battleships, BC’s, Logis and plenty of bubblers. I call a valiant retreat, with us blabbing some of their advance bubblers as we move.  A scout calls that ANOTHER group has bridged ahead of us, so we were looking to be sandwiched in.  I booked us to random gate after random gate, all the while trying to be as oblique as possible due to the stream being up. I got a good number of us out, but as usual in these circumstances we did lose a few.

Following this, we regrouped and went back out again, this time via Syndicate, which proved to be pretty quiet for us – despite the presence of a large Goonswarm gang in FD-MLJ. We did tussle with some elements of that gang, after catching a dumb Onyx in a nearby system. Syndicate proving itself to be quiet, we moved into Outer Ring – which WAS EVEN WORSE. No action at all.  And yet people in null are always trying to get more people out there…

From OR, we chased a Loki a few jumps – after a heated discussion about it – which escaped, however while it did get away, the same bubble that held up our fleet got us a drake kill upon which we whored EVERY fleet member, including a guy who had burned all the way from Placid to catch up to us! The drake pilot took it really well, he kept fighting until the bitter end. As well as local spam from us:

[ 2012.12.23 01:34:01 ] Phantom OfKrankor > we’re coming to help
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:11 ] Phantom OfKrankor > don’t worry
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:27 ] Mangala Solaris > we come to snowball
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:30 ] Mangala Solaris > in peace
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Phantom OfKrankor > POINT
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Veerus Weyland > POINT
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Immortal Chrono Pimpin > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Charles Burger > POINT
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Green Gambit > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:45 ] Kast Agnet > pointed
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:46 ] Khador Vess > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:46 ] Sephira Galamore > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:47 ] Veerus Weyland > SCRAM
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:47 ] Dracoth Simertet > td
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:47 ] Ravingone > HOE HOE HOE!
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:48 ] Qall Rungbar > scramm
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] Caterpil > POINT!
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] Jack Sixx > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] Zantai Arji > point web
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] tgl3 > POINT
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] CHAOS NAGA ARAIN > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:49 ] Verse Askold > point
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:51 ] Zakialwe > snowball
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:52 ] Bob Shaftoes > TRACKING DISRUPTED
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:53 ] Immortal Chrono Pimpin > tracking disruptor
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:53 ] Vicarious Design > you poor soul
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:54 ] Veerus Weyland > SNAKES ON A FUCKING PLANE
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:54 ] Charles Burger > PAINTED
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:54 ] Igor barga > BUBBLE
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:57 ] CHAOS NAGA ARAIN > ECM
[ 2012.12.23 01:34:58 ] sureis > ransom
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:00 ] Mangala Solaris > POINT ON DRAEK
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:01 ] Ras Raklus > scram web
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:07 ] Vicarious Design > Mirco jump drive’d
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:13 ] Raynor Dirtnap > webed pointed
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:21 ] Thomas Hauk > HOE HOE HOE
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:30 ] macgyver 3rd > nice tank bro
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:31 ] Exoth3rmic > keep fighting
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:32 ] Bully B > Snowball CXIV on him
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:32 ] Exoth3rmic > you can do this
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:37 ] Mangala Solaris > Andy Poole AWESOME DUDE
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:37 ] Beanhead2 > wed/scram
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:39 ] Andy Poole > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:40 ] Mangala Solaris > SOLO US 1 AT A TIME
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:46 ] Nutjob O’Crazy > Merry Christmas
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:51 ] sureis > tped
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:52 ] Sephira Galamore > Merry Christmas!
[ 2012.12.23 01:35:58 ] ash iskariot > teepeeee
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:02 ] Mangala Solaris > Merry Xmas
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:07 ] Bob Shaftoes > you are now our pet
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:09 ] Luixx > pointed the drake mofo
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:12 ] Bob Shaftoes > We shall call you fred
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:13 ] Green Gambit > can we keep him?
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:16 ] Luixx > can we keep him?
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:18 ] Verse Askold > merry xmas and a happy new year
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:20 ] Mangala Solaris > call him Carlos
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:22 ] Green Gambit > a pet is for life – not for Christmas
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:37 ] Mangala Solaris > na pets are for xmas, and dinner for new years
[ 2012.12.23 01:36:53 ] Thomas Hauk > HOE HOE HOE
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:01 ] Luixx > EVERYONE….. FFA NOW!
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:02 ] Qall Rungbar > NICE DRAKE
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:08 ] Qall Rungbar > DID SANTA GIVE IT TO YOU?
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:12 ] Mangala Solaris > why cant we kill him guys
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:12 ] Luixx > EVERYONE….. FFA NOW!
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:14 ] Dracoth Simertet > merry christmas
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:15 ] Mangala Solaris > our dps is bad
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:24 ] Phantom OfKrankor > GUYS HIS SHIELD IS GOING UP
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:29 ] Zakialwe > can we keep him!
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:32 ] Dracoth Simertet > whats a spaceship?
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:34 ] Luixx > drake = secret titan
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:39 ] Qall Rungbar > Keep him
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:41 ] Phantom OfKrankor > we can’t break his tank!
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:45 ] Sephira Galamore > can we adopt him?
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:47 ] Phantom OfKrankor > hacks?
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:49 ] Qall Rungbar > one of us can point him 24/7
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:52 ] Khador Vess > can i keep him
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:52 ] Fail Whale > merry xmass
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:52 ] Qall Rungbar > at least
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:54 ] B4ueW01f > Merry Christmas
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:57 ] Khador Vess > can he be my pet
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:58 ] Raynor Dirtnap > damn snowball resists!
[ 2012.12.23 01:37:58 ] Fail Whale > more porn for 2013
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:07 ] Igor barga > MERRY CHRISTMAS HO HO HO HO
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:18 ] Immortal Chrono Pimpin > pop your cyno you bait drake!
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:19 ] Igor barga > OOPS TOO MANY HOS
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:21 ] Raynor Dirtnap > Merry Gankmess!
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:21 ] Kast Agnet > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:34 ] Immortal Chrono Pimpin > Bait Drake Best Drake
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:34 ] Mangala Solaris > Andy Poole FOR CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:36 ] RiotCrow Timotheos > http://costumefail.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Santa-Drunk-Naked.jpg
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:36 ] Green Gambit > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:37 ] Qall Rungbar > Andy Poole for CSM!
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:37 ] ash iskariot > andy poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:37 ] Mangala Solaris > A REAL NULL HERO
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:38 ] tgl3 > ANDY FOR CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:39 ] Ray Orbison > ANDY POOLE FOR CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:39 ] Khador Vess > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:39 ] Nutjob O’Crazy > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:39 ] Xallaxa > Andy Poole 4 csm
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:40 ] B4ueW01f > thats harsh dude
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:40 ] Dracoth Simertet > andy poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:42 ] Igor barga > Andy Poole CSM 2013
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:43 ] Zakialwe > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:43 ] Crynsos Cealion > Andy Poole for CSM
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:46 ] Daneel Trevize > Andy Poole the hero we deserve
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:46 ] Ravingone > andy poole for csm
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:46 ] Fail Whale > agreed, Andy Poole for CSM!
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:48 ] Jack Sixx > Andy Poole \0/
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:51 ] Thomas Hauk > HOE HOE HOE
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:52 ] Caterpil > Andy Poole for CSM!
[ 2012.12.23 01:38:53 ] Mangala Solaris > ANDY POOLE THE HERO WE NEED NOT DESERVE
[ 2012.12.23 01:39:15 ] Raynor Dirtnap > His name was Andy Poole

Then as he was about to die, an iteron landed in the same bubble; We caught it, it offered ransom, we got the pilot in fleet! 

[ 2012.12.23 01:40:42 ] tigre valliente > no price
[ 2012.12.23 01:40:43 ] tigre valliente > ?
[ 2012.12.23 01:40:47 ] Thecla Elarik > hello
[ 2012.12.23 01:40:52 ] tigre valliente > trying to haul stuff in to high to sell it
[ 2012.12.23 01:40:53 ] Zakialwe > hello there!
[ 2012.12.23 01:40:56 ] tigre valliente > I can’t say it’s what you’d like but uhh
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:00 ] tigre valliente > haha I gotta try, right?
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:00 ] Veerus Weyland > o hai!
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:07 ] tigre valliente > lol. soooo huge
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:19 ] Thecla Elarik > wasn’t our bubble
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:23 ] tigre valliente > ?
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:25 ] tigre valliente > whose is it hahaha
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:39 ] tigre valliente > really well set up
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:52 ] Rob Cobb > o/
[ 2012.12.23 01:41:58 ] Lodavier > the itty is an 05 character :O
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:13 ] Daneel Trevize > we warped like 10 jumps after a loki to get here
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:16 ] Phantom OfKrankor > STOP SHOOTING
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:20 ] Rob Cobb > DONT SHOOT THE ITERON
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:20 ] Qall Rungbar > welcome to Ganked, tigre!
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:20 ] Phantom OfKrankor > BADS
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:22 ] Thecla Elarik > bubble was set up by the FCON drake we also killed, afaik
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:22 ] tigre valliente > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:24 ] tigre valliente > LOL
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:26 ] tigre valliente > daaang
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:27 ] tigre valliente > well done
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:28 ] Westar Egdald > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:29 ] tigre valliente > enjoy the loot
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:33 ] Sephira Galamore > WHO shot him
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:42 ] tigre valliente > what did I drop? was it good?
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:44 ] tigre valliente > did the ships survive =P
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:48 ] macgyver 3rd > Wasn’t me for once
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:50 ] Mangala Solaris > We love you :)
[ 2012.12.23 01:42:52 ] tigre valliente > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:00 ] Phantom OfKrankor > tigre link your loss mail
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:02 ] tigre valliente > daaaang
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:03 ] sureis > Kill: tigre valliente (Iteron Mark IV) i thought i was just ewar
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:04 ] tigre valliente > how
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:07 ] Thomas Hauk > Strip Miner I ?
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:08 ] Mangala Solaris > Merry Xmas dude
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:11 ] Qall Rungbar > POST YOUR LOSSES NOOB
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:14 ] tigre valliente > Covetor
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:15 ] tigre valliente > haha
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:15 ] Xallaxa > ?
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:16 ] B4ueW01f > Xallaxa >.<
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:19 ] tigre valliente > Covetor and Fullerite survived =P
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:22 ] Phantom OfKrankor > Xallaxa primary
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:24 ] Xallaxa > i didnt do anything
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:26 ] Xallaxa > fuck off
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:27 ] B4ueW01f > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:33 ] tigre valliente > Xallaxa top dmg. hah
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:33 ] Xallaxa > i didnt do shit
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:36 ] tigre valliente > you clearly did something bwhaahaha
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:43 ] Rob Cobb > Xallaxa you bad
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:47 ] tigre valliente > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:43:47 ] Sephira Galamore > ^this
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:04 ] Beanhead2 > warped
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:06 ] Rob Cobb > Xallaxa you bad
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:15 ] Phantom OfKrankor > “I didn’t do shit” – killmail says otherwise
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:15 ] Charles Burger > tigre valliente why aren’t you on comms?
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:20 ] B4ueW01f > Merry Christmas!
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:23 ] tigre valliente > what do you mean?
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:29 ] Charles Burger > see motd get on comms
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:29 ] Qall Rungbar > tigre valliente post lost you noob
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:35 ] Phantom OfKrankor > he posted it
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:37 ] Mangala Solaris > Kill: tigre valliente (Iteron Mark IV)
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:38 ] Phantom OfKrankor > or someone did
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:38 ] Qall Rungbar > srsly – get on comms
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:38 ] tigre valliente > Thomas did =P
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:40 ] tigre valliente > haha
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:45 ] Phantom OfKrankor > Xall = bad
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:49 ] tigre valliente > Qall what are you talking about?
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:51 ] Xallaxa > Get over it already
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:57 ] Veerus Weyland > reload MOTD tigre, get a frigate and join comms :p
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:58 ] macgyver 3rd > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:44:58 ] Sephira Galamore > bounty?^^
[ 2012.12.23 01:45:08 ] tigre valliente > lol
[ 2012.12.23 01:45:14 ] Phantom OfKrankor > how about you listen to FC?
[ 2012.12.23 01:45:14 ] Nutjob O’Crazy > Depends what you’re saying
[ 2012.12.23 01:45:18 ] tigre valliente > 80 million isk later XD

After this the fleet started to log and some people bimbled over to Tama and took a few names before the night was properly over. All in all an exciting and fun night as ever, with lots of stream related rage and then a couple of amusing kills at the end. Good way to go into the xmas break for many I am sure.

gankedsponsor23

And now for the prizes, as sponsored by Somer.Blink.

tigre valliente x1 Firetail x1 Slicer  (Yes a Victim, but totally a good sport)
Andy Poole x1 Hookbill x1 Comet  (Yes a Victim, but totally a good sport)
Hayden Alyaeus x2 Firetail  (Eager newbies best newbies!)
Casa Rankor x2 Slicer x1 Daredevil  (Hero aggression on the Onyx)
Ceofore Aideron x1 Firetail x1 Slicer  (Made me a duck shop thing)
Exoth3rmic x1 Hookbill x1 Comet  (Top Killer on the night)
tgl3 x1 Hookbill x1 Comet   (Top scorer on the night)
CHAOS NAGA ARAIN x2 Firetail  (Spent ages catching us up, and did it in time to whore things!)
Xallaxa x2 Comet  (Got yelled at by fleet for popping something or something, but yeah!)
Melkor Valor x1 Daredevil x1 Firetail x1 Comet x1 Hookbill x1 Slicer  (4000th ganked killmail was scored by Melkor)
Edward Tivruskii x2 Hookbill  (Streaming Rage!)
Ras Raklus x1 Slicer x1 Firetail  (Final blow on the drake we got in the only named system in Poitot)
Yendaj x2 Hookbill  (Angry woman on the internet)
Vicarious Design x2 Comet  (Helped our awesome newbie Hayden out loads!)
Zakialwe x2 Firetail  (Reminded me about things)
BadAssMcKill x2 Slicer  (New to ganked, did some keeping people safe work in systems as we ran away!)
Kast Agnet x2 Hookbill  (Scouty stuff)
Kaeda Maxwell x2 Comet  (70 more FA in xxxxx)
Sureis x1 Slicer (Final blow on Itty!)
Dracoth Simertet x1 Slicer  (Final blow on the whored drake)

 

Dec 252012
 

gankedyr2mk2

17 months after it all began, who would have thought we would make it this far?

50th Birthday

And to celebrate, I really did try to come up with something fun, however as you all know I am going through a bitter stage with EVE (not the game but mostly with the people who play it!) and so I went the theme that had plenty of votes in a recent poll on my blog – Tier 1 Battlecruisers (Brutix, Cyclone, Ferox & Prophecy) – and as an extra twist I added in a very special guest hull, and arranged for that to be sorted on the QT. Surprisingly only a couple of people got it before the grand undocking!

For those who were not there, the Ganked 50 fleet was to escort a CHARON loaded up with garbage, booze, porn and dead hookers. When it undocked and showed in fleet the members went pretty crazy with lots of laughter on comms and general “wtf” from most, but luckily for me you all saw the funny side and we moved out! 

charoniwkcl

We slowly but surely moved our CONVOY into null, running into several bomber wings along the way – and this really unlucky Tengu – that just didnt have as much success as they had hoped. We then got to the system of YPW on our way to C-J6MT and found ourselves dawdling around for such a long time that a Razor Tier 3 gang got a warp in on us and popped the CHARON :( However it had taken the denizens of null nearly 2 hours to do so, thus proving my point that such people are mostly garbage and lack any sort of mental ability that would have lead them to kill it sooner. Still, next time Razor, maybe bring us a stand up fight instead of exploding our garbage then running away.

The fleet was then able to move a little bit faster and that we did, moving through Insmother and into Scalding Pass, not really finding much as we did so, except this Hulk which we had some graphical fun with while ensuring we all whored onto the mail:

IfVLR
And then there was this Sleipnir we found in a mission too:

SG5jd
Nothing much happened after this until we got into VOL-MI, upon which we engaged a Devoter which jumped away, only for a PL Rokh to jump in. So we killed it, then its friends came in, many more Rokhs & logistics & 20+ carriers – from both PL & NCDOT. All for little old me and my drunk fleet. Finding ourselves unable to break all that faggotry and having had me rage a little over it too, I called a bail (and duly got targeted, the joys of open comms and a stream that is not delayed!) and most of the fleet got out. The carrier blob killed around 20-25 of us with some getting camped into 5E and others managing to get out via 8G-. After some time, we even got the guys in 5E out, via a long ass route into Catch and then back into Curse, but maps are not that hard. Unlike tackling the Fleet Phoon we had with us all night seems to be for ANYONE.

It was pretty late by this point and many of the fleet logged, still having enjoyed themselves, so a few of us reshipped to whatever and we roamed into Geminate hoping to get a fight out of BRICK. Turns out they dont fight even when we only outnumbered them 2:1 – and here I was under the impression that null pvpers believe themselves to each be worth many highsec scrubs as they call us? Brick did however give us couple of final fun killmails, in the form of a Vagabond and a Mackinaw that sat ratting & mining in a belt all the time we were in BWF-. 

Hilarious.

And that boys & girls is that. Ganked 50 was a good roam despite the issues that nullsec has for a roam such as ours, and I hope we keep going on as strong as ever and that the next 50 are better in every way. Remember guest FCs and ideas for themes are always appreciated.

Videos:

 

Posted Image

As ever the roam was sponsored by Somer.Blink.

Scouting Distinction – 1 of each Covops hull + a set of probes & launcher with each 4 hulls. x3 (Thecla Elarik, Green Gambit, Sascha Naskingar)

Corpse Collector – 1 hound + 1 sabre x1 (macgyver 3rd)

Spot Prizes – Stabber fleet issue x 8 (Cid Askold, Charles Burger, Whisp3r, Egren Alduin, Edward Tivruskii, Linda Fuzz Ronuken, Hackbert, Rob Cobb)

Combat Distinction – Vigilant x3 (Daneel Trevize, Zerge Bacon, Zantai Arji)

Combat Excellence – Vindicator x1 (Xallaxa)

Special Prize: The remaining RvB AT X Sleipnir. As flown by Cablex Dayspring. After a free raffle & using chribbas dice, INTRACTABLE is the winner of this prize!!!

Dec 062012
 

We Form Purple – the primarily RvB outfit for those of us playing Planetside 2 – is found on the US East server Mattherson.

We are playing as the alien loving Vanu Sovereignty – whose signature colour is Purple.

To join the outfit, create a Vanu (VS) character on the listed server, and then add Mangala as a friend. You do this buy pressing O in game, going to friends and typing Mangala in the Add Friend box. Once I see you online I then invite you to [RVBP]. You can also hit us up on Mumble for an invite and anyone capable will sort you out.

If you find yourself in difficulty in joining us, just post a comment here and I, or others will then be able to help you out.

You can also join the Steam group and ask for outfit invites there too.

See you on the battlefield.

Nov 252012
 

As many of you will be aware, I am currently spending any and all of my free time in Planetside 2, a free to play MMOFPS from SOE.  To quote SOE “PlanetSide 2 is a Massively Multiplayer First Person Shooter that delivers truly epic, massive combat on a scale never before seen in stunning, breathtaking detail. Battles take place not between dozens of troops, but thousands; with air and ground vehicles slugging it out alongside squads of troops. Whether in open fields, tightly-packed urban centers or enormous structures, winning requires strategic teamwork and a quick trigger finger.”

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

The premise of the game is that there are three factions in an eternal war over resources on a remote planet called Auraxis, using guns, tanks, planes and more to fight this war. These factions are:

“The New Conglomerate was initially formed on Earth as a mega collective of civilian corporations who worked alongside the Terran Republic until they felt that the Republics rules were too strict. The N.C. feel that any form of control is “oppression” and that they fight for liberty and freedom. The Vanu see them as unenlightened about the benefits harnessing the alien technology their way would bring. The Republic see them as rebels that would destroy their democratic way of life and form an oligarchy under their corporate masters. Its no surprise they will have to fight both for their cause.”

“The Terran Republic was formed by the unified Earth government after global war in the 25th century. Their idea of freedom was a bit more strict than some would like but many argue it has successfully kept Earth without war for hundreds of years. Their time on Auraxis has caused them to rely heavily on their honed military tactics and wide reaching resources. They were the originators of the colonization effort of Auraxis. The New Conglomerate see them as an oppressive and tyrannical government. The Vanu see them as unenlightened about the benefits harnessing the alien technology their way would bring. Its no surprise they must fight both for their cause.”

“The Vanu Sovereignty are a Transhumanist cult of academics, intellectuals, and technology worshipers who believe human destiny lies in the further development and exploitation of the alien technology. They viewed the rules the republic put on their research as oppressive and fight for the freedom to experiment on, alter, and integrate human beings with the alien technology that was found on Auraxis. They believe all this is the key to the future and are willing to do anything in pursuit of this goal. Of course this is at odds with both the Terran Republic and New Conglomerates views that they could end up destroying all of mankind or render us no longer human by all the integration and alteration. It’s no surprise they must fight both for their cause.”

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

The combat in this game revolves around thousands of players fighting over various continents and the territories, bases & outposts on them.  Capturing territory gives your faction resources which you the player then spend on guns, tanks & planes to take more territory, or to just harass the other two factions while they try to take territory until it is taken by another faction. Its a mechanic that has worked for 9 years at encouraging conflict, and as it does not involve any PVE, its one that has kept me playing the Planetside for a good chunk of the past 9 years – despite not liking shooters. And now Planetside 2 is here, and its free!!! 

Another draw is that unlike some shooters, this one has thousands of players all fighting at once, with many of them fighting together as Squads/Platoons or Outfits.  These groups are usually more organised than a simple zerg can be and always undertake actions as a group of like minded chaps. For instance the the first Friday after launch saw the outfit, WE FORM PURPLE [RVBP] try its hand at taking an enemy structure, running an armoured column and even attempting to drop MAX suits on top of another enemy base.  Many fights were won (& lost) and some good times were had.  See the pictures here:

 

Guns, Tanks, Planes & Mangala? IM SOLD!

So you like the video, or just want to see why I am making all this fuss over a “simple” shooter, then follow these simple steps to come play with me:

  • Well firstly you need the client, so open Steam and find Planetside 2 (or go to the Planetside 2 website and download direct from there);
  • Once installed, follow the instructions on the new launcher that pops up to create an account – or log in with an existing SOE account if you have one;
  • After that, simply hit PLAY and create a character. Just make sure you create a character that is representing the VANU SOVEREIGNTY;
  • At server selection, choose MATTHERSON. Yes its a US East server, but its very busy (Goons, TEST, Reddit, PL, and many others are here) which is a GOOD THING in Planetside terms;
  • Let me know your name so I can add you to our Outfit;
  • Jump on mumble and join in the fun;
 
WHAT IS THIS S***? I LOGGED IN AND WTFARGGLEBARGLE

On your first log in to the game following character creation, you will be immediately thrown in to a “tutorial”, which consists of your character being “hotdropped” into a combat zone, and also made a member of a random squad with no explanation.  Just die, and then leave using the command “/squad leave”.   It is the worst tutorial ever, even EVE 6 years ago had a better one. However there are various tutorials on the game’s website – they can be found here – as well as this great video by TotalBuscuit that outlines the basics quite well:

After watching those following your first  death, log back in and I will get you an invite to the outfit. Join us on mumble as mentioned above and pay attention to comms.  Hopefully you’ll start to understand things more.

If Mangala is not online to get you into the Outfit, then look up any of the following people:

  • WhyTalana
  • Catalyst XI
  • MourningSouls
  • ShenanigansBus
  • MacgyverIII
  • RashinoZea
  • NyuTrustan
  • Saffy
  • MaximusPowerz
  • MaIgaIad
  • TarganYaken
  • McGoatboy
  • TheOmegaMan
  • RandomDarkness
  • TGL3
  • Thecla
  • Geddonz
  • BunnyVirus
  • RisingStar
  • MarcHDelta
  • Lololol01
  • Siuil
  • PatrickKasper
  • GreenGambit
  • Roigon
  • Certissian
  • AzualSkoll
  • Nutbolt
  • XanDrakov
  • MarcHDelta

We now have a Steam group – so join that as well: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/RvBPurpleside.

NB: Some text and faction images are borrowed from Planetside Universe & a thread on Something Awful.

Nov 192012
 

Another week, another RvB Ganked roam.  And as with several during November & early December, a Guest FC was in attendance allowing me to be “just a guy” along for the ride.  This week it was Roigon, from Agony Unleashed.

And here are his words on the evening, although I am pretty sure he glosses over just how drunk he got as the night progressed!

As this was my first time FC’ing a largely uncoordinated ball of death and destruction known lovingly as RvB Ganked, I opted for the safety of frigates. I know frigates, I like frigates, also frigates warp pretty fast when mistakes inevitably get made.

The fleet headed out at around 21:00, moving towards Oddelulf to pick up our blinkies. Unfortunately because of faction war I – the FC – had to do some buggery (Mangs note: OO’ER) to get out of the station safely, since certain Minmatar FW members had noticed that I was a war target to them, and were convinced it was a good idea to try and kill me. Luckily Geddonz, who is also a Minmatar FW member, decided to betray his faction and provide me with an impromptu undock bookmark. Free from the shackles of these slaves (lol RP), the roam was on.

While quickly catching up to the fleet that was waiting for their not so glorious leader, I once again made sure everyone understood that while I am in Agony, I was also slightly intoxicated (Mangs note: This became a bit of theme on the night) and this will just be Ganked as normal. This was met with horrible puns on my corp name and a count every time I mentioned beer. The tone was set.

For the first leg of the journey through nullsec we would be heading into the Great Wildlands, a place known for being devoid of activity and I was pretty much convinced we would just trail blaze our way through it and just leave dust and space debris and fallen of bits of Minmatar ship behind.

Apparently I was wrong.

As we went into NIH-02 one of my scouts reported a pilgrim on grid with him that appeared to be off gate and not doing all that much. Then he called point. Cue mad dash to UNJ-GX to gank ourselves a recon.

Meanwhile another scout in M-MD has been giving intel about some ships playing on the undock, among them a Machariel which was getting further and further from station. So after the gang successfully reduced the pilgrim to a smouldering cloud of gold plated space dust we went back to NIH and sit on the M-M gate for our scouts to report the ever so pleasing “point mach”.  When it came, we piled in and warped to the cloaky who had gone for a hero tackle on the Machariel. His cov-ops had to die for this, but to exchange a 30M cov-ops for a 1.3B Machariel isn’t a shabby trade at all.

With the jubilation of the Machariel kill we sat on station for a bit for people to repair and potentially get a replacement ship, and we headed out again. As we sat on the E02 gate in M-M a rapier was reported coming our way. Warnings were given that this particular player liked to be bait for a bomber gang. These warnings fell on deaf ears as “point” was reported on the rapier in E02 and we started piling in. The rapier however was trying to make a break for the gate, So I ordered my merry band to crash the gate as well in hopes of catching him on the other side. At that point multiple bombers decloaked and dropped their bombs. “Keep crashing the gate”. A technique not only helpful for catching ships but also for avoiding bombs.

I am sure some aggressed members of our fleet had to give their lives to the bombs at that point, however a fair portion of our fleet made it back into M-M and as I told people to spread out the rapier uncloaked and cloaked again. He was in a bubble however, so he wouldn’t be warping away, so I called to burn at him. Seconds later someone successfully decloaked him and we burned him down. Our comrades avenged and another juicy recon down.

Somewhere around this time we also killed a badger. Or so the killboard tells me. I remember nothing.

Because we took some losses we decided to dock up again in E02 and have a 5 minute break for people to reship and what not. There was some tomfoolery on the undock, as well as another bombing run, but not much came from it.  After the break we sped on towards Curse. Our goal was to get to Doril to rendezvous with some RvB members that had attended the Agony PVP-U PVP-basics class and would be getting out of class at around 23:00 and would be escorted by Greygal to Doril to meet up.

On our way down to Doril we managed to kill a coercer, chased around some cynabal’s but unfortunately but not unexpected failed at catching them, then eventually made our way to doril. Scouts reported a small camp on the sendaya gate in Doril. A perfect party to crash. A cynabal vexor and drake. I didn’t think we would actually manage to get the cynabal, but our scouts came through and we managed to kill them all, including the cynabal.

For the second leg of the journey I had planned to go into Solar Fleet space, wanting to get away from the now quickly becoming default destination of CVA space and ending up in HED-GP. Unfortunately in my cunning plan to be original I had failed to grasp that Solar Fleet is Russian & it was way past their bedtime. Along the way we managed to gank some ships here and there, we even stumbled into a machariel fleet but were unable to get the drop of them despite good effort from our scouts. As it was getting a tad late and the fleet started bleeding members. I caved and decided to burn for HED-GP, in the hopes TEST could give us the fight we wanted. During the trip to HED we managed to again kill some ships on the way, but once we got to HED the response was lackluster. We managed to stop a rokh and kill a maelstrom that were being bads on the kerbs gate, but however much we poked and prodded TEST they were unwilling to budge. Eventually I simply called the roam. With no one left to fight us it was becoming pointless to stay.

As such I have failed, for most of you lived. Even the Armageddon that was cleverly disguised as a frigate survived. Perhaps someday we will do this again, and on that day I will promise you death, and potentially some glory.

However, even though I failed, through the power invested in Mangala by Somer.Blink I will give out some prizes.

Mangs Note: All in all an enjoyable night, even if the people of null sec are yet again proving themselves worthless and yellow.

Scouting Distinction – Helios+Launcher+Probes x3 (Christopher Scott, Thecla Elarik, Lady Irradiance)

Corpse Collector – Sabre (Angeylahdevi)

Spot Prizes – Comet x10 (Greygal, macgyver 3rd, Catalyst XI – for bragging rancer is easy, then dieing there, House2twist – for conga, cosmo blink – hero sniper tackle, hyper max, Armenius Lennelluc – home made beer, Zantai Arji, Green Gambit, Nismosis Anduin – the earth is round apparently)

Combat Distinction – Gila x3 (PVDNS77 – “For bubbling and doing a good job of it”, phantom ofkrankor,  Angeylahdevi)

Combat Excellence – Dominix Navy Issue x1 (Xallaxa)

Heretic – Caracal Navy issue (Willfightforfood – Because geddon shaped frigs are baws!)

Nov 132012
 

This past weekend saw the 45th RvB Ganked roam.  The theme was fast frigates and was FC’d by Green Gambit, and you can read his report of the roam below:

“So I was a little late on comms – due to real life – at the start of the night, only to find that events had already been hijacked. The fleet was already up, and the first kill of the night was already up on the killboard – a RvB war target killed on the Rens undock. Somebody had also already given the order to move to the first destination, so most of the fleet had already left Rens and were en-route to the low-sec meet-up.

The fleet doing it’s own thing was a theme that continued throughout the evening…

Kast had donated around 70 interceptor hulls, and I spent most of the time until the 21:00 depart time going through the contracts, picking out the scammers and giving away the hulls to the people actually taking part. With most of the fleet already in Bar, myself and the other stragglers departed Rens spot on time.

I arrived on the Irshah gate in Bar, to find a swarm of around 150 fast frigates and interceptors buzzing around, we jumped through and proceeded to Doril – our null-sec entry – being greeted by traffic control and time dilation on every gate jump. As we were jumping into Sendaya, eviliain called point on an Executioner in Doril, and the fleet raced to kill it. Some strange grid-foo meant that half the fleet landed on the Executioner, and half on a different grid. But it died anyway along with the pod.

Scouts then called a small BC gang in Hemin heading towards the Utopia gate. They landed on their gate and jumped as we were jumping in from Doril. Eyes reported them warping to a planet so we gave chase. We caught 3 of them – a Cane, Harby, and Drake – although another Drake escaped just in time, fleeing to a station.

We headed back to the Doril gate, as another gang coming in from low-sec had been reported, however they docked up in Doril, so we started down the Curse pipe. Along the pipe was quiet, with a couple of unguarded bubbles, until the scouts reported a small gang of around 10 frigs/cruisers camping in 8G-MQV. As we jumped into CL-85V the camped dispersed so we crashed the system and warped around hoping to catch something.

After a couple of minutes it was clear they’d ran to a POS, so we re-grouped on the VOL-MI gate. Just as we were gathering a Tengu was reported incoming on the other side, so we setup to catch it. The gate flashed, the Tengu appeared, then cloaked – I’m not sure if this was entirely down to the theme, or just a bit of luck, but it was de-cloaked and pointed it before it warped. Dead Tengu, and pod.

We jumped into VOL-MI and a gang was reported heading our way from ARG-3R. We landed on the gate as their scout in a Dramiel jumped to us. He crashed the gate and we gave chase, only for the entire gang except a single Cane to flee.

A new gang coming from HLW-HP was reported, so we got back into VOL-MI to intercept. They fled to a deep safe leaving us chasing their Cynabal around various gate TACs. After a few failed attempts at landing on him, we gave up and headed towards the Hale constellation.

We buzzed around the Hale constellation for around 15 minutes, mainly trying to tempt the residents to aggress in some shiny ships – only getting a Hound and a Hurricane kill. I called a short bio, docked and went afk. I came back to find the fleet now being commanded by Mangala “honest I’m taking a break from being in charge” Solaris, shooting a Vagabond and hunting a Megathron – both died.

The fleet regrouped on the out-gate of the constellation and the locals resorted to bombers. We caught a couple of Hounds, topping them off with a Skiff on it’s way in, without a scout!

We moved on, skirting around the rest of Curse, seeing very little active in space. We caught a Hurricane in G-G78S – holding it long enough to get 112 pilots on the killmail. Then we tried to bait a group of Tornados sniping off the station in OSY-UD only for them to dock when the lemmings in the fleet spiked local.

As we headed back towards VOL-MI some pilots in-fleet started reporting friendly fire. An examination of the killmails showed that we had some members of Sniggwaffe alliance within the Ganked fleet, were shooting friendlies. They fled as they were kicked from the fleet and so we moved on.

We landed in ARG-3R and chaos descended, with some of the fleet chasing a battleship off a gate – the rest of the fleet engaged some of the kicked Snigg pilots. Somehow the battleship managed to jump through the gate and get away, but some of the Snigg pilots weren’t so lucky.

As we regrouped, a small gang was reported warping across VOL-MI towards K-B2D3, so we gave chase. We caught them on the D87E-A to 0SHT-A gate, and chased them through. Some of the fleet engaged a separate Hurricane off the gate. Meanwhile the rest jumped after the gang, snagging a handful of cruisers, frigates and their pods.

Moving on towards HED-GP, the final destination. We snagged a Test Drake on the HED gate in SV5, then jumped through and snagged another. Scouts called a Scimitar travelling solo along the route behind us, so the fleet went back into SV5 and killed it and a Nulli Secunda Vagabond that appeared.

We crashed back into HED-GP killing a few small things first near the SV5 gate, then on the station un-dock. Test shipped-up and un-docked some battleships and repping carriers. Unlikely to collect any more kills, we fled to a planet whilst our scanners and scouts attempted to lock down a nice target from the large camp on the Keberz gate. A Cynabal obliged by moving away from the gate, and we got a point on it. The fleet warped in – despite being aligned to the wrong gate, and chased down the fast-moving ship. The Cynabal died, and the fleet turned to other nearby shinies. A Stabber Fleet Issue, Jaguar, and Rapier joined the Cynabal, by which point most of the Ganked fleet had been killed.

At this point it was getting quite late, so most pilots called it a night. However a handful decided to take a part-two roam into Providence to see if we could snag a PvE ship…

Entering Providence through the G-5EN2 gate and caught a Brutix on the out-gate to 9-F0B2. Unfortunately he had a lot of friends who jumped through to us. We finished off the Brutix and fled, deciding to find another route into Providence. We went around to Dital, and back into Providence, via KBP7-G. That system was clear and Thecla moved on to scout B-WPLZ. Declaring that system clear we warped to the gate to find an Arazu had arrived, so we attacked. A Drake arrived to support the Arazu as it died. We turned our guns on the Drake as further ships landed. The fleet briefly switched targets to blap a Retribution, then back onto the Drake. Unfortunately the reinforcements were a little too much for us to handle and we were defeated with the Drake in low-shields.”

 

Mangala says:

All in all a really good night.  I had a well deserved rest, my record remains unbroken and lots of explosions were made.

 

In other news, the winners of the Somer.Blink prizes were:

Scouting Distinction – Inty pack (1 crow, 1 stilletto, 1 malediction, 1 taranis) x3 (PVDNS77, Thecla Elarik, Sir Yohnny)

Corpse Collector – Sabre (macgyver 3rd)

Spot Prizes – Firetail x10 (Metaloid, Rando Ary, Mangala Solaris, Uskehan, Christopher Scott, Captain Hurrdurr, Zen Tsai, Wayne Fontes, Khador Vess, Snortle)

Combat Distinction – Cynabal x3 (Daneel Trevize, Mactabilis Maero, Wiiggls)

Combat Excellence – Tempest Fleet Issue x1 (Caterpil)

Heretic – Augoror Navy Issue (Phantom OfKrankor)

Nov 052012
 

 

From tiny acorns do mighty oaks…

A little over one month ago, an RvB member by the name of Torve Starduster made a forum post suggesting a “Free for all” fight, with a twist.

The FFA, would consist of 10,000 rifters.

At first I was not sure what to make of it, and many others seemed somewhat sceptical too, however as the thread went on, the original idea got fleshed out by other posters;  Logistics of fitting and movement were sorted out, donations of hulls & modules were arranged, and then suddenly it was looking like it would become a reality.  During the following month a POS was set-up by an RvB members alt, several SMA’s were anchored around it, and the long task of fitting and moving 10,000 T1 frigate hulls – the 10,000 Rifters tag was still kept as it has a better ring to it than 10,000 rifters and other assorted T1 hulls with random fits – began.

And on November 3rd 2012, all the planning came together, and RvB gathered to start the biggest continuous FFA fight in our – and probably the servers – history.

 

A juddering halt

While I said above RvB had got together for a very explodey party, and had confirmed with Mummy & Daddy CCP that we could have that this party, it turns out that jettisoning 6,000 of anything onto the same grid as a POS, is a VERY BAD THING, for anyone trying to warp onto that same grid. So come 19.00 EVE on the 3rd November, we could not actually start the party with a huge bang, more of a whimper before it came to a sudden & juddering halt. Didn’t stop Professor Clio from being the first kill though.

Basically no matter what we tried, the grid would not load for people – and even logging off & on, e-warping back & logging mid e-warp would not help solve this – we kept ending up trying to load that grid again. Everyone who could bail did so to a noobship race, & to take part in this killmail, while the rest of us kept hoping beyond hope the grid would either load or we could get off it. It got so bad for me, that I resorted to petitioning to be moved because I was “stuck”.  

To say that the petition did not go quite how I expected would be understatement. This is how it went:

  1. I petition to be moved due to being stuck on a grid;
  2. Senior GM responds & says “nope” “system is fine” “unfair to others if we move you”;
  3. I reply “have you seen the actual grid I am on?”
  4. Senior GM is like “what grid, where?”
  5. So I tell him and mention the 6.000 ships on said grid;
  6. Senior GM appears in the local list;
  7. Senior GM then asks me “who did this, why did they?”
  8. I explain – and drop Torve deep in the brown stuff at his request;
  9. Following the above the GM is all “We’ll fix it”
  10. CCP Dev appears in local and makes 2500 rifters disappear [ 2012.11.03 21:07:49 ] CCP DeNormalized > almost 2500 empty rifters were moved;
  11. System then gets reset and remapped;
  12. CCP let us carry on [ 2012.11.03 21:09:52 ] CCP DeNormalized > i’d say do your worst… but well… we’ve seen how that goes :)

And within 20 minutes the rabid killers of RvB were pouring into the system & grabbing hulls from those on the pos grid and racing out into the wilds of Abagawa to explode and be exploded by each other. No matter how many exploded, and in that first “proper” hour we had exploded loads of hulls, the grid just wasn’t clearing:

So a fleet went up, an advert was spammed around RvB, and away we went.  As more and more pilots poured into system, more & more ships exploded, the belts started to become clogged with wrecks & the locals could not get a word in edgewise in local chat.  I checked the star map a couple of hours later and we were at 900+ ships destroyed in just the last hour, which roughly extrapolated to close to 1200 since 21.25 or thereabouts. 

 

We apologise for any inconvenience

The carnage in Abagawa was short lived however as TQ fell over and needed a restart, which turned into an emergency multiple hour downtime. We were all so very sad. 

Not really.

We decided to take the blame – and we will forever take said blame – for the server falling over. We just think that it wasn’t quite ready for the sheer volume of kills, or kills of “shit-fits” that were happening in an otherwise peaceful high sec system. Whatever actually happened we really do not care about.

 

And the beat goes on

Fast forward a few hours later and I am rested enough to log back into EVE and see how the FFA was going.  To my pleasure it was as explosive as it had been since the emergency downtime had ended, with around 3000 recorded kills already, and more of the euro-shift logging on and joining in with the madness in Abagawa. And for the next 10 hours, I just kept exploding ships and being exploded.  At peak we had 70+ members in the FFA fleet with around another 20 in local doing their own thing, and we were averaging 5-700 kills an hour as the time ticked past downtime and deep into the afternoon. The ships to help us on our way being jettisoned from the SMA’s every time the pos grid was too easy to warp into.

 

10,000 ships, surely they were not all well fit?

The nicest thing to say about the fits is that they worked.  Not necessarily at helping you live, but you could at least whore things if you could not be as offensive as you liked.  The fits themselves ran the gamut from no tank all gank rifters, to neutron blaster merlins to mining magnates to rail fit incursus and right on to multiple logi inquisitors. In fact excepting the merlins and incursus I used, I rarely found exactly the same fit twice.  Fit-roulette really helped with the adventure of this event, what with no one knowing exactly what they would get or even how to use them half the time.  I did get a few fits that worked well however especially the light missile condors with ewar mid slots – sitting at 35km or so and damping/tding/tping as many targets as I could while lobbing missiles into the fray just felt so good!  A few of the incursus fits performed well too – rep/blasters/mwd/point&web for example, in one of these I had a really good fight tearing up several ships alone until 5 or 6 guys who were chatting with me on comms headed my way as my ammo gave out.  

Who needs enemies with friends like that eh?!

 

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end

The FFA finally came to an end at 02.36am on November 5th due to there being no hulls people wanted to explode, except 1000+ bantams, of which barely any had seen use over the weekend.  The last kill was this one.  In total 8096 ships had been killed in around 27 hours of activity.  A brief summary of how this breaks down follows this link to the killboard campaign:

To top this all off, the top 20 pilots (for november) on EVE-Kill are all RvB members. 

In over 6 years of EVE, I cannot think of any organised event that has seen such a level of carnage, and in my opinion it was easily the single largest number of explosions seen in highsec ever.  Not bad for t1 rifter alts. Crashing a node, getting it restarted and just keeping the carnage going for as long as it did without any drama – internally or externally – just adds to the epic of this event.

 

I’d like to thank the members of the Academy

The following individuals need to be pointed out for both my gratitude and that of RvB as a whole:

Torve Starduster – the man with the plan. He who started it all and was heard to exclaim “lets block out the sun” from his bathtub.

Zakhs – Logistical HERO!  Set up the POS & moved 11888 fitted frigates to its SMA’s ALONE. He also seemed to ALWAYS be online when more ships were needed on grid. Did you even sleep?

Del Delvechio – for a huge donation of 2500 rifter hulls to kick off this whole thing. Without such largesse, would this event have really happened?

Random McNally, Mandelbrot Fracture, Rashino Zea and many many more – For fitting the ships with lol fits, troll fits and srs fits.  You guys certainly kept us entertained during our 27 hour game of fit-roulette.

CCP – for not screwing us and removing all the initial wave of ships and for ensuring that node reinforcement actually happened. Without their assistance, we would have been “proper fucked”.

Everyone who attended the event and helped put us on the path to 8000+ explosions.  I hope you all enjoy your time in RvB and treasure your memories of this event for as long as you play this game.

 

“If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.” 

Here are a few images I took over the course of the hours I spent at the event. There is a mix of ui-less and ui-filled images.  As I get more from other people I will add them to this post.

 

Also check out this stream by Sard Caid who was in attendance on his RvB alt.  Forward to around 3 hours 20 minutes for footage of the FFA. Enjoy!


Watch live video from SardCaid’s Channel on TwitchTV

Oct 252012
 

A little history:

Way back in the dawn of time on an internet spaceships forum that is now lost to us, a few pilots had the idea to set up 2 groups that would be at permanent war and would have no rules on who could or could not join, as long as they wanted to explode/be exploded by someone.  They named the corps Blue. & Red. and for a while all was right with the world.  Explosions happened and good fights were had.  Then after a few months, much drama and eventual leadership inactivity caused the experiment to come to an end. 

Or did it?

Around a year later, on that very same forum a few of the original protagonists of the Red v Blue experiment decided to try it again, and this time it would be harder, better, faster, stronger than the last time.  And so on 25th September 2009, a new war began between the forces of the Blue Republic & the Red Federation.  

After a week, 2800 explosions had been made, and the rest as they say is history.

 

1127 days later

Despite several changes in rules, leadership and even location the war is still going strong, with hundreds of explosions daily. From the ubiquitous T1 fit rifters to multi-billion isk fit vargurs and everything in between, no hull is sacred in the eternal war that is Red v Blue. During these 1127 days, each side has passed 100,000 kills solely of the other, with Blue reaching it first, soon followed by Red in a flurry of activity – that happens when you offer 1 billion isk to each of the pilots who get the final blow – and much more recently this explosion became the 300,000th RvB explosion.  For those interested, we have exploded the general eve populace over 20,000 times, several thousand of these being in third party wars, the most memorable for me being those against the good people at Ivy League

 

 (Stats courtesy of Uclanchar & eve-kill.co.uk)

As you can see from the tables above the action never ends.  Yes, we have had our quiet months, but that has not stopped the war machine rolling on, keeping both corporations in the Top 20 on Evekill for several years, as well as several of our pilots up there too month in and month out. As we continue on this destructive course, our member numbers also keep increasing – helped along by our very own recruitment thread, live streams, hundreds of related videos & publicity courtesy of CCP:

So much so that Red Federation just inducted its 3,000th member.  Say hello to Eanok:

However RvB is already – when combined – the single largest entity in high sec space, and we are the 9th & 10th largest alliances in EVE as a whole. And all that without holding space or making our members any money.  Who knew a very explodey isk sink would be so popular, I certainly don’t think the original protagonists of Plave, Tron, Chakarai, Joe Appleby to name a few could have envisioned this 3 years ago when we first went “live”. 

 

Wait, we haven’t always lived in The Forge?

Yes, RvB has not always lived in The Forge. We started off down in Verge Vendor, why I cannot tell you as even my memory gets hazy after three years, what I do remember is that it is a remote part of Empire space in todays terms and that logistics was an absolute pain when supplying yourself with toys.  Since I seem to be turning into the “RvB Stats guy”, a few weeks ago I sat down & looked into our various homes, the explosions we made while living in each & how long we spent in a given region, unsurprisingly the closer we moved towards the economic heart of Empire, the more we exploded, the larger we got…

As I said above, three years ago we started off in Verge Vendor which was the scene of over 49,000 kills – valued at 740 BILLION ISK. We lived here until August 2010 when we made the jump to Everyshore, which if you can believe it, proved even more out of the way (despite being close to 2 market hubs!), but we still reached around 39,000 kills valued at 560 BILLION ISK in our time there.  It was in July 2011 that we decided to leave Gallente space and so we moved to the much more populated Caldari region of Lonetrek, achieving 75,000 kills valued at 1.3 TRILLION ISK while living mere jumps from some of the busiest Empire & nullsec regions, however the part of the region we lived in was not well loved of the membership and so in March 2012 we relocated one region over to The Forge and we have been here since then. To date we have over 145,000 kills valued at 2.1 TRILLION ISK.  Yes, in 6 or so months, we have killed nearly double what we did in the 9 months we lived in Lonetrek.  

 

You’re obsessed with the number 3.

Keen eyed observers will have noticed that I keep mentioning that RvB is three years old, or has done x or y in 3 years,  I do so because – & this should be obvious – the Red v Blue war reached its third year of explosive goodness on 25th September 2012. As with previous years – see the celebrations I organised for the 2nd birthday back in 2011 (Anywhere But, Sink the Bismarck & RvB Ganked 3: Time on Target) – I made a conscious decision to step up to the plate once more and put together various events to help the thousands of pilots who fly along side me, celebrate this past year and look forward to the next.  Luckily, this year I was not alone in organising our birthday events, as over the summer I became one of the founder members of the RvB events committee – not really a surprise considering my events pedigree over the past few years of my time in RvB.  

I personally organised a series of RvB Ganked roams: Ganked 40, Ganked 41 & Ganked 42. All of which were really good nights with very high numbers of RvBers attending and joining in the drunken nullsec fun, in addition I set running the third iteration of my Somewhere Out There event, which has recently come to an end, with participating RvB members taking home prizes totalling 30 billion isk.  Quite the birthday present from me to all of you really.  As well as my events others from the committee – and the general population of RvB – stepped to the plate and organised things too:

  1. Mandelbrot Fracture threw us a Bantam Brawl with the addition of a Navy scorp to massacre. Much hilarity ensued.
  2. Combat Mink organised 3 weeks of evening events, from Musical Frigates to a Conga Brawl to an Industrial FFA to Gladiators – which saw Wiiggls crowned as the current Gladiator Champion of RvB!
  3. Cartheron Crust did a bang up job of organising the first RvB Cannonball Run. A race across space and back with the entrants misleading each other, getting one another killed and so on all in the name of prizes and birthday cake!!!
  4. Connall Tara, Blue Rep member & host of the Fly Reckless podcast put together an RvB birthday special, which can found here.  Combat Mink & Wiiggls (and lots of mentions of me) where his special guests, along with many soundbytes from other RvB members!

Now that the birthday celebrations are all wrapped up and over with, I think it is safe to say that even with a larger membership this years celebrations were bigger and better and more well received than ever before.  Everyone who took part really enjoyed themselves, and found new joy in being part of the RvB machine. I know I did, and I mostly stuck with organising & publicity over anything else.  

Huge thanks to all of you who attended & took part in any of the events over the past 4 weeks or, its people like you that keep us on the Events committee doing what we do. Oh and because our ego’s need sustenance.

To everyone who missed out, there is always next year! 

 

What does the future hold?

We are now into our third year, with both the 5 trillion isk exploded & 500,000 kill milestones to reach, which in my opinion are well within RvB’s grasp during this year, either way its going to be very explosive!  Helping us towards those markers there will be several RvB Ganked roams, including the 50th roam – for which I am taking suggestions – however before that, there is to be a very very special RvB FFA.

Special you say?

Yes, I said special.  

10,000 fitted rifters (and assorted other frigates) being jettisoned in space so RvBers can grab them, explode someone, be exploded by someone, then grab another is pretty much the very definition of special when applied to our case.

This wonderful event is being put together by a very very dedicated team of people who have spent nearly a month fitting and moving the hulls around.  I expect this to go off amazingly well and result in a giant red dot marking our little corner of space for hours on the 3rd November 2012.  Hopefully hundreds of us will participate in such an epic event.

 

My final words.

My 3 years in RvB, have been the most enjoyable of my 6 years in EVE.  Nowhere else can I get the instant action on offer here, alongside an amazing array of events and contests, setup and organised by some of the funniest folks I have met in my time in game – and by me of course.

It really stuns me to take a trip down memory lane in regards to RvB and see what small roots we have grown from and to turn and look at what we can become, indeed what we have already become in some ways.  And to know that I have had a part of that and have helped guide us on the path to an even more explodey future really makes me proud.  

As long as RvB keeps the explosions going, anyone of us, from Command to bitter vets to fresh faced newbies and even ex-Rvbers can take away the knowledge that they are and have been a part of something very special in a game as special as EVE.  So thanks to CCP, my fellow RvBers and all the people I have met on my road. 

Oct 232012
 

A few weeks ago, RvB found itself needing to declare war on a small corp local to our bases in The Forge;  This corp was called Rock Huggers Inc & depending on who you ask, they had either been flipping cans in RvB fights, causing the less aware members of RvB to become flashy to them or they had been “innocently” leaving cans of ammo around, and merely defending themselves when RvB pilots “borrowed” that ammo. Either way, Command deemed them a nuisance – all 8 of them – and war was declared. 

Given it was a cheap war against RvB, several other parties a long the way allied themselves with Rock Huggers Inc and lots of explosions – on both sides of the fence – occurred.  Eventually the combat wound down till only one of the enemies allies continued to fight, and only against Blue with whom they now have a mutual war, while the remaining allies finished their period of support and went on their way. 

And then roughly at the start of last week, Rock Huggers formed an alliance, which inherited the now mutual wars with RvB. 

For a few days we did not think anything of it until they started advertising free mutual wars against us.  

It was at this point when the fun began.  Following a short, sweaty & hot period of action in the form of the original war declarations, it seems RvB became a carrier – if not the Patient Zero – of the internet spaceships version of an STD.  

Basically, should you hop into bed with Purple Legion or The Marmite Collective you will become embroiled in a mutual war started by RvB –  wars which we freely admit to starting, for various reasons stemming back to the original war with Rock Huggers Inc.  However, once you get out of bed with those entities, instead of leaving the war behind, you take a fresh case with you. No matter how much protection you use. Then when you meet a new alliance, go to dinner, maybe dancing and then back to their place for “coffee”, you give them a dose too, all the while continuing to play host to your own infection. And each time the alliances have new corporations back to theirs, they too leave with a new case of Aggressive RvB Mutual War Syndrome.  Ad infinitum.  Indeed, Rock Huggers Inc used the executor corp of Purple Legion to pass a solid dose of this syndrome on to Dec Shield, who are now spreading it to every corp that passes through their doors. 

The following is the list of current wars caused by various entities bed hopping:

Mutual

  1. RvB Blue v Skunk Works (Consequence of mutual war with The Marmite Collective)
  2. RvB Blue v Kicking Smurfs (Consequence of mutual war with The Marmite Collective)
  3. RvB Blue v The Marmite Collective (EDIT: Was mutual, seems to be changed now)
  4. RvB v Belteaters (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  5. RvB v Madre Del Amor Hermoso Corp (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  6. RvB v Purple Legion (Consequence of mutual war with Rock Huggers Inc)
  7. RvB v Impromptu Asset Requisition (Consequence of mutual war with Purple Legion)
  8. RvB v Purple Legion Holding Corporation (Consequence of mutual war with Purple Legion)
  9. RvB v Dec Shield (Consequence of mutual war with Purple Legion)
  10. RvB v Ba’als Deep Space Mining (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  11. RvB v Epicurus Philosophy (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  12. RvB v CEBEP DV (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  13. RvB v Battle BV (Consequence of mutual war with Purple Legion)
 
None Mutual
(Should have gone mutual when these entities left various alliances, but did not, despite leaving after the mutual wars had gone live. Yet another bug?)
  1. RvB v Beyond the White (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  2. RvB v Pulsar Engineering (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  3. RvB v Benedictus Ordinis Fessa Milites (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  4. RvB v Army Ninja Society (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)
  5. RvB Blue v Lonetrek Salvage and Scrap (Consequence of the former mutual war with The Marmite Collective)
  6. RvB v Entek Heavy Industries (Consequence of mutual war with Dec Shield)

As you can see, all the above have happened in a little over a week, think of what this could look like in another week, or a month, should this keep spreading like it does. Could we be looking at the eventual doom of peace in high security space, or will a vaccine be forthcoming? 

Now here is the crux of the matter, is this a bug as the folks at Dec Shield claim or is it a mechanic working as intended with the usual lack of documentation? Answer’s on a postcard please. And if you do send one, wash your hands first.

So kids, protection does not always save you does it. Still, remember

 

EDIT: This is not me – or RvB – complaining about the wars, as we like to fight given it is the RvB raison d’etre, but merely me wondering exactly what is going on with mutual war declarations right now.